Joy Reid on Dems, Gaza & Independent Media

23:15And we see ourselves growing to the point where we are presuming that, you know, we're trying to get to a million subscribers by the end of the year because that's where you're going to really start to make the right money on YouTube. And we're now reading ads. And sponsors. And that's the key. And so what I learned from my buddy Don Lemon, who's been doing this a while, he's been at it a year, when you really start to make money is when you're actually getting sponsors. Right. It's like the old-time radio and TV, right? I love it. And so now that I'm getting sponsors, I'm like, woo, we're really growing.

23:46Yeah, you're getting sponsors. Yeah. And actually, they can be a lot better than, say, a catheter. But I'll take a catheter. When I started, I got a lot of mattress ads. They're like, oh, it's master ads. I'm like, hey, the check cash is. I don't know what to tell you. And I thought it mattress. I don't know what to do. Great. Freaking mattress. We'll be back in a minute.

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24:51Like you said, you're not the only former broadcast anchor who's gone independent. Katie Couric, early, early. Don Lemon, Mehdi Hassan, Jim Acosta, to name a few. There are academic writers, the Robert Reichs and Paul Krugmans and Heather Cox Richardson's of the world. Do you think that newsletters and YouTube shows are going to be like newspaper and cable subscriptions? People have their favorites and dip in and out or like streaming services. Viewers will test them and then call. It's a great group of people, actually. But are you worried about competing for the same subscribers? I think it's very a la carte.

25:23I think what's great about media now is you don't have to just sit in front of a network and just take what they're giving you, right? You really can choose your own adventure. And people were doing that anyway, by the way. A lot of people only watched the readout in clips. They were watching the clips on YouTube. And by the way, you know, when I was a digital editor at thegrio.com, when I first came back into NBC, they would not allow us to post on YouTube. We had to post to their own internal, like, streaming channel. which didn't get anything. YouTube is the biggest driver of views. This is where I now get a lot of my news.

25:54I can still watch the clips of what I want to watch, even from cable news, but I'm watching it on YouTube. I'm watching the clips. And we've had YouTube TV for years. Like we haven't had a cable subscription for a really long time. YouTube is TV. I keep telling everyone. YouTube is TV, right? So I think the business is going to fracture because everything has fractured. People don't trust anything. They don't trust any institution. And so I think we kind of have an advantage out here in the independent side because all we need is for people to trust us. If I trust Kara, I'm going to find her on YouTube.

26:27I'm going to find you on TikTok, Instagram, wherever you are. And my audience is fragmented that way. There are some people who only get my content on Instagram. It's where they want to be. There's no moving them from there. There are 1.2 million of them. So I'm like, God bless them. If people really want my TikTok content, that's where they're going to get it. They are not going to be moved to somewhere else because I'm trying to force them to. So I try to serve all of those audiences simultaneously because I think people should get their info where they want it. Where they want it. You know, many years ago, a Disney executive who was actually smart for one second.

27:01This was many years ago when they were resisting everything said the audience has taken control and they're not going to give it back. That's right. Ever. And they shouldn't. Why should they? Yeah, because they're doing it. And then when people, to me, when people pay for something, whether it's a sponsor or an audience person, that says everything. Like you made something that people want. All right. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert. Yours is from your buddy, Don Lemon. Hey. Let's listen. Joy, your comments about Elvis and Trump building power on the backs of black culture sparked some real outrage.

27:33But let's be honest. When a black journalist says that, it's called race baiting. When our friends like Jennifer Welch or Scott Galloway or even Kara Swisher says it, the reaction is often different. It's softer, almost intellectual. Do you think that you could have said that on MSNBC or would you have had to water it down to keep your seat? And here is the blunt question. If you were white, do you think you'd still be there? And does that mean that independent platforms are now the only place to tell the truth without sanding down the edges for corporate comfort? Well, Don decided to go hard with the question.

28:10Yeah, I know. Of course, you know, he was sick all weekend. I was like, where's your fucking question, Don? He's like, I've been sick. I don't look good. I'm like, listen, you vain person. Get it up there. Don's referring to something you said in a recent interview on Wajah Ali's show, The Left Book. Explain what happened there and talk about the blowback and then answer. You said you wanted to troll MAGA and you did. So they're easily sparked. first of all these are the fuck your feelings people yeah their feelings are so gentle and soft you can't they just oh my god taking off the black man on the next why is it next to the barrel put the black man by the barrel or i can't eat it i can't eat because you know it's like what is wrong with these people they are the most snowflakey people ever they are their feelings are so easily hurt i'm like y 'all talk about us you guys can't take you guys are ridiculous um I'm ridiculous.

