further incriminating himself, he sat down at the defense table, and he's having a blast. >> here he is in court. yeah. looks like trump now has resting mugshot face. >> trump isn't the only one getting clowned, though. the comedians also went after the fired former speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy. >> kevin mccarthy has been removed as speaker of the house. yeah, nine months. even aaron rodgers is like, damn, that was fast. >> do you know how much you have to suck to get aoc and matt gaetz on the same side of something? he will not run for speaker again, which surprised a lot of people, including me. he's a republican. you lose the vote, you just say you won the vote. >> kevin, congratulations. you made history. wait, wait. i'm sorry. i misread that. >> they're back on the stage, and they didn't miss a beat.

thanks to you for not missing this beat. that does it for me. "the reidout" with joy reid is up next. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> and if the republicans decide that jim jordan should be the speaker of the house, there will, and by the way, i don't think that's going to happen. i think he'll lose, but if they were to decide that, there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected republicans could be counted on to defend the constitution. >> liz cheney speaking the truth about the republican leadership crisis. which an esteemed professor who joins me tonight says should be setting off alarm bells that democracy is in trouble. even trump is being talked about as a potential speaker. plus, trump's renewed push to delay, delay, delay,

including a heavy dose of whining about being unable to access all of the highly classified documents. that he used to have stashed in his insecure bathroom at mar-a-lago. and we begin tonight with the power of eight. eight republicans, that is. the band of eight who rejected kevin mccarthy going against hundreds of their fellow republicans, all of whom voted to keep the speaker in place. which means eight people can take over an entire institution. pulling the plug on the house doing its job. there's been a lot of chaos this week, hand wringing, and in-fighting, and it's a scene we should be really worried about. daniel ziblack told "the washington post," quote f you want to know what it looks like when democracy is in trouble, this is what it looks like. it should set off alarm bells that something is not right.

he's a professor of government at harvard. he knows a thing or two about what this work entails. emphasis on the word work. this is work. they don't call it public service for nothing. but voters keep electing people who cannot do the job. which is weird, right? because these are the people elected to make crucial decisions about health care, your child's education, food safety, roads, bridges, and jobs. it's nose to the grindstone work. not everyone is built for it. many people have hired or chosen people to do far less. think about it. would you trust this person to run a small business in your neighborhood? >> criminals are going to be criminals. somebody wants to take you out and doesn't mind losing their life, there's not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it. >> would you trust this person to watch your kids? >> he's the one who is robbing hard-working americans to pay

for karen's daughter's degree and lesbian dance theory. >> would you even talk to this person about the weather? >> with due respect, sir, the farmers in my district recognize climate change as summer, winter, spring, and fall. >> what about letting these people make rules and set the budget for you and your family? >> now we have nancy pelosi's gazpacho police spying on members of congress. >> be honest, you wouldn't hire any of these people to work for your business. do anything for your family, in your house, rummaging through your paperwork or near you kids. because that would be a horrible idea. unproductive, risky, even dangerous. so why are so many american voters hiring this quality of person to manage the $6 trillion budget of the largest economy in the world? why is one of the richest, most complex, and highly advanced

market economies on earth in the hands of painfully underqualified, unserious people? all spending must emerge from the u.s. house of representatives, per the constitution, which is why the house, the house is the one with the power to shut down the government by not agreeing to a budget. no one else in the government can do this job. but the republican party has a hiring problem, because the folks who work for them do not understand that this is a job. to them, this is just fun. it's a television show. it's entertainment. it's being famous. but it's actually none of that. it's funding the pentagon, it's managing the finances of the elderly, and making sure they can pick up their medicine. it's insuring public school kids get their breakfast and lunch at school. so to put this job in the hands of what is essentially a clown car of chaos agents feels like an american suicide. even worse, a suicide you get to watch on tv. because that is what really

