#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 11.3.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered | Election 2020: Black Voters Matter, Pt. 1

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

11.3.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered | Election 2020: Black Voters Matter, Pt. 1 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Folks, it is Election Day 2020. Today is November 3rd, 2020.

Joe Biden, Donald Trump, also Mike Pence, Kamala Harris. We're looking at U.S. Senate races, state races, local races, D.A. races, ballot initiatives. What is going to happen on election day? Will Democrats get revenge after four years ago when Hillary Clinton lost in stunning fashion to Donald Trump? Will Donald Trump be fired by the American voters? We're going to cover all of that. We've got experts. We've got our panels.

We're going to hear from lawyers, civil rights activists, grassroots activists, also constitutional law experts, voter suppression experts. It's a jam-packed coverage right here, Roller Mark Unfiltered, Election 2020. It's time to bring the funk. Let's go. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the find And when it breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling, best believe he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling, yeah It's on for a roll, y'all Yeah, yeah

It's rolling, Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah We'll be right back. More than $3 billion spent by all types of folks when it comes to this election. None of that now matters. It is now in the hands of the voters. Folks all across the country have been voting for the last couple of months, really. Of course, we had absentee voting, early voting taking place, records being shattered across America. Folks have been going out to the polls in droves, long lines in some places, more expeditions in others. We're also operating in an international pandemic. Folks, it has been an unbelievable year, an unbelievable election, and it all comes down to the votes being counted today. Folks,

now let's talk about polls closing. Now, right now on the East Coast, it is two minutes past seven o'clock. Some polling locations in Florida have closed. Now, remember, there are some locations in Florida that are under the central standard time, so they're going to be open for another 57 minutes. Polls in Georgia have closed, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, and Virginia. Now, speaking of Georgia, because there were some issues earlier today, there are a couple of polling locations that will be open for another two hours. And so we're going to be monitoring those things. We're going to be soon talking with Kristen Clark, the Lawrence Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, with their 1-866-OUR-VOTE. They have been monitoring election

issues all across the country today. Folks have been phoning in reporting problems. Some places have lost power. Other places where there were malfunctioning machines. These things happen a lot on election day. And so they are there to actually look out for those things and assign lawyers and others to assist when those things happen. Also, we have a reporter based out at Black Lives Matter Plaza here in Washington, D.C. Folks across the country, which you might see what's happening down there. You see folks there, Donald Trump and the Secret Service, they've erected massive barriers all across, all around the White House, unscalable walls, if you will. So I guess,

you know, that wall he talked about being built, well, I guess it's actually being built. Mexico didn't pay for it. And so that's happening as well. Actually, earlier today, I actually went out there and was checking some things out, chose to pay a visit to see what was going on out there in the streets. And so all kinds of different things have been happening today, folks. Again, it has been quite the crazy election. We also have seen lots of drama taking place around the country when it comes to this election. It has been times it's been heated. It's been nasty. It has been all of that. And so but right now, that's it, y'all. It's done. It's over. Now it's a question of all the ballots being cast. I told you earlier I was I went out to Black Lives Matter Plaza here in Washington, D.C.

You might remember they had the streets painted. Mayor Muriel Bowser did after the death of George Floyd. And it has become really this just unbelievable setting, if you will, where people have been going out there. Folks have been, you've had protests. It's located along 16th Street leading into Lafayette Park, which of course is where a lot of protests have happened all across the city. You'll see this video right here. There was a go-go vote. They were out there. Y'all can turn the music up, please. They were out there dancing, having a very good time. This literally was just a couple of hours ago when I stopped out there. It was quite a festive atmosphere.

We are seeing that really that sort of that atmosphere happen all across the country where people have really prepared themselves and girded themselves for long voting lines. That's just one of the things that we've seen. Even though we are in this international pandemic, folks have made it perfectly clear that they are about voting. They are about standing in those lines, practicing safe distancing, wearing their mask, because they understand the importance of this election, the importance of voting. And so I'm going to be breaking those things down. We've seen some great videos. Here's a video right here of Ayanna Pressley, congresswoman from Massachusetts. She was in Massachusetts with some folks doing the

wobble. So we can actually, they were out there doing the wobble in Massachusetts as they were waiting in line. And so we've seen lots of that. And so, yeah, yeah, she got some moves. So we've seen lots of that happening, of course, across the country. We're going to be, again, showing you that, showing you some other things that have been going on. Don't forget, folks, we're also here broadcasting not just Roland Martin unfiltered platforms on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope. We also, our cover is being simulcast on iHeartRadio's Black Information Network

and those radio stations all across the country. And so it's a whole lot we're going to cover. We've got lots of time. We're going to be here until 3 a.m. And so we're certainly looking forward to having you here, folks. You can certainly comment. We'll be reading your comments on all of our social media platforms. You can send me tweets at Roland S. Martin. You can comment on our Instagram page as

well. You name it, you can do all of that. So again, allows for you to be able to communicate. If you've got some questions, we'll be taking your questions as well. Right now, I want to introduce my first panel. We're going to have different panelists all throughout the night. So first up is Dr. Greg Carr, Chair, Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University. Recy Colbert, Black Women Views. Eric Savage-Wilson, Savage Politics Podcast. Glad to have all three of you here on this election night. I want to start first with you. Let's see, where do I want to go first? You know what? I'm going to start with you first, Erica. You're from Georgia. We have seen unbelievable turnout taking place in Georgia.

Obama, former President Barack Obama, was in Georgia on yesterday. That was a strong signal that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris think they can actually win Georgia, take that away from the Republicans. If so, that just makes it nearly impossible for Donald Trump to be reelected as president of the United States. Just your sense of the massive turnout we've seen thus far, early voting across this country. Well, I think that it's telling, Roland, when you look at some of the voting lines for a state like Georgia, where they had several counties where there were only a few minutes. And I think that's because people went ahead during the early voting time and voted, and particularly in souls to the polls, which we know is really big within the Black faith community. We've also seen in Georgia,

particularly in my hometown of Albany, Georgia, there were voter suppression and voter intimidation and deterrence tactics. But thanks to groups like Black Voters Matter, who've been on the ground, electeds, attorneys, people who really do care about the community, they were able to continue to sustain a presence so that people knew that when they voted, they did have folks that were looking out for their best interests with snacks, with sample ballots and things of that nature. But I think when you talk about the 101 million votes that have already been cast, listen, as much as the son of a Klansman talked about COVID, COVID, COVID, getting all of this coverage, you cannot help but to think about when we all either cast the vote in person, if we voted by absentee, that you were wearing a mask.

So definitely COVID and his handling of COVID is on the ballot. And so I am very encouraged. I've definitely been spreading joy to the polls and really love that Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley was out there dancing with people in line. It's those type of things that are really going to help with the go-go band that was playing. It's those type of things that really do help push, particularly during this election season, people to the polls in a much more comfortable way and understand that joy, hope and peace. And then really remembering those people who are not here to cast a ballot because of COVID and the lack of national leadership is utterly important. So I think we're seeing people follow that hashtag that you started

rolling some time ago, which is fire Trump in November. One of the things that we have been looking at, of course, is the issue of voter intimidation, voter suppression. I was in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago, Raleigh, North Carolina, where they had folks out there who specifically were looking out to make sure that wasn't taking place in various parts of the country. Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, of course, with repairs of the breach, NAACP joins us right now. Reverend Barber, you have been all across this country with the Poor People's Campaign. Y'all have been making sure that voters are protected, folks are not intimidated.

What have you seen today in your travels across the various cities? Well, we've actually done two reports today, Roland. Midday, I just finished one in the 10 states that we really drove that hunker down in. And yes, we have seen reports of intimidation. We've seen reports of long lines. We've seen polling places be changed. But what we have also seen, we trained about 5,000 people to be out in about 10 states around this country and to be monitoring. And the monitors have done a tremendous

job. The lawyers have done a tremendous job. And people are just not going anywhere, Roland. They're saying, we are going to vote. We are sick of this. We're tired of this. We're no longer going to be spectators. We're going to be active participants. And what has buoyed so many of our people, Roland, for instance, in Georgia last time, Trump's margin of victory was 210,000 people, 1,030,000 poor and low-wealth people didn't vote. So that means all we need this time is 20.5% of that to vote and change. In Maine, 140,000 was the margin of victory. Excuse me, the margin of victory was 20,000 votes. 140,000 poor and low-wealth people didn't vote, so that's only 16%.

In Michigan, the margin of victory was 10,000 votes. 980,000 poor and low-income eligible voters didn't vote. So all we need is 1%. In North Carolina, it was 170,000 vote margin of victory. 920,000 is the number of poor and low-income people that didn't vote. So we need 18.9% change to do that. And in Pennsylvania, 1.2 million poor and low-income voters didn't vote. The margin of victory was only 40 000 so we

just need 3.6 percent to overcome the margins last time when we began to put those numbers out there rolling people began to say wait a minute this is not this this is not even something that's that's unimaginable we we literally have the power. The problem is unleashing the power and using the power. And the numbers I just gave you, Rola, those are the people already registered, were already eligible, who didn't vote last time and the margin of victory. That's the level of metrics that we have been drilling down. That's why there's so much voter suppression. But that's also why people have had one thing this time, and that is voter dedication and voter commitment and the refusal to shrink back.

And of course, we have seen folks make it perfectly clear that they they they're not going to be intimidated. They're practicing, you know, again, as safe as possible. And what they say it clears, they don't like what they see in the kind of leadership in this country. No, that's people, you know, you and I have talked in your panel. It amazes me when some of the panelists on the TV and stuff are saying the South is in play. Oh, what is happening? The South has always been in play. We have not played for it. The South has been in play. The demographics have been there. Years ago, I think five, six years ago, a report came out that if you just registered 30 percent

of the unregistered black voters and they voted four or five southern states could change. What COVID has done in all of its ugliness and all of the ineptitude of the president, people are voting pain. They're voting their lives. So these little wedge issues like being against gay people and being for prayer in the school and abortions, people are not paying any attention to that. And that's forcing a new kind of coalition to come together of Black and white and brown and indigenous people, poor and low wealth,

who are voting for their very lives. Now, we're not going to see a total in every state, but we're seeing the beginnings of a new reconstructing of the political demographics in this country. And I believe we're going to see some major, I don't want, they're not surprises to us, but we're going to see some major transformation in places like Georgia, North Carolina, possibly Florida. So for all that, told that thought right there, folks, we're going to go to a break. Of course, on the radio break, this is this election night, 2020 Black Voters Matter on Roland example, I know that we are not covered adequately. I know that there are a few newspapers, for example, that focus on financial services issues who may write something about it. But the average media does not get it.

And our newspapers at home don't get it. Because we're talking about everything from derivatives, you know, to the Boca rule, and that's not sexy. And people don't get that. But, you know, when you have something like the Boca rule, what you're talking about is keeping these banks from taking the money that's deposited in them by the average worker and going out and gambling with it and trading,

you know, as these big banks do. You are working oftentimes on issues that deal with, you know, Wells Fargo, for example, to stop them from taking out accounts in individuals' names that don't even know that they're creating these accounts where they're trying to make their bank look as if it's growing so that they'll get

a lot more investments in it. So whether we're talking about dealing with the fraud that's perpetrated on the average person by some of the biggest banks and financial institutions in this country, or we're talking about the fiduciary rule that will stop, you know, investment advisors from taking advantage of the average person who wants to get some advice on their investments,

and instead of them directing them what's in their best interest, they're only looking for what's in their best interest and how much money they're going to make if they get you to invest in a certain product. That's not written about, and it's not going to make if they get you to invest in a certain product. That's not written about, and it's not going to be written about,

but we just have to do the work that needs to be done to protect people that need to be protected. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real, it's Roller Mark unfiltered, because guess what? The blackest show on all of digital, cable, and broadcast. See that name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered. Hello.

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All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. Election 2020, Black Voters Matter. We were talking with Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, who was on the phone. Let me pull in right now Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of Color of Change. Rashad, this has been a very, very busy political season. We've seen, folks, again, the type of voter suppression that we have been fighting against has been unbelievable. And so just talk about what that has meant, what black folks have been up against when it comes to Republicans and voter suppression. I mean, every single term what we've witnessed is is a whole set of changing of the rules.

We've we've watched sort of all the ways in which the infrastructure hasn't been funded. We've watched state legislatures change the rules of how they're going to count the ballots. We've watched them go into courts time and time again, all facing down sort of these ways in which how do they decrease the share of the Black vote? Because they know how powerful the Black vote is. You know, Roland, there's all of those things, some of which have been supercharged by technology. But many of those things are things that we've dealt with time and time again. But because of demographic change, Donald Trump knows that he actually can't win if we vote. And so but we're on top of those things.

We're also dealing with an unprecedented amount of misinformation and disinformation that is also voter suppression. And that is targeted through the social media platforms, through robocalls, all sorts of sort of attempts to both either make people feel like they shouldn't turn out, make people feel like they can turn out in ways that are not actually possible, all focused on shaving off a percentage of the Black vote so that we can once again have a president that doesn't have the majority of America's support. Reverend Dr. William Barber, y'all have been fighting that for the last decade in North Carolina. We are seeing the results of that this year, and also we're seeing it in Georgia.

This is what happens when, frankly, black folks say, we're not waiting on you, Democratic Party. We're going to create our own institutions to be able to get our own people out to fight back against these efforts. The reason Democrats right now have a six to one majority on the state Supreme Court is because of the efforts of Moral Mondays and NAACP and Democracy North Carolina, repairs of the breach and so many others. And not just black folks, but getting as broke white folks in uh north carolina understand that they are in this in the same boat as us exactly roland when when the legislature in our state in 2013 passed senate house bill 589 the worst voter suppression bill we've seen since um the shelver decision some say the worst since jim in some ways. We went to battle. The movement went to battle. Before the ink was dry on that bill, within 47 minutes, we filed suit. We didn't wait

on the party. We filed suit. More than 1,200 people were arrested in Mall Monday. We marched. We filed suit. We found pro bono lawyers. We went after them. They spent $6 million of our tax money to take our rights. And I want you to understand, Marnie, what your people should understand. They were trying to take away victories we had won in 27 that produced Obama. And they were trying to take away how we had extended same-day registration in Irvingville. We won that, and then they wanted to retrogress. This is the first election since then that we've been totally free. That's why you saw 17 days of early voting in North Carolina. That's why you saw long lines early. That's why the numbers are looking like they're looking. That's why we have five African-Americans leading the top of the

ticket. That's why we were able last time to remove a regressive Republican governor. That's why Tom Tillis is in trouble, because the movement decided to fight. We fought together. We went to court together. We registered voters together. And as I said just a minute ago, all we need in this state is just 18.9 percent of poor and low wealth people who didn't vote last time to vote this time, and they overcome the margin of victory that Trump had in the last case. People also forget, moreover, in 2016, we're the only southern state that beat Trump everything down ticket. Now, he won, but from the governor's office all the way down ticket, the movement won.

Rashad, talk about what y'all have also been able to build in the last three to four years with the Color of Change Political Action Committee. And again, what we talk about on this show constantly, mobilize, organize, mobilize, organize, not wait. Yes. But what we've been able to do is translate the energy of the issues to actual power on the ground. And 25,000 Color of Change members engaged in volunteer efforts through the Color of Change PAC, through the Voting While Black program, this election cycle.

We reached over 6.5 million voters, endorsed 45 candidates from district attorney all the way up to the top of the ticket. And we paired that with efforts really focusing. I heard you all talking earlier about joy. And we really centered our effort on Black joy, right, which is not the absence of pain, but the presence of aspiration, what we are fighting for. And so we, before the pandemic hit, we were bringing people together around Black women's brunches and doing trainings in local communities. And then when the pandemic hit, we did drive-in movies, Black Joy movies events. We've got people on text and phones and other sort of engagement, but constantly connecting the issues that we have been working on 365 days a year to the importance of voting. Not separating those two things, not talking about voting over here and issues over

there, but making sure people recognize that their ability to actually get the things that we want was going to be tied to voting, but also once again tied to our efforts to hold folks accountable. We didn't focus on electing a messiah either. And I think that this is really important. And a lot of the work we had to do around disinformation and misinformation, we had to really focus on what will it take to get someone in office who we can hold accountable, who's going to be the best bet to hold accountable for the issues that we want. And, you know, I am just so incredibly excited because this does come from 16, when we really started this district attorney work. And so I know we're going to be focusing a lot on the presidency, but we should also recognize the power of racial justice in

this country that is beginning to reshape the prosecutor's offices in cities around this country from Philadelphia to Chicago to Houston and so much else where we have sort of more power to hold these folks accountable than we ever did before. We're watching as they are implementing policies and we're holding them accountable in places like St. Louis, where we saw the lack of power during the uprisings around Ferguson. And this is absolutely connected as well to the spirit of the Black Lives Matter movement, to what it means to be able to constantly build, build leadership, build infrastructure, build demands, connect with the brilliance of Reverend

Barber and the leaders in North Carolina, the brilliance of folks like Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza and so many others. And what we tried to do at Color of Change is build that data and tech infrastructure, pairing it also with a level of corporate and political accountability. And so, you know, we're hearing a lot right now about the high turnout. And I also want to make sure that we continue to recognize that this is not going to be a win for democracy if we win. Because democracy doesn't work if we have to stand in five-hour lines. Democracy isn't working if at every single turn our vote is suppressed.

We're going to have to continue to push the efforts to ensure that all of our votes count and we don't continue to have these barriers to our participation regardless of what happens in this election cycle. Because think about how much more we can win if we actually do not have these barriers standing in our way to participate. And we actually have the ability to put people up and down the ticket in office that will sort of meet the demands of this moment in our movement. Reverend Barber, one of the points that Rashad just made, that is no,iah. You and I have talked many times that when we focus on issues, then we get away from, well, I'm in love with this person. I'm in love with this person. I like this person.

