Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The Tubman $20 Bill, Graham Platner’s Exit, and Rappers Flying Commercial

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Van and Rachel react to the U.S. men's soccer team’s loss to Belgium and the list of Emmy nominees. Then they discuss the end of the plans for Harriet Tubman’s $20 bill and Graham Platner ending his Senate campaign. Plus, an update on Marcellus Wiley, and the death of a Mississippi teen sparks conversation. (0:00) Intro (18:53) U.S. loses to Belgium (31:06) Emmy nominations (42:34) Harriet Tubman $20 bill plans ended (59:11) Graham Platner’s failed campaign  (1:31:43) Marcellus and Annemarie Wiley update (1:48:28) Questions around the death of Nolan Wells (2:01:59) Rappers flying commercial Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Jade Whaley Social Producer: Bernard Moore Video Supervision: Chris Thomas and Jacob Cornett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? How learning is on is I, Van Lathan, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. You were talking about the freckles before. Well, I was saying a lot of people are coming up to me talking about the freckles because you called it out. I didn't call it out.

It's almost like they want to see. It's like this. Instead of being like, hey, it's. What do they say? What do they say? The freckles. Like, it's just kind of like, oh, the freckles. And some people have been like, we like the freckles.

Some people have been like, welcome. to the community. Otto said he doesn't appreciate you. Oh, Otto. I love his freckles. Freckle nigger. He would did not say that. I can show you.

Show me. I don't, I feel like he wouldn't turn on me like that. No, Otto said, Otto, shout out to our friend. Call him,

call him, put him on. You call everybody else on the podcast. Guess he ain't coming over to the house anymore. Oh, damn. Our friend Otto is an actor. While you're calling him, I'm literally looking up your hat.

It's the first time I'm like, I love something he's wearing. Projection. actor slash projectionist. Otto is one of the only black projectionists. In LA? No, in the whole company. Oh.

It's not that many. He's, Otto is the lead. Let us leave him. Oh, I was going to leave him about that. It said, tell Rachel, my freckles are not her costume.

That's what it says right here from Otto at Tuesday. Otto, offering Otto, if you're, okay, so offering Otto, he also does, hold on real quick. If you're in LA,

if you're in L.A., auto does an improv show. It's called double feature music video improv and high stakes at the UCB comedy. I'm going to go boycott it. You're going to go and boycott it? Oh, you can pick it outside. That's fun. This nigger here is a freckle whatever.

Okay, so look, Otto has his show. Pack his show out if you're here in L.A. is very good. He has another one at Saturday at 7. Okay. But Otto's the man Anyway, he hit me up And he said, yo You know what?

Otto's in the commercial Where One of the NFL commercials Where you know The Tom Brady commercials I was so excited for him I think I posted it on my I was so excited well

Can't be excited for me Maybe that inspired me What? The freckles? Seeing him, yeah Maybe it did Maybe it could be looked at As inspiration

You know like when people go For Halloween And Blackface and they say that it's a tribute to Beyonce. Isn't it imitation that? No, no, no, no. Oh, no, no, no. This is different.

Keep going with it. This is different. There's no, you're doing what white people say about white face now. There's no, there's no racist connotation with, with, with doing freckles. There's no like. There's an appropriation situation, I would say. Why can't it be looked at like, it's just makeup? I'm with it.

I think it looks great. I'm sorry. Let's do a poll. If people are really offended. Hold on. If people are really offended. I just. I just want to know.

I'm not going to stop wearing it because I really like the way they look. What the fuck do you care? No, no, no, I wasn't going to stop because I really like the way they look. Just to be aware. Damn, we started before. LA is infested with coyotes. You saw one? Saw three.

In a pack? No. Which just set the stage of where you live. Like, you're not even on the outskirts like me. Yeah. You're in the city. Middle of the city. Middle of the city.

Coyotes. Then we go to. Malibu See a coyote walking through the Malibu country mark Cool Through the country mart? Yeah Like over there off the PCH

But they have animals over there though But off the PCH like in that crowded area? Yeah but no no no the country mark But on the backside of the country mart They have animals over there There's a little So walking through the country mart Then on the way back up sunset

Coming through the Palisades Palisades I see people over there rebuilding Shout out to the Palisades Palisades another coyote Coyotes everywhere What's going on? Is the fires pushing the coyotes in? Fires.

That's what they say. They say it's the fires. It's the fires making the car. You're eating on the podcast again. I just really needed a sweet hit. You were just in there the whole time. I know what I'm into and then you started. It's been a long time.

I just needed like some sweets, like a hit. A hit of the sweets? What are you eating? Nerd. This is the, Raito has been here. She's been here and she just got. on the podcast and hey she's doing it for you guys

ASMR do some ASMR for the people oh ASMR Wow Look at the Bernard over there To go to go to go to go to go I love ASMR Let's do it every day I don't like this

That made me feel Hey before we get I'll listen to it every day ASMR I've never really gotten into it I think I'm a different type of ASMR Before before Before Um

So one of my homeboats I want a shout out. He told me not to mention his name. He said I could mention this, but he told me not to mention his name. One of my home boys has just come home. Good for him. He held it down.

I don't know what that means. I guess he held it down. He didn't tell on nobody. What did you want you to say? Well, he didn't want me to say his name. Okay. But I said, hey, man, I'll give you a shout out. You just came home.

Congratulations. Welcome home. Like, it's interesting. I asked him, I said, you know, you come home, you change your life. He goes, and I already changed my life. He was like, I changed my life five years ago. He was like five years ago, I realized that what I did,

I mean, he didn't do nothing like crazy. Like, there's not a victim, but he's like, I realized the way that I was living that I had to change it. So it's like, I prepared myself for my release. That's amazing. Like, I prepared myself for my release. And so no, as long as you prepared,

I'm going to help you. and everything that you need and all of that stuff. So it's amazing. Louisiana? When these brothers come home, Texas. Well, I got to make sure when these brothers are from Louisiana, but in Texas. I got to make sure when these brothers come home that they have a place to come home to that, like, supports them. Yeah.

And, you know, this is one of the most brilliant men I've known. We did have an interesting conversation. So he listens to me, he goes, well, he's, you know, we're on the phone. We don't do it phone FaceTime. You two over that. And he says, hey, Van, because, you know, he's been in for like 11 years. He goes, hey, Van. You know, man, what's up with that bitch-ass anxiety shit?

I was like, what you mean? He's like, I think I got that. And this is what happens because a lot of brothers in my world won't tell the world that they have anxiety, but they will tell me that they have anxiety. Because you're putting nothing about it. Right. Yeah, that's great. So he goes, like, how does it work for you?

Which is a question I've actually never been asked. I've been asked like what an anxiety attack is like. I've been asked, you know, like what meds are you taking and all of that stuff? Now it's just mushrooms. But it... Which is good for anxiety. He asked me, it's like, what does it feel like? What is your anxiety like?

And I was like, how do you explain that? It's actually a good question. Did you answer? I gave him an example and I think I blew his mind. Well, everybody's is also different. It is. Mine has a lot to do with catastrophizing. I mean, you put them over there.

There's a dog in the studio while we're trying to do the show. He's the ringer's dog. Going crazy. Look at him over there, a little fox. He has anxiety. He has anxiety. I respect you, Brownie. So he goes like, give me an example of, I think I blew his mind.

So there was a time where we were all in class. And the professor was talking about, like, gravity. Professor brings up gravity It's like this is oh This is what happened It wasn't a science class It was a class where Our geography teacher

Was talking about something And he said something You know if you were in a place Where the gravity change Or something like that You'd have enlarged hearts Because he was talking about You know life on another planet

And something like that If we went there And the gravity was different Whatever whatever You have enlarged hearts And all of that stuff Because your body is in relationship He was talking about calling response

And how people made songs and all that stuff. He was like, your body is in relationship with not just the people, but the natural world. All of that affects, you know, all that stuff. And when he said that, I was sitting in class and I thought, what if gravity runs out? And at some point, this nigger,

the professor started to feel like, sort of like Charlie Brown's mom. He said, wow, wow, ma'am, because there was nothing we were saying. He spiraled. And I'm like, what, happens if tomorrow like gravity runs out

so I go over to I leave that geography class I go to the science department sitting around watching them they're talking about physics and stuff like that after it's like hey you got office hours yeah hey so explain gravity to me like tell me what makes gravity what makes gravity work

and whoa what a question then I realized something they don't really know they know but they can't tell you for sure or he couldn't tell you well I then went deep on this start

even after I talked to my homeboy and I spent about a week on gravity and what did you discover there's not much to discover they understand how gravity shapes the universe they understand but like one guy said in one of these videos I watched and this is very crude, he goes, at a certain point,

it is kind of magic. The cosmos does become magical. We can explain it all through math, but it's gravity. Yeah. They understand how gravity shapes things and how gravity makes space time and all of that stuff like that.

But I re-infected myself again with the anxiety of, what if something happens? What if there's a solar flare? I don't even know what that means A solar flare could happen Yeah I just have to let that See you're not helping Bernard

Now Bernard wants to say something And what were those words you said again That's true Imagine a big heat wave Just hitting earth Randomly I don't I don't

I won't happen though Well it could happen But it's like I can't live like that Yeah You live love to the fullest You just This is the top We said we have two hours to go

And look what you've done, Bernard. Look what you've done. Jade, take the mic away. Listen, there's a lot of things. Yes, I did. Let me help you. He said, live life to the fullest because the solo flare can happen in any moment.

But there's a lot of things that you don't understand, right? Like, creation in general is also, like, something you just have to, like, trust and have faith. And you don't understand every single thing that happened with it. So you just have to let it go and stay present. Look how he's, get out the room, Bernard. say present you'll be fine you did not help your friend well no I actually you know what you know what I did help him do you know why I helped him because he said whatever I got is not

that he was like everybody's anxiety is different he was just like yo I'm a little bit I don't know how like my daughter is going to respond to me he had anxieties that were based in being by his situation a normal person re-entering society. Makes sense. After being gone since like 2013 or whatever the fuck it was, however long it was. But like, he was like, whatever I got, it's not that. It's not that.

It's not that. So we talked a lot about it. He said he was, you know, sleeping. He wakes up in the middle of the night, the whole nine, all that. So I get that. Like, you know, we talked about. We have to talk it out. That's beautiful, though.

That's, I mean, like, despite that you spiraled again, I think it's beautiful that he, first all, the way he approached you. What's up with this? bitch-ass anxiety. But like, y'all had that moment where y'all connected. Yeah.

We need more of that kind of stuff because of your vulnerability. It allowed him to be vulnerable. I need somebody to come on a podcast and explain gravity and solar flares. So if anybody is in the audience in there listening,

because I did my best, okay, to get into the guts of gravity. But if anybody's listening and they feel like they could do it, gravity, solar flares, come on a podcast, explain it to us,

whatever the fuck, Bernard got going on over there something totally different. Donnie, do you have anything to add before we get into the show about gravity or solar flares or black holes? Solar flares makes me that the Nicholas Cage movie. Oh my God. I can't believe you brought that up.

What movie? I completely forgot about it, Donnie. Oh, my Jesus Lord. What movie? There's a movie with Nicholas Cage called Knowing. And Nicholas Cage in this fucking movie. Oh, my God, I'm getting chills. I can't remember. This movie fucking fucked with me so bad.

solar flare. It was a solar flare. In this movie, Nicholas Cage is able to predict things. He's able to continuously predict things and see things when they're happening. But the reason why is because there is a solar flare that's going to hit the earth. And aliens are like giving Nicholas Cage this information and like helping him because he has to make a determination about the people that are going to get taken off of the earth when the solar flare hits.

Donnie, did I give that? Is that right? I think so. I haven't seen it since around the time it came out. So you made me remember that there were aliens. I just remember there was math and he saw that it was coming and people didn't believe him.

But yeah, that was a twist, I think, at the end. And at the end, Nicholas Cage, he's one of the people that fucking dies in the solar flare. Spoiler. His son gets to go. What? What is the movie called? Knowing.

It's made by the same guy who did like Dark City, Eye Robot. You guys know this guy. Eye Robot. Yeah, the crow. And like, here it is. Like, he gets all these dates and stuff like that. And he's the numbers.