matters to these people, lights, camera, spectacle. which may explain why donald trump is considering a visit to the u.s. capitol early next week. as house republicans consider who should be their next speaker. trump is ineligible for the post under the party's own rules barring anyone under indictment, but that hasn't sunk in with the party, which could also just change inrules. marjorie taylor greene tweeted, if trump becomes speaker of the house, the house chamber will be like a trump rally every day. it would be the house of maga. aka, america would descend into a pit of chaos so deep it would take a century to repair. while revealing it really is just a party for them. just a party, a circus, a rally. senate majority leader chuck schumer replied to taylor greene, quote, no thanks. we're good. we have seen a trump rally at the capitol already. touche. and that rally that we saw on january 6th, 2021, wasn't just entertainment for the bored,

angry, and unserious far right. it was an attempted coup. joining me now is tom nichols, staff writer for the atlantic, and daniel ziblack, the coauthor of the new book, tyranny of the minority. thank you for being here, both of you. i do want to go to you first, professor, because it strikes me that the era we're in is both frightening and kind of comically unserious. i spoke with a gentleman yesterday on the show who used to work for paul ryan and john boehner. i wasn't a fan of either of them, but they didn't come across as completely unserious human beings. this new batch of maga republicans are both power mad, they want to run the country, but they want to run the country for no purpose. they just want to be on the front and be on tv. i can't see anything else they want other than for, i don't know, to zero out programs for the poor. what are we facing, and talk me down if i'm too -- too freaked

out. >> well, one way of interpreting what's going on is it's a really close balance in the congress. between republicans and democrats. but we have to remember that nancy pelosi with even a narrower majority was able to hold her coalition together. and so the only way to explain what's happening now with the republican party is its extreme radicalization. the left in the democratic party knows how toplay ball, how to get politics done. the extreme right of the republican party doesn't. what we're seeing is the consequences of the radical zashz of the republican party. yes, sorry, joy, but it should frighten us. that's where i'm going to end my answer to you. >> you know, and tom, you wrote a really great article recently. i'm sorry, go ahead. >> i see less humor in it than you do. that's what i would have to say. >> i appreciate that. thank you, sir. tom, your recent piece pointed out, part of it is that people don't really know what the

government does. so at a certain point, folks just are sort of entertaining themselves to death. they don't know what the government does. this person is more entertaining. trump is funny. biden is old, trump is hilarious to me. not really understanding what the job is, but in the sense of congress, this is a $6 trillion economy. these people are in charge of divvying out the money, and they don't come in with any set of ideas they're pushing, they literally, they're like defunding ukraine is our line we're going to draw in the stand. that's like .1% of the budget. that's not causing our debt. i don't think ordinary people know that, so they think that must be the thing putting us in debt. i don't know if it's a communications problems in the part of the media. talk me down as well, or don't talk me down. what do we do about this? the republican party has half of the congress and they are that. >> i can't talk you down. when it comes to foreign aid, for example, most people in this country think that foreign aid

is between 25% and 15% of the budget. they would like to see it reduced to about 10%, not realizing it's 1%. i think your point about how people don't understand what government does is really important. because they don't connect the clown show in washington to any potential harm to themselves. they feel very insulated from it all. and they don't understand that when things start to break down, it will be like what earnest hemingway said about going bankrupt, it will be gradually and then all at once. they don't understand what it's like to have highways that are no longer maintained or checks that are no longer deposited to their accounts. or air traffic control systems that no longer function. they don't get any of that because responsible adults have always stepped in to fix the chaos behind people like this. there's a small percentage of people in elected government,

policymakers, experts, administrators, that keep the government functioning every day. so people don't think there's any real danger to themselves. and people who are running this carnival, they're insulated from this by money and power and privilege. they're not worried about what will happen if things go south. and donald trump just wants to stay out of jail. he doesn't care about whether or not the mail gets delivered. so you know, i think the word that we have been using here is unseriousness. the problem is, and i take the professor's point, it's not funny, but if you don't laugh, you'll scream. >> yeah. >> but this unseriousness paves the way to authoritarianism. it really is the road to hell because people -- they're not even committed enough to some idea that is anti-democratic. they're not committed to anything. so they kind of find themselves along this road without really

