about. just look around. this digital age we're living in, it's pretty unbelievable. problem is, not everyone's fully living in it. nobody should have to take a class or fill out a medical form on public wifi with a screen the size of your hand. home internet shouldn't be a luxury. everyone should have it and now a lot more people can. so let's go. the digital age is waiting. good evening, everyone happy holidays we begin this special edition of the "reidout" with a look back on what has been a monumental year for the democrats historic performance in the midterm elections to the january 6th

hearings, the supreme court overturning roe v. wade, the fbi raiding the home of a former president, and everything in between. 2022 has been incredibly consequential for american politics a year that has left us with a lot of questions about the future of our country, our democracy, our rights as human beings and about whether you have more of those rights if, say, you are a former president or fewer if you have a uterus and live in a red state. well, 2023 may be the yorear we get answers. we will learn who will be running for president in 2024 and who, if any, in the republican party will stand up to donald trump. though maybe don't hold your breath on that one speaking of which, we could find out if the twicism impe disgrac former president will be held accountable in a laundry list of investigations that he is under. the new year will also present the biden administration with new challenges as the president

for the first time will be faced with a split congress. democrats controlling the senate and republicans controlling the house. so what will the next two years look like for president biden in how much will the republicans petty little investigations block actual legislating from getting done and will the president make another run for the white house or will he pass the torch? joining me now is a brilliant panel, i am so excited, michael steele, msnbc political analyst, former chair of the republican national committee and host of the michael steele podcast michael bangladesh las, historian and president and ceo of voto latino i feel very sort of inadequate in this company. >> impossible. >> i will throw it out there let's start with the current president, the guy already in. president biden has a lot accomplished it was an historic midterm performance for our a first year president. if you could lay out how unusual

it is that biden comes away with a split congress rather than an overwhelmingly republican one. >> as you know, usually in a midterm election the president owns the white house two years later loses a lot of seats in congress, like 60 house seats. that's the kind of thing that happens, or eight senate seats, as happened in history such as 1994 and despite predictions of this so-called red wave, not only did it not happen, but joe biden, who is so underestimated by so many people, turns in the best midterm performance of any american president with the exception of george w. bush after 9/11, john kennedy after the missile crisis back to 1934. 88 years you have to go to find someone, fdr, who did this well. >> you know, you mentioned, michael, the huge sort of super ordernent events that caused the

midterms to go differently abortion was the event in this cycle. i never believed the red wave was coming because you can't overturn the rights of half the population and not have that impact your political party. in a way, it's mitch mcconnell's fault, not really donald trump's. >> yes, absolutely abortion. it's also coming out of the pandemic what you mentioned were crises this is america coming out of crises we had a president who understood how to govern not just from the white house but he understood the machinations of congress and the senate, how to pull the levers. he came in saying i'm going to be a bipartisan president am the people chuckled on all sides if you look at the major pieces of legislation he passed, it was a bipartisan piece done by both parties, but on the roe v. wade the republicans didn't wouldn't want to talk about this win. so they knew, their polling showed the same thing. right now what we will see with biden is what else can he do even in this split, that is he going to use his executive pen

to do execytuve actions similar to what we saw trump do recognizing that maybe not everything can pass but at least he can use it as a way to communicate his values to the american people. >> as somebody who has stewarded a winning midterm election, you know what that's like to be on the wins side, talk a little bit about, number one, the person who you stood against in that midterm, speaker pelosi, who turned over the reins to a brand-new leadership team and i would love to hear your thoughts on her tenure because you were right up opposing her in 2010 but also the republicans because i am not sure that they have learned the lessons. their lesson seems to be it's trump's fault. >> that's the easy go-to that it's trump's fault i liken it to wearing a shirt that is horribly stained and then putting on a nice clean shirt, but forgetting to take a

bath so you still smell [ laughter ] >> you still smell. >> perfect. >> a great analogy you may look different and feel different, but everybody around you is going - >> you stink. >> we smell something. [ laughter ] >> so that's where the gop is now. with respect to the former speaker, i have mad respect for her. i had known her before in my life as a lieutenant governor of maryland. >> baltimorean. >> her family is well defined as a political family in the state, and, look, the interesting thing about that period was it was never personal it was always policy and so, yeah, the bus slogan was fire pelosi, but it was really about how you would effect change and drawing people to a conversation about what kind of health care do you want? this is what we're proposing,

