Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews 4/11/2023 – Talking Tennessee with Rep. Gloria Johnson

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

It's Skewsday, y'all, and tonight we're thrilled to welcome Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) to the show to discuss her experience as one of the Tennessee Three, all of the fallout since, and how she's feeling about the future of politics in the Volunteer State. Join us. Support the show

Hey, everybody, welcome back. Happy Skews Day to you. It's April 11th, 23. I'm Trey Crowder. That's Mark Aegee. What's up, Mark? None, Trey. I'm excited.

We're going to be talking with Representative Gloria Johnson, the great state of Tennessee, your home state. A little bit later about her friends getting kicked out of the state legislature and then being back and then, you know, how a loss in all this was this is an argument about guns. But yeah, there's so much stuff going on. It was a brief list of stuff we can't get to today. Texas federal judge, Mark Casmarix,

myphosprone, I don't have to say the word, the abortion drug decision, which repeals its FDA allowance 23 years later is so crazy that I can't even describe it. Like even right-wing judges are going to smack this down because he found a fetal personhood in an amicus brief, then no judges ever, anyway, it doesn't matter. Alvin Bragg is suing Jim Jordan over meddling in the Trump investigation. Clarence Thomas got caught going to bullet ordues with a Nazi sympathizer.

We'll talk about that on the Patreon episode, I think, led this week. People are driving over cases of butt light with steamrollers, Trey. It was called the beef between offspring and Travis Tritt. That's right in our wheelhouse, buddy. We can't even get to that. Yeah. Well, I mean, this kind of is a good opportunity. you referenced it, but this is a good opportunity to plug the Patreon again because a lot of this stuff will probably come up later this week when we do the Patreon episode.

This is the kind of stuff we do over there. So y'all should check it out. The Bud Light thing is, it's funny to me. I've seen all the different, like it started with Kid Rock shooting them up or whatever and which is something he loves to do, shooting shit up. But he, uh, and also they're steamrolling them and whatnot. And it's funny to me that like these guys are getting together and they're like, we need to, you know, we need to publicly state our disgust and our intentions to boycott Bud Light. and they're like, yeah, we should. So what should we do?

He's like, well, first thing's first, we got to go buy a shitload of Bud Light and then explode it or whatever. But like, you know, they got to buy it first to explode it. And it's just, it's so dumb. I saw a viral video earlier

of a guy going around his house to all these different mini fridges throwing out Bud Lights. And I think it was hundreds of Bud Lights. Yeah. He was throwing away. Oh, God, everything's so crazy. You've got to be really in a we used to even know

with her complaint about. But Light had some sort of promotional deal where they paid for an Instagram post from one trans influencer and this calls to all this shit. Companies have marketing budgets. They have all kinds of influencers so it's not fucking whatever.

I do want to shout out this person though. Matt sent us this text over the weekend at Tray's show in Portland and that's Matt's wife told people at our table that I'm producer Matt, their response how hard can it be to play a fucking video?

So yeah, shout out to that audience member. Yeah. favorite even though I don't think I met you but that was tremendous yeah thank you for that I was walking my dog and I was laughing so hard almost let her get hit by a car my buddy Rob who's went to college with we talked about him before he went to a show in Atlanta he sent me this text earlier today because he looked he wrote up in like the next county over from mine this headline how about baseless voter fraud allegations their

entire county's election staff quits in Virginia this is my home county of buckingham Virginia where I grew up and I was reading through the article and I'm like the sheriff had to post extra sheriff deputies and like county board meetings because the people all these people were trying to fight each other I was like that guy was my dad's drinking buddy this is so fucking surreal yeah this lady who's nonpartisan this is a county that went overwhelmingly for Trump I think Trump got less votes than a lot of Republicans do because he's morally gross you know which doesn't play for a lot of the Bible Belt but like he's still won like 56 to 43 or something.

And they're still complaining about like voter fraud because some other elections, some Democrat won by nine votes and like some state thing. It's like and these people are accusing this lady of being like a deep state. Like my sister volunteers to work of voter voting polling locations in our little county. So they're accusing my sister, teach his first grade of being like deep state and rigging the election. This is so fucking stupid, man.

Yeah, it is. But, Mark, listen, Virginia is really going to have to step it up still if they want to compete with the likes of my home state of Tennessee and Florida and Texas and the real dipshit Olympics up here. Like, this is just, that's just dropping the bucket, buddy. But yeah, it's pretty rough. All that being said, I guess we'll get into it. Producer Matt is with us, as always, out there not playing videos. He's behind the same thing. This is weekly skews.

Before we go, I do one. Before, I do want to say one of the reason I want to talk about is, like, because we both have, well, have other jobs and stuff. So Matt Hopps in the dock I put together, like, half an hour before the show starts, starts making graphics and pulling video clips. And he's doing it as the show goes. So when I call for a video or we call for a video, he has to try to go back up and try to find where we're at. I just want to defend Matt a little bit there. Love you, buddy. Yeah.

Also, Matt, I'd say in about 60 seconds or so, I'm going to be asking for a video, okay? So if you want to go ahead and get ready for that. But anyway, so anyway, before we go on, I do, of course, we want to remind you all of a couple of things. Number one, if you'd like Sammy Perform Live, you can go to Treycrowder.com, check out the tickets. Portland was fantastic this past weekend. Got a bunch of dates coming up the rest of the year,

and I'm still filling out more for 2023. So I go to Treycrowder.com. Come and save me. It's a good time. Also in Treycrowder.com, you can find a link to my Amazon special. Damn, boy, it's called. You can get it, or you can get the whole well, red comedy bundle, which includes mine, Drew

Morgans, and Corey Ryan Forrester's, whatever you want to do either way. We hope you'll check them out. Then, lastly, as we said at the top of the show, if you're not already, you should holler at our Patreon. Go to weekly skews.com slash more or go on Patreon and look me up. Find it on there. $5 a month, get you access

to full link bonus episodes. Like the one we're going to do later this week on Clarence Thomas and Budlott and a bunch of other silly shit that's happening in this country. We're having fun with it. We hope you'll consider it and it would support the show. So please consider Going to weekly skews.com slash more, signing up on there and get some more skews in your life. Now, as for the show tonight, as Mark referenced, we're thrilled to welcome Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson, one of the Tennessee three, the three Democrat legislatures who face the ire of the Republican counterparts after they stood in solidarity with students protesting gun violence in the state of Tennessee.