No, it forces people to say, hey, look at what they say they're going to do on the issues. And then we're able to communicate that and get people to say, oh, now I get it. Again, get off people, focus on issues. Yeah, we call our campaign, we must do more, mobilizing, organizing, registering people for the movement who vote.

And for the movement means we look at who can either get us living wages or who can we push to vote for living wages? Who can get us health care or who can we push to make sure everybody has health care? Who do we know by their position that will deal with environmental injustice that's killing our people, or who can we push? We go straight down the line, and we look at who is going to do it straight out, or who can we push to do it.

And that's where you have to focus. That is not about making a messiah. In essence, the people are their own messiah because they push issues. The other thing we've done, Roland, in this campaign is we've been working hard across the country, but in 10 states, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas. Now, you hear some of those. Some people say, well, why were you doing those? Because they're not battleground states.

Well, see, we believe battleground is where you battle. And we're not just fighting in this election for the states we're going to win this time, but for the states we're going to win next time. So we did two million peer-to-peer calls, Texas, to poor, low-wealth, infrequent voters. Twenty percent of those we got to vote early. We've gone back to push the rest of them out for Election Day. We are being told that that was a strong number. But you're right. It's not about Messiah.

It is about the issues. And people are ready for a grown-up vote on the issues. They are tired of just people. They are voting on the issues that we face. And if you can't deal with the issues now in the midst of COVID, when are you going to deal with the issues? That's what COVID is forcing us to do is look at the issues. And that's what's driving people to the polls because they're recognizing my vote is literally to my life. My daughter said it like this, Roland, the other day.

She said, Daddy, we have to get people out because they are killing us. And then she said, no, they may kill me because she has a pre-existing condition. And she said, how in the world can we not vote when there's a group of people that would put one woman on the Supreme Court but will not pass the stimulus to keep tens of thousands out of a casket? That's real for people. That's real for people. And that's why we have to deal with the issues and not just the messiahs. Reverend William J. Barber, we certainly appreciate it, sir. Thank you so very much for joining us. Thank you. God bless you. I want to pull in Dr. Greg Carr. Greg, we talk about voter suppression. Here's a perfect example right here. Go to my iPad, Henry. A federal judge here in Washington, D.C., ordered the U.S. Postal Service to sweep all of their locations for ballots to make sure they get delivered.

The USPS disregards the court order. This is the headline of the Washington Post. USPS disregards court order to conduct sweeps in 12 postal districts after more than 300,000 ballots can't be traced. I'm trying to understand, Greg, you just get to ignore a federal judge? Well, this is where we are right now, Roland, and this is high-end intellectual warfare. And Emmett Sullivan, we know the brother at the United States District Court, I read his order and the filings that have come after. Emmett Sullivan told them about three today, Central Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Detroit, Colorado, Wyoming, Houston, Alabama, South Carolina, South Florida, Lakeland, Arizona. These were some of the places he said, sweep them. They, I read the filing of their response.

They basically like, well, these inspectors are on the ground. We're not going to make the deadline. It's a little snippy response. And what the plaintiffs then came back with was, Sullivan, you need to now hold their feet to the fire and ask them why they're not compliant. But what Sullivan's response was in the last filing that I read tonight was that they assured me that it'll be done between eight and 10 o'clock tonight. And so therefore, I'm not going to go back into this except what they've scheduled on the court docket for noon tomorrow is the post office now has to show up in front of Judge Sullivan and explain they noncomplaint. This is intellectual warfare. Sullivan, let's be very clear about this.

And by the way, as you said, there are some polling places that are still open. For example, at 9 o'clock tonight, Arizona, Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, in Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota, you've got same-day voter registration. So some of y'all listening, get out there. If you haven't already there, take your photo ID, find out what's needed to do, and get in that line. But what we see is the Supreme Court and the federal courts, we saw what happened in your hometown in Houston, Harris County. The Republicans are going in federal court. They're going to try to stop that 147,000 drive-in vote that came into Harris County in early voting. We see what's happening in Pennsylvania. We saw Samuel Alito, with a wink and a nod, basically tell the Republicans to come back after the election, and we'll get these segregated ballots that come in after the third

and see if we can't get them thrown out. And mind you, three of the lawyers who helped George Bush in Bush v. Gore are now Supreme Court justices, including Amy Comey Barrett, who actually argued to validate mail-in ballots when she went down to Florida and the mail-in was Republican ballots. What we are engaged in finally right now is full-scale intellectual warfare. While the other coverage is talking about horse races and exit polls, we, and now thank you, Roland, for having this platform for us. We can be about the serious business of following along with what Reverend Barber has just said.

We've got to overflow the ballot box in the places where the polls are still open and bust them out. So it isn't close enough for them to enact their real strategy, which is to steal this election in the courts. I'm going to go to Risi just one second. Rashad Robinson, that particular point. Greg talked about warfare. 2017, I was on my show News 1 Now. I literally did a commentary on Tom Jones as well, where I said, this means war. And I got a phone call from the CEO, Alfred Liggins, and it was shocked that I would use that language saying, you know, we can't go to war against Trump. This is what I was talking about. This is what I was talking about. When you're dealing with a person who has no bottom, who has no morals, no values, no ethics, no principles.

And when the Postal Service defies a federal judge, it reminds me when the Commerce Department said to a federal judge, no, no, no, we're not. We're going to stop counting. I know you order us to continue counting. And she made it perfectly clear. Wilbur Ross, I will hold you in contempt. Then they backed off. But this administration has defied judges consistently, yet Donald Trump is appealing to judges to basically bail out his presidency.

This is the type of win at all costs we're seeing from Republicans, and Democrats got to understand this is this is a naked grab for power. They don't care. Well, you know, what's really clear here is that no one should be surprised. This is how Donald Trump started his campaign. And this is how Donald Trump is going to end his his time on the stage, regardless of when and how he ends. From the very beginning, Donald Trump was a change-the-rules candidate. And that means that all of the conventions, the sort of ideas of a referee in the back, the ideas of sort of the ways in which the system works, get thrown out the window, right? We may have disagreed

with the politics of a previous housing and urban development secretary, but at least we knew that they knew something about housing and urban development. We are in this position right now because I do think that there were a lot of enablers time and time again that believed that they could just work inside the system with Donald Trump, that Donald Trump would become sort of a president and operate inside the rules when his whole candidacy was about disrupting the system. But now that we have seen it, I hope that regardless of what comes out of this election, we, he could be selling foreign secret U.S. secrets to foreign actors. He could be leveraging what he knows for his own sort of economic economic gain. We have to think about all of the ways in which he will continue to delegitimize this country,

because at the end of the day, it is all about him and his family. And a man who will put his name on every single thing is a man who will only will continue to put his name on every single thing if we let him. And so what we're going to have to continue to do is to recognize that we also have to know that we have to change the rules, that the rules that have been set up, whether it's the rules of democracy, like the electoral college, whether it's the rules that have been set up around how our voting works in this country, we have to have a stronger vision for the future. And so, yes, there are going to be those of us in the future that have to learn how to mediate. There are going to be those of us that are going to continue to fight. We have to constantly find

ways to win. But like what we have done at Color of Change and what many organizations in the movement for Black Lives and other places have done is that we have to build as well. And we have to start working towards the aspirational future that we want, figuring out the ways that we continue to hold corporations accountable and also have a vision for how we rework an economy that will not work in its current structure and all the ways in which capitalism hurts and harms us and how Donald Trump has used those tools to further enablers to get the things done that he wants to get done. What's happening right now is that that's where we're in. I think we have an opportunity to make real change. And I hope that folks learn the lesson that we can't expect a referee to come and save us. We have to save ourselves.

Rashad Robertson, Call of Change. We truly appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Always good to be with you. Reesey Colbert, I want to go to you right now. First of all, folks, there are some states that have been called. West Virginia has been called for Donald Trump. Kentucky has been called for Donald Trump. And Vermont has been called for Joe Biden. So that's why you see there with three electoral college votes for Joe Biden, 11 for Donald Trump. Also, one of the local races, we featured this woman on our show. Remember, Aramis Ayala was the first African-American elected statewide in Florida as a state's attorney. She chose not to seek reelection because how she

was targeted by people when she chose to not prosecute death penalty cases. Well, Monique Worrell won the Democratic primary. She is actually right now 500,000 votes have been cast in her DA's race. She is a progressive DA. And of course, she right now is leading 69 percent to 31 percent in that race as well. And so we may very well have the second African-American elected as a state's attorney in Florida following Aramis Ayala just four years ago. Recy, we're talking about the issue of voter suppression and how Republicans have been targeting folks across this country. We're talking about when you talk about the lawsuits in Texas, where the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last night denied the motion for the folks that had no standing. Again, you see them

trying to stop curbside voting. You see them trying to stop drive-through voting. You see what happened in Minnesota. I mean, there has been an all-out assault by Donald Trump, the Republican Party, the lawyers, and Republican attorney generals across this country to shave as many votes as possible. In 2016, Donald Trump got 46 percent of the vote. His numbers polling-wise have not gone above that. He needs the race to be lower than 50 percent to give him a chance at winning. And that has been their strategy for the last, really for the last three years since he was elected in 2016. And we've seen it play out. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even in Harris County,

even though the 5th District Court denied the motion from the Republicans to stop drive-in voting, Chris Holland still made a concession, which is an understandable concession because the court challenges may still come about, to limit the number of drive-in voting sites to just the Toyota Center. So I think about eight other sites were shut down. Nine, actually, nine out of 10, because with the judge rule, the judge rule, they had these drive-through locations. There were tents erected.

What he said is it did not qualify as a building. And so just to be safe, not to have any of those ballots invalidated, if they chose to keep taking this all the way to the Supreme Court, he said, we'll close it down, we'll leave the Toyota Center open because that is a building. Right, absolutely. And so, I mean, I think that it's important that Democrats are trying to play it as smart as possible. I think that a lot of the voter suppression and the blatant voter suppression tactics that Republicans have taken have backfired because people have made it an extra effort to put on a mask and go to the polls and vote early.

That's why we're seeing less, you know, issues in Atlanta or Georgia, for instance. But, I mean, the battle is not over. I mean, I'm concerned that the Supreme Court has kind of held their fire on a couple of court cases and granting or siding with, I hate to say that, siding with Democrats, siding with democracy and voting rights, but they have kind of withheld the option to go back. And so if we don't get this election out of stealing distance, then they have an opportunity. I don't think that the Supreme Court is going to just flush their credibility down the toilet by stealing hundreds of thousands or millions of votes. But if it is close, like I say, what we had in Florida in 2000 with Al Gore versus Bush, then I'm very concerned

about the makeup of the courts. First of all, you got way more faith in them than I do because we saw exactly what they did in 2000. And in fact, that decision, Greg, was supposed to be solely about Bush v. Gore. But you saw Kavanaugh actually quote that decision. That was not going to be some standalone decision as if no future case could be impacted. And keep in mind, you've had twice already where you've had Democrats get more votes than Republican. Republicans, George W. Bush, as well as Donald Trump, they got the presidency. This is about power, Greg, power. It is. It is, brother. And I'm glad you had Reverend Barber on. I came here directly from class at Howard, our freshman seminar,

and the Howard Institute on Public Opinion, our colleagues who are doing that work there, Terry Adams and others, we met with the freshmen and talked about this. And it's a great deal of anxiety. And a couple of young people who are from North Carolina, first-time voters who are there because, of course, the pandemic has all these young people at home, expressed real anxiety about the possibilities of the Democrats losing North Carolina. And in fact, what we see in the courts, and you mentioned Kavanaugh in Wisconsin and North Carolina, his opinion was so sloppy. I mean, it would have made an eighth grader blush in terms of the mistakes he made, the mistakes he made about the Wisconsin Secretary of State and so forth. But

to your point directly, Roland, he cited Bush v. Gore. Now, as best as I can remember in terms of cases, only Clarence Thomas has fiddled around with trying to cite his president before, but Kavanaugh has tipped his hand, his naked partisanship, and Sam Alito cited Bush versus Palm County in his order or his statement about the Pennsylvania vote. So it is clear that they are going to go against generation of precedent in interpreting what will allow them to interfere in state Supreme Court decisions. And what they're doing is splitting hairs around the nature of what the word legislature means.

Until these rulings, it has been pretty settled in statutory interpretation, in the federal constitution, mind you, that legislatures include all three branches of the government at the state level. But what Alito is doing is splitting hairs between the elected state legislature and the state court. He says that in his opinion. And Kavanaugh was so sloppy, I don't know whether he was drinking some of that beer he loves so much as he talked about in his confirmations, but he was so sloppy that the Supreme Court had to take down

the opinion and make the corrections and put it back up. So again, there are states where the polls have not closed. Do not allow this to be close enough. As Reese has just said, don't put it close enough for them to steal. They have to be busted out. And finally, I'll say this, because I know the returns are coming in. As the horse races are being discussed in commercial entertainment media with zero precincts polling and they're projecting based on exit polls and things like this. If either Florida or Texas flip, it's going to be an early night for Biden here. But right now, we're all holding our breath because if it isn't an early night, this thing could stretch on for a very long time. Again, what we're looking at, we're looking at various results that are coming in. Of course, you see you see the Victoria College number changing there.

Other states are being called. What we are paying close attention to is the state of Florida. There were polls that were showing that Joe Biden was leading in Florida. But, of course, that's polling. It's not actual votes. Donald Trump was pushing for a significant turnout on Election Day. A lot of his folks were not voting absentee and were not voting early. They were going to coming out today. Keep in mind, you saw massive turnout in Republican counties when Andrew Gillum ran against Ron DeSantis in 2018. And there were big numbers, retired older white voters in those Republican counties turning out in significant

numbers. That's the thing, Erica. Again, folks are looking at that. Some are saying it looks like Trump will win Florida. We don't know. We're looking at various counties, things along those lines. Folks, again, there were a lot of people who were saying, hey, if he wins Florida, this whole thing is over. But Florida was always in Donald Trump's favor. If you look at Miami-Dade, look, significant, significant support from Cuban-Americans, also Venezuelans there in Miami-Dade. Look, significant, significant support from Cuban-Americans, also Venezuelans there in Miami-Dade. They also got to remember, Erica, in June, Latinos were saying to Joe Biden, you got to do more. A lot of these people actually left the campaign. I heard, I talked to others who said they were not being aggressive going after Puerto Rican voters as well. And so we're examining

to see what happens there. Florida has not been called, but we're still looking at what's happening there. Erica, this is why we emphasize you've got to put the work in. Every vote counts. You can't just simply sit back and think folks are going to turn out. You've got to go after them.

Again, those older white voters, those hardcore Republicans, they're going to be there for Trump. That's his base. That's what he was appealing to. And that's what you're seeing. And look, Michael Bloomberg dropped $100 million in Florida to help Joe Biden. We'll see if that paid off. Yeah, Roland. And I can remember working on a congressional campaign in 2016 and actually going to different precincts to get the vote count, right? And I knew that there was going to be some issue, particularly at the top of the ticket, when I started seeing these nursing home

vans loaded up with older white people that were bringing them to the polls. And when I saw that in districts that, you know, were predominantly black, but perhaps there's a facility that's connected or within that district that they brought those people out. So that is why, and we talked about this the other week, the whole pattern of having to get out the vote measures within the black communities happened two to three weeks right before an election. That's played. And we can see that now. former minority leader Stacey Abrams did back in the 2013 time frame, where she and the new Georgia Project, that group went across the state and registered voters. And now we can see, leading up to her 2018 gubernatorial run, where that came in handy and then again in 2020. So it's about registering people. It's about keeping people engaged. It is about

talking to people. Because when you do this, and it happens five days a week on Roland Martin and Filter, where the dots are connected, where people are just concentrating on the national politics, but also seeing how the local and state politics wed into what we see on the federal level. And so the more people are courted, the more people are engaged, the more information people are given, not just right before an election, but year round, you can rest assured that that voter's gonna get engaged.

I'm still getting emails, one just from Biden-Harris DC group, where they're asking, listen, can you make 20, 30 calls? Because the polls don't close until nine o'clock. And some of these efforts would not be as laborious if Democrats, and I'll say this because that's really, I'm a Democrat, and that's really kind of where we see the deficiencies, particularly what we're talking about tonight. If they really invested in their constituency, and you talked about the Latinx group, We've been seeing data that has been showing us well in advance of this election that you have Hispanic men and women where there are really strong percentages in their votes and leanings for Trump. so dedicated engagement with that community, well, there's not really anything that's going

to change. It'll stay the same, particularly if people are coming out of the settings where a regime was something that they were used to. And they see that as not problematic and not saying that that is, you know, that particular community, but it's communities that come to the United States all across the board. So the bottom line is, is that if there is not any other lesson that Democrats get from out of this, it is that you have to engage your big tent and those constituencies throughout the year, not just right before midterm or general election,

but then also make sure that they understand that those races do impact down the ballot as well. Hold tight one second, folks. Got to go to a break. We'll be back. Roland Martin, Unfiltered, Election Night 2020. Back in a moment. First of all, such a young person represents the United States of America.

