It was a horrendous week of vile bile from MSNBC’s ReidOut host Joy Reid as, across five shows, she accused Republicans of wanting to ban books for simply having a Black author, referred to Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) as "pro-COVID,” argued Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) helms a dystopian state, referred to Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) as “Bonnie and Clyde,” and argued the infrastructure law is meant to benefit white construction workers.
Reid had plenty of help as she had guests such as (but not limited to): Yamiche Alcindor, Michael Eric Dyson, Elie Mystal, and Stuart Stevens.
Below represents the worst quotes from The ReidOut spanning January 17 to January 21.
Pro-Death Youngkin Wants VA to Be ‘COVIDy Cesspool,’ Home for ‘White Supremacy’
“Well, the new governor of Virginia is trying to make it open for business for COVID. He’s making it a COVID petri dish.”
— Reid, January 17, 7:40 p.m. Eastern.
“Youngkin’s win and the damage that it will do is not limited to the state of Virginia. We’re going to be seeing a lot more of this rhetoric...as the midterms approach and Republicans declare their party open for business for COVID and white supremacy...I will start with you on this, Tim [Wise] — is this descent of the American right into essentially the death cult world...Why is that an attractive model of governing to essentially say, you can die here?”
— Reid to author Tim Wise, January 17, 7:53 p.m. Eastern.
“Youngkin’s biggest and most lethal project appears to be turning Virginia into a COVIDy cesspool like Florida...[F]rom living down to our worst fears about electing a MAGA in sheep’s clothing, for reciting an MLK quote that you don’t even understand, for your Toni Morrison bashing, for stirring the culture wars for political gain, but especially for putting health care workers, educators and children at risk, children who will grow up one day, Governor, and vote charlatans like you out, for all of these reasons, you are the Absolute Worst.”
— Reid, January 17, 7:47 p.m. Eastern.
“Glenn Youngkin is now officially the governor of Virginia...He was just Trump with better diction and a slightly paler shade of orange, but once you open it up, it’s all the same stuff, anti-truth, anti-education, and 100 percent pro-COVID...Virginia is really in trouble, girl, and not only because his inaugural celebration may or may not have...taken place in a Western saloon...Now, remember, this is the guy who promised to protect parents and children from the evil tentacles of Pulitzer Prize-winning literature by Toni Morrison, as if he ever stood a chance against Mother, against Mother Toni. Well, here he is doing Trump’s bidding, erasing history with the stroke of a pen.”
— Reid, January 17, 7:44 p.m. Eastern.
Smearing March for Life as ‘Anti-Choice Militants’ Led by ‘White Christian Men’
“Today, anti-choice militants took to the National Mall to champion the demise of those rights and they have reason to be optimistic. Not only does it look like the court will undo Roe in a few months, but Texas has already effectively banned abortion.”
— Reid, January 21, 7:45 p.m. Eastern.
“[T]here is this question of control and who gets controlled and who doesn’t and I feel like, whether it’s talking about the abortion issue, we’re talking about the cannabis issue, it’s kind of the same thing...[I]t’s white Christian men. Everyone else, under control and that theme seems to be pretty blanket throughout the Republican Party.”
— Reid, January 21, 7:51 p.m. Eastern.
Fretting ‘Emotional,’ ‘Optimist’ Biden Is Dealing With GOP ‘Running on Lies’
“We all watched him...get frustrated at times, really get genuinely sad about the pandemic but not really lose his stride, not insult people, not lash out...[H]e, in some ways, felt like an American who is trying to connect with other Americans who were frankly exhausted, who were frankly living through a pandemic and are feeling very gloomy. I think that that was part of the emotional connection.”
— PBS’s Washington Week moderator Yamiche Alcindor, January 19, 7:07 p.m. Eastern.
“I think this is a window into who President Biden is at his core. He ran as someone who had these relationships...He was an optimist in this situation and he’s clearly had to deal with the realism of the Republican Party being completely in the hands of former President Trump...Republicans are being very, very successful in running on lies. They’re very successful in passing laws that are going to make it harder for people to vote, including specifically black people, black women.”