It's a wild story and has drawn a lot of well-earned scrutiny to the volunteer state. We're going to get some firsthand experience from Representative Johnson a little bit later on. First, though, we, of course, still must begin with the Daily Dumbass. My graphic, please. Tonight's D.D., poor kids who should have thought to run for office if they wanted a free lunch. This is in North Dakota. Last month, the Senate voted against House Bill 1491, which would have covered meals for students whose families are below 200% of the poverty line.

Yesterday, they voted for Senate Bill 2124, which increases in-state meal reimbursements for state employees, including lawmakers during interim legislative meetings from $35 per day to $45 per day. You can cut it, Matt. So we talked about the school lunch thing a couple of weeks ago because some dumb-ass state legislator

was like, I've never met a hungry person. Right? Remember that? Yeah. And then they go and they give themselves a meal allowance raise from $35 a day to $45 a day. Now, all these guys, most people run for state legislatures across America. These are jobs that don't necessarily pay well. You're extremely committed to public service or you have independent money or jobs you want to be at, like say, owning a car dealership or a dentist office, right? And they do not need the fucking money.

And this drives me, uh, I, I don't know if you know that, because you don't have kids, but like, and I, I'm actually, I don't even know if it's Los Angeles County, Burbank School District or California overall, uh, but either way, like, they're, the meals at my son's school are just free. Like, they just are just all of them. Like there's no, uh, poverty test you got to pass or whatever. They just, uh, are free to them. So that's like, uh, it probably. It probably saves money because it cuts down on so much administrative costs, plus having to pay for a cashier at the end of the line who has to tell kids, no, they can't have food if they don't have. This is so maddening. But I was thinking about like the right wing attitude towards food thinking about this because I was listening to a podcast about a Supreme Court case from Missouri where this woman was on like in a vegetative state and on a feeding tube. And because of her wishes, which weren't in written writing, but she. told her family and friends she did not want to be kept alive in a vegetative state and her family was like we don't want to put her through this anymore they tried they tried to remove her feeding tube and the state forced them to keep it in well as Supreme court and the Supreme court said no

this woman has to stay on a feeding tube so what I'm saying is like if you don't want to starve the state says fuck you you have to starve but if you want to starve the state says fuck you you have to eat what I'm saying is they did whatever the most miserable way to be is they're just for it. Yeah, and I don't understand how they, you know, being good, God-fearing Christians who, you know, constantly think of the children. I don't know in her pro-life and all that. I don't know how you justify shooting down a bill to provide free lunches for children 200% below the poverty line or their families that far below it because it's like, and this happens a lot of their stances all the time. It's like, okay, so then what happens? Like, the kids just starve and they

would, I'm sure they would say like, well, now, nobody's saying that, but it's like, well, I mean, yeah, you are, though, like, what else is supposed to happen? It's like, well, if their parents can't afford to pay for it, should I have to pay for it? And it's like, I would buy a kid lunch if they couldn't afford it. I'm not a Christian. I don't even have Jesus telling me to do it. I just would do that. Like, I would, I'd feel terrible if I didn't do it.

Like, and, you know, and, and, and, uh, I just don't understand it, man. Personal responsibility, trade. That's what we're rolling back child labor protection. So if the kids want to eat, then get a job of the meatpack and plant at the age of eight years old. That's what we're doing. Yeah. All right. Yeah, it makes all the sense in the world. Our first honorable mention is the mainstream news networks for being too afraid to tell you

what's up with people getting neckin in Japanese cartoons. What? Yeah. Well, so it's tentacle porn. Okay. Yeah, I mean, technically it is tentacle porn, which is his own subgenre, and we're not going to pollute your mind by telling you any more about it than that. Well, so it's tentacle porn. So, Trey, what do you want to guess he's talking? talking about. I don't have a clue.

NPR is playing. NPR's a radio program. They play like tentacle porn on the radio is a wild, you know, programming choice. How does that work? Yeah. So you got this is, I wanted to talk about this section about how this fucking

wing nuts have lost the ability to talk to any sort of normal brain person. So what happened was Elon Musk got mad about some MPR reporting about what's going on Twitter. So he slapped a on their account that said state-affiliated media or something like that, like you do with stuff from like Russia today or Chinese state media, all right? Because the NPR gets like one percent of their funding from the federal government or something like that. Not a whole lot, but back when we used to fund stuff like public radio, it used to be more. Anyway,

NPR, like every publication, does human interest stories. I guess they'd done something about romance novels and the people that are really into them and like writing them. And one of them was a lady who talked about tentacle porn and romance novels. So here we are. So now we have a national TV program, one of those popular shows on cable, it's technically news devoting time to talking about tentacle porn. So how important is this to your life, Ray?

Right. No, well, I mean, you know, this is clearly this is the decay of Western civilization, Mark. So pretty darn important for your papal sitting there worrying about the stay of the world today. Hear this. Lord, what's the country coming to? You have ten of the porn on the public radio.

Yeah, it's absurd. Here's another thing they're up at arms about this week. Up where they woke. Fox News and others panic about Little Mermaid lyric changes. Oh, yeah. So the upcoming... They were already mad at this movie, right? I mean, this movie was woke from the jump because our aerial is not white in it.

So it was already on their hit list. We all know Mermaids are white, Trey. Every mermaid. You ever met a non-white mermaid? I have it. Splash, other stuff, you know.