what we think. now, we have seen since then a lot of that went off the cliff with repeal and replace when we had nothing to replace what we intended to repeal, therefore, we couldn't even repeal it but i always admired the way she operated and, joy, you know, on this air, going back quite some time, i have always said if nancy pelosi wanted to be speaker again, nancy will be speaker again because she knows and understands the politics as well as the people. all the dustup around aoc when she got to congress, she has 4 million followers. yeah, but she only has four votes in the congress. she hasto work with nancy's house. so it's understanding who she bass in the context of history, but also in the context of the nation's governance. i enjoyed that battle. she ultimately won she got it passed. she got health care passed despite losing the house she took it on the chin.

she lost the house, lost her speakership, but still prevailed because for her it wasn't about the win politically. it was the win that she was trying to get for policy we still disagree on that, but you've got to give mad respect for hir skills and capability to get it done. >> she has the best saying in politics, sometimes you've got to be willing to take a punch and willing to throw a punch - >> and the sister can throw a punch now. >> she can. >> and just by the way, if at some point it is kevin mccarthy, we ain't got to worry about that. >> i want to talk about that in 2010 when you supervised that midterm win, it was fire pelosi. not hang pelosi. >> right. >> okay? and i think that is a quantitative or qualitative difference betweenthe republican party even then, i mean the tea party had started brewing and it was getting ugly, particularly towards president obama. but now that faction is the majority faction of the party

and now there is something even worse there. let's talk about what this looks like when that faction controls congress because, you know, kevin mccarthy, if he becomes speaker, is going to preside over a very tiny majority and he is essentially going to be owned by those people. >> totally and this is going to be a horrifying, tragic freak show this next year on the republican side of the house. you know, marjorie taylor greene some time ago gave this speech saying that she said she was joking, but she wasn't, the problem with january 6th was that it didn't succeed and the people wedging it were not harmed this is going to be one of the most powerful people on the republican side of the house of representatives. ten years ago there might have been someone like that, but she probably would have been afraid to say something like that in public plus, she wouldn't have a pubover speaker like kevin mccarthy who is going to be

doing somersaults to please her and, therefore, people like her will, in a way, be the shadow speakers. >> yeah. i mean, the thing is that, you know, donald trump's presence is sort of receding from the republican party generally except in the house of representatives where kevin mccarthy essentially has to be his pet in order to have power the tea party movement fundamentally changed the part not in a good way. it didn't change american politics in a good way t this is worse-than that. this is hang mike pence folks. >> right so michael can appreciate this point more so than most of us because it's what he does, but there is an historic arc for the republican party with respect to what we see going on now you go back to the john birch society in the late '50s/early '60s trying to infill rate the party to bring this white nationalist segregationist view of politics into the body

politic. then nixon in '68 carving out the southern strategy because that was the only way to win the south, to get back those white southern men who defected from -- >> one reason why he appointed the governor of maryland as -- >> exactly right that's how we got agnew and we know how that ended, right but then you take it further to the '80s with ronald reagan and the bargain. the party officials at the time didn't like this republican governor from california, thought he was too west and too liberal, so to prove his -- they cut the deal with the moral majority first time we put a pro-life plank in our political platform that then got us involved in a space that the fathers and mothers of the party always wanted to avoid. because it went against our libertarian instincts that now put politics in the bedroom, put the government in places it didn't need to be. so that arc continued and trump was able to find a way to not only pick at that scab and

distort the arc, the bend of that arc, but to give people the power to engage openly as michael said, you know ten years ago marjorie taylor greene would have been, sit your behind down and shut up, right we don't do that like they did with the john birch society, the political leadership stood up and said no. you don't have that piece any more and that is the most telling part, whether it's tea party, moral majority, all of those periods where you could see this grinding down at the narrative, the soul, the narrative of the gop. there were leaders who would stand up and go, no, no, no. but now -- >> it's a free for all i think the thing that michael, both michaels have made, that i love for you to dig in on because it is the changing demographics country driving this it was driving it in the '70s. it's driving it now, right so you have this rising majority that is brown and that is black,

