Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Memphis Bleek and Van Lathan (Not Jones), Plus Jimmy Kimmel’s Suspension

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Van addresses Memphis Bleek calling him out on Club Shay Shay, before he and Rachel react to 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' being taken off the air and the media’s coverage of Charlie Kirk following his death. (00:00)  Intro (00:12)  A Memphis Bleek/Van Lathan explainer (25:02)  Kushner, Trump and the Carters (49:29)  Jimmy Kimmel Suspended  (1:22:52)  The sanitizing of Charlie Kirk (1:57:13)  Hangings in Mississippi (2:03:58)  LeBron & Drake Update Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Producer: Donnie Beacham Jr. Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Her learning is on. I've been Lankton, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lundon. I'm going to get right into it. They're going to have some fun. I'm just going to let you know right now, Rachel.

I'm about to talk for a while. Let them know. Let you guys know I'm about to talk for a while, okay? Because I'm going to do something right here that I love to do. Talk? Talk. That's one thing. But I'm going to take something and make it into a much, much bigger.

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Some months ago, this happens. I'm on Twitter and I see a tweet or retweeted with my name tagged in it. And the person that retweeted it is Memphis Bleak. And the clip, I don't even remember what the clip said. But the clip said something like, uh, fuck Van, Lathen for getting at help or whatever something about that had to do with like our coverage

of Jay Z and his sexual assault here on higher learning and it and Bleak said fuck him or something like that whatever and so I responded and I'm gonna be honest with you guys what I responded with was super disrespectful

what was it it was bad okay it was like I never said this about Jay Z but you probably got too much coming your ears for Dick Rodden or something like that. It's bad. On theme for you. This is the deal. This is the deal. I'll be honest with you about that. That right there is a poor showing from me. I can admit that. I can't apologize because I got dissed for no reason and it was in reaction. Can I ask you? Did you say,

do you say it was a poor showing because of what you said, not the sentiment behind it? Like, do you feel like you could have said it? Because you don't take back what you meant. asking, do you feel like you could have said it in a different way? I, and we've talked about it on the podcast before. I, me, myself, I have to be better than that. Okay.

I have to always move in respect, always, because I am trying to not set an example for anybody else, but I'm trying to be a better version of myself. We've talked about this before. We talked about this when we had Mr. Wilson on and how I got into a back and forth with somebody. I'm always in these back and forths when I feel the smallest shred of disrespect from anyone

and it's because of my shit, not their shit. And I should be looking for ways around that. And we all should be looking for ways around that. And I have to be better than that, right? Okay. Me reacting to that to being, you know, dist out of no reason. That's a part of it. I'm going to do that.

But I have to find a better way to respond. Okay. that was it with that. A couple people picked it up. It wasn't a big deal. Memphis Bleak went on Club Shayshay, where Shannon Sharp curiously asked him about this. Yeah, it was interesting.

Curiously. That wasn't, didn't become a big deal. Yeah, I told you, I told you it felt like prompted. It felt like, yes, he was said, hey, make sure you ask about this. That's what it felt like because it came out of nowhere. And I as your co-host didn't even know you had this back and forth. We had back and forth. Yeah.

It came out of nowhere. It could have come out of nowhere because Bleak wanted to talk about it or it could have come out of nowhere because Shannon wanted to talk about it. Because I'm sure Shannon is probably has a list of people that he's displeased with in terms of the way his shit was covered. And this is, I don't mean this. I'm not trying to, this isn't a diss. But the reality is I'm not sure what all Memphis Bleak has going on. So it might have been something that was recent that was newsworthy. No, I think he's got a podcast coming out.

I've been seeing around. a podcast, but I'm saying you look for things to talk about with someone. It might have been one of the recent things, is my point. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to act like I haven't been seeing them. I've been seeing them out there. I saw him on a cam show. I've seen Bleak around. Bleak is, he's got a podcast.

He's doing things. I'm not taking any shots at his career or anything like that. But this is what happened between them. Go ahead. Van Lathan, you have a back and forth with. Oh, a quick one, you know, because he took a shot at the big homie. And it's like, you know, they showed you love, bro. I sing you at the brunch.

I've seen you at Mad Rock Nation events and you see Jay with a little hiccup you know somebody falsely accusing him and you want to take a shot like he's on that side like he's that type of guy I didn't like that. I didn't like that he lucky it was on Instagram so I'd have seen him he'd have met the real me. He wouldn't have met Memphis bleak

he didn't met Malik. No no no no you got to be bleak you gotta be above you got to be above that now but when it comes to that that yeah that's personal and that there's no joking with that right it's no play play play with that bro okay a couple of things I think everyone sees that and has a lot of respect for Bleak's loyalty to Jay-Z.

They've known each other for a long time. It is amazing to see people be able to have relationships that span throughout time without getting at each other. That's cool. That's dope. I think a lot of people love that. I think it's one of, honestly, Bleak's loyalty to Jay, I think, is one of his most redeeming qualities. It's actually what he's most known for. What he's most known for is riding for J-Z.

I mean, it is. It's true. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. There's nothing wrong with being known for loyalty. I hope we never fall out. Never. I hope we never fall out. But as I was watching that, something dawned on me.

Mm-hmm. And it gave me a terrible feeling within my stomach. Bleak thinks I'm Van Jones. Okay. I thought that. Okay, keep going. But that was a thought, too. But keep going.

Keep going. I have never been to the Rock Nation, Brow. Right. Ever. I have never in any way participated in rock nationing. I'm not a rock nationer. You don't go to events.

You're not invited to events. I'm not invited to events. I've never been to none of that. The showing me love, that's never happened. Not that it had to happen or it didn't happen. I've never been, I'm not a rock nationer. There are people that are rock nationers. I'm not one of them.

My entire relationship with rock nation or have, haven't gone to anything Rock Nation is I did Rail Carter's, Jay Z's nephew, a gentleman, by the way, a fantastic man, great guy. Think he was recently married or got married some time ago. Congratulations to Rail. I did Rail Carter's podcast. I think in like 2018.

But I've never been to the Rock Nation brunch. I've never been to a Rock Nation charity gala. I've never been to a Rock Nation anything. I think what happened here, unless he's a fucking liar. which he doesn't strike me as that. I think what happens here, what happened here is he got a tweet that said,

this person, Van, something, Van Lathen, is taking shots at Jay-Z over this. And then he goes, oh, shit,

not that nigga. Because we've seen him come to the Rock Nation brunch, come to these different events. They were all together. Van Jones is a Rock Nationer. He was with him for a long time. He was doing all kinds of stuff. He's on their website now.

I'm looking at it. So he's listed as one of their personalities. He's listed as one of their personalities. They fucking rep him and work with him and all of that stuff. And so he probably thought, I know that guy's not taking shots at Jay Z. That's one of our guys. So that made him mad. So he tweeted that.

And then he gets on the show with Shannon. He's asked the question and he goes, we showed you all of this love. And Jay gets in trouble and you act like Jay is that type of guy. You know Jay's not that type of guy because you know Jay Z. It's so hilarious for me to think of Van Jones being in Miami or New York and just having six Brooklyn niggas walking up to him like, what the fuck you want? You're supposed to be one of us. And Van Jones is like, what the hell are you guys talking about his glasses? Start getting all fogging and shit.

That's like, that is hilarious to me. But if that's in relation to me, he. tripping because I've never been to none of that shit. It's not that I wouldn't have gone to it, but I wasn't the type of person to get invited to that. I'm not a rock nationer. I've never been to any of that. Right.

So I don't know what the hell he's talking about as far as that goes. I really honestly think that he is mixing us up, is mixing me and Van Jones up, which is just, man, when is this albatross of Van Jones going to get from around my neck? When I was called Van Jones on two different occasions in New York by the same lady. In person to your face.

In person to my face. I'm walking up to CNN. I'm walking up to CNN. And this lady goes, oh, my gosh, you again, Van Jones. And I went, you did it again. It's because you're on CNN too. You did it. This is the second time you did it.

It's the two vans, you're black men, you're on CNN. I think you guys should do something together. I fuck with them. I don't even know if that would help, but can I just say this? I wasn't aware that Memphis Bleak is coming out with a podcast. I see it. It's going to be called Rock Solid or it is called Rock Solid. Shannon Sharp has a podcast show.

I know that sometimes podcast, you get so much information that sometimes you make a mistake here and there and you might say something that was wrong and, you know, you correct it or whatever. But that was two barriers. Somewhere between Memphis Bleak, as a lot of. a now a podcaster, meaning you, you research things, you say certain things on a microphone, you hold certain things to be true. Somewhere between Memphis Bleak and Shannon Sharp, there should have been a, could it be impossible that you meant this? Because let me say this, one quick search, I immediately thought, when, first off, let me go

back, when Memphis Bleak saw the tweet, I don't know if the original tweet had a clip of you talking. It didn't. So it just said that. I'm going to take from that that he did not do further research to actually see what you said. Because to be very honest with you on this podcast, I was the one who was more critical. I'm about to talk about that. I was so sorry.

I know that you said you were going to go on a thing. But I just want to say, if you had done your research, I was the one who was more critical, not you. So I would deduce from that that he saw the tweet, retweeted it, assumed you were somebody that you're not. one quick research I was able to see Van Jones is represented by Rock Nation so you're mixing the two Shannon Sharp as a podcaster as you have a whole team behind you

the question should have been but this isn't the type of interviews that Shannon Sharp does the question should have been is it possible I see that Van Jones a lot of people mix them up like that is what you

I would have expected him to ask that I would expect Shannon Sharp to do a little bit more research You expect perfection from people at all No, I don't expect perfection for people. That's a bare minimum. I wouldn't have expected, I would, from Shannon, first of all, let's say two things.

From Shannon, I wouldn't have expected that just because I would expect Shannon to think that Bleak knew who he was talking about. Secondly, there is a chance that Bleak knows that he's talking to me and he just has a bunch of fucking faulty information. But I tell you one thing, there's no way. way that he thinks he ever saw me at the rock nation brunch and there's no way that he thinks that he saw me at other rock nation events because that just never happened i've never met him before my life so so i'll say this go ahead my bad no no no i interrupted you yeah so i've never

seen it before my life never um this is something bigger and i'll come back to what the threat actually was or i'm not even going to overreact to that because i did at first obviously i went nuts and I talk to a lot of people, but whatever. I'm not even going to come back to that. I'm going to come back to we'll come back to that part of it in a second. Okay. Before I get to that, I want to talk about criticism of Jay-Z and Rock Nation. And it's something that we

on this podcast for a long time have eaten around the edges of. Now, if you've listened to Higher Learning before, you're going to hear a lot of things that you've already hurt. And if you're not listening to higher learning and you're tuning in for some mess, we are obliging you and you're going to hear some things from me about the way I view this that might be new to you. But for a lot of you guys, this is me going back. All right, first thing,

I'm going to say this and I've always said this. I know a lot of activists and activist spaces. If you know a lot of activists and activist spaces, you know people that have relied on Rock Nation and relied on Jay-Z and Beyonce for very direct things. And those people have gotten the help that they've needed. I always say that. Bills paid, bailed out of jail, help, platforming, all of that. Cannot take that away from Rock Nation, some of the work that they've done. Even some of the money that they funneled into various charities and things of that nature cannot take that away.

That is good work. There is good work being done by Rock Nation. That's a fact. Whenever I level any criticism of anyone, there is always going to be a fairness that is attached to that, always. And you have to say that. When I went back and listened to what I said about Jay-Z after this stuff came out,

what I essentially said was this, is that Tony Busby is about to be up against a different cultural beast in Jay-Z. because Jay-Z is too big to fail. He will have cultural insulation. He will have insulation from the billionaire class. He'll have insulation from a lot of hip-hop media that will not criticize him no matter what. And because of that, I said during my time talking about this,

it'll be very difficult to prove this case. Very difficult when you look at everything surrounding it. The case didn't look like anything. But more to the point, Tony Busby is going to understand that there are certain people that culturally people don't want any criticism investigation or questioning in a way. And Jay-Z is one of those people, right? Rock Nation and the whole thing is one of those people.