So whoever's doing the music for it mentioned, no one even knows what the new lyrics are, but talked about their updates on the lyrics because they want to make it be clear that like when the princess, you know, romancing Ariel, it was a little pushy, I guess,

in the cartoon. I don't remember what are you wanting to make it more clear that she's consenting to this romantic, you know, entanglement. Yeah. Right. Now, entanglement.

Yeah. Pretend, they don't have sex as it isn't you. You know, it's good for romantic. Tanglement's mark, tentacles. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. There you go. Niled it. So, like, imagine talking, you're trying to talk to a regular person. And you're like, the little mermaid's woke. You're like, yeah, what, they're all, you know, a lot of fish are trans. So is that we're doing? Like, no, no, you know, is it like, because there's a male seahorse character who's pregnant?

Because male he's seahors is a giga, right? No, it's not that. What is it? The song lyrics are slightly changed to make it clear that aerial. actually likes this guy who's producing. Right. Okay, but I've got to go about groceries. What the fuck you talk?

I know. The woke agenda at work. I'm not going to lie. I'm not like, Katie's a huge, my wife's a huge Disney, part big Disney adult, and we went to see the Dungeons and Dragons movie last week,

which I highly recommend, by the way. It's a very fun time. And on the way out, they had this huge promo poster set up for the little mermaid movie. And Katie's like, And I was like, oh, man, but not because it's woke, just because, you know, it's a live action Disney cartoon. You're going to sit through it. I don't want to have to sit through it.

Yeah, but I'm going to have to, you know, and be subjected to the woke agenda. So are you saying you're making a choice to maybe not go see a movie that's not intended for you? That's crazy. So, but like this is like, you're normal voter in America. You're just like, I just want my potholes fixed. And they were like, but the little mermaids woke. I'm like, well, what's the government going to do about it? And so I saw a clip of Ron DeSantis speaking in Michigan yesterday where he literally used the word woke like seven times in 15 seconds.

He was basically doing his version of the Winston Churchill speech. Like we will, you know that we will fight in the beaches. We'll fight in the cities. We'll fight in the streets. We'll fight in the hills. He was like, we'll fight woke in the schools, woke in the hospitals. And the coffee shops and the strip clubs and the comic books and the public. radio in the movie theaters.

The Wall Street Journal polled wokeness. There's been a couple of these polls actually recently. So the headline is hilarious. America pulls back on values that once defined it, but that's not at all with the poll. What they're referring to is like less people go to church than they used to and less people

say they rank their job as their number one priority in their life. Yeah, because nobody wants to work anymore, Mark. Right there. You see it. Right, right. Right there for you to see. That's their interpretation, but they also pulled stuff like, here's one question. Which of these concerns are most about schools these days? Some schools may teach books and topics that some students and their parents feel are inappropriate or offensive, got 36%. Still too high.

But the other one, some schools may ban books, got 61%. All right? The voters are woke, Trey. Here's another one. Is there decided to gone too far, not gone far enough, or is it about right for each of these questions? accepting transgender people too far as 43% too high, but not going far enough is 33 and about rights, 23. So 56 to 43, we like trans people or fine with trans people.

Equality between men and women. Only 12% of people think America's gone too far, too much equality between men and women. The other two numbers are 48 and 30. They're just like, they're so far out of touch with like where people are at. And I wish like public officials to realize how left wing a lot or, left wings are in the word for just how like go about their own business people are and not busy bodies um and like it's just like i don't understand how this shit gets filtered through to them it's like

that's the scary part is they're true believers in this shit because i was i was talking my wife about this earlier but in 2004 one of the reasons bush got reelected is even though bush privately had a lot of gay friends he publicly was anti-gay marriage and he put a lot of anti-gay marriage initiatives on state uh on state ballots to jude to jews conservators turnout, right? Yep. That was a cynical move, but at least it made sense. They're going the opposite direction here.

There's throwing away votes to be mean for no electoral benefit. And it's like, here's another poll about air quote, wokeness. A majority of Americans say Republicans should spend less time talking about wokeness by a net 31% margin, 55 to whatever minus 51 is. Even Republicans is a 28 by 28 point margin that you just stop talking about. fucking woops. Yeah, well, I mean, it's like you said, it's like most people just want, like, to, you know, if you're, like, Republican, you just want to keep more of their paycheck and, you know,

own their arsenal or whatever, you know, feed your family, all that good, red-blooded American shit. And now, yeah, it's the Little Mermaid and M&Ms and all this stuff. And it's hard to imagine that people actually care about it. But, but, dude, I mean, they wouldn't, I mean, they wouldn't be doing this all the time if, like, the shows weren't doing good numbers or whatever like Tucker Carlson and them like the hardcore lap balls and stuff yeah they must be into this shit because they wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't playing I feel like but you and I work in show business right and we know

that everything's so nicheified that like if you get a million viewers you're a hit right yeah so like that that's basically all this is but like electorally like they're pushing the the same culture world button over and over again And it's getting more and more fucking boring except for stuff for us to laugh at, right? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, some other numbers that I found interesting.

This is from a story recently. This connects to tonight's main topic. Why Republicans are overreaching so hard in so many states. And the entire piece is basically about how they're so gerrymandered and feel so powerful. It doesn't really matter what voters think anymore. They can just pull these levers and do stuff like a duly elected legislators. But these numbers are in there I found interesting.