knowing how or why they got there, while everything falls apart around them. and then they'll blame everyone else for that, and that will just confirm their belief that democracy doesn't work. >> right. and there's sort of a frog in a boiling pot piece to it, daniel. i was getting obsessed today, a big "washington post" story that talks about the fact you literally have a longer life span if you live in a blue state versus a red state or a blue county versus a red county, and how red state politics, there's like a frog in a boiling pot. people who live in ohio used to have a similar life expectancy to people in california. no more, california is like the second longest life expectancy. ohio is muddling near the bottom. why? because the policies rich people in ohio that put in place that are great for them, deregulation, don't worry about the seat belt rules, we don't have to worry about water pollution. that's great for rich people, but people in ohio are dying

younger. i mean, people who live in nearby counties in pennsylvania literally live longer because of policy, the bureaucrats people call the deep state, are running the state as tom just said, and in the cases of places like mississippi and ohio and alabama, the policies that people who make money and don't care about regular people, those policies are killing people. the u.s. is the only modern country that has an eight-year gap between the life expectancy of people with college degrees and people without. that's not true anywhere else but here. what you have is people who are then angry about not being able to pay their rent and angry about not being able to make a living or dying young or their kid died at 30 of a car accident because no seat belts and they get driven to the autocrat. they think the answer is the entertainment spectacle of a donald trump who this week said the following. these are just some of his speeches. he labeled the new york attorney general a racist and a monster.

mocked paul pelosifter he was assaulted by a home intruder. called for police to shoot shoplifters on sight, and said migrants are, quote, poisoning the blood of our country. that's nazi talk, and people are applauding it and cheering it. >> it's really simple, to be a politician committed to democracy, you can't engage in that rhetoric. you can't use threats of violence to try to gain power. it's really clear overwhelming majorities of americans want gun control, overwhelming majorities of americans want to deal with the climate crisis. and presumably, overwhelming majorities of americans want to live longer. the reason we don't have the policies in place to do that is because our institutions allow for small minorities to dominate our politics. we have seen this in the house of representatives. we also see this across our political system with the electoral college, the senate, the filibuster. a whole range of institutions to prevent majorities from getting

what they want and what this means is that americans become increasingly frustrated and disillusioned from our politics and this is very dangerous for democracy. >> and then what do we do about it, tom? because you have -- it's a vicious cycle. the worse it gets, the more people double down on wanting this sort of populist trumpian politics which literally all it accomplished in trump's era was a trillion dollar tax cut for the super rich and everyone in their mind thinks they got something else. no, lots of rhetoric and anger and rage and hate, but not a lot else. but people are willing to just take that or the entertainment of a marjorie greene or a laurent boebert. they don't mind the humiliation of it. they just think it's kind of funny. i don't know what you do if a substantial share of americans are okay with that and satisfied with that, and are just going to sleep walk us into an autocracy about that. >> you ask me to talk you off the ledge and then you ask a question where i can't talk you off the ledge because i don't

think there's anything you can do about it, especially because so many people who support this authoritarian movement are older people. i mean people my age, in their 50s, 60s, 70s. they're not going to change. they're not going to change their mind. they are way too far up that tree ever to climb down. so some of this, there was a piece in the atlantic recently by someone who had been in a cult, who pointed out and said, you know, cults eventually die out because this older generation of people just won't be replaced because the kids, another way of saying the kids are all right. the generation is coming behind them are more sensible, but the question is, can we hold on to this democracy through that really dangerous period? i think the most important thing is not to become fatalistic about things like voting and about activism and about communicating with your elected representatives because i think one of the things that the far

right counts on is that this minority, because it is so vocal and active, can exercise disproportionate power. when in fact they are the minority in this country, and they know it, by the way. that's where their anger comes from. they are a minority and they know they're a minority, so i guess the best answer i can give you is to say that you have to keep the faith. you can't become fatalistic about losing to these folks because the constitution and our democracy depend on it. >> well said. well said. i'm still on a ledge, but at least i'm on here with smart people. i like being around smart people. tom and daniel, thank you both very much. i appreciated that conversation. up next on "the reidout," trump's lawyers are certainly earning the pay. with a series of developments today in the multitude of cases against the repeatedly indicted former president. "the reidout" continues after this.

