Joy Reid

And I watched Republicans attempt to spin the attack on the Capitol on January 6, January 6, 2021, as First Amendment protected free speech.

So what we're now saying is that hearing is that conservatives believe

that physically attacking the Capitol, hitting police officers like Michael Fanone with stun guns, bear spray, and baseball bats, defecating in the Capitol, smashing the windows of the Capitol, literally destroying the Capitol's edifice, that doing that is First Amendment protected free speech, slamming those officers in doorways,

beating them with their fists, nearly killing Mike Fanone, nearly killing other officers, injuring 140 police officers and leaving six people dead, that is protected free speech.

but a protest in a church at which no one is harmed or killed and covering that protest as a journalist, that's a crime.

We are in Putin Navalny territory.

This is the way Russia operates.

It's the way North Korea and China operate.

It is not supposed to be the way the United States of America operates.

I will never forgive you for making me watch her, but anyway, come on.

I approved of that message.

Can I just say, Don, to the point that everyone, I think, has made, and I think everyone agrees,

The reason that it is you that they're going after and not one of the networks, I think to the points that Charles and Colby have made, and I think that are absolutely true, is that if you go back to the first Gulf War, the establishment of this idea of embedding journalists, this was kind of the first time that in my, at least adult lifetime, when you saw the mainstream media sort of cross the line,

into playing ball and assisting an administration in telling its war stories, or not since, you know, the sort of little films they used to show during World War II, the little propaganda films, little government propaganda films they used to show at movie theaters during World War II.

Have we seen that kind of proximity to the government's story about the war?

and that was because that was designed to fix the vietnam problem right where walter cronkite the most trusted man in america eventually comes out and having been there said wait a minute this war is unwinnable shocking the nation and ruining support for the war and the government always wants the media to be compliant they want the media to give them

positive coverage that simply affirms what they're trying to say.

But what you've seen with this administration is that they have completely neutered much of the mainstream media, both because of the settlements and because, to be honest, these media companies, the journalism piece of it is just a part of their business.

They've got other business they want to do that they need regulatory relief for.

They need to be able to do mergers and acquisitions.