Some 76% of Americans tell pollsters that they're fine with schools teaching ideas that might make students uncomfortable. And a clear majority of all Americans, 64% think abortion should be legal in most or all cases. And about the same number of Americans that 64% say there should be laws protecting transgender individuals from discrimination. So America, the people are mostly fine. Right. And the leadership in the media class are fucking crazy. Yeah. Well, what's there, I mean, like in the getting,

into the top of these states like mine have these Republican super majorities and everything. And like you said, they just don't, it's like they don't have to care about the voters anymore because they've, you know, gerrymandered themselves into so much power. But I mean, what can you, you know, do about that? Like, it's a pretty grim outlook, isn't it? Because as long as they keep that, but it's cyclical. They're set up to keep that power. And then they use that power to make sure that they always keep that power and abuse a whole bunch of

other shit as well but yeah well you fight for the stuff they can't jerrymand or like statewide elections like for example like and andy bashear is a democratic governor in kentucky and they they got a super majority they can override his vetoes but he get like you just statewide judges like uh protosewitz won in wisconsin awesome uh last tuesday so now you hopefully there will be cases that go for the court will create more fair maps and create an actual fucking democracy in wisconsin and i don't know exactly I don't know if Tennessee has elected Supreme Court judges or not or whether Bashir has to stay in the law office long enough to appoint more. I don't, I'm not familiar with Tennessee's government.

But, like, there's got to be stuff. There's got to be ways to organize out of this shit. Because it's just like, it's a Chinese finger cops, man. It's like it's a hell of a truck, trap to be in. Yeah, well, speaking of Tennessee's government, not understanding it, we'll get, let's do some table setting here reminding you guys. I'm sure most of our audience is already aware. Uh, but, um, so Tennessee last week, there was, uh, well, as you, okay, there was this

another school shooting in Nashville, horrible. Help a way to talk about that, the covenant school shooting. Yeah. Covenant school shooting. As a result of that, a lot of young Tennesseans took to the streets and protests and went to the Capitol, so demanding something be done about gun violence in the state. As part of this protest, they were joined by three Democrat lawmakers, Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, at the statehouse.

This resulted in the Republican supermajority in power, threatening those three with expulsion. Then last Thursday, they did vote to expel Justin Jones and Justin Pearson to young black man and Gloria Johnson. Our guest tonight was saved by one vote. I'm allowed to keep her seat. Since then, a special committee because of how the rules are written, has reinstated Justin Jones in Nashville. and hoping for the same for Justin Pearson in the future. But it's just been insane. It's garnered nationwide scrutiny.

All eyes are on Tennessee and have been because, you know, in my opinion, it's literally fascism in action. These people were silenced and their voters, their constituents disenfranchised because they, what, stood with the people as part of a vote? No, they used a bullhorn. That was the big offense. They used the bullhorn.

And so Justin Jones is reinstated by the Nashville City Council who voted 36 to zero to send him back to the state house. He was sworn in last night. It was a pretty cool scene. It was some awesome, awesome photos and video footage of Gloria about a side. And for the record, like, I just wanted to say because Representative Johnson, sorry, she made it clear that her. opinion is the only reason she wasn't kicked out was because of racism, which is a fair take, but also just means one guy was motivated totally about racism because you only say about one vote. But also just like, the reason we're interviewing Representative Johnson is because Jones

and Pearson are busy, getting their seats back and doing a ton of media coverage and also trading as a personal relationship with her. I don't want to be like, we got, you know, I'm saying we got her because she's away later. Now, I've known about and I've known about and been a fan of Gloria Johnson. for a while now. And so with that said, I'd say we'd go ahead and get her out here. Our guest tonight is a retired school teacher and the current Democrat representative for the Knoxville District and the Tennessee State House. Gloria Johnson, everybody. Hey, how you doing? Hey, I'm doing all right. I'm living in crazy time right now. Absolutely. So as I was just saying, I've been a fan of years for a while. And I, as a Tennessee,

and I happen to know that this is not your first rodeo with taking these assholes to task. I've seen plenty of clips, either posted by the Tennessee holler or sent to me by my sister or whatever, of you on the house floor, you know, for lack of a better term, keeping it real, giving them the business, you know, trying to call them out and whatnot. And you've faced repercussions for it before they, like, moved your office to a broom closet, took your window away, pet, very super mature, grown up, things like that. But obviously, this incident, though, is on a whole other level. And so I'm wondering from your perspective, why do you think that what was it about this that just pushed them so far, to make them react this way? How dare you break the rules, get up and talk when we haven't allowed you to talk, as if we are there to speak to them or we work for them. We work for the voters who sent us there. And the voters who sent us there want us to speak up.

up against gun violence. We wanted to recognize the thousands of teenagers, toddlers, parents and grandparents who were there that day to say we want something done about gun violence. We have been silenced on the floor. Our mics were cut. They didn't give us the opportunity to do welcoming and honoring as we usually do every morning when we go into session. So we were not able to acknowledge all the thousands of folks who were there. And we felt like they had been there. They had been there for a while, and they should at least be acknowledged. And we were compelled to go up between bills. One member had just finished running their bill, was going back to their seat. We went up between bills, spoke on the mic. We pretty much figured, as happens all the

time on the house floor, the speaker cut the mic and called for a recess. So that's when one of the members had a bullhorn, a mini bullhorn, and used that to go ahead and say what we wanted to say to the folks who were there and corresponded in the chant with the folks in the gallery. And that was all during a recess and lasted maybe five minutes. It's remarkable the rumors that they started about what was really going on that what wasn't going on and the speaker's idea that he said

it was worse than the insurrection and he feared for his life I'm not sure exactly if it was the 3 year old or the 14 year old that was going to take his life but that's where we were. Yeah I saw that they were comparing it to

January 6 which is just funny because the problem with January 6 wasn't that it was protest. Trey and I talked about the day it happened, but like, I don't have a problem with like occupying a statehouse enchanting. It was like the goal we disagree with and the killing of the people. So the, so this is all about decorum, but they, they bring it, I read they bring a cowbell costly on the house floor. Is, is that great? Andy Holt used to do that. He absolutely did. You know, and let's not mention that we had an admitted child molester on the floor for years that they protected and helped reelect.

