you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. good morning and welcome to am joy. a community i support and deeply care about is hurting because of

despicable and truly offensive posts being attributed to me. many of you have seen the blog posts circulating online and social media. many of them are homophobic and disc in discriminatory and hateful. when a friend found them and sent them to me i was stunned. frankly i couldn't imagine where they came from and whose voice that was. i spent a lot of times trying to make sense of the posts. i hired cyber security experts to see if somebody manipulated my words or former blog and the reality is they have not been able to prove it. but here's what i know. i generally do not believe i wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me but i can definitely understand based on things i have tweeted and i have written in the past why some people don't believe me. i have not exempt from being cruel or hurtful to the very people i want to advocate for. i own that. i get it.

and for that i am truly, truly story. i had a conversation the other day with a friend that's also an advocate in the lgbtq community in florida who took me to task for my tweets mocking ann anne colter useding transgender stereotypes. i apologize to my friends and i want to apologize to the trans community and anne. i look back at the ways i talked about people and gender identity and sexual orientation and i wonder who that even was but the reality is like a lot of people in this country that person was me. i grew up in a household that had conservative views on lgbtq issues. i had friends, some of my closest friends in fact growing up who i later learn were gay and kept it secret from me and from everyone else we were close to because they didn't know what we were say or if we would still be friends or whether we would look at them differently. i can can remember a friend of mine my freshman year in college

telling me he was gay and my knee jerk reaction being that it was so disappointing to the women he could have married. he was so hurt he didn't speak to me for months. i'm heart broken that i didn't do better back then knowing so many great people in the lgbtq community include ago maizing friends and journalists and producers and political operatives and dads and moms and advocates and regular people and knowing how hard it must have been for so many of them to come out to their families and to their friends. to just walk around in the world. especially for trans people and i feel like i should have known better than to ever write in a way to make fun of or make light of that pain and experience. even a decade ago when the country was in a very different place but i cannot take any of that back. i can only say that the person i am now is not the person i was then. i like to think i have gotten better as a person overtime. that i am still growing. that i'm not the same person i

was 10 or 5 or even one year ago and i know that my goal is to try to be a better person or a better ally. now the reality is i have to own the things that i have written and tweeted and said and i'm hoping out of all of this there's an opportunity to talk about the ways in which hurtful speak does imperil marginalized communities. these issues matter. not just theoretically but because we're talking about our friends, our kids, our co-workers. people that deserve better than what i have sometimes given them and with that i want to introduce our panel. joining me now is jonathan, opinion columnist for the washington post. diego sanchez at an organization for families and alabalies of t lgbtq community. and zeek stokes vice president of programs for glad and sarah that worked on lgbt outreach for

the bernie sanders 2016 campaign. i want to thank you for being here today. i wanted to try to take this thing and try to make something positive out of it and so feel free to grill me. you have the right to do that but i also want to talk about the ways in which some of the things that even i have said and done really do land on and impact people in the real world. i want to start with the an anne colter stuff which was dumb and she is obviously a woman, tweeting about her in a way that sort of mocks the transidentity. tell me, you know, just how that does -- how does that end uplanding in the real world for people that are experiencing this in their real lives. >> first i think this conversation is critical because the impact of our language is something that is, we're all experiencing all the time and the work that we have to do is on going.

so for me as a trans person reading the tweets about anne and knowing that it was a long time ago but that's the reality we're living in now. using anti-trans, trans-an t trans-antagonist language contributes to the trauma and high rates of violence and all the discrimination that trans-people experience and none of us are immune from that. so what i want us to gain from this dialogue is that the work of unpacking the internalization of antiblack language, antilgbt language is life long work. work that we have to do and participate in every at a and that's what i hope we all learn from this. >> sarah you're at a disadvantage because you're not at the table with us. i wish that you were here. but you are in arkansas and you and i met on the phone for the first time this week and we talked about, you know, the sort of reality that you're living in

living deep in red america living with you and your wife and your child and just trying to live your life. can you just, you know, talk a little bit about in your lived experience, how the things people say end uplanding on you and on your kid, on your child. >> so here's the reality and i grew up in arkansas and it wasn't until i actually move addway from arkansas that i was comfortable in my own skin and i was actually able to identify as a lesbian without any question or fear. but growing up in this state, i appli applaud the kids and students now who are expressing themselves in their real lives and challenging what i was afraid of when i was growing up in this state. and my father who daughter who

grade and is going to be experiencing life with two mothers, the things that i worry about are daily impacted by the words that we hear both broadcast over the television and on radio and within conversations that are not intentionally aggressive but are actually very micro aggressive in their words. people don't even realize what they're saying at times and i think that that impact on her is the thing that i am most afraid of. i think when you get out into the states and you start talking to people there's a number of people that like myself once the elections took place really did investigate what it would take to live somewhere else instead of in america because we are afraid at times that those rights and benefits that we have been given by legislation can be rolled back and we're sitting on the cusp of an environment where it's going to be okay for that to happen and i think that is

the main problem that we face on a daily basis. is that, you know, that fear that what we have can be taken away at a moment's notice. >> i'm going to come to you on this. i'm still calling you a newly wed. it's not newly, newly but we have seen this incredible trajectory. you go from the first defense of marriage act is signed in 1996 where clinton has to do it because he made certain promises. i'm going to put in a prominent member of my cabinet and do these things on serving in the military. that doesn't workout. he winds up signing defense of marriage act. you have civil unions legal in vermont in 2000. massachusetts lee dpgalized in and 2004 you have constitutional amendments rolling out in 11 state which is helped georgia w. bush. we watched them sink the democratic candidate and then

you go right to prop 8 along side president obama getting elected and by 2009 you're seeing more marriage and it talked about whether or not there's a feeling that that all is rolling backwards. where are we? >> well on marriage it's not rolling backwards because the supreme court of the united states said that same sex pa marriage is legal and protected by the constitution. i think what we saw in that diary of progress that you just showed was that it wasn't just that the laws changed, society changed. the beauty of what you did at the open was put into context where society was. that chronology you just showed shows where society was. i wouldn't even be talking to my own mother if she had not evolved. people thought one way.

they got information. people came out. people told their stories. people made it personal. people made it clear that their neighbors and co-workers and the shopkeeper and all of the people they depend on in their lives, some of them are lgbt. only a stone cold heart could not change. joy when this happened, i was hurt. but not like anything that was attributed to you. i was hurt because the joy i know and have known for probably more than 10 years certainly before all of this stuff, is not the joy that i know. that joy that i know is someone that stands by me personally. stands by me and my husband. stands by me and my community. i don't know a better place for me to be right now than to sit

in the chair next to you. when things like this happen we always tend to focus on the person who is baring the brunt of the criticism and the brunt of the controversy and the reason why people tune into this show and the reason why people trust you is because you realize that this is not about you. this is about people who are impacted by the words that are being attributed to you and it was incredibly important for us to remember that people change. times change. and there's a lot of people sitting out there watching that might be tuning in because it's like the coliseum for them and they want to see you he evisera. for those that are waiting for you to crumble and everyone to reign down condemnation on you.