— Alcindor, January 19, 7:29 p.m. Eastern.
Falsely Claiming ‘Gorsuch Loves COVID’ So Much He Put Sotomayor’s Life at Risk
“Gorsuch loves COVID, which makes him the perfect, perfect Republican. He thinks very little of coronavirus precautions...He could not be bothered to extend a lifesaving courtesy to his co-worker and it is as serious as life and death, because diabetes is a huge risk factor...[F]or having zero, zero problem risking the life of your colleague, because you just don’t feel like putting a mask on, you, Neil Gorsuch, are both a rotten co-worker, dangerous to be near in a pandemic, and tonight’s Absolute Worst.”
— Reid, January 18, 7:57 p.m. Eastern.
‘Baby,’ ‘Bull Connor’ DeSantis Will Ban Teaching of Slavery, ‘Make It Illegal’ to Vote
“During his annual state of the state address...DeSantis declared Florida to be the freest state in the nation, begging the question, does he understand the meaning of the word free? What he has made clear by his utter disregard for Floridians’ safety...is that COVID has been given free rein...[H]is recent actions have shown that he is, as Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman aptly describes it, creating a paradise of authoritarianism...He’s also cracking down on schools and businesses, limiting their ability to teach about America’s history and historic racism, for fear of causing white people to feel discomfort and if you try to protest...he passed an anti-rioting law saying it’s okay for someone to mow you down with their car[.]”
— Reid, January 20, 7:33 p.m. Eastern.
“I await DeSantis declaring Republicans — Republicanism to be the state party of Florida and make it illegal to vote for anybody else. I mean, I think there’s no limit to what he might do[.]”
— Reid, January 18, 7:31 p.m. Eastern.
“[H]e’s trying to make it illegal...to teach history that would make white people uncomfortable. Does that law include saying you can’t make black people feel uncomfortable or indigenous people? The history of indigenous and African-Americans could make one uncomfortable? Is that illegal too, or is it just white people?”
— Reid to Florida State Senator Shevrin Jones (D), January 20, 7:36 p.m. Eastern.
“DeSantis is pushing a bill prohibiting schools and businesses from making white people feel discomfort when teaching students or employees about historic racism...Ron is worried that white people are too sensitive to learn that slavery actually happened...I’m sorry if learning the facts of America’s history causes you psychological distress...[H]ow would this even work in schools?...Like, what about business? Would you have to prohibit them from holding any kind of racial sensitivity training...or what if like a small business wanted to have a Black Lives Matter sign[?]...[W]hat he’s saying is that he believes that the white citizens of Florida are too snowflaky, too sensitive, too scared, and not strong enough to handle actual facts about history...Ron DeSantis, for being a big old snowflake and a big old baby, and trying to legislate people’s feelings, because it’s all feelings, not facts, you, sir, are the Absolute Worst, and also a snowflake. Here’s a bunny to make you feel better.”
— Reid, January 19, 7:57 p.m. Eastern.
“Chairman Ron DeSantis is doing everything he can to prevent people from voting or to outright intimidate them if they try. His latest authoritarian idea is to create...a literal personal police force to oversee state elections....The Junior Don has...meddle[d] in the state’s congressional redistricting process...cutting in half the number of majority African-American districts, splitting up Hispanic voters...and giving Republicans an eight-seat advantage. I guess, when President Biden spoke of whether Republicans wanted to be Bull Connor, DeSantis was at home raising his head: Me, me. I want to be Bull Connor...There’s also Virginia, which seems intent on turning itself into Florida north, now that Trumpy Wolf in sheep’s clothing Glenn Youngkin is in the governor’s mansion.”
— Reid, January 18, 7:19 p.m. Eastern.
