Trump Completely Unravels After This Backfires

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And what that tweet really says, no need to worry. Our racism is intact. All right, joining me today is a person that I follow on social media. And he is one of my absolute favorite follows. He also is always on CNN, giving one Scott Jennings the business. And it is beautiful. Of course, I'm talking about journalist, political commentator, and best-selling author, Mr. Charles M. Blow. Charles, welcome. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. I'm so happy to have you here because I've been watching you and you do great stuff. All right, let's talk about the Blue Nami. Yes. The Bluepocalypse. Yes. It happened. Yes. And it was better than we could have ever imagined. Absolutely. You know, and, but I do think that it takes some analysis to figure out exactly what's happening here because there was a single fulcrum, which was Donald Trump. And so a lot of it was opposition to him. But there were individual lanes of people who were harmed, who coalesced around a particular set of issues. For some people, it was what was happening to immigrants. For some people, it was what was happening to Black history and to Black people in America. For some people, it was the erosion of women's rights. For some people, it was the relentless attack on trans people and trying to demonize them. For other people, it was the position of America in the world and whether or not we were entering a fascist state. And so those particular interests are still there. And I caution. I caution people not to only focus on the fulcrum, not only focus on Donald Trump, and think that everything that comes out of this will be about him as a person in particular, but some of it will be about these people realizing, I have to stand up. I do have power. We as a group do have some power. We have to exercise that individual power for this individual, very particularized need. So you just mentioned all these different groups. And I can tell you, I am an all of the above voter. I was bothered by all of the above because I think there has been a cultural rot that Republican politics have incubated long before Donald Trump came around to demonize and scapegoat people so that white rich men could fleece them more and put themselves in a more favorable position to ascend. And I really fundamentally believe that. None of us are free until all of us are free. And I think that we have to, after Donald Trump, biology at some point will take care of him, term limits and then biology, maybe in prison, who knows. But we have a cultural rot that we have to repair because of that. And I think right now you hear Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries emerging, which has kind of been interesting for me because I didn't really see them on the campaign trail at all. I didn't see them endorsing candidates. I didn't see even, I would say, these two years. I'm always like, where are the Democrats? Where are the Democrats? What are y'all doing? It's like, oh, we're writing a strongly worded letter. And I was just like, what the fuck? I mean, it was so frustrating. And I always just kind of bought in. I'm a Dem. I support the Dems. And myself and many people in my audience, millions of people in my audience have all followed a similar trajectory, which is what brought us here? What incubated this? So as we look at this. Postmortem, and it's weird to call it mortem, I would call it a post-victory, you're seeing, and I'm one of the ringleaders of this, I think we deserve better politicians than Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer to lead. They had, we know what it's like when they lead. We saw them lead the opposition for the last two years. And I'm going to give them an F on that. That was an F. They failed. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to just take. maybe a more, a softer position than you're taking. Oh, why, Charles? Right. Okay. And not on Schumer because he's very long in a tooth and I think that the Senate could use some younger blood than Schumer. There's a thing that's happening with Jeffrey Stead is different. It is the Obama thing. It is the first thing. I know. And they, and when any person's a first, first woman, first gay, first black, whatever, they don't have the privilege of legacy. They can't be as in your face as we would want them to be. And because of that, they end up not feeling satisfying sometimes. There are a lot of people who thought Obama, like, you could have done more. You could have done this. You could have put a black woman on the Supreme Court. You had a chance. You could have done it. And part of what the first is always trying to do is to make sure that they don't screw the whole thing up for everybody who has to come behind them. You know, that's part of the reason that I don't have sympathy for Clarence Thomas. You're not the first. You know, the first didn't screw it up. Did very well. Like, the fact that you're doing this because you have the privilege of not carrying the weight. And there are a lot of people who can screw up things. Eric Adams here in New York could screw up things. He could screw it up. Because he wasn't the first. He didn't have that burden of being the first. And if you screw it up, you screw it up for everybody that comes behind you. Hakeem's going to have a little bit of that. And I believe that, you know, there is a part of me that gave Obama hell. He never got over it, by the way. Never. I could tell you stories about that. And because he, I think he thought, like, you should know what's happening here. And I think, when I look back on it, and I think part of me wasn't running my critique of him through my lived experience. I knew what it felt like to be first in