And Tony Busby is about to find that out. Now, if people expected me to say, to look at that case and be like, that never happened. He's incapable of that. I don't know what the fuck you want. don't know him. And if there's one thing that I have learned in Los Angeles is if you're, if you're going to vouch for someone's character, if you're going to say what someone is or is not capable of, they had better be like fucking family to you. I cannot tell you how many times in this particular city someone has done something that I thought they previously weren't

capable of. And that even goes back to Puff. A new Puff. Not super duper well, but when I had the thing with Kanye at TMZ, Puff reached out, me and him were talking about me coming over to work for Revolt. All of that stuff, right? I did work on the Revolt Summit year after year, all of that stuff. Not necessarily talking to him, but talking to people at Revolt. If you look from 23 basically on, you will see me on Revolt, because I was a part of the culture over there.

A video comes out of him ragdalling a lady around a fucking hotel. And I'm like, what? Now, it's not that I would have never said that he was incapable of that. It's just that I was frozen and astounded like everybody else was, right? That plus of all the other stuff that have come out. So if anyone thought that in the midst of learning that life lesson, that I was going to go out and be like, yo, somebody that I've never met. Never kicked it with, don't know anything about them.

All I know is the music that I was going to say, yo, this person couldn't have done that, you're crazy. Yeah. Like that's, I'm not going to, I'm not doing that. Right. I'm not doing that. And now, and also even doing that, just vouching for people because of your parisotial relationship with them or the music that they've made or what they've meant to you, that actually hurts victims because that allows someone's cult of personality. to be weaponized against someone that might actually have a claim against them. Right.

It couldn't be that R. Kelly did this. R. Kelly made the ignition remix. How could Bill Cosby have done this? He gave us the Cosby show. That type of insulation is used to hurt people. Right. I'm not going to be a part of that. I'm not going to damn someone before evidence comes out and I'm going to listen to evidence,

meaning if your entire case and trial is adjudicated and you are found innocent of that, you're good with me, right? You're good with me. Sometimes, not all the time. Not all the time. Not all the time. But if I, not all the time, not all the time, because OJ killed, but, but not all the time.

But what I'm more to a point, I'll say this about that. Once a trial has happened and I have looked into it, I'm going to be able to make a decision given the information about whether or not something happened. or not. It was obvious when you got the information with the Jay Z thing and it was bullshit. Obvious to me. Obvious.

Obvious to me. But I want to go vouch for him before knowing that. Back to the point of the criticism of Jay Zan Rock Nation. This is a weirdly important issue to me. Why? I use title on my phone right now. I've told you guys this before. I use title.

I did not use title because of any marketing that came out. Madonna getting up there. Remember how she signed her title ship and all that? Everybody, all the music people coming together. That's not what made me use title. What made me use title was a man that I've been listening to since I was 16 years old, stood on the stage and said, you got Apple, you got Spotify, you got all of these different apps and not one of them is for us.

And I'm telling you right now, remember when Jay-Z did this, I'm telling you right now that we got to bust our way into this situation. We got to have something where the artist can be empowered, have something where the culture could be in power, have our own streaming site where we could put up music the way we want it, shows the way we wanted, all of that stuff. And I said, you know what? I'm with that.

I fuck with that. I mean, now I'm just used to it. Now title knows me better than I know myself. I know, but it doesn't hold the same weight. It doesn't. And that's what I'm about to talk about. I look at the playlist. It almost makes a seat.

He just built up a big company. Got all y'all to tap into it and sold it to Jack Dorsey. Well, this is the thing. If I look at title right now, titles putting together mixes. The mixes that title's putting together, throw some ds, how you do that, stay fly, all there. Ain't no future in your front of MCBree. Title knows me. So I'm just used the title now.

I don't even know how to use Apple Music. And to your point, what happened was after that, after I downloaded and went to this place and did this thing for a cultural reason, he then sold it for a business reason. Now, I'm- He sold it to you for a cultural reason too, by the way. Whatever. So what I'm telling you is,

I don't know enough about business. I'm being for real. I don't know enough about business to know everything that went wrong or right with title. I don't. But I at least have to be able to ask the question. I at least have to be able to ask the question.

Jay-Z, at a certain point in his career, took on a very direct socio-political stance, right? Socio-political stance. And it was natural. It was a natural evolution. The evolution was natural because if you listen to his music, there were always parts of his music that talked about the condition of people where he's from and the condition of black people writ large.

It wasn't the largest part of it. But it was always about how he had to do the things that he did, how he would have been if he had a different lot in life. All of that stuff was always in there. Like, it just sometimes it'll just be in the bar. Like the, oh, 99 problems when he's talking about how he knows it's right and how he fucks over the cop. That's a little, that's a revolutionary verse.

That's a verse about, fuck you. And he's wrong in the verse. He got dope in his car. But that's a revolutionary verse that says, I'm a citizen of this country. I know my fucking rights. I'm not opening my shit in the glove. or the back unless you got a warrant, fuck you, police man. That's a revolutionary verse.

Revolutionary verse. Give him credit for that. So when he became who he became, I thought that that was actually a natural progression. And when I say this, I mean, from 15 on and the black power portion of it, the embracing of the movement, all of that stuff. But then some things happened that I was. was like, huh? And I should be able to be like, huh, without a group of people going, you have a

vendetta against this person or against what the fuck, or Rock Nation or whatever. There's multiple things. We're going to talk about one of them. Obviously, the Colin Kaepernick NFL thing. We're kneeling. You guys, I hate to tell you guys this, but the kneeling was meaningful. Okay, I get it. You don't like Kaepernick. You don't like Nessa. I, get it. Let's put that to the side. What the kneeling was, as much as it could have been, was what American descent is based on. It is based on the individual person, the worker, which is what Colin Kaepernick was in the NFL, the worker saying, I materially don't like my conditions at this workplace or the conditions in society. Watch what I'll do about it. And then it spreads.

And then the conversation starts. And then the president's involved. And then the NFL is on the run. And now we have the owners talking about things. One owner calls the people inmates, all of that stuff. And then Jay-Z says, we're past it. Okay, can we talk about why we're past it? Can we have a discussion about why we're past it? Or are we just past it because you said so?

Can we just say, all right, well, cool. Well, I think that the NFL being in a position where they're culturally getting a chunk taken out of their ass is actually a good thing. And it's a recreateable thing all over the place. And we should maybe keep that. But no, it's over. They have him. He's with them.

Rock Nation is with them. So it's done. And if you come back in any way, shape, or form and say, should we talk more about this? Then in some kind of way, you're a heretic. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that. I don't know. It's not about Colin Kaepernick getting back.

into the league. It's not about any of that. And I'm sure the charities that have been funded by Inspired Change are grateful for the money that they've gotten. But the issues that were rife in the NFL remain. We've seen lawsuits about them. And what's happened is what that thing really did was allow us to move on from it. All right. Picture. All of this has to do with what it is that we're talking about and how people react and respond to this and why people will be mad that I that you don't fall in line with someone who they adore picture comes out a couple of days ago from the reform gala Michael Rubin meek-mill jZ hosted the reform alliance casino night in gala raising money for criminal justice reform paid six to get the picture

there's a table the table is jZ at one table Beyonce other guests and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Once again, there is a chance that I don't know how things work. It's obvious that there's a chance that I don't know how things work. I don't know how things work. I don't know how things work at the top of the billionaire movement people.

I don't know how it works. Okay. Haven't been in those rooms, haven't had those conversations. But can't I at least ask? can I at least ask Can I at least say Why are we having dinner with the Trumps?

Can you also just because you're not in those rooms say I don't think it's okay? You could But there's a you definitely could But there's a chance that the answer that comes back Is listen What you don't know is this the way that this works man All of these people in Washington

Because Say something else about this I've been in the green rooms at the chat shows. The green rooms are different than what it is when it's on live TV. Mm-hmm. We talk about that. Talked about it. I've seen, I've been on the green rooms and see the guy that y'all all hate

and the dude that's against the guy that all y'all hate showing pictures of the kids to one another. And then you walk away from that and you're like, wait a minute, what? But can I push back on that? There's a difference I feel like. One, it's in private. Two, it's not changing how they are on a microphone in public as far as talk. about things that they believe in and fighting for what they feel is right.

It's one thing to be cordial and say, hey, how's your day? I've been in the rooms too. Hey, how's your day? How's it going? Then, well, you're talking about showing pictures to kids. If they're, I mean, if they're talking about, I'm talking about two people going, this is my fucking guy. And I'm talking about two people.

I'm talking about having drinks. By the way, I'm not criticizing it. What I'm saying is, like, when I'm saying is for people that are outside of that, I'm saying that every single, when I go someplace and I get new information, when I get new information about something, I go, oh. So when I'm watching two of these senators on TV and I see Mark Kelly go, a lot of my friends on the right, I see Chris, whoever, Senator goes, this is my very good friend, but I disagree with my very good friend.

I realize that there might be a level of society where these differences aren't pronounced as we think they are. You have friends, I am sure that you do not agree with. They're on opposite ends of the spectrum from you on certain issues. And they're your friend. Yes. It's a yes. Yes. So, like, what's the difference in this situation? I mean, we're not going around saying, like, that person cannot be your friend, absolutely. So I feel like there's a difference from what we saw sitting at Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump sitting at the table with Jay-Z and Beyonce, at Reform Alliance,

than you having a different, like an actual friendship and relationship with a person that you might know on a completely different level, on a personal level versus profession, where you might be a little bit more, not saying turn away from, but just might say like, well, I know them in a different way.

Well. That's not what they are. Well, unless we don't know. Maybe they are friends. Well, this is what I'll say. The reform alliance. clients has a lot to do with criminal justice stuff. And Jared Kushner...

It is criminal justice, yes. Jared Kushner was somebody that got the First Step Act passed. Yes, but federal. Federally, I mean, whatever. Well, reform deals with... I know, but what I'm saying is, at the risk of being pedantic about it, like, Jared Kushner is somebody that's in the criminal justice reform space.

So, when people are asking questions about why, might be there, there are answers to those questions. He is somebody that's in the criminal. I want to be fair when I'm levying these criticisms. I will say this about Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner is a Trump. He's a Trump. And the policies and the worldview of Trumpism and magaism,

those things were in part constructed by Jared Kushner. And also, Jared Kushner said October 2020 that black people must want to be successful for Trump's policies to hurt him, to help them. He was criticized from minimizing the significance in the protests after George Floyd's death. He said that a lot of the people getting out in the streets and talking was virtue signaling, right? There are also eviction cases through Jared Kushner's company. It's part of the larger Westminster management, part of the larger Kushner companies, attempted to evict many tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of those tenants were from low and middle-income households and disproportionately minorities, including black renters. Critics argue this had a disparate racial impact.

That's Jared Kushner's companies. So what I'm saying is this. I'm saying that it seems to me that while Jared Kushner has, as champion things like the First Step Act, which also, if I'm not mistaken, helped get his father out of jail, right? He's also been a part of a worldview and a politic that is directly harmful to black people.

So maybe the conversation isn't about why Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are at the table. Maybe the conversation is about if they should be, Maybe that's what it's about. Maybe that's the conversation. Maybe the conversation isn't a straight moral equation about whether or not Beyonce and Jay-Z are good people. Maybe the conversation is about whether or not having people like that that have represented that type of worldview there is effective to what it is that you're trying to do. Or maybe whether or not it's trading water.