And it's conventional culture. That's what I've heard all my life. In the 40s, in the 50s, in the 60s, in the 70s, and today. But they better begin to recognize that you cannot overcome the forces of Trumpism by imitating Trumpism in language or in behavior or in vision. You cannot do eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth with Trump

and expect you're going to get rid of him. The forces of wickedness that Trump produced are now on the rise in Europe as well as in the United States. So we should not be surprised if Trump is maybe only the first president of this caliber, of this kind of meanness, of this kind of power, hungriness, it could happen. And I do not see national political voices who recognize the simple fact Trump can only be defeated by a vision

and a movement that does not act like Trump, but acts like people who know that they are alive and that love and truth are the ways that we best exemplify our humanity and the gift of life. It's time to be smart. When we control our institutions, we win. This is the most important news show on television

of any racial background. Y'all put two, three, four, five, 10, 15, 20, $30 on this and any racial background. Y'all put $2, $3, $4, $5, $10, $15, $20, $30 on this and keep this going. What you've done, Roland, since this crisis came out in full bloom. Anybody watching this, tell your friends, go back and look at the last two weeks, especially of Roland Martin and Filkey.

I mean, hell, go back and look at the last two days. You've had sitting United States senators today, Klobuchar and Harris. Whatever you have. All right, folks, welcome back to Welcome Back to Roland Martin Unfiltered, our coverage here of Election 2020 Black Voters Matter. About 15 minutes ago, the Associated Press, they called, they called the election in Virginia for Joe Biden. They called for Joe Biden. So we are monitoring that. That's why the clock, the numbers, they are changing. And so, again, you're seeing the results that are coming in.

The big one we're looking for, waiting to see what happens in Florida. Also looking to see what happens in North Carolina. There were some issues that took place today in Georgia, where a water pipe burst, where ballots were being counted in Fulton, in Fulton, Georgia. So we're watching that as well. And so again, we're looking at all those results all across the country. Joining us right now is the mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas. He joins us, of course, from Little Rock. How you doing, Mayor Frank Scott? How you doing, Mayor Frank Scott?

I'm doing very well. How you doing today, Ron? Doing great. First of all, as we look at what's happening with various election results, one of the races we're looking at there is a hotly contested congressional race in your state, right there in Little Rock as well. And so what have you been seeing, sensing from folks on this during this election season there in Arkansas? Well, during this election season, we've seen a tremendous, maybe even historic amount of early voting turnout as well as absentee. I definitely want to take time to recognize Madam Clerk Terry Hollingsworth, who we were able to partner with to have a drive through early ballot return process during the early voting process.

And so we're extremely excited about that. So far today, we believe we've had somewhere around 120,000 in Pulaski County, which is a major county within the second congressional district. So we're expecting historic returns from an early voting standpoint and still waiting to see what the numbers look like for today's vote. We would talk about, again, these results. I mean, look, one of the things that you often hear people say is that there are very few states that are really in play. Bottom line is your state, Arkansas, people will say automatically red state versus compared to a blue state as well. And so what do you think it will take for Arkansas to become a competitive state? A competitive state. Well, I think many people have to understand that Arkansas was virtually purple, if not

blue, some 10 years ago. At that particular point in time, back in 2010, 2008 era, you had a governor by the name of Governor Mike Beebe and all the congressional districts were Democrat. So it's not too far off. Things did change around the 2010 area. And so now when you have candidates that are going up and down the ballot here in the state of Arkansas that are being very competitive, and when you see this type of tenacity and voter engagement that you've seen from the Biden-Harris campaign, it's definitely something that you may

see down the road that we get back to purple. Mayor, last question here for you. Again, we're looking at what it's going to come down to. More than likely, it will come down to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina. Looks like Florida is trending for Donald Trump. We're waiting to see what happens in Georgia as well. And so, again, one of the things that we keep trying to lay out to people is turnout, turnout, turnout. That's what matters. No, you're totally right. Turnout is all about it.

And so it's a different type of turnout with the COVID-19 pandemic. However, what you're seeing is a lot of people who understand what GOTV is. And so instead of just knocking on doors, it's now door hangers. But people are still touching people and really having a sense of a voter engagement and voter impact. And so turnout is the name of the game. And that's going to be what really makes the decisions for tonight. Scott, we really appreciate it. Thank you so very much for joining us on Roller Mark Unfiltered. Roller Mark Unfiltered. Thank you so much. Thanks a bunch. Let's go down to Shereen Mitchell, who is a digital specialist. She's been examining all throughout this campaign, digital voter suppression. Thank you so much. Joe Biden. People said, oh, first of all, pick Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders because socialism. Well, hell, they call Joe Biden a socialist anyway. Give us a sense what you've been seeing,

how digital voter suppression has had an impact on this election season. Yeah. So, I mean, from an overall perspective, we've been watching this entire year. And just just FYI, the reason is because we knew that there were going to be different types of impact. And so what we've seen recently actually is really important is that we saw a huge target on Philadelphia. And that's important right now because at the end of the day, we knew that the key states was Philadelphia, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And as we started looking at what was going to happen on the ground, we saw some of these same things happening. And one of those things is that we've seen a concerted effort that was targeting Black voters in Philadelphia, basically saying that Philadelphians is going to, quote unquote, you know, manipulate the vote. This was something that was already being planned.

This is not new. We've been watching different versions of using mail-in ballots and others that were targeting certain communities, our community specifically. We also saw just what you just talked about, the ways in which they were using socialism against the Latino vote. So these are key things that we've been monitoring all this time, and we're still seeing a lot of that sort of bubble up right now on this day. We also a robocalls going out to various African-Americans saying don't vote today, vote tomorrow. Jason Johnson also sent a text out where somebody tapped into the Biden app telling folks stop campaign today as well. Yes, exactly. That was that would be a great example, because what one of these examples is that people don't realize is that a lot of this disinformation is actually happening more during more private environments, which is text messaging. So yes, what Jason talked about is exactly the kind of thing, and the app was used to do that.

So it's not just that particular app. There's WhatsApp and others who have been targeting voters, basically trying to get them not to, you know, and the same thing is happening. They're basically trying to get them not to vote for Biden or Harris. Like that part has not changed. The targeting is to target Democratic voters. The other side of this conversation is not the conversation we had, we're having, because I've said this from the start. Everything has been focused on deterrence, on Black voters and voters of color. And so any way a message that they can send to them to not show up to vote, not to support the Democratic candidate, even even in January before they knew the nominee was something that we have been tracking this entire time. So we're seeing a lot of that still happen today. We've been monitoring all day. We've been monitoring for a couple of days, monitoring for a couple of days.

And we plan to be monitoring after this when we not when we see whatever the election outcomes will be tonight. Because unless there is going to be, which we've already prepared for, without question, what the outcome is going to be, we're going to see disinformation that's going to happen in the next couple of days. Shereen, hold tight one second. I'm going to come back after this. Folks, let's take a quick pause for Station ID on the Black Information Network. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. Of course, we're simulcasting our coverage here of Election 2020 Black Voters Matter on iHeartRadio's Black Information Network. South Carolina is being called by the Associated Press for Donald Trump.

We're waiting to see the race. We're looking there. That was never in doubt. We're waiting to see what happens in the South Carolina Senate race between Jamie Harrison and incumbent Lindsey Graham. Votes are coming in all across the country. It is now 8 p.m. Eastern and also polling locations are closing on the East Coast, but also in areas in Florida, but also in the central time zone. Those locations are closing. Guys, pull up the graphic of those states where polls are closing at this hour. It is exactly eight o'clock. I want to show you polls are closing. And so now they're closing. You're going to start seeing the results coming in different places, Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia. Again, those Florida polls that are Central Standard Time Zone, Illinois, Kansas, Maine,

Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, as well as Washington State. Those are closing. Also, there are some places in Arkansas. First of all, Arkansas, the polls close there at 8.30 p.m. Eastern, 7.30 p.m. Central. Our panel is doing a reset here. Our panel is Dr. Greg Carr, Chair, Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University. Also, Monique Presley joins us, Crisis Manager, Legal Analyst, and of course, Erica Savage-Wilson, Savage Politics Podcast.

Shereen Mitchell, she is a digital specialist. Shereen, final comment again. I was talking about those robocalls that were going out. FBI, they're investigating that. We saw that happen a few weeks ago where two Republican operatives, Jacob Wohl, as well as, I forgot the other guy, Jack Berkman, where they actually have been indicted because of those robocalls. Again, we have seen these tactics and they always seem to be targeting African-Americans trying to stop us from voting. Yes, absolutely. One hundred percent. And remember this. I mean, this is the most important part.

I repeat it again. We put out the first report that said Russia came after our votes overwhelmingly than any other group without fail. However, we now know because of what Channel 4 from the U.K. has discovered that even the Trump campaign did the same thing with their Project Alamo campaign. So this is not different. They did not change their tactics. Neither did Russia. Neither did them. And so we have watched other versions of these types of targeting of Black voters. And we're watching it daily. And again, we're tracking it as they're constantly targeting Black voters to try to

convince them not to vote or to manipulate their vote. So the concept of deterrence, which was the words that we use, that's what we call digital voter suppression. It's not deterrence. It's voter suppression. If there's a digital form of it, it's the ways in which they're sending their messages, the ways in which they're putting messages out, the way in which they're manipulating information, trying to make it difficult

for Black voters to not only vote, but make them want to not show up to vote in some instances. In other instances, manipulating places that they should go voting. Some of the robocalls were telling people different times, again, to when to show up to vote and what polling places to show up to. We already have those physical aspects where polling places that we know are, or certain states are removing drop boxes along the line, but we're also watching people show images of people putting their votes into

drop boxes and saying that that's voter suppression. So we have a multiple-tiered aspect that we have been tracking. We've looked at videos of this. We're also watching another aspect, which I need people to understand. It's like these so-called potential poll watchers that these folks are now trying to deploy to black polling places. These quote-unquote poll watchers are trying to so to black polling places. These quote unquote poll watchers are trying to so-called deter what they think is happening in black polling places. Those are part

of the same thing. We've seen videos of this. We've seen images of this. And this goes along the same thing about this disinformation that arrived around these trucks that were following the Biden bus, right? The messaging I just saw, you know, other people trying to share was like, oh, they were helping the bus. No, they were not. They were basically harassing that bus, right? The messaging I just saw, you know, other people trying to share was like, oh, they were helping the bus. No, they were not. They were basically harassing that bus, trying to run it off the road, trying to run other cars off the road. But I've seen multiple images that try to give

a depiction of a different version of that story. And by the way, the guy who was driving that black truck, he actually posted on Facebook or in other social media what he was doing. So the fact that we still have people that will believe that this was something good happening as they were tracking and targeting and harassing the Biden bus, this disinformation,

i.e. this imagery, these false videos, they basically tried to give a different picture of what was actually going on. These are the key pieces of what we track and why this is important, because these things are particularly targeting Black and brown people, and many of these platforms are not taking down this disinformation. That is the key piece to what we're dealing with. They shut down hashtags on IG. Facebook did this.

But they were doing it as their deterrence for disinformation. And what they were doing at the same time was stopping the get out the vote hashtag as if these two things were equal. And we are fundamentally not having the same conversations about digital voter suppressions because even these platforms are responding very differently to the disinformation targeting black and brown voters versus the black and brown voters that are trying to get others out to vote. And their voices are being silent. These are not equal. All right, Shereen Mitchell, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you for having me again. Folks, another state that just came in, Oklahoma, a typical red state for Donald Trump. And so that's why you see the column there, 3316. Henry, go to my iPad here. Folks, I'm on the website 270towin.com. And what you'll see here is, again, I was just sitting here playing around here with the map. And so you see what I've done here. You see how I've made Arizona

a red state. Let's just sort of say I leave Arizona a brown, sort of in that column. Texas, we'll see what happens in Texas. We will assume Texas goes red. Let's just say we make Texas red here. And then we then look. So what you're seeing right here, folks, really is the critical states that we're determining. Look at the top. You look at these projections, OK, Biden 256, Trump 213 or 259. So you see when I play around with the map here,

you see Pennsylvania. I'm purposely not putting that in North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona. If you take Texas off the map, essentially, folks, this election, what I've done here, I've given Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan to Joe Biden. I've given Ohio to Donald Trump. And I purposely did that. So what this comes down to right now, folks, are really going to be these four states. These four states will determine if Florida is off the map for Trump, if Texas is off the map for Trump, it comes down to these four states. Now, if you look up here, the numbers you see Biden at two fifty nine. This is just based upon this number here. If I go ahead and make North Carolina blue folks, that gives him two seventy one. That gives him two seventy one. So that takes him over. But let's just take North Carolina back off.

OK, if I give him Pennsylvania, if I make Pennsylvania blue, that puts them off as well. So come right back to me, Henry. And so what is so what you're seeing here, folks, you're seeing exactly how the map plays out there. I want to go to Monique Presley. It always happens when we talk about battleground states, how things fall. And the reality is when we look at this election, it really came to where did you see the competitive balance? It was it was Arizona. It was Texas. It was Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. Those were the key states there. That's why so much attention was being on those areas. And that's what we're looking at. And the reality is, of course, Donald Trump won North Carolina. First of all, Obama won North Carolina in 2008.

And they lost, Democrats lost in 2012 and 2016. They lost Ohio in 2016. Many of those blue collar white workers going for Donald Trump because his opposition to NAFTA. You look at Georgia, a lot of, a lot has changed in Georgia. They had huge success in early voting. The question is, will those white voters in rural Georgia come out for Donald Trump on election day to vault them past the lead the Democrats built up? And so that's really, frankly, we're just pretty much waiting over the next five to seven hours, really, on these four states. Absolutely. And it's a numbers game. And I think out of all of the ones that you named, we are basically what you just explained is if we get a declarative on

any one of those for Biden, because Biden has a lot of options tonight. Trump needs all of them tonight. So if one falls, then we can expect to be able to know who our next president is sooner rather than later. And so I would just encourage people, because I'm getting a lot of tweets, a lot of texts. People are nervous. People are anxious. And I'm saying don't be anxious when red states go red, especially small ones that don't matter. That's expected. The math is still the math. The map is still the map. And we know who turned out for early voting in ridiculous numbers. And thank God those numbers are still going to have to count. I'm sitting here again as we're looking at, and just so people understand,

so if you go back to the map here, Henry, let's say Joe Biden wins Arizona, okay? That still gets him to 267. He still has to win one of those other states, Georgia, North Carolina, or Pennsylvania. So we're just studying all of that. And so this is, it always comes down to a numbers game. And Greg, frankly, what you're looking at is the appeal to, look, white voters. Now, a multiracial coalition in Georgia, North Carolina, but frankly, when you're talking about Pennsylvania, when you're talking about Ohio, Donald Trump is hoping, again, white voters,

and we hear all the time outside of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in the suburbs, Pennsylvania is Alabama. You hear that all the time. And so another election where these white mid-Russian voters are dictating really who's going to be the next president of the United States. Absolutely. I mean, we are on the verge of a structural transformation in this country. If by some miracle Donald Trump wins tonight, the people who are in the coalition against white nationalism are not going to tolerate four more years of intensified white nationalism. And so either way this election goes tonight, there's going to be a transformation. There's going to be, as you might say, Roland, as you've been saying, a reckoning. I mean, we're looking at Ohio, for example.

About a third of the vote has been counted. You're looking at Joe Biden leading, roughly speaking, 60% to 40%. That's exactly what Monique just said. That's that early voting that does count. And in Ohio, the state rule is they have up until November the 13th to count

ballots that are postmarked before today. So we won't know. We won't. We might not know in Ohio for a very long time. In Fulton County, apparently a pipe just busted at the State Farm arena where the Hawks played and they had to stop counting the ballot. But we know in Georgia that that coalition could very well not only send John Ossoff and Reverend Warren to the Senate, but it could actually flip for Trump. But, you know, we are facing a moment now where the Republican Party has become the white nationalist party. Now, sure, there's an odd Byron Donalds, who apparently won the Florida 19th tonight, says there's going to be at least one Negro in the House of Representatives on the GOP side.

But the simple fact of the matter is that Donald John Trump and the white nationalist party have made this a primal scream to rally the troops around white nationalism. And whoever wins tonight, that's not going away. All right, folks, just a moment. I'm going to go to Black Lives Matter Plaza here in Washington, D.C., where reporter Ashley Banks, she is there. Folks have been gathering there for the past few hours. We showed you some video earlier. Folks there. Folks, let me know when we're ready to go to Ashley for her report from Black Lives Matter Plaza.

We have been seeing all sorts of, again, activity across the country. We're going to be hearing this hour from Christian Clark, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. If there are any voting issues at your polling location, please call 1-866-OUR-VOTE, 1-866-OUR-VOTE. But joining us right now is Barbara Arnwine, founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition. Barbara, glad to have you on Roller Martin Unfiltered as we break down this election coverage here in 2020, Black Voters Matter. This has been, we've been looking at, again, the kind of battles going on,

voter intimidation from Trump supporters. We've been looking at, of course, the fights in the courts as well. I mean, our democracy is really under assault by one party in order to hold on to power. We don't hear you, Barbara. I think, Barbara, are you on mute? Barbara, Barbara, hold on. Make sure you're not on mute. OK, we can't hear you. All right, guys, let me know. We can hear Barbara. Nope. I can't, I can't hear Barbara just yet. So let me know. We can hear Barbara. And then so we'll, we'll hear from, we'll hear from her in

a second. Right, right now, Erica, Erica, I want to pull you up as, again, as I talked about with these, these basically four or five states, we're really watching Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. That's really what we're looking at in terms of what's going to stop this election, the presidential election. Absolutely, Roland, and this goes in back into the narrative when people kind of repeat the trope or a false talking point that their votes don't matter. Their votes, in fact, do matter. And particularly looking at these states, when you especially look at Wisconsin, when you look at Michigan and you look at Pennsylvania, where the narrative keeps going on about how the son of a Klansman won those states by razor-thin margins, but he won effectively those states through active and successful voter suppression. So to Monique's point about the early vote, how we turned up in

strong numbers, that that is already baked into the equation. And then you had people that voted on Election Day, notwithstanding the absentee ballot, really does tee up what we're very hopeful for an early night tonight, particularly with one hundred and one million Americans early voting. Hold tight one second, folks. This is election night. Twenty twenty black voters matter on Roland Martin unfiltered and the Black Information Network. We'll be right back. and showing unity because I put together a plan. This guy named Louis, Louis McKenzie. He was the first person I told. I woke up, I said, Louis. Then they got this Million Man March,

and we not going to be a part of it. We can't be a part of it. But we got to show some type of solidarity. I said, man, I don't want nobody black to go in that cafeteria. On that day, October 16th, I don't want nobody in that cafeteria. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I think we can feed each other. I think we can do it. He said, boy, you pull that off, they gonna move you. And I said, I think I can do it. And we did it.