He's figuring it out. People think he's obsessed and he's figuring out all of this stuff. But then the solo flare hits. Yeah, like you don't do yourself any favors. You have to just cut it off. Go to your happy place. The whispering begins steal Diana's car with, what?

The whispering beings is what they're called. He's still Diana's car with Caleb begins. With Caleb and Andy, Diana pursues them and a stolen SUV but it's killed in the crash. Dian at midnight on October 19th, just as Lucinda had predicted. The beings take Caleb and Abby to Lucinda's mobile home where John encounters them.

The beings acting as extraterrestrial angels are leading children to, safety on interstellar arcs. John is told he cannot go with them because he never heard the whispering. So the kids heard the whisper. Okay. Are you reading the whole plot?

It was, I think, hey, so knowing he came out during this phase, this weird phase in Nicholas Cage's career where people were down on Nicholas Cage because he was doing like, no, he ain't Bangkok, dangerous shit like that. But that's a good-ass movie. I will check it out. When you go to places like this, right? When your mind goes here, do you have like a happy,

place in your mind that you try to escape to reset, because you should. What you mean? Like for me, if I'm like stressed out or like my anxiety is restlessness. I didn't know that was anxiety until really late in life. And I just figured like I just like to keep it moving, but that's a form of anxiety. So if I'm like trying to calm down, one, ASMR,

which I did for you guys so beautifully, so beautifully, so beautiful. But the other one is, in my mind, I go to care a lot. What? Care a lot. Care a lot. Come on. Both of us are down with the care bears. Oh, care bears.

Oh, that is true. In my mind, that is where I go. Yeah. And I just pretend I'm like floating on a cloud. I'm with all the bears, all the colors, all the kindness, all the caring. What was his name? Lion Bear. Lionheart.

Lionheart, the lion. A. Sharpton. Huh? Yeah, he was out of Sharkton. We talked about him. You need one of those. Well, like, I like to, when I get scared, when I would have anxiety, I would put on the movie

Trading Places. Oh, really? Oh, man. Trading Places, if I'm having a bad day, if you see me watching trading places, you know I'm pissed off at someone. Okay, okay. It just reminds me, not only is the movie, like this, you know, whatever, but it reminds me of, like, 1986, 87 in Desoto, Texas at my grandmother's house watching, uh,

watching trading places, so I'll watch that. Nice. But shout out to him. I'm proud of you, Doc. I'm proud of you. I'm going to say you. I'm going to bring it on the podcast. I know.

I almost am like, that's so great. He seems to be, you know, like, been preparing for this moment, headed in the right direction. You should want to say his name. Go ahead. No, I'm not going to do it because he told me that. No, not you, but I'm saying he should want to say it.

Funny old, the way old gangsters talk. Like old. Oh, you old gangster. Well, he's older than me. But like, just the way. You said plural. The way old gangsters talk is just funny. their musings on this

the new it's like listening listening to him talk about what he sees now it's like listening to Charles Barkley talk about the NBA These little niggas

talking about running off on the plug that ain't supposed to run off on the plug you're supposed to take care of the plug I'm like bruh

if you don't get off my own I don't get him How long was he in? If you don't get off of my phone It's like you hey I need you get in there and talk with him

They're going to listen to me. Van Lathen, hey, don't run off on the plug. That's not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to take care of the plug. What the fuck? How long has he? This stint, I think it was like he went in like 14. Okay.

He's made a couple of different stints. Okay. He's out of the game. Good for you. All right. Donnie, let's talk about a different game. The beautiful game. The game of football.

The game that happened after our last recording was U.S. versus Belgium. U.S. ended up losing 4 to 1, ending their World Cup run. We talked about the circumstances leading up to that game where Flo Balligan was clear to play, thanks to Trump calling FIFA President Infantino. Yeah, where are you guys with

the state of soccer right now that U.S. is not in the tournament? Your excitement died down. You still care. What's up? So, Me Mom and Kalika and Jomi went to Century City Mall to watch this game. where in the middle of central city mall that big oh at the bottom oh they were doing that okay okay cool it's fun chick fillet brought bozeman had to take them home too active too much people were blowing air horns

and shit like that bosom it's like what the fuck is that what you guys got on going on uh we were skull fucked by belgium yeah it was a bad game for us like it was a really it was a really it wouldn't have mattered. I don't think he would have made a difference either way. You could know nothing about football slash soccer, soccer says football, and you could look on the fucking screen. You have to know nothing about it.

Look on the screen and be like, oh, these guys are just like way better than these guys. Yeah. They controlled the whole game. They controlled the game. We couldn't string any passes together. We couldn't really mount attacks. It looked like we were trying to catch up with them.

They're, we would, this is called a touch. First touch. We would first touch the ball and the ball would bounce a little bit away from us, lead us to kind of a desperate kick lose possession. You would hit, the ball would hit their feet and drop like a pillow onto their feet as they set up their attacks. We couldn't do shit.

No. And what about that goalie moment? I've never seen anything like that. I mean, that to me is the moment that you know that you're fucked. Because that tells me that not only. Were you athletically and tactically overwhelmed, but you were mentally overwhelmed. Right, like you panicked. That was a panic move.

There's a panic move. The goalie runs out there, and boy, when that happened. I knew it. I tell you, the vibes were low at the Century City Mall. The vibes were low. Everybody, that was embarrassing. That's probably why you really went home. Blamed on Bozeman.

No, no, no, no. We stayed throughout the goal. Bozeman got brought home and then she came back. Okay. But yeah, so, you know, it was a terrible, terrible, terrible situation. And as I'm sitting there, I could not help but feel like a Knicks fan when Donald Trump came to the game. I was having such a great fucking time with soccer slash football, football slash soccer. I chose a team.

I have a favorite player. What is your favorite player? My favorite, my team now is Arsenal. So North London proud. Okay. We've got Declan Rice. We got guys over in the Arsenal. We're doing a lot of stuff.

We. We. We. We. Arsenal. Okay. But my favorite player is Holland from Norway. Okay.

He's amazing. He's awesome. I've seen him in some headlines. Yeah. He's awesome. But like I'm so involved in all it is. The vibes are sweeping me up. I'm thinking the World Cup can solve the world.

Trump gets involved. And right away, we back in the dirt, man. Trump ruins everything else. And lost in a bad way. Bears on the world stage. Like if that was your first time to watch the U.S. play in the World Cup, you would have been like, how did you make it this far? They look like a completely different team than what.

And I don't, you know, soccer obviously is as much athleticism as it is. It's a mental game, too. So I just wonder how much the drama leading up to it affected them mentally. More so them than Belgium. Because Belgium, of course, they had to rework their strategy knowing that flow was going to be playing. But for them it's like we don't have our striker. We don't have one of our best players. Like, what do

we do here? What, like, I could see how that could get them out. Then he comes all of a sudden and it's just like such a wave. Okay, Van. He comes to be, he comes back all of a sudden. And it's just such a wave of emotions and like mental gymnastics and all of it. I feel like

they were tired by the end, mentally tired maybe by the end of the game. Belgium was fucking jammed up. They were doing the Trump dance after. I was not to say that. Belgium was going crazy. You know, and fuck them.

Did Trump say anything after the game? Probably not. I don't, I didn't see it. You know, the next thing I looked, Trump was on there talking about the Islamic Republic of Japan. I'm like, yo man. Oh, like. He moved on.

You know, I got to say, you know. He moved on. He showed his power and moved on. He didn't care about the results. You know what it used to be? It used to be, because we talked about, are you proud to be an American? It's a complicated question for black people I understand.

But at least, in all of this putrid Americanism, you used to be able to like, you know, not just get embarrassed on the world stage every other time. I don't get, there's a conservative listening to this somewhere. You know you're embarrassed by this. You're lying. You're lying. At least you have bra.

Barack Obama up there, Barack Obama looked like a decent, like, beautiful American president, thank you. Joe Biden, what if at the beginning, it's like, you know, at the end, that's also, to be honest with you, that was a little embarrassing as well. But like, I don't know, man, just this whole thing, that whole thing was, there was a Belgian person, a Belgian that like, was next to us while we were sitting down there just going nuts laughing. As he should. Just getting our shit pushed in by a country known for waffles. It was all gravy until that motherfucker Trump showed up. He just fucking ruins everything.

It's a stink on Trump. There's a stink. It's not just a bad vibes. There's a stink. And you've got to get the stink off of them. Stench. There's a stench. It's pungent.

I'm being serious here. Like Donald Trump doesn't put his, it's like, the Trump name automatically makes something less beautiful now. You could take Donald Trump and put the Trump on anything.

What's the most beautiful thing in the world? I don't know. Let me just give me, whatever. Love. That's okay, Jade. I almost said me. Jay, that was beautiful. You answer the question then.

I can't. I was looking for y'all for help. I'm random. I can't. All I know is like automatically anything that is associated with Trump feels

low class it feels tacky tacky ugly inefficient and you know what the biggest thing that's like associated with Trump now is America that is what's

yeah he's our president and out there that we looked like a Trump team on that field we looked like a team that couldn't meet the moment team that got a break and then couldn't even take advantage of a break a team out there that just just look. When we're hosting it.

We're hosting. Shout out to the American players. Would you have rather lost earlier? Would you have rather lost earlier or in that way? I would have rather lost because this is a soccer issue, right? And, you know, everybody's hand-wringing about like American soccer and like what we have to do and all of that stuff. Who knows?

I'm not into it that deep to be able to speak intelligently on that. Not the expert anymore. hey, I know my limits. But what I say, you know what I would have rather is him not get involved. Sure. If we go out there, we lose fucking 4-1 to Belgium and he doesn't get involved,

then I can at least go, hey, we're not ready for the prime time stage yet. Or we could have been like the red card was such an affair. Like it would have been the mystery of, you know, if he had played, how would it have gotten? There would have been something to blame it to. The scapego could have been the red card

and the referees. But now it's like. It's tough. It's tough. It's tough. I'm going to the game. Well, as they're listening to this, it'll be today for them.

But tomorrow. What you want to see? Spain and Belgium. Spain and Belgium. Spain. Spagna. Spagna. Spania.

Go Spain. Yeah, go Spain. I'll be wearing red. I'll be wearing red. You know, go, go, go Spain, man. Fuck Belgium, man. Fuck them. They look.

Honestly, they looked great. Usually my strategy, though, is if my team loses, I root for the team that beat them because then I like to be like, well, we lost to the team that won the whole thing. Like, we... I've never understood that. That's how I kind of am.

But I am going to go for Spain tomorrow. I've never understood that. Like, if my team loses, I have a death wish for the team that beat us. No. Because I feel like, don't you think it speaks to you? It's like, damn, y'all lost to them? I don't, I don't know.

That's how I look at it. Like, you beat my team, I'm rooting for the worst for you. The only thing I don't root for is I never root for. players get injured, obviously. I would hope not. I mean, some people do. I feel like white boys do. That's dark.

I feel like white boys sports fans. I've always thought this. I feel like white boys sports fans in a lot of sports have less of a, particularly in sports where the main people that play the sport are black. They have less of a personal connection to the players or like a cultural connection. So they'll just be like straight up. I hope he fucking gets hurt. I hope he fucking sheds.

I never heard anybody say that. Yikes. Oh, I've heard him say that before. I've heard him say that. He's got to fucking, can't wait until he gets fucking hurt. Can't wait until he gets hurt. You don't want this nigga to be able to pay for his family? Anyway, all right, well, Trump fucked up everything once again.

The Iran war is kicked back off. We're not even going to talk about that. It's going crazy. And now, now this, my soccer love, my love for soccer is being tested. Because I'm still, I started playing F, 26 the video game. Oh, wow. And now you've adopted a team,

Arsenal? So who are you rooting for then to win the whole thing now? I don't care. But you want Belgium, not Belgium. Not Belgium. Whoever is playing against Belgium. I try to watch, I watch one of the greatest games,

and try to watch. I watch one of the greatest games ever, which is Argentina versus Egypt. And it was kind of like some bullshit that ended up happening in that fucking game, right? I was rooting for the Egyptians. Some bullshit ended up happening in that game. And it's tough, man.

