Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Kamala’s Disappointment and the Killing of Charlie Kirk. Plus, Melvin Gregg Talks ‘The Paper’! | Higher Learning | The Ringer

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Rachel and Van start the show off by talking about the death of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, the many reactions to it, and what may come from his killing. Then, they react to an excerpt from Kamala Harris’s upcoming book mentioning Joe Biden’s “reckless” decision to run again in the last election. Later, actor, model, and comedian Melvin Gregg joins to talk about his latest show, ‘The Paper,’ before he, Van, and Rachel all share memories of their biggest heartbreak. 00:00 - Welcome! 00:26 - The killing of Charlie Kirk 56:00 - Kamala’s book and her disappointment with Biden's reelection bid 1:14:50 - Israel bombed Hamas negotiators 1:16:24 - The new Bachelorette 1:20:20 - Melvin Gregg joins us! 2:11:59 - Thanks for watching! Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Melvin Gregg Producers: Donnie Beacham and Ashleigh Smith Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yeah, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher Learning is on. Is I Van Laking Jr.? And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Charlie Kirk was shot and killed. Yeah. That's where the show starts.

Okay. There's, we'll get into other stuff later on, but obviously the show is going to start with conservative political activists and co-founder of Turning Point USA killed at Utah Valley University. this was confirmed, not by any news source, his death at least. His being shot was confirmed by Donald Trump.

Now, you guys are going to be getting this podcast on Friday. This happened yesterday, which was Wednesday. We're recording Thursday. The latest things that are happening right now, it looks as if they have a picture of the shooter of Charlie Kirk. It looks like also they have some evidence as to at least, motive based upon

stuff that was written on cartridges that was taken from a rifle that they found from the shooter. We should say that the shooter

shot Charlie Kirk at about 200 yards in the neck. 500 yards. Excuse me. 500 yards in the neck. Then blended into the crowd to get away,

dropped his gun in the woods and remained at large at the time that we are recording this podcast, which is a day later. I will repeat, shot him at 500 yards, blended into the crowd to escape, dropped the gun in the woods, remains at large.

If you are thinking that this is a mad, unstable person that is whipped up by YouTube or TikTok content, and then did this, it seems as if, from the description of the shot and the aftermath of the shot, that that's not the case. This seems like someone who knew what they were doing. I mean, yeah,

if whether it was 200 or 500 yards, shooting a one single shot from that distance with that many people, there was, of course, not the same level of security that you would have for a president, but there was security around. And to move in that way, get away, no promising leads. There were two people that were apprehended. They were let go.

They were released, not related to what happened in any kind of way. And we wake up this morning and he's still at large. That is what I believe to be somebody trained. I may even as far as go, may go as far as saying a professional to be able to execute this assassination in this manner. All right. So as we talk about this,

I just want to make sure that it's very clear what we're saying. So when I'm saying blended in, the FBI said that he blended in. They might have just been talking about the person in it, let's say he, because there are still images pulled from video of this individual.

So it looks as if, you know, this person is a man, a guy, dude. Yes. So when they say blend it in, they blend it into the rest of the crowd, but was able to get away. Now, I want to make sure that I am making a clear distinction here as I'm describing this. Because this is what I'm saying. When we talk about rampage shooters, mass shooters, as we know, The profile of the mass shooter is oftentimes, mostly, someone who has easy access to a high-capacity weapon in AR-15.

Not always, but that platform is very commonly used, right? You did have the Virginia Tech shooter that used two handguns. My point here is that this is normally a rampage shooter that operates in. inside of a confined, enclosed area that they know. You see these things happen in schools where people went. You see these things happen in not, they might not be going there now. They went there before. In grocery stores or things where they've been before.

Even the Mother Emanuel shooting, he's in there for a long time. Dylan Ruf is praying with people. And with his weapon, he gets to see like, the lay of the land and then pick people off very close range, in closed situation. That is not what happened here. That's not what happened. That's not what happened here.

This shooter from distance hit somebody, then got away. That's also another part of this. The Trump shooter, when he shot President Trump, clipped his President Trump's, This guy was somebody that was essentially on a suicide mission. He was apprehended or killed or whatever right away.

They got to him right away. This shooter shot Kurt from reportedly 500 yards, then disappeared into the ether. We're starting to get information on who this person is right now. Then you see what it says is political messaging. political messaging on some of the cartridges here. When this happened, everyone viewed it as a political assassination, which how could you not?

Right. It's Charlie Kirk. He's at a political event. And people assumed that this was a political assassination that came from a very specific cohort, right? When you look at all the information of this together, there is just no way to know who did this. There's no way to know.

And that is not me saying. that the easiest and most plausible explanation for this is that it was a political assassination by someone who didn't like what Charlie Kirk has to say. That seems to be the most simple and easy way to explain this. But at the same time, who that person is, what that speech is, or how this is supposed to go. If you just look at all of this and how this,

as this was getting updated yesterday, people kept waiting and kept waiting and kept waiting and kept waiting for there to be somebody that was apprehended for this. And now it seems like maybe they're on the trail of someone because there is a picture. They seem to have a couple of leads. But as we sit right now, there still isn't anyone. And it looks like it is a little bit, it's not quite as cut and dry as what it seemed when it first happened. Yeah. When Greg Gutfeld was on Fox News, he was even saying, because you're right, at the end of the day, we don't know. And I think it's really important to keep that into perspective because you have so many people speculating and assuming so much based on who Charlie Kirk is, what he stood for represented, what party he was affiliated with, what his views aligned with. They're assuming they already know what type of person would do that shooting. And I was actually a little bit surprise. I'm not trying to give Greg Guffield too much, but he said at the end of the day,

you don't know. And I'm paraphrasing a little bit of what he had to say, but he said, you don't know who did this. And he questioned that the idea that the shooting, the people were saying it benefited the left because Charlie Kirk is no longer here on this earth. He said it actually doesn't necessarily benefit the left, which is speculating to the nature of the killing. and that he referenced that it feels very professional. I think that it's dangerous because, and it is dangerous because we're seeing the response from people with platforms, politicians, and they're already placing blame, but it is very dangerous to do so in the sense that we don't know.

You don't, even with what's the little information that's come out with what was engraved on the bullets, you still don't know political affiliations. We don't know motives. We don't know what's the, you don't know what. the person's, the reason, which I guess goes to motive, the intention of what and why they executed this on whose, if it was personal, if it was on somebody's behalf, you just don't know. And so it's, I'm glad that we're starting this conversation off in this way because it is important to have a platform where we don't place blame without any type of evidence or knowledge.

And this, when it comes to the identification of the shooter, all we can do is report the information that we have at this point. Man, I'm not acquiescing anything. Nothing. Until there is a shooter in custody and this person has been interrogated. And then even after then, this is a situation where you have to look at it from every single angle. Because it's a high stakes incident in the current American political climate. Yeah.

And before everyone jumps to conclusions and accesses. if they know why this happened, who did this, just pump your brakes and kind of let things play out. The political messages that were written on the cartridges, anti-fascist, transgender messages, they said, that is so on the nose and direct, it almost screams sciop to me. Like, that is so on the nose,

direct, that it seems like it's done to endanger and implicate one or two or a group of people. There's just not enough that we know specifically about the crime itself right now to say who did it and why. There's not enough. Now, if there is a full-throated investigation into this and there are no shenanigans, at the DOJ, then you should be able to make some inroads into who did this and get some explanation as to why. Yeah.

But that is where it sits from a criminal standpoint. But to cover that first, from a criminal standpoint, there has been a murder. The suspect is at large. And there is different reporting about how close authorities are to catching this. suspect and what the motivation of the suspect is. That is the deal.

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And that, I think, is the source of the most tension right now in America, wouldn't you say? I would absolutely say that. I mean, on a personal level, just group chats, social media followings, the response I'm seeing from people I know, people I don't know. it's divisive. I mean, that's the best word I can use to describe it. When I found out, which was a text message from you, I was shocked. That was my first thought, right? I was shocked.

And then I immediately got scared, if I'm honest. You know, and I had conflicting thoughts as well, if you'll give me a second to just, like, kind of die. into it a little bit. The way, I say shots, because the way in which Charlie Kirk was killed was loud, it was public, and it was gruesome. And I immediately thought, man, this is a life. Someone lost a son, someone lost a father, someone lost a husband, and that's devastating. Because despite what I thought about him or my personal things, there were a number of people that he meant something to on a completely different personal level, right? But I was watching as I was all day, right?

On social media, it never stopped. On television, on the phone. I came across some words that really did kind of resonate with me and contributed to some of the thoughts that I have and some that were conflicting, and that came from Blakely Thornton, and I'm kind of paraphrasing this, but he said, I'm not going to celebrate what happened,

but I'm also not going to mourn it. And that really struck with me because I thought if I am mourning anything in this moment, it's the implications of this assassination and what this means for our society now. Like, where do we go from this? And that goes back to kind of the division. When I talk about conflicting thoughts, I think of, it's hard for me to have empathy for someone who didn't believe in the meaning of that word. I mean, when I think of, because I don't think you can,

talk about Charlie Kirk and separate the two, I think when I think about him, I think about it's a man who actively work to discredit me and my rights as a woman, my rights as a black person, my rights as a black woman. I mean, this is the same man who said black women do not have the brain power to be taken seriously and that they had to steal a white person's job to be taken seriously. You know, Charlie Kirk is a person who spread harmful and hateful misinformation about marginalized groups in order to ignite his beliefs and his followers. He was a divisive person. He didn't value the rights of others place in this society in our country on the same level as his. He treasured certain constitutional rights over the value of innocent lives, even if that meant that he thought those

lives were indisposable. He did it in the name of certain amendments. But then I also thought this is really bad for our country and it's really bad for humanity. I think it showcases the dangers of political violence, especially at the hands of a widely debated issue, which is gun control. I believe political violence is dangerous and because it kills, well, because it kills the freedom of expressing words and fostering arguments and debates,

I believe political violence takes the easy way out and that's a violence that fuels the fire to create, the discourse of hate and confusion and then basically perpetuates these emotions to grow into an army that empowers, an army that is empowered by these feelings for people to act on them. And it's already happening. We're seeing it. We're seeing it with the Jesse Waters. We're seeing it with the Nancy Mace's. We're seeing it with Trump in their response to what happened. And we're seeing it with so many other conservative voices that are calling for war and are calling for retribution. without condemning what political violence is as a whole and without noting the issue of gun violence,

which is also an issue with this. They're not condemning political violence on both sides of this. They're allowing it to exist when they don't condemn it on both sides. And by not condemning it on both sides, they're allowing it to be okay, except for when it impacts their side of the table. When I think about all this,

And I don't know if I'm merging my thoughts, my original thoughts and my conflicting thoughts with also how I feel about political violence and gun violence. And I probably should just stop before I keep running on and on. But, and I will. And I will. Because I want to separate each thing. But those were my initial thoughts when it came to this. And those thoughts are conflicting. And I feel that a lot of people are struggling with that.

because in order to talk about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, you also have to talk about who he is as a person and what his beliefs and values are and how that affected me. But I also have to condemn political violence because I'm against that. And I condemn it on both sides. But I also have to talk about gun violence and Charlie's connection to gun violence in our society as well. well. Well said. First of all, I want to talk to the audience real quick. I want to let the audience

know something real quick. I love you. I love you guys. You guys, I know that we have an odd and sometimes weird parisocial relationship, me and the audience. I'll all you guys up a poke at you guys. But more than anything, I'm an advocate for you. I believe in you. I'm a humanist. I believe I aspire to be a humanist. Let me say it like this. I advocate for your freedom and your protection. That's what keeps me talking, is I've looked at you, whoever you may be, and I've done my best to put myself in your position,

whoever you may be. If you are a gay man, I am not that. I've done my best to put myself in your position. If you're a trans woman, I am not that. I've done my best to put myself in your position. if you are a woman. I've done my best to put myself in your position. I can do better and I am trying to do better.

