MSNBC’s Joy(less) Reid Threatened With Lawsuit Over “Child Abuse” Remark

Former NFL player Jack Brewer is threatening to sue MSNBC host Joy Reid after she said a photo of young boys attending the signing of an anti-critical race theory bill in Florida is “tantamount to child abuse.”

Brewer is demanding an apology or else he will sue for defamation over Reid‘s remarks, which were directed at students participating in the American Heroes after-school program run by the Jack Brewer Foundation.

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“She has completely humiliated my kids and my program,” Brewer told the Washington Examiner on Monday. “It’s just so hurtful, and she needs to be held accountable. She does it so often. And you know, her words and the way that she comes across to black America leaves a stain on all of us. … I won’t put up with it when it comes to my kids.”

Last Friday, Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Stop WOKE Act into law, placing restrictions on training or credentials courses in schools and corporations that claim “an individual’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.” Reid honed in on the children who attended the signing ceremony for that bill on Twitter.

“This mis-use of Black boys is tantamount to child abuse. I would really like to hear the back-story on who these kids were and how they wound up at a DeSantis event. Given how anti-Black DeSantis is, using Black children this way is extra sick,” Reid tweeted.

Brewer said he plans to send Reid a letter threatening a defamation suit and give her about 24 hours to issue an apology. If she fails to comply, he will proceed with the defamation suit and is currently mulling details of damages he would pursue with his lawyers.

The Washington Examiner reached out to MSNBC for comment.

Although the Stop WOKE Act does not mention critical race theory by name, supporters of the bill, including DeSantis, argue it was intended to curb the controversial thesis that claims systemic racism is pervasive in many powerful U.S. institutions, such as the legal system.

Parents of students enrolled in the American Heroes program were given toolkits highlighting concerns with critical race theory. American Heroes aims to promote Christian leadership among youth and mentor students on academic proficiency.

“I’m a vocal advocate against CRT — anything that teaches kids anti-Christ rhetoric and teaches kids to hate and to see each other based on the color of their skin,” Brewer said. “I have students in my program who have gone to school and been told that they can’t accomplish something because of the color of [their] skin.”

Jane Halbritter, an aunt of two of the boys pictured in the tweet, told the Washington Examiner her nephews knew what they were doing at the signing ceremony and blasted Reid for displaying “hate and resentment and bitterness toward people that she knows nothing about.”

“I mean, she’s painting these kids like they’re just little black boys that don’t know anything and could be exploited, like they don’t even have their own minds,” she said. “And I don’t see her doing it with white kids.”

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Her two nephews, ages 9 and 14, also attended DeSantis’s signing earlier this month of a bill intended to support fatherhood in Florida. In both instances, they were invited to attend the bill signing due to their participation in the program.

“She doesn’t know the love we have for these kids, and to assume that we would send them into a situation that they were not equipped to deal with or understood in an age-appropriate fashion,” Halbritter added, “that’s just so monumentally insulting, but it also put them at risk because now they’re this poster child for this and kind of at the center of the storm. It’s terrible. It’s really a sad thing.”