It doesn't matter how you look at it. It doesn't matter if you want to kick them in the ass for it or whatever. You have to be able to ask the question. You have to be able to have the conversation without people looking at you, like what you're doing is attacking somebody for no good reason. It is a pertinent question. And if you cannot question your leaders, they are not leaders. And I do look at Jay-Z and Beyonce as cultural leaders.

Then they're kings and queens. And that don't work. No, it doesn't. So talking about the Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump being present, you're right. We don't know how it works in billionaire rooms. We don't know the details of it could be as simple. Forget being in billionaire rooms. We don't know the details of it, period.

Don't know if, I mean, obviously, Jay-Z is a creator of Reform Alliance. We don't know if they were aware of the seating chart. We don't know if they got there and saw the Trumps. We don't know if they knew that they were invited. I'm sure they did, but we don't know, right? So you have to consider all those things. But the reason I was going back and forth with you of, well, his thing was first step act only addresses federal. And reform alliance is about state and local. It's about probation laws. It's more, it goes deeper into it. That's the point. It's not on a federal level. It goes deeper into the problem on local state. issues. I bring that up. It's not about, you called it, you said, you didn't want to be pedantic about it. that's not what it is. It's important to recognize the difference because it shows the motivations which you alluded to, or you said a little bit, of Jared Kushner. Yes, Jared Kushner was absolutely influential in the First Step Act. But if I look at his motives, it wasn't really about addressing crime or some of the issues related to crime or incarceration. The First Step Act doesn't address

issues that deal with driving force behind mass incarceration. It does. It doesn't, doesn't have front-in reform. It doesn't deal with certain offenses like drug offenses that are viewed as harsh. It doesn't deal with that kind of stuff. And his father was convicted in 2005. He served 14 months. So this came after that. But the motivation behind it is that it was personal to it. We talk about things like this all the time, right? That the way you will probably see change with certain policies is somebody has to be directly impacted. by the issue. Jared Kushner is directly impacted by a federal crime because his father served time. Now, he wasn't still there, but to me, I look at the First Step Act as a guise of, oh, we're trying to help

people out. We're trying to help incarceration. This is something that helps marginalized groups who have been in jail for a certain amount of time too long. It's a step, but it's a guise because it doesn't really get down to the root of the issue. Reform Alliance is supposed to be doing that. So to have a Jared Kushner sitting there because people will say, well, he was behind the First Step Act. He was behind that. I think it's important to recognize the difference of what the First Step Act does versus what Reform Alliance does. That is not what Jared Kushner represents in addition to him marrying and to the Trump family and all the things with that. In addition to having Ivanka Trump there and what she represents as well. In addition to the times that we're in right now, having somebody like that

at the table is problematic and you have to be able to understand reform alliance and what its mission is supposed to be versus Jared Kushner and the First Step Act, in my opinion. And even furthermore, for Beyonce, like you said, we have to question these things. I have been deemed by some people to not be the biggest Beyonce fan, which I always refute. I went to Cowboy Carter. Calboy Carter meant a lot to me when it came out, the timing in my life, the cultural roots to it all, being from Texas. There were certain things that really just stuck with me when it came to Cowboy Carter. I go to the concert even more so, the video, all the symbolism in it, of being black, being black in this country, what patriotism is, how people have tried to take that way.

and kind of push us out of it or say that we're not that, to take us out of country music, like all of that, the cultural relevance of it meant a lot. And so to have this album and what it means and to have this concert and all the video added to it, calling out certain people who have been attacking you, who are conservative on the right, affiliated with the Trump administration, to stand for all of that and have people have this pride. And then if he's sitting at the table. I'm not saying Ivanka Trump is, Ivanka Trump is Trump, but she symbolizes something. And she did work in the first administration, as did Jared Kushner. And so I, to have them sitting across from you, whether you didn't know who, if they were invited, whether you didn't know

that they would be at your table, there is something that is called free will where you can not be there or get up and move around. And so to me, I get disappointed when I see that because I don't see how the two, how you can reconcile the two, how you can stand for something and bring all of this, but then be sitting across from this person directly across at a table. Right. So there's, and you have to be able to point that out. To your point. There is a part of the First Step Act that I do want to acknowledge. And that's the Van Jones portion of it. The First Step Act is actually something that Van Jones had been trying to get done. He tried to get it done.

So this is my understanding of this. There was a bill before President Obama that addressed things. That was a better bill. It was a better bill than what eventually got passed. The Republicans at that point would not pass that. They wouldn't go along with that. When Trump came in,

Van Jones had, from what I know, he had not only a willing ally in Jared Kushner, but he also had a Trump administration that wanted the political win of doing criminal justice reform to make it look like...

Correct. To make it look like... To make it look like they were addressing a problem in the need in African American communities, black communities, black people. So the First Step Act is something that Van Jones could get done because Jared Kushner was

malleable to the idea but also he had always been tried that criminal justice reform is Van Jones's thing and he was able to get it done because the Republicans were willing to go along with the version of the bill that it got passed and not only that but the time that the bill got passed

and so there's a lot of things to that. Everything, I don't disagree with anything that you say. Not at all. What I'm saying is this. I mean, the only thing I would say is that if you have Republican friends and if it's okay to have Republican friends, it's okay for whatever. That part of it is making somebody the boogeyman or looking at someone and going, this person isn't who they say they are. That's not what I like to do. That's not what we're doing.

What I like to do is go, let's have a conversation about the effectiveness. of what's happening, why it might be happening, so that you guys, the people that are listening to this, have all the information that they need to make that decision on their own, to make that decision for them. Because this is another thing that I think that sometimes gets lost in all it is. I think sometimes people lean into figures like Jay-Z so hard is because, because that's what they want to be.

Sure. That makes sense. That's what they want to be. Community is a conversation. It's a constant conversation. Community is not just taking in your neighbor's children and feeding them. Community is asking why they were out there in the first place. Glorious kids who you need to take in and give food and give water and give a place to stay.

it's also saying, where's your mother? I need to talk to her. Gloria, what's going on with these kids? Why you got the kids in the street? Do you need some help? You're working. They didn't have, you meant to lead a key. They didn't have the key.

They're out there. Community is not just taking care of the kids. It's saying what dysfunction right now exists within us, right? That allows the kids to be where they are. It's also asking, why Gloria, me, you, and everybody else live in this same place for two generations that haven't gone nowhere else. It's a conversation with us. It's a conversation with them. I say that because there are some people that lean so hard into figures like this. Yeah. Not just the Jay-Zs,

but the Obamas and other people like that, because that is what they want to be. They want to be outside. of community. They don't want to be accountable. They would like it to where they could do whatever they wanted to do and no one could question them. They want to be the big homie. They want to be the tip of the sphere. They want to be the spear. They want to be the one that makes the decisions that everybody else has to defer to. They don't want to be of community. They want to be something bigger and more than that. That's not what I want. What I want is the people that are listening to this podcast right now to be healthy, empowered, and inspired, and educated. And I want to continue having the conversation with them about how we do that.

And I don't want to be anything more than them. I don't want to be anything that is above criticism from them. I want that criticism to be based in a mutual respect and an understanding. Okay. I want to get things wrong and then get better consistently. consistent evolution. But I'm telling you guys, the moment that we lose that,

that that is not a part of the way we talk to each other, then we're deifying people. We're doing, you know who you don't question, who you don't ask questions about, who everything that happens is within their plan and their sphere of influence and wrong or right,

no matter how it seems, you must submit to them. That's God. Like, that's, that's the one that you go, oh my God, my leg got cut off, must be part of his plan. You know, that, like, other than that, you got to ask, yo man, like, to the world, the doctor is the one that you go, that I have to lose his leg?

Well, y'all, I have to know. This is really what happens, okay, what kind of prosthetics we got? I want the same shit from the space shuttle. So that in it of itself, the fact that the criticism that was levied on the podcast, led to this is a bigger conversation of how we talk about people that we've put a lot of cultural trust in. This has happened so many times, you guys. There are so many people that we've deified, made bigger than the program, made bigger

than our community, and then we've turned around and just got that gun pointed right back in our face. And so here with me, it's love. It's love. I happen to believe, happen to believe that most people, particularly black people, most people, want the best for the people around them. That doesn't mean that they're doing the best, though. And that includes me. That includes me, arrogant, foolhardy, pseudo-intellectual, like, craving at times with his ability to be honest with himself.

liar, cheater, all of these things. Hurt women in his life. Hurt his family. Hurt his father. Cannot reconcile the hurt. Disappointed people. All of that. Continuing to grow.

But if you think I'm going to look in the mirror every single day and hold my fucking self accountable and I'm not going to hold the people accountable that we have entrusted so much to, you're fucking crazy. Last thing I'll say about this. We can move on. a lot of time on it. Look, there's a part of that whole thing that I have to address. And that's the part where I would have run into Malik. I'm not tough guy. I'm not thug. I'm not a street nigga. I'm not none of that. I'm a man. I don't have any scarier names.

I don't. I have one name. Van Terry Lathen Jr. That's my name. One name. I don't have any scarier names. There's no scarier versions of me that you can run into. One name, Van Terry Lathen, Jr. That name was my father's name. And like I do all the time, I will quote my father. Brilliant man in the way that he was. He told me one time, he was like, son, the world will not guarantee you safety. When you respect someone, that's what you're doing. You meet a man, you open your hand, you shake his hand, you're showing him you don't have a weapon. You're saying, hey, you're safe with me. Like, let's talk.

Right? Let's talk. Let's have a conversation. You're safe with me. Now, in the event, according to my father, that your safety is not guaranteed, you have to take it. I'm not a thug. I'm not a street nigger.

I'm not a real nigger. I'm not any of those other things. I'm a man. A man that is when faced. when the situation and is made to feel unsafe will assert and take his safety. The end.

No threats, no warnings. If I'm made to be in a situation where I don't feel safe, I'm going to make sure I'm safe. And whatever has to happen surrounding that is what's going to happen. So let's be gentlemen. All right, we can move on.

So if four people confronting you on the street, you would or would not run away. Oh, shut up. Like I'm running Like I don't know I'm out Like if it's four

I'm gonna try to get one or two shots It's funny I'm sorry I'm sorry I love you to death Don't let nobody talk to you No seriously That was that

I completely I would have run to I would have run too No but I just had You say it all that Just made me think of that We won't even talk about the interview But that was funny And I'm with Charlemagne I would have ran to

You know what the fuck you talk about And I don't think he did let him make it feel a certain way. That shit was funny. That was a funny interview. That was a funny interview. But I see it's for you all. If I can't run, I'm a fight. But if I see a lane, the problem is with me running is the speed

is gone. So, it's going to be an even funnier situation when the athletic nigger and of the jumpers. Let me tell you what's worse. That would be worse. Let me tell you what's worse than running. What's worse than running is getting a hawk down. That's what I'm

And then getting beat up. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. And that's, so if I didn't run, it would just be because I would look at one guy, I'd be like, that's about a four or seven right now. I'm not going to make it. So I might as well not make this video. But you're out of your fucking mind.

You think I'm about to see 45 years old. Or there's only one other thing that I can rely on in that situation. What? Mind games. No, I ain't nobody listening to that. Let me tell you what you can do. Nobody's listening. Let me say what you could do.

It's not a movie. You could be, you could do mind games. be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Four y'all, cool. I like the mods. Who's going to step up first? Give me a fair one. Give me a fair one.

You got it when you, when you, this is my street. This is a Marvel movie. This is my street. This is me being street. Yo, yo, give me a fair one. Who going to give me a fair one? I bet y'all won't give me a fair one. I bet y'all give me a fair one.

And then maybe, maybe you get one guy to go, shit, y'all step back. I'll give them a fair one. And then you're like, cool, one-on-one I can handle that. Man, ain't nobody. talking like that. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window?