good luck with that. change your hearts. evolve. just like the rest of the country. >> also i think jonathan to your point, none of russ heros and none of us are perfect. they think we have to hold the reality that we can't be looking for people that we love to be our heros and be perfect. we are all flawed in the trauma of our mistakes and we need to own that and the reality is that evolution is what we should strive for but we should also not be trying to have perfect because they don't exist. >> and i think we have to recognize this for what it is. this is a part of a new political and cultural landscape in this country. it's search and destroy and this is a concerted effort by people that do want to roll back our progress to take down voices that are powerful. that are our allies and when you look at what's happening in washington d.c., we talked about this move for progress that we experienced a decade or so, this administration has attacked our

community more than 70 times since donald trump took the oath of office in ways that amount to the transmilitary ban. taking us office the census and much more sinister ways like sending a clear message to business owners that it's okay to discriminate and we have to recognize this for what it is and recognize that as a progressive community we have to remain with our arms locked because that's the only way we move forward together and we need to reward people for taking that journey toward acceptance. that's what it is and you're modeling that for the country right now. >> i appreciate that. i truly do. i want to bring you in david. >> i want to say i think conversation is a luxury. i think that our ability to be in this room right now is luxury. that is more important than anything in terms of the day-to-day lives of so many kids in lgbtq families that we hear from when the phone ranges it's

a family in distress. it's n it's can i walk in safely. and i just want to say that this conversation is a luxury. the fact that we can discuss our community and all of these other things is so key because it's where we go. where we need to be. we have worked together for so long and will always do so as you do. >> and well parents and friends, right? so what do -- you know, i know so many people that have come out to families or are in red america or conservative states that had to navigate the religious aspect of it. my mother was liberal but on the issue of marriage she was not. we grow up with these sort of attitudes but i can remember an elderly family member that

turned on a dime because barrack obama did and that's all it took. all the arguing in the world didn't work. >> that's how my mother changed. that's how my mother changed. we were atmore's at a brunch. because he had that interview with robin roberts it shall oh, yeah. where he announced he was for marriage equality and i asked my mother, who is a born again christian, by the way. i asked her, i said what do you make of what president obama did? and i explained to her and she said oh, i think, i'm with the president. i'm with the president. it's unfair. and then my mother argued back to me all these things that i had wanted to hear for a long time. how it was unfair for family members to just swoop in and take things away from a couple that's been together. how they should be protected by law. that was the power of one man to

be able to do that. >> all the people that fought and died to prove to barrack obama. it's the queer and transand and dpr gbtq people that proved to barrack obama and we need to see both sides of that. >> my mother took the same journey. i'm from south carolina. another red state and my family took that journey. a lot of families are still taking that journey in this country as it relates to the l and the g and also the b and t communities and we have a long way to go in those areas and it's so important that we have teachable moments like this to show people that it's okay to go from a to b and that we're not going to reign down on you as jonathan said for taking the journey and getting to where we want you to be. you shouldn't be punished for that. >> sarah we were introduced by a mutual friend that was a part of you getting the sanders campaign to come to the table on issues

of hiv. >> hiv and aids. >> yeah. it's interesting because we still do have to have the proactive conversations even on the left. >> absolutely. and the thing about -- the thing that i actually want to bring up and say is that we identify, or i identify as a progressive and for me that means that we actually have to make progress and to be a progressive we actually have to have these conversations. i was i guess a little more lucky than others when i came out to my parents my mother basically said oh, honey we've known that for years. so it was new to me that they knew who i was and i didn't, right? but the thing that actually, that we actually have to start recognizing and changing is that while we have had growth and issue across the board, i do now get to call my wife my wife. we are married. we got married twice. once in california and once in arkansas when it became legal. i do call myself a mother

because i'm lucky enough to have a daughter who my name is on her birth certificate so that's an amazing feet in the south but i wanted to speak up and say that yesterday there was a murder trial in austin, texas where a man was convicted of criminally negligent homicide as opposed to murder. he had stabbed his victim twice and he ended up having to pay $11,000 in restitution and serve six months in jail because he use what had is called the gay scare or the trans-fear defense. panic defense, right? we have to fix 48 states in this country. there are only two states that say that that is not a viable defense. 48 states say that is a viable defense. that's a big problem. and until we fix things like that, we actually are not progressing and i think those are the things we have to do. this conversation is actually going a long way but i want to point out and say that while we -- i adore you.

i forgive you for myself. but we still have a lot of work in the world and in the community to say that we as individuals can absolutely accept your apology and appreciate the fact that you actually had the courage to step up and do it. we can't speak for the entire community. >> absolutely. and that's important and, you know, as much as i love you guys and i love that you guys love me, i have to recognize i'm part of the problem. i have to recognize that as somebody that sees myself as an ally you have to act like one and i'm an adult and if you're speaking in a way that is hurting people that's real and it's hurting real life human beings. that's what is so painful about this whole thing. we're going to change and i'll make you all stay if you don't mind but i want to bring in additional guests. joining us is host of woke am on sirius xm. i love that name and that show.

brandon wolf a survivor of the pulse night club shooting and the founder and ceo of define american and i have to think of who -- let's go daniel first. because i know that this whole thing has been very hurtful to you. well, i'm sure it has. let me just let you talk. >> i mean, joy, i, you know, i thank you for starting off the show and here's the thing people have to understand. words do matter. especially in this day and age so i appreciate the fact that you are being open about where you were and where you are at this moment but do find it problematic i will say that we are jumping on you and by we i

mean many people in the media are jumping on you about words that you used or may have used ten years ago but yet we allow the president to have a complete and total pass on things coming out of his mouth right now. we want to have a conversation about somebody that has been talked about lgbt inequality and all of these progressive ideas about how to make america better and been the voice of that and yet we allow for there to be conversation about what you said ten years ago when i want to have conversations about what the president tweeted ten minutes agatha are derailing the lgbtq community and setting progress backwards. so while i appreciate your apology, i don't represent the gay community. unfortunately i'm not the queen of it but the reality is that while we're having conversations about what may or may not have been said ten years ago we should be having conversations

about what was tweeted ten seconds ago and how there are bans that are still up at the supreme court right now to keep muslims out of america. that there are bans right now to keep patriotic transpeople out of the military and that's coming from the oval office right now. not ten years ago. not ten minutes ago but right now. so i think we need to get very clear about what is important at this moment and words do matter. words absolutely matter and you taking responsibility for those words, that matters but what i want to be focused on is where we are going forward with this administration and the words and the actions and the policies that are coming out from him and from republicans right now. not ten years ago, not ten minutes ago but right in this moment. >> yeah. i think it's so important that we double down on what she said about the media and how they jumped on this because i felt there was some blood in the water and there was going to be infighting and everybody was going to jump on joy reed and bring her down. while that was happening we got

a secretary of state that believes that being gay is a sin. that couldn't say whether lgbtq rights were human rights. we got judicial nominations and appointments that are going to move our community back for a generation. the media is not paying attention and we have to hold them accountable. >> i want to bring you in because you survived a massacre that was not only one of the largest in american history but also probably the most deadly massacre against lgbtq people in american history and it was shocking and yet you talk about it more in terms of the gun violence than in terms of the violence against people that are lgbtq and i know you have a lot to say so i want to give you the floor. >> yeah, you know, joy, thank you. that's what we need to po cuss

on. i'm super proud of you for saying the things you did to open the show and i'm proud of you for show casing what evolution looks like in this country. just like the other folks on your panel have shared. my relationship with my parents and how that changed over the years and that's what we asked people for. evolve. welcome to us if you will go past ignorance and move beyond it. we have told them they're become into our arms if they do those things so i'm proud of you and i appreciate the words that you opened the show with but i want to cut through it all and keep it very real with people about what we're up against. we have homophobic psychopaths running the united states government today. we have a secretary of state that believes that gay people are sinners based on who they are. if mike pence, god bless him, ended up in the white house sitting behind that desk in the oval office he would have us all in concentration camps hoping to