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if there's one thing about donald trump that cannot be disputed it is that he never behaved in a way that could be called presidential. that hasn't stopped him from attempting to use the presidency as his get out of jail free card. today, trump filed a motion to dismiss the federal election interference case against him, claiming that he is protected by presidenimmunity. in some alternative universe, his lawyers are trying to claim his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to stay in power

were, quote, at the heart of his official responsibilities as president. meanwhile, he's behaving in literally the most unpresidential way possible in his new york civil fraud trial. continuing to level his baseless and dangerous attacks against the judge and the state attorney general. in fact, he's been screaming about everyone involved in all of his cases with the exception of one. judge aileen cannon, the judge he nominated while president, who is now overseeing the classified documents trial in florida. that trial is scheduled to gin in may of next year. but in a new filing fro trump's legal team, they'rehing her to delay that t until at least mid-november. aka, after the election. over claims they have not been given access yet to all the evidence they were promised. if you can believe it, they're up in arms about not being able to access a number of documents deemed so highly classified there isn't even a secure enough facility to view them in in the miami area. mind you, these are the same alleged documents that trump had at one point stored next to a

toilet. in mar-a-lago. joining me now is barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney and professor at the university of michigan law school. barb, let's start with the i have immunity defense. donald trump is trying to claim that trying to overturn the election was part of his official duties as president. any chance that has any shot? >> no. i think none whatsoever, joy. you know, this is one we probably could have anticipated was coming. making out some sort of constitutional claim that the president was acting at the time within his duties and is therefore immune from criminal prosecution. and that is true if someone is simply doing his job as president, he is immune from criminal charges. but as the judge found in those cases where the defendants were seeking to remove from state to federal court, like mark meadows, the chief of staff, and jeffrey clark, who was a doj official, what the judge found there is what i expect the judge

will find here, and that is they were not governing. they were campaigning. and those are two very different things. the supreme court has said when you look at whether a president has immunity, you should look at the outer periphery of his official duties. but this is so far beyond the official duties as not to be a question. he was not governing at the time. the president has no duties in the administration of state elections. and for that reason i think all of this activity is well beyond the scope of his official duties as president, and therefore, i think this motion will fail. >> it does seem like most of what trump does and the filings are just designed to delay. to put up some speechless argument that has to be litigated and they have to appeal it. it seems like this is just buying time. the one place this seems like it could work is obviously in florida because aileen cannon seems to be a pro-trump judge, at least her past history suggests she might be. this attempt to push the trial until after the election because

they can't get their hands on enough of the evidence, your thoughts on that. >> yeah, you know, this would be a really interesting test for aileen cannon. i think that she appropriately caused some to doubt her impartiality when she ruled the way she did on allowing donald trump to challenge the search warrants at mar-a-lago before any criminal charges were brought. but i don't love this idea of there are trump judges and obama judges and biden judges. i like the think judges work hard to apply the law fairly and evenly. here, i think they have to make out a case why this case can't go in march very specifically based on what they want to access, why they can't access it, how much time they really need, and be very particularly in the finding. to simply blanketly say after the election, that's good enough, is not the rigor we would expect a judge to apply to a decision like this. i fink if there's a specific reason, it needs to be extended

for 30 days, 60 days, perhaps she should extend it that amount. i don't know if they have made the case it needs to be extended past the election. >> let's go back to georgia now. so donald trump has -- oh, wait. one more before i get to that. donald trump has another argument that he wants to try to have his case dismissed, and i guess this must be the fulton county case. saying he cannot be tried, cannot be prosecuted unless he's first been impeached and convicted in the senate. his senate acquittal following his second impeachment, according to his lawyers, prevents federal prosecutors, i guess this would be the jack smith case, from bringing any criminal charges. that seems insane to me, especially since mitch mcconnell, who is the senate minority leader, said in a speech on the senate floor after he was acquitted in the january 6th impeachment, he could be prosecuted. but your thoughts.