things, even on smaller levels. And I could have had a little bit more understanding of that for him. And so, I think that I think that people are going to be frustrated with Hakeem Jeffries. Absolutely. Now, part of that is because, maybe a genuinely held belief, he grew up here in New York a lot, his patrons are people who don't want the radical change that a lot of young Dems want. He's going to probably toe that line. And I don't know how to, where the dividing line is between his strongly held beliefs and his, the pressure he will be under just being the force, the first and not willing to screw it all up. That's a really, I thank you for that perspective. I think that's very important. And I definitely remember the conversations, because I've been a diehard political junkie forever about Obama saying, I can't come in as the first, because he had a mandate. And he's like, I can't come in and start swinging and all of this stuff. So, I appreciate that. But we have to expand it because we have a adjudicated rapist, felon, criminal in the Oval Office right now that he sicked his crowd on to try to kill Mike Pence. That white man was not safe, you know, under MAGA. And Hakeem, my problem with Hakeem is the same that's with Jeffries, I mean, with Chuckles, is that they take money from the same fascist collaborators that funded MAGA. And these political donations bother me. Furthermore, the conversation that Hakeem had with Jared Kushner, that Jared Kushner then leaked, in my opinion, that Hakeem didn't say, hey, they're calling me, they're begging me for this because they think they're going to win. It was just, Kushner. And then Hakeem was like, oh, we were just talking about affordability. And I'm like, do you expect us to believe that Jared Kushner's calling you to talk about affordability? Mister, I'm buying a private island. Mister, I have $6 billion slush fund with this guy, with that guy, Netanyahu, all these shared bank accounts, and we're wiring money back and forth. And I hear you, but I feel like we have a great bench. Like, Summer Lee could be an incredible speaker. The house. And I feel like the system that we've always deferred to. Democrats are so deferential, so incremental. The system that we've deferred to has been part of when you make a pie of all of the things that incubated this is that. And this mandate to me tells me that this is a much bigger coalition of people who want to usher out the era of prostitution politics. Prostitution politics, as you know, these politicians get paid and then they have to work for those people. And then I think he's trying to walk it back, but both of them came out and basically were like, Americans don't want people to get even. And I'm like, is Ashton Kutcher about to come in here and punk my ass? Because we all want you to get even. And it's important. Well, also, can we change the language there? It's not getting even, it's accountability. Exactly. It's rule of law. Either the law means something or it doesn't. If I look around at all the young men arrested for minor drug possession and you say, you're going to throw the book at them and these people who are trying to destroy the country and fleece it, they get away. That is a horrible message to send about the rule of law. You're basically saying that it does not apply to everyone. If you're powerful enough and rich enough, you are exempted from the law. That is not the message that we want to send to young people when we're trying to convince them that it is important that you follow the law. Yeah. And I also feel like, in tackling accountability, it helps with affordability. Those two things are intertwined. They are intimately connected to one another. And I feel like with both Hakeem and Chuck and others, but these are the two that are in the leadership positions, that the reason why you get different answers sometimes, now Hakeem's walking it back and he's like, oh no, we're going to hold everyone to account, is because he's used to having two sets of conversations. You're talking to, you know, your APAC donor or the donors from Palantir or Big Tech, and then you have to get on camera and talk to officials. And I just know from hosting this, like if Ro Khanna comes in here, there's no, what are we going to talk about? There's no questions that are off. It's ask me anything because I am for the people and I'll answer any question pertaining to my job. And when you get to the bought and paid for politicians, it's a minefield to get them on here. And you have to go through a lot of hoops. You have to talk to a bunch of different people. Bernie Sanders comes on, ask me anything. You know, he's had the same shtick forever and it's aged beautifully. So in speaking about this broadly, that there is a race issue with Hakeem. And as a person who I feel deeply indebted to the black community, because the vote that we just had, black women and black men did that, particularly black women. I mean, that's like a 95%. They show up and vote for everybody every single time and they turn out. And so I want to be a very good ally there on the one hand, but on the other hand, I can't, I can't say, oh, I have to accept all of these things from Hakeem because he would be the first black man, because I feel like too much is on the line, that there's too big of a risk. What's your take on how we manage that and be good allies? I mean, you're a black man. How do you feel about all that? Well, there are two things I want to say here. One is, Hakeem comes out of the Pelosi School of Management. He wants to be the male version of her. He wants to be able to be the person who can whip the caucus into alignment and get them to pass whatever they need to pass. Doing that requires some bending and always has. There've always been some more progressive members