1/29/20 1/29/20

BUSTLE.com: 6 Books That Will Help You Understand The Trump Impeachment Trial

The Man Who Sold America is the new book by MSNBC anchor Joy-Ann Reid…

The U.S. House of Representatives ended 2019 with a bang when it impeached Donald J. Trump for abuse of power. Although the 45th President of the United States is unlikely to be removed from office through impeachment, the Senate trial may help prevent Trump's re-election in November.

Senate Republicans have also voiced their opposition to hearing witness testimony in the impeachment proceedings, but that hasn't stopped key witnesses from speaking out. Last week, The New York Times obtained a copy of The Room Where It Happened — the forthcoming book from former national security adviser John Bolton, out Mar. 17. The title of the book may have drawn attention for the way it has riled Hamilton fans, but Bolton's allegations that Trump tied Ukraine funds to the investigation of Hunter Biden will be even more difficult for the G.O.P. to ignore. Trump responded to the book on Twitter with what Vanity Fair characterized as "a blizzard of lies," and Bolton's lawyers have accused the White House of leaking the book — all of which just goes to show that we live in some very strange and quite uncertain times.

Trump getting removed from office might sound too good to be true, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't educate yourself about the ramifications of our current political moment. Here are six books you should read to understand the impeachment of the President:

7/16/19 7/16/19

Black Enterprise.com: [WATCH] AS TRUMP DOUBLES DOWN ON RACIST RHETORIC, JOY REID BREAKS DOWN TOXIC POLITICS

On her weekend MSNBC show, AM Joy, Joy Reid delivers political insight with surgical precision. She speaks quickly—it seems at times her words are syncing with the rapid-fire pistons of her thought process. Reid has a new book out, The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story and its release is timely.

President Trump recently fired off a series of tweets presumably targeting newly-elected, non-white members of Congress: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan.), Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), and Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts.). In a tweetstorm, Trump advised the four, known in the media as “The Squad,” to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” He also unleashed a barrage of attacks, accusing the representatives of engaging in “disgusting language,” and called them “anti-Semitic” and “anti-American.”

American politics have become grotesque. And many wonder if America can ever recover from the toxic climate. Reid addresses that very question and much more about the current state of politics in this exclusive interview with Black Enterprise.

On why so many white people identify with and vote for Trump, Reid says she has researched the reasons. “The reasons that people voted for Trump,'” she says, are because “if they had economic anxiety…they relate that economic anxiety to people of color” and that many feel the economic problems they may be experiencing are “the fault of immigrants.”

4/3/19 4/3/19

NBCNews.com: Joy goes one-on-one with director Rob Reiner on Trump, Barr

Joy goes one-on-one with director and activist Rob Reiner on Robert Mueller, Donald Trump, William Barr, and the future of America’s democracy.

3/26/19 3/26/19

AM Joy's interview with Con. Jon Lewis is covered in the top story in the Sunday Washington Post

The political showdown over the Russia investigation that could reshape the remainder of President Trump’s term began in earnest Saturday even before the special counsel’s conclusions were known to the public, as Trump allies claimed vindication while Democrats demanded transparency and vowed to intensify their own probes.

Trump and his attorneys and aides were clouded by uncertainty because they did not yet know the contents of the Robert S. Mueller III’s report, which Attorney General William P. Barr and a small coterie of Justice Department officials spent Saturday privately reviewing.

Ensconced for the weekend in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump exuded optimism while playing golf, lunching at the clubhouse and chatting with friends. At the urging of his advisers, he also exhibited uncharacteristic caution, refraining from publicly crowing that the “witch hunt” was over or declaring victory prematurely. Asked mid-Saturday to evaluate the president’s mood, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said simply, “He’s good.”

The Trump team clung to hopeful signs — such as word from the Justice Department that there would be no more indictments from Mueller’s team — that the president could end up exonerated after a nearly two-year investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

But there was also widespread recognition within the Trump orbit that the Mueller report could still contain damaging information for the president — and that his legal troubles are far from over, with separate investigations into Trump’s business, inaugural committee and conduct continuing apace in New York and on Capitol Hill.