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ABC announced on Wednesday yesterday that it was pulling Jimmy Kim alive indefinitely. Let's listen to what Jimmy had to say. They got him kicked off the air. We hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga Gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism.

but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this. I condolences on the loss of your friend, Charlie Kirk. May I ask, sir, personally, how are you holding up over the last day and a half, sir? I think very good. And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks? They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they've been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years. And it's going to be a beauty.

Yes. He's at the fourth stage of grief, construction. demolition, construction. That was funny. It's very funny. That was funny. So, Jimmy's been taken off the air. Yeah.

Kimmel's been taken off the air. Next star, I don't know, Don, if you got to this point, it's an owner of local stations throughout the United States. It said shortly before ABC's announcement that it was taking Jimmy off the air pre-empting episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live for the foreseeable future. they said that before ABC made their announcement. Now, if people don't understand how this works, there are companies that own many different local affiliates. Those affiliates play the shows that come on at night. So I remember when I read the book The Late Show,

there were affiliates. I can't remember exactly the way that it worked, but there were affiliates that, I think it was CBS affiliates that were, syndicating Arsenio Hall. They were putting Arsenio Hall on. That show was syndicated. So they were putting Arsenio Hall on. So when David Letterman was making

his decision about whether or not he wanted to go to CBS to start a competitor to Johnny Carrey, not Johnny Carson, it was Jay Leno at that point. To Jay Leno, he had to have the guarantee from CBS affiliates and places like NextStar that they would play his show and not syndicate Arsenio Hall show or something. You probably had this at TMZ too, but we had this at Extra.

So part of whether or not extra was going to get renewed wasn't just, oh, it's a decision that comes from, you know, telepictures Warner Brothers. It is do the local affiliates, are they going to buy your show? Are they going to air your show? So, like, that's something I didn't learn until I was in TV, but that's an important thing with the Next Star and Sinclair Broadcast Group. So Next Star right now is... in the middle of a merger. They're trying to merge with another TV giant called Tecna. $6.2 billion merger.

Rachel, what do you think that merger needs? The approval of the FCC? That merger needs the approval of the FCC. Not just the approval has to actually change what's written as law. Absolutely. Rachel said these include federal laws barring a single entity from owning TV stations that together reach over 39% of American households and guidelines on the total number of stations

that can be owned in a single market. So they have to change stuff. Now, Donnie, I sent you something. This is the chair of the SEC or the FCC. FCC. FCC, I keep saying it. FCC, this is the FCC chair or commissioner on... He is the chair.

The chair. Because there's multiple commissioners. There's multiple commissioners. This is the FCC chair on Benny Johnson's show. Benny Johnson has a show and the FCC chair went on the show. So this merger needs FCC approval. This is what the FCC chair had to say on Benny Johnson. Prior to the Kimmel.

Prior to the Kimmel stuff, prior to it. From the moment that I have become chairman of the FCC, I want to reinvigorate the public interest. What people to understand is that the broadcasters, and you've gotten this right, are entirely different than people use other forms of communication. They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest. And we can get into some ways that we've been trying to reinvigorate the public interest and some changes that we've seen. But frankly, when you

see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional to work for the FCC ahead. That's it. Well, it's not public interest. It's been business interest as you just laid out with the next star, what next star is looking for from the FCC. And the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which there have been articles about them for years and how they are from Canada, but they're affiliated with right wing politics. They're very infiltrated in the Trump administration. And they also have come out and said, because they own lots of television stations and

mostly ABC affiliated stations and they sit flat out they're not going to they're not going to air Jimmy Kimmel until he apologizes and makes a donation to turn point um so we should say that it doesn't look like the shooter is maga

so maybe Jimmy got that wrong right but how would that normally work when somebody gets something wrong on on in print or media you issue an apology you correct it. Mm-hmm.

And then you move on doing your show. Mm-hmm. It's important to say that because it's important to say that there is a normality here that is being subverted. I think a lot of people are shocked about the time that we're in right now. Do you know why they're shocked, in my opinion? Why? Because they didn't think that this was possible.

With the FCC. With all of it. They did not think that there were this many whole. holes in checks and balances and holes in the central fabric of what America is supposed to be that someone could exploit them in this way. They didn't understand the total power of the executive. They had no idea about unitary executive theory and right types of thought that place all of this power and to the executive. They didn't realize this was possible.

They didn't know. They never had a president that leaned on his FCC chair to control American speech. So they did. They are gobsmacked right now by the fact that the president of the United States could bend Paramount, CBS, and ABC, Disney. To his will. They didn't think that this was possible. But you know what? I think it's not even that they didn't know.

what holes existed within certain branches of government. I don't even think it's that. I really, I remember talking to someone prior to the election in 2024. It was during that summer. And they were like, oh, Trump doesn't believe in Project 2025. He says he doesn't know anything about it. I truly think people did not think Trump was affiliated with Project 2025. I really think that they thought it was so far right, so out of there that there was no way that this is just something that people are using to as fearmongering for the 2024 election so people don't vote for Trump. There's no way that the two are working together. I really, really think that people thought that. And then they thought too, there's no way that a president of the United States,

let's use the word that the chair keeps using public interest. There's no way that he would put himself above public interest. I actually think people were that naive when it comes to it. Brendan Carr wrote the section in Project 2025 about the FCC, about social media and regulating that. He talked about media broadcasting. He talked about DEI within it, which we have seen them go after Comcast and ABC about DEI already. He is, he wrote the playbook in Project 2025. And what happens? And it's like, people didn't notice. He was already within the FCC. He was already a commissioner. He was appointed to be the chair of the FCC. And what have we seen him do since November 24? Follow the manual that he authored within Project 2025. It's all happening. But it's

interesting that you say, they didn't think that this could happen. Because I, it's, if you really look at what has happened since Trump has been elected. And some of it before, you can go down a list of, I think people, the same people who were talking about here think we're exaggerating when we use words like authoritarianism, authoritarianism, you know, here I go with words. Here I go with words. Authoritarianism. Am I not saying this? Authoritarianism. Here I go with the words. Authoritarianism, when we say words like that or we say, fascism. They think that we're exaggerating. But we shouldn't be surprised at what's happening to Jimmy Kimmel. One, because Trump basically said, I hear they're doing this. And who did he probably

hear that from? Brendan Carr. We shouldn't be surprised about that. But it's also been happening. You can go down a laundry list. Now, what's happening with Charlie Kirk? We talked about this on the last two podcasts. They are using his death, the situation as a catalyst. They are using it to further their agenda, they are using it to punish certain people in order to, like, Trump's been itching to censor and Silas Jimmy Kimmel and he's using Charlie Kirk's death to be able to do it. This is an end for them. But let me just go down a list. Schools, there's a story yesterday. Department of Education is uniting with conservative groups to create civic content for schools. We've talked about Prager You. We've talked about what Florida is doing there and other red states are

following. Reproductive rights. Now this is pre this election, but the Dobbs decision. Supreme Court, how they put Kavanaugh on the court, what they did with Gorsuch, Komi Barrett, basically creating a court that is basically going to further the executive branch and Congress and their agenda. Right now, today, breaking news. The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow Trump to remove Lisa Cook as the Federal Reserve governor. So he's attacking the Federal Reserve. V. Holder, prior to this administration, gerrymandering, we've talked about it on this podcast. They're chipping away at the 1965 Voting Rights Act. FBI and Justice Department appointing pawns and soldiers for their own agenda to investigate people that they don't like to take away

certain things they were placed by previous administrations, the Labor Department, firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn't like her job report correction. Jerome Powell said yesterday that inflation is up. and jobs are not being added. It's twofold. He's basically saying the economy is going to shit. The CDC health department firing the head of the CDC, politicizing science and appointing a basically a conspiracy theorist who has no medical history at all, no medical experience, I should say, and then playing into his base with the misinformation of vaccines. Now we're looking at what having with Jimmy Kimmel, even though free speech has been under attack. I just talked about what he did

with Comcast and ABC and attacking DEI, the lawsuits with CBS and ABC. The Colbert show basically forcing, there's a new lawsuit with the New York Times, basically forcing free speech or the press into submission to regulate the content that they put out, also doing it with NextStar, also doing it with the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Jimmy Kimmel is just another thing that, feeds into the fascism because it's fascism. It's not just authoritarianism because you are basically attacking all these different things that I named out in order to push forward a certain ideology to change this country and this society. That is fascism in every way of it. We should not be surprised what is happening. What's surprising to me a little bit is that we're not seeing some of these

companies, company, because that's the press part of it, fight back when they could have. Well, so what I'm saying is, it's beautifully stated, what I'm saying is,

I mean, everything you're saying is true, I don't think people thought it was possible. I agree with you. So what I'm saying is that people looked at late-night comedians making fun of the president.

White man too. Forever. Like, making fun of the president forever. Savaging George W. Bush. savaging him, savaging Bill Clinton, right, being lampooned, Ronald Reagan, whomever, whoever you want to talk, Saturday Live, Gerald Ford's tripping over everything. They've seen that these guys been criticized and made fun of forever.

And what they did not know is that it was possible for a president to use a governmental agency to lean on them to change the speech that is on their networks. They didn't know that there was, you could take advantage of mergers and capitalism and what all these companies want, which is money to make them make decisions about who gets to say things and make jokes on their airways. A lot of other stuff that you were talking about, right? There have been college protests forever. There have been college protests forever about everything. Everyone keeps talking about the Iraq war in the 2000s as if we didn't get in the short. streets as if we weren't going, hey, we don't want this, as if there weren't protests to that war

and marches to that war and college movements to that war. They might have not been as pronounced as the Palestinian movement or the Palestinian peace movement that you see on some college campuses. And we certainly did not have social media to document them as much. But this has been happening, right? What you didn't see, at least that I can remember, Is a president going, okay, if there is a protest movement on your campus, we will take the federal dollars away from you. Either tell your students what they can say or we will impoverish you. Either tell your comedians the jokes that they can make or we will impoverish your affiliate network or stop you from being able to do what it is that you do or drown you in lawsuits or whatever. either control the speech or deal with us.

I really am getting questions for people going, yo man, if the First Amendment is in the Constitution and it protects free speech, how in God's green earth is it so fragile? Like they're literally asking questions about how is this possible? How is that possible? And your people are waking up to not even how government works, but the limits of their protection, and they are terrified.

Yeah. And the only way to deal this or to combat this at all, getting back to it, is you, if it's all about capitalism, if Sinclair or Next Star wants $6.2 billion, the only way to deal with it is to hurt their pockets. The only way to deal with any type of crackdown on free speech in the free market is to deprive these companies. of their currency. That's the only way. Yeah. That's the only way because you cannot in any way rely on the backbone of the Democrats.

They're going to show their bellies. You cannot in any way rely on the morality of the Republicans. They are going to go with daddy. The only people in this fight you can rely on is each other. You can, you build it. you do the same thing to whomever that you've done the target or that you've done anybody else or you swallow it

you you take it you go along with it but man you guys we're in the shit yeah no we really are and when people also when you talk about people don't didn't know you could do these things but you also we've been saying it on this podcast before

there are three branches of government government and they are supposed to be a checks and balance of one another. That has been destroyed. That didn't start with what happened with Jimmy Kimmel. That has been destroyed. Everything, everybody answers to Trump. How can Trump say we're going to sue this person because he is wielding a justice department to do that kind of thing? How can Trump say we're going to get rid of this law or pass this law because he is a Congress that is in his favor? How can he say, I want the ability to do this and go to and fight this in court because he has a Supreme Court that will rule in his favor and do whatever it is that he wants. There is no checks and balance, which

bleed, I'm about to use the word again, say it for me, which creates authoritarianism. Thank you. That is what you have when you don't have branches of government that can check one another. Can I ask you this? Sure. The question is, so you're right. So this is our reality, right? It just keeps getting worse and worse and worse, truly unbelievable. I will be honest, even when the Jimmy Kimmel news came out, as I listed all the things that Trump has been, you know, inserting his own will and desire within certain different, man, within certain different, with certain departments and.