And I think that was the only time I ever shed a tear in prison, because I got up that morning and walked on that wreck yard, and I didn't see from six different buildings, I didn't see one black inmate walk into their cafeteria. Even the people who was cooking the food didn't eat in there. And I knew they found out about it because on that day, you know you got people working the kitchen. Spaghetti was on the menu and they changed it from spaghetti to fried chicken. And it wasn't because, oh it's a black thing. That's the only time

that you get a whole piece of chicken. And it'll be another month before you get it. And the funniest thing, Halim, his brother named Halim, he was cooking. And he had stole out the kitchen all this chicken. He said, now you told me not to eat it now. He said, nothing about taking it back to this chicken. To this, bringing it back to this.

Bringing it back to this block. It's time to be smart. When we control our institutions, we win. This is the most important news show on television of any racial background. Y'all put $2, $3, $4, $5, $10, $15, $20, $30 on this and keep this going. What you've done, Roland, since this crisis

came out in full bloom. Anybody watching this and keep this going. What you've done, Roland, since this crisis came out in full bloom. Anybody watching this, tell your friends, go back and look at the last two weeks, especially of Roland Martin unfiltered. I mean, hell, go back and look at the last two days. You've had sitting United States senators today, Klobuchar and Harris. Whatever you have that you have,

you can bring to Roland Martin unfiltered to support it, please do because this information may literally save your life. Watch Roland Martin Unfiltered daily at 6 p.m. Eastern on YouTube, Facebook, or Periscope, or go to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Support the Roland Martin. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered, our election 2020 Black Voters Matter coverage. We are looking at results coming in. Polls have been closing this hour.

Results are coming in from across the country in the presidential race. But we're also watching a lot of the local races as well. We'll be giving you updates on that. Also, we'll be talking to more panelists here in just a moment on the show. It has been quite the busy day. I think we have the audio of Barbara Arnwine, the Transformer of Justice Coalition, straight now. Barbara, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. There we go. All right, Barbara. So we have been having the deal all, again, this election cycle, really the last three or four years, Republicans unwilling to do something about vote. They want to be able to contract. And we're seeing it today. We were dealing with Shereen Mitchell on talking about the robocalls going out.

We've had folks with election integrity. They've been yelling voter fraud. Can't produce any examples of that and trying to limit folks the right to vote, right to vote. Greg Carr earlier said the battle that we are in, we are in, and Joe Biden's slogan, the soul of the nation, and that's the battle that we are in. And voting is at the heart of it because that's how power is determined. Absolutely. And, you know, we know that in December of 2019, the Republican National Committee pretty much announced and they reannounced in March that they were going to spend $20 million to stop the expansion of the vote. And especially after the COVID era, they went crazy. I don't know if it's been mentioned, but there's been over 350 plus cases of litigation.

And it's been over things like, do you need witnesses for absentee ballots? In a COVID era, when people can't even come out the house, can't allow other people inside their homes. It's been over exact signature matches where they're trying to impose that right now all over the country. It's been over issues of, you know, not only early voting times and different restrictions, but there's been, you know, all kinds of fights about curbside voting in Dallas County, as we all know, in Harris County, there's been these fights over drive-up voting. I mean, there's just been nothing but whenever somebody's tried to say you need to allow people the options, voter options, so that people can participate in the election, the response by the RNC has been to stop it, to try to stop it, to fight it in court. And they have fought us from one end of the court to the other. And we're not finished, people. I predict several lawsuits

that will have to be held and will have to be heard and will have to be decided. Hopefully, you know, some of the, as you've been working your map, Roland, that there's more decisive. But at the same time, we know there's all kinds of shenanigans happening, even in Pennsylvania, where you got the Lancaster commissioner who set aside a lot of ballots, several, several tens of thousands of ballots on the basis that he doesn't know if they should be counted until the Supreme Court tells them. That's ridiculous. So there's all kinds of shenanigans and headaches, but the RNC is supporting a lot of this.

One thing that's been different is that they had said that they were going to recruit 50,000 challengers to the polls. Well, what I've observed is that they actually went to a let's do these car caravans to ride through black communities and threaten black communities. That's what we've seen in a lot of the South. We've seen that in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida. We've been watching those caravans with Confederate flags riding up and down Black communities. And so we know what's going on. So a lot of this has been kind of like terrorism, an attempt to terrorize Black voters. But I am so proud, Roland, as I know you are, of how the American people have responded and how black voters in particular have not allowed themselves to be cowed.

One of the races Associated Press is calling, and that is Amy McGrath has lost to Mitch McConnell in the United States Senate race in Kentucky. I remember she won, barely beating Charles Booker there. Many people felt that he was, first of all, he was a more progressive candidate, lost to her by around 30,000 votes. And so she has lost, raised a ton of money. But you can't run Republican light when you try to run as Democrat. Bottom line is, especially not in this election cycle. Barbara, moving forward again, this U.S. Senate and the White House is so much is so important because Democrats believe if they get control of the U.S. Senate and the White House, they will be able to enact the critical voting laws necessary. The Supreme Court is going to be considering a Supreme a VR a Voting Rights Act case section two out of Arizona this month.

Of course, they've already got it. Section 4 in the Shelby v. Holder decision. And so we had Senator Chuck Schumer on the show last week, and he said that's going to be one of the first bills they deal with to, again, to improve and expand access to the ballot in the country. Well, we're here in Atlanta. That's where I am with Attorney Daryl Jones and others. We've been here in Atlanta because we wanted to be in the home of Congressman John Lewis. That bill you're talking about is called the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

And we also know H.R. 1, which is Democracy for All Bill is also pending. But I think that we're gonna have to, after this election, after watching what's happened with absentee ballots and with some other forms of voter options, I think we're going to have to go back and improve some of that legislation to address the new forms of virus voter suppression we've seen. If we assume that we're going to have a COVID pandemic in our future for at least another year, and we have vital elections coming up in 2021, then it's going to be very important for us to go back and do some tinkering to make that legislation stronger. But people need

to understand, you know, it's not only the policies, the legislation, because remember the George Floyd Police Justice and Policing Act is also pending, but people also got to understand it's about all these judges. You know, a lot of these bad decisions we've seen made by judges have been made because these are the people who got the 200 plus judges that Trump has been able to put onto the court through Mitch McConnell and a Republican controlled Senate. That's why the Senate is so key. So, you know, it's important, folks, as we vote that we always, you know, look at the full ballot and understand the full implications for everything that we do if we don't have a just, you know, just, you know, Congress and a just White House.

All right, Barbara Arnwine, Transforming Justice Coalition. We surely appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. One of the critical issues, folks, that has played a huge role in this election is COVID-19. Donald Trump's handling of coronavirus has, frankly, been awful. Voters across this country said that was certainly one of the top issues. We have been covering this really since March 1st, when the nation just really began to go on lockdown due to COVID-19. More than 220,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, one in 1,000 African-Americans. We have been greatly impacted by coronavirus.

And it is, again, just amazing that it's affected everything. One of the reasons why you saw states expanding access to the ballot is because of COVID-19. One of the reasons why folks are wearing masks and all the kind of different PPE is because of COVID-19. One of the reasons why folks are wearing masks and all the kind of different PPE is because of COVID-19. And in the final days of the campaign, Donald Trump literally at rallies saying he would fire Dr. Anthony Fauci. Stunning. It's absolutely stunning. Dr. Ebony Hilton with the University of Virginia anesthesiologist. We've had her on the show numerous times talking about this issue of COVID-19. I want to talk with her about that in this election and what

it what it has meant. I mean it has been just a significant issue. Is everybody there? Is Dr. Ebony Hilton there folks? All right let me know when we have Dr. Hilton up because I certainly want to want to talk to her about COVID-19 and this campaign and its impact. And so let's do this here. I want to pull up before I go to go to Ebony. I want to pull up a guest here. I want to talk a little bit about, again, what we're going to be seeing with the legal challenges. This is really important that Dr. Eric Clavel, Constitutional Law Attorney, he joins us right now. Dr. Clavel, you there? All right, folks, let me know if Dr. Clavel is there as well, Constitutional Law expert.

So folks, a lot of things are happening, a lot of different moving parts, obviously, as it is on election night. And so I'm going to go to him in just a second. Folks, coronavirus. I'll go back to that. A lot of people voted early. They voted mail in because of COVID-19. But you still have efforts to block that in Texas. Texas Governor Greg Abbott limiting one mail drop box per county had nothing to do with coronavirus. He came, all it was about protection of the ballot. That just made no sense whatsoever. But that's sort of what you heard him

say. But you also had them trying to stop curbside voting and drive through voting in Alabama. They actually allowed that. The Secretary of State fought it, and then they appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court stopped them from having curbside voting. Just made just no sense whatsoever. No sense whatsoever. Let me go to Dr. Tayson Bell. We've had him on the show talking about coronavirus. I want to go to him right now.

Dr. Bell, how you doing? I'm doing good, Mola. How are you? I'm doing great. Coronavirus, a huge, huge issue. We've been dealing with this for the past several months. And this has been on the minds of many people in this election is one of the reasons why Donald Trump has been lagging in the polls because of his reaction to coronavirus. Exactly. I think this has become the number one issue for several people around the country because just because, you know, the surge is here right now. Unfortunately, this is the third surge now. You know, it's not worth debating whether it's the first or second wave.

I think the point is that cases are up. It's affecting our daily lives. And it's something that's very concerning. And people have it on the forefront of their minds going to the polls today. And the fact that we are still having a ballot list and have to take all these precautions is because, frankly, of how Donald Trump's administration responded. They even tried to put a document out last week claiming success in beating it. What world are they living in? Right. And I think, you know, one thing I do appreciate is they were honest that they were not going to attempt to try to control the coronavirus. Mark Meadows said this, I think maybe last week or a couple of weeks ago, that you can't control this. wearing a mask, outdoors more than indoors, frequent hand sanitizing and social distancing, physical distancing, you can get good control of the virus even despite the winter time when we're more indoors. We're seeing countries in Asia that are having better control over the coronavirus. It is surging in Europe as well as in the United States. But to just say that we can't control it,

we're going to try to protect the elderly, it just doesn't work like that. If it's spreading in younger populations, eventually it will work its way into the older population that will tend to have more severe outcomes. And of course, we know that African-Americans and Latinos have disproportionately high outcomes when it comes to cases, diagnosis and death. The, look, you got Joe Biden, you got Donald Trump. Joe Biden wins. He says he is going to have a serious plan to deal with coronavirus. I don't have any evidence that if Donald Trump wins, he's going to really give a damn about coronavirus. I think we have good evidence now, Roland, that Donald Trump doesn't care about the coronavirus right now. You heard him complaining at a rally, everything is COVID, COVID, COVID. Well, the coronavirus is saying America, America, America.

If we want to control this, we have to completely change our strategy, ramp up testing, ramp up contact tracing, and really make a focus on the national mask mandate, getting good information to people, putting Dr. Fauci back at the forefront where he belongs as the most respected infectious disease physician in the whole world. And then we can actually start to get control of this. I want to bring in my panel here, Monique Presley. I want to go to you first. This idea again, the impact of coronavirus, it's just hovering over this whole election. Joe Biden having drive-in rallies, other candidates as well. Donald Trump not caring, having these massive rallies, people not wearing masks. They

were like, okay, whatever. I mean, no greater contrast between two candidates. Between the candidates, but as I've said on your show a number of times, it is not the difference between Donald Trump, who, as far as I'm concerned, is an amoral madman and any particular person, because he's going to be him. What is of far more concern to me is how many American citizens are willing to align themselves with him and his worldview. That's how we end up having to fight for every single vote. That's how we ended up not having a President Clinton. When I look at those rallies and I see, because see, it's one thing for them to be on the racism kick with him, on the white supremacy kick with him. But they literally show up in in like a suicide pact where they are at super spreader events.

And then the evidence is showing people got sick. People died. It is of much more concern to me that we as Americans are so susceptible to a national Jim Jones as president. That that is scary. I want to bring in Dr. Ebony Hilton. She joins us now. Doc, this has just been just this dominant issue and seems like Trump voters, whatever. We don't care. We're going to keep going with what we've been going with.

We're just going to ignore everything and vote for Trump. Of course, as he said from the very beginning, we stand on Fifth Avenue, who's someone, and we won't lose a single voter. So the question is, how small is that minority of people? And I honestly think we're starting to see signs that it is small. I don't think Florida was, I don't think we thought it would even be in a context. And yet we're starting to see I have faith. I must receive, but here we are.

Dr. George's hold tight one second. I'm not getting your audio. Folks, we're going to do this here. We're going to go to a break. We're going to fix Dr. Benjamin's audio, and we'll come right back on Roller Mark Unfiltered. Local politics always seemed to, in my mind, match up with what I was seeing nationally. You didn't find a way to know somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody.

Then you couldn't get anything done. And that's really what to be political is. That's what you do. You're building relationships. And, you know, African-Americans have had to, you know, face up to the fact that in order to get anything done in this world, we have to work with the system that's there. You want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show.

There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roland Martin Unfiltered support the Roland Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to Roland Martin unfiltered calm you can make this possible asking me about terms some of the pocket squares that are where now I don't know Rob I don't have one on now I don't particularly like the white pocket squares I don't like even the silk ones and so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square.

This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool. And so I tracked down, it took me a year to find a company that did it. And so they're making about 47 different colors. And so I love them because, again, as men, we don't have many accessories to wear. So we don't have many options. And so this is really a pretty cool pocket screen.

And what I love about this here is you saw when it's in the pocket, you know, it gives you that flower effect like that but if i wanted to also unlike other because if i flip it and turn it over it actually gives me a different type of texture so therefore it gives me a different look so there you go so if you actually want to uh get one of these shibori pocket squares we have them in 47 different colors all you got to do is go to rolling this martin.com forward slash pocket squares is go to rolling this martin.com forward slash pocket squares. So it's rolling this martin.com forward slash pocket squares. All you got to do is go to my website and you can actually get this. Now, for those of you who are members of our bring the funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our bring the funk fan club. And so that's what we want you to

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Rolling Martin on the filter to simulcasting on Black Information Network. Folks, states New Jersey and Illinois have been called for Joe Biden. Tennessee and South Carolina called for Donald Trump. Eighty-eight percent of the vote has been counted in Florida. Trump is there up two points. And so, again, more than likely, Florida is going to go. Don't. Trump's way. We're still waiting to see Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin. Those are in Arizona. Of course, that's out west.

Those are the states that we're really looking at. We're going to get back with Dr. George's Benjamin. Put my panel back up, please. And also, Dr. Benjamin, you there? Can you hear me? Now we got you, Doc. Go right ahead. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go right ahead, Doc. Oh, good. You can hear me. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, you asked me about, you know, obviously, hopefully that in the future we get hopefully by tomorrow morning, a commander in chief that knows he knows how to address this uh covid outbreak that's what we're all hoping for um it is uh again i said earlier in the whining days he was talking about firing

dr fauci uh that's not necessarily a message the american people want to hear yeah well you know look he can't fire dr fauci dr fauci is a civil servant and he doesn't have the authority to fire him except for cause. And then his boss actually has to do it. So I just don't see that happening. You know, that'd be like firing both Patton and MacArthur at the same day. The whole thing, Taysom, is that, again, American people are watching what's going on here, and they're like, somebody has to lead. In an international pandemic, that's the government. Nobody else has the capacity to get us out of this.

That's right. That's right. Unless we have unified national leadership, we're going to continue to have people die. Dr. Bell, go ahead. Yeah, unless we get unified national leadership, we're going to continue to have people that die. Right. Dr. Benjamin, hold tight one second. Dr. Bell, go. We have the resources. We have the capability. We have the resources. We have the capability.

We have the scientific expertise. We have the world's experts when it comes to disease transmission, the science of it, the therapeutics and drugs. We are the country that should lead on against the fight against COVID-19. And we decided to take a step back according to the leadership. So, you know, Dr. Hilton and many of the other positions who have been fighting in this pandemic, you know, there became a point where we realized that in order to save lives, there needed to be a fundamental change in leadership because they decided to drop the ball, willingly drop the ball. And that's what's needed at this point. We need a fundamental change in leadership and then take this country a different direction.

Dr. Hilton. This pandemic has done one great thing in that it has shown us what's the difference in the different branches of government and also has really helped to push this idea that we rely a lot on the federal government when a lot of the everyday actions that influence our direct life is controlled by the state and the local level. And we saw where we had an incompetent leader in the White House say that I am not going to be the leader of this pandemic. The governors are now in charge. And I think that was the first time that many people realized who their governor was or what that seat, how much power it holds. So if there's any silver lining in this 2020, I feel like that's what it is,

is that we now have an idea of where this power lies, and we're going to start holding people accountable. I see McConnell is now still back in Kentucky in the Senate, which is not good. But now people know his name, and they know his face, and they know what type of power he has. Hopefully he won't be the majority leader, maybe the minority leader. But, yeah, we need leadership on all fronts, not just in the White House, but in the governor's house and on the state and representative levels, too. Dr. Georges Benjamin, Dr. Ebony Hilton, Dr. Jason Bell. Folks, we appreciate it.