But I've done my best to put myself in your position. Otherwise, I wouldn't give a fuck. But my ability to say, that's happening to you, how much you feel is the thing that makes me love you? That's why I love you. That's why I love you guys. I love you guys because I see myself in you. I love you guys because I see all of us together.

I can't control that. It's reflexive. So the first thing that happened was I saw a video and the video was of a human person sitting down and blood spurred it from their neck and they went limp. And I reflexively reacted to seeing that video. When I saw that video, I went, nah. That's me.

I'm telling you guys right now, the people that are listening to this, I love y'all. I understand that everyone is trying to understand how to contextualize and talk about this. The first thing I saw was that and I went, nah. Hell not. No. That's what happened.

That empathy was reflexive. Charlie Kirk, you talked about it, very famously said that empathy is overrated, that it doesn't really exist. That is not a thing. He was a Christian that was somehow against empathy. However, that works. Um, that's for him. His views on empathy, the way he looks at human beings, how he approaches empathy, he's not going to steal mine.

Nobody will. Because if you steal my empathy, I become a masher. I become a dominator. I become an oppressor. And that's my biggest fear. That's my biggest fear. my biggest fear is living outside of community. My biggest fear is not being someone that you can depend on

or someone that you can call or someone that you can believe it. That's my biggest fear is not seeing myself in you anymore. That's what bothers me. Not any of the other stuff. That's what bothers me. We're not about to do on this part, or at least I'm not about to do, you do whatever you want. I know, but we're not about to have a very special episode of higher learning

where we whitewashed somebody's legacy. We're not doing that. It's impossible. You're not having honest conversation. Like we're not doing that. If I didn't do that for Hulk Hogan, then why would I do it for someone else? No.

But for Charlie Kirk. But what I will say is this. I am not going to even attempt to go to a place where I can see something like that, watch something like that, and then either rhetorically or energetically condone it. I'm not.

doing that at all. And I'm also going to tell you guys something else. I'm not going to make moral judgments about you and how you react to anything. Because I'm telling you guys right now that I don't care about whether or not society thinks that you are moral or immoral. I don't think that American society

is in the position to judge my morality as a black man. I think they lost that a long time ago. As a matter of fact, I think part of that is what I was talking about a couple of shows ago. A couple of shows ago I said right here on the podcast, I said, we've kind of been taught to litigate our morality through the lens of our oppressors, which always makes us want to live in community with them rather than shake off the shackles of what it is that they're doing. I stand by that. I do.

I stand by that. I stand by the fact that that happened. But what else I'm going to say, what I'm going to add to that is the way that I look at the world and the way that I approach things, I don't want to change. I don't want to change and become something else.

I want to grow and I want to evolve. but I don't want to look up one day and be the person holding the gun. I don't. I'm afraid of that. I'm scared of it. I'm scared of one day being the person that's oppressing you.

I'm afraid of that. I'm afraid of that. I believe in the destruction of hierarchy. I believe in the use of violence in self-defense when you are threatened. I believe in vehemently defending your family, your property, who you are, right,

from people who want to take it illegally, unlawfully, and immorally. I believe in all of that. But I also believe in the ability of human beings to feel for each other. And if you do that, it doesn't make you wrong. by the way, if you don't do it,

you're not going to hear anything from me because I understand it. Let me tell you the trick bag of being black in this country. There's a whole group of people whose power and influence is based on blaming you for every problem that America has. Correct. Their power and influence is based on the fact that America is flawed and you're the reason why. And not only are those people not punished for that, they are exalted for it.

They make hundreds of millions of dollars. They have all those from just whistling ill on you, from wishing terrible things happen to you, for saying terrible things about you, those people get all kinds of bread, all kinds of opportunities, all types of privileges. and then you go through life with nothing ever really happening to them and then something does when something does happen you are then on an island

where now your morality is being litigated by whether or not you can have compassion for someone who never had it for you what a fucking place to be let me tell you what I believe the antidote to that is I'm serious. What I believe the antidote to that is

is not in any way in any way thinking about what you owe society, but thinking about what you owe yourself on empathy, once again. It's not that I've never looked at a situation and had empathy for some, in a situation that was grotesque. There's a very specific thing that I think about

when I think about this. There was a guy in Baton Rouge. I don't know if people have seen the video. And his son was kidnapped. Some was kidnapped. Some was kidnapped and sexually abused for a couple of days by like his karate instructor. There's a very famous video that takes place

in Ryan Airport in Baton Rouge with this guy waited by a phone booth for the abductor of his son to walk by and he shot him in the head. Killed him. Killed him dead. The abductor of his son. when I first saw that video, I felt incredible empathy for the father. I thought this happened basically on TV.

It was a news report. I thought, man, what must this man have been going through? Think about the anguish in this man's heart. Think about how he felt knowing what was happening to his son. Think about everything going on in his mind for him to take that chance. He did not know what was going to happen after that. He didn't know if he was going to go to jail, be given a death penalty, be taken away from his family. He couldn't think straight at all.

The pain was so fucking deep that he thought the only way I can extinguish the pain is to extinguish the person that hurt my family. I feel any empathy in that situation for the guy that got shot. I felt the empathy for the guy who actually was the trigger man. In this situation, it was different. what I initially felt when I saw the video was fuck. And that's just me. I looked at the video and I went, shit. I reflexively put myself in this position.

Reflexively. I just went, God damn, think about that. I thought about if I go out and I talk or if I go out and I give a talk or if I go out and I go somewhere and say something, that somebody blows my shit off. My mom, I thought about that. Reflexively. That's a part of my makeup.

That's who I am. And I'm not going to apologize for that. And I'm not asking y'all to apologize for how y'all went with it. People who didn't feel that way. I'm not apologizing for that because I can't give that up lest I become my father.

And I'm not asking you guys to apologize. I'm telling you right now, I love you. I understand why you feel the way you feel either way. And this society doesn't get to make decisions morally about how you feel about this. It doesn't make you a good person to go out one way. It doesn't make you a bad person to go after another way. But what I will say is this, is empathy is not something that you should ever turn on or off. Empathy is the building block of human cooperation. It is literally the only thing that we should have to have for one another. It's the only thing. If we don't, we are the animal kingdom. And if we are the animal kingdom, biceps, triceps, and bullets win. That's not the world I want.

It's not the world that I want to live in either, which is why I got scared when all of this happened. But the reality is we've been living in this world. And I got to tell you, when I really think about yesterday and the way people were responding, whether it was on a personal, professional, political level, for me, it chipped away. I feel like I really lost a part of, like a piece of humanity was lost in the responses that I saw yesterday. And I'm not saying, I understand what you're saying, and I'm not telling people to judge in the same way that you are.

But like a piece of me, I don't know, was just lost in how people were responding yesterday. Because something that you just said, really resonant, well, okay, to answer the first question, when I say a piece of me is lost, is people are acting like what happened is new. I know it was shocking and it was gruesome. I said all of that before and I still stand by that.

It was publicly. It was loud. All of it. But the way people have been killing for political violence and gun violence is not new. That's why I said we've been living in this world. And the response that people were having chipped away at me a bit. And something you said when you talked about empathy and Charlie Kirk and you talked about his quote, which has been floating around about how he didn't believe in the word empathy

and how it was a new age word, yet he stands in Christianity, and those two things conflict. Because how can you believe in Jesus Christ and not believe in empathy? That's really profound that she pointed out the Christianity and the empathy part. And you and I were talking, before we got on this microphone, we were talking yesterday. I do believe Charlie Kirk believed in empathy. It's just that his empathy was subjective. I believe he believed in empathy when it aligned with certain people, and it aligned with his beliefs and his motives and his values.

He had selective empathy. He just didn't say that. Charlie Kirk, when it referred to people who look like you and me or marginalized groups or people who were against the things that he was fighting for, he called that victimhood, right? Victimhood culture. But he had empathy for things that affected his family, his children, white men, Christians, Christians who believed in his type of Christianity.

He absolutely had empathy for that. But when I saw the risk, but so there's that one. Right. So just real quick, real quick. So he's also making you that way. Or not you, but anybody else who then, so he is, so his version of selective empathy is contagious. Yes.

It makes it makes everyone run to a silo. So what I'm saying, is a lot of people are like that. A lot of people choose to live in the world like that. I can't do it because if, like if I, so to me, I get it. I get it. He didn't give a fuck about what happened to anyone, anyone everywhere, except for this small group of people.

Yes. This is not the way that I look at the world. And I'm not going to start looking at the world that way because he did. Right. I completely agree with you. He had a lack of compassion for anybody except for a very small. sector. And I think that that's the part where I say, I lost a little faith in humanity yesterday. The part that shipped away from me. Yesterday I posted, there was another shooting yesterday.

And I posted that. I didn't post a thing about Charlie Kirk. Because to me, that is a conversation. It doesn't, it can't live in a post. It's a conversation that I knew we were going to have on this podcast. And I'm grateful for the platform and the opportunity to be able to do that and flesh that out. I cannot put Charlie Kirk in a post. Wouldn't do that. But I posted about the Evergreen shooting. and there was the shooter died and there are two students that are in critical condition. I cannot tell you the number of people who responded to that post

and said, really? But you can't talk about Charlie Kerr? Are you serious? But what about Charlie Kirk? And I will write people back and I was like, so it's fuck them kids, right? So it's just fucking kids. Yeah, they said that a long time ago.

And I, but I'm like, I want you to realize what you're saying. And some people would say, well, I didn't say that. I said, but you're implying it. You are mad that I didn't write about Charlie Kirk, but you're, but you're, but you don't want to acknowledge that I'm trying to acknowledge another shooting that you have been so desensitized to that you don't care about that because I'm living in a society that as of yesterday was basically deifying Charlie Kirk,

silence at baseball games, standing up for him at Congress, getting the presidential medal of freedom. Is that what he gave? Is that what he gave him? Gosh, Miss Leah. Okay. The list goes on and on and on. And watering down what Charlie Kirk also represents, right?

You can acknowledge the tragedy and an assassination and the things that we are doing in that way on this podcast. But to completely erase. what Charlie Kirk also was to me and act like this is something that is new, shipped away at me. To find fault in me acknowledging that there was a school shooting because I didn't acknowledge Charlie Kirk is something that made me lose a little faith in humanity. To act like political violence is new and gun violence is new.

To act like there haven't been politicians on both sides that have been attacked that have been harassed, that have been murdered. And I'm supposed to pause all of that because Charlie Kirk is somebody who you revered. You want to now look at Charlie Kirk as a martyr, deify him, and compare him to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And I don't look at that in the same way.

You want to find fault in me. When I saw people do that, that shipped away in me. That made me lose faith in humanity. I'm not saying I have no faith in humanity. It's just that to ignore, I don't know if you're just dumb or willfully or plausible deniability or just willfully wanting to ignore Charlie Kirk. I don't know what your motive is, but to place Charlie Kirk on this pedestal and not know or acknowledge all the other things that he was to.

it just eats away at me for whatever your reason is. It just does. Two things. I'll come to gun control in a second. So on the full-throated remembrance of someone or contextualizing of someone

talking about who they were and stuff like that. If you care about black people, if you actually care, having empathy Okay How do I put this? Having empathy For black people right now

Since we're talking about empathy This is all oriented around empathy Having empathy for black people right now Is understanding why they're reacting The way that they're reacting. That would be empathy. See, because here's the deal. It's one thing for people to say

You lack empathy if you don't have a specific take on or a specific reaction to what happened to Charlie Kirk. Having empathy is also understanding why black people feel the way that they feel right now, while gay people feel the way that they feel white right now, while anyone who is not one of the straight white people that Charlie Kirk advocated for about how they feel right now.

