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What the Treatment of Shay and Ruby Tells Us · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stefan
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: never told you your production of iHeartRadio, And welcome back
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to Samantha.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: You know, my voice is like I just realized as
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to you, my voice went down.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: I got by sexy sick voice.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Here we go.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh jeez, I almost said welcome back to Samantha
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and the intro.
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: So this is gonna be fun.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: But it is a momentous occasion because not only is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Samantha back from COVID, we are joined by the splendid,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: splendiferous Brigit Todd. Always a pleasure to have you.
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: Oh, I'm so happy to be back. I'm happy Samantha's back.
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: This is your inaugural recordings since being out from COVID.
• 0:57
  Speaker 6: How are you.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Feeling, you know, Like I said, I've got the voice,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: but I'm telling much better. This is the first time
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: I've ever had COVID, So that was an experience.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Not cool with your best.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, public service, like, if you can, if you're in
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the crowd, do it.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I would recommend it, recommend would recommend.
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: But oh y'all, I didn't get to ask you because
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I got to complain a lot.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's the benefit of you know, you got to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: wait the plus side of getting COVID.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: Then the benefit is to complain.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: I've been waiting to tell you all the als.
• 1:37
  Speaker 6: I almost died complaining and watching lots of TV.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my big when I got COVID. I remember,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: like I went to shock at first, and I was like,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: but the soup though.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I couldn't need anything hardly. No, Yeah, that's like legitimately
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: like this sucks.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Well that was the because I didn't have like I
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: sneezed a lot. That was my symptom for like two days.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: Was that's so weird. Well, how are y'all? I hope
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: you were healthy?
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, I am good.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I'm getting actually the updated COVID vaccine to day vaccine
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: because Bridget who unfortunately has technical difficulties and we can't see.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: We're going to Las Vegas this week.
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: That's right for the iHeart Music Festival. Look out, Las Vegas.
• 2:30
  Speaker 6: Look out.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: Threatening I mean like not like okay.
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: We're gonna like do engaging podcasts in your city, Las Vegas,
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: and look out for that, not.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Like okay, okay, yeah, we're doing some podcasts there. It's
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: gonna be fun. Samantha is going on a birthday vacation time.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I am missing out, like the first time in
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the years that they asked us to do something.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, no, I'm going to go to the
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: opposite but thanks for asking.
• 3:01
  Speaker 6: I'll be on the other coast.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I like that, but thanks for asking. But yes, I'm
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: excited to see Bridget in person. And yeah, I'm trying
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to not get COVID there, so we'll see how that goes.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you have more, you have other Plians coming out.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to Orlando because I love a good haunted
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: house and I love the Last of Us and there's
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: a Last of Us Haunted house, so's.
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: It's like Last of Us themed.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, my god, you're gonna that's that's up all
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: that's like made in a lab for you, and I know,
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: I know it is.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I've already seen like TikTok videos that I've had to
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: send her to like oh my god responses.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I can't wait.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: I might die of excitement.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, how are you, Bridget.
• 3:49
  Speaker 6: Yes, I'm doing well, looking forward to Vegas. Also hoping
• 3:52
  Speaker 6: I don't get sick.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, just I think I just need to like stay
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: in until my flight, just like, don't leave my house
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: just because now I'm now I'm like very nervous, but
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: hopefully it'll be all good. And yeah, I'm excited to
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: hear more about this last of us haunted house after
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: you go give us a full report. Oh oh, I
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: love scary well, I like that. I like titillated. There
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: there can be a line where it's like too scary,
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: so it has to be. It's a little bit of
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: a finding the right balance vibe for me. I enjoy
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: spooky things. I enjoy hobble mean, I enjoy haunted houses,
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: but if it's too scary, then I'm like no longer
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: enjoying it.
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: So it has to be just the right mits.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: So you don't mind being chased.
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: I don't mind being chased. I went to a haunted
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: house last Halloween, and for some reason, you know, the
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: like performers who chase you. There was a guy with
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: a chainsaw who for some reason was like, I'm going
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: to chase her, and I.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: Spent the whole one.
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: I spent the whole haunted house. I basically was like.
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: Like worked out. Essentially, this guy was chasing me the
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: whole time.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: See I used to dude, there's like a key to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: get them to pick you. There's a couple like if
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: you want them to pick you as the person. And
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I used to like play that up because I liked
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: being scared so much.
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: What do you do if you want to be picked?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Uh? There are a couple of things. One of the
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: big ones is where color. They can see pretty well
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: in the dark. Another one is I don't usually do
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: this one, but if you're like really funny being scared,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: if you're like really over the top being scared, they
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: will target.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: This is why I don't go to them because I
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: know my my reaction will say everything and then they'll
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: pick on me.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: And I'm gonna fight somebody.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: You know, that's fair.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I'm a fight or fight girl and apparently I fight.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: Hey, hey, at least you know it.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I'm not fast enough, it depends.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: It depends.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: I tip somebody.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: I have faith in you.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: I'm maneuver my way.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: I said that, this is my thing is like if
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I would have to do the like trips some I'm sorry,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I would be the villain and set someone up to
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I can survive.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: Intead.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, that's fine.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: That's fine.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Old host Caroline and I get along really well because
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: we have our apocalypse plan is that she's just going
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to give up.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: So that's my decoy to survive, using her giving.
• 6:17
  Speaker 6: Up to be a final girl. No matter what, I'm
• 6:20
  Speaker 6: taking it to the end of this, of this situation.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I will not be the minority that gets killed.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: I like that. You've got a plan. We have to
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: make sure I'm with Carolina. I think that's the first plan.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, Happylloween.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: We do have a quite horrifying thing to discuss today.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Horrifying or is it like survivor exciting?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, but transition wise, this is a very scary
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: thing to talk about.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: You gotta play along with my transition.
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: That I've lived for. Your masterful transitions are so good.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I will lay awake at night and be like, how
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: can I do this? Just so you know, there's a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: lot of work going on behind the curtains here.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: She's been staring at this waiting for it.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, all the time. But yes, can you tell
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: us what we are talking about today, Bridget Yes.