29:02So Wajahat had this premise for our interview on his show, The Left Hook, which was so much fun. I love Waj. That was mediocre white men are driving the MAGA train and they're destroying society because their mediocrity, they can't handle it. And so I'm going with this premise. And I said, look, I think the ultimate example of that is Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump, if you just look at the facts of his life, he failed at business. He went$900 million in the hole after inheriting some odd million dollars. That is by any metric a failure as a businessman. But he was saved because, you know, he's a white guy.

29:37So banks kept lending to him. Russia lent to him. You know, whatever Deutsche Bank kept lending to him. And he was also saved by The Apprentice. You know, we had on, on my MSNBC show, on The Readout, one of the people who was part of building The Apprentice. And he said, look, we hired this man when he was dead broke. He was on his face. And we brought him back. And the world believed he was this successful billionaire because of The Apprentice, not because of his own feats of, you know, of business acumen. So Donald Trump is the example of this person that failed up. Right. And he failed up so hard that he's the president of the United States.

30:11And he has a cult like that's a pretty big fail up. Well, I think you went to Elvis, the third rail. And then I went to Elvis. And this is why I think it's legitimate. Elvis Presley was called the king of rock and roll by white people. Black people didn't do that because Black people who had been doing rock and roll, Chuck Berry had been doing it, you know, all of these great artists were already doing rock and roll. But this white guy comes along and does his version of it, including his version of a song that was a hit that was a Black woman had already made. He redoes it and suddenly he's the king of rock and roll.

30:45Little Richard would go on and on about this. If you got him in an interview, he would lose it about Elvis. Because the point that a lot of these Black artists were making is that white artists were coming along, remaking songs that Black artists had already put out and that were already popular among the original rock and roll audience. Yeah, that's the argument about Elvis. And they just took it. It was an appropriation. They just were like, I'm going to take it. But because I'm a white guy, people are going to see me as the greatest rock and roll artist of all time. Not all white artists went along with that.

31:17The Beatles were very clear about giving credit to black artists for their art. And it is the way America has always been. Yeah, I think it wasn't that controversial thing to say. It's kind of obvious. Although I will say Whitney Houston did make a bigger hit out of I Will Always Love You to Dolly Parton. She switched it up on us. We were like, hey. And, you know, by the way, Luther Vandross made a career of doing that. Luther Vandross took, don't you remember you told me you love me, baby, and turned it into a whole soul hit, right? Yeah. And so you've got. Right. Thank you. So we have it in reverse, too.

31:50It does happen. No, I'm teasing. It's much more so the other way. But I mean, the reality is it's like, I mean, literally Beyonce is being told she's not a country artist by people from New York when she's literally from Houston, Texas. Yes, yes, yes. This is not a country. But would you have had to, like to Don's question, would you have had to water that down if you were at NBC? And do you think that race had anything to do with your firing or our independence, the only place for the truth? That's his question. I feel like if I had said that on MSNBC and I had, let's say, said it without a script, right?

32:23If I had unscripted, just said the same thing. I definitely feel I would have gotten pushback from management. I would have been told I needed to apologize or Elvis fans at the very least to Elvis fans and say, oh, no, don't worry, Elvis fans. I think Elvis is great. Like, I definitely think I would have gotten in trouble. Yeah, I think I would have gotten in trouble. I think that's very clear. There's things you just can't get away with saying on cable TV. You just can't. So I think that's true. I think as far as what was the second part of his question? Race had to do anything through firing.

32:52So what I will say is I do not think and Piers Morgan tried to say that I claimed I was fired because I was black, which I've never said, which is ridiculous. And I never said that. But what I said is and that angered Piers and the other right wingers is that when I say something about Elvis or I say something about Trump, it hits different to MAGA. Because coming from me, it's the same way that Tish James prosecuting Trump and all these Black women judges and Fonnie Willis. Lisa Cook. Lisa Cook. It hits different. Donald Trump hates the Fed, but the one he's choosing to fire and accused of being a criminal is Lisa Cook.