There's a lot of people were telling me, I said that the WBC was more corrupt than FIFA. People laughed. No, I know. Yeah, we talked about it last time. So you think that something corrupt happened in the game. I think they cheated the Egyptians. Who?

The FIFA. I think because Messi was on the other side, I think they cheated the Egyptians, man. You know, I think the Egyptians got the raw fucking deal. Anyway. All right, we're moving on. I'm still down with soccer. But it's been a tough soccer week.

Between how Egypt was treated and what happened to the Americans on the grandest stage, it was a tough week for me in soccer. It was. I love that it's all about you. It is. You join the sport. It's all about you. It's funny.

To Bernard. Yeah, I guess so. Donnie, let's move on. Yeah, let's talk about the Emmys. We got 2026 nominations came in and we got a bunch of nominations for shows like the Pitt, Hacks, Widows Bay, Pluribus Beef

and then in the acting categories, Sterly Kane Brown, Noah Wiley, Sendea, Carrie Russell, Carrie Coon, Gene Smart, Ria Seahorn, Mark Ruffalo, a whole bunch of nominees for your takeaway from the list. Donnie doesn't care.

Donnie doesn't give a fuck about none of this. This creeped up on me. I didn't realize this was happening already. Yeah, the pit is a behemoth, hax is back. Pluribus, did you watch Plurbus? I heard it was good. You have to really focus to watch that show, and that's hard for me.

I don't do well with shows where you really have to sit there, like Widows Bay, nominated a lot. Couldn't get into it, but I think because I wasn't sitting and locked in. So you don't like shows that you have to watch the show? No, I like to watch it, But I'm easily distracted. Give me an example of a show that is a perfect watch show for Rachel.

The pit. Oh, because there's so much happening. There's so much happening. It moves so fast. I like that. I like the bear. I'm behind. But that first season and then the episode, the second season, everybody talked about the seven fishes, it moves so much.

Like, you feel what their feel. That speaks to me. Like, I need that kind of show. So I like the medical drama show. because they move like that. Yeah, but particularly the pit. Plurba's got me because the pilot of Plurbus is just about the best pilot that I've ever seen.

It's one of the best pilots I've ever seen for a show ever. And for me, a show has to have, as to maintain a curiosity throughout its entire run. I agree. That they continuously make you curious about the show. And that's, Plurbus did that now. Ploibus did in the middle of it. It, shout out to Vince and this whole creative.

group because you built up credit with the audience early on in that season and then in the middle of the pluribus season it tested your allegiance to the show because that show started to crawl at a glacial pace but when they brought it back at the end it was all worth it's worth it yeah maybe i'll give it a try i mean i'll watch some slow shows right slower like i love the Gilded Age, which I put you on. Yeah, you put me on that. Because it's like the real housewives of the Gilded Age, and I love that. I don't think that shit's slow at all. They always

doing something. Some of it. But you're right. There's always some drama in it. I love that show. She's nominated. Twice. Carrie Coom. No, I'm sorry. I'm not thinking of her. Sally Richardson. Is that a mystery guy? Oh, Sally Richardson, man.

Sally Richardson, Whitfield. Yeah. Sally Richardson Whitfield. Respect her and her husband, Richardson Whitfield. I gotta say this. Dandre Whitfield, Sally Richardson in a relationship, married for years and years and years. Very successful marriage.

People don't talk about that a lot, very successful marriage. They talk often about what makes their marriage successful. So Sally Richardson Whitfield, she is one of the defining beauties of the 90s. We've talked about this. But now... Still gorgeous.

Yeah, but now is like really killing it as a creative. one of the driving creative forces on Gilded Age. And task. Task. Which is so good, too. Every time, I just got to say this, that people get mad, oh, veiled, all,

every time, like, a white man, like, transitions from he was an actor to now he's a director to the rights, all this big deal, big deal. I want to see more about Sally Richardson. We need to do more. You know, fuck everybody else. Fuck all that. Fuck everyone else.

They don't have to do it. We here need to appreciate ladies like this more. The Sally Richardson's, Sally Richardson Whitfields, the Erica Alexander's, our sisters that have been in this business for a long, long, long time, Mara Brock A Kill, all of these people who are making these moves both in front of the camera and behind the camera. It's amazing stuff happening right now. Amazing.

I'll say this, though. Anthony Starr finished his run. as Homelander, the boys is over and he has not ever been nominated for his portrayal of Homelander and I personally think that is one of the biggest sins in the history of television.

I don't watch the show so I can't really speak to it. Do you know who Homelander is? No. You don't know. Interesting. Do you guys know who Homelander is? You don't know. Jay, you don't know.

Okay, maybe. Donnie, do you know Homelander? Yeah, I watch. I'm not caught up, so no spoilers. So Homelander to me, and maybe hasn't jumped over into the guy's as much as I thought. That's a little less than I learned it. But it's really one of the most sinister villains

that I've ever watched in television history, and it's played expertly and brilliantly by Anthony Starr. And not even to give him a fucking nomination over seven seasons. It's criminal to me. Superhero bias. I hate that from. You don't give a fuck. Well, I don't know.

You don't care about what you. I do. I mean, I want to see people rewarded for their good work. Right. I just don't, I can't, I can't give in a pin. He's an evil Superman. Okay. Yeah.

I've heard of the show. I don't know anybody really that's in it. Sorry, it's not my husband. Lazz Alonzo's in it. Oh, see, I had no idea. Lazz Alonzo plays Mother's Milk in the show. He's phenomenal too. Mother's Milk?

Mother's milk is the name of it. So in the boys' comic book, Las Alonzo's characters, his character, his character, Mother's Milk. is a superhero that has to continuously drink the breast milk of his mother. To get power. To be power to me.

I also think to stay alive. How is she still producing breast milk? I can't remember. Okay. But it might just be, maybe not the breast milk of his mother. It might just be breast milk in general? Yeah.

In the comics. It's freaky. They didn't do this freaky shit. They got a whole thing about that, by the way. They didn't do that in the show, though. He doesn't need breast milk in the show. Yeah, I could see why. Yeah, he doesn't need breast milk.

I can see why. All right, any surprises? This is your field. Coming on September 14th. A lot of like shows are ending. So some of these nominations don't surprise me. Hacks is done. The Bears over.

Euphoria. Zendaya was nominated again. I believe she was. So I'm not surprised at some of these. Did you see The Beast in me? That was really good. All her fault, very good. It's not surprised these things are nominated.

Yeah, I mean Oh, shout out to Paradise Our show I'm going to get my titty's right Shout out to Paradise Our show nominated As it should be Nominated big time nominations

For Paradise Fogelman and the whole crew going crazy I think Sterling K. Brown was nominated Was he nominated? He was, he was Because I saw Ryan's post Yeah I try to get Sterling K. Brown to get on the black television You always say this.

Leave him alone. Sterling K. Brown didn't want to do it. He couldn't do it. He didn't do it. He threw it back in my face. And, you know, we had his beautiful wife on the podcast. We had awesome conversation about her, about her, their relationship, about the show. It's very sweet.

I want to talk to Sterling K. Brown about this is us, Black fatherhood. Okay. We're going to try to make him come on, at least on higher learning, because you brought this up a few times. This one really hurt. This one really hurt, man. So like your round said, I got too much going on, nigga. Which he does. He does. He does have too much going on. It hurt. He was, he was very upfront about them. I don't give a fuck about. You talked to him personally? Well, I had court hook me up with him. Okay. So it's like, I don't normally talk about that type of stuff. I know. That's why I'm like, this one hurt. It hurt. What's up with the

Black TV father's thing? You've been talking about this one for years. Where are we? It's not you. No, no, it's not, no, it's me. It's definitely me. It's coming slowly. God damn it. It's like, how many fathers are we talking? Can you say which ones?

Or no, we want to save it? Which ones? No, which ones are in the season? Let's see. We did Uncle Phil. Got to. We did Fred Sanford. This is the first season.

It's just about the dads. We did Uncle Phil. We did Fred Sanford. We did John Amos. John Amos. We did. Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby?

You have to. We did Bill Cosby. Jamel Hill was on that one. We did, shit. Who's on Fresh Prince? Who's on Uncle Phil? Who's on Uncle Phil?

Uncle Phil is Charles Holmes? I'm actually offended that one, wasn't me. How could you not have picked me for that? I don't know. What you want to be on the Uncle Phil episode? Uncle Phil, attorney turned judge. Yeah. I just, that's my show.

Oh, Karen Parsons is on it. Oh, you brought her on? Hillary. Oh, she's on that one. She's on that one. Karen Parsons is on that one. It's Karen Parsons and I think it's... Subject change.

Then it's not a subject change. I don't know. I would have thought that you would have wanted to be on a Cosby Show. That one, too. A Cosby Showing is great. We just got to finish up. Shout to everybody that's been working on that with me for the last three years. That's why I said it's been years.

Years. Some people that were on the show of actually not with us anymore. And stuff. Really? Yeah, it's tough. Couple people. A couple people. It's a long time, man.

Little Rail is on the UPN episode. You just do UPN in general? Just UPN dads. UPN dads. And when you look back at the way UPN, some of those UPN shows treated Black Fatherhood, it was indicative to me of some of the conversations that were being mainstreamed about Black fatherhood at the time.

Of course, UPN shows that treat Black Fatherhood differently. What shows were on, like one on one? So when you look at, yeah, they have those shows. But the two most popular ones in the mid-90s were Moisha and the Parker's. And on the show Moesha, the dad is constantly getting dunked on by Moesia. He's one of the worst television dads ever. Frank? Frank sucks.

Moesha is continuously giving Frank lessons. Frank is trying to tell Moesia to come home, and Moesia's like, I was out with my friends. I'm not doing anything. you don't talk to me like that dad and then they put the camera on frank and frank's fucking embarrassed and then Frank had a kid another kid that they said was a cousin and that's how ray j got on that bitch they really really fuck over frank on the show and that's kind of what me a little real talk about like that's the thrust of that it's gonna be good anyway shout to stirl like hey brown by the way i know he's busy i'm fucking around but like he's a bit nice a little hurt little hurt i can be

I can show emotions. That's it. That's it on the Emmys. Some of these other topics that we get into later on in this show are not going to be very pleasant. So we want to give you guys a little sacker and stuff to start the podcast because there's some other stuff that we have to talk about. That's not so nice. I'm going to sit back. Donnie Wildcar, whatever you want to get into.

Let's start with the one that's right up next on this list. The Trump administration says that it has abandoned plans for the new Harriet Tubman $20 bill. the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, confirmed the decision. Now, just a little bit of backstory. There is no redesign. Would have replaced Andrew Jackson with Tubman on the front of the $20 bill. And that proposal was initiated in 2016 under the Obama administration. Barack Obama.

Yeah. I mean, this is some of the least surprising news coming out of the Trump administration. I mean, honestly, I forgot. been in the works for such a long time. I kind of thought we were past the point where I felt like we were just waiting for it to be printed. I didn't really think that there was even

anything that we needed from the administration or the administration had power to just like bring it to a halt just because it's been in the works for 10 years. But Trump not wanting to put a black woman, I mean not Trump,

it's the whole administration, but like them not wanting to put a black woman on the $20 bill, it goes in line with every single thing that he's done between his first term and now his second term. DEI, the removal of history, black history in this country, whether it be from parks, whether it be from websites, whether it be from, you know, historical sites. That's exactly what he does. So why would he now say, hey, you know what I'm going to continue to do? I'm going to put Harriet Tubman on the dollar bill or $20 bill and remove Andrew Jackson. Somebody he reveres.