of that caucus who did not want to go along, who wanted a stronger position, who wanted Medicare for all and not just Obamacare, who wanted more. And Pelosi was able to figure out ways, whether it is awarding some sort of prime spot on some committee or some, you know, porked back to the local constituency, but some way to keep them all in line. Hakeem is going to want to do that. And I think, you know, some debate when the vote is made about who will be speaker will be healthy. But in the end, what Democrats will not want is a freedom caucus, a group of people who don't let the Republican agenda advance. And Hakeem is not going to want that either. Hakeem is not going to want that either. If he becomes the speaker. And so what we will have to watch for is how do they convince young, progressive, very progressive, new members of Congress, that it is better that we have a united front and get through what we can. Something is better than nothing. Rather than, you know, the ambition of your, your greatest dreams and maybe even some of your campaign promises, so many people. And so it is always dissatisfying. It, the, the, my gut wants me to say, investigate everybody and lock them all up until he pardons everybody. If you committed a crime in service of this travesty, you need to be investigated, prosecuted. And if, and if deemed so locked up, you know, my gut says, wipe all that stuff off. Hakeem: And if, and if deemed so locked up, you know, my gut says, wipe all that stuff off. Out of DC as soon as we can, whether it is with this Congress or with the next president, but like the way that the, the, the city itself has been marred by this person should be changed. Like my personal view is, is staunch. And, but I understand politics and that I know that it won't work that way and that I am bound for some disappointment and whether or not, and the question is whether or not I let what happens in the next two years impact my enthusiasm two years from now to get rid of the whole of that stain by ushering in another kind of president. Yeah. I think I want to stick with this for just a beat, because if I look at Hakeem's track record thus far, um, he didn't really whip votes the way he should have during the opposition. He, um, there was always a few rogue that went out and voted with Republicans, and he allowed that. Hakeem: And so if he came from the Nancy Pelosi, uh, school, you know, she really wielded power. I mean, I remember she stood up there and she ripped that speech right in front of Trump's face and I loved it. Right. It just, it's just in your face. And I've been very disappointed with him these last two years. And the same, same with, with Chuck Schumer. And I feel like this election is so bold. The victories are so, Texas is blue, Charles. Right. It's a trifecta. Texas is fucking blue. Last man standing there is Raphael. And I mean, the only place he has to go is Cancun and that's it. And so this is so massive. Can't we expect politicians to be bold now? I think bolder, but they do not have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and they do not have a veto proof majority in either house. So up to a point, what people are going to have to do is to use the absolute powers they have. Investigative power they absolutely have. Absolutely. Now, first of all, I cannot wait to see for these women who have been chastised, shunted to the side, to be given a chance to testify before Congress that something happened to me in the, on this Epstein Island by very powerful men and no one would let me speak and they wouldn't come to speak to us and give those women a chance to speak. And don't stop them from speaking. I don't care if it takes two years for every one of them that wants to speak. To speak. We need to hear part of what has happened is that, you know, the blinds have been pulled on all of this. There is no sunlight and Democrats absolutely have the power to do that. The second thing they absolutely have the power to do is to never approve another Supreme court justice by this president. I don't care who dies or retires or whatever done. And in fact, they may not have to do it. Uh, even if a Republican replaces him, God forbid, but, uh, they do absolutely have that power because that is now the power of the Senate and their control. So there are things that they can absolutely do. They cannot probably advance legislation over his objection unless they produce legislation that some decent number of Republicans are willing to sign on to. And there, there's some areas where that may be possible. You know, there are some reform efforts, even on, you know, um, uh, uh, lobbying reform, all that. There's some where there are some votes in there. So there, we may see some of those things, not the major things. Some of the major things may pass and get vetoed. And you, we're just going to have to say that on principle, we approve that you did that. That was the right thing to do. We didn't have the votes to overcome the veto, but it's the right thing to do to, to set forth a set of principles that this is what we believe in. Yeah. All right. Let's move along. Let's talk about, uh, Jesse waters. First of all, I'd like to announce that Fox viewers ship is down 30. Some, some reporting suggests 40%. Okay. Yeah. It's a, I mean, it's, it's bad over there. They are in the trenches taking grenades left and right. I thought you and I could hurl some more. Here's Jesse melting down after the win. Play the clip. But the coalition's totally collapsed. I mean, you lost some whites. Whites can't do that. If you're a Republican, men, Hispanics, big time. And so it's going to take a while to put the coalition back together because it was in the heartland. So what happened was so China, in order to pressure Trump in the trade war, stopped