That's Baton Rouge. Anyways, I can't even take it seriously now. Stormy. That's a legend from Baton Rouge. No, I'm missing. You said he was inserting his dominance. How long, how much dominance is you got? 3.7 inches of dominance?

You said he was inserting his dominance. I can't now. I'm so thrown off. You said Trump, by the way, he would love to hear that. Trump would love to hear that it was dominus that he was uncertain. He would love to hear that. I can't remember what I was going to say, finish that thought. But my question was to you, oh, I was saying, even I, despite all the way he's been inserting his dominance,

I still was. 3.1 inches of dominions? 3.1 inches. I was still... By the way, not the body shame. I know some of y'all. Allegedly. I was still shocked by the Jimmy Kimmel News

because it's like, wow. Like, we're really... Like, we knew we were in it, but wow. Win the shit! We're really in it. So my question to you is so people who are listening to this or maybe that we're having conversations with are like, okay, this hits maybe in a different way.

This is like a slap in the face reality where it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, we've talked about the hypocrisy. We've talked about, hey, it's okay when you do it, but it's not okay when we do it. In a reverse situation, you are now canceling people. This is, it's like reverse cancel culture in a way, right? So like these things are.

Reverse cancel culture. There's only one cancel culture. It's coming from the other side who didn't believe in cancel culture. That's exactly what you're doing right now. So you're seeing the hypocrisy maybe in a more blatant way. Maybe your eyes are open, little bit more than they were before. You don't want to ignore it. So the question is, all right, here we are. Everything is money, right? That's how this, that's how Next Star was able to make the

decision that they did and force the hand of Disney because it's money at the end of the day. Not your public interest, it's business interest. So what can the person sitting at home listening to this do? That's where we come in. First of all, I want to say something. Actually, listen to our podcast. Switch to podcast. Switch to podcast. Maybe. Who knows? We're here today.

So before I get to that, I want to say something. The fact that they were anti-cancel culture was always bullshit. Of course. All right. They were anti-you speaking. Against them. They were anti-you speaking, period. They were anti-you.

They weren't ever anti-cancel culture. In this entire time where the right was anti-cancel culture, Jamel Hill got kicked off ESPN. or not necessarily kicked off ESPN, I want to speak for my sister. They made it hot enough for her to where her relationship with ESPN ended up ending

because she gave an opinion about the president. Had canceled culture, had cancel culture been really this red line of the right, then they would have been like, you can't do that. Cancel culture, we talked about them earlier. In the podcast, Colin Caput. He took a knee, cost him his whole career, okay?

They canceled him. That's what happened. He was canceled as an NFL quarterback. They canceled him. The list goes on and on. They were never against cancel culture. Sure. They were against culture.

They were against cultures that stood in opposition to the white male orthodoxy of this country. Meaning, if you can't take what you want, fuck who you want and oppress who you want, then get the fuck out of my face and stop annoying me with the reality of your life. It's greater than that, though. Now, it, this, not to me. To me, it's very simple.

To me, there is a central operating system that America operates on. And that operating system on is the white men make the rules. That's the operating system. and if you exist as any type of virus that challenges that operating system, then they macafee your ass right out of the computer. They come in with a macafee your shit right out of the computer. They come in there. You're coming in there.

Oh, I would like to have rights. I would like to not be raped. I would like to be able to vote. I would like, eh. and then you know what they do? They keep re-upping on the software every four or five years with a different fucking name, right? It's the same thing, though. And now the fact that we're having a conversation about literally taking late night hosts off expelling kids out of school, this is everything they said was going to happen at its worst.

They did. They said it starts here with you saying. saying this, but it ends at you getting kicked out of school. It ends at you getting taken off the air. It ends at you getting up. That's what they said. This is the worst part of it. They said this is the natural evolution of you being able to march or you saying that

Milo Yanopoulos is not welcome at your school. It starts there. But let me tell you where it ends. It ends with you getting kicked out of school for having an opinion. there at the end point. Yeah. So to me, look, without yelling, I'm real calm now, real calm. Like real, real calm now.

What do we do? And it's the tough part. The answer is more, more of everything. You guys, you, the ones listening, you have to take responsibility for your society. When you interview someone, Rachel and Van, you have to be prepared. in that moment to hold that person's feet to the fire on things that they are saying, you have to know. Everybody with a platform, you have to know.

You have to know. I'm not telling you who you have to platform, but you have to know. You have to be smarter. Everybody listening, you have to be smarter. Everyone, you have to be more daring. If this society is going to change, if you want your democracy, if you care about that, it is going to be you who saves it. It is going to be you who can look.

into the heart of your side of things and go, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are up to this task. And everybody in black, Democratic left who is listening to me right now, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know that the structure of the party gives you comfort. I know that you're comforted by that.

I know that you feel good going to the parties and the dinners and you're around a lot of people like-minded, let's amplify this and do that and do that. They're failing and you've got to be able to say it. And if you can't say it, you're a part of it. So there's a change in leadership that needs to happen, not just leadership that exists in political structure, leadership that exists in cultural structure,

and you, you need to be better read, you need to keep up with the news, you need to keep up with your local and state elections, you need to vote for the right candidates, to support the right candidates. And when you can, you need to get out into the streets and disrupt the status quo. And I will be with you. I'm not telling you to do something I'm not going to do. I'm telling you that for too long, I have made political and cultural observations. And it is time to make a political and cultural difference. And that is what people need to do. And you can't wait.

we got about a year and a half and we've lost the whole fucking thing I don't even think that long I'm gonna tell you straight up when you come to higher learning We're not gonna get no more interviews And no more politicians When you come to higher learning

We cut your ass in half And you don't have the right answers Fuck out of here Like so like what we What has now I'm serious Like when you come We would love for you to come on the podcast

But please know we're asking the questions. Hey. Hey, man. We ain't got time for this. Something I saw on social media, and I wish I could give the creator who was saying this, I thought,

because a lot of people will say, and this was even like before this, like what can I do? I feel like I can't do anything or I feel overwhelmed. And she was talking about how, and I think we've referenced this before, how that is the goal of fascism.

Right? They want you to feel overwhelmed. exhausted, beaten down. Like you can't do anything just to take it. This is what it is. I'm just one person and all of this. There's not much I can do. You can absolutely do.

And I totally agree with you all the things that you said. But she said something that I thought was interesting. It is a lot. And you can't be, you know, a master of all things. Right? But there is something that is under attack, because everything seems to be under attack, that is important to you.

So find that one thing that is important to you and get involved with it. Be educated on it, understand the ins and outs of it, why you're passionate about it, why it's important to you, and then fight for that. And if we all do those things, because we're all not passionate about the same things, then that is part of the fight. You don't have to do it all because I even feel overwhelmed. Like I said, I texted to you. I said, my brain hurts. yesterday it took me forever big head I got I got you it's really out today

I'm gonna say when that motherfucker hurts it must be it's a lot yeah but it took me forever to sit down and really think about how I wanted to talk about this because I was avoiding it because my head I get it and just to that point that's why community is important man oh that's so well said too community is important I got gun people in my community we don't always agree, and there's a lot of things not to agree with when it was to it,

but I have scholars in my community. And I have people that are focused on black maternal mortality in my community. I have people that are focused on women's rights. I have people that are focused on raising comprehensive young black boys. I have a community of people that continuously keeps me on the right track and understanding how to view my world in a holistic way. And look, those people exist in your world and you might not know as much. Let me tell you why I got to do a better job of calling the wisest person in my world.

You know what that is? Who? My mama. When I'm looking to make sense of the world, there's one person that always lets me know, well, son, let me tell you this about your father. Or let me tell you this about society. Let me tell you what it was like in Baton Rouge in 1973, 1971, 1972, how we felt your mothers, your elders, the people that came before you,

the people you share your household with. Boy, we need community right now. And we need to be in community with not just the most fiery amongst us, but the wisest amongst us. We need to know how to be able to achieve and endure. And so what we're going to do on this podcast and just be honest with y'all, there's been a decision that's been made in this podcast a long time ago. I'll talk about that decision. The decision on this podcast was made for Rachel's chemistry, Rachel and eyes chemistry and our devotion to certain things to be the thing that leads the podcast. Not always agreeing, but always coming at things from a certain worldview that is.

humanistic in people first. Sure, sure, sure. Right. So there are ways, and I'm not complaining, guys. We love the community that we've built and things are going so well. I'm not complaining. What I'm saying is there's a decision that's been made for us to not chase a certain type of, look, how about this?

Real calm. As Dan was saying, real calm. How about this? I did conflict manipulation for nine years. And the ability to manufacture conflict for nine years. To look at a story and figure out the headline that was going to trigger people the most. To look at a headline and figure out the way to inject conflict into the headline that was going to get people to click. To be able to look at a celebrity, fuck the rest of the shit.

to be able to look at a celebrity and pinpoint what was going to be a good TMZ celebrity going forward. Like, oh, this person right here is always good for some good content and some good bullshit. So let me make enough calls to where they work with me. They're one of ours. I did that for nine years. I'm not doing that anymore. Like, I'm not. God bless everybody that is because entertainment and all of that stuff, that's a part of it too.

Sometimes I just want to watch the bullshit. for sure and that's okay but here we've made a decision this decision that we've made is to try to attempt to be passionate and informed enough to give you guys something nutritious every time you leave that's what we are trying to do that's why you must like comment subscribe and share that's right that's right I have to talk about a deep disappointment right now this is in the same thing the Charlie Kirk deal. Oh. Okay.

So, you know, I'm a prop giver. People don't think that I am. I'm a prop giver. No, you, I will say you give too many on this podcast. I'm going to give more props right now. I'm going to give props to people that I haven't had the chance to have on a podcast yet, but I want to. I'm going to give props to Clay Kane. I'm going to give props to FD Signifier.

You want Clay Cane on? Me and Clay Kane had a disagreement. Clay is a real, real important voice. Clay gave me. me the opportunity to go on his podcast and get fucked over by his audience. I don't know, what was that? I went on this podcast after the comment.

Clay is great. Clay is measured. He is intelligent. He is uncompromising. He believes what he believes whether or not we agree or not. We weren't going to always agree. He's like skin. How could we agree?

But he's amazing. Clay, FD. Oleg, Oleg and friends. I need to go on and all of these people are fucking fantastic people my the two podcasts right now

that give me the most hope of any podcasters out there the jam pod with JJ and the young bucks up there in Chicago fucking insanely good and Deonte Kyle

from the Grits and Eggs podcast man Deontate Kyle these are the the people that I look to. I was on the phone with the not too long ago. He's younger to me and I was like, you know, how do

you tell, you know, bro, I look up to what it is that you're doing. I have so much faith in it. All of these different podcasters that I love that I go to, I make sure all of these people that I'm giving props to right now were El Bleck. Black Pentas.

My activist people that I love, the Tiffany Loftons, the Philip Agnews, the DeRay McKelsons, the Alicia Garza's, all of these people that have been a part, Mark Lamont Hill, who if you're not listening to Mark,

you're not getting your daily dose of all of these people. I look up to all of these people. And there are some whites, some white platforms that I really go to a lot. Sam and Emma over at Sam Cedar. And another one that I've talked about a lot is breaking points. There are four main hosts on breaking points. There's Saga,

there's Crystal Bowdo, ball, there's Ryan, then there's Emily. There was a Breaking Points podcast that came out yesterday, and people put this on my radar because they know how much I love the show. That knocked me on my fucking ass. Could not believe it. Ryan and Emily are on this. If you guys don't know who Ryan Grimm is, Ryan Grimm is a voice on breaking points, but he's

also in charge of DropSight News. And if you were looking for news, particularly. particularly news on the Israel, Palestine, genocide, which Bernie Sanders has come out and admitted is a genocide. Dropside news is a valuable resource. It's an unbelievably valuable resource. Everyone right now is looking for ways to contextualize the assassination of Charlie Kirk in light of what's happened after his assassination. What's happened after his assassination is a tremendous amount of political and cultural animus, and also crackdown on free speech, and also an attempt to whitewash the legacy of Charlie Kurt.