Thanks for all of you for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right. I want to bring in my panel now, Robert Petillo, Abus Jones-DeWeaver, and Monique Presley as well. Glad to have all three of you. Robert, I'll start with you.

You're there in Georgia. Robert, that's one of the states. The Biden-Harris team sent Obama there on Monday, hoping that would put them over the top. We know about the pipe bursting there in Fulton County. And so your perspective, give us a sense of what's happening in your state. Well, let's understand voter suppression started early and has continued often the entirety of today's election. We had in Spalding County and Griffin, Georgia, several hours of delays in having votes counted. We had in DeKalb County, Georgia, 30 to 40 precincts being moved

in the last three days prior to election, with many people not knowing about their voting place in Hickory County. So the reason we're seeing these issues is because the rate is so close. The state is 35 percent African-American, 11 percent Hispanic, 5 percent Asian-American, 2 percent women. And it's right there for the purple state. It's going to be interesting what those turnout numbers are in both metro areas, not just Atlanta, but Augusta, Macon, Columbus, Savannah, versus rural areas, places like Brunswick, Clark County, Rome, Georgia, where Trump had a rally on Sunday. That rally. Hold tight one second, Robert. I went with Robert. Hold on one second. We're going to fix your audio.

We're getting a lot of interference from your audio. I want to hear you clearly. Uh, let me go to Avis Jones, the Weaver Avis. We're looking at, uh, I mean, look, this is when you start looking at this map, it's really going to come down to Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Bottom line is the southern states, Democrats thought they could turn them. Florida looks like it's going to go to Trump, too. Georgia, North Carolina leaning his way as well. We'll see what happens as we wait for all ballots to get counted. But this is, again, Democrats are hoping that the blue wall that was crushed in 2016 holds up. And that is Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.

If he wins, he wins those states. They can get Trump can win Ohio if he wins Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Joe Biden's president. That's true. But I'm telling you, this thing is is closer than any of us would like to see at this moment, quite frankly. The margins in Miami-Dade really has gone backwards for Biden this time around as compared to Hillary's performance there just four years ago. So that is probably going to be the stake in the heart in terms of his ability to carry that state. Also, hopefully we're looking to see what's going to happen

in North Carolina. I'm hoping that North Carolina can sort of pull through a little bit closer. Georgia is still a nail biter. We'll see what happens there. But also Arizona is one that we need to keep an eye on later on in the evening. I think that Arizona also has some hopes there for the Biden campaign. The bottom line is I am hoping that we are not just relying on that blue wall. I'm hoping that one of these wild cards splits tonight in the direction of Joe Biden, because I am sure, as we all are, that with all the shenanigans that's been going on with the lawsuits and everything else, that Pennsylvania, we would have to win that at such a margin that it would be outside of the ability of shenanigans that we know will go on when it

comes to the Republican legislature and all of the legal wranglings that continue to go on around that state. One of the things that we're seeing right now, Ari Melber tweeted this out, Monique. The Trump campaign and the Biden Republican Party have filed an emergency motion asking the state Supreme Court to stop processing some mail-in ballots in Clark County. They, Trump made it clear, they were going to unleash their lawyers out here on the electorate. Oh, absolutely. They're going to do absolutely every single thing that they can. out here on the electorate? Oh, absolutely. They're going to do absolutely every single thing that they can because otherwise they lose

without suppression, without oppression. They lose. If we vote, then we win because the greater will of the country is against the type of leadership or absence of leadership that's been shown by this administration. An example that I just sent you, I just saw the Beat reporter with the Houston Chronicle post that Harris County is likely to go to Biden, the lead right now is 133,000 plus votes. And that's not likely to change because they've got all the early votes coming in and it doesn't look like enough

has happened today to change that. But I just want to put a pin in that number because they tried to take 127,000 votes away from us. They knew exactly where they were. They know exactly what they need to win. And when they need to win it, they try to steal it. So I still see Texas looking a light shade of blue with Biden projected four percentage points on top there. North Carolina is not looking bad either. So I'm with Avis. I'm looking for wild cards like my home state, and I'm looking for ones that were traditional to be restored. And, you know, I'm just, I'm not in a terror streak right now. Things look to me like I expected them to. That's your audio fix. Look, Democrats were emboldened by what they were seeing when it

came to the polls, But those were polls. They are a snapshot in time. Voters are real. You don't know what intensity is going to be. You don't know what turnout is going to be. I'm hearing people say, oh, my goodness, Miami, they let the Democrats down. But here's the reality. Huge Cuban, Venezuelan population there.

You also have to have to have to go. I mean, you've got this is what I said the other day, that if Democrats want to effectively compete in Florida, there is going to have to be a significant operation in Florida, like you saw in Georgia with Stacey Abrams, like you saw in North Carolina with Reverend Barber and more Mondays and Democracy North Carolina and the NAACP. You're dealing with Republicans who control the legislature, who control the Supreme Court. They are in control. And so that's what you're dealing with.

I think you're absolutely correct. And I think one of the things that we have to talk about is the fact that the polls have been consistently wrong for the last five years. And for that reason, we have to go back to our normal grassroots nature of campaigning or natural ways

of looking at our elections where we really get together and touch people, understand what voters care about, not what folks focus on what voters care about, but what's really important to the American people.

This is going to be a razor-thin election, not to blow out the people's hope. All right, folks, I'm going to go to Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. He's been holding. Reverend Jackson, glad to have you on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Reverend, just your assessment of where we stand this election night. We've already seen the results. Bottom line, it's going to come down to about seven states. Roland, it's good to be with you again. We have voted this time in ways we've never voted before.

I feel good about our voting. I'm concerned that, as the lady said before me, that North Carolina and Georgia, it's not over. But all I want to comment on is this. Anderson from Mississippi is running. Jim Harrison from South Carolina was running. Of course, Warnock and Onoff in Georgia. Now, South Carolina and Mississippi projected the candidates there.

And yet, not one campaigner stopped in South Carolina or in Mississippi. In the coalition, Bl was a blast to vote 75% for white. It was the reason 25% for us. How many senators went to Mississippi to try to convince white people

the answer is change the direction you're going to process the rule of law? Well, yeah. I mean, first of all, look, Democrats are not going to go to those states. First of all, we were shocked to even see Obama go to Georgia.

And again, Reverend Barber makes that point. You've been saying it for years, that if you want to compete in these places, you have to put the resources, take the time, build the infrastructure. Otherwise, you're always going to lose. The reason I raise it, I talk to a lot of Democratic senators who wouldn't send Jamie a contribution, but I show up.

They're more concerned about not offending Graham than they elected Jamie Harrison. Now, we do well in football because the plan is even. We support each other we support that's what made me run in the four Harold was doing very well and Monday

came in for James Byrne and for Daly Harold could be rejected at that time revival they felt closer to James Byrne Harold couldn't be rejected at that time as a revival. They felt closer to Jane Byrne than the blacks who delivered them to the White House in 1960. And so they were victorious.

So my concern is that we've got to really review the mutuality of our coalition. Absolutely. Reverend Jackson, we certainly hope. First of all, we thank you for all your work. We thank you for, again, leadership there as well. Final comment, final comment from you. And again, there are many folks are hoping to see Biden Harris win. How do we deal with America if Donald Trump gets reelected? Tough.

Because he's such a violent force. I think that the vigilantes, it would be an open season for them. These guys that went into the Michigan legislature, Texas, Oklahoma, we'd fight a game as well. They're voting on the Second Amendment. We're voting on the 13th Amendment. They want to have God, we want to have freedom. We're not saying the same thing, Roland. I hope that one thing we did in Illinois, for example,

inmates in jail can vote. We took a precinct inside 5,000 inmates in Cook County in the jail. Prison, you've been convicted, but jail, pretrial, the main values are pretrial detention. That's basic. I asked one of the

youths the other day, I said, I said, I said, well, you go upstairs to trial, and you go upstairs, you go on the jury, I'll stop you. He said, Pierce. I said, Pierce. I said, all those arrested vote, 10 juries. He said, uh-huh. I said, man, you can vote for the judge.

He said, what? Yeah, you can vote for the judge. Secretary of State. Public defender. I mean, he had the power. That's the fundamental role. The vote is the key to the political kingdom. It can't just be a once-in-four-six-year kind of rush about kind of deal.

Am I just right? Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., we surely appreciate it, sir. Thank you so very much. Thank you, Roland. Folks, we're going to go to Black Lives Matter Plaza here in Washington, D.C. Reporter Ashley Banks joins us right now. Ashley, what's happening out there? Hey there, Roland. So I am here at the Black Lives Matter Plaza, which was named after George Floyd.

You mentioned this earlier in your show where he was killed by officers in Minneapolis a couple of months back. And obviously, Mayor Browzer, she renamed the stretch of the plaza after unrest took place in the nation and across the world. And she did this to quell the tension. And a lot of people were in support of it. But there were quite a few people who said that this was superficial and she and others could have done more to fix the issues in this country. But right now there are at least a thousand people here in attendance. They're gathered here at the plaza and have been since 3 p.m. today. Demonstrators have been chanting Trump has got to go a few moments ago. There are Christians here. They're praying for peace. People are dancing.

They're playing music. And earlier this afternoon, we saw a dance troupe that was performing to music from Beyonce's Blackest King musical. And loads of people loved that. As you can imagine, Roland, the crowd is mostly comprised of people who are Biden supporters. And, of course, there are a few who are Trump supporters. Earlier, I came across a man, he's a young black man, actually, who is a Trump supporter and a big one at that. He said that Trump has done more for black people than any other president. Now, this is a saying we've heard Trump say time and time again, and we know this just isn't true at

all. The young man cited the fact that Trump has given aid to black universities as a reason to why he supports him. But clearly, he hasn't been paying much attention to Trump. And he's missed the things that he said that has proven that he does not support black lives or other people of color. Obviously, Trump is really just for him. But the young man went on to tell me and other reporters that Obama wasn't a great president simply because he was a mix. So that should tell you a lot about this man and his way of thinking. Right now, as you can see, it's pretty calm, but officials and police officers are expecting unrest. You can see around the city that a lot of the buildings are boarded up as

business owners are expecting violence to erupt, no matter who is the elected president, whether it be Biden or Trump. And we see quite a few officers on bikes just riding around the plaza looking for suspicious activity or anyone who's truly getting out of hand. But Roland, people are here tonight because they're tired. They are simply tired of Trump. They're tired of a president who continues to sow discord, a president who continues to be reckless and put many people's lives in danger. And as we know, we won't know the results of the election tonight. We'll know probably in the coming days. But people are so hopeful that no matter what happens, that Biden will be the winner and that Trump will leave the office. But obviously, you and I know we'll have to wait and see.

So the event that is taking place tonight is supposed to continue until midnight. So I will keep you updated on everything that's happening here. Back to you, Roland. Hey, Ashley Banks, we certainly appreciate it. We'll certainly be checking back with you in the next hour to get an update from Black Lives Matter Plaza there in Washington, D.C. Thank you so very much. I want to go to Avis here. Avis, the one state we're really now looking at is North Carolina.

And it is a very tight race. Joe Biden appears to be up, but it's going back and forth. And so here's the deal. People are sitting here seeing text messages with the New York Times. You know, their indicators is flipped from Biden, flipped to Trump. I don't waste time with all of that because he is what I keep telling people. At the end of the day, you can't measure intensity with polling. You can't measure any of that. And so what you do is you just wait. Like, I'm not freaking out like every single little move. You wait. When that thing gets down to 85, 88, 90, 92 percent, now all of a sudden you start looking at that. And so everybody who's watching,

breathe. Just breathe. Exactly. Exactly. We still have a ways to go. We are early in this process. And to be perfectly honest, we will probably go to sleep tonight, wake up tomorrow and maybe even go a day or two before all the votes are counted in all the states. So we may not know who the true winner is tonight or maybe even tomorrow. Now, I'm hoping that we don't have to continue to wait that much longer. I'm hoping that there's going to be a decisive victory. That is really why the push was to really maximize the turnout so it wouldn't be close at all and it could be an overwhelming victory and we could know sooner rather than later. That is the hope.

But definitely, slow your roll in terms of the heart palpitations. We have a little ways to go. But I am confident that we have seen a historic turnout already. And typically when you have a larger turnout that preferences the Democratic Party. So with that said, my money is still on the Biden-Harris ticket. All right, folks. Again, we are going we're going down the various states here. The results are coming in. Polls are closing. This race really is going to come down to, as you heard me say earlier, seven states.

It's going to come down to those seven states. When we come back, we're going to talk with Christian Clark, the lawless community for civil rights under law. We're going to talk about most important. We'll talk about what's going to happen with what's happening with voter intimidation. One is our vote. They've been getting the phone calls from people all across the country. And so we'll do that when we come back. We're taking a station break. The Black Information Network. Back in a moment. We'll be right back. folks you're watching roller mart unfiltered listening to it on the black information network our election 2020 black voters matter we are of course looking at various races all of the

attention obviously is focused on the presidential race donald trump joe biden mike pence kamala harris but then also you get senate races uh are in the balance as well. Can Democrats pick up seats, take control of the United States Senate? That's what we're looking at. We also have been looking at these examples of voter intimidation, voter suppression. We've been covering that extensively. One of the areas that we told you about, a pipe bursting there in Fulton County, delaying the counting of ballots there. Joining us right now is Kristen Clark. She leads the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. They, of course, monitor and control 1866-OUR-VOTE.

They have been working around the clock, really battling this very issue. Kristen, glad to have you on the show. Give us a sense of how many calls y'all received today. What kind of different reports have y'all been getting from across the country? Thanks so much for having me, Roland. It's been a busy day. Our call volume has been in the tens of thousands, and we're going to keep going till about midnight. We're going to go till the polls close and frankly, until the final vote gets counted, which may be well beyond when the polls close, if there are long lines. And it's been a bit of a mixed picture. There is one discernible pattern

about the day, an uptick in the number of complaints about voter intimidation. Lone wolves standing out at polling sites, purporting to hold themselves out as law enforcement. We've heard reports about trucks blocking a polling site in Florida, two men standing outside the entrance of a polling site in Florida, trying to intimidate people as they were going to cast their votes. But I'll tell you, these incidents have been few and far between. They've been sporadic and they have not deterred. For the most part, they have not deterred or discouraged people from going out and making sure that their voices were heard this election season. We did hear reports about long lines, polling sites that opened up late in places like Georgia and Illinois, North Carolina and elsewhere. But overall, I think that this is the lesson of this season or the theme of this season. This was an election season where voter protection efforts in advance of Election Day proved really critical.

Organizations like ours and our partners fought tooth and nail to make sure that voters knew about their options. And we saw black voters and others going out in historic numbers during early voting. We saw them going out to vote by mail for the first time. And, you know, I think that that's one reason why we didn't see long lines in every corner of the country. Over 101 million people voted in advance of Election Day. Right now, this is somewhat the calm before the storm. Tomorrow, we know that we're going to have to roll up our sleeves and begin to fight to make sure that all of those absentee ballots that come in today and in the days ahead get counted, every single one of them. And so we're prepared to fight back against any nefarious attempt to

disenfranchise voters. We know that those efforts will rear their head in communities that are home to large numbers of Black people and people of color. When you talk about voter suppression efforts, we are often the ones targeted. So we know that today's not the end and that tomorrow we'll continue our fight to make sure that this is an election season where every, every ballot gets counted and every voice is heard. We talked earlier about Republicans suing in Nevada to stop them from processing mail-in ballots there in Clark County. Huge, huge place there for the Biden-Harris campaign. I've been saying this the last couple of weeks, this very targeted focus in all the different places, Harris County in Houston, Target in Nevada. I mean, there's a legal assault here that is at play.

There is, and I fear that it may continue and that we may see those kinds of efforts in other pockets. We saw what played out in Harris County, Texas, a desperate 11th hour attempt to reject over 125,000 ballots cast at drive-through locations in Harris County, a county that's home to some of the largest numbers of Black and brown voters in Texas and, frankly, in the country. So we're ready. We've got our draft pleadings drafted up. We've got our lawyers poised and ready to go to federal court, state court. We're going to do whatever it takes to make sure that the 2020 election season is one in which the history books will say that anyone who wanted to vote was able to do so and have their voice heard and that civil rights lawyers fought until the

bitter end to ensure that outcome. All right, then, Kristen Clark, we certainly thank you for all of the work that y'all do. It is invaluable to fight on behalf of voters out there. And let me just leave viewers with this. They're still voting, but tomorrow there may be some voters who learn about issues with their absentee ballots, and they'll have the opportunity to fix those issues, to cure those issues. So we really want people to continue to call 866-OUR-VOTE, 866-687-8683. We're going to be working beyond Tuesday to to help voters, to guide voters and to make sure that they have all the support that they need to make their their voices heard. Doesn't doesn't end here. Thank you so much, Roland. All right, then. Kristen Clark, I really appreciate it. Thank you so very much.

Thank you for having me. All right. Robert Petillo, I want to go back to you on this particular point here, Robert, and that is, look, we keep saying this, you can talk polls all you want to, but it comes down to who turns out. You have these lawyers who are looking at if we can siphon away $25,000, $50,000 here or $100,000 here and validate these ballots here, that could very well be the margin of victory. This is why we really have to have significant electoral reform in this country, because you're a Republican or Democrat, you should want every vote to count. You're absolutely correct. One of the things that Reverend Jackson teaches us and emphasizes is that voter suppression isn't about Bull Connor or Axel Maddox standing in front of the polls, wholesale closing off and preventing people from being able to exercise the franchise. It's about skimming.