that is asian american, and the republican party has just made a choice they are not going to try to attract it they are going to try to stress it. >> they were conscious of after they did the romney autopsy what the republican should do and in that autopsy they should reach out to the latino community, the black community, because that's how you secure the white house instead, nope, and they put it in traur and put it away, right? meantime, you have mccarthy who didn't start as that tea party guy. he was very much a mainstream republican and instead what he realized is that, oh shoot, my bread is buttered with the extreme. so what we are going to see right now with mccarthy is he knows how to do politics very well but doesn't have the pelosi policy and so as a result, he is going to be hijacked by this extreme right where they don't have policy either, but they know how to manipulate the media and they also want to do the internal machinations things that the public doesn't

understand on how address works. and those are the inner workings that everyone should be on alert. there is a reason they want to be in the ways and means committee. that is why they are struggling because that's where a lot of decisions on the governing park -- we talked about this -- happens. when you talk about the changing demographics, they recognize, just by 2024, that we're expecting close to 12 million young people to turn 18 in time for the election two-thirds are communities of color. w where is it happening? in nevada, arizona, georgia and texas. that is where the majority of the population is. and so the fact that we saw secretaries of states that were radical right defeated in the most battleground tested states speaks to not just the demographic changes, but moderate republicans and independents say i don't like that and i think that is what our hope is, recognizing that it will be a multicultural group of americans that have to keep at it because we are not in the clear yet. >> into that comes a

presidential race. just tell us how it's going to go >> take a look at it this way. after newt gingrich and the republicans won this enormous midterm victory 1994, in 1996 they helped bill clinton to get welfare reform and other moderate things that he wanted so that he could be more easily re-elected that is a big historical example that i think we will see none of this coming year >> yeah. >> instead, you will see a freak show the republican party going all over the place the possibility that if the right wing -- or the extreme right of the republican party in the house doesn't like one thing that kevin mccarthy, if he is the speaker, does, or whoever else is speaker, there will be a trapdoor with a chain. it could open at any moment. we have never seen something like that. >> pure chaos. the ms at the table tonight. my middle name is marie.

there we go. michael, maria, and michael, the michaels, we put them at the end, the ladies -- i'm an m, too. thank you all very much. really appreciate it. up next on "the reidout" you might think you know nelson mandela. the late south african freedom fighter. a new podcast is revealing what mandela was really like in his own words. "the reidout" continues after this

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this month marks nine years since the passing of nelson mandela, the south african freedom fighter, president and truly one of history's greatest citizens in a time when we are facing growing threats from domestic extremists motivated by racial and violent ideologies, mandela's voice is sorely missed not only did he unite south africa in the post-apartheid era, but got the world to tree on the moral repug nens of racism fortunately for us all, there is a chance to hear from the man himself in never before released awed tapes from rick stengel who worked alongside mandela in the writing of the memoir and bestseller "long walk to freedom. in a ten-part podcast, stengel features hours of rare recordings of himself and the beloved nobel peace prize winner >> you have to recognize that

people are produced by the mud in the society in which you live and that, therefore, they are human approximation. they have got good points, they have got weak points your duty is to work with human beings as human beings, not because you think they are angels and, therefore, once you know that this man has got this virtue and he has got this weakness you work with them and you accommodate that weakness and you try to help him overcome that weakness. >> and joining me now now is rick stengel thank you for being here this is exciting it was fun listening to some of these clips today. i don't think people understand you don't listen to the tapes. you write from your transcripts. so going back and actually having a chance to listen to him, was there anything that you relearned about this man who you came to know so well >> hi, joy