“The information that has been revealed publicly, particularly no further indictments, has been helpful,” Giuliani said. But, he added, “until you read the report, you don’t know exactly what it entails. . . . My message is: We’ve all waited this long. Let’s just await the reading of what’s disclosed, and then we can have proper final reactions. There’s too much assuming going on, on the other side, and we shouldn’t fall into that trap.”

Still, the contours of the political battles ahead took form. The mood among Democrats was tense and urgent, with expectations running high that Mueller’s complete report could be explosive and spark a reckoning for Trump. Party leaders called for the report to be released in full, along with the underlying documents.

Americans “deserve the truth, to know the truth,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Saturday afternoon on a conference call with caucus members. “Transparency is the order of the day.”

Rank-and-file Democrats worried to House leaders that the Justice Department’s independence could be threatened, according to several aides involved in those talks, while Pelosi tried to fend off — for now, at least — calls within her party to seek Trump’s impeachment.

“I think that day will come,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Saturday. “I don’t think he’s legitimate. I said it back at the end of the election. I still believe that today.”

3/25/19 3/25/19

NewYorker.com: No Conspiracy, No Exoneration: The Conclusions from the Mueller Report

“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Such is the key, complicating sentence in Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of the “principal conclusions” of Robert Mueller’s twenty-two-month investigation, which he issued to Congress on Sunday afternoon.

Barr, who took office as Attorney General last month, writes that Mueller, the special counsel, determined that no one associated with the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians in what all the leading intelligence agencies have determined was a concerted effort to manipulate the 2016 election to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump.

3/6/19 3/6/19

MSNBC.com: How history will regard Cohen’s testimony on Trump

Donald Trump was lambasted by the president’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen in congressional testimony this past week, during which Cohen called Trump a racist and conman. Joy Reid is joined by historian Michael Beschloss to discuss. Read more

1/8/19 1/8/19

NewYorkTimes.com: Rashida Tlaib’s Expletive-Laden Cry to Impeach Trump Upends Democrats’ Talking Points

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had only been in office for a few hours when a handful of Democrats defied her persistent calls not to begin the new Congress by talking about impeachment.

Just after Pelosi was sworn in Thursday, longtime Democratic Reps. Brad Sherman of California and Al Green of Texas introduced articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. That evening, newly elected Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan riled up a supportive crowd by calling the president a profanity and predicting that he will be removed from office.

Variety: How Joy Reid Took on Trump and Became MSNBC’s New Star

When Joy Reid takes over MSNBC’s broadcast for two hours each Saturday and Sunday, she knows she has to walk a tightrope. Her show, “AM Joy,” is supposed to have a broader perspective than the rat-a-tat-tat breaking-news coverage that normally fills MSNBC’s dayside grid. But in this current news cycle, headlines are always breaking.The trick, sometimes, is to nod to the news but use it to build up a bigger idea. “We want to keep adding to the story we are focusing in on,” Reid says. “It’s part of the job, to be flexible and nimble with the news cycle, because it’s so crazy.”Read more here.

10/31/15 10/31/15

A 2Live Crew Boss Explains Trump

Fans who braved the Carolina rain to meet Luther “Luke” Campbell this past weekend in Charlotte—including a local DJ who brought seemingly every LP Campbell and his former rap group, 2Live Crew, ever pressed—came to hear about the music and madness of the Miami rap scene, and to collect signed copies of The Book of Luke, Campbell’s new memoir.They left with a dose of Luke’s unique brand of cultural wisdom.The 54-year-old rap pioneer, youth football philanthropist, and legendary party promoter has a decades-long reputation for pornographic lyrics and hypersexual showmanship. He invented the “parental advisory” sticker for music albums after battling Tipper Gore and a host of political adversaries in Washington who wanted to censor rap content because, in Luke’s telling, white kids in the suburbs, and not just black kids in the hood, were listening to it.But he’s also a serious student of American politics, with plenty to say about his disappointment with the Democratic Party, the prospects for a President Kanye West, and the appeal of Donald Trump.Read the rest at The Daily Beast.