buying crops from the farmers. Oh, God, that's so gorgeous. I love that shit. He's just so we lost the whites. So as it turns out, people don't like when their grocery bills and their gas bills go up. And I also I'm going to say this younger men that they lost. Yes, they've grown up in a more diverse America. They like their multicultural society. They don't like people. People making fun. Some there's some prick kids. There's no question. But I have kids that are in college and they embrace diversity and they repudiated. But I will say this, that there were some young men, part of this manosphere, who moved towards Trump in this last election in 2024. A hundred percent. Right. And they did it. And they did it because, you know, on some level, Trump was promising to hurt other people than them. And they were perfect. They were perfectly OK with that. And what has happened in part is that they realize they are part of the pain, number one. And number two, that it is so gross to watch that pain on other people that is actually not comfortable. It's not fun. It's not something you want to be associated with or congratulate. And so that is part of what's happening with the comeback. All right. And let's talk about you mentioned trans rights earlier and the Republicans spent three hundred million dollars. On anti-trans stuff and we watched we were at Don Lemon's you and I were there at Don Lemon stream election night and our friend Peppermint stopped by. And, you know, the majority of Americans don't know a trans person because that's how few there are less than one percent. And you you hear this constantly being brought up trans people, Hassan Piker, trans people, Hassan Piker over and over and over and over again. Do you think that since this. Really had no traction, we got Kansas, we got Iowa, they called Tallarico straight up, said he was a trans person. And I mean, I think he beat Paxson like 20, was it? It was insane. Do you think that maybe that they might move on now from this? Well, they they like to have a boogeyman or a boogie person. And yeah, exactly, exactly. And this was convenient. Small. Group mysterious. Most people don't understand it. We can portray them as predators. We can portray them as hurting white girls like that's always for as long as a country has existed. Harming white women has been the most powerful weapon that oppresses could use, and they use it against black men and most of you go to the museum, most of the placards are people who were accused of. Somehow harming or flirting with or a white woman, so they realize that that was so potent men in your daughter's restroom, men playing tennis against your daughter and breaking her ankle, men taking advantage of your women that was so potent for them, it's just that it at the end of the day, I think it's important for women to know what they're doing, and I think it's important for women to know what they're doing. It's just that at the end of the day, most Americans said, but I don't know these people, and I know that they're not raising the price of these eggs, I know that's not true, right, and so it just ran out of steam, but they will always try to find something. It is a scary immigrant carrying disease, taking jobs, murdering and raping, it is, you know, for a very long time, it was a black criminal. Willie Horton gonna rape, kill the white women, like it was, they always find one scary thing that endangers a vulnerable part of their population so that they can be heroes in their hatred, and that is what they want. Thank you for connecting that for me, because you're right, that is the through line with anti-black racism and trans is that they're going to injure a white woman. What's interesting about this is that I have lived in Oklahoma for 50 years, the people who made me the least safe were Republicans, because if you get raped in Oklahoma, the rapist has more rights than you do. If you have a complicated pregnancy, you have zero rights, and then the children in rural Oklahoma can only go to school four days a week, because we're too busy giving oil and gas guys tax breaks, and we can't fully fund education. So I hope that in this big victory, that it's always been my hope that Democrats start playing more offense. So when the trans issues come up, say, number one, why are you so concerned about trans people? Well, wait, but let's stop here on this point, too. White people have never had a problem hurting themselves. They wouldn't tolerate other people hurting white people. Oh, you're so right. Right. They've never, ever minded hurting themselves. They didn't mind tenements being here. In New York City, and full of rats, and raping, and killing, and knifing, and all sorts of things, but that was white people's policies hurting other white people. That was fine, right? Where it becomes a weapon is when it is racialized. Somebody out there, we can do it to you, because you're my brother, whatever, but what? This lesser person than you? Hurting you? You have to stand with us. We are the ones, we with all the money, but because you're part of the club now, we're the whiteness club, you don't have anything. Your best interests would probably be served better being in coalition with them. But this club is stronger, because in America, whiteness is the greatest privilege. It has embedded in it a currency. You're exactly right, because I was so shocked. I'm always shocked on election day that I know people that are my kids, friends, moms, socially, you know, we're friends. I knew they were MAGA. Yes. But they'd have these beautiful daughters, and then they'd go and vote for these awful politicians, awful politicians who were denying their daughters right to healthcare. I lived in Park Slope. There was a guy. It was so few. It was so few conservatives in my