In the days following Trump’s mug shot being taken and released to the public, many of his supporters have started claiming that it’s actually helping him win over Black voters. But MSNBC’s Joy Reid tore apart that “amazingly racist” idea on Tuesday night.
To kick off the segment, Reid played a supercut of on-air personalities touting the benefits of Trump’s mug shot, with one man saying that a Black woman he spoke to in New Orleans called Trump a “gangsta,” which apparently “means he has cred among a new block of voters.
The montage ended with Fox News’ Jesse Watters — who previously thirsted over Trump’s mugshot himself, saying “he looks good, and he looks hard” — saying that “the mug shot unintentionally created a bond between Donald Trump and Black Americans,” exemplified by the fact that “my garbage man told me he’s buying mug shot T-shirts for everyone he knows this Christmas”
“Oh bless your heart,” Reid mocked. “Good to know, Jesse Watters, that some of your best garbage men are Black. I mean, come on y’all. Y’all don’t really know any black people do you? None, right? None. I figured.”
But, speaking to the concept at the heart of Watters and other media figures’ words, Reid was simply floored.
“The idea that black voters will switch to Trump because of his arrest and mugshot is so amazingly racist, I don’t even know where to begin,” she said.
Reid then pointed out that conservative Trump supporters in state-level positions of power are still currently working to ban the teaching of Black history in schools.
The host also torched Trump and his legal team for citing Powell v Alabama in their attempts to delay Trump’s trial to 2026, arguing that the four-time indicted former president is being discriminated against by the justice system.
“That comparison is so ridiculously offensive, it could only have come from well, Trump, who’s trying to steal the veil of black oppression and drape it over himself like a Superman cape,” Reid said.
You can watch Reid’s full comments in the video above.