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: So, folks probably by now have seen in the news
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: that former President Trump and eighteen of his associates are
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: facing charges for violating Georgia's Racketeering, Influence and Corrupt Organizations
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: or REICHO act, basically when you are doing some like
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: organized crime like mob style activities. Georgia, as I'm sure
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: y'all know, take that very seriously. And these are related
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: to schemes to try to keep Trump in office after
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: he lost the election. So a big piece of these
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: charges stem from the way that Trump and his associate
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: Rudy Giuliani basically claimed that two black women poll workers,
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: a mother daughter duo, Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss had
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: tampered with votes. Now that has been time and time again,
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: like on the official record, these women have been cleared
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: of wrongdoing, and that did not stop Trump and Juliani
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: from baselessly, repeatedly and publicly putting them in danger by
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: lying about them. And so I really see this story
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: as like a culmination of so many of the things
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: that I talk about on my own pod. You know
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: what happens when racism and sexism just run unchecked online
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: and really creates the conditions for dangerous lies about black
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: women to find a welcome home where they can be
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: amplified and legitimized. In this case, those lies threatened democracy
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: for all of us. And so I think that there's
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: so much really meaty reporting going on about what's happening
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: with these charges related to Trump, But I think it's
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: important that the story of these women does not go
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: overlooked or does not go missed, because at its heart,
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: it is about how these people used their positions and
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: their power to baselessly smear like two people who hadn't
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: done anything wrong. And so I just think their story
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: and their testibility, it's just important to me to keep
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: making sure that we really center that and that it
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: doesn't get lost.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Right because, as we've talked about before, as I am
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: in Fulton County, that is where I vote a lot
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of the times, it's mostly black women who are volunteering
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: at these voting places and making it run so smoothly
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and doing all of these things. And to hear about
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: this about two people who were wanting to help their
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: community and did nothing wrong but being used as scapegoats
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: and that getting amplified in the online space and then
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: being kind of chased away from it, like, it's really
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: upsetting because that is such an important job. It's so
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: important to voting, and it's just just because these guys
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: are are jerks and liars. We're looking for someone people
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: that they could blame, that people would get behind them.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: Blaming is really upsetting.
• 10:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and you put that exactly right.
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: I think that I'm really drawn to the humanity of
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: Ruby and Shay, but it's really it's really not just
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: about them and their story, because these attacks on election workers,
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: poll workers who are like largely women, like that's you know,
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: a thing, So it's definitely gendered. These attacks on them
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: are also attacks on democracy because if people like, if
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: you saw the way that Ruby and Shay were treated
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: and how other election workers were treated, threatened, harassed, lied about, targeted,
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: why would you want to do that work?
• 10:50
  Speaker 6: That work is not well paid.
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: It's not work that is like put on a pedestal
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: or like well protected or given a lot of respect.
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: It used to be, and it should be, but I'm
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: for it's not.
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: And so if regular people who are interested in like
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: just helping our civic process.
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: Move forward and move smoothly.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: If those people are like, I don't want to do
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: this work anymore? Would I want to do this? And
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: the only people who are invested and interested in doing
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: this work are extremists. It's not good for democracy, and
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: so it's all like, we'll talk about some of the
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: findings from how this has impacted elections writ large. But yeah,
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: if election centers have to close because no one wants
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: to work them, that means that less people are going
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: to be able to access those polling places. Polling places
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: end up shutting down. The wheels of democracy are not
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: able to move as smoothly as they should, and democracy
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: is like a pretty tenuous thing. I think I never
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: really thought about it before, how fragile it is. How
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: you definitely need things to be moving smoothly, and it
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: doesn't really take much.
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: To have the whole system come crashing down.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Right, to give some context about what Fulton County is,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: because we talk about Fulton County and not many of
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: the people outside of Georgia know what that means. We
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: have the funny song that talks about that's not Atlanta.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Fulton County is Atlanta, which is heavily populated with a
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: lot of black votes and largely amount of black communities,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: one of the bluest areas, one of the reasons why
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: we turn blue in the first place, and after all
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: of the voting rights stuff that happened with our governor
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: trying to take away so many things, including not allowing
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: to give out water, not allowing people to sit, all
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: of these things. It was pointedly for places like Fulton
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: County again, especially with all the jerrymandrig and such. And
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: it's quite funny that people who are making such big
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: threats and pointing at Fulton were not from Fulton. They
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: are literally from outskirts where other places have been proven
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: to have campaign election fraud, typically from again Republican side
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: from the twenty twenty election that we saw, and it
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: was very, very very targeted for that very reason. They needed,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: as you said, to target black women because we know
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: that for the past decades of election it has been
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: black women who have turned the votes and really have
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: made a difference in places like Georgia, which no one
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: ever saw ever turning blue at.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Any point in time.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And so it in that context this is a fight.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: It literally was a place to start a war when
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: it came to elections.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: I've always thought it has got to be so exhausting
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: to live in Fulton County because it's just like it's
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: you're just trying to live your life and exists, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: all these different institutional forces and like powerful figures are
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: trying to stop you from doing that at every turn.
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: And I just can't imagine what it's like to be
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: to live someplace that it's just like constantly the subject
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: of conversation and scrutiny and trickery.
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: It's just like it's got to be exhausting.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: You know, bridget one of the first conversations you and
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I ever had when we met, what's it in twenty nineteen, No,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I guess it was way before then, in twenty seventeen.
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: I think that's right.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: You literally I asked you if you would move to Atlanta,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: and you said, we already had our own stuff at Washington.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't know if I can do it
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: again in Atlanta. Yeah, you have to get involved in
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: you it real quickly, because when you were talking about
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Abram's thing at that time, and you were like, I
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: don't know if I can do that again.
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that was my whole thing.