>> yeah, if the immunity motion has a zero percent chance of prevailing, this has a less than zero percent chance of prevailing. this was a congressional decision, made by members of congress. it was an impeachment proceeding, the remedy there is removal from office and possibly banning someone from seeking office in the future. this is completely different. this is an executive branch decision. this is the power that belongs to the prosecution to have discretion of whether to file cases. there's nothing about this that creates a double jeopardy scenario, so this has a less than zero percent chance of prevailing. >> now let's go to georgia. kenneth chesebro and sidney powell are trying to get their charges dismissed. his attorneys have asked to dismuss because they claim the lead special prosecutor did not file his sworn oath of office until recently. there's some strange stuff going on here. they want their cases thrown out. rudy giuliani is suing joe biden. i just don't have enough time to

get to all of it. let's go to that. can they get their cases thrown out based on something they say the prosecute did wrong? >> not on this basis. what they're saying is they failed to investigate alternative theories that could prove their innocence. the government is required to produce exculpatory information, if they have information in their possession that tends to show that the person is not guilty or even goes to sentencing, they have an affirmative obligation to turn that over. but they don't have an obligation to chase down any cockamamie theory that might exist. the defense can do that, but that is not a basis for dismissing a case. >> okay, so let's put up really quickly, some of the people who will be testifying in the cases, those cases start october 23rd. the two that stand out is lin wood, boris epshteyn, that's going to happen. we don't have to comment on that. that's what we'll be talking about when that case starts. let's talk also about rudy giuliani.

he's lost his local attorneys. a second lawyer has left the case. so we'll put up the names. he had david wolfe and brian tevis, and john esposito. this is a problem. he doesn't have enough money left. although he has enough money to sue the president of the united states. what happens if he runs out of cash? does he end up with a public defender? is this something that could happen? >> yes, if he truly runs out of cash. before he does that, he would have to submit a financial affidavit showing his assets. so there's been reports he's got a $6 million apartment that he put up for sale in manhattan. if so, where are the proceeds of that? that needs to be used to pay his legal fees before taxpayer funds get used for legal fees. there are other assets to be explored. how much does he have in bank accounts. a judge would examine that first before deciding whether to appoint counsel that is typically given to people who are indigent or otherwise low income and can't afford it, but i think we're a long way from

rudy giuliani demonstrating that he truly lacks the assets to deserve court appointed taxpayer paid counsel. >> even if he runs out of lawyers and there's no lawyer willing to represent him. what happens then? >> that is not a basis for appointed court appointed counsel. if he can afford a lawyer, he needs to hire a lawyer. >> got to find one. >> it's his job to find one. >> get out there and get in the phone book. remember the phone book back in the day? i do. >> always somebody, joy. >> we appreciate you. and still ahead, elon musk steps up efforts to turn twitter or x or whatever you call it now into a bottomless pit of misogyny and hate with a new move targeting legitimate news sites. more on that straight ahead.

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you might not care about twitter or x or whatever elon musk calls it these days but you should care that a man who parrots anti-semites and transphobes is promoting people like ron desantis, donald trump, ronert f. kennedy jr. and tucker carlson. as one of the world's richest oligarchs, he controls a major social media platform and has turned it into a giant megaphone for xenophobic, racist, anti-semitic trolls. he's reinstated noted nazis, sex

traffickers, and white supremacists, some of whom he has personally engaged with and amplified. in fact, his willingness to engage with the most extreme voices is so toxic, he falsely accused a 22-year-old jewish man of participating in a neonazi brawl. the man was doxed and his life was threatened. he's currently suing elon musk. musk hired former nbc universal executive as ceo to give his company the patina of credibility. however, under their joint leadership, the company has seen a 50% plunge in advertising. which was twitter's main source of revenue. its value has also nose dived. musk bought the company for $44 billion. it's now worth $8 billion. instead of confronting reality, he trotted out the strategy of blaming the jews, especially the anti-defamation league, which he threatened to sue. there's a long history of far

right groups suing the adl. you wonder why musk would tank one of his toys. ben collins did some digs and discovered a possible explanation. which is tied to musk's overt anti-semitism and a plan promoted by a former trump speechwriter who was fired for his affiliation with white nationalists. joining me now is ben collins. all right, ben, give us the explanation. why did musk destroy twitter? >> so there are a lot of reasons he destroyed twitter. the way in which he did it might be tied to this guy named darren beatty. he's a former trump speechwriter. he used to write speeches for guys like stephen miller, but he was fired for speaking at a conference alongside a white nationalist. and a blog that said basically, here is the game plan. a war plan is what he calls it, within the story, for taking