33:33And this country was built on a very determined, intentional racism. And the denial of that and pretending that isn't true, I think is insane. This is a country built as a slave empire. And so the detritus from that still exists. And it exists in ongoing racism and racial differences. And so do I think I was fired because I was Black? No. But was I the easiest person to get rid of and make Trump happy? Yeah. You know, you can't, you know, was I the easiest person that Trump would feel the best about firing? Yeah, absolutely. He seems to have an issue with black women, thanks to me. Except for Gloria Gaynor, I guess.

34:14I don't know what's happening there. So you weren't the only one who had been under fire from the right. Stephen Colbert, speaking of a very white person, was also unceremoniously fired. His show canceled. There's been a social media rumor going around that you, Stephen Colbert, and Rachel Maddow are joining forces to create an independent newsroom. I'm assuming that's fake news. It is fake news. I know that. I would love it, though. It would be fun. Could you imagine doing something like that? And what do you think it says about the current media landscape that progressives are getting excited about the three of you?

34:44When I tell you my sister sent me that, like it got to my family. You know, it's like everyone sending me. I have had so many media people and friends send me that. Yeah. So it is not true. I will say it right now, everyone. Rachel Maddow and Stephen Colbert and I are not starting a news network. It is not happening. But I think the fact that people would love for that to happen, it does say something about the thirst on the left to have what the right has. You know, while we on the left were building our audiences at MSNBC and, you know, believing that everyone could clearly see that Donald Trump was insane, that they could clearly see that Russia was involved in our elections, that no one would ever put back the guy who caused a million people to die from COVID, that, come on, we can all see this.

35:28we were in our own bubble and I think that there is this desire now to scramble and create with the right behind the scenes while we were doing what we were doing what they were building I think there is a desire to have it and I think that you have to be willing to just to just lie in a way and be cruel in a way that the left isn't good at um to build that in the same way or you have to do it the way Joe Rogan did which is you're not even political you're just actually appealing to people who loved your comedy and you're just making a bond with them. And then when you shift to politics, they go with you, you know?

36:04And so I think that people think you can just on turnkey build what they have. You can't. I mean, Rush Limbaugh spent, what, 20 to 25 years screaming into, you know, AM radio stations. And I do believe that cable is what talk radio morphed into. And that's now this independent media is sort of still building off of what that was. And the left just is behind. And the Democratic Party is lost. They have no idea how to do this. There's some very strong ones, though. It's interesting. There's more than there used to be, I would say that. Definitely. But they're not the ones who get the favor. You think about it.

36:40What committee chair is Jasmine Crockett getting? None. Because she's not a ball-playing, doctrinaire, neoliberal Democrat, right? And the sort of doctrinaire Democrats still control the party and the outstanding Democrats, you know, the Al Greens, the cane shaker. I love him so much. Like those guys get sort of shoved to the side because they're seen as too loud, too obnoxious. You know, they're not doing enough good job of McKinsey-ing their way into the center, you know, this fictional center that doesn't exist. Although look at Gavin Newsom suddenly being the tough, the crazy guy. But you know why?

37:16Because Gavin Newsom is just being like, I'm just going to be an ass. If y 'all are an ass, I'm an ass. How about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's switch gears and talk about politics. In a recent interview on The Breakfast Club, you said Democrats are almost too orderly for fascism. I know what you mean, but you explain that. Yeah, Democrats think that this is a political problem and that you can go in and you can stick to the rules, play by the rules, and somehow fascism will go away in the next midterm because we're just going to get this many seats. And it's like, that's not the way fascism works.

37:46You're just assuming there's going to be a free and fair election. Donald Trump saw your we'll hit you in 2026 and said, I'm about to rig Texas. And then Gavin Newsom said, YOLO, you want to rig Texas? Let me rig California. And a lot of Democrats went, oh, we don't like that. That's gerrymandering. It's like, but wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's what you need to do. It's all out war. War is being made upon you. You need to make war back. And Democrats always want to make friends, not war. And they want this orderly process that follows the rules and that never strays from the rules.