I tried to bring expulsion on him and they said, well, you know, his members, his voters knew it and sent him here anyway, so we can't undo what they did. So, okay, let's keep the admitted child molester on the education committee. Great idea. I told Mark before we started that, I know exactly you're talking about because that guy represents my wife's hometown. That's where my wife and all my in-laws are flying. And so I know that I remember when he was up for re-election, and it's a small town.

Everybody did know it. It was like more than an open secret. It was public knowledge, which, you know, the incidents with his former students and all this stuff. And then he still ends up back in the statehouse. But yes, but you said, or Mark was talking about the decorum. That's the words they use. You like, you guys, they say, violated the rules of decorum. And so technically, in the way the laws are, the bylaws are written, that gives them the

rights, and I'm using air quote, to expel you all. But you told me, in a direct message, they've only done that, what, two or three other times before, and the other times were kind of different, right? Yeah, in modern history, two times, and that would have been Jeremy Durham a few years back, and he had sexually harassed or assaulted 22 people while at the Capitol. And then there was 1980. 18. Yeah, right. I believe one of them was underage. And so let's see. And then there was the fellow with the bribe. Yeah. Felony. So this is who it was. And then we have to go all the way back to 1866 to members who did not show up and refused to show up to vote on the 14th Amendment. They were expelled.

so yeah so sorry i just want this is part of the they killed me the most like they i was reading about how just this has gotten generally create like in tennessee like a bunch of like republicans have quit because things have gotten so crazy didn't think they could win primaries um this move to expel uh representatives pierceton and jones to just to some of how crazy this is this was condemned by a disgraced and indicted former chief of staff the house speaker who was caught texting quote black people are idiots all right that's how fucking extreme and stupid this was. It's just absolutely insane.

We're talking about members who have peed in each other's chair because we got into it. Yeah, those are two Republicans, right? We broke to court. Yeah. I don't know if you're aware, but, you know, that was Thursday. Then on Monday night, House floor, and they are reading the expulsion, resolutions. And as they do, the people in the gallery get pretty ticked and they get loud and start chanting. I think they were chanting, fascist, fascist. Yeah. And so then the troopers come up and a lot of members on the floor, both sides of the aisle, were videotaping as the troopers were removing people. And at that point, one of the Republican members from Knoxville turned around, shoved Justin Jones and stole his phone from him. and so there was this it looked like what's a football you know a fight of fans on the on the basketball court or something when they all get into a rumble and um and they took a few minutes to be everybody was trying to pull everybody apart that was a bigger disruption which included an assault and theft of somebody a member's phone and nothing was said and nobody had a problem with that but try to speak for your constituent

you're out. And it's not even like all you guys are doing was talking. We all live in reality. There's a little chance of them actually passing anything. You're just shaming them over that fact. But they just didn't want to be shamed, which is like talking about shame, the guy you're talking about who confessed

on tape, well, he apologized to the girls he allegedly molested. I'm using the word allegedly going to get sued, but his name's Representative David Byrd. The peeing situation was two Republicans fighting over tweets or something. What I got and pissed on another one's seat. There's a current state senator

who admitted to illegally dealing drugs to employees and family members and also a woman he was sleeping with, but I repeat himself because the woman he was sleeping with was his second cousin. He's still in office. Yes. He was cheating on his fourth wife

with his cousin and prescribed her opiates illegally. Yeah. Well, I mean, I told Mark, when he told me that, I was like, well, depending on the county represents that could be archetypal. representation right there you know i don't know but you really want to get entertained go back and read the scene and read um the uh notes from the divorce and i'm telling you it's it's just

unbelievable that's all i can so i want to know it seems to me as a you've been you've served multiple non-consecutive terms correct right like in and so uh even in that amount of time like the evolution i guess the dev devolution of the republican party in tennessee and the way they conduct themselves like it just seems like it's just really getting out of hand in an embarrassing fashion like your firsthand experience in dealing with them I mean, has it been like that? And how do you keep, you know, how do you say sane? I happen to do that.

It's really interesting because in 13 and 14, that first time I went up there, you know, we disagreed on a lot of stuff, but we could still talk to each other, cut up, that sort of thing. But that, when I came back in 18, it just, it doesn't work like that anymore. There's a meanness and I mean spiritedness that is just remarkable. And this year is even worse because the freshman class, they're a bunch of extremists. And it's just, it's kind of unbelievable. I mean, I haven't even scratched the surface of the things that I tell you that they are doing.

I mean, I had, we had the disgrace speaker in 2018, the one with the racist and the misogynist text, the one that is currently under multiple indictments and awaiting trial. he sat on the house floor for three years after all that stuff happened and came out three years sat on the floor and then robin smith who was involved in the wire fraud and the fake LLC and all of that she not only sat on the on the floor for a year or two but she was also in leadership was chair of a committee and nothing happened to her it's yeah that uh well sorry good Yeah, the disgraced former, yeah, I mean, it absolutely is. Like, the disgraced speaker, just because this is funny, like, he had to explain why his text message trail included discussions of pole dancing women and his chief of staff sexual encounters in the bathroom of a hot chicken restaurant. That's very Nashville.

So, so I guess Representative Pearson has heard rumors that if a Memphis, the Memphis City Council or whatever government entity there is, is tasked with deciding whether or not he's reappearned. pointed. If he's done so, they're threatening to withhold $350 million to a funding to Memphis. Have you heard anything about that? This is what Nashville does. They are all about retaliating on someone that wrongs them as they see it. When they don't get their way, they throw a kicking, screaming tantrum. This is a kicking, screaming tantrum. We're not going to give you this money for your stadium if you all appoint this fellow. And I mean, it's Justin's, we're talking about it, but it's been in the press. And so they better watch themselves if they do that when everybody is aware of what's going on.