Having empathy for them is understanding that some people that are going, what do you want me to say? Like, what do you want me to say? Like, seriously, like, what do you want me to say? Like, I watch a video where someone says Black women aren't smart enough to fly planes or to be in Congress,

and then something bad happens to that person and you want me to be like, that's too much. And I get it. But having empathy for people is understanding that people are made up of emotions and people are made up of experiences, of fears, and in ways that they connect to society.

And sometimes those things don't really meet, they don't meet the standard that you think that they should meet. That, yeah, you might want somebody to be like, I'll put all that to the side. That's words and rhetoric and, but look what happened. But then people are going to tell you it's not just words and rhetoric. Because you say this, I have to drink shitty water. Because you say this, I get killed by the police.

Because you say this, I don't get to go to school or to college. because you say the things that you say and you do the things that you do, it has a material and direct effect on my life. Empathy, true empathy, would be somebody that would say, hey, you know what? What can I do to ratchet all of this down so we could all talk about how we got here?

Like, literally, let's talk about how we got here. The president didn't do that. The president came out and said, look, radical leftist. he used it as a stat to put into his arsenal. He used it as a stat. That's what happened. So for somebody looking at this in a holistic way,

what you would want more than anything else, what you would want more than anything else is for people to be safe. For people to be safe, it exists in safety and understanding that safety was their birthright, that walking down the street, un molested, by the state, by the people in their community, by the people in their household is their birthright, that housing is a birthright,

that all of these things are things that people should have and they fucking notice when they don't have them. And not only do they notice when they don't have them, they notice who's saying that they shouldn't. They notice it. So true, somebody who was really interested in having a conversation, that tried to ratchet all of this down would have to consider all of the variables.

That's not what we do anymore. What we do is we look for somebody to blame. We look for somebody to blame. We look for somebody to blame. And in finding someone to blame, you know who we never blame? The person that's in the mirror. And never. We're seeing people hop on their platforms.

and a microphone immediately ready to condemn, talked about it, calling for war and retribution. There should have been reasonable gun control policies prior to this happening as a response to mass shootings, school shootings, and senseless killings that have been happening in this country prior to what happened on Wednesday. This is something that should have been a bipartisan an issue. But it wasn't before and it still isn't now because what's happening. Instead, they're using this tragedy as a weapon to politicize his death and to condemn the left. As you said, they're pointing fingers looking for someone to blame rather than taking a step back and looking at the big picture issue. We have a divided, hateful country where people use all kinds of violence

to stop, suppress, or hurt people that don't agree with them or just because they can because the laws in this country allow them to be able to have access to do it. We should be focusing on that big picture exactly what it was that you're talking about. That's why I keep going back to the point of this didn't just start today. It didn't just start today. When we talk about empathy, my empathy is exactly what I said at the beginning of this. I can have empathy enough to have, to understand that somebody was affected by the death of Charlie Kirk in a personal way. I have empathy in the sense that he should not have been killed like this. I don't agree with this.

The shooting was discussed. I don't agree with political violence. That is where my empathy goes. But what I will not do is water down who Charlie Kirk was and what he represented and how his rhetoric and his teachings and his beliefs and his movements were harmful and hurtful to so many people. I'm not going to not talk about that. And I think that's what I'm saying.

And the reason why you have to talk about that is because if not, then people get to paint the reaction to his death as a bunch of individuals with no central moral compass. It dehumanizes the issue. If we're going to consider feelings, we have to consider all the feelings. We have to consider the feelings of the people that don't have 46 out of 47 presidents. Right. We have to consider the feelings of the people who don't have own all the land in the country. How do they operate in their average day-to-day lives living in a place where they're underserved and being done to them on purpose? And when something like this happens, we're looking at a whole group of people react and they're reacting because they're human because they feel scared.

because they feel assailed, because they feel oppressed. And if you're not going to deal with that, but then you're going to morally judge them or make judgments about them, then you're denying them their humanity. Once again, we're all feeling machines. We're all people that it's in us.

Like this is a part of who we are. This is the God in us. The people that watch that and went, whoa, that's disgusting. I hate what I just saw. That's divine. That's a part of, yeah, I'm not saying that you, I'm saying that that existing in you, you don't have to tamp that down in any way. You shouldn't in any way to be accepted by any group.

You should be able to say, you know what, man, that's so fucked up that we really need to have a conversation. about how we got there. And that conversation is going to be, part of that conversation is going to be about this person and what they still for. It would have to be. It has got to be.

It has to be. There's no way around it. We would have to talk about that. And we don't owe it to nobody. Nobody. To not have that conversation. We don't. Matthew Dowell was fired.

Matthew Dow, who's on MSNBC, he was fired. He was fired because he made comments about Charlie Kirk's death on air on air on MSNBC. He said, we apologize for his statements as has he. There's no place of violence in America political. Otherwise, I apologize for my tone and my words. Let me be clear.

I know he intended to blame Kirk for his horrendous attack. Let's all come together and condemn violence of any kind. By the way, I'm not blaming Kirk for his attack. No. In any way, shape, or form. I'm not blaming anyone for the attack other than the person that pulled the trigger. I'm not blaming anyone for the attack. What I am saying is if you want a space where we can really talk about this,

understand the reaction to this, understand why people feel, why it's gutting to some people to talk about this without contextualizing while it's freeing for people to say, hey, just to let you know, this fucking guy hated me. Like this, the guy that y'all put up on the thing, that guy fucking hated me. And now I'm in traction because you're telling me that I'm not a good person

unless I go to bat for something that I can't connect with because look at my fucking life. All of that's real. And by the way, y'all, it's okay for y'all not to like some of the things that I've said. I love y'all anyway. Like, it's okay for you guys to, to not be on my side with this.

It's okay for you. Some of you could look at that video and look at it and not give a fuck about it. Like some of you, I talked to people the last, a friend of mine hit me up. It was like, because I said, I can't celebrate it.

I'm pussy. I'm pussy. I'm pussy. I can't celebrate. I can't celebrate it. I can't. And a friend of mine said, well,

what do you draw the line? How do you judge when you celebrate? When do you celebrate? celebrate the death of a terrible person is what he said. We got on the phone. We had a great conversation. We had a great conversation. And what I realized is that there is a way that I'm at, that that I am. And being that way to me is the way that I believe moves towards keeping people safe and empowered. Safe and empowered. Now, last thing I'll say is this. The last thing I'll say on this. there is nothing more vulnerable than a hawk with dove's feathers.

So I want to talk directly to some of the people that I'm seeing. If you are saying that you want the world to be a certain way, you have got to be prepared for that. And I know some of you. And you're not. if you are saying that you are ready for a certain type of existence, then you have to have been doing something to prepare yourself for that existence. Don't talk anything out here on these platforms that you are not ready to live.

If you are, in fact, hyping people up and whipping people up and injecting into them, a specific type of worldview. And you yourself are not ready for the ramifications of that worldview. Or you're not ready for what's going to happen to those people as they go out and act on some of the things that they are thinking and feeling and that you are undergirding. And you're doing a disservice to them. And we all are. We all are.

If you're saying you're ready for something and if you're espousing that you are ready for something, or that you are happy about something, or that something makes you feel good, and you don't have the requisite wherewithal to deal with the consequences, the societal consequences of what it is that you create, then you are a hawk with the feathers of a dove and the other hawks who have been preparing,

who have tried to make society this way. who have endeavored into this, they are going to fucking rip you apart. Now listen, I'm not one of these turned to other cheek motherfuckers. I'm not. Nah, nah.

Slap me. Kick you in the knee. Kick. Right to the knee. Bam. Like, take your fucking knee out, right? But what I am saying is, what I do believe

is that it is my job to protect, advocate for, and put my arms around the most vulnerable people in society. It's not my job to make them more vulnerable. It's just not. So when I see the temperature or the fire rising, I always think two things. One, who's getting burned? Two, how can I turn the fire down?

If only more people adopted those two things as well. Yeah, but they're not watching enough porn. that helps you. Well, you don't do that anymore, right? I know, but it's still there. Is that your foundation? Was that your foundation? Yeah, it's still, because you know what I mean?

It's still there. I had to try to get out of it with something stupid. I really apologize. I told you guys, I wasn't going to do it anymore, but I did it anyway. Okay. We have to move on to other things. There will be more news about this that will be coming out.

I think we'll, by the time, this comes out, maybe we know more about the shooter. Maybe Rachel Lime might have to jump on live tomorrow. I don't know what's going on. Maybe we'll know more about the shooter. Maybe we'll know more about some of the fallout from this. But can I just encourage people? We say this sometimes where it's like take a breath

because I feel like the response to what has happened has created a lot of emotions in me. Like I said earlier, I feel a little bit chipped away at. I feel like a lost a little bit of humanity is lost. I feel a little bit of anger that, people are telling me how I should respond and not considering how certain things impact me. It's like you better, which in essence highlights how much they value me or other people who are marginalized groups like me. It makes me feel like they don't value my place in society,

which is something we probably already saw as well. I mean, we already knew as well, but a day like yesterday and the response from people highlights that, I am going to take a little bit of a break because I was glued to every piece of media yesterday for my own mental health. And I just encourage everybody to do the same. If they're feeling that way. That's fine. I'm worried about, I'm, I feel fine. I'm worried about y'all.

Yeah. You know, when I was doing, I've never talked about this conversation before. When I was doing hip-hop homicides, I was in a city. I'm not going to talk about the city that I was in. I'm not going to talk about who I was talking to. I was in the city and I was talking to this kid and

it was a it was a conversation I won't forget and he goes you know I'm in the neighborhood where these kids are racking up kills on each other this is killing killing killing killing killing killing killing

killing killing killing it's crazy how much they're able to kill I'm talking to this kid, and this kid is like, he's like a regular. I mean, the guys I knew that were doing that, I'll be honest with you. And the player-proof crew, we kind of consider our self to be regular, and then the killers were the killers.

But you kind of knew them. I'm talking to this kid, he's talking about all the stuff that he's into and stuff like that. And after I'm like, oh, it's like a, you know, he's a kid. He's not what I considered when I was growing up to be one of them ones. there were guys that I knew like that and you knew him and whatever. I'm talking to him and we just having

conversations about all kinds of other stuff but I know some of the things that he's done or some of the things that he's reputed to have done. So after a while of having the conversation I go, yo man, why don't y'all stop? Why don't you stop? I was like, look, you can stop. You're doing this stuff.

You kind of got a little rap career going on all. You can stop. You can stop. You don't have to continue this. Y'all can stop. Never forget it. He goes. I'll stop. I'm willing to stop. I'm willing not to target them or do anything like that.

I'm willing to stop. He goes, all they have to do is bring my brother back. I was like, fuck. He's like, I'll stop. I'll stop at all. I'll stop right now. I'll stop. We'll make records together.

We'll do all of that stuff. All they got to do is put my brother right back here. After he's here again, I'll stop. I'm done. It's over. It's cool. we good. That's all I need back. It's the person that taught me how to piss in the toilet and did all that.

That's all I need back. And that guy's dead. He died. He got him before the show premiered. And I was like, I, at some point we have to say no. I just wonder what that point is. We'll take a break. Did you know about one in three people,

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Donnie, you can get us into politics. Kamala Harris. In July, she announced that she's got an upcoming book coming out, called 107 Days, in which she outlines her short-lived presidential campaign. It's expected to go on sale at the end of this month. And with the release date approaching, an excerpt is now making the rounds. And which she suggests that Biden's decision to run for re-election amounted to recklessness. This is what the former vice president said. Of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out.

I knew it will come off as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run. He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty even. Even if my only message was, don't let the other guy win. Thoughts on this. How am I supposed to feel about this? Don't you feel sorry for her? No. That's what I did.

When I, when the fact that she's writing this book, the fact that this excerpt came out. And I don't know if that's her intention, but I thought, man, I really feel sorry for Carmel Harris. This is how she's going out. Because, oh, shit. It is. This is a lose-lose situation for her. It seems like when Biden said that, I went to dinner. You turned it on the dinner pack. No, no, no, no. It's not going to be no more dinners. It's, no, there aren't. I just think that she was in, I think from the beginning. that Cheesecake Factory were her no more. I think cheesecake factory.