great to be with you by the way, that last passage that you heard him talking about, he was answering my question about ubuntu, which is this african idea, it's a phrase that he talks about and the archbishop talks about that we are human beings through other human beings it was very important to him in that he lived, you know, in every way. so, yes, going back and listening to it was both a wonderful and sometimes painful experience i mean, i sometimes heard my voice get high with nervousness because i was asking him a hard question but the thing about him is i felt i heard some things that i hadn't heard before, he was a little lonelier, more isolated, i am much closer to his age now than i was then. but i also heard the kind of talk about his youth and how much his upbringing influenced

him. he was raised in a royal family, raised by the king of the timbu. he always identified with those traditional roots, always called himself a country boy. i heard that more this time than i did originally >> you know, it's interesting. a few years ago when my husband and i went to south africa and you've got to see where he was incarcerated, you get the gravity of what happened to him. these are the indigenous people of south africa who had their country stolen from them and made peace with the thieves, right, and decided to live together with them, you know, mandela told you as far as he was concerned he came back out of incarceration with the same views he before he went to jail. but this guy was not, like, the postcard people make of him. he was a militant man for his people i want to play a couple count bites. one on wanting to be a symbol for african history and what he did to make that happen. >> mandela walked into court

that first morning wearing a kaross, a traditional one-shoulder cloak worn by african kings, a beaded necklace and a shoulder bracelet. suits and ties were the white man's uniform. mandela wanted to be the proud symbol of african history. >> it was to assert myself to go to a white man's court as an african wearing my own outfit and not the one that is desired by the court yes. it was an assertion of nationalism, of african nationalism. >> and, you know, it's interesting because i think people try to associate him with sort of almost being like a muppetizer, what they do to dr. king he was militant for his people what do you think the magic was that made him able to lead a country with that hard of a history?

>> so one of the things he wanted to do -- i wanted to do in the podcast is get away from this santa clausfication of nelson mandela yes, he was a, you know, handsome old white--haired man, but he was the greatest democratic revolutionary in the 20th century he was the one who, in the early -- in the late 1950s and early 1960s decided the ac, always a non-violent organization, need to break with that he said for men like gandhi or martin luther king, non-violence was a principle. for me it was a tactic when that tactic wasn't working i had to abandon it he started the armed wing of anc. he was a revolutionary thinker as you said a few minutes ago, people forget, you know, blacks in south africa were an oppressed majority, not an oppressed minority they were 85% of the population ruled by this diabolical white

supremacist philosophy called apartheid, maybe the most comprehensive form of racial oppression known in world history and all done, amazingly enough, after world war ii in 1948 that's when the nationalist party came to power. >> and it's amazing that this country has been able to go forward. one of the things that they did that a lot of countries refuse to do, tried at least to do truth and reconciliation they tried to confront the past. germany's done it. they tried to do it. mature countries do it it's a great lesson for the united states. the podcast is "mandela: the lost tapes." check it out rick stengel, thank you so much. appreciate you sharing that with us. >> thank you, joy. great to be with you. coming up next, my conversation with misty copeland on the challenges she overcame to become a ballet superstar and the influence of her mentor, the late raven wilkinson stay with us

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national debates this year was pathetically whether there be a black disney mermaid princess. well, i bet ballerina and icon misty copeland has something to say about that copeland, who made mystery as the first black woman principal dancer with american ballet

theatre has proven there can indeed be a black princess she danced the role of clara, the princess in the american ballet theatre's "the nutcracker." he has performed as juliette, firebird in the hungarian princess in swan lake. now a new book about her monitor, raven raven, the dancer who broke the color line in 1955 when she signed a contract to dance full time with the ballet demonty carlo. her obituary noted that the appearance of an african american on stage as a swan in the south could incur threats from the klu klux klan, yet her determination to overcome hatred would inspire a new generation of black ballerinas, including misty copeland herself joining me is misty copeland, a principal dancer at the american ballet theatre and author of the week "the wind at my back:resilience grace and other gifts from my men wore raven

wilkinson. you are looking fabulous >> great to be here. >> you sent me to a worm hole, my dear, because i actually was not aware of raven wilkinson, but because of this book and the chance interview today, i went into a bit of a worm hole. what remarkable woman. how did you meet and talk about her mentor ship of you >> yeah. you know, it's really unbelievable in the best and worst way that i didn't know of raven's story, you know. 11 years into my professional career, that's when i discovered who raven was. i was watching a documentary on the bailey, which is the company that brought ballet to america one of the most ballet companies of the 20th century. and watching this documentary, this black elegant woman came on to the screen, it was raven. i had no idea that there was a

