MSNBC’s The ReidOut host Joy Reid had a pretty interesting time, as after weeks of being Jalalabad Joy for the Biden administration, she moved to a new week in which she compared Fox News personalities to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, falsely claimed the Afghan airlift was the largest in human history, and said a more apt term for conservative, evangelical Christianity is “Talibanism.”
And we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about her guests as they espoused deranged views such as insisting a strong Christian faith wasn’t real and instead a cover for authoritarianism and racism, and raged about the need for President Biden to deputize as many doctors as possible with qualified immunity to flood Texas with doctors ready to murder babies at a moments notice.
But worst of all was a Reid rant on Friday's show that accused over 70 million Americans of being “pro-death,” condones the events of January 6, doesn't care what happens to babies once they're born, likes rapists more than women, supporting climate change that will burn your house down or blow it away in a hurricane, and would like to have troops serve and die in “forever wars.”
For that truly dangerous rhetoric and venomous segment, stay tuned for Kristine Marsh's full wrap-up.
Below is a Notable Quotables-like compilation of takes from Reid and her guests, presented in no particular order.
If You’re a Conservative, Evangelical Christian, You’re Just as Bad as the Taliban
“The things that the vast majority of people want: women to have liberty — personal body liberty but between Republicans who don't respect the rules and the laws and willing to cheat and willing to do whatever it takes and now the courts being on their side and there now being a solid majority of them who want to enact hyper right-wing, basically evangel — you know, a certain evangelical rule over us which is Talibanism, right? This is our sect and you will live by our sect whether you want to be a part of it or not. That scares me.”...
“[The courts] are stacked now to essentially suborn our democracy to their very particular version of right-wing evangelical Christ — what they call Christianity and they’re going to force the rest of us to live under those rules. That's no different than Talibanism. And we're just watching it happen like it ain't happening. It's happening, guys. Wake up everybody. Democrats wake up.”
— Reid, September 3.
“[W]e have a situation in Texas right now tonight where the American Taliban, because that’s what it is — there’s not an American evangelical right-wing movement — there is an American Taliban — is weirdly similar in so many ways to the Middle Eastern Islamist terrorists.”...
“[T]here is no evangelical political movement. There is a new American Taliban, and their goal is theocracy, which means to take our religious beliefs, which for them are Old Testament law, not Christianity, and force secular Americans, non-evangelical Americans, progressive Americans, women, people of color into that box and this is not hyperbole. This is happening right now tonight in Texas. This is happening right now with the people dying of COVID, children dying of COVID, because pro-lifers have seen fit to stand against Joe Biden’s vaccine as a way to own the libs.”
— Atheist author Frank Schaeffer, September 1.
Fox News Is Like Osama bin Laden: They Want GOPers to Die While They Stay Alive
“That’s why I equate [conservative talk radio hosts] to lower level drug dealers who are getting high on their own supply because the people at Fox are in a database they have to put their name in that says they’re vaccinated. You cannot go near Tuck’ums if you’re not vaccinated. He doesn’t let you get near him because he’s not going to get sick and die. They’re at the — you know, Osama bin Laden level of telling people to blow themselves up, right? And so, but down the food chain, you do have people and, I know, listen, the supplement thing has been big in talk radio for a long time. A lot of those people are getting that stuff sent to them for free cause they’re pushing it.”
— Reid, August 30.
Conservative Parents Opposing School Boards Are “Astroturf”
“These folks would like you to believe there is some sort of organic movement on behalf of the majority of Americans, but the facts tell a very different story. These Astroturf protests have been primed by right-wing think tanks, including the Proud Boys, and even people who don’t have kids in the school where they protest. And a new Ipsos/Axios poll shows that while these twisted ravings get tons of coverage, the loudest voices do not equal majorities.”
— Reid, August 31.