I think from the beginning, she was in a loose-lose situation. Because the moment that Biden picked her, it seems like from these excerpts that have come out, and I'm sure we'll read about it in the rest of the book, he never planned on her being anything but his vice president. And that's where it would start and that's where it would end. Biden said he was going to be a one-term president.

Clearly, he never had those desires. It seems like he was always planning on running. And if that is the case, then it appears she was doomed from the moment he gave her the phone call, and asked her to be his vice president. He never had, he never planned to support her. He never planned to big up her for president. Her role was to be the first as a black woman, as an Indian woman in that position.

And that's where she was going to live. I really believe that. From these excerpts that are coming out, Biden always saw that he was going to be two-term. He was maybe afraid of announcing that from the beginning because of his age. But it always seemed like he was planning to do it. And obviously that's what happened because he decided. decided to run again. So she was in a lose-lose situation. And now so much has happened that she can come out and condemn Biden. She can come out and tell her truth of what really went down and how her hands were

tied and how they never and how they continue to put her in positions and put her on top of policies where she could never succeed. And when she did succeed, because this is in some of the excerpts, when she did succeed, they didn't promote it when she tried to ask them. She was was in a position to never look good. She was in a position to stand by his side and represent a woman of color. He never, according to her words from these excerpts, never wanted her to shine. I feel sorry for her. And now that so much has happened with her time in the election, her backing him up even when she thought he shouldn't be running, her standing by saying she wouldn't change anything different from how he ran his administration. It's just putting her in a situation where she can't run again.

I feel bad for her. I feel bad for her. I feel sorry for her. I think it is, this is, I don't see her running for any more office, so it feels like the end of her political career. And it ends with this book. That's how I feel.

So this book is the end of Kamala Harris's political. She's announcing the end of it is what you're saying. Oh, she's not announcing of it. I think that she plans to run. I just feel like this is the end for her. You think she's running for El Presente? I do. she said a political career isn't over

she's not going to go back and run for governor I don't know where she falls in line she was the vice president she's not going to be a part of the administration in anything but being the president again and I think anything else as to step back from sort of I said that before this podcast

okay so look here's the deal so this is this is a this is a tough one for me because when I read excerpts like this from the book those excerpts on this and then there were excerpts on, you know,

how she felt about the whole, obviously the genocide in Gaza, you know, what she was trying to tell them to do and all that stuff they were listening to it. It enrages me. I get very mad. For her? No.

Oh. At. At her. At. See? But not her It's not being mad at Her as much as it is

Being mad at them So like imagine that You allegedly like football Imagine that If you like that Alleged Imagine that Imagine that

Imagine that like The Dallas Cowboys Are playing the game. And they're playing the game. And the fate of the world is at stake if the Cowboys win. Like if they win, we're good. If they win, we're good. I mean, we're probably fucked, right? We don't know for sure. If they win, we're good. If they lose, everything's fucked up. Okay. That Prescott has a sprained ankle, a high ankle sprain. He has a high

ankle spring. He's not going to be able to move. Yeah. Yeah. Right? The left tackle knows this, and he can't tell anybody. He can't say anything. So only Dak and the left tackle know he has a high ankle sprained in the game. No, the whole team knows. Okay. But everyone knows. But he can't say anything.

And then all you Cowboys fans, they talk to you guys and they say, that is our guy. We have to go out there and let him play for the fate of the world. on the high ankle spring, right? Everyone knows, but they all have to act like it's not a thing. And after the world has been taken over by the aliens, the left tackle writes a book

and says, I knew about the ankle spring. There's just a part of me that goes, fuck all this, man. What? What the fuck? Like, fuck all this shit. And it's not her. It's like, it's not, it's the, it's the, this made me once again look at the political party itself and the utility of it.

It's like, was somebody going to tell us? Like, what, what somebody going to go, hey, man, just to let you know, everything is in the balance. Like, it's all, it's all in the balance. And we all know we can't fucking run this guy. We all know that we shouldn't do it. We all know this, we all know that, but we're going along with it because... Huh?

But that's the thing. What it could, like, because the anger to me isn't directed towards her, in a sense, more so him and the administration. But, but, but, let me... But this is what I'm saying. I think that she's to blame, but what would you do in this, in this instance?

This is why I say, she was doomed from the start. They, I don't think he ever wanted her to be president. He wanted her to be a figure standing next to him and represent something in a way that had not been represented in that way before. That's what I get from these excerpts from this book and from the whole way everything has kind of fallen out. She wanted to run for president.

And I'm not agreeing with what she did. I'm just saying, what do you do? Her hands are tied. She wanted to run for president. She didn't want to, so she wanted to align herself with the Democratic Party. She couldn't shit on Joe Biden. She couldn't say things that she knew because if she did, then she couldn't be president. And if she did, then she would net, like, I'm like, she's doomed.

Her hands were tied. I'm not saying that I complete that she is free from fault. I'm just like, this woman's whole time, whole moment in the administration was doomed from the moment that she said yes when he asked her to be the vice president. She never stood a chance, not under this administration. Yeah. So you can't unilaterally point blame at Kamala. you can't, but what you can do is this,

because I don't like to do that anyway. I like to look at the systemic thing. Political parties neuter political courage. Political courage is what's needed to make actual systemic change. You need courage. You need courage to do things like universal health care. You need courage to do things like environmental justice.

You need courage because you're up against, corporations that don't want to see these things happen. You're up against a status quo that exists in part because these things, because things are the way they are. You need courage. And these parties are just not about that. These parties are about picking winners and losers. They're about picking the people that they think best serve the corporate base and corporate

wing of the party. They're about doing what they can do to consider. consolidate power within a certain political elite. And if you don't fit that, then they make sure to keep you out of it. And then you can't cross that because they'll fuck you for it. So that means that we get bad, compromise, or inept leaders because we're really not picking them. Kind of picking them, but we're really not picking them. then after everything falls apart

and it's all fucked the fuck up. You know what we get? Bestsellers. We get books. We get all these books. It's three books dropping. John Pierre's dropping a book. We're having her on this podcast.

Can't wait to have this conversation with it. I know. Kamala's dropping a book. Everybody dropped a book. Nobody dropped the truth. Nobody dropped the truth. Everybody dropped the book. Now the alien isn't taken over

in the fucking ankle. We put the spat on that bitch. What am I supposed to think? I'm sorry. Look, you guys. You're not wrong. Obviously, obviously, I voted for Vice President Harris. I voted for.

Obviously, I voted for her. I wanted her to be successful in her bid to be president. she was a much better candidate I would have loved to have seen what she would have done with the country I would have to have seen that okay I'm just being honest with you so I'm just being honest

okay reality is and they don't even get me started on the guys at me don't get me started on what was happening there the whole time there was inaction there kids' faces were getting burned off they were

they were the kids' faces were getting burned off And it's like, okay, like when do we summon? And this is why when I was talking about the, the fucking, uh, the black thing, the, the, is America a racist country thing with Kamala Harris? Look, I realized that, you know, I have a different set of,

it's different. I'm not the vice president. You can't, maybe, you know, but I'm saying is, it is important for us. not to just accept blatant lies because we understand the political position

that somebody is in. It's important for us to be like, all right, you know, this is our person and we kind of get this but at the same time,

that's a lot. Like, we should just be able to say that's a lot, and I know that you know that that's a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what ends up happening

with these parties too, they become little social clubs rather than, as political parties, not a social club. It's not a fucking club for you guys to have a fun and do all. It's not a fucking club, right?

These people are the people that control the clean water and fucking all other shit. It's not a club, man. It's a fucking politic thing. And stop with the fucking, we have fun and drink and we all together in clubs shit. It's not a club. If they don't do what you need them to do, then you got to fucking kick their ass and get new people. It's not a, there's no hives. There's none of that.

she's in a book she knew this is why I say her political career is done with this because what's going to come out of the book people are going to have the same people are going to have

the same sentiments that you have they're going to have the same sentiment in the sense that how does anybody trust Kamala Harris listen how does anybody trust Kamala Harris after this book comes out

how can we believe anything who do you stand for what do you stand for How could you run for office after this? We don't know which Carmelah Harris are going to get. It's going to be hard to believe. I'll believe what she writes in this book, but it's going to hard to believe her as a political candidate

and trust her in that space. That's why I say, this is it. I'm sure it's going to be a great book, though. Well, I guess that's why I got to read the book. I got to read it because I guess maybe the book makes the case for how hamstrung she was. It is going to do that. And if I'm having

key word empathy, maybe I'll read the book and the depth of it I will understand. And what did I say at the top of it? I feel sorry for her. Because I feel like her hands were tied. But it doesn't mean that I trust her as a

candidate after this book. I can feel sorry for her but still not but still feel like I can't trust that you would execute the desires that people have if it came down to that or following the system. Let me ask you this. Speaking of hands tied,

do you think that R. Kelly was telling the truth when he said that he did not know how to hawk tie? I didn't know he said that and I don't care. It doesn't matter. He did so many other eras. Wait a second. Wait a second. Hold on. I don't know this.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Donnie, there's no way you haven't seen this. There's no way. It's impossible. Where did you say this? I'm looking at it up. Hold on. I don't, I don't, he did so many other disgusting and harmful things that I don't care if he knows how to hogtie or not. That's like there's a number of criminal active criminal things that he did that were harmful to women, which is why he's riding in jail now.

Rachel, I want you to, Rachel, I want you to watch this. No. This is, come on, Rach, I want you to watch this and I want you to tell me whether or not you believe R. Kelly, whether or not you think that he's telling the truth right. He says to Gail? Somebody sent me something on my phone and said that a hog tied her. I don't know how to hog that people. What would I halt her? I do.

Sorry, I do. Of course. Of course, there's a debate about whether or not he's actually telling the truth there because he told a lot of lies. But do you think that he? No, it doesn't matter. It's just a question. Do you think that he knew how to hawk tie?

Do you think he could hawk tie? I think he tried. Do you want, you know what? You think he tried the hog tie. This is what I think. The reason he knows he can't hog tie is because he probably tried it and it didn't work. You think that he was trying to hog tie

and he realized that he couldn't hog tie. So he meant that. He said about it. I didn't know how to hog tie because I tried. Didn't it didn't work? He said, he said, he said, at halftide people. Why did this

why should bring that up? Why? Why? Because I saw a tweet and the tweet said, I do think that R. Kelly was telling the truth that he couldn't hawkite. And I was like,

I never thought about that. That probably, with the way that you... This is the difference between being you. I would have seen that tweet and kept scrolling. You sat there and thought about it. Huh?

Yeah. Huh. I thought for a second. could he hogtie? My dad could hogtie. And your dad is from American, Louisiana. He hogtied me away.

And Arquette Lee is from Chicago, Illinois. Okay. Different skill sets that are required, I think, for both for plays a lot. And why did he hog tie you, man? Why did he hog tie you? We were playing around.

We were being rascals. And he was, he would say something, my dad would say, boy, I'll throw you. I'll throw you. And now I would say, you can't throw me. You can't throw me.

throw me and then he would be like boy I'll throw you and then I'll say you can't throw me and then one time he picked me up and he threw me and then when he got me down he had his lasso and he hogtied me and it was funny it was funny I was funny I was a kid it was like a funny thing sure that sounds like that sounds like that sounds like fun I don't think it was fun

in the Arkellie sense though but I do like that you share yeah I just want I absolutely believe Arkelly tried to hogtie and realized he couldn't and then realize because I would have been like Hawk tie I don't even know what that is he said I tried But I didn't know how. We should say something, by the way.

Melvin Gregg is coming on the show pretty soon. We should say something, by the way. There's a shit ton of news. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot. I don't know if you guys saw this. Israel hit Cutter. Israel hit Cutter.