If you can get one out of 100 people to have some issue with their ballot, one out of 100 people to wait in a long line and have to abandon that and go home, one out of 100 people to have their voting precinct moved, that comes out to be 1% in the election. You saw when Stacey Abrams ran for governor of Georgia, she lost about 1.8%. So we're talking about 1.8 out of every 100 people having an issue can affect the election. So it's crucial that for the next administration, particularly if Joe Biden wins,

if we have a Senate and a House that's able to pass legislation, that we update and pass a new voting rights act that will prevent these things from happening. Republicans have been a minority party in this country for most of our lifetimes. Remember, Republicans have won one election, one popular vote in America in the last 30 years. They've only won popular vote in two out of the last 10 elections. So they are a minority party still governing by manipulating and playing with the rules. If we had free and fair elections

where everyone had the ability to vote, just as Donald Trump said, just as Ted Cruz says, just as David Rawls said, Republicans would not be able to win another election. Well, that is obviously a huge deal there. Folks, just let me go down some line here. Some races that the Associated Press, they've actually called. Let me just do this here. Arkansas for Trump. They've called Connecticut for Biden. They've called Delaware for Biden, his home state, Illinois for Biden, Kentucky for Trump, Maryland for Biden, Massachusetts for Biden, Mississippi for Trump, New Jersey for Biden, Oklahoma for Trump, Rhode Island for Biden, South Carolina for Trump, Tennessee for Trump, Vermont for Biden. Now, AP is called at 731. They called Virginia for Biden. But some say that shouldn't be called

just yet. So we'll see what's Virginia for Trump as well. And so, again, what we're really waiting for, the seven states I've been outlining, Arizona, out west. Actually, I'll go ahead and eight, Nevada. The Democrats are expecting to take Nevada, but pretty much Arizona, Nevada. Then you talk about Wisconsin. Then you talk about Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia. Those eight states. Will the blue wall return for the Democrats?

That is those Midwestern states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Will they return in their column? Can Donald Trump eep out a victory there? We shall see there. One of the areas that Donald Trump thought he was going to run strong on was the economy. Coronavirus impacted all of that. That, of course, has changed the calculus in many ways. It's still very interesting when you begin to look at how people vote and what they base their votes on.

There were so many people who really kept talking about supporting Donald Trump who have been actually screwed economically. I want to bring to my panel John Hope Bryan. He's the CEO of Operation Hope. Dr. Bill Spriggs, he is the economist, AFL-CIO, Ohio University, and Christian Brody, policy director of the Hamilton Project, the Brookings Institution. It's a very interesting bill. You take a state like Iowa, they've been hit hard by Trump's policies, his trade policies with China. Massive, massive numbers of farmers in Iowa and Wisconsin have filed for bankruptcy,

soybean farmers as well as dairy farmers. Iowa still goes for Trump. Granted, he's thrown billions their way in subsidies as well, but it's very interesting when you start looking at how folks vote who literally vote against their own economic interest. Well, this is true. You know, Iowa has always been an outlier. It was one of the states that went right to work from the very beginning, even though its black population is centered in, you know, some unusual places. It's actually my dad's home state, and my grandmother's family has been there since 1854. But it's a very tight race in Iowa. You can register to vote in Iowa on the day

of election. So it's going to be interesting to see. During the blue wave two years ago, we took all the House seats but one, and the senator there is in a pretty tight race. So it will be a challenge. But yes, it's always a puzzle that people choose their view of race over economics. And in the case of Trump, time and again, evangelicals who forgive him for his philandering, for having been married so many times, for openly cheating on his wife in so many ways, for not even knowing the church service,

they still back him. So it's not just people on economic issues who view race as this very potent force that they want to respond to above their religion and in the case of the farmers above their economic interest and unfortunately the case of a lot of workers above their own paycheck. It is what makes this current race disturbing, because the reality of the bungling of the disease, which has led to the bungling of the economy, should make this no contest.

The fact that we're all sitting here and holding our breaths or crossing our fingers or holding on to our Bibles real tight is a testament to how potent race is. Before I go to John O'Brien, folks, in Colorado, John Hickenlooper, the governor, former governor, that he has beaten, Cory Gardner. Democrats pick up a critical seat. Remember, Democrats needed to win three seats. They expect to lose the seat out of Alabama, where Doug Jones is running against the idiot Tommy Tuberville. I mean, I'm talking about Tuberville is really dumb.

But that's one of the critical seats there. We're looking at Arizona. We're looking at the U.S. Senate seat in Iowa. John Hope Bryant is laughing at me there. But seriously, Tom Tuberville is really one of the dumbest people I've ever seen in my life. Just just just unbelievable. And I and I really don't don't want to have to call, you know, a politician dumb. But my goodness, I'm going to play a little bit later. Y'all his his answer. Y' You ought to hear Tommy Tuberville when he was talking about the Voting Rights Act. It is the most unbelievable. I can't describe it for you. And so, John, if I play, you're really going to crack up laughing.

But let me ask you this question here, John. Here's what I find me fascinating. There is this view in America that the economy just explodes with Republican presidents and contracts with a Democratic president. But the facts don't back that up. You actually look at the last two Democratic presidents. The economy fell a hell of a lot better under them than the Republicans. Is it is one good at messaging and the other horrible? And in fact, just one more. Moody's Analytics did a survey that said that Joe Biden's economic plan will create seven million more jobs than Donald Trump's plan. Go ahead, John.

Yeah, I mean, half of success in life, Roland. First of all, thank you for doing this tonight, being the voice, a voice for black America. I appreciate you. Half of success in life is marketing. And, you know, I'm not going to I'm not drawing an analogy now between President Trump and Hitler. So please don't want to say that. But I am giving the analogy that after Germany was humiliated after World War I and forced to pay reparations, you had a charismatic nutcase who was jailed in 1925 as a nutcase rise up because he raised, he wrote on people's fear and their desire to return to the way the world used to be. And that was a guy named Adolf Hitler. And he became the first person in modern history saluted by name, Adolf Hitler. And we know the rest of the story. And that didn't end up very well for Germany.

But that wasn't just economics. It was pride. It was a sense of indignity. It was arrogance. It was, but mostly fear and good marketing. So bad fear and good marketing can trump, no pun intended, the facts. Look, every economy, most of the places that people are complaining about, Roland, these so-called blue urban cities are driving GDP, gross domestic product. They are leading the economies in the country. By the way, diversity wins. New York, Los Angeles, you pick, I mean, Atlanta is the only international city in the South. We decided to argue over who got the money, not what water fountain you went to.

The places that decided to continue to argue about what water fountain you went to are still stuck economically in the 1950s. So, yes, facts often don't matter in the short term. Chris and Brody, one of the things that Republicans keep yelling, we're going to cut regulation. That's going to spur the economy. It's very interesting. I haven't heard the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, say a word about the exploding national debt. It's as if the debt no longer even exists. I mean, I swear, all I heard was the debt when Obama was president. Debt, debt, debt, debt, debt, debt. Fiscal cliff we're going over. That somehow has just gone away. So, Roland, you know, I can't talk about this. Hold on tight one second.

We're getting lots of feedback. Christy, hold on one second. We're getting lots of feedback from us. So, folks, go ahead and fix Christian's audio there. So I want to get that straight. And so please do that. I'll toss that to Bill. I'll let Christian ask that.

Y'all have Christian straight? Christian, go ahead and talk. I want to make sure your audio is straight. Can you hear me now? That's better. Go ahead. That's better. Go ahead.

Okay. So I was just saying I can't talk about Democrats or Republicans specifically, but I can talk about the economy and how the economy is affecting workers, right? How the pandemic is affecting workers. And whoever wins the election, that's something that is going to need to be fixed. So currently, 22 percent, a little bit over 22 percent of the workforce is working remotely due to the pandemic, right, due to social distancing. 230,000 people, or more now, have died as a result of this pandemic. So as we look at the unemployment rate, it was 3.5 percent in February. It increased to 14.7 percent in April because of this pandemic. It decreased to 7.9 percent in September. But whoever wins the election is going to have to help workers and small businesses. When you

think about all of the small businesses that closed temporarily or permanently, somebody is going to have to help workers. And when you think about the fact that all of these people are working from home, that we're not in the studio right now, we're using various apps like Zoom or Skype, all of the people that are going to need training for companies who have realized we can operate online, that we don't necessarily need to have a brick and mortar space.

So I think the first step is when will COVID be over? When will there be a vaccine for it? What are the protections going to be for workers so that people can stop losing their lives? And once we do go back to work, what is that going to look like? How are we going to fix higher education and the education system overall so people are ready for the jobs that are going to exist. And as my good friend, Dr. Spriggs, mentioned unions, we need to have more worker support and protections for people so that hopefully we never have another pandemic like this again.

But it does lay bare the fact that we need more protections for workers. So all of those things are it's not not just the economy, it's workers. And whoever wins is going to have to deal with those things during the pandemic and once it's over. Folks, hold tight one second. Of course, this is election night 2020, Black Voters Matter on Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Information Network. And this is not a millennial accident. It's done on purpose that they made the gadgets God, or they made the gadgets seem like God to tell us everything about everything

and make you really search hard to find yourself. So people are all, this is the worldwide religion, regardless of what anybody thinks. The electronic religion is the worldwide religion through the phone. So everybody's got their heads angled into that. So how do you do to make that instead of it breaking you? You have to be able to have the millennial audience and crowd at least make education not shameful.

Right. And also make it so, all right, you know all this, so why are you just keeping it to yourself? Because you're afraid to be the smartest one. If somebody comes out and got their best gear on and all this, somebody might say, damn, they coming tight. They kind of like coming right and real. But if you show off your mind, it's like, why

are you showing off? You trying to make us seem stupid? And it was never like that. It's like, you letting us get these jewels now because you got our back. Because you can't give us no money. So the best way I got your back is letting you can't give us no money so the best way i got your back is letting you know the deal and then i dip off you come to get it when you want

it but i'm here for that there's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real as rollerblades unfiltered because guess what the blackest show on all of digital cable and broadcast see that name right there roller marttered. Hello. Y'all want some of this? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications. There's only one show out here, folks, in the digital world that's focused on you. Because here's the piece. I ain't afraid of Fox News.

I ain't afraid of Laura Ingalls, Sean Hannity, Mark McCollum, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, Kennedy, Outnumbered, all of them, the five, the seven, the nine. It don't matter. Matter of fact, I got no problem that if it's 10 of them and just me, that's unfair for y'all. I'm gonna be like me over the Matrix. All right, welcome back to Roller Market Unfiltered, of course, on the Black Information Network as well.

I want to add a voice to our discussion about the economy here. Gerald Horne, he is a professor from the University of Houston, and he has written a number of books on white supremacy and so many other topics as well. Gerald, when you look at this election, when you look at Trump, it looks like he's going to take Florida. You look at what's happening, of course, depending upon the white voters in the Midwestern states and how these things are shifting. What really seemed to work for the Latino vote in Florida, those Cuban and Venezuelans saying Joe Biden, socialist, socialist, socialist. They're coming from countries where they don't like the word socialist, even though that's not even close to what we're talking about here. And so just share from a historical perspective this idea of how economic messages are tailored to hit folks in a different way,

especially how Republicans weaponize economics. Well, it seems to me with regard to Florida, they're really weaponizing ideology. Because many of these Cuban-Americans and Venezuelan-Americans you're speaking about, it's not as if they're affluent. In fact, many of them are poor and working class. And so to think that they're going to sign on to an agenda with a billionaire and expect him to pursue their interests is, quite frankly, delusional. But on the other hand, as I look at the map of the United States and what's happening, what's happening in your home state of Texas right now is quite intriguing. With about 66 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Trump is only ahead by less

than one percentage point. And of course, this is the reddest of the red states, and it's difficult to see how Mr. Trump can have a path to victory unless he wins Texas. Now, of course, maybe it's the way the votes are being counted. But in any case, with regard to how that's happening, I think that special attention should be paid to the city clerk in Harris County, which includes Houston. I'm speaking of the young black lawyer. Chris Hollins. Chris Hollins. He's done a bang up job in terms of driving out the vote, in terms of having drive in

voting, which, of course, the right wing challenged. And he needs a special salute on this evening. But Gerald, the key. But here's the key, though. The reason you have that because Democrats took control of the Harris County Commissioner's Court, elected a county judge. They now have the majority. That's how you get a Chris Hollins to be the county clerk. And so that's why we keep saying here those elections matter. You can't ignore those county judges. That's who picks the county clerk. That's who sets the whole table when it comes to voting.

Just like and just like you can't ignore the Secretary of State on the state level. Oh, that's right. And with regard to the county judge in Harris County, it's a young Latina, Lena Hidalgo, who has been working hand in glove with Chris Hollins. They're quite a team and have been fighting the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, all the way, who, as you know, has presidential aspirations himself for 2024. I want to bring Bill Spriggs back into this conversation. Bill, we talk about economics and how and how they're playing out in this election. What was your research showing in terms of those Midwestern states? Look, Trump did very well, obviously, winning them in 2016.

He was like against NAFTA, against NAFTA, against NAFTA. Guess what? Steel didn't come back. Mining, coal didn't come back. Manufacturing didn't come back. All the things he promised them didn't come back. But why would he still do well in those places? That's what Pete was sort of mind boggling. All these you say you want to do doesn't pan out.

Well, and in the case of Ohio specifically, the manufacturing jobs really haven't come back. Manufacturing in Ohio is down. And the real turnaround that's going on in Ohio are some union voters coming back home because they felt betrayed. The Democratic Party under Bill Clinton had been for NAFTA and Hillary Clinton was being tied too closely to where Bill Clinton was on that. This time, it's not sticking because Trump has been so duplicitous and they see their jobs disappearing. And then the black turnout has been through the roof in Cleveland. Cuyahoga County is creating a huge buffer for Biden. And just like John Hope was talking about, in all of these states, it really ends up being the urban economic core of the state versus the rest of the state. And that urban economic core, that's where the black voters are.

Ohio's a little different because it has a distributed manufacturing base that goes out from Cleveland. You think about towns like Canton, Massillon, the places where we used to get our tires like Akron and Summit County. But but these counties are building a buffer for for Biden in Ohio based on a very huge black turnout. And and so I think it's really a combination of black voters and union voters coming back home in Ohio. That's that's making this a lot more uncomfortable for Trump tonight. The thing here, Gerald, I'm going to Gerald, then go to John, then Christian. Gerald, is that when you talk about rural city, look, it's coming down to white, black. I have been saying since 2009 that we're entering the age of what I call white minority. This notion of white minority resistance. And when I hear certain things, when I look at folks who are saying,

oh, it's happening in the cities, but you're looking at all these red areas in the middle of the country where, look, those jobs are not returning. Look, they can pine for the good old days, but they're simply not coming back. And so people kept saying after 2016, we got to really listen to them. I'm like, yo, they got to listen to the rest of the country. Well, obviously that's the case. But keep in mind that in 2012, after Mr. Obama won his second term, the Republican Party did a so-called autopsy where they came to the conclusion that they were headed for a demographic disaster in the sense that they

were the party of whiteness and the white sector of the electorate was declining. And it was recommended in this report of the Republican National Committee that they make better outreach to people of color. Mr. Trump basically smashed that plan by driving up the turnout with regard to white workers, with regard to white rural voters, et cetera. The problem Mr. Trump has encountered is that his manner and his governing was so erratic and so hostile to people of color that he's now driven up the turnout in states like Texas, where he's in jeopardy of losing. And so therefore, the Republicans may be back to that particular demographic disaster that they thought they had eluded by electing Mr. Trump.

I should also say that the Republicans and the Republican voters are facing a kind of trifecta with regard to a crisis of white supremacy. Domestically, in the urban core, as Mr. Spriggs put it, they're confronting the Black Lives Matter movement. On the border, they're confronting what they consider to be brown people trying to cross the border to take their jobs. And then across the Pacific, they're encountering the People's Republic of China, which is in the passing lane and bids fair to overcome the United States in terms of being the leading economy. It's difficult for me to see how the Republicans are going to elude all three of those factors. Gerald Horne, University of Houston. I certainly appreciate it, sir. Thanks a lot. Thank you. John Hope Bryant, I want to go to you on that point you often talk about it's about green john it's about green green green but we're seeing this is also

about white and black i know people look people say oh we've gone beyond that but when you start breaking down these states breaking down views we're still there Even when you talk about the white and the black, it's about the green also. The word white, as you know, Roland, because you're a historian, is a made-up word. It didn't exist anywhere in the world until the early 1600s when white plantation owners saw blacks and whites getting along and running away together from this oppression and decided to give the black man a life sentence and the white man two more years of indentured servitude and they called the poor white man white to suggest that he was just like the rich white man well that didn't play out so well because they never taught the poor white man

how to be industrious how to be an entrepreneur how to be a business owner how to do it well so you have this this uh this break uh between uh the between the wealthy the wealth to do whites the educated whites the progressive wealthy whites of the investment class and everybody else uh that broke for good in the industrial revolution when that ended when you couldn't just give somebody a hookup with a high school education and a basic middle class job when they had to not earn it, but be relevant to the economy. That's when everything, the dreams started to fade away. What you see now are people trying to grab a hold of that dream. My poor white friends, the more poor whites in America, the poor anybody else, very few people know that. Very few people know, as you know, that Mississippi has the highest transfer payment of welfare and other government subsidies in the country. Poor whites.

Say one, get three back. Yes. So places that have embraced diversity, as I said earlier, have prospered. What I love about math, Roland, is it doesn't have an opinion. It's just math. So they tried a backwards plan called slavery, and they won the battle and lost the war. It wasn't sustainable. It wasn't God's plan. It doesn't have the universe behind it. And they're still paying that debt because they have not let that crap go.