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: There was a time where I was like, I think
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: I might have to move to Atlanta, and just the
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: idea of like, and not that DC doesn't have its problem,
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: but it's just like I think I have the energy.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: I would have to start again.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I can, and rightly so, it
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: is exhausting. And again because the crux of the work
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: has been done by the black community, black women. The
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: organization Fair Fight was created by Stacy Abrams after her
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: first election, and we know so many things had happened
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: at that point, and I'm still very bitter about that
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: point and really caused so much that we did become
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: a focal point. Georgia, specifically Fulton County became a focal
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: point to this point that Shay and Ruby got targeted
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: because they needed to find two people that they can
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: make as suspicious as possible that is on the side
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: that has been making this huge turnaround.
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: So I'm so glad that you put it that way.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: And this is something that I think has kind of
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: I would say, gotten missed, but I would say has
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: just sort of been implied, and I think that we
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: should just.
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: Like say it as is.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: I believe that the reason why the attacks on Ruby
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: and Shay were so effective and like took hold is
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: because they are black women.
• 15:50
  Speaker 6: I think that you're exactly right.
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: They needed somebody to pin the Georgia loss on, and
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: I think that there's it's not a surprise that the
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: people they would after were these two black women. And
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: I think that the way that race and gender and
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: class intersected to make them these these like effective targets
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: for this kind of smear campaign. I don't think that
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: we have like fully unpacked what that means and why
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: it was effective. Even in reporting that I think is
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: really good, like reporting that I respect, I just think
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: it relies on us to confront some uncomfortable truths about
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: our society. And I don't think that we have fully
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: contended with what happened to Ruby and Shay, why it
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: was effective, and how it was allowed to be amplified
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: by people like social media platforms and media outlets and
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: all of that. So yeah, I just think like it's
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: something we really got to talk about and something that
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: I think that we really got to take a lot
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: of important lessons and truths from. So if folks don't
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: know Ruby and Shae were election workers in Fulton County, Georgia,
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: a state that Trump lost in twenty twenty, get ready
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: for me to say.
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: That over and over again, because it is a fact.
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: So you might recall.
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: I'm sure that y'all recall that in Georgia, he Trump
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: pressured the secretary say to like find votes for him
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: to rewrite history. Shay had actually been an election worker
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: in Georgia for a long time. Listening to her talk
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: about it, she describes it as something that she had
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: really done in an effort to support her community and
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: just like something that she felt like was her civic duty.
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: You know, she has talked about how like her community
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: has a lot of older black folks in it, like elders,
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: and that she saw doing this work as an election
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: worker as part of service to like the elders in
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: her community. So was really just like wanted to do
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: her civic good. During twenty twenty, Fulton County was meant
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: to have a shortage and election workers because of COVID,
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: so Shae recruited her then sixty two year old mom, Ruby,
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: a retired nine to one to one operator, to also
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: serve as an election worker. So this is something that
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: I think is very sad like. In their testimony, Shay
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: has talked about how she feels quite a bit of
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: guilt for recruiting her mother into this work. Of course,
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: not knowing how could she know that Trump and Juliani
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: would attack them in this way.
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: But she she has described feeling quite a bit of
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: guilt at.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: Getting her mom involved in this, which just really really
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: breaks my heart.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: When, and I know we're going to talk about this,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: but when like the whole family gets drawn into this
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: thing that you think you're doing. They were doing this
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: like civic duty, feeling really like, this is what.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: I want to do for my community, and that is
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: democracy at work.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: That is like, oh, I want to make this happen
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and it's really important to me and to have that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: to feel guilty about that, because there are these other undemocratic,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: like maascist forces who threaten and who make you feel
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: unsafe and make your loved ones feel unsafe. Like it
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: is heartbreaking, it is it's disgusting that this is what happens.
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: It really is.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: And so basically, on December third, twenty twenty, a lawyer
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: working for the Trump campaign obtained security video of election
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: night from State Farm Arena in Georgia. So the video
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: just shows like election workers in general, including Ruby and Shay,
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: just like doing their jobs right, like nothing untoward is
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: going on. The lawyer brought the video to the Georgia
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: State Senate Committee, saying that he thought it showed someone
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: who had the name Ruby across her shirt somewhere finding
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: a suitcase of ballots from underneath the table. Now all
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: of this is just a complete lie. The video just
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: shows them working normally. The election workers were told to
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: like pack it up for the night, so they put
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: the ballots away.
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: They didn't put them in suitcases.
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: They put them in like the normal ballots where ballots
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: are always kept. And later in the night they were
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: told to go ahead and restart the count, don't wait
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: till the morning, and so that's what they did. The
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: video is just like normal election worker business. But I
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: think the presence of like just these two black women
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: was enough for this person to be like, something's going
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: on here.
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: I need to flag this.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: So the video starts making its way online through this
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: cottage industry of like extremist blogs and media sites. Once
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: it's in that online pipeline, it's basically everywhere like it
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: doesn't matter. By the time that it starts making the rounds,
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: it has already been thoroughly debunked by Georgia Secretary of State.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: None of that matters.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: It's already like in this pipeline and it's going to
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: be amplified despite the fact that it's already been proven alive.
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: So this is where we.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: Meet a big vector of lies and like dissemination of
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: these lives about Ruby and Shay the Gateway Pundit, which
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: is an extremist right wing media site. Research from the
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: University of Washington Center for an Informed Public found that
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: The Gateway Pundit was the second most prolific purveyor of
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: election misinformation on Twitter during twenty twenty. So they are
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: like a big source of incorrect, inaccurate information about our elections.
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: And once they get that video, they publish an article
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: under the headline huge all caps video footage from Georgia
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: show suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under table after
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: all caps supervisor told GOP poll workers to leave tabulation center.
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: So again that's just like a completely misleading claim. But
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: the way that they framed it is like we found
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: this bombshell video evidence of the smoking gun of votes
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: being hampered with and the election being stolen from Donald Trump.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Which is so hilarious because Fulton County was never Donald Trump,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: like it's never been read like everybody else who lives
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: in Georgia are like what no, wait, and it reminds
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: me honestly, I watched it for like a few seasons,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: but a setup of a Scandal episode actually the grainy
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: security video where they just like redline something and you're like,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: oh my god, there it is and they're like no wait,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: they're just boxes.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: What's happening.