They bombed Hamas negotiators in Qatar trying to. And this was an operation that took place on the soil. of Qatar, Qatar, Qatar, and it is a major deal. It is a huge deal. Higher learning homework. You guys should look into this if you haven't looked into it. It looks like Israel hit Qatar to try to get to Hamas,

which is what they said. But really this is happening, in my opinion, and a lot of other people's opinions, to stifle the negotiations that are ongoing. right now to bring an end to the conflict or at least to get to a ceasefire. They hit the negotiators. They hit the people that are negotiated.

Everyone, there's so much going on right now that Israel launched a strike against Qatar and basically told the United States about this strike while the birds were in the air. And, you know, we couldn't get to it today. Yeah. There's a lot going on. Supreme Court ruling going on. We were going to VMAs. There's some fallout from the VMAs.

We were going to talk a little bit about new Bachelorette as thoughts about that. You have to do that. You have to do that. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I mean, I always said a lot. No, no, no, no. There's really not. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green.

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This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, catch up. goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer.

You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Are you familiar with secret lives of Mormon wives? Yes. Do you watch it? I've seen it before. So you know what the premise of the show was built off of? Yeah, Mormon women skinny dip it.

Okay, no. It was built off of soft swinging. A girl came out on. Mom Talk was something that was built by these women who are Mormons. I've seen it. They get on the teeth. I'm explaining it to people. And it became very, very popular on TikTok,

millions of followers, millions of likes. And then one day, the leader of Mom Talk, Taylor, Frankie Paul. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me that The Bachelorette is a one-in from the Mom Talk thing? Yes. What the fuck? Yes. I didn't know.

Yes, this is why I was like, you think it's not that there's a new bachelor bed. I don't even watch anymore. It's that it's Taylor Frankie Paul. So Taylor Frankie Paul was the creative mom talk, the leader of it, comes out and says, years ago and says, hey, guys, I just want to let everybody know we're swingers. And she didn't specify who was or who wasn't. So everybody assumed every single girl that was in mom talk was swinging with each other. They were swinging. Turns out it was her, her best friend, her best friend's husband, her husband.

they all those couples get divorced whatever and the fallout comes to mom talk these fractured friend groups the lies the mistrust do they swing do they not how they are in their religion not in the church in the church all of these things and it's a great watch two seasons um the third one comes out later this year bam it's under the disney network so is the bachelor bachelor bachelor's taylor rakey paul put out a video that she wanted to be the Bachelorette, nobody took it seriously, until yesterday when she announced on call her daddy that she is the new Bachelorette. People are losing their minds. I woke up to the phone calls. I already knew, though. I woke up to their phone calls, to the phone calls, and they were like, Rachel, we have to have your thoughts. Now, you know,

I don't talk about the Bachelorette. I don't even watch the show. But I had to pop in for this because it's so from the norm. Normally, they pick a lead from a pre-year-old. previous season. So you know this person, you're familiar with them, you know their story, you're rooting for them as they find love. That has been the format. I've said multiple times that this format is dead. The fairy tale is over. They can't compete with these other love reality shows because they're trying to sell something that people don't believe in anymore. They needed to shake it up and they shook it up. They have said, we're going to jump in the land of chaos, we're going to jump into the mess because the bachelors always said, we're not like them.

We're not like the other ones. And they're losing because of it. They're losing viewership. They're losing dollars. It doesn't make sense anymore. So they have thrown their hat in the ring and they said, we're going to do it in the loudest and biggest way. And we're going to make the leader of mom talk of soft swinging.

Taylor Frankie Paul is going to be our lead. I spoke out about this and I said, I love it. I think a lot of people thought Rachel's going to condemn it. Rachel's going to hate it. I said, you know what, I love it. Let them be messy. I've spoken and tried to push forward diversity and inclusion in this franchise, and they dabbled into it, but they never got it right. And I believe that this is their version of diversity and inclusion, because Taylor Frankie Paul is, we've seen divorced women.

We've seen moms that have been Bachelorette, but not all this together. She got multiple baby daddies. She got, she's divorced. She is, we've seen her in and out of relationships. she has struggled with her mental health, which is going to be an issue on the show. And she has passed the soft swinging. She's MAGA.

I didn't even talk about that. There's so many different things that point to making her different. This is their new diversity and inclusion right here. And she is our new bachelorette. Oh, been arrested, domestic violence. The list goes on and on. Melvin, Greg, joins us on the show today. Melvin, do you watch The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives?

I don't. You never heard it? before? I feel like I probably heard of it, but no, I've never watched. I wish she could have heard the explanation. It sounds familiar. It was built off soft swinging and Mormons and hi Melvin, sorry, I'm sick, I can't be in studio today.

It's a show about Mormons and Mormon ladies, but they go wild. It's like Mormons gone wild. That's probably interesting. It actually is. I like it. I've seen it one or two times. I didn't realize that was the same lady and not his lady has gone on to become the bachelorette. Melvin Gregg, would you ever become the Bachelorette? Melvin Gregg, would you ever become the bachelor?

Nah, nah, I'm already married. He's married. Yeah. Vin, can I just say, Melvin, wait,

can I just say, Ben is the worst about knowing a personal relationship and lives of his friends. That's not a bad thing. He's married. I knew this about Melvin,

though, because Melvin is very, he puts his, like, I've seen you do stuff with the family on social media and stuff like you.

Like, y'all build stuff. You're very handy. You do crafts. I do. What kind of? How did you learn how to do crafts? Because I'm cheap. Ah, as they say.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if somebody come in and they quote me a crazy price to do something, I usually look at a person and I'm like, do I feel like I'm as capable as that person? Cool. All right, the answer is yes. Let me figure out how they, how they would do it. Let me go to YouTube and you can learn anything. Wow.

What's your sign? Yeah. I'm a Virgo. That makes a lot of sense. That makes all the sense in the world. Don't you feel like it's a lot of. No, I like the side. I like it.

Virgo propaganda that's going on lately. We're in Virgo season. I know, but I'm saying it's like the Virgo's have now, I think it's Beyonce related. I think Beyonce has made the Virgo into this big brand. It's like a brand now. It's a big thing. Yeah, there's a lot of propaganda around it too.

I feel like it's part of it's true. And I think it's the traits that are associated with Virgo are like very prominent traits. So it affects people in a way, but they're more vocal about it, I think. What's the, what's the Virgo traits? like perfectionist, thinking they know everything. Like, yeah. But there's positives.

You're very grounded. You're very practical. You always know what you're going to get. Very loyal. I'm an earth side as well. So I understand. Okay. What do this mean?

What's the earth sign? Well, Torres Capricorn. No, you are an aries. Fire. What's that? Fire sign? Ha-ha. Burn a motherfucker up.

That's what I'm talking. It's like. So Melvin is joining us because you got a new show dropping, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The show is out, is it not? It's out. It's out.

And it is called the paper. And it is an office spinoff. Tell people about the show. Yeah, so it's from the same universe as the office, the same showrunner that brought you the American office 20 years ago. A lot of the same directors from before. It exists in the same world, but it's a different show. The only carryover is Oscar.

Oscar Nunez from the original. And also the documentary crew. So how to show is set up is the documentary crew from before. They go to Dundermifflin to check one of the old crew, the old cast, and everybody's gone and you find out that the company was bought by another company. So the documentary crew, you know, go track down where the company was sold and they discover a newspaper, like a local newspaper, and they decide to document this newspaper. Do you think that it being like Vann described as a spinoff from the office, but it is different?

But another mockumentary, Do you think that that kind of categorization helps or hurts the show? I think it's a double-edged sword. I think in the industry today, IP is everything. You know, that's why we got so many reboots and stuff. So coming off of the office and the office being such an iconic show and having so many diehard fans, you're garnered a lot of attention. But at the same time, you're going to a lot of comparisons too.

And at the end of the day, as long as people watch it, that's good. Now we've got an opportunity for people to fall in love with the show and see that the show is different from the office. Same documentary crew, but a different group of people. There's not like a Michael Scott type and a Dwight type. It's just a completely different group of people with different tasks, different dynamics, and it's a different show. Just same format, same DNA, same comedic tone.

Will black people find it funny? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think if black people kind of give it a chance and just clock in, I think a lot of comedy comes from relatable moments even though it might not be a shared experience like the human experience is pretty relative

so if you kind of watch it and you fall in love with the characters you know you'll find comedy in it but it's not going to be the same type of comedy you get from like Tyler Perry you know what I mean is a different tone but there is so I this is interesting to me so when the Judd-Apital stuff first came out because like in in college

I put my homies on Seinfeld And at first, I didn't think that they would like it. But it's just fucking hysterical. Yeah. It's just funny. And then the Apatile stuff came out. And then there was a whole run, a whole time where we were into the white boy humor. Yeah, I called it stupid fun.

We were into the white boy humor. And it caught. That whole humor seemed like it went away to office was kind of that, but not really that. Yeah. And now it's like, are we free to like? laugh at the white boy humor anymore. I think, you know, being black in America, you got to kind of acclimate to the white world in a sense

in a way that they don't have to acclimate or accept or acknowledge our our space. They don't have to watch our movies, but, you know, eventually we'll watch theirs. I grew up, where I grew up at, it was really no white people who was kind of segregated in a sense. I've seen a new map where it says like the concentration of black people and is all in like the southern coast and the darkest color is the biggest like black concentration and it was right where I grew up.

It was probably like two white people in my high school. I don't know who they were, but I was just assumed that they were, they were there. I don't want to say it was completely black. My elementary school was one white guy. His name was Timmy. I remember him. I used to sell him Sega games. But, yeah, yeah.

You were selling them the old shit. I get it from the pawn shop. You get it from the pawn shop. He just wanted to be cool, so he'll buy whatever I'm selling. He was really even playing the games. He probably wasn't. Hey, I'm all for it. But, no, shut out to tell me.

I remember him to this day. But I'm saying hard at to say that I didn't watch white comment. I didn't watch a lot of white movies. I just watched things of the culture with characters I could relate to. And I remember I remember I went to this thing called Boy State. They get to, you went to Boy State? Yeah, you go to Student Government. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I went to Boy State. And they, I guess, was supposed to be a treat for everybody. they took us to like an auditorium and they put on Ron Burgundy, the Anchorman, and I was lost. They were going crazy laughing at everything. And I was just like, this is stupid. I don't get it. I've seen Napoleon dynamite.

And I'm like, yo, this is the dumbest thing I've been seen. Like, I just don't get it. My introduction to white comedy in a way, I was like, yo, this is hysterical. It was super bad. Oh, okay. Super bad. Yeah. And 40-old version.

Yeah. Like at that point, I was like, okay, I get it. Those other ones I still don't kind of get it. But I think the thing is playing absurd situations in a grounded way. Well, you're not trying to be funny. You're just, like, if you look at Steve Carell and 40-year-old Virgin, he wasn't trying to be funny, but it was just hysterical because he was so oblivious to the world in which he existed. And the same thing was super bad.

And it's relatable. Like, every guy can, you know, relate to, you know, trying to get laid. You know what I mean? Like going on a crazy night out with your friends just trying to hook up with that. one girl you got a crush on. So it was relatable in a sense that I found hilarious. Was it hard for you? Like, I'm curious, like, growing up the way that you did and you're saying only two people

that were white in your high school and you come out here and it's white, Hollywood's so white, was it hard for you and you're so yourself? Was it hard for you to stay true to yourself? And how did you do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was definitely tough. So coach's shot for me came in college because I went to college in the same area. I never really left the area.

Where is this area at? Where is... I'm from Portsmouth, Virginia. Okay. It's near like North of Virginia Beach, like that southern coast of Virginia. So I, um... When I went to college, I stayed close to home. I went to college, but it was really diverse, and I had a culture shop.