And the rest of the world has moved on. And a house divided cannot stand. Now, a lot of what's going on now, as you said, demographics are destiny. People are seeing the browning of America, the browning of the world. They're seeing their place, whatever you want to call that, fall away. And versus trying to say how do we get along together and come up together, we're now arguing about how do we cut up a poverty pie versus creating more empowerment pie for everybody.

Atlanta, once again, is a place that decided let's argue who got the money, not whether you were at a white or a black water fountain. And that's why Atlanta still thrives today as one of the top economies in the country, even though it's in the South. And Atlanta drives Georgia economically. New York drives, New York City drives the state of New York. L.A. and San Francisco drives California. It goes on and goes on and goes on. These are the most diverse places, some of them in the country. So, yes, it's about race, but it's not. It's really about class and structure and tradition

and people who don't want to go back on, want to go back to the way things were. And they want, they want that car. They want that, that second home. They want that boat with a, with a high school education, not going to happen. John Hope Bryant, Operation Hope. Always a pleasure, man. Thanks a lot. Peace and light. Peace. Kristen Brody. Now I'm going to go to you. So with that, set the table for, again, Biden wins, Trump wins,

in terms of where we go now, because look, these things are going to be here. These, these differences are going to be here. It's you, you see it play out in the election results. So it's not going,

it's not going anywhere. And so the friction is there. When you look at wages, when you look at where we've gone, when it comes to unions, Republicans constantly attack unions, except police unions and trade unions. And so but when you look at who is really helping to get to the middle class, especially African-Americans, it's been unions. This is absolutely true. So of course, math is math and the numbers do tell the story. So when you think about the differences, yes, the unemployment rate is 7.9%, but what does that mean? It's 7% for white people, but 12.1 for African-Americans,.9 for Asians, and 10.3 for Hispanics. And I think the biggest

one was 16 to 19, people age 16 to 19 that are Hispanic, 22.4% unemployment in September. Also, when you think about the number of permanent job losers, not just people that have been temporarily laid off and that are going to go back to work, that number increased by three hundred and forty five thousand to three point eight million permanent job losses in September. That's two point five percent higher than it was in February. Long term unemployed increased by seven 781,000 to 2.4 million, right? So when you think about those numbers, but you think about the discrepancy in the racial unemployment rate, yeah, we're not all equal in terms of those numbers. So people have to think about that, right? What jobs are going to be available regardless of who wins, right? Again, I can't talk about Democrats or Republicans, but, you know, who's going to look out for the people that don't have jobs, that need skills to get jobs that will be available?

How are we going to educate people for those jobs? What is there for them to come back to? Whoever wins the election needs to have a plan for that. And hopefully that unemployment rate can be equal for everybody, right? Like we want as many people to have a job as possible, but the African-American unemployment rate should not be almost twice as high as that for white people. Brody, we sure appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roman. Bill Spriggs. Well, it's closer than I want it to be, because when you look at the economics as you've been

writing it down, when you understand that other countries manage both the disease and their workers better. So when you look at the number of Americans who have died, which ought to be the number one issue, because so many of these people died related to work, which is why African Americans died disproportionately to everyone else. These are all work-related issues, whether it was our overrepresentation in nursing homes, meatpacking, being bus drivers, working in hospitals. All of this was our overexposure to the disease that killed us. But in other countries, they anticipated the shutdowns and they gave bigger support to payroll so that now that they're going into their second wave, they've had slightly better

solidarity that's breaking up just like we see here because people are a little frustrated with this disease. But they haven't had the breakdown in solidarity that we've had with people openly not wearing masks, people revolting against the things we need to contain the virus. All of that. You would think that this would put Trump in trouble. An 8% unemployment rate reported last month.

Maybe this month it may edge down to like seven something. These aren't the numbers that get you reelected. And the fact that we're still having a contested election is really a testament to how troubled our nation is. All right. It's coming down to just a few counties and whether some people voted. Bill Spriggs, thanks a bunch. I thought I let John go. John Hope Bryant has a final comment. John Hope Bryant, go ahead. I want to just say this.

Roland, there's something going on here in your show that is not very common. You just had three, four thoughtful, then you threw me in, three, four thoughtful, elegant, brilliant, make smart, sexy thinkers on the economy, yourself included, call that five, who just killed it. It wasn't a black narrative. It wasn't a white narrative. It was just a narrative. It was just laying out the facts. And it shows that we can do this, too. Here's what everybody should be thinking about, even after tomorrow, irrespective of who wins, as the young lady said.

The Citigroup report showed that racism against blacks costs this country $16 trillion. That's for the T in the last 20 years. Forget 100 years or 200 years before that. Just the last 20 years. And they just knock it off right now, Roland, because that's a levying tax on all of us, races included. It'll create five trillion dollars of GDP in the next five years, which will pay for the stimulus that we just spent on COVID-19. Racism is just stupid business. It's a stupid business model. And we can't compete with China and Russia, as I think Spriggs was just commenting, if we are fighting with each other.

Everybody wants to be an American, but Americans. We have got to make the color green, Roland, or we're all doomed. If we keep arguing over black and white and red and blue and orange and purple, a house divided cannot stand. You take no pleasure from the fact there's a hole in my end of our boat. We are winning the battle and losing the war. So we have got to turn this corner and somehow we got to convince our white brothers and sisters who are poor and struggling that we actually are in the same fight and we should all be rowing in the same direction. Because the definition of insanity, as you know, is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. A country, this country needs a business plan. Our hope, clients at Operation

Hope have been surveying the last couple of days. What they miss is a business plan. What they want is clarity from their politicians. They want a business plan for this country, a business plan for opening. They want the drama to stop, the games to drop. They want people to knock it off so they can get on with their lives. And I think what they want is order. And that's what we need in order to also compete in the world. So hopefully this is a reset moment where we get out of the messiness and we start to have a plan. And thank you for being part of that. I appreciate it, John Hope Bryant. Thank you so very much.

Founder of Operation Hope. Peace and luck. I want to bring in right now Dr. Eric Clayville, professor of constitutional law and civil rights, founding director of the Hampton University Pre-Law Institute. Dr. Clayville, we were talking about the economy there. We're also watching these battles when it comes to the votes here. The thing that really jumps out, again, that I think is critically important for us to understand is that you literally have one party that is trying its best to shrink the electorate.

What you also are dealing with, you're dealing with the remnants of the electoral college, which was a slavery compromise. And the fact of the matter is, in Harris County, more people will vote in Harris County in this election than 11 other states. Eric? Eric? Yes, yes, I'm here.

Well, first of all, thank you so much, Mr. Martin, for having me on the show. I currently represent and I'm the director of the Center for African American Public Policy at Norfolk State University. And one thing that we do there is that we look and study issues and policies that impact African Americans, not just in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but across the United States. And when we take a look at, as you mentioned, the actual electoral college and the political decisions that are made by who gets into office and who wins under that, that is a major issue that we're facing. All of your guests today, all of our guests tonight have talked about the remnants of slavery, the remnants of these policies that are archaic, but are still destroying black upward mobility. That's still destroying the country. As Mr. Bryan just stated, racism

is just stupid and bad business. And really the issue is economics. In America, it's about the dollar. It's about economics 100%. But also, it's about educating and getting the truth out. One thing that we're suffering from, Roland, is we're suffering from misinformation. One thing this president has done very well, he has really pimped out misinformation to the American people and more specifically, white America. He's caused them to believe a false narrative and embody that false narrative, as one of your guests just stated, that they believe that they are, that this billionaire is going to fight for their interests. And that's just absolutely insane.

But if I could, I want to talk a little bit about the Supreme Court and the role that they're going to play in this election. Now, keep in mind that in the last two weeks, just two weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled five times in various states as it relates to their ballots. When ballots will be counted. And it's a 2-2 win as far as Democrats and Republicans. But the tie is Pennsylvania. Roland, there's a 4-4 tie in the state of Pennsylvania as it relates to the Supreme Court and its decision as it relates to when absentee ballots can be counted. I believe that this is going to end up being Bush versus Gore on steroids 2020. Pennsylvania is going to be that state.

Well, that's something that we certainly did not want to hear, but it is what it is. Dr. Clayville, we certainly appreciate you holding for us and then sharing your expertise. We may be coming back to you later tonight, depending upon if that prediction holds true. And so we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. If that prediction holds true. So we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. Thank you for all that you do. All right, folks. State's results are coming in. John Cornyn has defeated Hagar in Texas for the United States Senate. And so we'll give you some other Senate results.

But also when we come back, we'll give you what's happening in Ohio, Hamilton County. An African-American running for district attorney. We're going to give you those results as well. So we'll share some of these local races. And we'll do that next as we focus right here. Election 2020 Black Voters Matter. You're listening to us, of course, broadcast. Roland Martin and Phil Chin also with Simon casting on iHeartRadio's Black Information Network. We'll be back in just a moment.

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As Roland Martin Unfiltered, support the Roland Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. You can make this possible. It's time to be smart. So welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered Daily Digital Show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. You can make this possible. It's time to be smart. So welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered as we break down the election results. I want to bring in my panel, Spencer Overton. He's president for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Janice Mathis, executive director, National Council of Negro Women. Mark Thompson, host, Make It Plain. Spencer, I'll start. And also we have Chris Metzler here as well. Republicans, Republican strategist. I want to start with Spencer Overton. Spencer, we're looking at these election results. We're looking at now based upon estimates and because, again, they're still counting ballots. It looks like Donald Trump has a less than one percent lead in Texas. The big counties in Texas are doing very well for Joe Biden.

You look at North Carolina, Biden has about a 1.8% lead in North Carolina. Then if you go to Ohio, it looks like Joe Biden is doing very well. He was plus 12% in absentee voting. A lot of people really did not see Joe Biden doing that well in Ohio. Just your thoughts on where we stand right now, waiting for the results in Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio. And then, of course, we're talking about Michigan and out West Arizona. Right. And well, you'll remember, Roland, that kind of the baseline here for Biden to get to 278 is by getting that that kind of blue wall reestablished. So places where there are a lot of black voters in terms of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

So effectively, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, these are in addition to the 278. So the fact that Biden is playing seriously in Ohio, in Texas, to a certain extent to North Carolina, you know, that is significant news. I know a lot of folks would have hoped that Florida would have gone for Biden and it would be an early night. But even with Trump having Florida, we said, you know, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, those are kind of bonuses here for Biden. If he can nail those down, you know, I think the assumption is that Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania will probably lean Biden here.

So those are kind of pluses. North Carolina could be big for Biden. Chris Metzler, you're Republican. One of the things that I say to people, I constantly say, look, polls are one thing, actual votes are another. And so earlier, Peter Alexander reported that the Trump campaign was very concerned. They didn't necessarily do all the work necessary in Pennsylvania. When you look at how that is, that, you know, Biden is doing very well in Pennsylvania. Also, we're looking at what's happening, massive turnout in Detroit, in Philadelphia as well. Your thoughts on what you're seeing developing tonight? Well, I would have preferred, in fact, that the campaign did a lot more work earlier in Pennsylvania on the ground. I mean, the campaign tried to catch up.

We'll see how that goes. And so that, I think, is a bit of a bit of a concern, frankly, at this point. And also, I'm not sure some of the calculations or miscalculations in Detroit really is helping the campaign at this point. However, there's still time to go. You know, we're trying to figure out where the numbers are, where the votes are to see. And while I agree that Texas, Georgia, North Carolina are interesting, this still comes down to Michigan. It comes down to Wisconsin. It comes down to Pennsylvania. And so while I think all of those are very interesting,

they're simply, in my view, distractions at this point. Janice Mathis, your assessment of where we are at this stage of the night on election night? Well, I do think that it matters that these states like Texas and Georgia are in play because it means that folk who would defend those states have to spend time and resources there. And there's an opportunity cause to that. But surely Pennsylvania tonight is in the crosshairs, and we won't know most likely tonight how Pennsylvania will turn. But what we know for sure is that what was predicted as a demographic change that would take hold, say, in 2030 or 2040 is now upon us. And we, African-American, especially African-American women, are positioned to help lead not only the nation, but to repair some of these

fractured relationships that the president has severed, like the World Health Organization and UN and others, to restore what America is ideally supposed to be about. So it's an interesting evening. and it's a long time before we'll know what the results are, I'm afraid. I want to go now to Massachusetts State Senator, excuse me, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. She joins us right now. We showed you a little bit earlier. So are you getting your feet massaged, Congresswoman? Because we played the video. Go ahead and go to it where you had the wobble going earlier today.

And y'all go ahead and play it. You were getting it in, helping folks out there stay in line. Yes, did you not think I was not going to play that? Come on now. Roll it. Oh, my goodness. I was doing my little auntie two-step wobble out there. But, you know, honestly was it was a beautiful um

demonstration of joy and and i saw that throughout the district today um and i wanted people to be voting from a place of not only self-agency um but really you know radical love you know for for ourselves for our community for our democracy and I did see that on full display. I'm still very shook, you know, deeply touched by a lot of the one-on-one conversations that I had with our elders in line today, with first-time voters, with families that were there voting as a family. As we watch the results, first of all, the House, Democrats in the House expanded their lead, expanded their lead, picked up five seats. They just lost a seat there in Florida.

That is one of the members there lost in Miami-Dade. We're waiting to see what happens in the Senate. That's going to be critical as well. But when you look at how this is coming out, of course, there are a lot of Democrats who were hoping there was going to be an early knockout win in Florida. They're now looking at Texas and North Carolina. But this thing may very well come down to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. You know, Roland, that's why I don't ride the polar coaster and I don't try to play a pundit and offer these projections. For Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they have many paths to victory.

We are not going to have a clear picture for quite some time. And that's OK. Folks should not be penned. We want every vote to be counted. And in fact, if somewhere you are still in line, please do stay in line and make your voice heard and cast your ballot in what is the most consequential election, not just in our lifetime, but I do believe in our nation's history. It has been you talk about not watching the polls. It has been a very, very strange and weird election season. COVID has certainly had its impact. Looking at these drive-in rallies, the typical kind of campaigning you see going across the country, virtual fundraisers, Zoom meetings, things along those lines. Donald Trump ignored all of that, said, what the heck? And then, of course, had these super spreader events. And in three states,

leaving a lot of his supporters out there in the cold when the buses weren't there to pick them up, take them back to their cars. How else do you believe that we as a nation, as the electorate, will be changed even after, no matter who wins after this election? Well, the coronavirus, Roland, has really laid bare the inequities and disparities and racial injustices which already existed. They've been exacerbated by the coronavirus. And certainly the last four years under this administration, this fire hose we've been drinking from of cruel, xenophobic and racist policies and corruption. I think what is going to happen beyond this moment is that we are going to, having strengthened our majority in the House,

I do believe we will gain control of the Senate. And I do believe that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be successful because based on the conversations that I've had in the 11 states that I've been in and those that I had in community today, people are clear-eyed about the stakes of this election and how stark the contrast is. In Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we will have thoughtful, committed partners to progress who will also be accountable to the American people. And what I'm appreciating is that they have an agenda specifically for Black

America, because, Roland, I represent a very diverse, dynamic, and vibrant district, but one of the most unequal in the country. We're from Cambridge, home to MIT and Harvard, to Roxbury, the blackest part of my district. Life expectancy drops by 30 years and median household income by $50,000. The wealth for a black family in the city of Boston, according to the Federal Reserve, is $8. And for a white family is $247,000. You heard me say that, $8. So the fact that they have not only a racial equity agenda, but the Lift Every Voice agenda, which is specific to Black homeownership and Black wealth, you know, we're not going to close the racial wealth gap. We will not really chart a new path with race-neutral policies.

And so what I believe is going to happen, Roland, is that we are going to advance progressive, bold policies to meet the moment. Because the coronavirus, these many issues that were considered marginalized and unlikely, like universal child care, paid family leave, canceling student debt, these are all things that are on the table now in a real way. And so I know that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be partners accountable to us in that regard. I'll be advocating for a cabinet that is representative of the spectrum, including a progressive voice, you know, in some of these polls, to ensure that we are advancing the bold progressive policies that I believe the electorate is sending us a mandate that they want, both to be responsive to this pandemic, but also to ensure

an equitable economic recovery, and then to chart a new path. Reverend Barber says this is a national reckoning that demands of us a third reconstruction. Reverend Barber says this is a national reckoning that demands of us a third reconstruction. So in this moment, we're all being enlisted as community builders, Roland, because the status quo normal pre-COVID was insufficient, unjust, and inadequate to begin with. All right. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, always a pleasure. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland. All right, folks. Right now, there are some stuff happening out at Black Lives Matter Plaza in D.C. where some protesters are being arrested. Folks, if we can go to that

feed, we want to be able to show folks what's going on there. I know we have a camera out there, so if we can, okay, we're not sure. We're trying to get the shots set to get a sense of what's happening there. Our folks are moving towards where the arrests are happening. Again, a huge police presence surrounding the White House all around the perimeter. And so we're going to try to go to them in a second. Actually, we're going to in about a minute when they go to commercial break. We'll be right back with our panel to chat with them. Mark Thompson, Chris Messler, Janice Mathis, Spencer, Spencer Overton.

And so, folks, let me know if we have that shot, if we can go ahead and see what's happening there. Not a lot really has been happening. We have not seen significant violence. I haven't seen anything along those lines. The kind of reports as well about voter intimidation, things along those lines. We have not heard a lot of that happening. We earlier talked with Kristen Clark, the Lawrence Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

And so luckily we did not see a lot of craziness and those things happening there. And so we're going to give you an update on the rest happening at Black Lives Matter Plaza. We come back after this station ID break for the Black Information Network. Thank you. Welcome. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered Election Night 2020 Black Voters Matter. We, of course, also simulcasting on iheart radio's black information network uh let's reset where we are you see the numbers there electoral college votes biden 128 trump 94 critical states that we are awaiting results north carolina georgia pennsylvania ohio michigan wisconsin arizona as well. Huge. And then you throw in Nevada. So we're talking about seven or eight states that we're looking at.