pray away the gay. that's what we're up against. i talked about the gay agenda and people were terrified of me pushing the gay agenda. the gay agenda is to survive until tomorrow. you ask lgbt people of color and trans women of color what that is like and they're not so concerned about what joy reed might have said 12 years ago on a blog that's evolved into an alliance with us. they're worried about what's happening right now on pennsylvania avenue and they're wondering why the media didn't reign down a fire storm on these people, these homophobic psychopaths that are derailing the conversation and turning back the clock on everything we worked so hard on so i guess i'm just here today to implore the viewers to stay focused. stay focused on what's in front of us. stay focused on what's actually threatening this community and

that is in washington defendant c. that's where we can have a real impact. i want to see that outrage and that's in washington d.c. >> i appreciate that you brought that up and we talk a lot, you and i have this conversation about everything all the time and also people who are gay, lesbian, transgender, this is all intersectioning at the same time. thousand 348 reported hate crimes against lgbt people. in 2017, 52 hate violence related homicides is up 86% from the year before. and this was the one that really shocked me, just double checking my producers are geniuses so i know that they are never wrong but this one shocked me. 28 transgender and non-binary people killed last year. 84% were people of color.

8 have been killed so far just this year. so this is real. this is not theoretical. >> and the impact actually on like, for example, undocumented trans immigrants. i am really appreciated the reality check about what is happening in a white house in which, you know, breitbart, fox news runs the white house messaging when it comes to not only immigrants but lgbt people. i'm reminded by this quote that says oppressive language does more than represent violence it is violence. it does more than limits knowledge, it limits knowledge. we have to understand that words have consequences and a luxury, that we're having this conversation is a luxury and i think about having come out of two closets in my life and actually my grandmother was more

afraid of the fact that i'm openly gay than i am being openly undocumented, right? in communities of color, homophobia, to internalize homophobia is so deep and these words are organisms that carry beyond the actual language and impact the actions that people take, right? so it's really, really important that we own up to what the words are and that we hold ourselves accountable to them and make sure that it doesn't impact how we actually act. >> yeah. and can i bring you back in now? you and your wife are both black women. you like me have a west indian background and it's a little bit different parsing this out in families and to be honest in our community and it has been. >> yeah. it has. and, you know, i'll say, thankfully my family has always been incredibly supportive and open of myself and my wife but at the end of the day, there is still a lot of work to be done and i said this back when my

wife and i were championing marriage equality. marriage alone wasn't going to be a silver bullet and doesn't just change the degradation we face on a daily basis. these are real problems and there's real problems within the lgbt community in terms of how the lg and the b treat the trans community. these are issues that need to be discussed on a day-to-day basis. it is a practice. being a progressive is a practice like yoga. it's something that you need to stretch and grow and create space for yourself to evolve and that's where we are right now so it's not a one and done like oh now i'm a progressive but years ago i may have said things that were troubling and homophobic. it is a practice and we can't lose sight of that and lose sight of the fact that it is important. it is important to continue to challenge ourselves to grow. it's important to continue to challenge ourselves to be better than we were yesterday. that's the goal. at least that is my goal as a human being is to be better and

to keep that moving along and to challenge as many people as possible in the process to do the same. >> 40% of our homeless youth are lgbtq kids. i grew up in augusta, georgia. talking about south of south and -- >> i just heard your activitice the first time. >> well it's home and it was a hard home. i know people think we have all of these different shades of humans. it's white or not white and that's what it is in the south. whatever people say. it's white or you're not white and the point of all of these kids -- a lot of fans everywhere, you have fans everywhere who are looking for tomorrow like i did when i was 5

years old and told my parents i was born wrong. and i thought i was going to get the whipping of my lifetime because back in the day corporal punishment was the thing but i got family love. my mom bought me a magazine when i told her i was born wrong that she had saved the day that i would tell her. i'm just saying while we have these conversations it's really about not issues but humans. it's about people. people being able to see tomorrow with more hope than they had yesterday. it's things that you have brought to the table that we have all and we will always do. we are people that have been marginalized and still are.

and you know they don't let me be lonely in a store. and i'm 61 years old. so it's been awhile. >> yeah. >> and that's the really important thing is that people be able to know that there is hope. know that there's joy in their future in every way. and that's what matters. that people can get to tomorrow with a feeling that they can live through it with vision, with clarity, with love and with hope. >> i want to reinforce this idea that progress isn't just a train moving forward. we can move backward if we don't stay together and keep our eye on the ball. glad does a study every year that measures americans with the lgbtq community and for the first time the numbers rolled back. policy hasn't rolled back but this conversation is rolling

back because people in washington d.c. are leading a conversation that is marginalizing people and it can cause hearts and mines to move backward. if we don't stay steadfast with one another and our allies this can turn around. it's not inevitable until it's inevitable. >> it just occurred to me as diego was speaking that this was probably one of the most extraordinary memorials and museums open in america in a long time. in montgomery alabama where for the first time the nation has to confront, be accountable for and responsible for lynching in the united states. and both of those institutions in montgomery show that there is a line from slavery to lynchings to segregation to mass

incarceration. what that museum and what that memorial does is forces us to look ourselves in the mirror as a nation, who were we back then when thousands of people would gather around and watch another human being be murdered? and not just lynched, meaning hang, but after the body was hanged degraded in innumerable disgusting ways. shot, dragged, drowned, you name it and it still happens. this museum and the memorial is about showing where we have been and showing where we are. this conversation that we're having now about the lgbtq community, where we have been in terms of policy and language and where we are now in terms of policy and language. we have to hold ourselves accountable. we have to be responsible for

who we are. i think danielle hit the nail on the head when she said, we have to -- every day we have to be better than we were the day before. >> amen. >> all the people that are demanding that of you should look in the mirror and demand that of themselves. >> have to demand that of myself. we are adulls. we have to teach the next generation how to behave by behaving better ourselves. >> room for us to grow. >> thank you all so much. i appreciate having this conversation and you guys devoting the time to come here and do this today. jonathan is going to be back. diego, chase, zeke, thank you. sarah, danielle, brandon, thank you guys. thank you so much for being here. we'll have more after the break. when you can do it out there. with this clever little app called audible. you can listen to the stories you love

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how much of your legal work was handled by michael cohen. >> a tiny, tiny little fraction but michael would represent me on some things. he represents me like with this crazy stormy daniels deal and from what i see he did absolutely nothing wrong. there were no campaign funds going. >> then why is he pleading the fifth? >> because he has other things. he has businesses and from what i understand they're looking at his businesses and i hope he's

in great shape. >> well hours after donald trump spoke to fox news federal prosecutors used his words against him in court. president trump said on cable television this morning that choen performs a tiny, tiny little fraction of his overall legal work. prosecutors argue those come mens prove that just a tiny, tiny fraction of cohen's seized documents are protected by attorney-client privilege. meanwhile the judge in the storestor stormy daniels civil suit delayed for three months after he invoked his fifth amendment right. >> what is the significance of the delay and what should we take away from the fact that michael cohen had to plead the fifth in order to get it. >> that's exactly right. he had to basically say that he

was going to envolkswagen his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination to buy himself three months but did he really? because i think that indictment is to imminent that the judge himself included it in his written findings. so the significance of it is there's no discovery and no depositions. the lawyer for stormy daniels has been talking about how he was going to take the depositions of michael cohen and donald trump. however that doesn't mean it will never happen. i think once the indictment comes down against michael cohen that will be able to reignite the litigation in california. that doesn't mean that donald trump is going to escape the cross hairs of discovery. >> so that was well explained. i want to back up for just a moment on the subject of taking the fifth in the first place. by pleading the fifth and this