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: The proof And it's so funny.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: There's a thing that happens online where anything can look
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: nefarious if it's.
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: Like grainy video and you write in all.
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: Caps on it, like any it's just like a video
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: of people like moving around in an empty office building,
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: and it's like they're like all caps like busted.
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: Like anything looks nefarious when you when you frame it.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: That way, and then you're like wait for it. You're
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: like wait, wait for what? Wait for what?
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: We look at it?
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: See. My My like association with this is ghost videos,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: which I don't believe in ghosts, but I watch ghost
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: videos and they'll be like there it is, and I'm
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: like where and they'll circle something and I'm.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Like I'm blaming on my eyeside. I'm like it must
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: be there, like they circle something.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: I really don't see anything there, but.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting because obviously all they needed they knew.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: This is why I say it. So the scale video.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: They're like, if we can just pull this video of
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: these grainy subjects with boxes and then circle the boxes,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: people will believe this, and they it worked.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: It literally began the like I'm like, wow, this is
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: a bad like Shonda Rhime's episode. What is happening?
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: It truly is, And so the Gateway Pundit continued taking
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: their nose from a bad episode of scandal.
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: They called Ruby out by name.
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: Ruby is somebody who really likes to wear like she
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: talks about how she was very proud of her name
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: before all this happened, and so she likes to wear
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: personalized shirts and hats and things that have her name
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: on it. So the Gateway Pundit called her out by name,
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: writing on the site her name is Ruby Freeman and
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: she made the mistake of advertising her purse on her
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: desk the same night she was involved in voter fraud
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: on a massive scale all caps. Her t shirt says
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: Lady Ruby and her purse Sesslave Ruby, which is her company.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: This is not a smart move. Her company is called
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: l Ruby's Unique treasures. It's on her LinkedIn page. Maybe
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: the Georgia Police or Bill Barr's DOJ may want to
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: pay Ruby Freeman a visit. The article concludes with images
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: of Ruby over the banner that says crook gets caught.
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: They play this video on a n N, which is
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: a kind of I guess you could call it like
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: a far right news network. And that is really when
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: it like really blows up. So once the video gets
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: on to own, that is when Trump starts amplifying it
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: on his own Twitter, that is when Fox News starts
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: talking about it, and that is when the campaign of
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: harassment really gets scary for these women. Just three days later,
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: after Trump starts amplifying it on Twitter, Ruby calls nine
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: to one one to report people showing up at her home,
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: which is terrifying. And I think it's really important to
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: point out the ways that racism and misogyny work to
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: fuel these lives. I just do not believe that had
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: Ruby and her daughter not been black women, and that
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: if we did not have a digital media climate that
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: is like ready and poised and willing to validate and
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: amplify the worst racist lies about black women who we
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: know are disproportionately harmed by conspiracy theories and disinformation and harassment.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: I don't think it would have taken off like it did.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: This kind of reminded me of when we did our
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: episode on Megan Markle. There was all of this outrage
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: about like, look, she's making all this money from podcasting,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: which is just complete nonsense. But I feel like that
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: going back to that quote of like, oh she's advertising
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: her company, Look how crass, Like it just I felt
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: like there was a through line of you know, for
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: black women so ready to be like that's disgusting, like
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: like for.
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: Things that are totally commonplace, but it's like when it's
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: a black woman doing it and it's said in this
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: like manner that is clearly meant to convey like judgment,
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: it just I mean, people are just willing, like the
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: Megan and Markle stuff, Like I remember reading like, oh,
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: she ate avocado toast, Like it doesn't matter what it is.
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: It's not really about the substance of what she's done,
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: or her behavior or what she said or anything of substance.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: It's just like it's just like pulling from this societal
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: distrust of her identity. And that's what I think really
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: helped these attacks on Shay and Ruby take hold.
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: I do not think that had.
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: They been white women or men that they that these
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: attacks would have been as amplified and have taken off
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: the way that they did.
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: I just I just don't.
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: And and part of the evidence is the way that
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: the people who were her asking them and attacking them,
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: we're doing it in a way that is so clearly racialized.
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: Like Rudi Giuliani in a phone call, he looked at
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: the tape and he said, these women are quite obviously
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they're vials of
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: heroin or cocaine. I mean, it's obvious to anyone who's
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: a criminal investigator or a prosecutor that they're engaged in
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: surreptitious illegal activity. Again, that day, they're walking around Georgia lying.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: They should have been questioned already, They're places of work,
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: their homes should have been searched for evidence of ballots,
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: evidence of USB ports, evidence of voter fraud. So he's
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: accusing these women of passing USB ports back and forth
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: as if they're vials of cocaine or heroin, which, like,
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: tell me, that is not meant to be a racist
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: dog whistle, but in reality, these women were just giving
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: each other a piece of candy. They were like, Oh,
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: I had a piece of candy in my hand and
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: I was passing it to my mom.
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: And that's what that like.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: From that totally innocuous movement, Giuliani said that they were
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: passing USB ports, is that they were vials of heroin
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: or cocaine, like like, truly, truly beyond the pale of
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: just delusional lies.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I love that the melting man is the one accused,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: and there's so many things that this is. This is
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: for real. I don't know what's happening, you know.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I have to say in this whole thing that when
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: I remember what was happening at this point, I don't
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: think I remembered their names. I just remember people being accused,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: and it was specifically two black women that though eventually
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: the Secretary of State, who got a lot of praise
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and he shouldn't have as well as our governor, eventually
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: started defending them, but not until after they were docked.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: It was an interesting setup of like they allowed this
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: to happen. To see again, at the very least they
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: stood up, but enough to be like yes, our votes
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: are fine. There's nothing incredulous about this. There's nothing incriminating
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: in here after the fact. But during this time, they
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: didn't do They're like, I remember, like they're just saying
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: they're investigating. That was that was They kept everything kind
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: of to the side, not agree, not saying anything, and
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: until they started getting harassed, their life was being threatened,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and they're like, okay, okay, okay, well now we need.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: To put us up to this.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: But they allowed this to escalate to that point again
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: because they did not care about protecting them either, like
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: for what they did later shore, But I feel like
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: there should have been charges for their negligence.