Smearing Ginni Thomas as ‘Crazy Person,’ KKK Member
“Justice Clarence Thomas last fall defended the court against the growing criticism that has become too politicized and that is pretty rich coming from Thomas, who, unlike any other justice, is married to someone so politically active on the far right, she might as well wear a Tea Party tricorn hat or become a QAnon YouTuber, a QTuber, as they like to call themselves.
— Reid, January 21, 7:33 p.m. Eastern.
“Ginni Thomas has been a problem for 30 years...The problem is not that Ginni Thomas has a job. The problem is that Ginni Thomas is a crazy right-wing reactionary, who pins literal neddles on people before they show up in Clarence Thomas’ courtroom. The moral turpitude here, therefore, is not really Ginni Thomas. It is Clarence Thomas for lacking the moral character to recuse himself...letting the entire country down...more so than then his wife’s desire to be a right-wing crazy person.”
— The Nation correspondent Elie Mystal, January 21, 7:36 p.m. Eastern.
Infrastructure Bill Only Benefits White People Who Work Construction
“[T]he infrastructure bill that was passed was cleaved apart from what’s now being called Build Back Better. And, in a sense, it’s a bill that’s like a white guy employment act, right? There’s going to be a lot of working-class men that are going to get employed by that bill...Most working-class white guys vote Republican. Meanwhile, all this stuff for the women, for moms, for people who need child care, for people of color...all that got dropped.”
— Reid, January 20, 7:25 p.m. Eastern.
Most Republicans I Know Only Vote for Democrats!
“[M]ost of the Republicans I know, even the ones who are still Republicans, are even saying, at this point, just vote D down the line, right? Because the only way Republicans are going to learn and be forced to change is if they lose across the board.”
— Reid, January 20, 7:53 p.m. Eastern.
Lincoln Project adviser Stuart Stevens: “[T]he only way to save little-D democracy, I think, is to vote for big-D Democratic Party.”
Reid: [H]ere’s the thing...People tried that in Virginia...but then what you end up with is, the same guy who you tried to pretend was different from all the other Republicans being like, guess what I’m going to do? This is about to be Florida...stripping off anything that can stop COVID. Come in, COVID. I’m going to ban books by black authors...They’re all going to do it[.]”
— Conversation during the January 20 show, 7:54 p.m. Eastern.
Life Is as Bad and Scary as You Think It Is!
“Remember when dystopian largely mean the type of literary genre, describing a very particular hellscape, things like The Hunger Games, The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984, where women are host bodies, where politicians who aren’t elected, they just take office over the objections of the people, where books are banned, where citizens are manipulated by a cult-like political party. Wait a minute. Are we still talking about literature or is this our actual political reality? That’s hard to say, right?”
— Reid, January 21, 7:19 p.m. Eastern.
Manchin, Sinema Are ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ ‘Beavis and Butthead’ Standing on ‘The Wrong Side of History’
“And tonight’s absolute worst are two people you almost always think of as pair but not in a good way, like Sonny and Cher or Ernie and Bert, more like Bonnie and Clyde or Beavis and Butthead.”
— Reid, January 20, 7:16 p.m. Eastern.
“[T]he Senate is expected to begin a series of votes on voter protection legislation, which is expected to fail, teeing up Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s plan to move forward with a vote on a proposed filibuster rule change. That too is likely to fail since conservative Democratic Senator and professional coal baron Joe Manchin, in the tradition of the Bonnie to his Clyde, Krysten Sinema, preempted that effort earlier this afternoon[.]”
— Reid, January 19, 7:01 p.m. Eastern.
“This is Manchin and Sinema acting more like John Calhoun of the 1850s, who was an ardent supporter of minority rule, as opposed to acting like senators in the 21st century[.]”
— Far-left pastor William Barber, January 17, 7:23 p.m. Eastern.