I didn't talk to people for, like two years. I had a roommate my first year that I never met. Whenever he would come in a room, I'd like I was sleep. Just because I just feel so hard a place, I end up leaving around November, so I ain't had to hide out too long. But, like, even the black people, they was from Northern Virginia. for most of them. So, like, the culture was different.

They dressed different. They, they talk different. I just felt so out of place. And it was still a point I just kind of stayed to myself. And it took a couple years for me to kind of break out of it. But being able to adjust in college when I came to California, I had got to the point where I realized, like, you know, we all people, we all experience the same thing. We might talk different.

We might got different experiences. But how we react and how the experiences affect us is all common in a sense. So by the time I got to California, I had found a sense of who I was, but it was still hard for me to figure out who I was on camera because I still got an accent, but my action was super thick when I moved out here.

So I didn't look like how I sounded. Like I sounded super urban, as they say, but I looked friendly. So when they're casting, you know, this friendly, life skin, got curly hair, he didn't sound like me. And then when they was casting, you know, the niggas, as he would put, as he put.

Like, I didn't look like what the idea of it was. You know what I mean? You know, we looked like whatever. There's no monoliths of black, but the idea of what Hollywood was casting it really looked like myself. So I would try to code switch. And I was trashed at it. Like, I sounded terrible trying to sound like I was like.

Let us here. Let us here. No, no. It's going to sound different now. I want to hear a code switch. I want to hear your code switch. All three of us are coach. Rachel code switch.

My code switch is very like, I feel like Rachel got, got a, Rachel got an elite code switch. Rachel got a crazy code switch. Rachel tried. I already know it. Okay, hold on. My voice is a horse.

Hi, guys. I'm Rachel Lindsay and welcome to Extra. That's like a broadcast switch. That's a switch. I guess. I guess. What did you think I had like a Valley Girl accent? I think you could do Valley Girl.

Yeah, something like that a little bit more. I like it, but I like it. Yeah. Yeah. I liked it, but it was a little broadcasting. I don't code switch, so I wouldn't know nothing about that. I keep that shit real. I did.

I definitely code switch back in the day. I'm sure you go home and a New Orleans accent come out. Louisiana accent come out. No, it doesn't. See, here's the thing. My Texas does. It doesn't. It does.

For me, Baton Rouge is an interesting place because if you, Rachel, you met my friends, right, the player proof. They don't really have accents. Yeah. So also, too, you are already pretty articulate so you don't have to code switch. Probably. Yeah, like you sit in a middle place. You, if I didn't know you and I heard you speak,

I'd be like, okay, he's probably middle class. Like, you know what I mean? A two-parent household type type thing. So I think for me having a coach which came from, like, I'm from like the, I don't like saying trenches because people glorified, but like, you know, welfare. You know what I mean? Like that type place.

So the way I naturally talk is kind of hard for white people to understand. So you have to. So what I'm doing. doing now is also a shift from how I naturally talk. Wait, wait, you nigger switching? You know, you're switching with us? I'm media switching because I don't want to try to have subtitles for what I'm doing. I never had, I don't know, I don't, I never had anybody switch for me.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe you just didn't know. You wouldn't have known it was. It's like a California switch. You wouldn't have known. How many levels? Probably don't know we switch. White people, we never talk about when white people code switch.

Well, we do. We see Tarantino Switch. You seen the Tarantino Switch? Switch. I have not. Oh, man. Look up Tarantino talked to a group of black people. It was like 70s black exploitation. He was like, yeah, so this movie that

we come. I can't even do it. He said like Jive, Turkey and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was crazy. I'm looking at your filmography. So people should know the background as we talk about the paper, which is a huge deal. But I'm looking at the filmography, right?

And a lot of people that are seeing Melvin Gregg right now, they're going to be like, I remember him. I've gone way back with him because of how you got started with Vine, right? And all of the skits and stuff. But when I'm looking at the filmography, I'm looking at constant, constant, constant elevation, right? I'm looking at

a whole bunch of titles here that don't have no clickable links to them on the Wikipedia. Then I'm looking at Shark Nato and then as I see him, I'm seeing boom, high flying bird. We were in that movie together, actually. I was in that. Then the way back, underrated Ben Affleck movie, right?

And then you're cooking now. Billy Holiday, Boxing Day, the blackening. Love the Blackening. He loved the Black. House Party, Story Avenue, Shared. Then when I look at the TV stuff, ever since Snowfall, all of these are projects that are really fantastic to be, like, associated with.

You're talking about Sautaberg. You're talking about John Singleton and my man, Dave. Shout out Dave over there on Dave Bhooping, think he could shoot the ball out there on Snowfall. how did you go? What was the actual thought of I'm going from Vine to build a career where I am in prestigious, gigantic productions? And now, Melvin, I'm bringing it up to talk about your ascension,

but nobody even talks about the Vine thing anymore. You became an actor. And the first place that they met you was on Vine. How did you do it? What was the strategy? Some people still be like, oh, this is a guy from Vine. I'm standing there with the paper with the promotion and it just shows I'm touching a market

that I haven't touched since, Vaughn. But if you look at it, like you said, if you go back, there's so many credits on my filmography because there's so much stuff that I've done before Vine in regards to just wanting to work. Before Vine. I moved out here 2011. So it's stuff like,

um, is Asteroid versus Earth, Cleveland Family Reunion. It's like a lot of low budget or student films or indie films that I was doing in 2012, 2013, 2014. But I wasn't able to get the auditions for the real projects, the prestigious type projects, because I didn't have an agent. I couldn't get an agent because I didn't have those credits. So I was like, in order to get to a place where I want to be, the place where I'm now,

the place where I'm going to be soon, I was like, I got to figure out another path to get there. And that's why I did Vine. I did Vine with the intentions of building an audience so I can be more of value to an agency or a production. So me doing Vine was a means to an end of me getting representation to actually get real projects. But I realized when I was doing Vine, the projects that I was getting from being an influencer weren't great projects. You'll get stuff like Freakish, Unreal, which was a great show, but my role was so minimal. I played an influencer. And you know what I mean?

I was only getting those really small parts. Even though I was big on line. So I had to come to a point where I'm like, what do I really want to do? Even though I'm finding a great deal of success doing social media, that's not why I moved here. That's not why, you know, I came to LA to act. So I was just like, let me just stop. So I quit and I just shifted my focus completely to acting. And that's when you started seeing a high flying bird or American band or the way back.

When I just kind of shifted the hyperfocus that I have. for social media back towards traditional media and just continuing to, you know, put forth the work, but also just be conscious of where I exist in the space, how the landscape exists, and how I can best navigate it to get to where I want to be. I love that because I feel like when I was making a career switch to somebody said to me, what's the one thing in your life that's holding you back? And I didn't want to admit it was being a lawyer because that had defined me for such a long time. I was like, that's what everybody knows me as. That's the respect. What are they going to think of me if I go off and do what I really want to do?

And she was like, that's the one thing I'll be back. And as soon as I let it go, I felt like things started to fall into place. I read, I was in some interview and I read that you, because I'm wondering if you believe in manifesting and if you place importance on it because you read, I read that at the top of the year you have wrote down like all the different things that you wanted. And you. your next project that would help you move to the next level of your career. So the question is, do you believe in manifesting? Is that something that you do and maybe talk a little bit about that for other people? Because obviously, it worked, you know, with what you're doing now in the paper.

Because I read also that that's a full circle moment for you. Yeah, 100%. I'm a big believer in manifesting. I feel like manifesting isn't much different from prayer. The only difference is you pray out to an external being or Jesus or whoever it is you pray to for whatever it is that you want and you have faith that's going to come back to you

because you have faith in whatever it is you're praying to. I feel like manifesting is the same thing but it's a faith within yourself. You're putting out what it is you want to receive and you have faith in yourself that is going to come to you. So as long as that faith is strong,

there's a chance that is going to come back to you. But I think the great deal about manifesting and having faith in yourself, you're going to put forth to work relentlessly to gain whatever. it is that you want. You're not sitting back waiting for, for something to come to you. You're confident in yourself to put everything into it and bet on yourself to go out and get whatever it is that is. So I've always believed that I can manifest whatever it is I want and that I guess you could

say delusional faith in me being able to achieve what I want. I'm putting myself out there and doing the work to garner those those blessings or manifestations. But yeah, with the with the office. My wife is more in tune with it than I am. She like reads books and stuff based on people's research and life experiences in this space. I kind of just go off of what's innate for me. But yeah, top of the year, she was like, this is something with the moon and this is a great time. Oh, we would be such good friends. Right down. Yeah. And she really set it up to it. And I was kind of laughing at it. But like she set up like a like a palette all in it. And then. yard and she had like some candles and like some wine and like all of this stuff in the notebook.

And I was kind of laughing at it. But of course, I still go along with it. And I just write all the things that I want out of my next job moving into the next year. And a lot of those boxes was checked by the paper. So it's just like, wow, that's crazy. How important is it having a good woman in your life? I think it's the most important thing. I think your partner, as in with anything and everything, your partner is probably the most

important decision you make. If it's a business, the person you decide to partner with is going to be more important than what the actual business is. I think having the right person is going to build you up and give you strength and encourage you and add to who you are. The wrong person is going to do the complete opposite. It could be, you know, the cause of your demise. So I think, yeah, a good woman or good man is more important than most.

Why do you think sometimes, because, you know, the young brothers out here that are in the city that are doing their things? Sometimes they don't want to settle down. They're city boys. Like they're city boys out here. You married, family, all of that. Sometimes they say that comes later. Career comes first and now.

And I need to solidify all of that stuff. But it seems like you feel like solidifying your family and your personal life helps you be. Does it help you be more productive in your professional life? Is that part of the security? that you might not, you might be having that maybe others don't, the fact that you have a great partner and a stable family? I think there's a, I think there's a balance as far as productivity and what it is you want to be productive at and where your focus is.

For me, my family is more important than my career. So even though I might not be as productive as like a businessman, I'm productive as a father, as a husband. That's more important than anything. So it's just like, I'm putting my attention there. and any time I got left over is going towards work. There's not a lot of, like, extra time to be hanging out and doing a lot of other stuff.

And I try to keep a work schedule, like, between four and five, I'm done and I'm just, you know, with my family. On the weekends, I'm just with my family. I wake up in the morning with my kids and make them breakfast for a long time. I was taking them to school, too. But that's priority first for me. And back to the first part of your question about a lot of, you know,

young guys focusing on work and stuff. I think it's like a good. Conditioning in a sense and I was in that place. I think a big part of it is ego. But, you know, men are conditioned to, you know, want to have options and to get the girls that everybody desire. And a lot of times that's attached to getting money and getting fame and flexing and that type of stuff because you're going to attract these girls that you're conditioned to want. So then you're going to go out and chase business and you're going to chase money. And then you come up with this philosophy of, you know, money over holes and all of this stuff.

And it's just, it's a bad cycle overall. And I feel like I've definitely had that perspective. at one point in my life, but you've got to kind of grow through it. And I've always been one to pay attention to the omens and see cautionary tales and I have to kind of live through it to learn from it. So if I see this guy doing this stead and the other, and this is where he ends up, I don't want to take that path. Right.

My dad, you know, prided himself in being a lady's man. He got three different baby moms and now he's lonely at 70. No shade to my dad. That's just like choices. But I don't want to go down that path. So if I could look at it and be like, cool, that's not where I want to. to go, let me not do that, it's easier for me to move that way. If I see people that find happiness in marriage and family and kids and, you know,

having somebody to support them and that being more productive, cool, that's more so what I want. So let me align myself with that way of living versus that way I live in. I guess that's an interesting thing. So you talked about the whole mantra of like money over bitches because you chase that and then everything comes from that. What would be the right mantra? What would be the right mantra for someone to have in terms of what's the right way to orient your life, your social life, your professional life?