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: But hey, yeah, I mean by then, they had thoroughly
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: internally debunked this video and they quietly released like statements eventually,
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: but they knew, we know that they knew the entire
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: time that Shaye and Ruby had done nothing wrong and
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: they had been investigated.
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: And so I'm with you in my book, was just
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: my opinion.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: You don't get a ton of credit for quietly eventually
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: being like, actually, they didn't do anything wrong and we've
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: already to like debunk this video when they were being
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: like physically threatened by armed psychopaths.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Right, And I think it's obvious that they could see
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: the evidence. But how racist this was, how sexist and racist,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: like how this all came from misogynoire. But they just
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: couldn't say that because then they would have to say
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: that their party is exactly what we see them as.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: And so therefore they were just quietly defending them, not
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: truly helping. It's it's obvious also that they allowed those perpetrators,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to call them perpetrators at this point,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Giuliani and Trump to continue this tirade even after the
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: fact that they did not do anything to stop them
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: from harassing.
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: In that the infamous call that Trump made to Georgia's
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: Secretary of State rad Raethensberger asking him to find votes,
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump calls Ruby out by name. In that call,
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: he says, we had at least eighteen thousand that's on
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: tape them counted very painstakingly, eighteen thousand voters having to
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: do with Ruby Freeman. She's a vote scammer, a professional
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: vote scammer, and hustler.
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah. So, like he was the head.
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: Of that party, was calling Ruby by her first and
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: last name and lying about her and blaming her for
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: his election laws.
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: It's terrifying.
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: And again I also think, like to your point, Samantha,
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: it's complicated to talk about.
• 31:27
  Speaker 6: But I think that one of the reasons.
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: Why this lie took off the way it did is
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: because of the visual of Ruby and Shay. Right Like,
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: sites like Gateway Pundit are really good at knowing what
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: is going to resonate with their audience, what is going
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: to stoke something inside them that is going to motivate
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: them to click and share and have an emotional response.
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: And if you go back and look at what the
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: Gateway Pundit was publishing about Ruby and Shay, it is
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: highly visual. They posted so many images of these women online.
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: On election night, Ruby and Shay were wearing like blonde
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: extensions that contrast with their darker complexions. Literally, it's like
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: how my hair is styled. Right now, I'm wearing I'm
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: wearing blonde extensions. And they Ruby owned a fashion shop
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: and so her personal style is like a big part
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: of how she shows up to the world. She likes
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: bedazzled shirts, she likes to have her name on her
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: shirt or her hat. These are people who have a
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: very distinctive look and I believe the reason why the
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: Gateway Pundit posted so many images of the women were
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: basically to be like, look how black these women are look?
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: How like, look how they look? Because they knew that
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: these images, these visuals of these black women, they could
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: say anything they wanted because because they were weaponizing this
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: already pre existing disdain for black women.
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: And so I think that like they knew what they
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: were doing.
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: That is why you see these images used over and
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: over and over again of them like with like crooked
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: stamped across their head. I think they I think they
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: knew that that was going to be what like moved
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: their audience, and I think they weaponized that to make
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: this lie stickier.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it follows along with what Trump has been saying
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: about Lanta, especially when he was going after John Lewis
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: before his death.
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: He always does this like, oh, if I were in Atlanta,
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: I would be worried about the crime, like just.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Like yeah, he would go after it and trying to
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: set it up as if it was just this horrible,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: stricken place because it was made up of a large
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: largely black communities, which is like no, that's why it's
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: so productive and wealthy right now, like, I'm not really
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: sure what you're trying to point out, because Atlanta is
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: one of the more successful areas of Georgia.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: Huh m.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: And he had been setting that up and that played
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: right into this whole scandal, because again, here's a woman
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: who has her own business and she's doing fine, and
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: it's so well enough that she helps volunteer.
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think like him and his cronies knew
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: that like just evoking the idea that that black women
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: were involved in the vote counting process in.
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: Georgia would be enough proof.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: I'm putting that in quotes, not like actual proof, but
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: like their proof that something nefarious was going on. They
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: basically told their supporters, like, black women were involved in
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: this voting process, so that should be evidence enough that
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: that Atlanta or Georgia is like rigged against me.
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: I think that was really the argument that they were
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: trying to imply.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Right, and again it just aims it towards his already base,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: who is very loud exactly.
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: So, yeah, I think that these attacks really weaponize and
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: rely on tropes about black women being inherently untrustworthy, which
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: we see time and time again with things like online
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: harassment and disinformation.
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: So this a'll led to.
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: Like a flood of really scary racist death threats and
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: harassment against Ruby and Shay online and folks watched the
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: January sixth commission their testimony really just like, I think
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: every American should watch it because.
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: It really is.
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: Horrifying and also heartbreaking to hear them describe what they
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: went through. But this is Shae talking about what it
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: felt like to know that her mom was now involved
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: in this. Shae at her during the January sixth testimony, said,
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: I felt horrible. I felt like it was all my fault.
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: Like if I never would have decided to be an
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: election worker, I could have done anything else, but that's
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: what I decided to do. And now people are lying
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: and spreading rumors and lies and attacking my mom. I'm
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: her only child going to my grandmother's house. I'm her
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: only grandchild, and my kid is just I just feel
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: so bad. I felt bad for my mom, and I
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: felt horrible for picking this job and for being the
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: one that always wants to help, always there, never missing
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: that one election. I just felt like it was my
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: fault for putting my family in this situation. It is
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: really heartbreaking. Ruby talks about how she had been so
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: proud of her nickname and her name, Lady Ruby, that's
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: the name of her business, that she is definitely a
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: staple in Georgia. Everybody knew Ruby as Lady Ruby, and
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: she always wore that shirt with her name on it.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: And because of all of this campaign of lives and harassment,
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: Ruby talks about how she once was this like pillar
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: of the community and now is afraid to use her
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: own name, her name that she used to wear as
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: a badge of honor. Like, I get emotional just thinking
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: about what that would have.