This was a conversation on breaking points with Ryan and Emily. Last night, about 45 minutes, this conversation starts to happen. and we're going to play this. This is like 10 minutes long. You're going to play the whole thing? No. At times, I'm going to lean on Donnie to jump in and stop it when we need to make points. Maybe we don't get to the whole 10 minutes.

But at times, I'm going to lean on Donnie to jump in. Donnie, me, you and Rachel, are on the same. Are you with us, Donnie? You fucking with us? You fucking with us. We hear, all right? Donnie started. This is from breaking points yesterday.

they're talking about Charlie Kirk and Jimmy Kimmel and the response to the speech surrounding Charlie Kirk his assassination and what he said while he was still here. Analogy, I'm not saying that he is Qasem Soleimani. No, you are not. Pause. What did he say? He's talking about Qasem Soleimani.

Oh, Kossum Soleimani. Okay, if you guys don't know who that is, that's somebody that Trump killed in the first Trump administration. And it just let Ryan talk and then we'll jump in. But so right leading into the Iowa caucuses, Trump assassinated Qasem Soleimani. Again, this is a Trump move. Trump set up a peace deal. He asked Iraq to broker some peace talks with Iran and the IRGC, which brought Qasem Soleimani,

who was the head of the IRC, the Iranian Revolution Guard court, brought him to Baghdad. He flies into the civilian airport of Baghdad. He's in a car with his aides and we drone strike him as he's on the way to these like peace talks. Sound familiar. We did it to Iran several years later. We just did it to Hamas a couple weeks ago. It's the most cowardly thing and counterproductive thing you can do. You put out a peace deal and then your adversaries gather to consider this peace deal and then you kill them.

Cowardly disgusting. And so every Democrat put out a statement saying, I deplore Qasem Soleimani's life and work. He's responsible for the killing of thousands of Americans, probably, American troops in the Iraq war in the 2000s, as well as kind of a leading figure of building up the axis of resistance. And so every single Democrat said, I disagree with him, I hate who he is.

However, Trump should not have done this, you know, whole blood, this extra legal assassination. Yep. Except Bernie Sanders. Yeah. Bernie Sanders' statement was clear and unequivocal. You do not assassinate figures like this. Like, this is not how we do things in the world.

And you save your critique of the person for later because... It's beside the point. The critique then justifies the killing in a way. And everyone on the left understood that in the moment. And everyone jumped on Elizabeth Warren and all of the... other Democrats who led with a mealy mouth, I hate what this guy stands for. Pause. However.

Now, let's say, and since Ryan said that he's not comparing Charlie Kurt to Soleimani, I'll also say that I'm not comparing Charlie Kurt to Soleimani, but because he used him, I have to use him. Let's say that all of that stuff happened. And then after that happened to Soleimani, people, then lionized him. Let's say that after that, people, here in the United States,

flew flags at half staff and put his face back up on the Jumbotron and held very special episodes of podcasts and television shows. If they did all of that, condemning the killing one thing, but if they did all of that, in his memory, celebrated him.

Would it be fair? Would it be fair for someone to go, wait a second, assassination bad, terrible, but can we have a conversation about what it means to lionize, celebrate and deify this particular individual? So we talked about it on the podcast, what it means for anyone to celebrate a political assassination.

Sure. We talked about that. Energetically what it means and what it means structurally, right? However, and the however is compartmentalizing that, Tanahasa coach wrote beautifully in Vanity Fair, which I suggest that everybody go read, what it means to then pretend like someone, is something other than what they were.

Like what that means for us. Right. Energetically, intellectually, what that means. What Ryan is saying right now about Soleimani, it's true. You have to condemn political assassination straight out. Mm-hmm. You have to in order to maintain the structure of,

American foreign policy, what it means for us to be subject to international law, things like that. However, if in fact he, people were then to celebrate him, which I'm sure there were people that were celebrating him somewhere,

but if they were to celebrate him here in our society, would it not be okay to have a debate or a conversation about who that person was? what you're saying right there is that the bullet has the power

to brainwash everyone it's essentially like Superman's kiss it had you never saw Superman no I don't know this so super oh in the original Superman you don't give a fuck okay um it essentially means the bullet is the most important thing

that essentially makes the most important achievement of Charlie Kirk life, his assassination. That in it of itself, we cannot allow that. We cannot let anything, including an assassin's bullet, take us away from our ability to conversate and have conversation, to have conversation and contextualization around something. But they did not stop. They did not stop. Continue. I think description from his perspective. Right. Right. And he says the chief proponent of which is the president of the United States. Yeah.

You can't kill everybody who agrees with the president. And again, like, this is, Donald Trump won the popular vote this time. Charlie Kirk was winning hearts and minds on social media. Like, there were a lot, a lot, a lot of people who followed that guy. He had a lot of fans. Donald Trump has a lot of fans. There were a lot of people who believe what Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump believe. And some of them, by the way, Sager and I believe, some of what Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk believe.

And it is just the idea that you are, we've inflated in Ryan, you wrote a fantastic piece about this I always talk about, but Elephant in the Zoom, about the overinflation of definitions that the left has engaged in. And I'm not, again, saying the right doesn't do it too. And I shouldn't even be doing this throat clearing again, because a conservative was just shot in cold blood on a college campus. But that's a real problem. I think that the left has had over the last 10 years is overinflating some of these definitions. Racism, bigotry, sexism, misogyny. Again, there are real practical, literal definitions of some of those terms that can be applied to people on the right. Like, I'll debate whether I'm...

I want you guys to listen to what's about to happen right now. They're about to talk specifically about Charlie Kirk's statements on... Kataji Brown Jackson, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Michelle Obama. I want you to listen closely here. Listen closely. That's the argument. But it's actually, it's literally not true. Like Charlie Kirk did not believe that people were inferior because of their race.

He did not believe that. His quotes in context did not say that. And he didn't live his life that way. He worshipped with people of all faiths, of all stripes and all different backgrounds. He had turning point outreach to young black conservatives. Young black conservatives. He was like nothing but compassionate towards gay conservatives when gay conservatives when he was in conversation with them.

So disagree with how he handles those things, sure, but to impugn him and say that he thinks people are lesser than in actual, like, actual, like they're worth as human beings. That's a different question than what you think the policy implications of his beliefs are. And that's what I think gets really, really dangerous. Yeah, and one of the quotes that I see going around all the time is where he said something like, if I see a black pilot, I'm going to wonder if they're worse. Yes. And I understand why everyone on the left sees that as a completely racist thing to say. Yeah, yeah.

You see a black person and your mind goes inferior. the point that he was trying to make, I'm not defending him here, but the point he was trying to make was because of the existence of in their minds quotas, I don't think there are quotas, but let's say there were quote, in his mind, he thinks there are quotas where affirmative action requires an airline to hire X number of black candidates, whether or not they have X number of black qualified candidates. That's in his mind. So his mind then says, oh, this person was hired to fill this quota. So what he's saying is affirmative action actually fuels racism rather than redresses racism. So I agree or disagree with that. Like that's the point he's making there. Right.

Which is a different point than the one that I think people were jumping on him for it. And with, you know, he was, you know, coming after Schill Jackson, Lee and Michelle Obama saying that they don't have the brain power and Katangi Brown Jackson they don't have the brain power then that they needed affirmative action like I think that's just objectively ridiculous like I think they obviously are extremely smart women but what he was saying is that they suspect they that they said that they benefited from affirmative action right so you then are like well if you're saying that what you're acknowledging it so you know it's getting down in the weeds of and of and and a lot of his

following does have bias against black people. Stop. I think significant. Okay, so we're going to play Charlie Kirk's words now on Sheila Jackson Lee and Michelle Obama and Katanji Brown Jackson. And then I'm going to tell you guys. Not Michelle Obama. Kamala.

Excuse me, Kamala. It wasn't Michelle Obama? Oh, I thought it was Kamala Harris. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. He would have thrown either one of them in there too. We're going to play what Charlie Kirk said.

And then I'm going to tell you guys, we're going to tell you guys what Ryan is missing. Joy Reed and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Katangi Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks. We would have been called the racist. But now they're coming out and they're saying it for us. They're coming out and they're saying, I'm only here because of affirmative action. Yeah, we know you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. Stop the goddamn clip.

Okay. Let's have a conversation. with Ryan Grimm and Emily over at breaking points. Let's talk to them. We know. We know. We know you're not as smart. So the affirmative action part of this is him.

This was framed on their show as saying they came out and said that they were affirmative action beneficiaries. Therefore, we must assume. that they weren't as smart. No, that's not what he said. What he said was we knew that you weren't as smart. And the fact that you are a beneficiary of affirmative action is not a surprise. We know you don't have the brain processing power. Why wouldn't they have the brain processing power?

Why? And by the way, as it relates to everything that they were saying in that clip, I wonder why it's okay to have a conversation that whitewashes and contextualizes Charlie Kirk's words to make him look better or to explain to us why he's not a racist or why he wasn't a racist, but why it's not okay to have that conversation in. general. What they said was when the assassination happens, you should decry the assassination, talk about how it's wrong, and that's it. Then they went on to have a conversation about contextually who Charlie Kirk was, only the conversation that they were having was one that was saying, don't listen to exactly what you're hearing, listen to our interpretation of it. What Charlie Kirk said is that we know that you're not smart enough to do this on your own. And then he didn't stop there.

He says, so you have to take a white person's spot. He did not say you have to take an Asian person spot. You have to take a Latino's person spot. He said you have to take a white person spot. The fucking affirmative action thing was brought about. by Asian students. They were the ones that broke it. So he went back to,

his operating system right there is saying, we know you're not as smart as white people. So when you get there, this is the reason why. Last thing I'll say. They go on in this clip to say how it's important to contextualize the Trump and MAGA movement

as a whole. and Charlie Kirk as an extension of that movement because if you are preaching violence against Charlie Kirk, then you are preaching violence against everybody that is MAGA, and that includes a large percentage of the population because they won a popular vote. Here's the thing, though. They then shrink Charlie Kirk's worldview to only him.

meaning when he uses DEI, he is talking about a specific issue as it relates to the qualifications of black people and something that promotes racism. However, we have heard the MAGA version of DEI be used for people who in no way benefit from DEI. We've heard mayors called DEI mayors. Brandon Johnson and Baltimore Karen Bass How the fuck could you be a DEI mayor? The people have to vote.

Like how could you be a DEI mayor? DEI has been used to describe black people that in no way that we know of have benefited from any DEI policy. It has been something that the right writ large has been used

to poke holes in the efficacy and the qualification of black Americans. But somehow when Charlie Kirk used it, he used it as an issue-specific critique of race-based hiring and admission. They are assuming the absolute best intention for him. And they are doing it at a time when the most important thing to do

is to actually have real conversation about what exactly it was that he stood for. That way, when someone says we want to put a statue up of him inside the Capitol building, or we want to lionize him or celebrate him at a baseball game where you paid your money or at a football game where you paid your money, you get to say, I'm not with that. Like, I'm not with that. I am profoundly disappointed. And maybe I shouldn't be profoundly disappointed in breaking points and Ryan Grimm.