neighborhood that people would say, "Oh, the Republican." And you knew what they were talking about. There was only one person that everybody knew was a Republican. It was so hard to wrap my head around, because he was the nicest human being that I had ever met. You had to move your car to the opposite side of the street in Brooklyn. He would always stand there, make sure my car didn't get a ticket. Super nice. I'm like, "What? How? How does this person do this thing that votes for a person that would place me, my children, my family, my community in harm's way?" You are personally being helpful, but your policies are really putting us in danger. And I could never marry those two images of that man. It's interesting. It's a very interesting dynamic. I don't know how to square that up. Is that New York? That was in New York. That was in Brooklyn. In the South, in the Bible Belt, and that's where my experience is, white supremacy and racism still run very supreme and are still very ubiquitous. There is an appetite among evangelical white Christians. They like recreational cruelty. They like feeling superior. They like feeling entitlement. And their Republican vote confirms that they're entitled to all of those things because the policies lay out all of those bad impulses that they have. But it would always piss me off, and I would always call them all out. I used to play pickleball in Oklahoma City with a bunch of lesbians. Lesbians are really good pickleball players, right? Okay. I didn't know this, but yes. They're very good. It's true. Lesbians know you're good at pickleball. God damn it. I just kicked my ass. Anyway. So these other ladies would go and vote with, I mean, and play with, pickleball with us. I know MAGA and, you know, would always, you'd always know, you know how you know people are watching Fox News. They bring up a litter box at a school, you know, stuff that's not happening that only Fox News, so you're like, okay, she plays Fox, she watches Fox News. Some of these lesbians were married, you know, like in lesbian marriages. And they would come up, oh, hi, honey, I love you, and hug the other lesbians. Charles, I would just steam on the inside. I would think these fucking bitches. How dare they? How do they do it? How are they capable of being so duplicitous? Because if I don't like somebody, I can't fake it. Right. If I'm going to go vote against somebody's marriage, I couldn't fake it. I couldn't go to their face and pretend. But it's, it's, that's the thing. But that's the stuff. It is. And I'm out of there. That's the stuff. I'm now in New York. Okay. Let's move along to the White House is still, I would call this, they're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic stage. That's the stage that we're at. Or in the ballroom. I interviewed Ben Mycelis and he said after in 2028, he wants the new president to live stream blowing up the ballroom. I agree. There's a part of me that believes that it should not stay there. As much money as it costs. It's got to go. I still feel like it has to go. It has to be, first of all, it definitely has to be smaller than the White House. So even if you say you need to be kept, it cannot be dwarfing. I saw a picture today, dwarfing the White House as if the White House is some sort of ancillary building. Yeah. The scale of its problem. We all know Trump is crowd sizes, big ballroom. There's a compensatory nature that Freud could probably weigh in on that. Story Daniels definitely did on Jimmy Kimmel. But I think that some of the stuff that they're doing underground of what I've read about it could be useful. Having a bunker at the White House, probably not a horrible thing. You know, having some military capacities there in case something really, really horrible happens in the world. Probably not a problem. Probably could have been done without tearing down the east wing of the White House because it's all underground. You wanted the ballroom on top of this military thing. But I think keep the military part of it underground. That the top part is, you know, superfluous. Do you think there's enough bleach in North America to disinfect that? I'm black. So we use sage. I'm walking through burning sage all in every room, picking up the drugs. I'm burning sage. We do that. You think we have enough? We have all the sage. Who makes the most sage? I don't know. Whoever grows the most sage should be rich. I don't know. I'm just saying, I think it needs to be disinfected sage, every religion, every sort of exorcism after this thing and all of that gold in the oval. And I want it all live streamed. I think that will be healing. It will heal me to watch all of the gold come down in the oval. There's a part of me, I'll get my popcorn and I will watch it and I will just think about the Maga tears. Well, you may not. You may not. They may not live stream it. I really want them to. But they will definitely do it before and after. We will definitely see them. Before and after. Live stream. It's just going to be super glue. It's going to take off the plaster. It's going to be ugly. I'm telling you, I think people will have watch parties, have a shot each time something goes down. I think it would be. If you take down that ballroom, that should be on live stream. I agree. Okay. So Stephen Chung is this guy that works for Donald Trump and runs his social media. Kylie, would you get us a visual of Mr. Chung? This is him. Hello, sir. Right. So he is the guy that trolls everybody on. On Instagram, on behalf of Donald Trump, on Twitter, on live social, you name it. So he just put out this tweet after they got their asses beat. FYI, DEI is still dead. Like he's dunking like, ooh, ooh, we're scared. This is the thing. Like that guy, he's Asian, right? Scott Besant is gay. Kash Patel is Indian. And