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: Been like for these women.
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: And how threatening it sounds like that was to their
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: own sense of identity, their own sense of safety, their
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: own sense of being able to show up in their
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: communities that was like really important to them, that was
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: just taken away because of these people lied. Like it
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: just really upsets me. H.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think one of the things to keep
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: in mind too, is that these were two women who
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: were just trying to help their community. They were not
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: looking for this, obviously, but weren't looking for like fame
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: or attention or they were just trying to help their community.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: And then it got blown up and it became this
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: whole thing where now, yeah, you can't use the name
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: you were so proud of, or you feel guilty about
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: doing something good for your community.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: But there was like a whole.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Organized effort that ended up getting targeted towards them exactly.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: And so let's talk a bit about who were some
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: of the players in that effort. So in addition to
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: the like mixed bag of Trump cronies that you've heard about,
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: you know, Rudy Giuliani, folks like that, Ruby and Shay
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: were also being harassed and threatened by a woman named
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: Trevion Kuti. Trevion was formally a publicist for the R
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: and B singer slash convicted sex criminal r Kelly, So
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: she definitely like knows how to pick the men to
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: associate with. She had some kind of association with Kanye
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: West at some point point, who you may recall, ran
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: for president himself alongside Trump in twenty twenty before becoming
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: a vocal Trump supporter. NBC News it's not totally clear
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: what her association with Donald Trump is. NBC News reported
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: that in a biography of her on a website for
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: the Women's Global Initiative, a business networking group, she identified
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: herself as a member of the Young Black Leadership Council
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: under President Donald Trump.
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: She says that she was secured.
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: As Kanye West's publicist in twenty eighteen and now serves
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: as his director of Operations. But importantly, Kanye West camp
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: says that she was not associated with Kanye West. But
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: Kanye's camp is like, we don't know her there, like
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: we she is not associated with us, so like don't
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: know what to tell you. So, in any event, regardless
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: of whether or not she is truly associated with Kanye
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: West or Donald Trump, what went down is this Trivion
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: showed up at Shayan and Ruby's door, and the women,
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: after being harassed and targeted, understandable just like called the police.
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: The police show up, and they all end up going
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: to a police station together to talk. Trivion told them
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: that she was visiting them at the direction of a
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: high profile individual who warned that if Ruby and Shay
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: did not confess to voter fraud, they would be arrested
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: in forty eight hours. According to Rolling Stone, the body
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: cam footage of the conversation shows Trivion telling the women,
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: I cannot say what specifically will take place. I just
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: know that it will disrupt your freedom and the freedom
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: of one or more of your family members. You are
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up,
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: which is like a real weird thing to tell somebody
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: to be honest with you, that's like a very weird
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: thinges say, yeah, so I will say Travion has said, like, oh,
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: they're getting it wrong.
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: I was trying to help these women. That's not a threat.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: So like that's her defense, is that, like she was
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: genuinely trying to offer support to these women. That's what
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: she says. You tell me what you what you think.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: But like that's her defense. Then she calls a man
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: by the name of Harrison Floyd of Black Voices for Trump,
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: puts him on speakerphone, and Floyd says that he can
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: offer the women protection. But according to that body cam audio,
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: he said that Ruby and Shay would have to confess
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: to voter fraud. If she did, he would offer her
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: legal protection, but if she declined, then her and her family.
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: Would be arrested.
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: So Floyd worked for the Trump campaign formally as the
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: executive director of the of Black Voices for Trump, but
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: he told Rachel Maddow that he sent Trevion to the
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: Women's House as a private citizen, not as an employee
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: of the Trump campaign. He also in those calls said
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: that like he has people that can keep her safe
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: if she confessed all of that. I should say, like,
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: I'm including what these people are saying as their defense
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: or like how they explain their behavior. I don't really
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: believe any of these people, but like this is what
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: they said about like why they.
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: Did the things that they did.
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: So I just think people should know their side of
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: the story, even though I don't believe any of this.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Again, I just this is such a bad setup of
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: so many like gang movies.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: That you were like, what is happening? Like this reminds me.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Of what would have happened in Chicago in the early
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: mob days. Like they create a problem and a threat,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: but will protect you if you confess these things. And
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: you're thinking, at what point does Floyd and Couty not
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: realize they're bound to be thrown under the bus like
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: they are the scapegoats now?
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean.
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: So yes and Floyd, especially because folks might remember that
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: when all the other defendants in the Trump Raiko case
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: got arrested in Georgia, most of them just like bombed
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: out right away Floyd because when they initially the FBI
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: initially had like served him at his apartment, they like
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: he got into some kind of like physical scuffle with
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: the FBI, and so that led to like a warrant
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: for his arrest. And so when he turned himself in
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: for these trump Rycho charges, he actually was not able
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: to bond out like everybody else was like in and out.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was bad.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was for that, and BT dubs
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: the Rico charges here in Georgia is partially rachel.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: So it's quite funny to me that they got that.
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's complicated.
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: But like, I just can't believe I thought this was
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: a good idea.
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: I can't believe that they were like, yes, I will
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: get myself arrested for this man. I will get like
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: pretty serious charges for this man. I will break the
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: law for this man, and that will be fine for me.
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: That will go well for me. I will be in
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: their club, I will be taken care of, I will
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: be protected. I cannot believe that somebody would think that. So, yeah,
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: just really says a lot about the judgment there I
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: guess right.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Again, I'm like, there's nothing about this group of people
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: who would help you as.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: We Yeah, yeah, they have a long history of throwing
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: people under the bus, going completely broke, right.
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: If they're not gonna throw are you under the bus? Yes,
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: you're not special, I will say.
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: One side note is that Trivion KOUTI I think that
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: people should She's very active on Instagram. I think that
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: if folks listening are curious for more information about her,
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: I really implore them to look at her Instagram.
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: Her Instagram, I think is.
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: Very telling about what kind of person she is, right, So, yeah,
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: folks are interested in like cause like when I first
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: was reading about this, I was like, what kind of perth?