is actually something i had wrong, by pleading the fifth cohen could be trying to shield himself as written in the atlantic. from revealing information in the civil case that could be helpful to federal process cue tors should -- prosecutors should he be indicted. he is able to envolkswagen them because of the possibility he could be indicted in criminal court on matters related to the civil trial. does the fact that he pleaded the fifth indicate that at least his lawyers believe, not that he could be indicted but that he will be indicted? >> michael cohen has not exactly pleaded the fifth. he notified the court in california that he will plead the fifth if deposed and realistically he was probably never going to get michael cohen's deposition situation and there's no way he's going to be forced to sit for a deposition. the real plan is to get trump

into a deposition but for the time being envolkswageniking ths the proper thing for his attorneys to do because i've had this happen awhere a client has a pending civil and criminal matter. you have to do everything you can to keep that person from testifying because the government can and will use every line of transcript, every interrogatory answer, every piece of discovery in that civil case against him in any criminal investigation. and to invoke the fifth he doesn't have to have an i indictment but just the mere possibility. >> just to make a point the judge cited the likelihood. this is no simple criminal investigation. it is an investigation into the personal attorney of a sitting president regarding documents that might be subject to the attorney-client privilege whether or not an indictment is

for forthcoming and the court thinks it's likely based on these facts alone. i'll go back to katie. the goal was to get donald trump into a deposition. he played at the top of the block donald trump saying that cohen had a tiny, tiny percentage of his business but this was trump on air force one when he was asked, and this was not long ago about michael cohen and the $130,000 payment that cohen made to storemy daniels. take a listen. >> is that a declaration of not knowing anything about the money, does that make donald

trump more likely to wind up being deposed in this case? >> it's not the first time we heard a 180 from donald trump on several issues. as you know on thursday he erupted in this 30 minute tirade on fox and friends where he did say that he knew that michael cohen represented him in that crazy stormy daniels deal. well, didn't we just hear him say on air force one that he had no idea about it and that he also said in that tirade on thursday mortgage thning that n campaign funds were used. does that mean that you actually know where the money did come from. if there wasn't more of a situation created where donald trump now walked himself into a chair to sit in front of a video camera to be deposed, i don't know what has happened. >> and speaking of turnabout i can't resist playing him on the campaign trail talking about pleading the fifth. >> when you have your staff taking the fifth amendment. taking the fifth so they're not

prosecuted. >> fifth amendment. fiskt ame fifth amendment. horrible. her staffers taking the fifth amendment. how about that. five people taking the fifth amendment. you see the mob takes the fifth. if you're innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment. >> i want to give you the last word on this because the reality is that taking the fifth amendment doesn't mean that one is guilty of a crime. >> of course. taking the fifth amendment or even, again, cohen has not taken the fifth amendment. he has just expressed to the court that if forced to sit for a deposition the possibility that he might be indicted and there's an on going criminal investigation means he's envolkswagening his constitutional right to not bare witness against himself and that's what he would be doing if forced to sit for a deposition or answer interrogatories and that's the case for anyone. even being a high profile situation or the regular citizen. >> thank you for that. i think it's important to just

keep that perspective no matter what the president of the united states might have said on the campaign trail. we got the best in the business. thank you both. have a great day. coming up in our next hour, a bombshell and kanye west drops a new track. more morning joy after this. , little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months, ... with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment.

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as legislation on taxes continues to be debated this week and next, may all members be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great nation guarantee the opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle. may their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits, balanced and shared by all americans. >> that prayer by house chaplain patrick conroy in the thick of the congressional debate over the tax bill may have been the prayer that led to his dismissal. after being asked by speaker paul ryan to resign as house chaplain, conroy revealed this week that his exit was not voluntary. convoy says he doesn't know

exactly why he was asked to resign, but in an interview with the "new york times" he says that after that prayer on the tax debate a staffer from ryan's office accused him of getting too political. ryan told him, quote, padre, you have just got to stay out of politics. joining me now to discuss is the reverend william barber, president and senior lecturer of repairs of the breach. thank you so much for being here. i will report just to let the audience know 148 members of congress have sent a letter to speaker ryan demanding to know -- demanding answers about this resignation, a bit of it reads, the sensitive nature of this requires a description of the process followed to arrive at a decision and justification for that decision. we believe absent such details questions will arise about the politicization of the process for hiring and dismissing a house chaplain. i believe he might be the first house chaplain to be dismissed if not the second. peter king had this to say on friday about conroy's

designation. >> what did you hear from the speaker this morning about the conroy situation? >> just said there was dissatisfaction among members with father conroy and that was it. i said we need more of an explanation. i'm not aware of any discontent on any criticism and to be the first house chaplain removed in the history of congress in the middle of a term raises serious questions and i think we deserve more of aen a explanation why was there political pressure. >> what do you make of this dismissal? >> one of the things is even if that's not the reason the fact that the staffer and ryan would say, padre, you have to stop being more political, and even those persons, republicans or others who have signed on if you still voted for that unjust tax bill, that's the real problem here. we are seeing a kind of theological malpractice and a form of christian nationalism that it really doesn't line up with scripture, doesn't line up thee logically. people put their hands on bibles and swear allegiance to it and

the constitution and pass policies that are different. think about it, the poor people's campaign, we just released a piece called the soul of the poor folk with the institute of policy studies. you have 140 million poor and working people in america right now and we are dismissing chaplains for talking about poverty. you have 43% of americans in poverty, you have nearly 200,000 people dying from low wealth. 62 million people working at less than a living wage, 54% of those are african-american. most poor people are poor women white and children. 13 million poor children, 500,000 people are more homeless and a large majority of them are lbgtq. 37 million people without healthcare in the healthiest nation in the world. we're firing chaplains. 40 million -- 4 million children exposed to lead, poor, latino and african-american and brown and black immigrants being mistreated, indigenous native americans, apaches, cherokees,

navajo, being mistreated and kept in poverty. passing tax cuts that benefit the wealthy and hurt the working poor. voting rights are being blocked and we are firing chaplains. it's so thee logically concerning, you know. joy, i read the bible, the bible in isaiah says whoa under those that legislate evil and rob the poor of their right. iz keek called those that hurt the poor wolves. this is very concerning to be happening in our country. if you can't take a prayer, you surely can't take prophetic challenge. >> paul ryan has been at odds with -- you know, father conroy is a jesuit and paul ryan has had his tanningless with the church in the past over his real devotion to the idea for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. do you feel that this might be an outgrowth of that? >> i think very much it is because, you see, what ryan and

his cohorts and many of his cosigners, you know, the falw l falwells and the franklin grahams and those of that height they actually kind of try to suggest the only moral issues are being against gay people, being for prayer in the school, being against abortion, being for tax cuts and they really misrepresent the truth of the gospel. there are more than 2,000 scriptures that talk about in the public arena they wud be politically involved, no the democrat and republican but the gospel is political. more than 2,000 scriptures say how we care about the poor and the immigrants is really the measure of our morality, it's really what we will be judged by. i really believe they know they're guilty that's why this prayer bothered them so bad. their policies are wrong, discriminatory and degrade the least of these. >> thank you. bishop william barber thank you for being here this morning. truly appreciate your time. >> joy, we thank you so much. let people know we support you, we love you, we are standing

with you against this hacking and all of us are praying for you mightily and we thank you for your voice. >> thank you so much, bishop barber. more "a.m. joy" after the break. . ♪ you don't like my lasagna? no, it's good. -hmm. -oh. huh. [ both laugh ] here, blow. blow on it. you see it, right? is there a draft in here? i'm telling you, it's so easy to get home insurance on progressive.com. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents. but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto. even when nothing else is.u keep her receipts tidy,arents. brand vo: snap and sort your expenses with quickbooks and find, on average, $4,340 in tax savings. quickbooks. backing you. you're smart,eat you already knew that. but it's also great for finding the perfect used car. you'll see what a fair price is