To Win, Dems Need to Tell Voters GOP Want to Burn Your House Down, Rape Your Kids
“You have to fight fear with fear. Policy isn’t always going to win the day. Facts and truths are not always going to win the day....So, when we talk about issues — whether it is climate change, “hey, right now your house can be on fire, your place could be flooded, your entire livelihood could be wrecked.” We need to scare people with that. When we talk about what's going on right now with Texas, you know, and it’s like you just said: a rapist can impregnant you and that person has more rights than you do with your own body. That should be the ad that’s playing everywhere in this country right now. And here’s the thing: Republicans have to invent things. They have to lie about things to scare voters. We can just tell the truth about what’s happening. We can just tell the truth about what Republicans are doing. It’s not that hard. It’s not that complicated. Democrats need to get away from this novelty that they have that, somehow, the best policies and the best ideas are always going to win. It is not. That's not the world we live in right now....It is going to take running a sustained brand campaign against the Democratic arsonists that are the Republican party to win these elections coming up.”
— DCCC aide, former GOP staffer, and Lincoln Project flack Kurt Bardella, September 3.
The Bible Is Fine with Abortion Because It Isn’t Really Murder!
“The religious right is a powerful voting bloc in this country, shaping elections, legislation and Supreme Court nominees, but what the religious rights says about its most famous rallying cry abortion, well, it often isn’t true that the Bible forbids abortion. That’s a lie. That abortion is murder, that legal abortions are dangerous. Nope, none of that is true.”
— Reid, September 1.
Airlift Was “Largest” in “History” (Not True) and Marines Are at Every Fed Building (Not True)
“Some 123,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan. The largest air lift, I believe, probably in world history, definitely in United States history. Some 6,000 Americans among them....Secretary Blinken thanking the United States military, singling out particularly the Marines who, of course, are a fixture as you walk into any federal building. The Marines being the front line of our fight there at the end, having lost 13 of their own tragically at the end of this war.”
— Reid, August 30.
Republicans Don’t View Black People as ‘Real’ People, Shouldn’t Vote
“[Republicans] believed the elections were stolen because they don't believe it is possible for black and brown people’s decisions to hold and be valid, they think that if black people vote, its got to be some kind of scam and they voted illegally and they’ve come to believe that and they believe about President Obama, that his election was somehow the result of fraud.”
— Reid, September 3.
“While it wasn’t just that they thought it was fraudulent, it sort of, at the ballots, it was fraudulent in a much deeper sense in that you — people like you and I are not real Americans. It’s about people who they value as — as — as real American. So, right now, when they say, you know, the election was stolen, the election was because — because people who, quite frankly, they don't value as Americans are — are flexing their political power and bringing the power to bare, so you can understand a great deal of it from — from that lens.”
— Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher, September 3.
GOP Never Wants to “Respect...Women” Because They Have Kavanaugh, Thomas
“I knew that the Republican Party had no use for, really, respect for women, you know, when Clarence Thomas got in. But now, two of the nine members of the United States Supreme Court and two of the six conservative members or one-third of the conservative members have been accused of sexual misconduct and they have lifetime appointments on the court, so I think it’s pretty clear the way the right in America feels about women. So this doesn’t surprise me that they would go this far.”
— Reid, September 2.
Conservatives Want Babies of Rapists Born, But Don’t Care What Happens Afterwards
“[T]hose of us who grew up as regular folks and know what it’s like to have the lights out because you couldn’t pay the bill...You know, making breakfast for dinner because it’s more affordable...right? The other thing that really galls me about what Republicans are doing in Texas is they don’t give a damn about these — that 13-year-old girl who’s going to be forced to raise that kid. They’re not going to provide her health care. They don’t want to provide her an education. They don’t want to help her pay for college. They don’t want to help that kid to get health care. They don’t want to pass the Medicaid expansion...[T]he fact is this, they’re leaving all of these people behind that they want born but they don’t care about them...when they’re born.”
— Reid to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), September 1.
Afghanistan Is Reminding Americans That We’re Not That Great
“America is doing some growing up this week and learning that we are not Superman. We are not Captain America from the comics. We can’t change and solve and remake the world. For God’s sake, we can’t make our own democracy fully work. We can’t get our own population to accept being vaccinated. Our democracy is teetering as well, so we might want to do a little inward looking and try to fix the one we have here, lest we lose it.”
— Reid, August 30.
Food, Water Are Banned in Georgia Voting Lines (Not True)
“But what is in effect in states like Texas or like my home state of Georgia are laws that prevent people in long lines being able to get food or water while they’re waiting to vote or poll watchers being able to potentially intimidate certain voters or precincts where they deem questionable conduct is occurring, right, or people being able to sue anybody they think is seeking an abortion or anybody who tries to help them. I mean, this is not the limited government that Republicans, you know, claim to espouse and support.”