there's some hot ass guy, black guy that works in there. I can't remember. We got his name the other day. Yeah, he's a secretary or something. But he's a black man. Oh, NFL. Very attractive. He used to be in the NFL. Yeah. But he doesn't put together the sentences very well. He doesn't. I heard him speak and I was like, oh my gosh, he was much better looking. It really is because he's a beautiful man. But nonetheless, his politics are ugly. But the tokenizing that these people. People feel in this regime. I always just like they didn't learn the Mike Pence rule. Mike Pence wasn't safe. This guy's a white Republican Christian. All the things you're supposed to be. Right. What do you think? But also DEI, that is a term of art for them to be able to say our racism is still here. They never got rid of unfair advantage, which is what they said DEI was, which is not what it was. But they. They painted DEI as ill-equipped, ill-prepared people getting advantages over people who were more prepared. So they are not against affirmative action as long as it's for white men. And what that tweet really. Really says, no need to worry. I agree with you. I have said before on the show, I feel like DEI for them is the new N-word. Yes. When they say that, that's what I hear. That's what they mean. That's what I hear. Because I know the way from where I grew up and the people I grew up around. I know the way white supremacist circles. Imagine being against diversity and inclusion. Like the very idea of it. Like if you just think about what they're saying, it's like, it's like when they. They say Antifa is a horrible thing. Imagine being against fascism, fascism, like being people against the people who are against fascism. Like that sounds crazy, but because, you know, they, they, uh, make conjunctions and euphemisms of real things that make them sound scary. For instance, even like you, when they were with El-Sayed and Muslim brotherhood, it just sounds scary because it has brotherhood like gang and Muslim, like the people who did nine 11 and it must be a horrible. Yeah. It's a horrible thing. Muslim brotherhood has existed for a hundred years. It is in 70 countries. It has been, we, it was only Trump who, you know, late last year, um, made them into a terrorist group and only in four of the 70 countries. It is a legitimate organization in, in most of the other countries, not participating even by our own state department's rules in anything untoward. So they just take these things that because of America's own racism, they know will sound scary. Oh yeah. And diversity equity includes sounds scary if you're racist. You know what I mean? You know, it does, but the brotherhood sounds scary if you're racist. Exactly. Yeah. And so they take these phrases and they say, well, this is a scary sounding one. Yeah. It's so true because so many people in Oklahoma, it's hilarious. They get the state legislature in and every single time there's a new one. And they're all just nuts. I mean, these people are crazy, whacked out, Bible thumper, whack job racist. I mean, the worst of the worst. And so of course they run for office and of course they get elected in a place like Oklahoma. And I was like, our first agenda is to, uh, ban Sharia law. And I'm like, I have to drive five miles to see a fucking black person. Do you think that there's a bunch of Muslims running around Oklahoma trying to organize and penetrate the government? And, and, and. I don't even know where a mosque is. I lived in Oklahoma for 45 years. I cannot tell you where there's a mosque, but they act like it is this huge thing and they have this huge political victory. And it's just utterly insane because in places like Oklahoma, there's still so much segregation. There is just still so much segregation. And when that's why New York city and Georgia and San Francisco and all of these other places are the antidote to every. There's just so much segregation and there's just so much discrimination and everything that Magus cares you about, because when you, if you're a white person, you live in a gated community, you listen to what Jesse Waters all the time, you think, oh my God, everybody's coming to get me. But if you live in a city, you have to cooperate with people and your neighbors with people, which is, that is a mystery about your one name, your Republican neighbor in Brooklyn, but you're more like, well, I'm not going to vote against this person. I wanted to say there may be some islands. I always describe the, the, the South as an archipelago. Like there are some islands of safety in the middle of all that darkness. I agree. Um, and you know, I grew up in an all black community and people would have all the things they would have the homophobia and then this and that, but like in most indigenous cultures around the world, when it's small, they don't know what there's no one to waste. You don't have a. body to waste. And so there were queer people, they became the hairdresser. They were the person who played the piano. They were directed the choir ever had a role. And you would walk into that church and somebody would get married. And my cousin, Larry, who was one of those queer people, we playing a piano and everybody would cheer. And it was his role in our society. I think that even, I think that that. That. Really horrible demonization did not always exist in the same capacity within my good communities that I occupied homophobia. Yes. Uh, uh, uh, intolerance of all sorts. Yes. Just not the same sort of virulent strength. It is, it is, you know, it's why, uh, Baldwin said he, he felt he had not, he, even though he had felt that he had not felt it. as much in Harlem. it was when he had come into contact with white people. Those are the people who beat him up because he was gay. Well, I, when I