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you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. yeah, we were honored. it was a great report. no collusion, which i knew anyway, no coordination, no nothing. the report was very powerful, very strong. there was no collusion between the trump campaign and the russian people.

i was very honored by the report, it was totally conclusive, strong, powerful. many things said that nobody knew about and said in a very strong way. >> welcome back to "a.m. joy." on friday republicans on the house intelligence committee released their final heavily redacted report from a year long probe into russia's influence operation. saying the committee found, quote, no evidence that the trump complain excluded, coordinated or conspired with the russian government. all of this on the same day nbc news revealed that the russian lawyer who met with donald trump jr. and senior campaign officials in june of 2016 has much closer ties to the russian government than previously known. that lawyer is nat told the committee, quote, i operate independently of any governmental bodies. now she's saying something different. in this exclusive interview with nbc's richard engel. >> the only reason i'm asking

these questions is because of the contact that you have had with the most senior people who are now in our government. [ speaking foreign language ] >> you said your relationship with the prosecutor general is what? [ speaking foreign language ] joining me no you is jonathan kay part, jason johnson, scare ra kensy and author of "the view from flyover country" along with paul butler. sara, i'm going to go to you on this first. donald trump jr. talking about his trump tower meeting back in december, on december of, 2017. this was his testimony before the house intelligence committee, adam schiff asked trump journ, not vessel net sky

i can't, but she, vessel knit sky i can't started discussing donors to hillary clinton, that was the first topic she raised, trump jr., that was my recollection, yes. congressman adam schiff, which would indicate that she understood the ostensible purpose of the meeting which was to provide derogatory information about clinton. trump jr. to my understanding, yes. so trump jr. was claiming this was just about providing information on hillary clinton and adoption. is there any problem now for donald trump jr. in your view if it turns out that the person he was having these discussions about derogatory information about turns out to be a criminal informant. >> yes, there should be a important. there should have been a problem from the beginning when he published his e-mails drourn jr. on twitter nearly a year ago we saw this laid out, we saw the illicit ties documented and now that we know that, you know, she was working for, you know,

chyka, working for the lawyer that's even worse for donald trump jr. what's important is to look at this in the broader scope of illicit connections between the trump campaign and trump administration and the kremlin and oligarchs. trump jr. is only one part of this puzzle. they are trying to say there is no collusion, but i think what we're seeing here is the cover up. we have two layers of this problem, one is what they did in his elicit ties and the other is the constant lying that's been going on for the last two years. >> paul butler on the potential legal ramifications on this for donald trump jr., donald trump sr. tweeted house committee rules that there was no collusion between the trump campaign and russia as i've been saying all along it's all a hoax by the democrats based on payments and lies. payments and lies. there should never have been a special counsel appointed. witch-hunt. do you see any problems with

that idea that donald trump is in his mind been proven innocent if it turns out that his son had a meeting where he admits he was trying to get information, dirt on hillary clinton, and now it turns out the person he is trying to get it from says she is a kremlin informant? >> joy, as a former federal prosecutor i'm embarrassed by that farce of an investigation that the republicans did. look at who they did not talk to. they didn't talk to michael flynn who has pled guilty to lying to the fbi about his contacts with the russians. the republicans themselves admitted that carter page was not forthcoming about this bizarre meeting he had as a campaign operative with the russians in june 2016 and they didn't subpoena telephone records from donald trump jr. about this bizarre call that he gets when he's plotting this meeting with the russian lawyer, two calls to the russians in

between a mysterious call from a blocked number. we know that president trump's home had a blocked number. joy, if president trump knew about this meeting with the russians before it happened, he's implicated in collusion. so this report far from exxon rating him digs him in deeper. >> wow. and i want to play a little bit for those of you who missed this epic donald trump call-in interview to fox and friends on thursday, let me play a little bit of it. he has gone back to -- fallen back on the idea that the problem is not any of these meetings or anything that was done, it's the fbi. take a listen. >> you look at the corruption at the top of the fbi, it's a disgrace. and our justice department which i try and stay away from, but at some point i won't. our justice department should be looking at that kind of stuff, not the nonsense of collusion with russia. there is no collusion with me and russia. and everyone knows it. >> jason, he says everyone knows

t i wonder as a communications matter donald trump really never addresses the direct issue of his son in this meeting that i have heard, he goes around it and doesn't address it. what do you make of this as a push-back strategy on his part? >> it's ridiculous. does anyone watching, does anyone here actually think that don jr. has the intelligence and agency to do this sort of thing without his father knowing? i don't. it's highly unlikely that he planned this entire meeting separately from his father. he was part of the campaign. whenever trump gets on the air and he calls fox news and goes on this crazy rants where he says there is no collusion he's essentially saying there was cooperation and partnership and quid pro quo and communication, but it's not collusion. it's all essentially collusion at this point. whether or not he is that mysterious third call or not, it always seemed unlikely to me that that meeting could occur in that building with his son who was a key part of the campaign and president -- or candidate trump and now president trump never had any idea what it was about and didn't know that the

meeting was happening. >> i guess that is what's so difficult for people to believe, that he would act in this sort of vacuum. i wanted to just shift with you, jonathan, to -- so on the house side you have the house intelligence community which has been clear that their goal is to exonerate donald trump and that was where they were going all along. on the senate judiciary committee they have passed through at least the committee a bill to try to protect the investigation, protect bob mueller, the legislation comes as trump continues to -- to advance legislation -- this is per nbc news -- that is designed to make it more difficult for any president to dismiss a special counsel which is a signal to trump amid the ongoing russia probe, giving us the voice from washington, does this have a chance of passing? >> no. >> what do you make of the fact that it's even being put through. >> okay. so the keyword in what you just read is "signal." the senate -- or at least the committee is sending a signal to president trump that if you do this we will not be happy. the problem is senate majority

leader mitch mcconnell. he is already on record as saying, well, i don't see a need to do anything about this. you have to get it to the floor and have it pass the entire senate. big hurdle number one. if that hurdle is cleared, then it has to go to the house. >> right. >> where, you know, team devin nunez is around and you have speaker ryan who is firing chaplains, is he going to put that bill to the floor? let's say if that hurdle is cleared and then they go to conference and that hurdle is cleared and a bill goes to pennsylvania avenue, you know, in the schoolhouse rock version, rest in peace, man who did schoolhouse rock, it goes on the president's desk. president trump is not going to sign it. this is the equivalent of republicans constantly trying to pass the repeal of obamacare thinking that if they pass it and got it to president obama's desk that he would actually sign it. he wasn't going to sign that and a president trump is not going to sign this. >> and to your very point, and i will come back to you, sara, on this, mitch mcconnell the senate

majority leader has already made it pretty clear. he said he won't allow the full clahamber to vote on this bill saying in an interview we will not be having this on the floor of the senate. i mean, you have a full-court press here by republicans, even if one or two committees signals they do believe the investigation should go forward, it's pretty clear that the senate and house are to jonathan's point protecting trump. >> they are absolutely abdicating their duty to the american public which is to bring forward the truth of this investigation, to hold officials accountable. they have no interest in protecting mueller, they are only interested in protecting themselves and it's an abomination. we are now about two years into this. one of the reasons they are dragging this out and in addition to their own self-interest is because the exact same problems remain, they remained here for 2018 election, remained here for the 2020 elections. this he do not want these problems addressed. they want to consolidate power so they can try to remain immune from investigation, immune from