“[T]he Bonnie and Clyde of the Senate were full of high-minded rhetoric about the tradition, Senate history that is mostly garbage...Is the freshman senator from Arizona really so obtuse as to claim that it’s just a tool of the Senate? Surely not, since the filibuster was routinely used to upend people of color for most of its history, like the nearly dozen times it was used to either kill or delay civil rights bills in the 19th and 20th century, or the three times it was used to kill anti-poll tax legislation, or the four anti-lynching bills it doomed...[P]erhaps, at this point, they’re just both more beholden to all the cash they have been raking in from corporate donors and Republicans...Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema stood with 50 Republican senators, altogether representing just 45 percent of Americans, to deny voting protections to all Americans...[F]or deciding that, when it really counted, to stand with every Republican, and deliberately choosing the wrong side of history and blockading voting protections for all Americans, in the name of minority rule...Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are indisputably tonight’s Absolute Worst.”
— Reid, January 20, 7:45 p.m. Eastern.
HILARIOUS: Joy Claims Dems ‘Don’t Worship’ Their Presidents
“Democrats like their presidents. They don’t worship them. That’s the difference. They’re willing to even, like, buck them. Look what they’re doing inside of the party to Joe Biden. It’s a weird sort of authoritarian sort of worship on the Republican side. It is weird, and it is not good for democracy.”
— Reid, January 19, 7:30 p.m. Eastern.
Dyson: ‘Satan’ Youngkin Is Quoting MLK So He Can ‘Ban...Blackness’
Reid: “What do you make of this abuse and sort of recruitment of [Martin Luther King Jr.] to try to use him to enact racist policy?”
Vanderbilt University professor Michael Eric Dyson: “Well, Joy in the church, they say Satan knows more Scripture than anybody else. I’m not suggesting a parallel there, but take it to where you want. The reality is, Dr. King has always been a kind of fascination for the far right-wing. They couldn’t beat him, so they wanted to join him, but join him by absorbing his language, rearticulating color blindness, reverse racism, suggesting that black people were the real threats, black people are the real racists, black people are the real victimizers, and white people of the real victims...Martin Luther King Jr. spent...his life...fighting against white supremacy, social injustice, economic inequality, economic immiseration, militarism and the like, everything that the right stands for and to ban Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideas, to ban Toni Morrison, what they’re trying to ban is blackness. They want to use Dr. King as the kind of bete noire and the kind of symbol of their attack on blackness...[T]he anti-blackness is so deeply entrenched, the ability to use black people as the whipping boys and girls of the collective unconscious, and to see us as antithetical to democracy[.]
— Conversation during the January 17 show, 7:56 p.m. Eastern.
Republicans Top Priorities? Ban Books by Black People and Ban Them From Voting
“This ain’t just about black people. They don’t want any of you all to vote that are going to vote for benefits for anyone other than the rich. Always look what they’re doing and follow the money.”
— Reid, January 17, 7:29 p.m. Eastern.
“[T]hat is exactly what the old version of the Dixiecrats said back during the 1950s and ‘60s. No one is being prevented from voting. You just have to tell us how many jelly beans are in this jar and you can vote. Just read this complicated passage and you’d totally vote. Now...we’re going to make sure your schools are awful and you’ll barely even taught to read...but no one is keeping you from voting.”
— Reid, January 17, 7:05 p.m. Eastern.
“Why would they be so determined to not have open and — open and easy access to voting? Because it’s not just black folks they don’t want to vote. They don’t want anybody to vote that’s going to shift wealth away from the super-rich, who fund these anti-voting campaigns and give you all a little something-something, not just black people.”
— Reid, January 17, 7:28 p.m. Eastern.
Republicans’ Goal? Bring ‘Apartheid’ to America
Reid: “[T]he only strategy left...is apartheid, right? It’s apartheid. You look at Mississippi, you say there are all these black people here. I could attract them, but it’s easier to just suppress them.”
MSNBC contributor Juanita Tolliver: “It’s easier to suppress them. It’s easier to rig the system.”
— Conversation during the January 20 show, 7:59 p.m. Eastern.
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