You know, but this, it's like a crime syndicate. I've said that for years. You know, I don't, they didn't call, HR did not call the two justins before the expulsion to meet with them. They called me, the 60-year-old woman. who has some health problems. They're fine if I keep them in check, but they called me and said, we want to talk to you about your benefits.

And I said, okay. And they come into my office. And the head of HR says, well, I just want you to know if you're expelled, then you will lose your health care. You will not be able to keep your health care. And I said,

well, I was curious about that. I know when Durham was expelled, he lost his health care, and he's suing to get it back. And she said, yes. And that lawsuit is still. going on. And I said, well, you know, I'm aware of that, but oh, well. And then she also came in

with the ethics attorney. And so the ethics attorney says to me, well, you know, a couple years ago, there was a member who was potentially going to be expelled. And when he found out he might lose his health benefits, he decided to resign. So if you resign, you won't lose your health benefits. That's like, you told me any crimes in a kid. I see. Yeah, right. Be a shame if something were to happen in those health benefits of yours.

That's a direct echo of the scene of Godfather where they go to talk to their witness in federal prison and insinuate if he kills himself, they'll take care of his family. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So you, I wanted to ask you, you said, you said, you know, they better watch it. If they go through with something like this, everybody knows what's going on. I've in the intervening time since all this has gone down.

I've heard from a lot of my friends that are really politically engaged, people that work either in politics or ancillary to politics, like all around the country, not just in Tennessee. They're all progressives, you know, everybody that I'm talking about, everybody's texting me anyway.

And I've seen a number of them say some version of like, you know, I think they might have overplayed their hand this time. It's like, I think this might be a bridge too far. Like they may live to regret this. This is too much for people. They've,

you know, energize the youth in Tennessee against them. And, you know, the typical suburban voters are, you know, not going to be able to stomach this type of thing or just optimism, essentially, is what I'm getting at. And I'm wondering where you stand on all of that. Do you, where you're at on the optimism scale and how you feel about the fallout in this going forward. I couldn't do it if I wasn't hopeful.

I couldn't do this job if I don't see things that are giving me hope. and these young people, they're so smart, they're so savvy, they know how to get, they're going to stand up, they're going to speak up, they're not going to stop, they're not going to back down, they care deeply, they're passionate about issues like gun violence and climate change and so many things, and equality for certain. And I don't think they're going to back down and they have wakened a sleeping giant because this is a multi-racial, multi-generational movement. And I think that is the beauty of it. We are all joining together, gathering forces, and we are going to fight, and these young people are going to lead us.

I said the other day, you know, I'm a teacher. Always been a teacher, teacher at heart, you say a teacher, but I said, I am being taught by these young people. And I'm listening, and I'm open. I think we should continue to learn our entire lives. But learning from these young people is wonderful. We walked out of the capital the other night, and they had the March for Our Lives that set up a rally. They had this brilliant stage and sound equipment and all the press across the country lined up. And they do this on their own.

These young folks are brilliant. They know the issues. They know them in depth. And it's just great that they are becoming so active. and they're just not going to back down. And I want to lift them up and lift those voices up and make sure that we actually get something done when it comes to gun violence.

Well, I was just about to say, I was going to circle back to that too. It's like it's kind of an unfortunate, unintended consequence of all the insanity that's happened. It's like it, you know, it's sort of, it's distracted somewhat from the original impetus for the protest in the first place,

which were about gun violence and these, like you saw, these young people. because I was inspired, too. I saw that. I was like, oh, thank God that, you know, it gave me some hope for Tennessee because it's hard to be hopeful in recent times.

But I'm always, you know, I want to think the young people are going to be good and will be our future and all that. Then you see something like that, and it makes you actually believe it. But then, obviously, it gets sidelined by their insanity. And we played some clips on here from some of those interactions. Like there was, you know,

one of the Republican congressman just straight up saying, yeah, we're not going to fix it. There was another one, these kids confronted him, and he was like, he was like, well, tell me what kind of gun you would prefer to be shot with, you know, because you're talking about AR-15s or whatever. It's like they're just being openly disrespectful and non-committal about everything and just seemed not to care at all until you guys got involved and they saw an opportunity to, you know, really show their asses.

But so that part of it is not lost on you guys right or on the movement or on the kids or whatever. They're still, they didn't, it's not like that's just over. People didn't just give up on that part. That still matters. Yeah, and every one of us, we make sure that when we're doing any press or anything, we want to make this about gun violence and ending gun violence. One of the same people that you said, what kind of gun do you want to be shot with was also the fellow who said, well, I don't care what it takes.

If we need a tank in front of every school, we're going to do that. Well, that's outrageous. As a teacher, I don't want to. have to walk past the tank to go into my classroom and teach my kids. And the reality is, hey, I've got an idea, guys. Nobody has mentioned guns in the entire conversation about how to make school safer, except for giving guns to teachers. That's brilliant. But they, I want to stop the guns from getting to the schoolhouse door. Apparently, they want gun fights at the schoolhouse door where that's going to get people hurt. Why don't we stop

it before the guns ever get to the schoolhouse door or the bank door or the grocery store door. That's what we should be doing, prevent it. Why aren't we talking about preventing instead of, hey, bring the battle to the schoolhouse. We'll have plenty of guns there. I just don't. I don't know. I don't know how, and I don't know how, because I'm sure some of them probably don't,

but most of these guys, I think, have kids of their own, and I have kids. you were a teacher, and I just don't know how you could be that callous or not care at all, especially if you have your own children. Because, like, we live in Southern California now, and in the couple of weeks since the shooting in Nashville, we've gotten, my wife and I've got two separate emails from the school district where we live in about credible threats of gun violence at high schools in this area. So it's like, it's just, it's very real and it's terrifying to me. And I don't know how they just don't feel any of that or just don't, or it's like, oh, that's a,

you know, it's worth it for freedom and assault rifles or whatever. Like if a few more kids have to get shots and that's just the price we're going to have to pay. Like, I just can't, I can't wrap my mind around that mentality as a father, you know. I think it goes back to a lot of with Republicans until it happens in their immediate family, they don't care about it. But when it does, sometimes that's the thing. You know, when somebody is gay in their family, then maybe they have some concern for the LGBTQ community. or, you know, something like that. Well, maybe of one of their family members.