down twitter. and here's what you do, if you were to do that, elon musk. first, you blame all the users for all the problems on the platform. blame what he called the blue checks, blame all the journalists for it, then once people start to flee, once you let on all the what he calls right wingers but the far right backing the platform, blame the adl. the interesting part about this is that this was texted to him, this game plan, ten days before elon bought the website. this is in a series of texts that were revealed in a lawsuit from when twitter tried to force elon to go through with the purchase of the site. so we're sort of at that end point. pretty much everything that happens within that text, within that battle plan, which he says would amount to the declaration of war against the globalist american empire, by the way, all of that stuff has happened. now we're sort of at the end of the article.

what he does to try to rebuild this thing has no value at this point, really, is anybody's guess. >> i read your piece which is great. my question is to what end? is the idea to destroy twitter and turn it into parlor or getter, which i think is the funniest name for a website. and make it just nonfunctional and have it go away and blow his $44 billion, or is it to turn it into something that stays popular but is genuflecting far right ideals? it's turned into the elon fan club. you can give him $8 and get a few extra features for it. unfortunately for him, i don't think it's as popular as he would think. he also has plans now to turn it into an everything app, sort of like in china they have apps where you can do your banking and talk to your friends and do all these things like a souped up facebook. i don't know mau many people would be comfortable giving their credit card to elon musk

at this point. now it's -- i don't know what the plan is at this point. maybe there was a better plan for transforming into something else earlier. now it's just in shambles which was sort of the point of the game plan from the beginning. >> a bank for neonazis. that will be fun. one of the things that's interesting is this piece that really talked about musk's own sort of psychology and his family, this is what it said. his grandfather was a pro apartheid anti-semitic conspiracy tort who blamed much of what bothered him on jewish financiers. his gndther wrote his tracts to raise an alarmbout what he called mind control on the radio and television, where, quote, an unconditional propaganda warfare is carried on against the white man. is there any reporting that suggests that musk himself is on some sort of crusade that is personal? he did go down to the border with a backwards cowboy hat on. is there a personal crusade here

for him, or is just he took this guy's advice and ran with it because he doesn't know better? >> there's one of his -- literally, one of his literally untold number of children is trans, and he has publicly blamed school system or like some nefarious nebulous plot, the universe, for this happening to their child, his child. he will not talk to him anymore, by the way. and that deeply affected him. you can see at the very start of those same text messages revealed in that lawsuit, he really -- he cannot come to grips with this, and he really wants to get on the board of twitter at the start, at the very least, so he could change the policy that allows trans people on the internet. that's what it's about. there was a group called the babylon b, like the onion for the far right. and you know, they posted an article that was transphobic and got banned for it. he wanted them back on the

platform. that's a big part of why he initially bought a little bit of the platform back. look, it's all part and parcel of a bigger thing. he's upset about this culture he cannot grasp and put back into a box. he thought this would allow him to sort of take over the pipeline of the news, and frankly, i think he did a little bit. i think we have done a pretty bad job covering this guy as the news because he has this spectacle of elon became the news story instead of the fact this guy who has a lot of problems took over this thing with some very spooky and sketchy ideology. >> yeah, and also now wants to get involved in our politics. apparently, he wants to back rfk jr. lots of stuff to talk about. we'll have you come back on and scare us more. scaring is caring we say on the show. thank you very much. up next, i'll be joined by nicky grimes, author of numerous books for children and young

adults about her ongoing effort to fight back against book bans. we'll be right back. (♪♪) c'mon! it's the story of your family - then and now. a story that made your name mean something. a story you're still writing. so discover your heritage. preserve your traditions. represent all that makes you, you. (♪♪) since my citi custom cash® card automatically adjusts to earn me more cash back in my top eligible category... suddenly life's feeling a little more automatic. like doors opening wherever i go...