And honestly, in Emily, who is normally a pretty consistent conservative. Is Emily White? They both white. Okay. And I know Ryan is. You shouldn't be surprised because when I listen to this conversation, it's privilege. it really is a white privilege conversation because I don't understand how you can come to some of these conclusions without your white privilege signing. I mean, showing shining.

There's something that was said about when they were talking about all the laundry list of things that people place on Charlie Kirk and rightfully. Racism, misogyny, sexism, homophobic. They're listing all these things, right? And then they, and I'm paraphrasing here, please go back and listen, but they go on to talk about how people exaggerate those terms and how they're not really focused on like the definition of it. This is where I say that's your privilege talking. Racism is an action. And it's not an exaggeration. And to reduce it to a definition and people not using it right shows me that you don't fully grasp.

and how could you as white people what racism is? Truly, when I listen to that conversation, you wouldn't water down what Charlie Kirk was saying. You wouldn't speak on behalf of the very people that he's offending. You would just report really and say, this is what was said and this is what people are saying about it. To report and give your opinion, it diminishes, in my opinion,

what black people feel and what the real problem is and the only way that you are capable of doing that is to assert your own privilege. It is plain as day when you say that somebody has, doesn't possess or have the brain processing power as white people, right? That's the phrase.

The brain processing power. What he said, straight up, we know you, don't have the brain processing power. What does that say that you are inferior to white people? Because he goes on to say, then you had to steal a white person's job to get it. Meaning you,

your brain as a black woman, is inferior to white people. Brilliant black women. Like, we're talking about Kataji Brown Jacks. And like, you don't have to go to school to be brilliant. I'm not talking about that.

I'm just about the fact that she is. No, no, but I'm making a point. You don't have to go to school to be brilliant. But if we're just using that, I saw something on social media where this guy uses AI to break down the current Supreme Court and rank them based on a certain thing. It was brilliant. I wish I had it. I think I have it saved.

And if I do, I'll send it to you, Donnie. Of who was deserving based on a scale, based on their experience with work, their internships, their schools, their school, their great, all of it. number one was Sotomayor. Number two, Katanji Brown Jackson. And it's a beautiful list of explaining it. And it wasn't just based off education. And I'm not saying you can't be brilliant. You don't have to go to school to be brilliant.

But when I listen to the things that Charlie Kirk says, who kind of fought against that, it's because he did not have the resume, the experience, the credibility that these very people that he tears down did. Let's just say that Katanji Brown Jackson got into Harvard on affirmative action. Did affirmative action let her graduate Magnum Kulade? No, it didn't. She,

Cum Laude? Which one is it? Donnie, is it Magnum Cum Laude, right? It's Magnum Cum Laude, right? Coom, okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. You're right. You're such a no, no, no.

Leave it in. Leave it in. What is wrong with you? Leave it in. My point is, she graduated in that way on her own. Yes, of course. Her own merits, her own, because she had the brain processing power to do it. To do it.

And this is where when you, going back to what you said about Memphis Bleak and how you wish you hadn't responded, I've been having conversate, you said you were above responding in the way that you did on Twitter, not you wish you hadn't responded. Yeah, I don't ever want to be in a situation where I'm being terribly disrespectful. I will say that I have, I should adopt that as well because when I have had black women in my comments arguing on behalf of Charlie Kirk and telling me how he did so many things for the black community. And every time I say, I am willing to learn, maybe I don't know, can you please provide me an example?

They never can. They never can. And when I give them the quote about what he said about black, intelligent, prominent women, they say, yeah, that one, that one I don't really understand, but this, this and this off subject. And I say, you know what? Maybe he was right. Maybe you don't possess the brain path processing.

I should be above that. And if you're listening, I apologize for that. But it's just so obvious, my point getting back to Emily and Ryan, that he is saying black women are inferior. And in no way can black women ever compare to white people. Because if they are, if they do reach a status in a profession or success in some kind of way, they must have stolen that from a white person. That is the most racist thing.

It exists for white people. Those jobs, those brain powers. It assumes to say we know you have to steal something that was for a white person. You don't have the brain processing power. It assumes that those things exist for white people. And the fact that you can't recognize how problematic that is on its face, that that amounts to racism. Because maybe it's not a discriminatory act. And so you don't see it that way.

But what he is saying is perpetuating racist stereotypes that allow people to act in certain ways towards black women based on that belief. That is racism and racism it is an act. And to me, the only thing I can conclude by when I hear this whole conversation between the two of them is your privilege is allowing you to not see it any other way. I get it.

I want to read something here. I want to read something here. I want to read something from Tana. Hasey Coates and his Charlie Kirk piece because he didn't just talk about Kirk himself and some of the things that he said and stood for. He also talked about the climate

at Turning Point USA. The climate. There are a million things that we could say regarding Charlie Kirk that are Islamophobic, that are transphobic, homophobic, all of those things. But

there's something else that stuck out to me. me, he talked about just how other people at Turning Point spoke. This from Tallahassecoats. Kirk's bigotry was not personal, but extended to the institution that he founded, Turning Point USA. Crystal Clanton, the group's former National Field Directive, once texted a fellow Turning Point employee, I hate black people.

Like, fuck them all. I hate blacks. End of story. One of the group's advisors, Rip McIntosh, once published a newsletter featuring an essay from a writer that said blacks had become socially incompatible with other races and that black culture was unfixable and crime-written mess.

In 2022, after three black football players were killed at another college, Meg Miller, president of Turning Points chapter at the University of Missouri joked in a social media message. If they would have killed four more niggers, you would have had the whole week off. What do y'all want from us? They don't want us to exist. Like what are you what do y'all want from us, man? Like seriously, like what do you what do y'all want from us? Like it, what?

What, like, this is the organization. This, so. A breeding ground for racism. Do you remember what Andrew Gillum said to Ron DeSantis in the debate, 2018? No. He said, I'm not saying Ron DeSantis is a racist. There's a bar. Everybody read Medi Hassan's book, went every argument.

Everybody read it. It's been helping me. I'm not saying Ron DeSantis is a racist. I'm saying that the racists think he's a racist. Right. Right, right, right. The races were at home, are at home, at turning point. Yeah.

It was a breeding ground for it. And that's not to say, what I'm trying to say is, like, when we look at this, what do you guys want from this? I'm willing to have the conversation about how we heal politically, about how we move on. I'm willing to decry, denounce political violence, all of that. but it has to stop short at a whitewashing or lionizing or this weird white spaining of things that I can hear with my own ears. It has to stop short at that because if it doesn't, my existence is minimized and those messages are maximized. Yeah. It makes them stronger.

Yeah. You're telling us how we should feel. And I want to address one more thing about what they said. I think you're better than this. Like, it says, Emily and Ryan, this is such a weak argument. But you, but we shouldn't be shocked because you already said, I agree with some things that Charlie Kirk says. So I'm going to go ahead and say that.

Well, Emily's talking about her and soccer. Not to cut you off, but Emily, Emily said, those are the conservatives. Emily said that she agrees with somewhat Charlie Kirk said. So maybe the things that you're bringing up in this very conversation are one of the things that you agree about. That's the only thing I can conclude from that. But it is such a weak argument to say, well, he was in circles with black people.

He was in circles with gay people. We got to address this. You said yourself, black conservatives, gay conservatives. He didn't give a fuck about them being. He wasn't with them because they were black. He was with them because they were conservatives who were furthering his message. Period. You know that.

It does not take a genius to figure that out. He was not hanging around surrounding himself with black people and infiltrating himself in the black community with black issues and black culture. That is conservatism. That is what he had infiltrated himself or surrounded himself with. And if you happen to be gay and if you happen to be black and you were conservative, then that is what he was fine with and okay with. Nothing to do with who you were as a black person or as a gay person. That's it. And I cannot believe that you even offered that as an example to justify something that Charlie Kirk cared about everybody.

I was not a racist. I would love to have Ryan Grimm on the podcast Monday if it's possible. I'm going to have Allison to reach out. I would love to have Ryan Grimm on the podcast to have this conversation because, you know, I'm a devout listener of breaking points when it's Crystal and Sager or when it's Ryan and Emily. I subscribe to DropSight News. I pay for drop site news. It is such a valuable news source to me. It is. It is.

I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not saying, let's know. I was legitimately like, God damn, what the fuck is going on? And you know what? Shout out to the people on Twitter that put this on my radar. Because I put this in late. Yeah, yeah. We put this in late because I just heard it.

And I think sent it to Donnie this morning. But people know how much I respect the platform. And they wanted us to be able to talk about this and have a conversation of it. They knew how much. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making 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. Catchup 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. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks,

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Two men found that you guys, we're going to give you one thing at the end of the podcast that's a little lighter, but we are where we are. Two men found hanging from trees in Mississippi on the same day. I want to acknowledge this. The initial tragedy hit at Delta State, Donnie, thank you for the copious notes here. The initial tragedy hit at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. About 7.05 a.m. Campus police found the body of 21-year-old university student, Trey Reed, hanging from a tree by the pickleball courts. School's Director of Public Safety, Mike Peeler, has said that there is video of the incident.

Hours earlier at 1.30 p.m. police in Vittsburg received a call that the body of a male was discovered hanging from a tree in a densely forested area off the Ameristar Casino. Coroner identified the deceased as a white male. Corey Zutakis was homeless. No evidence indicating file play has yet been released by authorities in either case. So you have the killing of or the hanging of a homeless man, which Brian Kilmead on Fox News called for the killing of homeless people. He still has his job. He still has his job. Brian Kill Me from Fox said that homeless people should be systemically murdered, systematically killed.

He has his job. You can see him on Fox and Friends. And Fox News was not reprimanded in any kind of way either. It's one more time. Brian Kulmey advocated for the murder of homeless job. Obviously, with the climate that we're in right now, it cannot be summarily dismissed. For people who might be saying, oh, the police already came forward and the police have said that there was no foul play, there's no evidence of, you know, broken bones or that, you know, maybe he was fighting or something like that. The history of lynching period in this country and specifically the history of lynching in this country and specifically the history of lynching in.

the state of Mississippi. I mean, between 2000 and 2021, at least eight black men were found hanging in Mississippi. All of those were ruled a suicide. The history in this country with black people in lynching is the reason you cannot ignore or just take what's given to you. I hope that this family, the autopsy report has not come out yet. It hasn't been released. I hope this family does an independent gets an independent autopsy report. Good. The family's called for one. Great. You know, we just can't sit on it. Like I feel like I've seen people saying, oh, well, the police came out.

We can't just sit on it. You can't take it for what they're giving you. You have to actually seek the information out. We don't know. We don't have enough information. But what I do know is that a separate investigation can be done. It should be done. It should be done.

A separate investigation should be done. The real, not the real. First of all, the story here. is the story, which is the tragedy of the death of these two men. The history of this country and the moment that we're in right now means that there is an assumption, which is why we talked about, you know, Charlie Kirk and the history of black political assassination. I want to say something real quick.

I did name a couple of assassinations in there that weren't like political in nature, Andrew Klanin, and then the killing of John Lennon. So that was wrong on me. I correct myself and hope myself accountable. I'll be better. But the point that there's a feeling of vulnerability amongst black people right now, particularly black people in places like

Mississippi, Louisiana and in the South, where there still seems to be this shroud, this shroud, this cover of racial danger that is inextricable from the culture there, particularly in places that there's this shroud of it. I'm from Louisiana, a lot of people in Mississippi.

When you go down there, it feels the same. Like, I don't know how to explain it. It's like I'm back home in Baton Rouge, and Baton Rouge has changed a lot, and the areas surrounding Baton Rouge have changed a lot. But when I'm in my dad's hometown, Maranguin, it feels just like it felt when I was a little boy. It feels the same. You look around and you see the same dynamics at play. And this doesn't feel like something that is outside the realm of possibility in terms of the motivations.