prosecution and immune from cons request ens. >> i wonder, jason, if you can give us some sense of what you think the motive here is. because we keep hearing behind the scenes that republicans behind the scenes are complaining about trump, you have people giving off-colored comments to erick erickson behind the scenes saying how much he a nous them but they are really in a full-court press to protect him. what could be the motive for that? >> because he is in power and because at the end of the day that is all the republican party has cared about. they care about winning. all they want to do is win. mitch mcconnell recognizes that. it's not because they necessarily think that trump is the best campaigner, it's not because they necessarily think that trump is a reliable partner in their goal to inn with, it's because they believe as long as they control as many branches of government as possible that they can get through tax cuts, get through the kind of plans that they want. i also want to mention this because i think this is really key, this is a long line and when we tell the history of the russia investigation 30 years from now i hope he will be roundly condemned for this. mitch mcconnell not only stymied

a joint statement that president obama wanted to do back in 2016 about russian investigations, but he is now standing there saying we are not going to protect mueller because i don't see any reason why he is under threat when the president every other weekend says i can't wait until i fire mueller, i want you guys to let me do this. mitch mcconnell has said that the power of the republican party is more important to him than the integrity of the united states. >> paul, that brings me back to you. there have been a few articles that say in theory mueller could issue a sealed indictment against the president of the united states. you still have the state of new york where the attorney general seems tok circling around people in the trump orbit, who knows how high that would go. if congress won't do anything about this, this mueller were to land in their lap a set of crimes that he found in theory, and congress won't do anything about it, then what? >> i mean, in theory there is a long statute of limitations for some of these crimes at least five years. at least some point if trump is not in office in five years a

prosecutor could indict him. here is what's so troubling about what the republicans are doing, remember, this investigation is about art democracy and whether the trump campaign worked with the russians to try to steal the election and so now the republicans say, well, there's rules in the department of justice about the special counsel only being fired for good cause. that's kind of like an employee handbook. what the proposed bill would do would give the special counsel the force of law which would mean that he could not be fired without good cause, if he did that would be a violation of u.s. law. at the of the day, again, this isn't about partisan politics, this is about the rule of law and the strength of our democracy. >> jonathan, jason and sara will be back. thank you very much, paul butler. appreciate that clarity. up next an update on trump's very best people. stay with us. it took guts to start my business. but as it grew bigger and bigger,

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doctor, is one of the finest men that i've met over the last long period of time. high quality. >> white house doctor rear admiral ronny jackson withdrew from consideration as secretary of veterans' affairs on thursday amid allegations that he drank excessively on the job and oversaw a hostile working environment in the white house

medical office. jackson maintains the allegations are false as does the president. >> i called him today, i said in a certain way you are in a very big way you are an american hero because you've exposed a system for some horrible things. i have had it happen to me with the russian collusion hoax. it's a hoax. but i came into the job understanding that things happen. he didn't. he's a great doctor, a great admiral. he didn't really think a thing like this could happen and i think it's a disgrace. >> jackson's withdrawal the 24th failed nomination of the trump administration capped a week that also saw epa chief scott pruitt go to congress to deny mounting ethics allegations and acting chief of the consumer financial protection bureau mick mulvaney admit that as a congress he only listened to lobbyists if they contributed to

his campaigns. jonathan and jason are back with me and joining me is tara and jimmy williams. jimmy, you are at a disadvantage because you are not here at the table. i will go to you on this first. this is a weird story for a lot of us. we were talking at the table that as far as we knew from obama administration people when, you know, ronny jackson first stirred up controversy by saying trump was healthy as a horse the head scratching comments you got from obama -- he was very well liked during the obama era. all of these allegations really did sort of strike a lot of people as odd. trump was tweeting this morning that john tester, the senator who put all these things out, should resign because as he said the things are proving false, the secret service is unable to confirm or deny any of the phoney democrat charges that have devastated this wonderful jackson family. does this strike you as weird? >> i think if that's the case then the president of the united states should renominate ronny jackson. if all of these things are simply untrue and completely

fabricated and made it by those awful terrible liberal democrats, then president trump should renominate admiral jackson for the position and have admiral jackson go before the veterans' affairs committee and the full united states senate and make his case if he is so innocent and if he is moz al to have, he can become the next va secretary. i want to put this in context. from 1867 until 1993 not a single president had to withdraw a nomination. not until bill clinton became president and two of his first picks for attorney general had to withdraw because they hired undocumented workers for nannies. then you go to george bush, two of his nominees had to withdraw. then you get to barack obama, remember tom daschle? remember the former senate majority leader had to withdraw his nomination for hhs secretary because he didn't pay taxes on his driver. oh, my god. and here we are having a conversation about whether or

not an admiral drinks or doesn't drink on the job. if, in fact, you are qualified, what are you scared of? go before the united states senate and tell them your story. let the investigators and the senate staff do their jobs and if you're qualified you'll win. if you aren't, you won't. this is not some sort of new political idea. >> it's very interesting. terry, just to make it button up all the ironies one of those nominees that had to withdraw was kim ba wood now the federal judge overseeing the stormy daniels case. give me your came on this because is donald trump -- you know the man -- is he the type of person that would do what j i'm gee williams just said. if he really believes in him and he is out tweeting in ronny jacks jackson's favor, he declared him the healthiest president ever and has helped him out, is he the kind of guy who would double down and say i'm renominating this guy? >> i think it depends. the problem for him is that he has so many fires going on in

his administration it's literally a frat house right now. so there's scott pruitt over here, he is on fire, they have, you know -- there's zinke who no one is talking about, ryan zincy and all of his issues. there's all these fires. he has to pick and choose who he can double down on and right now he has decided that he's going to double down on corrupt scott pruitt because he is effectively carrying out his agenda of a lougd excluders to run free across the united states. because of that he has decided that's why where he's going to expend the capital. he understands that even trump understands that he only has a certain amount of capital to expend so which fire, which dumpster fire do i allow to continue to blaze? >> i choose to choose the dumpster fire that is the phone booth. the scott pruitt phone booth story is my favorite donald trump era story. this is scott pruitt answering a question by representative tony cardonis about his infamous super secure like superman phone booth that he had installed in

his office for $43,000. take a listen. >> i did have a phone call that came in of a sensitive nature and i did not have access to secured communication. i gave direction to my staff to address that and a out of that came a $43,000 expenditure that i did not approve. that is something that -- >> so you are not taking responsibility for the $43,000 that was spent in your office, you're saying that staff did it without your knowledge? >> career individuals at the agency took that process through and signed off on it all the way through. >> i'm going to hold jimmy williams back who used to be staff because i know he's probably going to be jumping out of his skin that staff is being blamed. what do you make of the pruitt staff did it dense? >> that is so lame. he didn't just say staff, he said career staff. >> the career people, the obama -- >> he blamed it on the people who have been there and will be there long after he's gone. >> right. >> that's lame, it's trifle and it's all those things -- you know, to go back to ronny