And I'm sure you have a history lesson to give us. You're doing history lesson? But a quick search of Andrew Jackson, if you've forgotten what a monster he was, it's no shock at all that this is somebody that President Trump admires so great. and wants to keep in the public eye and wants to be a revisionist of how he terrorized people who lived here before him. One, as a slave owner, two, and a proud slave owner,

and two, as the president who initiated the removal of Native Americans from the South and the Trail of Tears. All of that happened underneath him. And then he did a lot of things without the approval of Congress. Trump is modern day Andrew Jackson and even worse. So it's not surprising that he is,

this falls in love with everything that Trump tries to say he's not, but his actions show exactly who he is. And it's sad, it's like, especially when you look at who Harriet Tubman was and what she represented versus Andrew Jackson in the couple of things that I just said. This is someone who fought for Harriet Tubman fought for freedom. fought for other people. And then you have Andrew Jackson, who was about displacement and pushing people out and putting

the economy and white people over and valued them more than he valued other people. Like, they couldn't be farther apart. And so it just speaks to even more of like, this is the person that you want to keep on because this is who you believe represents America versus the person who was actually doing good, actually alleging remarkable, fought for other people, put them over herself all to better because she knew it would be better

for the nation, for the country, obviously for the community as well. So, yeah, I mean, I'm saying. I have thoughts. Very important stuff about Andrew Jackson. I have thoughts. Can we have a conversation about this and then a conversation about things that I feel like

are downstream of this? We have a conversation. Please, please, please. Okay. So the first thing, is Trump can't put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. He can't. Why?

Because the base of the Republican Party that Donald Trump caters to won't stand for that. And I continuously try to tell you guys that there is a reason why the party itself doesn't reach out and try to convert a lot of concerns. conservative black voters who would be really super awesome as a part of their party. They can't do it. So let me say that better. I've said this before. We've talked about this before.

But like there are a lot of black people I know that at least that are conservative to a degree to why I ask them all the time. It's like, you know, why are you even a Democrat? Like why do you support the Democrats? And their answer is essentially because the Republican. are racist. That's the answer. Now, if you have conversations about the, with some of these people, I'm not talking about a large percentage of people. I'm talking about people where I'm from, like that I have a conversation, people that would talk about, they'll give you takes on abortion, they'll give you takes on LGBTQ plus stuff. They'll give you takes on this stuff, and this stuff

is very in line with Judeo-Christian beliefs, and these beliefs are conservative, a lot of times, right? And not necessarily conservative, if you examine them, the beliefs, the beliefs themselves, like stuff out of the Bible or stuff specifically with Jesus, you'd say a lot of that stuff is anti-conservative. It's very liberal, very progressive. But in the way that it's framed by the church a lot of times, it is very conservative.

Now, these people will never, ever be Republicans or vote Republican because they have self-respect. They have racial self-esteem and racial consciousness. Even if they have a lot of beliefs that are conservative, and even at their core, anti-black to me

when examined through a historic and contemporary lens they are not going to vote for the nigger nigger nigger party and I'm sorry that's what the Republicans are the Republicans are the nigger nigger nigger party

whenever they need to whip their base up that's what they do D-I nigger nigger nigger CRT Nigger Nigger Nigger N-Nicker N black history in schools Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger they've been screaming

nigger, nigger, nigger for the soul of their party sent civil rights. That's what they do. This Harriet Tubman situation right here is, look, we're not giving the nigger shit, not on our watch. On our watch, they're not getting nothing. Look how we treat them.

Not happening on my watch. That was the fucking black president that wanted that. We're not doing that. Ha, ha. Nothing's happening. All right? that resonates with that party.

Of course. That is a thing. I'm sorry. People are going to say, Van, you're chilling for the Democrats and all of that stuff like that. Talking politics,

we're talking politics later, all this stuff. What I'm saying is right now, that works over there. And that's just a fucking fact. Get mad about it if you want. He can't do that. Even if Trump was the biggest

Harriet Tubman fan in the world that is politically untenable for him to do in that party to celebrate Harriet Tubman. Can't happen. Okay. Now, this to me is also a little deeper, a lot deeper. Juneteenth, Harriet Tubman, figures like that,

America, overall Americas, even Martin Luther King Jr., the fight that had to happen, if one of got to write a song to get Martin Luther King's Junior's birthday Celebrating in America. Celebration is a very important human reflex. You celebrate things that you prioritize, right? Yeah, they're important to you for sure.

They're important to you, especially as a group or a community. Different people have different celebrations in different ways. Like sometimes people have little intimate celebrations. They don't have to share them with the whole world. I get that and I understand that. But particularly in a society, in a society, the way that you celebrate something is indicative. of kind of what that thing means to you.

America's never been able to properly celebrate people who fought against American slavery. They've never been able to properly celebrate the even ending of American slavery. You would think that the ending of American slavery would be this ginormous, expansive, huge celebration, but it's not. It's something that you have to fight for.

It's something that's framed as black and not American. Right. Right? And the reason why is because America has never, doesn't want to now and has never wanted to be like, you guys are a part of this, come on in. Because if they were to say that, they would have to share. That is what it's about. Like at the end, if they were to say, hey, Harriet Tubman is just as big. I could argue she's as important as any framer of the country ever. Harriet Tubman to me is as important as Thomas Jefferson,

is as important as George Washington. It's important of all of those guys. Because if not for Harriet Tubman, then their vision can't actually exist because it couldn't exist in the way that it was being applied. It was a lie. And Harriet Tubman, Fane Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Stokey, Carmichael, Dr. King,

all of those people, they made America real. they actualized it in real action, not just a framework of laws and a bunch of thoughts, but this is what it really means to be this. Those are the people that brought that. So they founded the country as well, and we're still trying to find that motherfucker. But if they go, hey, she's super important.

The end of slavery is super important. Well, that will signal to black people that this is your country and we need to share it with you. That's just not what the country has ever been interested in. in. They've never been interested in that. And doesn't matter who is, they've never been interested in that because they don't want it to be your country. They want to be able to dictate to you. They want you to produce. Don't get me wrong. They want you to produce, but they want the police to be able to jam you up whenever they want. They want to be able to fuck with your vote whenever they want. They want to be

able to tell you where you can live, live, what you can eat, how you can earn always. So the people that fought for you to be free that actually would define freedom for you what if freedom means picking up a gun you think they want you to think that? No, they don't want more

Harriet Tubman's. You think they want more Tim Scots? Like, you think they want you to think that? You think they want you to think that freedom is picking up a gun and going to do for your people? Which is exactly what the fuck they did? They want to celebrate it when their guys did it But when we have to do it against them, why would they want to celebrate that? So the Harriet Tubman situation is one, something Trump can't do.

And at the end, something that America is really uninterested in. I think they also don't, I completely agree with you. And I think also every single thing that you just named as someone who is a historical figure that we revere or a holiday that represents something that is particular to the black community, They also don't want to celebrate it because to celebrate it, then you have to talk about exactly what it is you're celebrating and why you're celebrating them. For Juneteenth, you have to talk about slavery.

We know right now they're trying to get rid of books. They're trying to be revisionist. They're trying to erase it from historical sites, from government sites. They want to pretend and water it down like it didn't happen. They want you to just move on. If you recognize Harriet Tubman, you have to talk about, you have to explain to whoever, a child, whatever,

this is the dollar bill. Who is that on there? Why is she important? What did she do? What was she fighting against? What was she freeing people from? Why did that exist? These are things that they don't want to recognize.

And Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., obviously the civil rights movement, what we didn't have and he was fighting for, basic rights that we should have for ourselves. To celebrate them is to, in essence, the complete opposite for them, or at least their history, their ancestry. And it contradicts the things that they're trying to do in the press. present and then how they want to be viewed in the future. It's very interesting take. But I'll tell you what, to the black Republicans, this is why I don't respect y'all. I'm just being for real.

I'm not saying that I have much more respect for the black centrist Democrat. I'll just be honest with you. Because at this point, we're going to talk about this a little bit later. I don't respect anyone that I feel like has a hand up their ass and can't give the opinions that they really want to give. Every time I talk to one of you guys on the phone and y'all come off like fucking Malcolm X on the phone and then when y'all get on the phone,

when y'all get in front of these cameras, it's Clarence Thomas, man, I judge y'all because it doesn't seem like, and I can't judge nobody. My judgment means nothing. Please let everyone, my judgment means nothing. It means nothing.

I'm for nobody to look up to. But the reason why I say that is because a lot of times it makes me feel like they won't let you be black in the party that you end like you gotta kind of temper that a little bit and that's odd

to me but consistency means that I have to kind of bring that up but really fuck all that man the reality is if you end that party with them nigger nigger nigga people

you ain't shit and it's and I there are some of you guys that are better than others, I'll just be honest with you. But God damn, bro, you ignoring a bunch of direct attacks on the history and legacy of your people for low taxes, man. You're going crazy. Well, low taxes and for what they feel, yeah, what they feel makes them feel big and powerful. They think that they're hot shit. That's why they do it. They're willing

anything that's happened in history, period, they're willing to be used. to sell out their own community for their own personal benefit. That's what they're doing. Every time. Look. Yeah, exactly. I just, you know,

when I see stuff like this, I'm like, who's gonna be like, oh, like, like who's gonna, hey, shouldn't we have? It makes sense to commemorate Harriet Tubman. It makes sense to commemorate her. The black people who were a part of this,

like, it makes sense to commemorate Harry's tummy. Is somebody gonna, you know, I'm waiting for somebody. I go, hey, we shouldn't, we probably shouldn't do that. Like, it just makes those look bad. Whatever, we can move on. But, like, it's just like, every time something like this happens,

because I actually operate in good faith. I operate in good faith. This is a sweat starting to come through the G-on-sheet. I operate in good faith that a lot of these people I just have political differences with. Oh, I took the hat off. I got a different acoustic situation. The hat is like, I feel like,

did it? Chopping a sound wave. Okay. But I do, I do try to say, hey, we just, hey, we're brothers. We just have, you're conservative, you just have different views and all of that stuff like that.

But then I go, well, yeah. They should know I hear it. What are you going to say? You got to say nothing? Yeah. And also, he did this during his first term too. That's what gets lost.

He stopped it the first term. So even me saying 10 years, he stopped it when he was in there the first time. And Biden brought it back or tried to. It's time to give the left some bullshit now. Yeah. The main Democratic Senate nominee, Graham Platner, said in the video statement on Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign. This is after facing mounting pressure to drop out after a former girlfriend accused him of sexual assault.

Political reports that a woman who had previously had a relationship with Plattenor alleges he entered her home in 2021, intoxicated and without her permission and sexually assaulted her. After this report, Democratic leaders had pulled their support and said that they would not back Plattener if he remained the nominee. And in his video statement, he strongly denied the allegation and spent a large portion of the video, claiming that the Democratic Party establishment is using the allegations to undermine him and his movement. There have been two responses to this. Okay. Two different responses. One is to examine the motivations and veracity of this report. You've seen that.

Yeah. You've seen some people go, hey, this doesn't rise to the level of something that political should have reported. Yeah, really disappointed in Mika's take on Morning Joe. You saw it? You saw it? I did. Oh, she was hounding the Politico reporter who broke the story. You don't feel like she made any decent points in that exchange at all.

I think the initial question was warranted. Okay. I think the initial question, so for y'all who didn't see it, she was speaking to the political political reporter who broke the story and she asked him she said hey these allegations there have been other allegations before including the woman who's just made the most recent allegations also made these allegations to the new york times when that came out and they're like what more do you have for you to say this actually happened what proof what evidence what took it to another level that made you comfortable and actually

reporting that he sexually assaulted her. Fair question. He gives his answer. Her name is Jenny Radicott. Rasicot. Ginny Rasicot. Ginny Rasicot. Let me make sure I say her name. And he answered the question. It obviously wasn't good enough for either Mika or whoever was in her ear the way he answered it. He said that, you know, she had spoken before, that she, there's DMs, There were other people that she spoke to around the time. Maybe she warned someone not to stay away from him. The guy she dated before, I guess she had, or right after she had said something to. There were things that they felt enough that were more than what was in the original reporting,

that they believed that she was credible and ran with the report. I might be forgetting some things. And Mika kept saying, okay, but like what do you have? Do you have actual communication from him to her? Do you have her communicating to him saying, well, it just, to me, it got to the point where it was uncomfortable. Either you don't accept what this political reporter said. You don't think that that evidence is satisfactory.

It felt very much so like, why are you bringing this up now? Why do you trust her now? I was shocked by it, especially coming from a woman. I think that it's always fair, particularly from news organizations. you guys don't have to do this. You've listened to the podcast, you don't have to do this. But from news organizations and stories like this, it's fair, number one, to question the sourcing.

Absolutely. To question the standard. Because these things are not just like stories in this regard. These things are political weapons of mass destruction. So being that that's the case, you have to. Okay, why did you guys decide to report this? What made you go, there's enough they're there to get involved in something this consequential?