We are not going to jump to any conclusions here. We're going to wait until this shakes out. But I think the response to this is indicative of just the vulnerability to black people feel at this time. That's what the response to it is. Yeah, absolutely at this time. But then also because, like you said, we're not assuming anything, but just the nature of, well, just the history and the energy that's there. I mean, my friend just posted, she's traveling from Texas to Florida.

And she just posted a story about how she was in some random gas station bathroom in the South. And her children were told that they weren't allowed to use it. Well, they didn't say that. They said that the bathroom wasn't working. and come to find out she's seeing other people use the bathroom. This is Terica Cromarty. I want to say the name Cromarty family this happened to. And they were told that the bathrooms weren't working.

They're seeing white people use the bathrooms. She goes in there herself, like has it like a back and forth, goes in there, sees the bathrooms are completely working. They didn't want black people using the bathroom. She goes online to write something about this gas station. I don't know if it's a gas station or whatever, like a, I don't want to name a place that it's not. But like one of those places, convenience stores. And she realized she's not alone. There are a number of black families having these same issues.

You know, I saw on social media, you're from Louisiana. I'm from Texas. Viter, Texas, extremely racist town outside of Beaumont. There was these social media guys going through trying to do this joke of getting people to sign a petition because black families don't really live in the town. And the things the white people were saying were wild, ready to fight them over black people being a part of their town. Like, it's still there. Yeah.

It's not as loud. It's not as prominent. Yes, we've made progress, but it's still there. And that's why that feeling feels that way. There's been an update in one of the most important stories of our time. And that story is the current climate of the relationship between LeBron, James, and Drake. Oh, Lord. What are you talking about?

This is something... Go ahead. Come on. You're right. We have to. We've talked about it before. Donnie, could you please play the video? This is breaking news.

Breaking news has just happened. Who's interviewing LeBron here? I don't even know who's interviewing him. Who was it? What's this guy's name? I'm about to date myself. Please, Speedy Norman.

Speedy! Date yourself. You don't know Speedy? Hey, you don't know Speedy, Donnie? That's not dating yourself. Let me tell you something right now. Speedy the man. Speedy is the man.

I'm so happy. happy for fucking Speedy. Speedy is the man. I tried to get Speedy to come on the podcast. To come on his podcast. When I was a kid. I was like, come on the podcast. Come on.

He was like, I really don't. And he's right. He really doesn't do interviews. Yeah, he doesn't. And it's part of the craft, which I respect. I was like, I was like, Speedy. Come on. He's like, what's up?

What's up? It's like, come on the podcast. You should come on. We would love to have a conversation with you. And then he said it and I'm like, make sense. Yeah, be the guy on the other side. you do. Yeah. It's a line drawn. I respect it.

Plus, I think that that's good. I think it's good for Speedy not to do interviews. Because when you are the interviewer and he's gotten a lot, a lot, a lot of success from being the interviewer, you don't want to give people any reason to be like, fuck, Speedy. It's so smart. So it's, yeah. I respected it. I was like, you get out of points. But Donnie, LeBron James was talking to Speedy. This is our conversation with. Someone you have been friends with seemingly forever, Drake. Are y'all cool? What's the status there?

Is this someone you always have love for? Always. Always. Always wishing the best. Obviously. Different places right now currently. He's doing this thing. I'm doing mine.

But it's always love for sure. Damn. This man, he didn't really give you much. It was a very peacey answer. I'm going to tell y'all something right now. when a motherfucker wish you the best is over. Be well.

That's it, man. Wish you the best is a polite way of saying, fuck this nigga, I hope he don't die. I'm serious. Somebody wish him the best. Somebody wish you the best. They might really wish you the best, but that best ain't going to involve them.

Oh, yeah. I haven't seen the rest of the interview. Maybe it hasn't dropped yet. But I think we know that LeBron James and Drake are in Wish You the Best territory right now. I think we know that. I think the question is why. And I don't know if that full interview is out. I'm sure Speedy will ask because he's just about the best in the business at that.

But the question is, what made them drift off the path? because really I could make an argument that for a long time, LeBron James and Drake were basically the same person. The same person. They were, there was not a more understanding, understandable celebrity friendship than LeBron James and Drake. They were both unquestioned the biggest thing in their discipline of their generation.

say whatever you want to say Drake is the biggest rapper of his generation LeBron James the biggest basketball player of his generation however they consistently both had people poking holes not at their success

but at their standing at their legacy they both LeBron James and Drake took just enough losses and did just enough stuff to people, for people to be like, you're not like the ones that came before you. You're not, you're not, you're not like, you're the biggest, but you're not Jay.

You're not nice. You're no Tupac. You're no big. You're not one of those guys. You're not one of those guys that had this sort of cultural mastery to where it seemed like we could completely connect with them and completely get them. You could, they made just enough mistakes to other them a little bit. LeBron James

undebatably has had the most successful basketball career of all time. He's 40 years old. I'm trying to do the agility drills. LeBron above the rim doing all kinds of stuff, right? Four and six in the finals or whatever it is. Disappear, fourth quarter, Maverick series. Struggles at this different times. in these big moments, just enough there for you to be like, all of that's true, undeniable.

You're not quite like the guys we used to have. There's something different. That's because of us. You know, I've said this before. Millennials are, I think, 10 years from now, the conversation will be different. It probably will be. But what I'm saying is it, and it probably should be. We should be able to look at both guys and appreciate them for the greatness that they've been able to

achieve, doesn't mean that we haven't been able, that we shouldn't be able to look at them and like have these conversations about them as basketball players or rappers or whatever, right? Yeah. Shouldn't be able to, we have to be able to do that, right? But with Drake, it's like, all right, there's the Ghost Rider thing. Then there's the cultural piece. Then there's all of these other things. Just enough stuff, someone precedented stuff with him to be like, the talent is sublime.

Drake is a fantastic talent, fantastic talent. but there's just enough stuff there for us to be able to look at him and ask all of these questions. I feel like he knows it now. When you listen to him talk, he derides cultural purism. He derides the hip-hop purists because he probably feels like these are the people that aren't able to accept his greatness as it currently exists, right? Get all of that. Them being pals, it more seemed like it was a mini support group than it was a friendship. Like, they'll be on the phone like, hey, man, I score 40.

I won the championship. They said it was a bubble champ. What you got? Nigger, I went number one again. And they're telling me about some fucking Kendrick Lamar, JZ, Tupac B. What the fuck? Hey, man, let's go smash some bitches together. Okay, cool.

LeBron is married. I apologize. I'm not saying this. Hey, man, let's go party together. Okay, cool. It seemed like that was the building blocks for a very last in friendship. And then somebody jumped out the deal. And you just want to know.

why. I want to know why. I think this is the part of me that's just, I just want to know why. I want to know what happened. It's the TMZ and you. Probably is. For me, I'm like, I've moved on. And so has LeBron by the comment that he just made. That is, Ida moved on.

Don't, let's not, let's like, I'm put, because he hasn't said anything. This was him being like, don't ask me that question anymore. I have moved on. Drake's still writing songs about it. He's probably, I bet you that. I bet you.

Probably right about this. He should take this. The next Drake record should be called wishing the best. The next Drake record should be called wishing the best. Look, I don't think that we've seen the end of this back and forth. I just honestly hope that no lines are crossed in this that significantly injured the perception that the public has of the other guy, man.

There's all kinds of celebrities in these businesses, places that are operating with this mutual assured destruction. Quick story before we go. I don't know if I've told you this before. But when I was at TMZ, I will always be fascinated

about who one gets a story from. Yes. We've talked about that. I would always be fascinated. it. You know, like I said again, leaving the basketball court, God comes up to me. And he goes, hey, man, you still over there?

He's like, yeah. He's like, man, I got something I got to give to you about homie. I'm like, homie. And he goes, yeah. I'm like, are you talking about your homie? And he's like, yeah. I'm like, hey, man, don't do that. I'm like, don't do that, bro.

Like, seriously, I'm not really even on the desk like that anymore. I'm more of a TV guy, number one. and I'm telling you, whatever y'all going through, y'all going to figure it out. But don't do that. Don't do that. I just always, it would always, Drake actually has a bar about it.

The bar said, what does he say? He says, it's more attractive when you hold them down. Storty wanted to tell me secrets by the rap, nigger. I told the girl it's more attractive when you hold them down. It's more attractive when you hold them down. Whoever it is, it's more attractive. And when you work at TMZ, when you come from that,

people want you to know everything that they know. It's crazy to me. They want you to, hey, man, hey, you go to sit down. I've said this before. You go sit down and eat. I just want to let you know, man. Will Smith was just here. Hey, man, what, uh, where the stakes at?

Bring out steaks. I want to look at the marbling on the steaks and get fuck about the fresh prints. I'm trying to eat a steak. I don't know what just ate here before me. But I look at this and I think the bad version of this breakup, Is us learning everything that happened at Carabana It's us learning

Everything that happened at Delilah It's us learning everything that happened on the phone Everything that happened here Everything that happened at Carabana What happened at Delilah? I don't have any clue But you have seen hinting by Drake Oh by Drake yeah yeah yeah yeah in lyrics

That what I don't know nothing about nothing And I swear about that I ain't never heard shit Right Right. But the bad version of this is the version where it goes crazy because a lot of people in this town, they stay cordial because of what they know about each other. So wishing the best. Vance disappointed by that comment because he doesn't want you to wish him the best to move on. He wants to know why things fell apart. No, I don't want to, I don't want it to go bad.

It is bad. What I mean is the bad that I'm talking about The bad that I'm talking about is all of this And trying to injure people's reputations And all of that type of shit and all that I don't want that. That's terrible. That's terrible when it happens to two friends

It's terrible at any point. I don't want that for sure But I would like to know Hey man You was listening to Not Like Us And you was at the pop out. Dancing. What made you go?

Dancing as well Trying to get on stage Like what made you go? trying to get, imagine if they had actually let him on stage. Because it would have been too much of an issue. Like you see. Imagine that he was trying to get on stage. LA, the fact that he ain't LA saved the day.

But imagine if he had gotten on stage like he wanted to. Woo. It's tough. It's tough. And look, and to be real with you, I think a lot of people answer that question. It's people in this industry that I'm really close with. You never, ever, ever. I never want to be in the position to say like a bad word about them or come out and try to injure them or fuck them over.

So it's just, it is interesting. All right. We, we out. We didn't do the top five black men of 2025. We might save that for a little while. Just save it. Yeah. There's been a lot of news going on.

I mean, so much stuff. Like Cash Patel's, you know, being questioned, CDC, former head of CEDA. C's giving testimony. Like there's just so many things that are happening right now. We can't cover it all. Yeah, we can't. The baby put out a new single.

Video, yeah. We got to talk about that on Monday. Y'all go watch it, man. Let's see, real quick, I want to see how many views it has on YouTube. I'm confused. I'm a little confused lyrically versus,

I'm curious what you guys think. Lyrically versus the video. I'm a little confused. Well, we'll talk about it. How many views? It's at almost a million views. Almost a million views it came out today. Like not smash hit,

but not in flop territory at all. I mean, they're talking about it. Yeah, talking about it. Now it's kind of part of it. It's got 36 million on Twitter. Oh,

for real? Yeah. Oh, then that's, then it's a success for him. We'll give this the weekend to talk about what I, what I think about this, what we,

think about this because let me sit with it a little bit more. We'll sit with it a little bit more because we didn't really talk about this as much what happened in North Carolina but maybe we talk about the entire situation through the lens of this video

and another video that came out with the white guy. We gotta leave that one. You don't want to talk about it? I mean it makes sense to talk about the baby in the video it's a topic we haven't covered in regards to what happened in North Carolina but like two races singing about being racist.

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