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: Like she SuDS like a interesting person. Let me look
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: her up. And her Instagram really confirmed that she's someone
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: who is like hashtag overload, Like every post is like
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: so like, honestly, I can't really even describe it. I mean,
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: if folks are curious, they should look her up on Instagram.
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: And I don't think you will be disappointed at what
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: you see. I'll put it that way.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Well, her association with r Kelly, Because if I know
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: one thing in Atlanta, black women do not side with
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: r Kelly, Like that's so rare.
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: An event in Atlanta when they played remixed Magnition and
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: black women were like, boom, turn this off.
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah until the DJ turns it off.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Like yeah, every debate that I've ever seen, uh, and
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: like it would be on our neighbor pages all of that,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: it was always men or white people who were and
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: white people were smart enough to stay out of it for.
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: The most part.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they were like, Okay, we're not we're not part
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: of this.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: But every black woman that you saw was going after anyone.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: So for her to be a supporter at any point,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: you're like, hmmm, really, yeah, that's that's not.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: That's the sign right there.
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: So this whole conversation between Trevion and Harrison Floyd and
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: rubinha went down on January fourth, twenty twenty one, just
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: two days before January six It honestly sounds like Trump's
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: associates just wanted to get a forced confession out of
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: these women as a means to stop the transition of power.
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: So on January sixth, when pro.
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: Trump extremists and goons were storming the Capitol, they were
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: also surrounding the Women's home with bullhorns, but luckily they
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: had already fled for their safety. But this is where
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: it gets even scarier. Trump supporters actually tried to force
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: their way into Shay's elderly grandmother's home to make a
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: citizen's arrest. I honestly cannot even fathom how terrifying it
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: would be to have a mob of angry, potentially armed
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: people show up at your elderly grandmother's home and with
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: the intent to force their way in and citizens arrest her. Like,
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: I don't even I mean, I can't, I don't even
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: have words, like, I don't even know.
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: I can't think of anything more horrifying than that.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Right, Once again, she had nothing to do with any
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: of the elections, So this is just the hostage at
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: this point.
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: Essentially, Yes, and like and I think it goes back
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: to a lot of the things that we that we
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: talk about on the show. When we deal with things
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: like harassment campaigns, it is rarely just the woman. So
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: it's usually a woman at the center of a harassment
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: campaign like this.
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: It is rarely just that one woman.
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: Is It is her and her family, her and her parents,
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: her and her kids, her and her partner and it's
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: an effort to I think, terrify women and other marginalized
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: people from participating in civic.
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: And public life.
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: If like, I'm one person, if I'm going to face
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: these kinds of attacks, I wouldn't love it.
• 46:50
  Speaker 6: But like, okay, that's me. Fine.
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: If it's me and my elderly parents, me and my child,
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: me and my partner, me and my community, you might
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: think twice about your behavior if you felt like you
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: were putting the people that you loved at risk. And
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: so this is a specific tactic in order to frighten
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: women out of civic and public life, and.
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: I think it's effective.
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: It really it's upsetting that it works, but I can
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: understand why women don't want to put their families at
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: risk in this way.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: After that election, I volunteered at a few polls, and
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: I even thought about trying to work at the elections.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: And they were in desperately. They were begging people to come.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: And this was after several of the voter sites had
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: been shut down by our governor, so they'd already been
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: transitioned into like maybe four stations out of those six,
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: and they were trying desperately to find people because they
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: were having such a struggle.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's not surprising to me. It's actually become
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: a common problem. According to research from the Brendan Center,
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: nearly one in three local election officials no at least
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: one election worker who has left the job, partly due
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: to safety concerns, increased threats, and intimidation. Ruby herself said
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: that she could never see herself working another election again
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: for the rest of her life, which again I don't
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: blame her. In this most recent election, we had a
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: shortage of poll workers, which of course leads to anti
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: democratic outcomes like short staffing polling precincts like you just described,
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: Sam that force people to wait in longer lines to vote.
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: These shortages of poll workers can also cause some locations
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: to either close or be consolidated with other polling centers,
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: making it more challenging for voters to access new polling places.
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: All of this can lead to disenfranchisement and reduce trust
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: and elections, especially among communities of color and other marginalized
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: communities who already face barriers to voting. And so it
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: is a widespread issue when you go to vote, if
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: people have been intimidated out of being part of that process,
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: that is an attack on our democracy, and it harms
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: all of us, not just the women who are attacked
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: and find themselves the targets.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Right, and that's terrifying.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I remember voting kind of soon after this for a
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: local election, and you could almost feel it. You could
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: feel that everyone was more unsure about about the process
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and everyone was more on edge, and at one point,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: like the power flickered and you could just see people
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: looking around like, oh, like I can't trust this anymore.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: And the damage that has been done to these specific
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: women does speak to so much more. It speaks to
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: this doubt and people not feeling safe to work at poles.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: And I think who works at poles, Like, if I
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: go in and it's like a bunch of kind of
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: burly white dudes that I might think are Trump supporters,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna feel as good about voting, Like I'm
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: not gonna feel as safe as about voting. And it's
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: just like a trickles, it's everywhere. It's got a ripple effect.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: We're talking about kind of a specific thing, but it's
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: such a larger.
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: Issue, absolutely, and it's absolutely gendered.
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: Eighty percent of election officials are women, so these are
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: women being attacked and it's harming all of us.
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: And it shouldn't be like that.
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: When you go to vote, when the lights flicker, you
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: shouldn't have to worry like, oh no, what's about to happen?
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: Like this is the foundation in the cornerstone of our
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: democracy and it shouldn't it shouldn't be like that. Right, So,
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: we deserve better than a system that is able to
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: weaponize racism and sexism and lies to disenfranchise us. We
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: deserve so much better. And you know that kind of
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: brings us to today. So Ruby and Shay sued the
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: right wing website The Gateway Pundit and its owners for
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: defamation he publishing stories that instigated a deluge of intimidation, harassment.
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: And threats. And they also settled a suit.