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on racial or lgbtq topics. according to penn america, across the country, schoo book bans increased by 33% in the last school year. of the more than 3300 b bans, more than two-thirdsame from just eight states. missouri, utah, virginia, tennessee, gegi oklahoma, and west virginia, and of course, florida. in fact, more than 40% of all book bans nationally occurred in districts in florida. penn america plans to open a center in florida before the end of the year to fight back. 24 blockbuster authors have lent their support to help accelerate the effort. among them is nikki grimes, best selling poet and author of books for children and young adults. and a member of the black authors hall of fame. and nikki grimes joins me now. thank you so much for being here. it's an honor. let's talk about the penn miami florida center. $3 million have been raised for it. what will it do?

>> well, it would allow them to mobilize people on the ground. they'll be able to enact with other organizations involved in this work. because while there are so many book bans coming out of florida, the truth of the matter is, the majority are opposed to these bans. and so by being in the lion's den, as it were, pen will have an opportunity to help mobilize those on the ground who aren't aware of exactly how to go about fighting these bans. >> let me just put up a map. this is sort of where school book bans have happened by state, and of course, the darkest red is where the most book bans have >> it has been a red state phenomenon. but what have you made of the blue state pushback? because you are seeing states like illinois, new jersey, california, pushing back. are we moving to two americas when it comes to children's right to read, just as we are

moving to two americas when it comes over women's rights over their own bodies? >> i hope not. it's what it looks for. that's why it's an all hands on deck situation right now, where across the country we need to be fighting back. to put a stop to these bans >> i apologize for that, i didn't mean to interrupt you. let me put up a note of the most banned books. tony morrison all almost always appears on these lists. also gender queer. it's notable that most of the books that are banned to have to do with either race or gender, and lgbtq books are starting to pick up steam as the thing most banned. what do you make of these people sphere of children reading? your books have been banned as well. a texas lawmaker put your book among 850 books, which your -- because they say these books

might make kids feel uneasy. i thought just being a kid made you feel uneasy, but what are your thoughts? >> especially disturbing to me are the number of memoirs that are on these lists. what is the message here? we're going to disallow the true life stories of authors? to what end? we write these books in order to help readers understand that they are not alone in the world. in order to plant seeds of empathy and compassion. the books are having that kind of effect. and so we want to continue to be able to do that. i get letters from readers all the time. one who wrote from holland, pennsylvania, thanking me for bronze masquerade, which taught him that no matter how, even though we look different on the outside, we are all pretty much the same on the inside. isn't that a lesson we want all readers to alert across the country, no matter what color

they are? it's just preposterous that these books are being removed from the shelves where they belonged. school, library, public library shelves. and not only removed from young readers, but they're being removed period. so that means adults don't have access to them either. all hands on deck, as i said, across the country. >> you're absolutely right. the presumption that these books banners are making is that books about lgbtq people will make children lgbtq, it's not the books who do. and what they have this fear that it will make white kids sand. >> and if they are not lgbtq and they read these books, then they have an opportunity to develop empathy. >> yes. >> something sorely lacking in our society stays. >> you're absolutely right. >> in a sense, they need the

books even more. >> you're absolutely right. i'm gonna pop your books, specifically, that have been banned and polled four times between 2021 in 2024 in florida, one is make way for draymond daniel, and bronx masquerade, and ordinary hazards. why did you become a writer? >> oh, my gosh. because when i was young i needed these books. i didn't plan, actually, to be a children's author, as a matter of fact. i planned to write the great american novel. but i did have a story or two for young readers. once i got started i just kept going because i kept having another i.d. and another idea. it became so satisfying for me to be able to help readers like i was to find themselves, to see themselves in the pages of a book, and to find out about

worlds other than their own, to have an opportunity to, as i said, develop compassion and empathy, and come together. and, yeah, how could i not want to do. that i've had teachers tell me that bronx masquerade in particular has changed the culture of their classrooms, has allowed their students from different backgrounds to come together in a way that they hadn't before. and so whole classes, whole schools are reading these books and asking for more. these are not books that you want to throw off the shelves. quite the opposite. >> thank you for all that you do. you have so many young people, and you help, them and we're gonna fight for the right to read. we believe that on this show. we are readers on the show. it's been such an honor to talk to you, nikki grimes, thank you so much for all that you. do >> and thank you, pen america, for all you do. >> yes. for all information pen america

about's center, stand with the band. we'll be right back. right back.

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