We all want to know the answer to that. I want to know the answer to that. And now everybody is running to their silos and people can go out there and they can decide for themselves whether or not this particular report meets a standard that should be the end of Grand Platiner's political career before it even began. Like, you guys can make that decision on your own.

like there's no text message that exists where Grand Platiner goes where they talk back and forth from Grand Platt. She tells them exactly what happened. He goes, I'm sorry for doing that. That doesn't exist. If she was looking for a smoking gun, like, hey, boom, boom, boom, doesn't exist. What is true is that this woman had this experience with him and right away start talking to people about it, talking to people about him. even in the way she talked to people about him

she never actually says what he did yeah she doesn't say grand platinum right but she doesn't say grand platinum right but she sounded the alarm on him warned people about him like she sounded the alarm on him like she talked to enough people she talked to her therapy her therapist

that was more recent the therapist won't share what what they talked about which makes a lot of sense so so even the fact that she talked to her therapist about it. If I were reporting it, if I didn't know what was said to the therapist and I couldn't get the therapist to tell me,

I probably wouldn't put that in. Because talking to the therapist about it in and of itself isn't enough evidence, but whatever. Here's the point. So you guys can make your decisions about the Grand Platner thing and how damning it is and all of that.

The larger point here is that Grand Plattener as a candidate was not handled responsible responsibly from parts of the left from the beginning. And I'm not saying that this is egg on anybody's face, like specifically. But what I am saying is this. Grand Platter's got nasty tattoo. Got a nasty tattoo on.

All kinds of talk about the Nazi tattoo. We're on the podcast. We're marginally on the left. And we say, hey, it would be great if Grand Platner talk to some, Somebody black on the left about the Nazi tattoo. Well, why is that important? It's important because in my political movements, in my movements, period, I like them to be people-oriented. I don't give a fuck about bad blood that people have between the left and the far left or the center left.

I don't give a fuck about child's fight. I legitimately don't care. What I care is that people get what they need. And how am I to believe that someone is going to. to work for, I don't know the black people of Maine, how many of them there are. Shout out to you and your homies. But it's going to represent black Americans as a member of the Senate

when you can't have a conversation about a Nazi tattoo on your body. And there were large portions of the left that when you would raise that, they would say, shut up. This is more important. And that's because there is a contagion that exists inside of all of this political moving and shaking that is just about winning, that it's just about dunking on your ops, that it's just about,

we got them on a run now. Well, who are we running with? Because I would like to not run with a Nazi. And if I'm off code by asking for him to have a full-throated conversation, I see him setting up in the cable in his sweater talking to the people and thing, how come he can't talk about this? And all of that stuff, all of that shielding

and on top of each other, on top of each other, on top of each other, it led to them being susceptible to what is clearly a hit job from the center of the party on Grand Platner. Which is a hit job? This? Grand Plattener is clearly being targeted. And that's okay to say. This is a week before the last, no?

Okay, keep going. Grand Platner is clearly being targeted, clearly, but I don't know that it's, well, let's talk about that. Do you feel like he's clearly being targeted? It's there. So this, and I believe the problem, I do believe there's egg on the face. And I believe it comes from the movement, the political strategists and consultants who found him. I believe that it is the people who continue to, the progressives who continue to support him. when there was damning information.

And on the other side, I believe there's egg on the face of the establishment Democrats because you didn't even put up a proper challenge for him in Maine. You put up a 78-year-old Democrat who ran a bad campaign that was forgettable and it was anti-Trump.

You didn't even put anybody up against a grand platter. If you were serious about actually challenging him and getting your candidate in, you didn't even put the right person there. So the reason I hesitate on calling it a target or saying he's being targeted is because this shit was there and it's been there. And yeah, this came out the last week and maybe that is a setup. I struggle because we shouldn't even be here right now.

I completely agree. I know. And I'm so glad we've mentioned, we've obviously talked about the tattoo and you wanting, you've always talked about he needs to come talk to black people. But I'm actually glad we didn't talk about Graham Platner every single. single time something came up because I'm not even shocked that we're here right now. I'm not even shocked and like is this not all reminiscent of the Democrats playing the whole thing wrong, doing it the wrong way out of pure desperation. And then here we are at the last minute where 70 plus percent

of the people voted for him and now that candidate's gone. And so they're scrambling trying to figure out how do we put somebody up where the voters feel like their vote counts and it's not the establishment telling them what we literally just did this. And so with Joe Biden and Kamala in a certain way, I'm going back to hesitant to saying targeted, this information has been here. This level of it, the line was already, like that's what I would ask these progressive Democrats.

I would say, what was your line? Because to me, when I look at this, I kept thinking crazy enough of The Bachelor. I thought, Grand Platner is the Taylor Frankie Paul of Maine. And the reason I say that is the Bachelor was so desperate to save the franchise, to save the show, to make money that they picked somebody where all the writing was on the wall of who this person is, but you still ignored it because you were willing to sacrifice it all in order for the money and to keep your show, what was important to you. That is what the progressives did with Grand Platner.

From the beginning, he was problematic. That Wall Street Journal interview was going around with those political strategists. They basically admit they didn't properly vet him. The reporter flat out says were some of these things, the Reddit post, the tattoo, did they come up when you vetted him? Some of it, they said, yeah, we saw some of it, but they were willing to ignore it because they were so desperate to win. They were so desperate to beat Susan Collins. Like they so wanted, they found Grant Platner who was problematic from the beginning. There was reports about, first off, on one of his Reddit post, he said that rape victims should take some responsibility for themselves in addition to other stuff.

You have the tattoo where he's like, I didn't know what it was. There's reporting out that other people knew him said he knew exactly what it was, even though he had it covered up. There are reports from multiple women who talk about his drunken behavior that he's verbally abused. physically abusive. So it falls in line. And when you add up some of this stuff, even if it was from years ago, these comments on Reddit,

it's not shocking that there is an allegation of sexual abuse here. They chose to ignore all of it. Almost to be like MAGA, in a sense, and how they positioned themselves. They wanted their Johnny Appleseed to win. And they were willing to sacrifice everybody and everything that they were saying,

In addition to that, his former political director, a woman, Genevieve McDonald, quit in October and was warning the party. This guy is not who he says he is. This guy is problematic. It is why I have removed myself, giving them plenty of time to vet out. Somebody who had signed up to work for him was close to his, in his campaign, knew him personally because she was working with him. She left him. She said, this guy is a problem. You didn't listen to her.

You continued to ignore it. You could have found another candidate then. And you decided, no, we're going to move forward with this. It's like, how can you call out MAGA for what they do when you literally did the exact same thing? The exact same thing. Well, so this is what I'd say about that. Like, all of those claims, all of that stuff is almost always bullshit. The purity stuff.

I'm not asking him to be pure. Well, hold on. I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about, like, so I could ask that question about Bill Clinton. Of course. So, so, like, when I'm saying. You see what I didn't say? Him texting other, sexting other women while he was married.

No, no, no, no, no, no. The Bill Clinton, like, all of that stuff is what it is. But the Bill Clinton stuff goes to also some direct allegations of sexual misconduct on behalf of Bill Clinton. The reality is the same thing that Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Grand Platt, are all have in common is that they were popular with people. Yeah. And so the Grand Platiner thing was actually less to me about the candidate that the progressive left decided that they wanted, that they chose.

It was about them riding with the candidate that it seemed like the people of Maine chose. And the we have to win situation was more so about, hey, this guy represents a policy platform that we agree with, and these people love him in spite of all of this stuff. And so when they see somebody like that, that's the question that no one really wants to ask. It is interesting and easy, excuse me, it is easy to get rid of a candidate that has all of these negative things about them

and has all of this crazy, terrible shit about them when the candidate is kind of, relevant or has a chance. But to have a frontrunner, have somebody that will win or could win and then go, we have a moral standard that this candidate doesn't meet, they're out? I don't think that happens very often in politics.

And I think it's certainly, if you're talking about like MAGA, I mean, it certainly doesn't happen with Donald Trump. Eugen Carroll was just awarded $5 million like yesterday. So it certainly doesn't happen with Donald Trump. It doesn't happen that often in politics. So I particularly, for me, going back to like what I was saying before is my movements or what I believe is more about people.

And the reason why I would say, probably be unpopular to say to the podcast that he was being targeted is because they're all targeted. It's a political campaign. They're targeted. This comes out a week before the ballot deadline. The other stuff came out. a week before the primary votes. So this stuff and the way that is rolling out

is right now, this is going to give the Democrats in Maine just enough time to find somebody else. Like just enough time to find somebody else to go through with just enough time, right? You see all a bunch of people going to jump into this now. He has to step down, all of that stuff. All of that stuff is politics. That's a part of politics.

I'm not saying he's being targeted. I'm not saying he's being targeted in any way that's unfair. this is his life. What I'm saying is that inside of this political game, when you hear people saying this candidate needs to be more beholden to the actual people, we need to be able to feel like we can move forward with this guy, so we need to know things. If you choose to ignore that, then there's going to be a lot of other things that you ignore as well. And you're going to ignore red flags and signs that this is probably not your God. And he has too many warts. We heard every explanation. We heard PTSD

from the Army that we heard that no normal person, I've heard this a lot, that Graham Platner is an every man. And any every man that jumps into politics is going to have warts and skeletons. Because if you don't

decide that you are going to be a politician when you're 24 and 25 years old and manicure your life every year, every moment in order to do that, Then if you were just a guy that says, hey, I'm going to get involved in politics, well, there might be alcoholism. There might be all kinds of mistakes that you've made.

There might be things that you've written. There might be all types of stuff like that. And now they're saying this will dissuade other people from getting involved with that. Yes. He's also not an everyday man. What you mean? That's also not true. Like he, yeah, because he, because of his video.

Yeah. Yeah, like he went to private school. His client, his mom's restaurant's his biggest client. His dad helped him out. Like he's not like I'm working class There was a facade there My point

My point was that he was not a career politician No no I get it I'm just saying for the other people who are like You know he's blue caught People think he's working class Right I just admit that not a not a career politician That's a

What I'm saying is this I couldn't care less about really any of that Because I don't Grand Platner And his his sexual misconduct is completely disqualifying for me

it is completely disqualifying for me it is part of a political movement to like get this stuff out to get their op out to get a center democrat candidate in there that's just true that mean that's just true all of this stuff is the the

Access Hollywood tape was part of a of a design to end Donald Trump's political campaign all of that stuff is that's what this stuff is my only point is i've learned more and i've learned this everything is maga it's all maga the only difference between maga to me and the rest of these political movements is that maga is very honest about the fact that we don't give a fuck what this guy does we don't care like we don't give a fuck what this guy does but we don't care like we don't

give a fuck what this guy does. But if you scratch the surface and then get beneath it, man, on these political teams that these people have, they will stretch the limits of their decency and their intelligence to defend these people

when it is evident that either they're the wrong candidate or they're doing the wrong thing. And I do not see, a huge difference between the sides. Like, I do not see a huge difference. I'm not here to argue for one over the other. The reason it's, and I'm not asking for a purity for my politician to be pure as well.

They're not perfect. There's going to be something there. And to your point, yes, you're right. When you go into at a young age and say, I want to be in politics, you craft and shape your life a certain way. to where this stuff is minimal, right? Unless you let it go to your head and you become like an Eric Swallow. Eric Swallow.

Right? But I guess when I look at this, the reason this one, it's like these people were looking for an everyday man, somebody who didn't come from politics specifically. There was a team. It was supposed to be organized. It was supposed to be thorough.

And this is who you went with when you could have had other options. There could have been other options. options out there. I know he wasn't the only option. And I guess for me, and I'm not trying to say, I mean, I know the Democrats present themselves to be on a higher moral ground than MAGA, but to me, when I look at the things that he was accused of, right, there's a pattern here that is problematic for me. This is a man who there are too many allegations, and we're going to talk about that in a second with somebody else, where it's not a coincidence. It is indicative of what you think

of women and how you treat them. Yeah. When you're going to talk about that in a second with somebody else, where it's not a coincidence. Yeah. When you get a tattoo like that and you don't know what it is and you don't want to sit and talk to the very people who are impacted by that and you just cover it up and you want us to cover them to cover it up and move on, that is indicative to me also on how you will vote and who you are in the Senate. When we're living in a day and age when you have a Tulsi Gabbard, a John Fetterman, you cannot take the chance of, well, he's going to get popular and he might win. But then once he gets there, what will he do? That was Fetterman, right? So popular, everyday man. Well, what will he do when he gets in here?