We want to get ourselves out of these toxic spirals of talking to each other in these things that we learn from these records. If I'm talking to a group of young men, what's the right way for me to tell them this is how you should attack life, this is how you should attack happiness. what would you say? Find your peace and your happiness and protect it. And find your happiness and your peace. Your happiness can't be based on what somebody else wants because at the end of the day, it's not going to make you happy

if you're doing it to make them envious. Like, what is that really doing for you? Ego is the devil. Ego is the root of greed and so much other stuff too. So lead to ego alone, find what makes you happy. Find what gives you peace. hold on to or protect it. Focus on becoming more and not gaining more.

And we get lost in like material possessions and we want so much. You know what I mean? They want us to have the biggest house. And then we live in a library where there's no communal experience within the house because y'all are in different sides of the house and then you've got these big white marble floors

in this big empty space. You can't even clean it. Versus like if you think about growing up, some of your finest experiences, for the most part, it's going to be like at your grandma house, Small house, little front room, little side room, but y'all all together, y'all got experiences. It feels wholesome.

And I'm not knocking, you know, people that's ambitious. I'm ambitious too, but know why you want it. Don't just want it because other people want it. See, grounded. Virgo. I read that you want to do a rom-com or an action. So if you were doing a rom-com, who would you want to play opera? the city here.

Interesting. Yeah, that's very interesting. I wrote a rom-com and I know I want to play opposite of me, but this industry is so tricky that you can't play. You can't follow creative rules. There are no creative rules, but you can't do what you're creatively drawn to do a lot of the times. You've got to do what makes monetary sense for whoever giving you the money.

So who would you want to play opposite, though? I want to work with Nicole Bihari. Oh, shit. that is, to me, this is gonna sound, this is gonna sound fucked up, but to me, I don't want to say underrated.

I would say that Nicole Bihari is the most underappreciated. Yeah, not underrated. People that know, and know she fires. Yeah, because she's not underrated. Right, right, right, right. But underappreciated,

that is a fucking star. That's a star right there. You see her, wherever she's at, you see her on the morning show, you see her on TV, you, she's like black mirror, everything she's done. That's a star.

That's a great choice. What does this wrong come about? Y'all Secret Asians and some shit? Nah, nah. So the original conceit of it was me thinking like I want to do a reverse pretty woman in a sense. So it's a reverse pretty woman. I ain't going to be no like no prostitute. You want to play.

You want to be the host. You're the hoax. I'm not going to be a ho. So she, wait, hold on. You gotta be, that's what you say. So this is, this should get made. See, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta think of who she really was. She wasn't just a hope.

She wasn't. That was her means to get in knowing, but she was, she was a lost soul. She was a lost soul and she found somebody who, who, who showed her how valuable she could be. Don't give me cancel. And put her in. I realize. I realized. I realized.

I was more to the lady. Okay. I love the movie. So, so my version. of a hoe, right? And it's equivalent. What's the version of a hoe for a man? I don't know, you tell me.

A hustler. A hustler. A hustler. So that's what the character is. He's a hustler. He's just crazy in and out, not in and out of jail, but he, he, I can't, I'm blanking on the term, but he's just a slut.

A slut. I'm tripping. Just say it. No, no, no. No, no. No. He's, he's, he's. We're trying to.

He's a hustle. I'm trying to get pretty nigger. It's called pretty nigger. It's called pretty nigger. We're trying to get it made. We can get this made, by the way. So, listen. By the way, I'm telling you right now we can get this made.

And I want to get it made. You can produce it, man. We can get this made. Come on, Oscar, man. So look, it's, it's, it's, so he's a hustler, right? So when she meets him, he's driving Uber. But it's not just a typical Uber. He got like a mini fridge in the middle.

He's selling it like party cups with hennie and condoms in the back. See, he got a stripper pole that he got from a, like a storage unit auction that he drops off to somebody that he, that he meet on. What's that, what's that app where you sell stuff? Crazless? Not crezlis, the new one. I don't know. It's green.

It's a green icon. Let's just say Facebook marketplace. He linked up with somebody sell this all while the woman who's, she's in venture, she's in venture capitalist. She's on a way to a meeting that her career pretty much depends on. and she has to make it to this dinner. Meanwhile, she's in the car with this dude that's doing the most. So off the rip, they buttoned heads. They're not really into each other.

And she gets into the meeting and she realizes this couple, a hotel-eer couple where she's trying to acquire their hotels. They're really old-fashioned in a way. And she knew it beforehand, but she was kind of like, I'm going to do my own thing. They only really want to work with couples. And throughout the family, figure out why. So when she shows up, they're like, where's your husband?

and she realizes like, yo, this is going to be, this is going to be like the death of this deal. And at the same time, the guy come in because she had dropped her purse. She had dropped her phone in the car when she was getting out. So as he's bringing her the phone, she pulls him to the side. And she was like, look, I got $1,000 for you. Don't say nothing. Sit here. Agree with what I say.

I got to close this deal type thing. But I like to liken it to Leo and Titanic. He comes and he's honest and he's himself. unapologetically and if people fall in love with them and the people like yo we can't close this deal right now we haven't had enough time but we do an annual retreat in Jamaica where we

stay at each one of our hotels each night we get to know each each other and we get to see the type of people we do business with we would love for you guys to come so in order for her to close this deal she now needs to bring him on this trip to close this couple and you know she

pays him as they do and pretty woman She is not, yeah, it's not $3,000 as it is in that movie, but she pays them an amount to come and spend a week with her there. And over the course of that week, of course, they hate each other, but they learn from each other and they grow from each other. And eventually they fill out, they realize that they're better for each other with each other. Now, we can get it made. We can get it made.

Yeah. Nicole, Tracy. Tracy could do that. Like, we can get it made. That's a, that's a good one. So you have these, you have your own projects. you're getting off the ground too then. Yeah, yeah.

I got a lot of them, man. These last six years I've been focusing on, a lot of people see me do DIY stuff. And I spend more time actually writing and DIY on these scripts, but it's just easy to post a theater room or a deck or a little contraption, fun toy that I make than it is to get these scripts made. But they definitely in the works. I got a few.

I like it. But yeah, I want the rom-com to be next. I like it, too. And we need more rom-coms. We're missing those right now. I know, man. We, we, we get, we get what Netflix give us, but that's all kind of the same thing. And they, they kind of, they kind of cheesy and a lot of, don't talk your stuff.

We got to pitch this thing now. I mean, you got to get, all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I ain't going to talk bad on it. But I'm just saying this, I think this is, you know, it's given something that hasn't been given in a while. So, Domall Gleason's in this. Yeah, yeah. I don't fuck with him. Why not?

Is it Harry Potter? Nah, General Hux, bro. General, what's that? General. I'm sorry. What is it? He's General Hux, bro. Who is that?

Fucking General Hux from Star Wars, bro. I told you earlier how I grew up. I didn't watch Star Wars. He's fucking General Hux from Star Wars, bro. It's Dom Huggleson. He's fucking General Hux. You never seen it? You ever seen The Force Awakens?

You've never seen The Force Awakens? You've never seen The Last Jedi? I don't watch either. So you're doing the whole show with General Hux. You and General Hux going back and forth, and you don't know it's General Hux. You want to know something crazy? What?

I didn't, I didn't know who Nicole Kittman was. So like I got to say, you're lying. I had to Google it when I knew she was working so I would know who to. I told you how I grew up. I didn't see any of this stuff until I was an adult.

Wait, wait a second. So, because you did the show, what was the name, that was a good-ass show? Non-Purface Strangers. Non-perfect Strangers. So you did, Non-Percingers was that HBO? Hulu.

Hulu. Hulu. And nine perfect strangers, Nicole Kippman. I didn't know who Nicole Kittman was. You didn't know who Nicole Kittman was. I knew her name. I knew her name as a famous actor.

But if she was in a lineup, I wouldn't have been able to be like, oh, that's her. So then when you see her and when you see Nicole Kidman, you don't know who she is. Does she expect you to know who she is? I don't, she didn't give the energy.

She's a very gracious, beautiful human being. She kind of just floats through life. And she's been famous for so long. I don't even think she acknowledges that people know her or not. She's just, excuse me, respectful, nice and gracious.

Hi, how are you? Yeah. Nice to meet you. You know, it's just that. You got to get that energy because it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was kind of that. But yeah, I didn't, I had to Google it before she came.

So I would know who to be like, oh, you know, thank you because it was her show. But it just speaks to, like I said, growing up, I didn't watch a lot of that other stuff. I had to catch up later on. So it's a lot of great things I still haven't seen. What do the movies you haven't seen? I feel seen. It's hard. It's hard to name them.

You name them and I'll tell you if I've seen them. Have you seen The Godfather? Yes. Have you seen Goodfellas? Yes. I've seen all these gangster movies. Have you seen all the gangster movies? I've seen the gangster movies.

Okay. Have you seen the original color purple? Yes. Yes. Okay. Do white movies. Do white movies. Okay.

Do white movies. Do you watch Marvel? Do you like Captain Americas? I haven't watched the Captain Americas. But I love the one with Thanos. You are like me. God damn you. Yeah, he's like thing.

I like Iron Man. I'm not like a fanatic. I'm not a fanatic. I watch Iron Man. Black Panther, okay. Yeah, I don't know the names. So, Rom,

you like rom-coms? Have you seen like Sleepers in Seattle? I did. So, listen, listen. He likes rom-coms. I was writing, I was writing a rom-com. So I watched as many rom-coms as possible. It's a formula.

So I'm like, let me educate myself on rom-coms. But prior to writing the rom-com, I had never seen sleepless in Seattle, or many of the other ones. Right, but you wanted to know the formula. Because they're all the same. So I watched the greatest, I looked up, the greatest

rom-coms. Okay. And watched them, watched them all. They kind of, you know, figure out what made them great. But you never saw Eyeswashed shut? I watched it later. You watched it later. What did you?

So, what was it like, what was it like meeting Nicole Kitman, then watching Eyes Wide Shut? It's different. I know, right? It's different. Yeah. Yeah.

No, no. Because like, yeah. Yeah, you saw that shit. But it's hard to see people different from how you first meet them. Have you met Rachel's parents? Yeah. Okay. So you met them as older people.

Now, try to imagine them being 20 years old. It's hard. Go watch an old video of Morgan Freeman. Yeah. Watch an old video on Morgan Freeman. He still feels old because you met him old. So I met Nicole Kidman older. So it's hard to go and see her in a sexual act

and be affected the way people probably were when it happened originally. Beautiful woman. But it's a respect thing. It's like I have a different respect. Excuse me. I respect her as a elder. Like as a...

Just a... I love Nicole Kimmel. I love Nicole Kimmel. I love Nicole. Wait, hold on. And it's not specific to her. This is any, this is about Rachel's mom. It's about any older.

It's about, you know, my wife's mom. Like, you know, when you meet somebody one way, it's hard to see them in a different life. Wow. We get where you're coming from. We understand. Yeah.

Definitely. Yeah. Yes. Especially the person. The brothers. Shout out to my man Woody McLean. Yeah. The brothers are, if you guys don't know,

Whitney McLean is, has a kid. He's raising money for his rom-com. Our brothers want their rom-coms. We want to be in rom-coms. We want to be lovers. You know why? Because think of the 90s. Think about all the rom-coms we had in the 90s.

We grew up on that. We grew up watching seeing like black people find love and in beautiful spaces. And think about it. What's the most vulnerable you're going to see a black man? When he's in love. with a black woman. When he's in love, when his head's on that pillow,

pillow talking, saying all of his, anything that's on his heart, that's the most vulnerable. And I think that's what makes for the characters that are the most redeemable, the characters that you care for the most,

you see them in love. And I think we all kind of want an excuse to expound upon that. Do you think Hollywood enjoy seeing black men in love? Hollywood. Hollywood. I think if they don't see us as black men,

and they just see us, of course, we're black men, but if you just watch us as men and people that are in love, you will learn to love it. I think, and I think that's something that I'm able to do and we'll be able to do more of within this show the paper because I think watching it, you won't see Detrick as like, oh, he's a black man. Of course he's black, but you just see him as a person.

