Former MSNBC anchor Joy Reid has once again stirred controversy, this time targeting former President Donald Trump, Elvis Presley, and other figures she described as "mediocre White men" with counterfeit achievements.
Reid’s comments came during an interview with Wajahat Ali for his The Left Hook Substack. The episode, provocatively titled How Mediocre White Men and Their Fragility Are Destroying America, focused on the claim that White men in power rely on co-opting Black culture rather than creating their own.
"They cannot create culture on their own," Ali declared. "Without Black people, Brown people, the DEIs, there's no culture in America. We make the food better. We make the economy better. We make the music better. Right? MAGA can't create culture. They got Cracker Barrel and Kid Rock."
Ali pointed to Trump’s reforms at the Kennedy Center as evidence, calling them a "hostile takeover." Trump recently announced this year’s Kennedy Center awards, which he will also host. The venue, once featuring drag performances, is now shifting toward more conservative programming.
Reid accused conservatives of hypocrisy, claiming they rely on outrage instead of real debate. "They don't have the intellectual rigor to actually argue or debate with us," she said. "What they do is they tattle and tell. They run and tell teacher that ‘the Black lady or the Brown man was mean to me.’ And that's what they always do."
The former anchor took particular issue with Trump’s interest in reviewing Smithsonian exhibits ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. "They can’t fix the history they did," Reid said. "Their ancestors made this country into a slave — a slave hell, but they can clean it up now because they got the Smithsonian. They can get rid of all the slavery stuff. They got PragerU that can lie about the history to the children."
She then turned her attention to music, crediting Black artists for nearly every American genre and blasting the legacy of Elvis Presley. "We Black folk gave y’all country music, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, rock and roll. They couldn’t even invent that, but they have to call a White man ‘The King.’ Because they couldn’t make rock and roll, so they have to stamp ‘The King’ on a man whose main song was stolen from an overweight Black woman," Reid argued.
Her reference was to Presley’s 1956 hit Hound Dog, which had been recorded years earlier by blues singer Big Mama Thornton. While Elvis’ rendition skyrocketed him to stardom, he openly credited Black musicians as his inspiration throughout his career.
The White House responded with sharp criticism. Spokesman Harrison Fields dismissed Reid as "too unhinged for MSNBC" and accused her of disparaging the very country that enabled her success. "Joyless Reid is an ungrateful hack who fails to acknowledge her privilege," Fields said. "She was too unhinged for MSNBC and was fired. Instead of changing her act, she’s doubled down on stupid."