went to college, I went to the University of Oklahoma in 1992, and I was an atheist raised by atheist progressive parents. Look at you, in the South? In the Bible Belt. Yeah. You're an anomaly. I told you, I was a unicorn. Yeah. And so all of the people at my school, you know, have you been saved? I'm like, from what? And you're like, from you. So it's just in Wisconsin. From the dog chasing me to school. And so it was relentless, right? And I never connected with them. And I would try to go to church to fit in. I'd go home. My mother would go, Jennifer, for God's sakes, I told you those people were nuts and they're all hypocrites. And my mother's right about all of it. And so I go to college and I meet all of these gay men. Okay. And I finally found a group of friends because I was a cheerleader and all this stuff. And I just, I liked these girls, but they weren't, we never really fully connected. They never fully accepted me because I didn't technically get saved and I was going to hell and all of that became problematic in our friendship. So I go and meet all of these gay men and I just hang out with them through college. We all waited tables together. And the same people that bullied me for being an atheist, had also bullied them because atheists get bullied big time, especially in the South. You know, that's why you hardly have any politicians that are atheists because it's. Well, you don't have politicians nationally. I know some of these people are not devout Christians, but they have to put it on. They have to put it on, right. And so a lot of my friends in the 90s, and this was during the AIDS epidemic and it was still, you know, it was still roaring on and there was a major cocktail of stuff. But if you got it, you were more than likely going to die. You were just probably going to extend it. So a lot of my friends would say, I'm going to go home this weekend and I'm going to tell my parents that I'm gay. And they would have to drive it to somewhere in rural Oklahoma and they would come back to Norman, Oklahoma, where the University of Oklahoma is. And they, Charles, they would just be crying and sad and their parents had rejected them and disappointed and kind of, you know, like throw them out and they didn't know if they were going to still be in college. And it's just, I couldn't understand how, how people could be so cruel. And it just confirmed my mother saying, oh, these Christians are so full of shit. Look at how they treat each other, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, for so many in the gay community, their first bully is their parents, especially in the South. And then when I see this government bully more. It's also why gayness had to create spiritual community. My friend, Miss Lawrence, told me once, black gay men went to the club to find God. And it was, a light bulb went off because there's a lot of gospel music in black gay clubs. And I said, I never understood what that was about. And he said, because so many got kicked out of home and out of church, they went into the clubs to dance and spiritualize that experience and find community and a spiritual community in the club. It's an amazing observation. Because every weekend we would go to this club called Angles in Oklahoma City, shout out Angles. And the DJ checkers, he would DJ and we would go and dance our asses off. And it was liberating. And it was so much fun. As a straight girl going out with a bunch of gay men, they're like, girl, you look fine. We'd get our scissors out and just cut a rug all night. But it was just so much fun. And this brings me back to everything MAGA hates about America. I love the LGBTQ plus community because they were my first friends at 18 years old that understood me, that didn't judge me, that it was okay that I didn't get saved from what I never really found out. And not being afraid of change. Yes. Part of what, literally in the definition of conservatism is the maintenance rather than the changing of things. But part of it is just absolute fear of what change would look like. I am not always sure what the change will bring. And I think, and I hold myself open to the possibility that it won't always be good, but it also doesn't have to be. That you can make mistakes. You can go a little too far, but if you're willing to pull it back, if you're willing to accept that there's a possibility that I went too far in one direction, I pulled back. That's all part of growth. That's all part of how we grew up. Like you did something, you're like, oh, shouldn't have done that. I won't do that again. I learned, but that, but I continue to grow because I must grow and must change before I become who I'm going to be in the world. And that is part of what we must allow with the country. Do I understand every gender expression and what people are feeling? No. Do I have to? Absolutely not. I have to be able to be comfortable with other people making change in the world and be able to say, I don't necessarily understand it, but I respect your position and I respect your agency as a human being and your humanity enough to say, go for it. What would you like for me to call you? Like, it's so simple to be open, but there's a day, I mean, there's a little fear in there because I do also like, I don't know everything that's going on right now, but I can make, I can make peace with that. We've had trans people and non-binary guests on the show. And before I start, my millennial producers, they start in Jennifer, because I'm a Gen Xer, like she, her, she, her, or he, him. And they start over and over. Inevitably within the first two to three minutes, I botch it. And then I just say, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. And then, and then move on. Because if your heart is good, people can grant grace. And if you're