38:15Even Barack Obama, who was part of he and Eric Holder created that anti-gerrymandering organization. Even he's like, nope, time to walk away from that. We got to gerrymander back. It has got to be mutually assured destruction because the Republican Party has been captured by fascists. It has been captured completely by a cult. And if you're dealing with Jim Jones, the way you deal with Jim Jones is not to say maybe a different flavor of Kool-Aid. Like, no, you have to get those people out of there. They're all going to die. Okay, like, so it's, right, and so it's like this is, it is, I mean, I don't understand the sort of calm the Democrats, and they're thinking, we'll just talk about Epstein a lot more.

38:56Yeah, no, you need to do something dramatic to shake up the system and make people understand. something like, I don't know, Zorhan Mamdani is doing, where he's saying, your problem is cost. I'm going to zero in on it. I'm going to make stuff cheaper. I don't care what I have to do. I'm going to go hard. I'm going to go radical. And then they go, we don't like Zorhan Mamdani. He doesn't have the right views on Israel. And you're like, well, but he's going to win. I always say, you know, the big bug that young people don't vote. And then when they vote, they're like, we don't like your vote. We don't like how you voted.

39:29And I'm like, They voted what they wanted, and that should be the voice of the people, essentially, or the people who vote. So when you think about that, I've been asking people about prospective presidential candidates for 2028. I'm curious who you're looking at, and you're saying Dems need to match game with game to get people out front of getting attention, whatever their topic happens to be. It could be Epstein, like AOC or, like you mentioned, Jasmine Crockett. Talk a little bit about that. We've talked about Gavin Newsom, Wes Moore. There's also Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro. There's lots.

39:56There's lots. There's Pritzker from Illinois. And there's people maybe we aren't thinking of. And obviously AOC is a very gifted politician. For sure. And thinker. I kind of think she might run for Senate. I suspect she might be gearing up to challenge Schumer. I can see her upstate with those people. They would love her. And MAGA people like her. Can't you see? I can because you know what it is? And I think people also. She's a working class. Yeah. I think people think she's doing a thing that can be replicated. No, she's literally just authentic. She's just her authentic self. Jasmine is just her authentic self, Jasmine Crockett.

40:28Some of these people are just good. I just met a woman named Jolanda Jones, who's going to run for Congress, who's a state representative in Texas. Authentic. She's just herself. And people hate on it. But it's like, no, she's just herself. She was actually on Survivor, weirdly enough. So she actually knows a little bit of performative TV stuff, too. Even in Iowa, that woman who just won. Oh, my God. Yes. Just herself. Same thing with Laura Kelly, who I think is a gifted politician. And I would also say Ras Baraka. Ras Baraka in New Jersey, that should have been the gubernatorial camp. I'm not sure Mikey Sherrill will pull it off.

40:59I don't know. But she's a normal, normie politician Democrat. And is that going to get young people, people of color out? I don't know. I don't know how she's going to do that, whereas I think Ras Baraka would have. But people sat down in the primary. I think, number one, Democrats have lost the plot on where the power is. The power is in primaries. MAGA and before them, the Tea Party took over the Republican Party using primaries. Because by the general election, you just get the doctrinaire voters who vote their party, right? You've got to win the primary in order to win the whole thing. And Democrats have lost the art of making sure that they put the right person in that primary.

41:37So I think about the 2028. First of all, I'm not sure we're going to have a presidential election. I'm being honest. I think Trump is going to try to stay in office. I think this deployment of troops all over the country, 1 ,700 troops fanning out to 21 states is a rehearsal. I wouldn't be shocked if he tried the martial law gambit. He's desperate to stay in because, number one, he's grifting so much money. He's getting rich. He's finally a billionaire. He's never going to give that up. And I don't know that he's going to allow a presidential election or a fair and free presidential election in 2028.

42:08So it's hard for me to sit down and what I used to do was game out like who could be a 2028 contender. I think it could be somebody we don't even know who it is. But I think it has to be someone, And I won't name who I think it should be, but I'll say it needs to be somebody with Gavin Newsom's attitude. It has to be that energy. I want Gavin Newsom's energy. I want Pritzker's money because it's got to be somebody who's so rich or that has access to so much money that they can overcome Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and all these other right-wing zealot billionaires who are going to try to hold on because they're getting everything from Trump.

42:46contracts, billions. They're getting access to our data. They've got it all. They're not going to give that up either. So we're fighting against the empire in 2028 if we have elections. This is our Star Wars moment. And I don't know who right now is the right person to be a candidate, but it's going to have to be someone. It's going to have to be Wakanda forever level, you know, T 'Challa. But you said Gavin Newsom energy, but not Gavin Newsom. It could be him. I don't know. I mean, I have friends in California who are doubters, and I don't live in California, so I don't know. But I actually— I do.