— The 19th editor-at-large Errin Haines, September 2.
Feds Need to Investigate DeSantis Because We Don’t Like Him
“It appears [Ron DeSantis’s] not been quite honest about the number, particularly in pediatric cases, that he’s sort of created this artificial decline in the number of cases to make himself look good because he also thinks he’s going to be president of the United States. Do you believe there needs to be a federal investigation of what this governor is doing when it comes to whether he’s been honest about the numbers and the fact that he’s pushing Regeneron despite the fact that his biggest donor is an investor in it?”
— Reid, August 31.
Biden Should Deputize Doctors Like Cops to Swarm TX to Dole Out Abortions
“[W]e need to go and get women in Texas and protect their constitutionally protected medical rights, and the way you do that is that you deputize doctors, you federalize doctors, you create through an executive order an army of federal doctors who are going to go in to Texas and protect the Constitution...It is time to play hardball, right? It is not go high time. This is go time. So, you send in the — the — the doctors. They’re protected with qualified immunity...[Y]ou privately fund the doctors who are doing this service in defense of the Constitution.”
— The Nation Justice correspondent Elie Mystal, September 2.
Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine? Then You Want as Many Kids to Die as Possible!
“Question for anti-vaxxers: Where do you stand on personal freedom when it comes to a child’s right to live? Nearly 4.8 million children have tested positive for COVID since March 2020. And that whole, you know, COVID doesn’t really impact kids part of the pandemic, well, that ship has sailed.”...
“I never thought I get to see the day when people didn’t care if children got sick, right? Like, we’re at a point now where people are demanding their right to be unmasked and unvaccinated, and not seeming to care whether children get sick. A lot of these people assume children won’t get sick and won’t get COVID, and, even if they get it, they won’t have any symptoms and won’t die. Obviously, that’s not true.”
— Reid, September 2.
Do You Like Ron DeSantis and Oppose Masks? Then You Also Want Dead Kids!
“At a certain point, you just want your kids to survive. And if they’re saying I want to let your kids get Covid, I want to let Covid into the elementary school, I don't care that the pediatric units are full of children that are sick and dying. Like, at a certain point, people I know are starting to call Florida DeSantistan — right — because these are not radically liberal people. They’re just sick of him because they feel like he's turned that state into sort of an outlaw nation full of just — you know, full of children in ICU.”
— Reid, September 3.
Dems Need to ‘Threaten’ Suburbanites With Daughters Being Raped, Forced to Give Birth If They Vote GOP
“You must galvanize and threaten white people on this side in order to have enough voting power to win...We have to find a way to make those people terrified, so it’s not just that Texas is banning abortion. You’ve got to make suburban mothers terrified that their daughters are going to be forced to bear a baby of a rapist or there’s a baby that's going to kill them and take their lives. And until we make suburban American — and that cuts across racist but all the side of the left including independent leaders — until we terrify them about the condition of democracy and where we’re headed in 2022, we can expect a lot of hurt at the polls.”
— Strike Pac founder Rachel Bitecofer, September 3.
If You’re Not a Democrat, You’re a Terrorist!
“What did George Bush say? You're with us or the terrorists. 20 years later, where are they now? You're either with Trump's terrorists or you’re out of the GOP. This is what we're actually watching now with Andy Biggs and others. It is stunning to see....Are you with the United States of America or are you with Trump's terrorist? Put their patriotism on the line day in and day out. No more ambiguity. It was a terrorist attack. FBI's words, not mine.”
— Comedian and SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah, September 3.
January 6 Proved Republicans Aren’t Just the U.S. Taliban — They’re Also al-Qaeda
“This is almost Al Qaeda-like. I don’t — I’ve never seen anything like this.”
— Reid, August 31.
“[T]his is no different, no different at all from what we saw in the international terrorism days when we had clerics like Osama bin Laden or Anwar al-Awlaki, who would claim, ‘oh, I’m just saying that people ought to think about doing violence, I’m not saying or telling them exactly what to go do.’ We know where that ended.”
— Former FBI agent Clint Watts, August 31.