And so I just, for me, I know you say, like, I'm not trying to make it just about his personal stuff. But to me, I have to acknowledge that the things that he is being continuously accused of, the things that they would impact me as a woman, as someone having a Nazi tattoo. I just am like, how you were willing to put these communities to the side in all. order to push forward the guy that you thought could win. That's all that was important to you. It's just... That's what I said before.

And the reality of that is that shows you, to me, to me, that shows you the, and we haven't named this yet, that shows you the importance of whiteness and all of this. Yeah. The importance of whiteness and all of this is that Grand Platner, uh, in this situation is just a hard scrabble guy that was in, I mean, you know, you know, you. he talked a lot about like, basically war crimes that he committed. Yeah.

And all of that stuff is acceptable, right? It's dark. So, like, very dark. That ends up becoming things that bad things that a good person did. That's how they want to frame it. Bad things that a good person did. Where is Grand Platner today? Where is Grand Platinum today?

Bad things that a good person did. That a good person did. That type of... Lens is only available for white people. That type of lens, that type of redemption is only available to white people. Yeah. And there is, being on the progressive left, there are racial politics that they don't understand, that they either don't understand or that they don't care about.

And there is a decentralizing of race that exists on the progressive left. like we we had this guy somebody was in my um somebody was in my comments and they were talking about like how identity politics means that black people have to have their hands held uh you can't point at the screen to keem jeffrey somebody who i despise and be like you're next you're next you're next you're next you're next you're next that identity politics means that you have to a black guy said this that that means that you have to have your hands held your your handheld and Yeah, yeah, I have to have my hand held in America. I do.

You have to hold my hand. You do. You do. I'm not safe here. Like I don't feel safe. I've never felt safe. As a matter of fact, one of my formative instructive lessons on America is like, hey,

this is your country, but you're not safe here. And so when you walk in America, community is holding hands. Community is holding hands with each other. Community is being like, hey, everybody's safe. So yeah, you got to hold my hand on with me. bit. And Grand Platiner was never really interested in that. And really the people that supported Grand Platiner the most robustly when you said, hey, there might need to be a little bit of this to say, go fuck yourself. And they got fucked. I get that. I am just, the only place

where we disagree is, well, maybe not disagree. The only thing that I do know is this is, in fact, it can be, this is the center of the Democratic Party fighting for its life. This is. And this is. And And a part of that and the progressives got black eyes and bloody lips because they got worked by the people who do this all the time. That's the only thing that I was trying to say. Just for the audience knowing,

like they got the shit kicked out of them by the people that do this all the time. And that's going to set that movement back in Maine a little bit and hopefully the progressives learn something. Hopefully they learn a lot. But I don't know. This is so much about teams and not about people that I'm not sure what happens.

Yeah, I mean, I look at, I mean, Susan Collins will win. I mean, it was already like, will she win against Grand Platner or not? Like, even though he won tremendously, you know, the primary, it's like, he was, I think the point he was behind in the polling when it came to Susan Collins. But because there was such momentum and he was giving people hope that they thought he has the best chance. But like now, I think you use the word disillusion. If not, I totally agree. Like, where are you now with the voters? They feel like their vote was taken away, whether we agree with that or not of like the fact morally.

They feel like that's who they voted for. It's taken away. You look at, Grand Platner puts out a statement, which I thought was terrible. And in it, he blames the establishment. So that Democrats aren't even coming together to fix this problem. He's blaming the establishment. So what does that do to the supporter? They're going to start blaming the establishment.

Or are they more motivated, which is what got us here in the first place. Just vote blue to get this person out. I don't know. But I'm looking at Maine and I'm looking at it like you had a chance for it to be blue. You went about it the wrong way from the start. And now Susan Collins will probably be there again. I think she's going to lose. To who?

Troy Jackson. I hope I'm, you're right. I think, I legitimately think she's going to lose. I'll tell you this. if they put Troy Jackson in it. I'll tell you this. Dr. McDreamie said he might get in there. Who?

Oh, yeah, he is from Maine. Patrick Dempsey said he might run. If McDreamy gets involved. Put him in. We don't know what's in his past, man. We don't know. He likes to race cars a lot. Nice to look at.

Yeah, he's a nice little. Maybe he gets in there. But once again, all of this stuff to me is, you know, far be it from black people, to be the canaries and the coal mines on everything, which they kind of have to be. But everyone was like, yo, man, we need to, let's talk about this.

Let's talk about this. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about this. And then knowing that they were trying to get him, he was a big fish and they caught him. That's it. And honestly, the reality of the situation is,

like, he seems to have deep personal issues that need to be worked out before he settled with that much power. Or that disqualify. qualify him for ever having that much power. It's probably a better way to say it. All right.

But I think everybody right now, I just don't like the fact to me that so much of this seems so personal. It seems as if everybody wears it personally with these candidates and with these politics. It's personal. I could see main voters feeling that way because you voted for him. Well, I don't necessarily mean them. Okay. What I mean is like somebody who backed Grand Platner. Now people attack that person for backing Grand Platner, right?

And that person has to come out there. These are these factions, everybody is waiting. How does any of this fighting, this intense lack of cohesion or understanding, both on the left and overall, how does this benefit anyone? Well, it doesn't. No, I'm being for real. like how does this so all of these people sucked they knew that he sucked we have to call out the fact they were so in on the playing the team game that they wouldn't listen to us how does this how does this benefit anyone like i really don't know all of this stuff that we talk about when you can't

even have an honest conversation about a candidate or what a candidate does or what a candidate says without people telling you that you are anti-black person anti-black woman anti-fucking center Democrat, anti-left, anti-progressive, anti-health care for all. Like, if we were talking more about policies, their implementation, and the way that we get to them and actually giving people a blueprint for their lives and how they get better, it just seems like we would care a lot less about whose feelings were hurt. I don't know. You're asking the right question.

That should be the question. Like, they should come together. Establishment, like, who does this benefit? The answer is all the infighting, all of this, right? The blaming, the pointing fingers, whatever. Who does this benefit? The answer is nobody, not the constituent, not the voter. So then the next thing is, what do we do to where what we're doing?

How do we implement things to benefit the voter? And then you start from there, but they won't do that. It benefits the parties and the people and the people that this is their job. This don't benefit the Democrats on either side. This does not benefit the establishment. What the fuck? They did not. Are you, yes, it does.

Well, this definitely benefits the establishment Democrats. I get not having somebody. They're going to get to run somebody that they like. They're going to get to have. They will probably lose. What I truly believe, and I sincerely believe this, without beating this even more. I sincerely believe that the establishment

Democrats would rather run an establishment candidate, one of theirs, and lose to Susan Collins, than have Grand Platinum. I believe that, too. And I think that that's part of the problem of the establishment. I 100% agree with you. I do agree with you that Grand Platner would not be good for the establishment Democrats if he got in. My point being is, when I said it's twofolds, I want people to recognize that the establishment fucked up in the way they even ran this race.

If you were that threatened by Graham Platner, why is that who you? put to run against them. Why did you not put your full force behind the candidate? Why did you not put somebody who could actually challenge them? Why would you put somebody who's almost 80 in there? It just shows like, what are y'all doing? To me, and it goes back to like, you're not listening to the messaging. You're not listening to what people want. What attracts people, what energizes them, what excites them. You put somebody who is towards the end, their end in office. So to me, that's why I'm like it's damning on them too but you're right you're right to a point

I just need people to focus on that once again they do it wrong the establishment Donnie All right a few updates on the story we talked about in the last show on Marcelis Wiley's arrest for alleged domestic battery charges made by his wife Anne Marie

Anne Marie has filed for divorce in domestic violence restraining order alleging years of physical sexual emotional and financial abuse she also says that her husband raped her four times. The first instance occurring in 2012 and the other three in January of this year, the two were married in 2024 and shared three children. Ooh, I am never rooting for somebody to have a public and messy divorce.

Obviously, from my own personal experience, but obviously, like, to live a private life, and then to have it all out there, especially with children, I just, this has gotten so dark in ways that I could have never imagined. And it's even harder to because we know these people. And it's easy to say you never know what's behind,

what's going on behind closed doors, which is true, you don't. But you never imagine from people you know well, or you think you know well, that this is the kind of stuff that is going on. This is, this story, not story, I don't want to say it like that.

Like I'm like it's like I'm soft landing it. What we're hearing is tragic. And I know it's he said, she said, but like, yeah. Yeah, so exactly what I said Marcello Zawali would have to do is what he did. Yeah. Yeah, you did say that. He cast his wife, his current wife. They're not divorced yet.

They're not divorced. In the same light that he's cast other women that have made accusations against him. Three line. Now look, what I always want to do is just to have to remind everyone that, like, I have no idea what, like, what happened. No one has any idea what happened. but these types of allegations are so fucking serious. And guys, there's a pattern of these types of allegations when it comes to Marcellus Wiley. There just is.

There's a pattern. Now, this would have you believe two things. First thing you would believe is that she knows that there's a pattern of this. So she's leveraging all of that to get what she wants out of him in a divorce. that is Darth Sidious Emperor Palpatine level of

villainy and cynicism there is that is that level of that would be because your children are going to go through this now

exactly your children are going this is going to this is going to Marlisle's wild it's not just happening to Emery Wildles. It's not just happening to Emory while it's happening to their kids

all of this is happening now while their kids are in the middle of it. What's worth that? Is a house worth that? Is a house worth that? Is a house worth everyone knowing all of this stuff and this being the way that your kids are going to live their lives? It's a house worth that.

It's a car worth that. It's a $100,000 worth that. What's worth that? Well, your safety would be worth that. Getting somebody away from you like that would be worth that. But once again, I do not know. know what happened. I just know that at some point

Marcellus Wiley has to deal with the fact that there are a bunch of women that say, hey, it's not safe to be around this guy. And you're just not going to be able to over and over and over again. Over and over and over again, just say everybody's out to get me.

At some point, he's either has a serious, serious violence with women problem, or he's the unlucky guy in the world. Yeah, and I mean, the reason we talk about a pattern, when I say a through line here, of, again, everybody's not out to get you, hearing this and then comparing it to the four other allegations, it's jarring. And to your point of when you started off talking and you said, he did what I said he would have to do, the reason you could predict that is, because there's also a pattern in how he discusses women, whether it's allegations against him

or just things that happen in general. There's a, there's a disrespect, a disregard, a lack of grace. And I would like, you would think, oh, you wouldn't do that with, you know, your wife, the mother of your children, too. But why would you not when this is a pattern of how you deal with women. It's just, I mean, also to know that her allegations in depth came out because she filed a temporary restraining order, which was granted. And so he's been ordered to stay 500 feet away from the house, the kids, and her place of employment, and he had to turn over his gun. Huh. What are the grounds on which they grant something like that? I mean, I...

You can't just ask for that and get it granted. I'm asking you like what... I'm going to look it up. But all the stuff came out about what he did to her. That's from... That's what she put as... In the divorce petition. Not the divorce position, the restraining order.

Restraining order, okay. She put that in there as reasons as to her temporary meaning like it's an emergency. Well, it's temporary. We know what that means, but like it's an emergency order. So immediately this needs to happen. I feel... I am in danger. My children are in danger.

I need this person to stay away from me. I'm fearful of my life. These are all the things that have happened to me to make me feel that way, which is why he has to turn over his gun, which is why he has to stay 500 feet away from the children, from her place of employment, and their home. And this is, and he responds with, was it on Twitter?

He put that statement. To do that, I must address the lies Amari has told about me by telling the truth about her and our marriage. Over the years I've complied, compiled, shall I say, videos, photographs, and text messages, emails, and other evidence that directly contradicts those baseless claims and provides a factual record of our family and the events leading to this unfortunate divorce. That record includes evidence of Amory's repeated infidelity, including an affair with her pregnant friend's husband, serious and damaging parent failures of voodoo spell, she cursed over my family, as well as fans she claimed hated her, from the real housewives of Beverly Hills, along with many, many other unflattering documented events.