But it's just remarkable that you can be so callous. And I have been, I guess I can't say that I'm shocked. Well, I'm always shocked. I hope I never am not shocked at their callousness and their lack of concern for children. Because I had to bring to the issue to light of DCS and what was happening in our DC. We kept that in the press for two years.

and they are finally doing something this session. It's not enough, but it's going to do something. It is going to be a help, and we're going to keep pushing. But, I mean, we shouldn't, they talk about, oh, we're defending the kids from drag shows. Oh, really? While kids are sleeping in offices for three months at a time for teenagers who can't shower for a week. I mean, really? Well, also.

They just had a whole bunch of kids march on the statehouse. Like, you were there with them. Did any of them bring up drag shows? Were any of them like, oh, also while we're at it, yeah, these drag shows are really freaking us out too. I somehow doubt that that came up. Well, yeah, just like one year of campaigning, not one door I knocked on, not one person I talked to on the phone wanted a bill against drag points.

They did, however, the polling in my district, which is Red East Tennessee, the polling in my district showed that even the majority of Republicans in my district wanted red flag laws, both Republicans and Democrats and also an overwhelming amount of independence as well. These people are listening to the NRA and the American Rifle Association and ignoring their very own constituents. I did want to say that, like, I do appreciate, like, in every interview I've seen with representatives, Jones and Pearson and you, you guys always turn.

back the gun control issue because I know the national media is really interested in the spectacle of like the fight. And I get that. It's good to use that attention to like for the actual issue. But like the two things I found really inspiring, um, where the thousands of kids protesting in front of the capital chanting fuck Bill Lee. And, uh, the, the image when, uh, when just, uh, Jones and Pearson were expelled of a mom from covenant church, the covenant church school hugging him and appreciation. That's got to be, that's a, that's a hardcore evangelist. evangelical church school. It's got to be a mom as otherwise a very Republican voter in most instances, and they're on the same side of this. And I was like, yes, we're all on the same side of it. You know, it's... Many families from Covenant have reached out to thank us. Teachers from Covenant have reached out to me just because they know I'm an educator. They know that I was teaching in a school in Knoxville at Central when we had a school shooting and lost a student, Ryan McDonald.

So, you know, when you've seen that, when you see the kids traumatized from that, it doesn't go away, you don't forget it. And people need to understand that this is real, this is trauma, and it's happening far too much. This generation that are out there protesting, they grew up knowing that a school shooting was a possibility. You know, that was not a possibility when I was in school.

And it really does. change the way you view the world and the way you view the adults who are supposed to be taking care of you. And they want change and they want it now. Yeah, and I don't know how they don't view that as a problem for their long-term prospects, Republicans, I mean. You know what I mean? Like, that's the thing I've been thinking for so long, it's like they seem so dedicated to, like, alienating as many types of people as they possibly can in this country except for just like the base. You know what I mean? just like straight white Christian conservatives or whatever and I just don't understand how

that's supposed to work long term but you got things like gerrymandering they rigged the system and so you know before you came on earlier mark was going over these poll numbers from the Wall Street Journal about how the majority of Americans are not overly concerned with woke stuff or critical race theory or things like that but it's all you ever hear them talk about I do want to ask because you're an educator about that part of it too critical race theory, banning books, all that stuff, also being done in the name of protecting the children, right? As a louded, a long-time teacher in Tennessee, what do you think about all that? It's terrifying to me that we are stopping basically any discussion of race.

Anybody knows that if you want to make sure that we don't have racism, we have to have those tough conversations, and it's just had a chilling effect. But the idea that we're even stopping race conversations in college, I mean, I thought that was where we went to learn and discuss new ideas and disagree and debate and hash those things out. I'm embarrassed and I'm ashamed that I live in a state that wants to whitewash history for all kids and for young adults in college because they're afraid that in a few years, they're not going to be in charge. That's what it amounts to. Right. I want to do, speaking of race stuff and racism, part of the context for this and how this, like, this popped off in the news,

made national news this week and late last week, but like part of the context here is one of of speaker section's long time beefs with Representative Jones was that he was leading protests in the Capitol over the Nathan Bedford Forest statue that has since been removed from the state capital, right? Is that part of this? It has been removed, and the Speaker Sexton was one of the main members who wanted to keep it.

Both he and Lieutenant Governor Randy, Randy McNally, were both supporters of the bus, keeping the bust. And so, you know, Justin Jones led a protest out on the legislative plaza for 62 days. And I visited with them a lot. You know, he's been present for a long time. And they've tried to drum up charges and that sort of thing. But they've always been thrown out because, you know, there's never anything that they're able to prove. And because it just, it just didn't happen. But, you know, it's interesting that Thursday when they said it was the insurrection.

The THP said that there was no skirmish, there was no damage, no one was arrested, you know, no problems. But still yet, I'm getting calls at the office saying you did an insurrection and you should go to Gitmo and, you know, I wanted to ask because we intimated this last week, but it hadn't become public. We didn't know if he was going to talk about it. But the rummy of his name, Trey, the guy from Tennessee Hall. Justin Canoe. Justin, a lot of Justin's involved in this story. So, he, uh, his house was shot at. This is the Tennessee Holler.