black woman that danced in that company. she joined the company in 1955 and dance there had for seven years. what's really remarkable, she became a soloist, which in today's standards is rare to see a black female soloist principal dancer in elite white company. raven went on to have an amazing career in amsterdam because they are livefe was being threatenedy the kk i met her a year after discovering her story and found out she lived a block way from me on the upper west side of new york city. and we just fell in love with each other the first time we met was at the studio museum in harlem. we had a conversation between two generations of black ballerinas it was just fate like she gave me a second wind and encouraged me to see, you know, the picture beyond myself that my purpose was so much more than just my singular goal of becoming a principal dancer.

>> yeah, and by the way, people who don't know the museum of harlem, it is where magic happens. we have a picture that shows the two of you sharing an incredible moment on stage when you danced swan lake and your mentor showed up with flowers and came on stage. bach talk about that moment she went through hell at a time she was told put on pale makeup so people don't know you are black and had to flee to europe in order to pursue her career because in the south she was getting the klan storming on the buses to get her off the bus what did it mean to you when she presented you with those flowers and you had that moment with her? >> this was such a remarkable moment because the history of people who bring the ballerina at the end of the ballet flowers on to the stage is typically an usher and typically a man.

so we really fought and, me and my team, to have two black women who made such a huge impact on the ballet community and don't get noticed for it lauren anderson present immediate flowers before raven at this performance, my first "swan lake" in snnew york city. it was a passing of the torch to have a black woman of her stature who never got the opportunity to perform on that stage, the metropolitan opera house of lincoln center, this was her moment for the audience to erupt and applause when she came out and did these swan arms and it was like we were both swans in that moment the name of the book "is the wind at my back" because raven would say before every performance, let me be the wind at your back when you are on the stage. to me that had so much deeper meaning than just her being the wind at my back, but every black ballerina who didn'tet opportunities and didn't have the access that i have today and

it's because of them and they all are with me on the stage every time i'm out there and have the privilege of performing >> speak a little bit to the fact that we still have these silly arguments about whether, you know, a black girl can be a mermaid or be a swan in "swan lake." when you hear those kinds of arguments, what would you say to somebody who can't take the idea of a black mermaid or a black swan in "swan lake". >> yeah, i think it's going back to the origin of what, you know, what it is we're saying, what it is we are doing, and, you know, as an artist, as a performer, we are there to tell a story, and, you know, these stories in most of these ballets, you think about these disney characters, they are fairy tale make believe characters it's encouraging young people,

encouraging audience members to use their imaginations and be removed from the reality of their lives. why is it that we are forcing our audience members to think of these fairy tale characters in one way and putting them in a box? who is to say that a swan is only white who is to say that a princess can only be white and have blonde hair and blue eyes? to me it's such a lack of imagination and really understanding the assignment, which is to use your imagination for these fairy tale characters. >> amen. one of the best to ever do it. misty copeland, the great and wonderful misty copeland congratulations. the book is "the wind at my back." i have highly recommend it what a great christmas gift, y'all. pick it up thank you, misty always great to talk you to. >> you, too. next, the story of another american legend. one of the greatest athletes i history, bo jackson. stay with us

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at major league baseball's 1989 all-star game no star shined brighter than the legendary bo jackson here is how nbc "nightly news" described it >> in the eyes of many jackson came of age in anaheim stadium in the first inning, driving away any lingering doubts he could succeed at baseball and play football, too >> he is remarkable, and look at that one bo jackson says hello! >> crushing a monster 448-foot

home run in the first inning, jackson showed the world that only -- what only he could do. as the only all-star in both professional baseball and professional football, as an all-pro with the los angeles raiders, known on the baseball diamond for his spectacular defense, scaling walls and on the football field for overwhelming opponents with his explosive speed, jackson was also a pop culture phenomenon, starring in nike's iconic bo knows campaign, highlighting his two-sport star power just a few of bo jackson's incredible accomplishments in a career cut far too short by injury joining me is jeff pearlman, author of the book "the last folk hero: the life and myth of bo jackson." i have my copy here. thank you for being here let's go back for a minute i remember watching those bo knows ads as a kid