So, I just want to just real quick. She's saying that he brutalized and raped her. She's saying that he pushed her in the face, through a coat coat. Hit her on the head. Hit her on the head. Said that she was his property and that he could do what he wanted to with her.

And he says that she's fucking around. And that, and plays into public opinion of what Bravo fans thought of her when she was on a unscripted, obviously reality TV show, which there's editing, but he is playing into the sentiment that Bravo fans have felt about her and put it in that. Not like, it's just, and I got to say this again, I know we don't know. But it's hard for me to believe that the way. way Marcellus talks about women and the way that he has made statements in other ways that are

sexist and misogynistic, that he would be okay, would stay with the woman that cheated on him. It's just hard for me. It's just hard for me to believe. It's just hard for me to believe. Like that, like, and that it's, and then you know who the people are. Like, it's, it's just hard for me to believe. But again, I shouldn't even be doing any of that because we don't know. I just know that this is, it shouldn't be public. It's a tragedy that any of this is happening. And what did, what is being alleged, if that happened, my thought is the kids and the victim.

I don't know what that has to do with anything. It doesn't. He's trying to embarrass her and make her look back. Those allegations in that, pregnant friends, husband. people think that she on Bravo think that she's lost herself or she's crazy what was the other one that he said that she uh the voodoo the like I none of that is speaks to what she's saying he did to her the only thing that the only strategy that could be happening there is like hey this she's crazy she's a crazy lady I have uh

proof that she's crazy. I have all of these emails and public evidence that he's been documented. That's the other thing. He says, one, the date of marriage is interesting because they'll talk about celebrating like 10 years of marriage, but, and they got married in the same year that the first allegation came out about sexual assault against him. But the other thing is he says, I've been collecting this over the years. Why for years have you been done? documenting all of this stuff. But then at the end, makes it seem like she just went, quote, crazy after Housewives, which was not that long ago.

Well, we don't know how many years it is. Over the years could be three years. Over the years, sounds like. It does. Look, all I'm saying is this. Once again, like, in this scenario, in this situation, this is going to play out. And there will be evidence presented, probably by both sides, because now this is going to be like a lengthy and probably very contentious divorce situation

where everybody's going to present their evidence. I know two things. One from my time at TMZ, I know how these divorce proceedings go. When Jenny Mae and Gizi were happy and then... Jenny Mai. Jenny May and Gizi seemed happy. Said it again.

Jenny Mai and Gizi seems happy. And then when it was getting... the divorce, Gizi was walking around the house with an AK-47. Okay. And maybe Gizi did walk around the house with an age of K-47. I think there were pictures. The reality is, was he walking around the house with an AK-47, to point the AK-47 at you was the nigger has been around AK-47s for a long time.

Like, he's an AK, you knew that he was an AK-47 type of guy, right? So what I'm saying is like, and I'm not. I don't know what... I could say something against that, though. You don't know how, like... I mean, I could know that you're a gun-carrying person and that you have guns in the house. That doesn't mean that if you...

If I see you walking around me that I don't like guns... Like, I'm not afraid of guns, but, like, you don't know if, like, just seeing somebody walk around with a gun makes them feel uncomfortable because they don't like guns. A lot of people don't like guns. That's fine.

What I'm saying is when stuff like that is... I'm not saying that you're not right. Stuff like that is brought out, or in other divorce petitions. You know what men typically say about these women? She was fucking somebody else. She never loved me. She'll go do.

Bro. Like, we got the interview from you saying she is the most beautiful, self-righteous, virtuous woman ever. It didn't go right. And now it's time for the cage match, right? This is different than that. This is different.

The stakes are higher here. The stakes are higher here because normally in those situations, even if there are allegations of things and stuff like that, those things are normally just what happens when you're trying to fight it out. This is directly someone saying your history of abuse against women was inflicted onto me. Not that I couldn't even deal with all of these allegations. She could have come out and said that and that would have been enough for people, that all of this stuff started weighing on me.

All of this stuff started getting to me. I started to read more about this stuff and I started. That's not what she said. She said it happened to me. She said it happened to me. Now she also made some other clans that are like, he tried to have sex with my friends and stuff. She didn't.

Whatever. I mean, that's, you shouldn't do that. But the meat of what she was saying. And details. And the details of what she was saying is he raped me, sexually assaulted me, and beat me up all the time. which is stuff that other women has said about him.

So that has to be dealt with almost suffered from a divorce. Like separate from a divorce. And there is nothing in this tweet. Once again, I'm not ever going to get in a position now. I believe accusers because it's just very rarely

that women make these types of accusations and it's a lie. That's true. Does it happen? Yeah. But it's very rare that they make these types allegations and it's not true.

They're statistics, their studies and all of that stuff. You don't want to read them. You feel like bitches be lying. Go to fuck. Do it. Man, live your life.

I'm not about to go back and forth with y'all. But what I, in this situation, text messages and all of this photographs and all of this stuff, unless he has something that directly refutes the really serious claims

that she's making, it seems like his only, The recourse is going to be to smear her. Yeah, but she's already started. And that's just going to make things worse for him. Yeah, you know it makes me sad, too. It's like she's alleging all this stuff that was going on. And, you know, if you've talked to her, if you were around her, she was proud of her family, obviously proud of her kids, the image of it all, the, her marriage, the, her marriage, the, the, the, um, her marriage.

like the success that they've had, like she's very proud of it. But it almost makes me feel like I did not know her because I don't know if the way you were acting is because you were forced to. You weren't, you couldn't be, you couldn't say what you really thought about something. You couldn't really have an opinion or be the way that you wanted to because you were living in fear because it needed to align with your husband or else or else. Like it just makes me sad. Like I would sit with her, I'd be with her, I'd hang out with her.

And, you know, I just, I just feel for her and the children. Yeah. I, honestly, in this scenario, this going this bad with them just, it just like, it cements my instincts. it cements my instincts into like how people portray themselves what they say that they are how they say that they are and the amount of stock that you should put in that which is absolutely fucking zero zero do your best to be who you are and try to admit to who you are because i'm just just a bunch of bullshit. Yeah, that's sad.

Let's take a break and come back. Donnie? All right, this next story is sad. Authorities recover the body of 18-year-old Nolan Wells after he went missing during a July 4th boat trip to Horn Island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Jackson County Sheriff's Office says the investigation remains active and autopsy is underway.

They're working to determine his cause of death. This case is drawn national attention with civil rights attorney Ben Crump joining the family in calling for a full transparent investigation amid growing public questions about exactly what happened. It's also gained traction online within the black community where many are drawing comparisons to other high-profile cases involving young black victims.

Supporters say that they're demanding transparency, as I said, accountability and a thorough investigation before any conclusions are reached. not much to say in the sense that obviously we want to recognize what's happening and how tragic this loss is and everybody's talking about it. There's a lot of opinions about it and we don't know much about the details. Like we just don't. What we do know are what we see from pictures. What we do know is that he was there with his white friends.

And what we do know is that one of the mothers who wasn't even there is already putting. out a statement about what happened. She wasn't there. She's the local judge. And so the important thing to me with this is one, to keep saying his name and to keep talking about Nolan Wells. Two, I'm glad that, you know, Ben Crump and his team are there. They've already are going to move his body to get away from Mississippi. I believe I saw Washington, D.C. to get an autopsy done, independent from there. And I think that it's important to, not spread mis and disinformation when it comes to what happened, but to definitely not allow the narrative to be taken away by unfortunately the person, there's a victim here, somebody dies,

somebody lost their life, and we don't have his story. We don't have anybody to speak on his behalf. There are all these other people who are corroborating their stories, changing, taking things in and out of pictures, having, using their influence to have people who weren't even there speak on it. And it is important that we don't allow that narrative to lead and them to run away with the story so that this family can have some sort of, they'll never have peace. They'll never have justice in the way that they should, but something to try to find the answers that they need of what happened to their son. Everybody who, a principal, the coaches, friends who speak on his behalf, talk about what an exceptional student he was,

how outstanding he was as a friend, as a teammate, as a teammate. It's such a tragic loss, and I think that the best thing that we could do is make sure that other people don't tell his, what happened to him for him. Question to you guys, specifically to everyone and to Donnie as well. Donnie is the only one here that's with child.

you have a 17-year-old black son or daughter. They say that they want to go to the lake or they want to go an excursion with their four white buddies. Can they go? I'm trying to stop because I'm trying to think if I did that, if I was on the lake. They're going to go to an excursion. I've definitely done it. Okay. I've definitely done it when I was younger.

two because we're talking about younger. Yeah. But, you know, I didn't go with, and he knew these people. So it's like I didn't go with people that were new. I went with people that I grew up with that I had gone. I went to a small private school. So I went to school with all these people since I was four, five. You know, maybe that age we had cell phones.

But, you know, my parents knew the people. They knew their parents. They knew everything. They would have let me go with four, four, four. friends that I knew and I would have felt comfortable with four white high school friends that I knew. I say this, my daddy wasn't with it. I had a baseball team.

It wasn't a baseball trip. There was a trip that some of my baseball teammates were going on. Uh-huh. On a trip. They were hunting up there. They were hunting boars. I don't know. You do like you, I've never had done.

this before. You take a pit bull, you're on a four-wheeler, and you, you're hunting boars. I've never bore hunting. So guns. Huh? Guns were involved. Yeah, guns were involved. This is something they do all the time. My dad, hey, because we hunt, we hunt deer, we hunt rabbit, we hunt squirrel, we hunt the things that live in the forest. We hunt turkey. Hey, you know, I got invited on a hunting trip with so-and-so, so-and-so. he looked at me and he fucking laughed. He was like, are you out of your fucking, you crazy? He was like, no way.

And this is not in any way. I'm not in any way, castigating these parents. First of all, this is very clear. I'm not in any way saying anything about these parents letting their son go and not even a shred of that. I'm just saying that like, he was like, hell no. I don't know if my parents would have let me go on a trip where people had guns.

Well, I mean, The most I've ever done is going to a sleepover. Right. So, you know, I don't know. He was 10 miles away on the coast with a bunch of people. My dad's thing was that like, this is what he said. He's like, I'm not sending you into the woods with a bunch of white boys. Like, I'm not, like, I'm not, I'm not to know.

He's like, you get older, you get on your own. You decide that you want to go out and go hunting. Like, with a bunch of ways I'm not doing. Like, not right now. No. Tell them if y'all, if they want to hunt, they can come here and hunt. We can hunt in the back, the whole nine, all of that stuff. My father told me, even if there is an accident, even if there's an accident, I can't trust it. If there's an accident, forget about whether or not someone did something on purpose.

Even if there's an accident, I can't trust it. He's like, you go out there with your cousins and stuff like that. there's an accident something happens you you shot something's going on i know that they're going to do everything that they can do a to get you help and be to take responsibility if something goes wrong he's like i don't trust them like that never will no and are you crazy and so the reason why i ask that question this is obviously different the reason why i ask that question is because there are a couple of high profile incidents now of young black people going out with their white friends in these types of ways, something going bad,

and then these people acting shady like they're trying to hide shit and not tell what the fuck happened. Yeah, no, my parents would always say, remember you're black and they are not. And like I was, which I think as black people, we move, I'm always aware when I'm the only black person. I'm always aware when there's just a couple of us. And I usually find the other black person in the room, whether it's with eyes or active communication. we have to navigate these situations in a different way.

But yeah, like, it's tragic, and we're not trying to minimize the tragedy that happened is a conversation that people are having the very question that you proposed. It's like, do we need to? And these are just the stories that we know. You know, I'm sure there are other stories that have not been on a national level

of the only black person. being in a white friend group and something happens and, you know, the story doesn't make any sense. Yeah, the lives aren't treated the same. The lives are not treated the same. And that's something that we have to walk into this world

with you have to remind your children and adult this. The story in Georgia, that was an adult black woman who went to the sleepover with, or like a getaway with those six, seven other white friends and woke up and she was died. And they said she fell off a balcony. And they didn't like report. It was tragic.