He's just a person, and he's in love with this girl, and you get to know his heart. So I think it's a great opportunity to enter, introduced black man to people that might not know him on such a vulnerable and transparent level. Tell us about Dedrick. Detrick is, unlike characters I've played before, Derek is, he's awkward, he's offbeat, he's a little unsure of himself, he's a people pleaser.

But he has a really good heart. He's the type of guy that you'll be happy for him to date your sister. Like, you, he's just a good guy, but he hasn't really come into his own. And over the course of the season, he's head over heels in love with somebody and they're not giving him, they're not, you know, returning the same energy. So that puts him in a place of like uncertainty and insecurity. And if you ever been in love and the person not really give you that love back, your logic is out the window.

You're moving with your emotions and you're not doing things that make a lot of sense to the outside world. And you just kind of lost in it. And I think this is who he is at this point. But there's a lot of room for him to grow and, you know, see what else he has the offer. And explore his mind and heart. Before we leave, everybody talk about their biggest heartbreak. The moment where they, we have to be vulnerable now. Yeah.

The three of us now we've established, we're doing a movie together, all kinds of shit. It's crazy. Safe space. The rest of the world. The rest of the world, watch. Everybody talk about their biggest moment of heartbreak. Rage first, me second, our guest last, we signed off. Biggest moment of heartbreak, rage.

I mean, I guess people would expect me to say my. divorce? That is not the answer. That's not it. We know that's not it, nigger. You know, there was this guy I liked in college. It was like, I should have known, right?

Hindsight, because it was never officially defined, but I considered him my boyfriend and we were off and on, off and on for years. And I really liked him. And he was just everything that I wanted. And one day,

I called him like a normal day and I got the do do do the number that you have dialed is disconnected. And I was like, you know, he's changed his phone number before like he'll probably hit me up in a second and let me know that

yeah, that he's that he changed his number. Anyways, that never happened. See what's happening? It never happened. This is tough, huh? This was tough. It never happened. I was ghosted, but ghosted

wasn't a thing back then. Like, he didn't have a title. Like, we used to joke, and I was like, yeah, he's Casper, but we didn't have a title. So there was, social media wasn't big then. I think we just had Facebook, so there was no way for me to connect to him, to reach out to him, to know anything. I really didn't find out anything until two years later. And then two years later, I found out that he went back to his old girlfriend.

They had a baby and they lived happy ever after. That's crazy. It's good for them, though. It was great for them. We're cool now. We're cool now. It's good for them. Y'all good.

Y'all good. We're good now. But it really broke my heart. I was at school and I was going to school. And I remember my, uh, one of my homeboys came to me. He was like, hey, I want to let you know. So-and-so was getting freaky with so-and-so. And that's the way he told me that it was going down.

And I didn't, I didn't believe. I'm like, nah, no way. And he was like, yeah, bro, he was getting a little freak on. I'm telling you you, you got a little freak on your hands. I was like, you need to watch that. And so I confronted her about it. I confronted her about it. And she was like, no, no.

Never happened, bullshit. And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I go back to my boy, I'm like, you are wrong. It is you who is wrong. I do not have a little freak. You misspoke. It is you who is wrong about this. Don't you ever speak on my household like this ever again.

Okay, it wasn't a house. household. Don't you talk about my household like this ever again. Okay, cool. So I am in her room one day and at this school we had like, like this blackboard thing where you would click into it and they would have your classes and you're like you could turn in papers in there and all of that stuff. But we all had it. It was a thing. And I remember I clicked into the little thing where you signed into the login and all of the past logins. pop up when you click into this thing. And the guy who she was allegedly little freaky, his name popped up in that thing, which meant he had been in the room. He had been at the computer. He had been logging in.

That nigger had been logging in the fuck in. That nigg was logging in. I'm like, he logging in on my, he logging in. And putting his information. Putting his information in, bro. He was putting his information in. And I remember I'm sitting there. It was like a moment of, it's funny now,

but it wasn't even like a moment of heartbreak. There was terror. I was like, yo, she was like what? I was like, what is this? And that was it. That was the moment. And then man, this became a thing. because there all my people and everybody.

But this became a whole big thing. But that was the moment that. See, you know, I don't hold that against black women. I was a black woman. I know sometimes y'all get the heartbreak. I don't hold it against. Yeah, yeah. But I don't do that.

Okay, so now that's me. I got a quick question. Did that moment define you for the years to come afterwards? Nah, because I'm not like that. So I always. It wasn't the origin story of a minute. See, I always take everything out on myself. Yeah, I know.

I always take everything out of myself. That's my problem. My problem is I looked at that and I went, now, what wasn't I doing to when really we just got to college, we was young, the nigg was on the football team. She, you know, was the whole nine and all of that dumb ass shit. So I made that about me. I internalized that for a while and then I got in shape and started whiling out.

Exactly. It was your origin story. My origin story for a while. Okay, I saw it a while and now. Now you're your biggest heartbreak. Yeah, my biggest heartbreak. So I never had a girlfriend until my wife until I met her. So.

God damn. I know, man. Never not one girlfriend? Nah, because I'm like a Virgo. I have this delusional confidence where it's just like, I'm not going to settle for anything less than exactly what I want. So if I meet a girl, from the jump, I know how far I could go.

We can hang out. We can kick it, but I'm not going to lie to you and tell you with something that is not. Now, does they think that they were your girlfriend? Yeah, yeah, I never wanted to mislead anybody. Like, they always knew what it was. And a lot of times, that would be, you know, at the cost of me compromising who I am to just,

maybe I'm just a jerk because now you don't want me to be your boyfriend, but you might want to kick it with me here and there. So not to get sidetracked. I met my wife, and of course she wasn't my wife at the time. I was like, that's her. Like, I knew it as soon as I seen her. So I was into it.

I was like, cool. I like got her Facebook. I hit her on Facebook. I was like, you want to go off of coffee? I had never eaten drinking coffee in my life, but I just moved to California. I'm like, this is what they do all here. So she was like, nah, I'm dating somebody.

I'm like, dang, I respect it. But I'm going to still tap in. It's on Facebook. I'm going to tap in every month or so, like, how are you doing? So after a while, that situation when her boyfriend had died out. And we hung out. We hung off for a couple days. And I was like, let me approach this in a way that I've never approached Dayton before.

And I'm going to be a gentleman. I'm going to be like the best possible guy that exists. Let me treat it like a person. No, no, no. Let me treat it like a queen. Let me treat it like a queen. So I've always treated them like people. But I might put myself first.

Right. With her, I was putting her first. And, yeah, bro, it ain't paying off of me. It ain't pan out for me I realized I was like a rebound And it hurt it hurt my pride Cause it hurt my pride because I'm like I put my I put her first

I treat her like a queen I don't usually do this and I get what I want I'm I put her first And now I'm the good guy And I'm finishing last Yeah And it sucked And I um

I wrote her a letter I wrote her like a three page letter Mind you I had only hung out With her a couple times If you read this letter to this day You would have thought I wrote it yesterday Like I poured my heart hard out. I wrote drafts so there was no errors in what I was writing. There was no cross-offs.

I wrote it with pen and cursive. That's a foreign art now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She ain't even respond to it. I'm like, so then I'm hitting her like, I ain't trying to press her. I'm like, you read the letter. I'm going to get to it. I mean, I read it. Yeah. I'm waiting to see how I want to respond, all of this. And she's just not hitting me back at this point. And then one day I hit her And I finally got a text back I pulled over to the side of the road Because I was like, I need to sit down

When I mean, when I read this I kind of want to give her my full focus I don't want to be driving I pull over, I read the text It says, sorry, this is the wrong number I feel you You fast forward Rachel Her fast forward maybe a year later

We end up connecting on Facebook And I was like, send me your number Because she was more cordial now It's like, send me your number She sent that same number from the four. It was a real number. It was a real number.

Oh my God. That's the number one story. No. She played, bro, and the fact that you're married and happy. That's great. Rachel, I'm telling you. Because from that moment, it created a different version of myself. I was a completely opposite of what I was the first time.

And it ain't last. The relationship lasts of all five months because I was a jerk because I was overcompensating from what I did before. My pride was hurt. So now I'm taking it all. on her initially. So I'm pissed. So how did y'all end up getting together?

I mean, through time, you grow apart and you grow closer together. This was, mind you, this happened in 2013. And then at that time, after that six months, what's that, 2004? So this is 10 years ago. Melvin, this is the movie.

This is a separate movie. I don't know. No, I'm serious. But it's a romantic comedy. I know. This, I know. But this right here, like that, like this is the movie.

Or the limited or whatever. This is the movie. When it's the movie? What? That's the show. That's my art this year with the paper. My character goes through, my character goes through the exact same thing. Instead of writing a love letter, he carves of a bird.

And it's the same thing. He carves up a bird. He carves a bird. He carves a bird. Oh, he hurt no bird, though. No, he carved a bird out of pine, like a suit. Oh, man, we got to watch the paper. Yeah.

If y'all not watching the paper, man, y'all got to watch the paper. Y'all have to see how this ends for Dettrick. and see if it matches up with what happened for Melvin in real life, which is he gets this amazing family. Y'all got to watch the paper. Where can they see it? Where do they go? It's on Peacock.

It's streaming. All episodes are streaming on Peacock, all 10 episodes. Check it when you can. Go check it out. And you got a whole bunch of shit coming up too. Yeah, yeah. I'm working on a lot of things, man. So, you know, hopefully those things ought to come.

But right now is the paper. And I think everybody should watch it. I think you'll like it. The reception of it has been great. I thought people were going to hate it. Not hate it because it's bad, but I thought people were going to hate on it because of the office. Because compared to the other day. Yeah.

And I think that's great because the two can coexist. You can still love the office and then watch the paper. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to group text with some guys. And before the paper came out, these are semi-important guys. Before the paper came out, they was dragging the shit through the mud. They was just like, there's no fucking way. Why would they do this?

Why would they do this? I remember there was like a text about it. It's like, hey, you know, it's actually pretty good. Is it actually, you know, because everybody, the office is such like rarefied air. It's like, actually, you know, it's actually pretty good. It's pretty good. So I'm going to get to it, man. I'm going to make sure that we watch it.

Everybody needs to tap in. For sure. I think I'm no, I know you logging off. But there's a very genius line in the first episode when they pulled a camera on Oscar and he's walking off and he says, no one asks for this. And I think that's the sentiment. of a lot of people that are office fans. Like, no one asked for this.

But, you know, you don't always know what's good for you. And I think if you check it out, you'll learn to love it. Yeah. I didn't ask to sit down at that computer that day and click the thing and see the he was logging into my shit. Exactly. He was logging into my shit. And then that's when my father told me, that's what my father told me to call this line.

I told you this line before my dad, because I told my dad about this. My dad gave me the coldest line. My dad goes, son, don't be too jealous. I was like, why? He was like, it's not your pussy. It's your turn. I, I, I, I, I, I, I could, my dad says something similar. And I was like, oh, shit.

That's what he told me the line. It's like, it's not your pussy. It's your turn. You know another one that's a little more, um, less that. There's no. There's no story without conflict. No story without conflict. That's what my dad was trying to say, but he didn't have a language.

I tell you, it was a different generation. It was a different generation. It was a different generation. Thank you, Melville. He didn't have the language. He didn't have the language. We are out of here. Take your thing caps off.

Do not stop learning. Thank you to Melvin Gregg for joining us. Thanks for having me. Hope, thank you to the audience today for allowing us to be raw and real about our feelings about the happenings of yesterday. Rachel? Oh, everything in the van said, make sure you guys take care of yourself.

Like I said, detach if you need to. There's a lot going on. Melvin, again, thank you for being here. I'm Rachel Lindsay. Thanks for having me.