43:23You live in California. What do you think? Do you think his record is good to hold up? I've always—here's my take on—I understand the problems with him. I get it. I get it. But who's the person—and this is just one single issue—who stood up for gay marriage when it was difficult to do so? Gavin. Only person. Only one. Yes. It hurt him dramatically. He was set back by a decade. He was on the rise like nobody's business. He did it. You know, and I had an argument that America's not ready for gay marriage. And I think I said it's called leadership. So I've always appreciated that. You're right. At that time, it was portrayed in our cable news world as he's done, right, as he's finishing his career.

44:01And I actually am a huge Gavin fan. I'll be honest with you. I think one of the things I do like about him is the way he actually trolls Trump without speaking. He's good looking. Trump wishes he looked like Gavin Newsom, okay? His fans try to dress Trump up and make him look like Superman. Gavin Newsom actually does look like Superman. Although actually a friend of mine pointed out once that he also looks like Count Chocula. And I can't get that out of my head because he actually kind of does like Count Chocula. Yeah, he does a little bit. And I'm obsessed with it now. Like, put it side by side.

44:31We like Count Chocula. We love Count Chocula. It's good. I love the cereal. But he's like a really good looking Count Chocula, right? And I love the fact that he knows how to troll Trump. He's a natural troll. he's someone who I think America would go for like a Kennedy-esque figure you know he's got a beautiful wife look I'm ready to roll with Gavin tomorrow if he wants to announce I will join his campaign team okay I just need Trump to go away more or you know I don't really have alternatives I just want them to have Gavin's energy so if it's not Gavin they need and I love Wes Moore Wes Moore is actually brilliant now but I just interviewed him for the Joy Reid show and he was very definitive that he does not want to run for president.

45:12He wants to remain governor, which is the right answer because you don't want someone too thirsty for it. But Wes Moore is like a genius level great. He's a great politician. He's really smart. And I think he also is absolutely somebody who should be thought about. Pritzker's rich, which is helpful. So but the Democrats have been lamenting how they didn't reach low propensity voters, low income voters, people who are struggling, that didn't explain what the party could do for him, as Mamdami has done and why I think he's popular in New York right now. And the Dems are facing that crisis. How do you square the medium as the message is we need a better message?

45:46At the Democratic National Committee meeting this week, they were debating about U.S. policies toward Israel. Progressives are calling for an arms embargo and a ceasefire in Gaza. What has to happen here, given the centrists still seem to hold control? The reality is the Democratic Party's position on Israel-Gaza is morally indefensible. It just is. The reality that we actually have laws in this country that are supposed to prevent us from arming countries that are committing war crimes. The ICJ has definitively stated that Bibi Netanyahu and his government are committing war crimes. They just are.

46:20And the idea that Democrats are still so beholden to this sort of 1990s version of foreign policy that Joe Biden was, who's otherwise a very good and compassionate man, but on Gaza, he seemed to just be just hard and cold. Like, I'd never understood it. He believed all the, you know, propaganda that came out of the Israeli government. He just kept sending bombs. I think his position sunk Kamala Harris, to be honest. I think that hurt her more than anything else, even though I think she would have been much, much better on this issue. And I think she has more compassion, more human compassion. The Democrats, like the fact that they are so, you know, AIPAC seems to have so much control over so many of their views and that they won't walk away from this war criminal any more than Trump will.

47:06They can't really ding Trump for being in bed with a war criminal because they are, too. And so and the young Democrats are the, you know, the squad that have been standing, you know, 10 toes down that this is wrong, you know, that apartheid is wrong. They punish them. They sideline them. They let APEC come after them. They let them take out Cori Bush. No defense for Cori Bush. No defense for the brother in New York that was running, you know, his district was probably redistricted out anyway. But still, no defense of him. They just are so scared to defend Mamdani. It's interesting because it's not just the AOCs of the world.

47:40I've spent an hour with my son. He goes to the University of Michigan. And his topic was Israel. He's like, how can Democrats? Because I sent him a story when the number two Democrat said it was genocide. And then she took it back. And I wrote him. I was like, look, they're moving. Because he had been very upset by the situation. Young people are very, like, of all kinds. And I have, like, literally the tallest, whitest son you could ever have. And this is a very illuminating and motivating topic for them because it's in front of their eyes kind of thing. It's on their screens. They don't think they're being tricked.