And nothing happened to any of them. So like kid, adult, whatever, it's just different. And you have to be aware of those things. Sadly, you do. And it's a conversation that we do have to have. I don't think it means that you can't. I'm just saying it just means that you have to be aware. You're one way.

There's something different. Let me ask you this. Is this rational? Does it feel heightened just because it's white people? Let me ask you. Tell it this. is like what my father was essentially saying was that he just believes that if I'm in a situation around a bunch of black guys and we're going out there to have some fun we're not doing

no bullshit and something goes wrong that they're going to care more yeah I understand that that belief like you can't really quantify that right like you feel that so if this is a story or if any of this stuff is a story where there's five black people out of there and somebody's some mysterious death, but we don't automatically assume a different set of racial or emotional standards because you're the one black person with a bunch of white people.

Are we doing that to ourselves? Or is that a reasonable fear and concern to have? It's a reasonable fear. And even if it's not, even beyond, when my parents would say that to me, it's not, it was more of like, you can't do what they do. So like, let's just say they're up to something

and they go steal something from the store. You do not do that. Like, you are different from them. You will be looked at different. And I just think that, again, this is just a general conversation. It's not that you can't. It's just that you have to have those conversations.

You're not like them. And that might be, it's unfortunate you have to have that conversation, but that is the reality of what we live in. Donnie, I don't want to get too personal here. What is your answer to this question? I don't know my answer. It's a, I think about my mom in a similar situation with myself. I think I was maybe 19 and I had a group of friends from Michigan and it was two white guys and a black guy who wanted to go to Windsor, Canada for the weekend or it was like one day over the weekend.

We were going to go to the casino because we were underage in the U.S., but we were able to drink in Canada. And I didn't, my mom didn't know my college friends that well. And I asked her if I could go and she was like, yeah. And I just remember when they came to pick me up and she saw that there was a white guy driving a car. And I remember seeing her face and just seeing the worry in her face. And being like, wait, did I make the wrong decision by saying my son could go on this trip? And I could see her weighing whether or not she should say no, never mind, or let me, I don't know, trust me or trust God and let him go have this experience. And she did.

And I went. And I mean, it was, you know, reckless fun. But it also was, I mean, I had this conversation when I came back from the trip. And my mom asked how did it go. And I told her that we had fun. And it was, we had wild crazy fun. But she was like, I was really worried in a way that I hadn't been ever because this was like I was grown-ish. And she had to make that decision.

And she was just like going through her mind that I make the wrong decision. And I mean, yeah. So putting myself in these parents' issues or as a parent in a situation like this, I really don't know because, I mean, you could try to know these friends of your kid. You could try to get to know the parents of these friends. But things still happen and that are completely out of your control. And just the idea of you possibly making a decision that led to something like this, I really don't know what my answer is right now.

It's tough. Yeah. Like, this is in no way on, of course, course, we've already said that, but just people, this is the question that people are asking. And, you know, then the question is, is that even a rational fear? But it's just one that seems to be something that we talk about and it's like reinforced by by history. That's sad. All right. You want to talk about the picture of Pusha T?

And you put that in there. I feel like we've had a conversation similar to that before, but Yeah. It's one way people know all economy ain't the same, you know. Was he an economy or was he just flying commercial? All commercial ain't the same. But also like if he was flying economy, like I've flown economy before and I've seen like Derek Luke behind me. I know post-divorce. I've seen, I've seen.

I've seen. But you know what's funny. You know what's funny? I actually, when I came off the Bachelorette, used to be really self-conscious about it. And then I was like, what the fuck am I doing? What the fuck am I doing? Who cares? Like, that's how people go broke.

Who why am I trying to impress people I don't know? Like it does not matter. We're all getting there the same way. I have seen, like I said, I've seen like movie stars in economy. Like we have to get past thinking, we have to get past making it important to impress people. That's not you really do go broke that way. I do. This is what I'll say.

What people are saying is that a lot of our hip-hop brothers have made. flying economy, something for broke niggers. The way they did bow wow. Well, is that what happened? The bow wow took a picture like he was flying on a PJ and then somebody was like, this shoe? Right. As he was sitting in the southwest seat.

Right, right. I just want people to know that like hip hop is selling you a lifestyle and I think that you guys know that. I think you guys know that hip hop is selling you a lifestyle. like Delta 1 is a perfectly amazing way to travel, right? Flying on the plane itself is a blessing. You got to do a lot of travel and stuff like that is what it is. But like, just know guys that like when, you know, Jay says,

with Castro, puffing on Cubanos with Castro and Havana, that didn't actually happen. He didn't actually, at that point, he didn't actually go to Cuba. And like when Rick Ross says, the real Noriega, he owes me a hundred favors, that's not true. That didn't happen. It's bluster, it's bravado.

The question starts to become, when does this bluster and bravado like start to set unrealistic expectations on people? Because the other shit is, bluzzler, I've fucked a thousand women in March. And then you start to think that's the way you got to live your life. If you're working right now, so one day you can fly private everywhere,

I'm telling you, by the time you've done enough work to where you get to the point that you could do that, you're not going to want to do it. It's not worth it. Because I can tell you, it's 40 grand each way. In a lot of ways, at best. At best, right? I do know people that have like a subscription service that they pay for to where it's a quarter

a mill, half a mill a year, and they get so many hours on a private jet. But I'm telling you right now, particularly in the economy that we living in, that private jet shit, that private, private, if private jet, private jet, jet now is if you have to. Like, meaning if you're too famous to go to the airport. If you're too famous to go to the airport. And there are people. There are people that, like, they, for their privacy, for all of that stuff,

they're just too famous. But they do have other ways. Like, you can, you don't have to wait. Like, you can come up, pull up a car and come up and just sit in your seat and then be out. You have a full escort. Like, you're the last one to board the plane. Like, there are ways to be private, too. But yes, I get it, but I get it.

There are, because even when you go to Delta 1, you go through your own deal and say hello. He loves the talking about you. How are you? What's going on with you? You go up there, you get a nice meal. You talk to the people. It's boom, boom, boom.

I'm surprised you don't have the escort through Delta. Why would I have an escort through Delta? I like to get love from the people. You can't. They do, and then they'll have a person next to you. And they take you in the car and they drive you right up in the Porsche, right up to the plane.

You walk up the steps. By the way, these flights a lot of times, I'm getting flown by businesses. 100%. I'm not paying for that. 100%. To be very clear, not paying for that. I'm not trying to say,

you know, because your friend Van is going back to an apartment. But it's just to let you guys know, right? Like a lot of that stuff kind of is what it is. But I do feel like over the last, something's interesting that's happening. Over the last like four years, hip-hop excess has been on trial culturally in a way that I haven't seen before.

Meaning, like, even some of the skits that I see about, you know, rappers, there's that one really funny one where the rapper gets, like, front and on at the McDonald's or something like that, and he's driving through. You've seen this skit where the guy's, like, somebody, he asks his dad, he asks his dad if they can stop at McDonald's and his dad says no and then all of a sudden his father looks at him like no no and he's writing all kinds of different raps

about how his daddy never took him to McDonald's and shit like that I think a lot of the stuff that exists in rap now we're starting to recognize that is actually cliche it's actually things like rappers always say nobody ever said that I was going to be shit and now look at me nigger nobody said you was going to be shit no one you have one person even when you started rap

you had one person that was like hey you're kind of good at this like nobody everybody said I wasn't going to be shit now I'm shitting on my teachers I'm like so you have one teacher that was like hey I like you like you like nobody told you's going to be shit

everyone said you was whack right that's part of the lore and I think a lot of people now are starting to investigate rap lore because a lot of niggas very for real they took some of these ideas and they ran with them.

Don't you think also like people don't put value in as much as like I guess spend all the money on like a private jet or the chains or all of that and it's more about like we're more knowledgeable about what to do with our stuff. So that's part of it too. Absolutely. Now people, you would come with the chains and then we realize I remember boy hanging out with somebody that I met during the TMZ years, rapper. Great guy.

Nobody we've talked about in this podcast before, but they had the crazy change. I remember they was like, this is not real. And I was like, what? It was like, this is not real. It was like, do you, I look stupid to you? You think I'm going to go out and walk through this thing

with like, this is not real. It's like, I have real jewelry. Like, if I go to like the BT Awards or the Oscars or something like that, like I bring out the real shit and you could tell, It's like, if I'm walking through a club and stuff like that, this is not real. Now, I'm not saying that's not. Still, because that's that you, people don't know that.

That's true. Now, and this was, we had done a story on a different rapper getting a shit took, which is why this was even brought up. To me, that seemed very smart, but it also seemed, it also let me know that a part of that lifestyle is like just lore. It's just lore. And we should know that. We should know that it's just lore.

Like, when the rapper was saying, I got more bodies, like, nigga, you're a musician, though. Like, when do you have time to kill? when did you have time to become the biggest drug dealer on the East Coast? You have to be in the studio. You have to write raps. You have to write the raps.

So where I looked at this and I'm like, you know, I see rappers on planes all the time. Rich niggas. Super rich niggas. Yeah. Like, and when you see them, don't take pictures of them. That's the other part of it. Like, let people be.

I can tell people not to do that. That's not coming from me. They're not going to listen. Well, you used to have a video recorder. Yeah, man. I used to see you getting off the plane. Hey, hey, hey, hey, who do you think's hotter? Rihanna or Beyonce?

That happened to me when I just got back from Fourth of July. And the guy goes, I've never seen this before. The airport security who's like moving traffic along goes, is she bothering you? Is she bothering you? I was like, no, I know her. It was, what's her name? I know her. The white girl?

The blonde. Like, she's awesome. No, so great. That's why I closed my door. I heard him. And then I opened it back up. I didn't want him to say anything to her and I go No, no, no, I know her.

Like, I didn't want him because she's, she's cool. I would say, I'll say this about TMZ. TMZ was full of nice people, which sounds weird. But a lot of, a lot of the snark that you would see on the show. Oh, Charles told me to tell you hello. Charles, who?

Saw him too. We were both on Fourth of July weekend. We were both in line and security right next to each other. Charles, Louie. Yeah, is that his last name? Yeah. Oh, that's very interesting. So let me tell you

Lowe says he loves See in our clips Shout out to Charles Charles He was very I thought I meant He was like hello Rachel

I mean obviously knew who he was Yeah Nice man But yeah yeah But yeah But TNs he But

TMZ Despite what you guys Might want I believe Was full of nice People Everything that we did Was not nice

A lot of snark that you see In the show Is performance Just like Some of this other stuff That we were talking Yeah, it's a TV show

Performance A lot of A lot of snart that you saw It's gonna sound weird Who the nicest people that TMZ were. By far, the nicest, easiest to get along with coolest, like to me, people always, the camera guys. By far, the camera guys at TMZ. Now, I'm not talking about the other

paparazzi round town. Not at all. I'm not talking about the other paparazzi around town, but the coolest bunch, I'm not saying, I have so many friends from TMZ, but the camera guys at TMZ, those were the ones that were like trying to think of a funny way to interact. Sometimes you got to ask a bastard question just because that's the nature of the news biz or the paparazzi biz. But those are the guys that were trying to find cool, funny, off-kilter. They were doing research on like your favorite movie or like where you have been. So try to make some way to connect with the person that they shoot and to get the clip on TV.

I've always had good experiences. All right. Okay, I'm wiggling. You got to use bathroom. Yeah. Before we got out of here, Rachel, got something to say. Oh, oh, yeah. forgot about this. Okay, we talked about Carmelo Anthony. I don't know if you guys have been following along. He has a whole new trial team that is filing motions left and right, one on the judge, one to get a new trial. And they have a website called stand withcarmello.com. I have a friend, close friend, that's part of the legal team. And there's a lot of misinformation that he was saying that is out there. So you can go to this website, standwithcarmeldo.com to get updated to understand.

and part of the process. Make sure that if you are talking about what's going on and you're updating people, you can get all the correct information right here. This is the hub. So one more time, it's standwithcarmelo.com. Stand with carmelo.com. Let's take care of the kids.

Let's make sure the truth comes out. Try to give you a lot of different stuff on the show today. You got to take thin caps off. But don't stop thinking. Come on, I got to do the bathroom. I'm drawing it out. Take your thing.

My turn to do it. to do it. I'm bad like a junior. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye guys.