Joy Reid fears ‘King Trump’

It seems every MSNBC host is trembling for his or her life these days. First, Rachel Maddow feared Donald Trump would throw her in an internment camp if reelected and now, following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Donald Trump’s immunity, Joy Reid thinks her rights as a woman and a black American will be revoked. But that’s not the only thing upsetting Reid. The commentator took to TikTok to explain how Monday’s decision has made Trump America’s first king. 

“The Leonard Leo six on the court just declared, days before this nation celebrates its independence presumably from the British king, that the president of the United States and a former president… that they are a king,” Reid said in a lengthy TikTok video. “They have granted monarch-like powers to Donald Trump and declared him immune from prosecution.” 

Despite Chief Justice John Roberts’s clarification that the Supreme Court did not approve political violence, Reid readily ignored such rational thinking. “As long as Donald Trump uses the apparatus of the presidency, he can kinda do anything,” she said before declaring DEFCON-1. Borrowing from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, Reid warned that Trump can now use Seal Team Six to assassinate political rivals and NSA drones to gun down Joe Biden.

Conveniently, Reid seemed to forget that the ruling applied to Biden as well. She kept repeating that Trump can do anything, but by Reid’s own logic Biden is the current king. And of course, Cockburn assumes Reid would be more than happy for Biden to start exercising his monarchical powers and off Trump while he still has the chance. 

Reid has been posting on TikTok for years. But Cockburn wonders why a successful news host would stoop to posting low-resolution videos in front of a social media green screen is beyond Cockburn. Her make-up-free look and Grinch-like smile aren’t nearly as flattering as what her MSNBC production team can pull off. Is it meant to seem more authentic? And it’s not that the network is stopping her from spouting her insane theories either. Shortly after posting her TikTok on Monday, she compared the Supreme Court to the “Hand of the King” on air.  

While Reid’s TikTok is decidedly anti-Trump, Cockburn is still trying to decipher what most of the nine-minute monologue really meant, especially this esoteric portion: 

This election is no longer about the old guy that’s in the White House now. All the op-ed pages and the New York Times can run around and opine, “What Joe Biden should do” and ya know what, y’all have fun with that. Y’all enjoy yourself, intellectual thought leaders. I no longer care. Doesn’t matter to me anymore. It’s above me now. It’s above me now. There’s a Waffle House next door. There’s a Best Western next door as well.

Does this mean Reid is retiring from political commentary to enjoy waffles in a hotel? Has the Supreme Court decisions made her give up on life entirely? Is she surrounding her life to God? Is he the one “above” her?  Most baffling of all, what Waffle House is she talking about? Cockburn is certain there isn’t one within 100 miles of New York City. 

What isn’t confusing is Reid’s obvious fear-mongering over the 2024 election. Although she claims to disagree with Biden on a myriad of issues, Reid said she has no choice but to vote for the geriatric incumbent after Monday’s ruling. “All the rights that were won in the twentieth century,” Reid warned. “The hard-earned rights of women, laborers, workers, the rights of children, remember child labor used to be legal, the rights of black folks forget that, the rights of non-white immigrants forget that — they are trying to repeal the entire twentieth century and they are doing it fast.”