Former MSNBC talk show host Joy Reid made some controversial comments on a recent podcast in which she claimed that the United States was only “marginally better” than Iran. Reid made the comments on the One54 podcast last Wednesday, hosted by former NFL player Akbar Gbajabiamila and the comedian Godfrey.
While discussing current events, and specifically the military conflict with Iran, Reid said that Iranians were justified in disliking the United States due to the 1953 coup in which Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown, an effort that Great Britain and the United States aided. Later, she claimed that Iran’s regime and the U.S. government had many similarities. She emphasized that the U.S. “regime” was “not good.”
“Now, I’m not saying that that regime is not bad, but, by the way, our regime is not good,” said Reid.
She then expressed her opinions on why the countries were similar, starting with her claiming that both Iran and the U.S. had “secret police.”
“Our regime has secret police,” Reid said during the podcast. “They have secret police. Our regime is oppressing women, taking away abortion rights, taking away women’s rights in like 26 states — some states where they’re trying to have the death penalty for having an abortion. They also oppress women.”
She then pivoted to a comparison of the education of women in Iran versus the U.S., referencing the percentage of Iranian women who are STEM majors.
“They have the highest rate of women who are in STEM careers,” said Reid. “We’re kicking women out of the military, out of university. We’re saying that DEI means women can’t be hired for high positions in the sciences.”
Reid later commented about religion in both countries, claiming that a devotion to Christianity was the basis for her previously mentioned societal restrictions. She compared this to Iran’s theocracy and commitment to Islam.
“So we’re marginally better (than Iran),” Reid said. “And we’re doing it for Christianity, they’re doing it for Islam, right?”
“So, it’s like we don’t get told those things because it would take away the kind of American exceptionalism narrative that makes it easy to take our people and send them off to die in a war that we have nothing to do with, that we don’t want,” she added.
Reid also elaborated on what she believes are narratives surrounding “Arabs and Muslims and Africans” in political discourse. She stated that “context was not welcome” in such discussions and that people in the U.S. are allegedly told Arabs, Muslims, and Africans “are diabolically evil for no reason.”
IRAN FACES FINANCIAL DEATH BLOW BECAUSE OF WAR
“We get told, particularly when it comes to Arabs and Muslims and Africans, that people are just diabolically evil for no reason, right?” said the former host of The ReidOut. “That they do things because they hate our freedoms. We were told this about Iraq: that they just hated us for no damn reason at all. So there’s no reason why Iran would hate us.”
“But it turns out there’s a lot of reasons why Iran should hate us,” she said. “We took their freedom, and we don’t get told that, and so Americans get fed this false, objective story — particularly about global south countries, Muslim countries, African countries — that makes you believe a false narrative that tries to justify our actions.”