jackson, dr. ronny jackson, the keyword is qualified. i've talked to obama era people, they loved him. everybody loved ronny jackson but there was something kind of strange about the controversy being whipped up. when senator tester came out and said, well, you know, he handed out pills and he was called the candy man. look, from what i know from presidential travel and talk to people who have actually done t i have not actually done t but those long haul overseas flights, you better believe that they hand out ambien and other things to make sure that people are awake or can sleep and can do their jobs. when that came out i thought, this is -- this is odd. this doesn't make sense. so to jimmy's point if ronny jackson -- if dr. jackson is qualified, if he is indeed the person who should be the head of the va, president trump should renominate him but he's not because those same people who love dr. ronny jackson are also

the same people who are telling me, well, he has no business running an agency. >> right. it is complicated, jason, because you have the wash post coming out and saying that the white house and secret service have denied some of the allegations against dr. jackson, the white house has said there is no evidence that he wrecked a vehicle, for instance, as the president's physician, the white house on friday said officials conducted a thorough review of ronny jackson's vehicle records, found three minor incidents, no evidence that he wrecked a car. the secret service also said there is no evidence of an incident where the secret service has to intervene when jackson was banging on a female official's owe tell room in an overseas trip. if it's not 100% clear, whereas the pruitt phone booth is real, it's a real crazy phone booth, i mean, what does the white house do at this point? >> in the case of scott pruitt, this guy is going to trips, he has hotel rooms, he obviously shops at the same places ben

cars carson $40,000 phone booths -- here is the thing, several people said this and i agree, if i am ronny jackson i am going to defend myself. you've got people out there basically saying i'm dr. feelgood and i'm handing out pills to everybody on campus. that literally -- that's not just a problem as far as him getting this nomination, but you can lose your license for that as a doctor if that kind of accusation is out there. so i think it's strange that he's not choosing to defend himself against these kinds of allegations, but i will also say this, and this goes back to sort of our overall theme of what this means about this administration, it's all about our president. it's all about his lack of vetting. it's all about the fact that he picks people for positions because he likes them and at the end of the day when they get in trouble what did he say? he always brings it back to himself. he's like this is the same thing as russia. trump is the guy who visits you in the hospital and talks about his bad day. every single time one of these things happens it's an indicator of his own failure to be a good executive. >> jimmy, i know you've been champing at the bit to defending the staff in the deep states. go for it.

>> i guess my theory on this is as a former senate staffer i did everything i ever possibly could to make sure that the information i gave to my boss, my senator was right on, it was spot on. okay? if i ever didn't, then -- which i never did, but if i ever had done that i would have taken the blame for that. do you know who would have taken the public blame, the senator would have because it starts at the top. that's the entire point of someone being called the honorable and me just being a staffer. don't blame your staff, blame your own incompetence and ineptitude and i would say exactly the same thing about george bush's two nominees that withdrew, blame george bush and the same thing for barack obama and the same thing for bill clinton. you are the president, own your junk and stop claiming staff. that's a woosified way of doing it. >> sticking around jason johnson we will release you to go and have the rest of your saturday. coming up, nerds go to prom as trump finally finds a cool

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coming up on "a.m. joy," kanye west, donald trump and dragon energy. stay with us. any object. any surface.

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i have known kanye a little bit and i get along with kanye. looks and he sees black unemployment at the lowest it's been in the history of our country. okay? he sees hispanic unemployment at the lowest it's been in the history of our country. he sees, by the way, female unemployment, women, unemployment the lowest it's

been in now almost 19 years. he sees that stuff and he's smart and he says, do you know what, trump is doing a much better job than the democrats did. >> donald trump is basking in the glow of one -- one celebrity's acceptance. the same week that he is skipping a big celebrity draw, the white house correspondence dinner that features an annual parade of a-listers, journalists and politicians. in a campaign fundraising e-mail trump explained his no show saying why would i want to be stuck in a room with fake news liberals who hate me. instead he will be hosting a campaign rally in michigan. joining the table is taray host of the podcast the taray show which is darn good. i have to come to you first because this kanye thing i think it feels weird, he dropped a new single of course -- >> two last night. >> two last night. >> one was completely jibberish.

>> one was jibberish. >> i mean, not like we don't know what you mean, like you're using nonsense words. >> then the other one he has a lyric that says i know obama was seven sent, but ever since trump won it proved that i can be president. we can play it. let's play it. >> i know obama was heaven sent, but ever since trump won it proved that i could be president. i feel an obligation to show people new ideas and if you want to hear them here go two right here. make america great gaen had a negative reception i took it, rocked it, gave it a new direction. >> so that tells me that this -- i mean, he tweeted -- >> i wish he had an obligation to stay on the beat. that would be great. if he could just start there. that was the worst rhyme pattern i have ever heard. >> do you think that this feels calculated. he tweets you don't have to agree with trump but the mob can't me not love him. we both have dragon energy.

he is my brother. he's going love bombed by the right who said shut up and sing. was this sal collated? was this all because he's dropping a single about trump? >> i mean, sure, it's calculated in like let's get some attention but i'm trying to unpack what he really believes. he is no the saying he believes any of trump's actual ideas, but he likes his persona, he likes the way that he can be rude and egotistical in public and that co-signs kanye's way of being rude and egotistical in public. in the song he talks about that he has transformed maga. it's not that easy to transform a symbol. because kanye puts on a mag doesn't make the hat different. there is no empathy in maga. it's cold hearted and hateful towards us. it's not about him being a free thinker, it's about him free thinking his way to an ideology and cosigning an ideology that is hateful and hostile towards

us his fans. what are you doing? >> what is he doing? we were having a sort of behind the scenes on this and you had an interesting thought on what he might be doing and why. >> i think he was triggered by kendrick lamar getting the pulitzer prize. kanye sees himself as this great intellectual, as this creative genius, as this person that has brought the social commentary to the fore. i think that there is a few things going on here. i think that triggered him, but i also think this was prem premeditat premeditated. if you look at the lyrics he was planning some media blitz around this whole make america great and trump. this is not his first foray with trump, he did it when he had the blond hair and met with trump at trump tower. i think kanye is similar to trump in many ways. i think he tries to master manipulate the media in order to make himself more relevant. in recent times he is not as relevant as he used to be. >> manipulating the media is not the problem, right? trump manipulated the media on

behalf of white supremacy is the problem. >> that's a huge problem. >> so that point, though, you have jay-z winning a peabody award for his excellent series on the horrors of imprisonment -- teenagers being imprisoned in new york and working on films and art installations and being celebrated, of course, being mr. bey doesn't hurt, either. >> i shouldn't have said that. i am a huge jay-z fan. you do have jay-z, super -- you have kendrick who just won a pulitzer. >> it has a whole "dancing with the stars" feel to it compared to what you just talked b jay-z is lauded as a visionary and looked at in a very respectable and respectful way and here you have kanye west, the blond hair, blue contacts standing in that gilded lobby with donald trump. my first thought was when he sent out those tweets was when

is that album coming out. and then i just found out from you guys that two songs just dropped. look, i think if president trump -- because there is word apparently that president trump wants to be kanye west over, all you have to do is say something nice about the president and you get invited over. here is what i would say, mr. president, if you're going to invite someone to dinner, someone black to dinner, at the white house, how about you invite james shaw jr., the waffle house hero, a man who has shown more compassion, more humility, more -- what's the word i'm looking for -- courage, also more empathy. this is a man who saved lives, set up a go fund me page for the benefit of the survivors and then the family of the slain who is paying for the funerals of the slain. that man, james shaw jr. has

shown more grit and courage -- >> he is an american hero. >> americanness than the president of the united states. i wish the president spent more time -- he hasn't even tweeted about him, hasn't even talked about him. that's what i think the president should be spending his time on. that's who i think he should be having dinner with, not kanye west who is in this bid for relevance. >> jimmy, i'm old enough to remember when the right went absolutely, you know -- they went off the rails angry that when president barack obama had common to the white house, the idea that he would have rappers over to the white house was a terrible idea. the idea that lebron james would talk about politics was meant with shut up and sing. now all of a sudden the right is -- they could not be more giddy, they are giddy that donald trump is friendly with kanye west and that kanye west loves him. >> welcome to the civil rights era of the gop. how new it is. look, i want to be remarkably clear about something. i had to look up who kanye west is.