48:15They don't think they're being – and they also don't like Hamas. Like, they don't. And that's the thing, which is really – you know, they're smart enough to understand the complexity of the situation, which it is 100%. They can have two ideas that October 7th is terrible and Hamas is terrible and this is also a genocide. Some of my folks that are in my world that are the most angry about this are Jewish, too. They're just like they hate it being done in their name. We'll be back in a minute.

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49:33Before we go, I want to zoom out and talk about the broader media landscape. If you were running MSNBC right now, what would you, maybe that's. News now, you mean. You mean Ms. Now. Yeah, now. Ms. Now. You're using Teams. What would you do? What would you do? How do you look at their prospects? One of the things we discovered when the conscious decoupling happened is that all the reporters actually worked for NBC. But we were a partner, so we could just use them, right? Right now MSNBC has to you know, they I think they've hired Jacob Soberoff, which is a great hire. He's brilliant And they've got to now hire a whole news team, right?

50:10They don't have bureaus not like CNN where they've got bureaus. They don't have that So you're talking about having to scale up an entire news operation or buy one My favorite rumor that was out there was that they would just buy CNN, which actually would make sense in a way, right? You get all the bureaus, right? So I don't really know how I would manage that I think what you also have to manage is the fact that the audience at these traditional news outlets, and not just cable, but broadcast as well, is aging. And so you're serving in a sort of aging audience while the new audience, the younger audience, is really not coming to you.

50:43And there's nothing you can do to bring them back. And sorry, but making them more MAGA-friendly is not going to bring the young people back. Young people, it's not that they're MAGA. They're just sick of everybody. MAGA people like what they have. They have Fox, and they have Newsmax, and they have OAN, and they don't need you, right? They have Charlie Kirk and all that other stuff. So you can't bring those people over. And I think there has been this belief. I think Andy Lack really believed that you could just bring those people into MSNBC if you just hire Megyn Kelly. And then they'll suddenly start watching MSNBC.

51:12That's not how that works at all. Or NBC or whatever. Even the right wing likes what they like. They like what they like. And they already have it. You don't need a copy when you have the original. You're not going to out Fox Fox. And so what I say to these old media companies is I invite you to try this experiment. Do this live experiment. See if you can sanitize everything. take all the black people out of the shows, get rid of all the Black Helm shows, just make everything white bread, leave it to Beaver, and see how much money you make. Because I look at data, and the data says that my generation, Generation X, I think you and I are both Generation X.

51:43I'm not going to age you and make you Gen X. Maybe you're a millennial. Keep going. Keep going. But people under 15, the Gen Alpha, they're already majority non-white. That ship has sailed. You drag enough brown people into gray vans with masked men to change that because they're already here born unless you're going to deport every person under 15 you can't change the demographic change and i i see what they're trying to do i see what you're doing here maggie you think you can deport your way out of this 2045 shift in the white majority so i think the media is chasing the past and they've got to start figuring out how to chase the future and i think new media is chasing the future because we understand that it's trusted individual voices that people will follow and then you can proliferate access to yourself on all these media that is the future and so i i feel badly for these that's why i said i kind of feel for these folks that are trying to run these og companies because i don't know how you scale yourself into finding new audiences because the old audiences are going to get old and they're going to pass away but versant is such a great name.

52:52Results may vary. Versant. It sounds like a drug for a drug for like ED. ED. Versant. Little blue pill. This is what happens when non-TV people name TV things, right? TV people would have never named either of those things that. I don't know if it matters. Everyone else is going to call it MSNBC. It doesn't really matter. Look, I still call it Twitter, okay? And y 'all... Me too. I was just wearing a Twitter. I don't care what you do to me. I had two million followers, and I got off. I did. And I walked away from 2 million followers. But you know what it is? I actually walked into Lawrence O'Donnell's office one day because I love Lawrence.

53:26He gives great advice. And I was like, Lawrence, I think I should get off Twitter. And he was like, okay. And I was like, because why should I give, every time I would tweet something, Tucker, Tuckums, as I used to call them, they would like make it their A block. Like they would go off on something I tweeted. And I'm like, if they're going to go off on me, I need to make them play a clip from my show. And then they can go off on that. And so that's why I got off. I said, you know, I'm not going to give Elon free content. I despise the band. I'm like, I'm not going to give him free content that I don't even get paid for.