Yeah, yeah, this is the, yeah, for the Tennessee Holler. Stuff we've featured a lot on here. He's come on the show before, talked to us. He's a, he also takes these guys to task. He'll go down to the statehouse and grill these Republicans, you know, asking trying to like lay bear their hypocrisies and making them you know speak straight and all this type of stuff and and he does all this and puts it out on social media and everything and anyway so that's who we're talking about it mark he's also the one who found randy randy magnallies uh facebook like comments to that uh fabulous gay influencer he was a fan of um yeah so i was going to ask do you feel safe i mean you're talking about the threats you're getting but they were just like you should go to get mo you should pay you should be hanging for treason or whatever but like, have you got me, like, personal threats of personal attack? You know, I, you get nervous about that, but my dad, my dad was FBI and I, when I was in,

we lived in Mississippi and then the KKK threatened to kill our family. We had to move out of our house for a few weeks while the FBI moved into our house because dad arrested some guys who blew up, some KKK members who blew up a synagogue. So my dad taught me to be smart. And that's not saying something could happen. But I'm not going to live in fear of these people. I mean, you know, sometimes a moron could hurt you. But I think that I'm not really sure they leave their basement.

But clearly some do. And, you know, the fact that Justin's house got shut up and I'm shot up and I believe a bullet went through his three-year-old's bedroom window. It's terrifying to me. And I attribute that directly. to this narrative that Cameron Sexton started with this idea that this was, he went on Hower and Hill and said, I was afraid for my life. And he went on Fox News and said,

this was as bad as the insurrection, if not worse. If not worse. Yeah. What do you do? I don't know. I don't know. Well, that's, I mean,

you have to find yourself asking yourself that question. all the time, right? Like, what do I even do with that? What do you like, I mean? Yeah. I mean, when you interact with these people. I'm sitting in committee. And they're bringing, they have a bill to bring back the firing squad and the electric chair. And then one of the members go, you know, I can I argue against the bill. And then another member decide, I was bill. I'd like to sign on to your bill. And I would like to add hanging by tree. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I saw that. sitting there going, what the hell? You just advocated for hate crimes in this committee?

Every day, it's like, oh my God. It's like Nathan Bedford Forrest wasn't even a good general. Like the main things he did was known for murdering black prisoners of war and starting the clan. Like he didn't even do anything, I'm putting good in air quotes for their podcast listeners, but like he wasn't even like a tactician. It wasn't like he made a million dollars on trading slaves in that time and murdered a bunch of black soldiers who were surrendering 300, I think, somewhere around 300 at Fort Pillow. And then he was the first KKK Grand Wizard.

And he's in a place of honor in our capital that our black members have to walk past every day going into the House or Senate floor. I mean, outrageous. It is outrageous, but outrageous is the name of the game in Republican politics today, especially at the state level. So we are running short on time, but I did want to give you an opportunity if you'd like to, if you want to let the audience know, like anything you think they need to know,

anything they should be aware of, follow how they can get engaged, what they can do, any of that type of stuff, whatever kind of messaging you got, please hit us with it. Absolutely. You know, we need more people in this movement.

So many people have asked, what can I do? How can I help? So you can follow me on Twitter at Vote Gloria J, rep Gloria Johnson on Instagram and on Facebook. But you can reach out to me by messaging me in any of those venues. And depending on what your issue is, I can connect you with groups fighting for that. Or if you want to get involved in campaigns, I can help you with that. or if you want to run for office, young folks especially, think about that.

But please reach out if there's anything you want to know if you want to get involved and we'll find a way to make that happen because it's going to be the voices of these folks. And that's why today our governor did an executive order for enhanced background checks and asked the legislature to pass a red flag bill. And that is because of everyone's voices that have spoken up. Absolutely. Well, you're awesome. You've long been awesome. Keep being awesome. Thank you very much for taking the time. Come on here and speak with us on our humble program and keep it up. That's all I can say. Thank you. All right. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you so much, Representative Johnson. And your national treasures stay safe. And I hope you get Speaker of the House. If only see you get an office with a window. Yeah. All right. Representative Gloria Johnson, everybody. Yeah.

Anyway, Matt, if you've got a couple of questions and comments or whatever you want to throw up there, I'm looking for something. Because I said I was going to read this. She's talking about getting involved in things like that. Some of y'all may know that some of y'all may not. One of my patrons, who goes by Sweet Gwendolyn on my Patreon this week posted his comment, letting everybody know that they had discovered that it's way more accessible and possible to get engaged with some of it. of this stuff if you want to. I said, I live in Austin, Texas. I've discovered you can park for free and just go inside the Capitol building and use a kiosk to say whether or not you support or oppose a

bill the end and you're done. But if you're really feeling motivated, you can sign yourself up to speak about it for two minutes whenever it's being heard in committee. If you don't live in the Capitol, you can still submit written testimony electronically. And obviously, you can always call up your representatives and whatever. So you have a lot of options for getting involved in voicing, you know, letting your voice be heard. on these things. So just so everybody knows. Patricia Paring says,

thank you, Representative Johnson. It was enlightening. Before we, oh, sorry, go ahead. You read that comment. Jasmine Parker says, amazing interview. Thanks.

Oh, thank you, Jasmine. Appreciate it. I do want to say, like, Gloria is awesome and amazing. And I just, like, point out how plain spoken and honest and straightforward and strong she was in her beliefs

and how cool that comes across as opposed to the way the milly mouth, way the politicians usually speak. And I mentioned pro to say, what's winning. uh last week she won in a dog walk she won by like nine times the margin joe biden won wisconsin by by being honest about her position on abortions clearly stating she thinks elections should be more

fair people like that stuff so speaking of liking that stuff michelle brierton says hit the like button everybody yeah thank you i always forget like subscribe right review all that good stuff tell you friends how you mom and them robin floyd says thank you tray mark and matt matt did great tonight We had very few videos. So, you know, he kept him on top of this game. Yeah. Yeah, all right.

So with all that said, yeah, thank you guys for being here. Appreciate it. As a reminder, go to traycrouter.com. Check out my special order to get tickets to come see me live. You'll love it. I promise you. And if I'm coming near you, then come and see me. Treycrouter.com.

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