they were everywhere, one of the most popular ads on tv but he became a star in the era before there was like twitter and social media, right? so what do you make of the level of his stardom at the time for those who don't remember that era? >> he did things nobody else ever did like across the board, there was never a guy who was a pro bowler in football, a hall of famer in -- i mean an all-star in baseball you literally showed the footage right there of him literally running up a wall, running across a wall and running down a wall nobody's done that before. nobody's done that since he was bigger, faster, stronger. he is the greatest athlete who ever lived so the just the mythology of him is enormous. >> it's interesting because, as you say, he was a star at auburn, playing football, won the heisman trophy, he sort of racked up all of these, you know -- perhaps the great exuma athletes of all time his name is not as commonly moan

as muhammad ali or the other sort of big, big names in sports why do you suppose that is >> he kind of vanished it's the mythology of bo he wins the high man trophy, plays major league baseball plays in the nfl and in 1991 in a playoff game for the raiders he takes off in this beautiful run and heading down the sidelines a guy down the sideline grabs his leg his hip comes out and he suffers a devastating injury and by 1994 he was gone. a lot of the things were never captured on video. at auburn, he ran a 4.1340 nobody can do that literally nobody but it wasn't on video it wasn't all over twitter it wasn't all over tiktok. it's word of mouth a lot of the things that he did that are so spectacular and out of the ordinary nobody's ever seen. >> what's interesting is because he was so good at both, but really at -- in his heart a baseball player, is there a

sense for you as you go through his life that had he started off playing baseball rather than starting off playing football with all of the injuries that you just described that come with it, that he might have actually become an even more iconic baseball player >> oh, yeah. he had mickey mantle talent, mike trout talent. his first ever major league at-bat on september 2, 1986. he beat out a ground ball to second base. the scouts were clocking it. one said, i didn't get it. what did you get i didn't get it. what do you zet? he ran 3.6 seconds the second fastest recorded time for a right-handed hitter. if he 234e6r got hurt or stuck with baseball, i think we are talking about mike trout before mike trout. >> yeah. i want to reading is you are very prolific as a sports writer. you have written about a lot of athletes whose names we remember more than bo a couple of your tweets about

some other people who are well known in sports. this is what you wrote about brett favre who had a lot of issues in terms of money that he took from poor folks in mississippi and you wrote this so sincerely don't buy the book. don't take it out of the library. leave it there are so many better people worthy of your reading hours of your time. i prefer crumbs like brett favre shuffle off into the abyss you wrote this about jerry jones, who we know was part of the young men who opposed the integration of a school in arkansas he said remember when jerry jones kneeled? that was in case you are the remaining fool in doubt. he likes when the uppity blacks work for him, shut up and catch the ball, think for themselves, take stansds, no thanks. blocking black students from desegregating north little rock high school. why do you suppose some of these men get away with that because i

don't see the constant vilification of brett favre that you might expect given that scandal that, say, dogfighting has caused in the past for athletes. >> it's heartbreaking and crushing far of is a perfect example. he is from the state of mississippi. he played in this super vdivers world that is the nfl. this drives me crazy his teammates were african american guys he played with throughout his career who were brought up in low-income areas, who depended on welfare money, needed help, families, white and black, needed help for him>> for him to take mone allegedly, take money that was designated for the poorest and his home state of mississippi, which for the record is th poorest state in america, an divert it to help build --

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when we celebrate the holida season, and i get to celebrate and thank my wonderful readout team and crew. so tina, robert, pete, cam, an my amazing producers in ne york and d.c., who are in fact the greatest producers in th world, sterling brown, dj,

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good evening from new york, i' chris hayes, happy holidays an merry christmas to those of yo who celebrate. it's been an extraordinary 1 months in american life an politics the twice impeached disgrace ex president is facing multipl