53:53And then I'm not going to give Fox and all the other haters free content that they can then churn out. If you're going to churn it out, I want you to play my TikTok video. That's correct. Play my Instagram video. Play my Wajahot interview. And play my show. Play the Joy Reid show. And then you go off. Yeah, yeah. Megyn Kelly does me that favor all the time. She's always mad at me. And then she puts all my stuff up. And I'm like, are you upset? I'm like, no. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyway, last question. Speaking of building up MS now, all the hiring that's happening, they are hiring a lot of people.

54:25Do you think there's a door open for you to go back? Would you want to at this point? After this interview? No. Hell no. They're never going to let me back in. I actually don't think they would ever hire me back. Your picture's at the door. My picture's at the door. It's like if somebody shoplifted it, it's like, don't let this person back in here. I promise you they would never hire me back. I don't know a lot, but I know they ain't trying to bring me back at all. And also, it's not called MSNBC anymore. Ms. Now ain't trying to play with me. Ms. Now don't like me. You know, we sealed this deal today.

54:57What is the goal? Because one of the things I've always advised people who are new media entrepreneurs is you can do too much. Yes. Like, you have too much. The podcast, this, that. You have to really figure out what you make that people really like and then build off of that. That's right. Yeah, you're right. And you're absolutely right. And I've already gone into the I'm spiraling because I'm doing too much meltdowns. And it's because just keeping up the sub stack, you know, I'm a writer. I love to write. But boy, that's a lot of work, you know, trying to write and research and make sure I have the links.

55:23And again, I'm doing it on my own. So it's a lot. And then the show is a lot. You know, thank God for Jason. He does all the tech. I don't have to deal with that. He does everything else. But it's a lot. And, you know, we're now looking at like hire producers and add more people. But what were the other things that we're working on? Because we're actually a documentary film company. And that's what that's what Image Lab was actually created to do. And so we are working on a documentary. So if anybody's out there and has lots of money and wants to give it to me, please do. too. And it's actually built off of something people loved, which is the Medgar and Murley book, which did really well.

55:52And so we're doing a documentary, which is about the mystery, which one wouldn't think is a mystery, about Medgar Evers' assassination. There was so much more to it that I couldn't get into the book because we were trying to focus on the love story. But we were digging, we were deep in the FBI files about this assassination. And there's so much more to the story, maybe other people involved. And it's like really fascinating. And since I couldn't get it into the book, we decided we're going to make a documentary. That's a great idea. So that's what we're doing. You know, Netflix loves a crime. And then the other thing we're working on is we've interviewed all these mayors because, you know, mayors and governors have really become the front line in fighting Trump.

56:26They are. And we're now looking to sort of collect all of these mayoral interviews into a separate little documentary about just how mayors are fighting fascism. That's great. Those are great things. They also are great. Anyway, you're doing great. I think you're made for this. I was with someone the other day who was thinking about doing this. I'm like, I think you should stay where you are. It was my polite way of saying no. You're like Simon Cowell, who was always my favorite person on that show. Because everyone else was like, oh, my God, you were great. He was like, you're awful. Go home.

56:59And I'm like, that's what they needed in that moment. Do not go home to Ms. Now. No, Ms. Now. No, Ms. Now and Count Chocula. That's what I've been left with this entire interview. I really appreciate it, Joy. Your delight. And I think one of the things that's great about doing your own independent, people can see not the cartoon version of Dory Reed, which gets depicted in right wing media and stuff like that, but a very much more rounded thing. And that's what's really powerful to do. Yeah, indeed. Although I am a cartoon. That's true. That's true. This was so much fun, Kara. Let's do it every week.

57:33It's therapy for me. Okay. Thanks, Joy. Thank you. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castor-Bussell, Kateri Yocum, Megan Burney, Kaylin Lynch, and Michelle Eloy. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester and Catherine Barner. Aaliyah Jackson engineered this episode, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you have Gavin Newsom's energy and J.B. Pritzker's money. If not, you're Count Chocula. Go wherever you listen to the podcast, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us.

58:14We'll be back on Monday with more.

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