i'm sorry, i don't -- i don't know his music or anything, apparently he's married to someone famous, too. >> kim kardashian. catch up, jimmy. >> he's messing with us. >> let me be clear about something, as the only white person on this panel i don't care what kanye west thinks or if he agrees with donald trump, that is his first amendment right which i will defend until his dying days. good. what i do care about is how donald trump treats african-americans and black americans and people of color. if kanye west is blind to that that's kanye west's blindness not mine. i think it would be smarter if the president would like to have african-american celebrities behind him with him standing near him, he does exactly what jonathan said which is bring an actual hero up as opposed to someone who thinks they are a hero. >> i have to come to you on this because i don't know how much people are conversant -- jimmy said he is no the conversant with kanye but i'm con vest ant with hip hop's long time

relationship with donald trump. he has been a fixture in the lyrics of songs, i think it was 266 times his name was-referenced over the years. trump used to open up mar-a-lago to the puffy he is and russell simmons of the world. he used to dove tail with tip hop. it's ironic that he has been dropped by hip hop except kanye. what is this about? >> i mean, you know, until recently we were not fully clear how deeply white supremacist and racist he is. i mean, when he was just this new york tabloid figure it was fun. i remember a video from tupac from like the '90s saying like, yeah, i want to be like trump but he only means i want to be rich and be my own person and not follow anybody's rules, but now this modern white supremacist trump, this is not something that we can casually support. and kanye is giving comfort to somebody whose policies and whose ideas are hostile to us

and aggressively hostile. to say nothing of the other conservative pundit who he has lauded who he has given a cosign to now, she will be on fox news all the time. kanye has used the fame that we have given him to support somebody who is aggressively against us. what are we to make of that? how are we to continue to support kanye without going, but who do you support? >> maybe -- i don't know. he could find a brand-new audience. the right is over the moon, so happy to have him, right? now he has a whole new fan base. >> good luck with that. >> among trump supporters, rice? >> no, they don't. no, they don't. they don't. no, they don't have a whole new fan base. he does not. they don't know who he is. >> that's true. they are not going to make his new album platinum. they are not going to go concerts. >> he is one lyric away from losing them anyway. >> i remember when he criticized taylor swift and said beyoncé was more talented than taylor swift and i remember the right went nuts. they are apoplectic when he did that. so if he says something like

chance the rapper who came out and sort of supported kanye and now he's issued this response explaining that he was supporting kanye not supporting trump, now all of these people who followed him on twitter because they thought he was aligned with kanye and aligned with trump, all these people in the right have unfollowed him and are attacking him. if kanye says anything that runs afoul of the agenda that the right has, then they are going to back away from him. >> thank you jonathan, tara and taray and jimmy williams. coming up at the top of the hour, new reports that donald trump is considering making his chief of staff john kelly, wait for it, the next secretary of veterans' affairs. that would be his third job in this administration. that would be interesting. up next, more "a.m. joy." [ doorbell rings ] janice, mom told me you bought a house. okay. [ buttons clicking ] [ camera shutter clicks ] so, now that you have a house, you can use homequote explorer. quiet. i'm blasting my quads. janice, look.

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today is a good day to make a plan for your financial goals and your everyday ones too. pnc can help. we'll be with you every step of the way. let's start today. you were sort of there first. you were visiting the places and writing about things like the failure of institution. and increasing paranoia and media bias. in a way predicting that there was fertile ground for a candidate like donald trump. >> uh-huh. >> do you take any solace in the fact that you called this. >> no, not really. >> no solace, okay. >> when i'm in demand, my areas

of expertise are in demand, you know america's in bad shape. >> absolutely. sarah stopped by late night with seth meyers to discuss her next book. sarah is back with me to discuss her book, "the view from hierarchy." i have the book here. let's go through what you talk about, you sort of break up all of these different essays that talk about the conditions that led to trump. i want to start with the rise to demagogue. you write, it is easy when people feel frightened and abanned for a demagogue to exploit those feels of despair. what is it that you write about in this book were afraid about that donald trump was able to

exploit? >> i think people in america were suffering from general weakened institutions and erosion of social trust. especially socioeconomic despair. the flyover country, where i live in st. louis, missouri, but it really described the sense of abandonment that the entire nation was experiencing. and what trump is fortunately very talented at is tapping into people's pain. is tapping into people's prejudice, and exploiting that for political gain. from the minute he launched his campaign, targeting mexicans, denigrating people, i was worried where that was going to go. i felt the country was in a lot of pain that hadn't been dealt with in a political way, that he was going to be able to find that useful for himself. >> there's a new study out in "the new york times" that trump people driven by fear of losing status not by economic anxiety. this is the latest study out of

harvard university that talks about the fact it's really the sense of white americans that felt they were losing social status. you talked about the post employment economy, people not feeling secure. how much of this was really about racial anxiety. >> a lot of it was about racial anxiety. everyone was feeling economic pain. everybody had felt that stability. you see more people working temp jobs, more people getting wage, unable to pay their bills but you don't see all of those people voting for donald trump. i don't think the trump voters are mon o i don't think the trump voters are mon monolith. i heard all sorts of different enthusiasms, different reasons, some were gop. what they had in common, they were white. his voting base is white. people who were suffering economically, black voters, latino voters had a lot of the same problems of people who voted for trump yet did not vote for him.

they did not tolerate that kind of xenophobia, racism, in part because they were his targets. >> and you write in the introduction that this is the view from other country, from flyover country, the places and people often ignored. two years later, we are still ignored. the midwest in decline for decades still suffers proportionately. why if people change, do people not change their minds about trump? >> i think some people have changed their minds. i've certainly talked to trump voters who have changed their minds. it doesn't mean they're going to vote for the democrats. they're frustrated. i do think racial resentment played a role. but people who wanted jobs. most of all, paradoxically, they wanted stability to see the future again. and trump has not brought them that. he has brought them chaos, volatility.

even people i know who don't necessarily regret their vote. they're not pleasedthey don't like the aspect of it. is this is what i said from the start, trump is good for nobody but trump and his family. he has no interest for people in the midwest. he never has. and all he's done is bankrupt them like he did in gary, indiana, for example, so it's a completely superficial interest. i feel sorry for everybody who lives out here. i feel sorry for those who voted for him. i feel more sorry for those who didn't. >> the book, congratulations on the book, i highly recommend reading in general. thanks so much. >> thanks. >> more after the break. it took guts to start my business.

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show me the billboard music awards. the billboard music awards knows how to party. [ cheering ] what up, dog? show me top artist. unbelieveable. i've got my whole family up here.

look at my dad looking all sharp. with just the sound of your voice, xfinity x1 gives you a front row seat to the billboard music awards, including throwback clips from some of your favorite artists. the 2018 billboard music awards, sunday, may 20th. only on nbc. that's our show for today. "am joy" will be back tomorrow. our lovely intern is leaving. we'll miss you. i love you. >> i love you, too. >> thank you. feel better, miles. alex witt is up next. >> she doesn't even wear makeup. >> it's youth my friend. good day to all of you. i'm alex witt here. first the president