not willing to grant grace, then also you're not deserving of grace. So when your heart is in the right place and you make a mistake, that's always going to happen. Eddie, I was talking to Eddie Glaude, a personal professor. He was like, you know, they're, they're all these white friends I have. They're going to make mistakes sometimes, say something crazy, but it's just because of the culture that they're raised in. It's true. Their heart is not in a negative place. It's just the human being in them. It's going to make a mistake. If I have grace, however, that I can see you and I see you trying, I have the grace to forgive that. If I have grace, I don't have that grace, then there's something wrong with me, even if I'm the person who is injured. Agree. And this is, this is something I think that's super important as we're building a coalition. There was, it could be argued that there was a backlash from uber wokeness and that shifted to Trump and that people on the far, far left are too critical. If you misstep or make a mistake. And I've seen some of that. I've seen hyper policing online of certain things. And I do think that can be off-putting, but I also think I'm kind of glad there's some people over there. You need those people because there were also people in the mainstream who were saying horrible things about those people in the left that, that defund the police was the worst thing to ever. Anybody ever said worst slogan ever. And it costs us in a 2022 midterms. They put all the blame on these young people for wanting to reassess how much money we were giving to policing. And whether or not those, that money could be used for other ways to help to intervene in places where we didn't need someone with a gun. We need somebody with, with empathy and who understood and has some training around mental health. That's what they were saying, whether or not their slogan was not the most crafted one, because it fell from the streets rather than from some marketing room and some advertising agency. Right. Fine. But when you, when you, when you try to swing so hard and you try to make a meme and you try to be on TV and make the hit, and you want to say something really inflammatory, you say things like, worst thing we have ever done, you know, that's what they say. And that hurts. And that, that is the kind of thinking that is the kind of positioning that does damage. So yes, we're some people on the, I don't know if we call them far left, whatever. These are the people who want more inclusion and maybe, maybe more or less flexible when people around people and how they deal with language around their inclusion. And I think having some flexibility, some grace is actually really important. And I think they will, they will learn that, that having that grace is important, but also the mainstream has to have some flexibility and grace and they don't have it. And they don't have it. Towards these people that are just trying to make a more inclusive space. Exactly. Because I know that I'm a 52 year old white woman. I grew up in white circles. You're just a child. A baby girl. 56. A baby girl with a little bit of a child. But you know, I know that just generationally and how I grew up, I know that sometimes my brain might say something that could be offensive to people of color. And I want to be checked on that because I want somebody to say, Jennifer, have you ever thought about it that way when you say this, or when you say that, and the same goes that I know just by nature that I was raised by boomer parents who are progressive and all of the things I know I have some internalized massage. And I want to be checked on those things because I want to be an open-minded inclusive person. And I always want to evolve. OK, last thing before we wrap, I would be remiss if we didn't go about Scott Jennings. I don't really know that man. I just appear on TV sometimes. I know. I've appeared on TV with him a couple of times too. Do y'all chat it up in the green room? No, I don't chat with anyone in the green room. No. I don't even go to the green room. I go to the cafeteria. Okay. I've been there. So you go down there, game face on. Because I'm still studying up until the time I go on TV. So I don't want to be, I don't want to chat. What about how Scott, you remember the Truman Show, the movie with Jim Carrey, how he's always, he figures out that he's on camera. So Scott Jennings, like every time I'm on with him and I haven't been on in a while because I just like, I can't do this anymore. But anyway, that's another story. But he'll, he's saying something, not for the people at the table, but for the trolls on Twitter. And then he goes, and he turns and he's looking at the camera. Please do this one time. Please, I'm begging you. Okay, what are you going to say? I want you to say, Scott, who are you looking at? Why do you keep looking at the camera? We're all sitting right here. Please, Charles. Okay, okay. First, it is a television show that is produced. So if the camera is on him and he's doing that, that is because someone in the control room says go to that camera. So this is not. No, he does this. He's like talking to you. I know, but I'm just saying, but the fact that the camera is on him and allows that to stay and let him, and do the smirk means that someone in control room says, this is something we want. Oh, I gotcha. It is a produced show. It's not, these cameras are not just randomly pointing to people. Will you do it? I'm not going to do that. Oh my gosh, Charles. This has been so fun. It's so much fun. It's so fun. Thank you for stopping by. And folks, this is furry. It's cow hide. You ever get up to the Greek? No. I was going to do like a furry wall. It was like a wall of fur. Oh, I love it. It was like this. Book direct. VoiceOptales.com.