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: With one American news network. And honestly, I hope they
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: get every penny. Hope they get so much money and
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: then thumb. Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: Rudy Giuliani is liable for defaming these women.
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: He'll have to pay their legal fees.
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: He's already paid about ninety thousand dollars and there's going
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: to be another trial to determine how much you will
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: have to pay in additional damages.
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: It could be in the millions.
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: And so I'm pleased that these women are getting some
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: semblance of justice. Like, I think that's great, but I
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: do also think that no amount of money can make
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: right what they went through. They only wanted to serve
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: their communities and do civic good during a pandemic, and
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: the president and his associates put their lives at risk
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: because of that. You know, they testified and spoke off
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: about what they experienced and putting themselves even more at risk.
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: And so what they did was heroic. They are absolutely
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: American heroes. But black women should not have to be
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: put in such a great danger for a country that
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: is going to weaponize their own identities against them, right,
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: And so yeah, I think that what they did is
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: really heroic, But I wish they never had to do
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: that in the first place.
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: I wish that they were able to just do their.
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: Jobs and live their lives and try to support democracy
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: they were doing without facing these kind of attacks, because
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: not only does it hurt them, it hurts us all.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope they get all the money as they deserve.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm glad that Guliani actually admitted that he was wrong.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't even have a get to that point.
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: Technically, what he admitted was I am so broke that
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: I can no longer afford to contest these allegations. So
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: he didn't admit wrongdoing, but he did. He was like,
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: I don't have the money to continue.
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: To contest fees.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: So okay, sure I read that wrong, but then well
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: believe it. Of that, I'm glad he's.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Getting all his money taken away. That's delightful. And we
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: know he's never getting any money that he was supposed
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: to get from Trump, so that's even matter.
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: It's like begging Trump to pay his legal his legal fees. Also,
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: even if Trump was like, I'll pay your legal fees,
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: he doesn't pay anyway, So like, what does that even
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: look like?
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: Like he doesn't pay his bill.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: I think he actually owes Julianni for the years of
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: representing him. Uh that like he just doesn't pay, which
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: everybody's like, you know, that's not a thing, which I
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: still love to think about the fact people love him
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: as a businessman Trump and roll them. I'm like, all
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: his businesses go bankrupt. I don't understand what you're talking about.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: Literally in Atlanta, he tried to build a whole apartment
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: and it went bankrupt.
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: It's easy to be a savvy businessman where you just
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: don't pay.
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: Anybody that you owe money to. Like, if I didn't
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: pay any of my bills, I'd probably be rich.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: I love the whole file bankruptcy thing, which he's done
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: so many times. And he can because he doesn't need credit,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: so he's like, I'll just keep borrowing money. Yeah, And
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: I hate that this is their legacy, Like that's the
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: thing that I know they did what they had to
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: do because they're going to protect themselves and protect their
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: loved ones.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: But the fact that they had to be put.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: To this point going through so much stress and then
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: just hiding because I remember when they did high. They
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: later left Atlanta and went to South Georgia, and even
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: there they're just like what if they find us?
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it breaks my heart. My heart goes out to
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: these women. I think about them often. Yeah, I think
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: about them a lot. I wish them nothing but peace
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: and prosperity and abundance for the rest of their lives,
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: because Lord knows they deserve it.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: They deserve it, and they've done so much, especially for
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: the state of Georgia with what we're seeing, and we
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: love to see the fact that thinks in part to
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: them to coming out and speaking out.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: We get to see mug shots.
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: Oh if you if you haven't seen Trevion's mugshot, I
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: definitely suggest taking a look at that too.
• 54:28
  Speaker 6: That's what I'll end there. Just a lot going on.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: And we should also note that it is DA Fanny Willis,
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: who is a black woman who really decided like, yeah,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: we're not gonna let this sit.
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: No, I don't think I knew like much about her
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: until this, until this started, so like, yeah, I know it.
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: Chaps.
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: Trump's asked that so many of the people who are
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: like trying to hold him accountable or black women, I know,
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: chat ye.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: And he really hoped that Georgia would pull a Florida
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: where Kemp would kick the DA off. But Camp was like, nah,
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not messing with her. You got If I mess
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: with Atlanta, it might be over for me. And he
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: realizes that.
• 55:16
  Speaker 6: Don't mess with Atlanta because the South's got something to say.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Look, they know that he barely made it buy some Uh,
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say Gray areas past aprams, but like
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Fulton County, will be the one that takes him out
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: if he's not.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: Careful and you're here a Willis's, she doesn't please.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: We always love having you so much, Fridget. I feel
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: like we could just go on and on and on
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: and talk about all these different things.
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: This is such a pleasure you always let you always
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: let me, Like when I've got a b in my
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: bonnet about something, you all always give me a platform.
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: So I appreciate it.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: We love bees and bonnets. Virgets bees and bonnets.
• 55:58
  Speaker 6: Oh that's look at that. I had to save that one.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well, thank you, thank you for always being
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: in delight and doing this research and making sure people
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: know these important things.
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: We know you're very busy, so we really appreciate it.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: Where can the good listeners find you?
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: Well, you can check out my podcast. There are no
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: girls on the internet. You can find me on Instagram
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: at Bridget Marie and DC or on Twitter at Bridget
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: Marie and you can see me and Annie in Las
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: Vegas if you're there, check come check us out.
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, I will wear not pajamas for.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: Are you gonna low key cosplay? Scully? Hello?
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I actually have a friend who cosplays a Scully and
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: she has the bench. Maybe she'll let me. Okay, that's
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: a good idea. That's a good idea. Okay, well that's
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: a spoiler for what we might be talking about. But yes,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you, bridget. If you would
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: like to find us, you can. You can emailus a
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: stuff Adia mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or on
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told you. We
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: have a tea public store. We also have a book.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: You can get it at stuff you should read Books
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: dot com or wherever you get your books. Thanks, it's
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: always to our super producer Christina, our executive ducer Maya,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: and our contributor Joey.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Thank you and I'm sorry, oh no, thanks.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: To you for listening Stuff I've Never Told whose production
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: of IRT Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 57:29
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• 57:30
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.