U.S. Senate races we're looking at as well. Democrats, can they pick up three seats? Yet assuming Biden-Harris wins to take control of the United States Senate, they already flipped one, Hickenlooper's seat in Colorado. One of the seats they think they're going to be able to flip is the seat in Arizona. But it's bad news, a race that we've been covering. That is, they are calling the race in South Carolina for Lindsey Graham, beating Jamie Harrison, who ran an absolutely amazing race, raised the most money ever in a U.S. Senate race, exceeding $100 million. No one expected this race to be going down to the wire. This was the toughest

race that Lindsey Graham has ever had in a campaign. In a moment, I'm going to go to Mark Thompson first to talk about that race. First, let me go to Black Lives Matter Plaza. This is what's happening down there. Looks like some tear gas or something like that has been set off there. We got reports there were some arrests down there. We have a reporter down there. Can we is can Ashley hear me? Can she tell me what's going on? Ashley Banks, who is down there for us.

All right, folks, let me know if we can let me. Yeah, actually, go ahead. Black Lives Matter Plaza, as you said, right now, things are getting a little. All right. Yes, things are getting a little tense down here right now. We see people throwing what may be gas. Not sure where it's coming from at the moment. There are a lot of people that are gathered around. The police are on standby. There were people moments ago just shouting back and forth at one another, but we're still unclear as to what's going on. We were just at McPherson Square as people

were watching the results of the election, and we headed back when we saw helicopters overhead with their spotlights looking for people. So right now, once again, Roland, it's unclear what's going on. But as you can see, people are gathered here trying to figure out the same thing, essentially. But as you can see, the camera guy is focusing right now on people. They have their cell phones out and they are looking at something.

I want to see if I can get a little closer to see what's going on. Give me one second. All right. It looks like there's tension and people are going back and forth. It looks like there could be a rivalry between Biden supporters and Trump supporters right now. Okay. All right, Ashley. As you can see, it looks like a fight is about to break out, unfortunately.

Things are a little... I'm sorry, go ahead, Roland. No, go ahead. We're just watching the video to see what unfolds. We're going to come back to you in a little. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Roland. Now, go ahead. We're just we're just watching the video to see what unfolds. We're going to come back to you in a moment. Certainly keep watching what happens there. And we'll come back to you in a moment. OK. All right. I want to bring in right now. I want to bring in right now. Activist Rosa Clemente, as well as Mark Thompson, both of them. I want to start with you, Rosa.

You and I were texting the other day. Looks like Trump is going to win Florida. Strong, strong turnout there in Miami-Dade, Cuban Venezuelans. You argued Democrats did not do enough to go after the 500,000 Puerto Ricans there in Florida. Yes. Roland, first of all, can you hear me? Yep. We're good. Okay. Perfect. No, one and a half million Puerto Ricans in Florida. Wow. One and a half. Okay.

Yes. There are 5.6 million Puerto Ricans in the United States, the three biggest states being Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania. And my argument was, and everybody who knows me, Roland, you know me, I'm a Green Party, third party candidate, you know. But I did keep stressing to the Democratic Party leadership, like, you have to go to Florida and talk to Puerto Ricans. You have to go to Pennsylvania. Throughout a lot of my travels as a speaker, I've been to probably every county and city in Pennsylvania. And the Puerto Rican population is large there. So you're also talking about post-Hurricane Maria. And what Trump did was he went down there and he promised Puerto Ricans $13 billion, which we know it's a lie.

But every Puerto Rican that I spoke to throughout the state of Florida told me no Democratic leadership has asked to visit us. You know, so my argument is you're talking about one and a half million Puerto Ricans, also who, as American citizens, when we hit the United States, we can vote. And, you know, I just don't think the outreach was there. And I think the outreach should also happen in Pennsylvania. I live in upstate New York, you know, so I'm close to this part of Pennsylvania. So I wish that the Democrats would have done more around that. And unfortunately, I think Florida may go to Trump. And that whole Cuban and Venezuelan, like, old school vote, the Puerto Rican vote could have, like, you know, would have surpassed all that as well.

Puerto Ricans vote in their elections, right? So we have one of the highest voter turnout rates in the world. When Puerto Rico has an election, 87% of the people come out to vote. So those that had to go to Florida post-hurricane Irma and Maria also have that civic understanding that like, yeah, we're going to vote. But if nobody comes to us except the Republicans, what are we seeing? Totally understand. Just also just your thoughts when you look at, again, this race coming down to these largely white Midwestern states, Pennsylvania, Michigan. You know, again, Democrats were hoping there would be a change there in the South. It is still too close to call in

North Carolina and Georgia. Trump has a narrow lead in Texas. But again, every election cycle, having to depend on white voters in those states, as opposed to states where you have multicultural populations,

that sets you up for a long night? Yeah, I mean, I think it was short-sighted of the Democratic Party to keep appealing to, quote, white working class men. I have a very diverse experience. I have family in Las Vegas, Nevada, in Florida, in Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio. You know, and my family in Youngstown, Ohio has all already voted for Biden. But they made it clear to me, they're like all we saw with Donald Trump signs, you know. And if we weren't Puerto Rican or had this experience of being here for almost five decades, my abuelo came from Puertoerto rico as a steel mill worker he raised 16 children on a salary in youngstown ohio because he worked in the steel mill so for me i have family all over the

country you know so i was checking in on checking in on them and i have kept stressing to um the democratic party the green party too We might need to stop going after the white men and maybe go after 30 percent of the electorate that's still not voting. And I, you know, I wish this is what would have happened. We don't know what's going to happen. As you know, you've covered this for so long. But yeah, I just feel like if there would have been better outreach with O'Higgins, we wouldn't be on this margin right now, all of us at 1030 at night. Like, where's Ohio? Where's Pennsylvania? Where's Florida? And that over-dependence on thinking that these old

school Cubans, Venezuelans, we're going to rock and move Florida over to the Biden side, it's not happening. And I have family in Las Vegas, Nevada too. And a lot of them are like, I see a lot of Trump signs. I don't see Biden and Harris signs. And I live in upstate New York. I'm two and a half hours out of New York City. Every 20 Trump signs, I see one Biden and Harris sign. And our turnout here in Albany was very, very bad, especially amongst the African American and the Dominican American community, because nobody came out here to talk to them. All right. Rosa Clemente, I certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. I want to go to Mark Thompson right now. Mark Thompson, I talked about the Jamie Harrison race. Jamie Harrison raised 57 million bucks in the third quarter, the most in history. I mean, it was a very close race. He loses to incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham. He faced an uphill battle. South Carolina is a red state. That state was called very early tonight for Donald Trump. But the fact that it took almost two hours for the state to be called for Lindsey Graham shows that Jamie Harrison ran one hell of a race. Yeah, it does. And thank you for having me, Roland. He did run a hell of a race. I think we all knew it would be very, very difficult to win that Senate seat in South Carolina, but we all

had hope. And there was a very good chance. It just shows how much more work we have to do in a state like South Carolina to get it to flip. You know, I don't know that that many people are surprised. But even in Jamie's own words, to some extent, they did win anyway because of the amount of money that was raised, because of some of the inroads they make. South Carolina is a work in progress. A lot of these states that have been here to for red are works in progress. And that's understandable. What will not be understandable or forgivable if Joe Biden doesn't win at all? That's the issue.

States that we still need to work on, we still need to work on those. But there's a it should have been enough. There is enough still out here between Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio for Biden to still win. We and the last thing I want to say, you can't flip some of these other states in the long run. If you don't have Democrats in power in the White House and in the Senate and in the House, because that helps to work on those states. We're still going to be fighting much more of an uphill battle if Trump and the Republicans hold the White House and the Senate. Before I go to Bree Newsome, I'm going to go to Janice Mathis.

Janice, I remember a couple of years ago, we talked about the midterm elections, and you talked about the importance of going back to old school precinct captains and street captains and having people just old school, hardcore, hitting the ground election efforts. I look at Michael Bloomberg dropping $100 million to help Joe Biden in Florida. The only people I think who are smiling tonight are the TV stations and the ad salespeople. The reality is, and I get this whole idea you've got to dump your money in media. I just believe that you've got to dump your money in people who are on the ground, who are going to make contact with people. And you got to do it over a two or three year effort in order for it to pay off in an election year.

That certainly is true. I mean, for decades, there was no investment by the Democratic Party in the southern states, not in South Carolina, not in Georgia. And we used to think of Virginia as a reliably conservative state, but things changed then. So we know that flipping some of these states is possible. But if we can hold that blue wall, if it's Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, well, then that's where the battle has to be taken. It's not going to be easy by any means, but we just sit tight and think that we've done everything that we can. I know that black women's organizations have been working for months. And no matter how this turns out tonight and tomorrow and ensuing weeks, we will still have the work to do to talk about

transition and to talk about what it means to be democratic? And have we given up on the project that majority rule matters? I mean, in a few months, we'll be doing redistricting and we'll be having these arguments all over again. But this is the thing here, Spencer Overton, that when you look at how you have to win, you're going against structures. And then when you don't focus on the midterms, and then in 2010, 16 state legislatures flipped to Republican control, that creates the scenario that you have right now. And so again, it's the slog. It's the hard work. North Carolina, the reason North Carolina right now has not been called for Donald Trump is because of the work the last decade that people did on the ground. The reason Georgia hasn't been called right now is because of the work on the ground.

I'm simply arguing that in these other southern states, unless you take the resources of a Bloomberg and then and you put it into grassroots building what Ella Baker said it ain't pulpit to pew it's pew to pulpit. Yeah I think you're right I mean you think about what Stacey Abrams did you think about what Reverend Barber is doing in North Carolina this concept of organizing and organizing in terms of communities and that being key. And that's how you build something, really not by kind of top down, but by investing in human beings and investing in people. So I think you're right. I also think that, you know, whatever happens tonight, when we think about what happens with regard to the Supreme Court, as Janice said, what happens with regard to redistricting in terms of these state

legislatures and Congress, the systems that are set up, if there is a trifecta in terms of the Senate, the House and the presidency, what does that mean in terms of DC statehood and a couple of additional Senate seats in terms of the Democrats? I mean, I think these structural things are big and taking advantage of opportunities to include more people and expand the franchise, especially with regard to black folks. Second, this, of course, is Election Night 2020. You're watching Vote. Election Night 2020, Black Voters Matter.

I'm Roland Martin, Unfiltered, and the Black Information Network. Back in a moment. You either going to help run it or they're going to run it for you. In order to get anything done in this world, we have to work with the system that's there. And you have to have the courage of your convictions. You may despise me. You may not understand my choice. But at least you can respect that I stood in it. If you are outside the mainstream, no one can push you aside any further.

Life makes you jaded and it hurts you and it's painful. And we've had a lot of pain in this country. Trump can show up and say anything. and they can just go, oh yeah. The African American community was great to us. They didn't vote. You know, he just called you stupid. Did you hear that? Oh, oh, oh, but he's for us.

Really? And they were just regurgitating the things that they had heard on a radio or in the barbershop or something somebody had told them. They hadn't thought about it. Democracy is in danger because people don't know how to think. I'm done with trying to convince people to try to vote for their life. You have to run for your life.

I'm going to go try to get people who are open to it and believe them. I'm done with hope. Fuck hope. Bye. You want to support Roller Marks Unfiltered? Be sure to join our bring it. All right, folks. Welcome back. Roller Marks Unfiltered. I want to join our... All right, folks. Welcome back. Roller Mark Unfiltered.

I want to bring in Bree Newsome, Linda Sarsour, two activists. They've been out there on the ground. Bree, I was just talking about the work you got to put on the ground. When we look at what's happening in these states, and you have these people, I'm looking at all these different people, and they're just shocked. They're sitting here going, I can't believe this is happening. Why is this not a Joe Biden blowout? I was on MSNBC and it was very interesting. I was on Ari

Melber's show and it was I was on with Donnie Deutsch and he was going on and on about, oh, Biden victory. And they kept asking me and I said, I'm sorry. I said, I don't trust white people. And I said, until you prove to me that white voters are going to reject racism, and they're going to overlook that, and it's going to keep voting for their tax cuts. I said, you got to prove it to me. And we're seeing the results tonight. Again, folks are saying, how in the hell you got 225,000 people who are dead because of COVID, just incompetent leadership. And this is a tight race because you're still dealing with whiteness in America? Yes, I mean, I think it's one, you're still dealing with whiteness in America and it's

also everything that you just said in the previous segment, right? One, I think that we we need to as as black people, right, really kind of divorce ourselves from the Democratic Party in terms when it comes to building our politic. Right. We see this time and time again where there is all of this focus on the presidential cycle coming every four years and trying to rally people around a candidate. And then when we, as organizers on the ground in that time in between the election cycle are trying to do political education, are trying to build local leaders, are trying to connect people to issues, resources are far and few between, right? And the real work, like if you want to see the results when the election rolls around, the real work is between the elections. The real work includes, like you were saying, you've got to plug in on midterm elections. But all of that said, I mean, we recognize that the Democratic Party does not do that heavy lifting.

But we also have to recognize that we can't rely on the Democratic Party to do that work. And so we as communities, as communities throughout the South, as communities of people of color, as black people, I really think we have to shift our whole relationship to power. Right. It's not about, you know, turning everybody out for Joe Biden. We have to be able to build and organize around our own issues from the ground up. So like running people in local races, you know, being invested so that we are we are turning out as a block for something that is bigger than whoever is on the ballot. First of all, welcome back to the folks listening on the Black Information Network. Linda Sarsour, the point Bre just made is one that I've been saying in terms of mobilization, organization. It cannot be, you cannot wait for a candidate. You cannot wait for a party to do it. Again, the reason we are having this conversation right now in Georgia, in North Carolina, is because folk did the work on the

ground and it wasn't because of parties. It wasn't because of a candidate. It was because they said, we have to be in control of our own destiny. And this is why we must begin to mobilize and organize people. We don't have Linda one second. I don't have your audio, folks. Linda, make sure you're not muted. Yeah, I'm here. There we go. Go ahead. I said I was listening to the conversation. You're absolutely right. And in all the states that we've been to, as you know, we're on a tour in six states. We were in Florida and Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and in Michigan. In every state, it's black women who are on the front lines that have been investing in the infrastructure and voter engagement, voter registration, going to the door. The bottom line, I'm not going to start the

blame game now because we do not have the final results. But what I will say, it's still too close. We should not be sitting in front of televisions right now looking at 1% differences. It talks about the split that we have in this nation, the lack of investment much earlier than just a few months before the election, and to ensure that we are supporting grassroots organizations on the ground. You are absolutely right. The television ads, the millions of dollars in television ads is not what brings out people to the polls. It's knocking on people's doors. It's asking them what they care about. It's encouraging them. It's giving them rise to the polls. That's what brings people to the polls. So I'm really in a state right now where I'm already looking ahead because this is still too close for me so even if joe biden takes this

election in the next 48 hours or in the next week after every single vote is counted it's still too close for me and shows us just how much more work on that on that particular point, Brie, and look, this race has not been called. We're still waiting to find out what happens in Arizona, what happens in Ohio, what happens in Pennsylvania, what happens in Michigan, what happens in Wisconsin, what happens in Georgia. But but I and I also think I'm on the show. My God, we've been saying for two years that there's an urgent need for what I call weekly citizenship education training, where we are teaching people to connect the dots, where they begin to understand that a vote for the top of the ticket and a vote for the U.S. Senate has a direct relationship on a federal judge who has a direct relationship on laws that may be passed in your on your city in your county and all of these things are interrelated and they're not somehow just separate as some people actually believe in fact um so one i want to uh just agree with what linda just said that i think one we should recognize people have put in a tremendous amount of work, and that's why you are seeing things as close as they are. You've had people working in conditions

where there has been an unprecedented effort to prevent us from having a free and fair election. And so I think we should acknowledge that the fact that things are as close as they are in states like North Carolina and Georgia, like you said, really reflects that work that people are putting in. And even if we had had a blowout tonight, this conversation that we're having right now would still be necessary, would still be relevant, would still be true. One of the things that we are undertaking right now in North Carolina is a statewide political education program called When They See Us Vote. If you go to whentheyseesvote.com, you can see it it's we're focusing on North Carolina, but it's open for anybody to participate in, to build upon, because we have to connect

those dots exactly like you were saying. The presidential race is one race. And what often happens is whenever we come to this point where we are electing the president and we're trying to figure out, like, why is there you know, why is it not a blowout to, you know, elect somebody to the highest office in the land or if people are dissatisfied with who's on the ballot when it comes to the race for the highest office in the land? It's because there's so many more building blocks going down to a very local level with very powerful offices and decision makers at a local level. And we really have to be able to plug in, but being able to plug in also requires

really having an analysis and an understanding around those things, understanding how voting as a tactic fits into a larger strategy, understanding how, you know, really like plugging in and, you know, raising up leaders from our communities and organizing exactly like Linda was saying, like, you know, raising up leaders from our communities and organizing exactly like Linda was saying.

Like, you know, it's not TV ads. It's neighbor to neighbor. Today my mother was out. She went back to the neighborhood she was born and raised in, going around knocking on doors, getting people to the polls. And there were people who would not have gone to the polls had they not had that interaction with my mother. So, you know, that goes a much farther way, especially in our communities, you know, than, than just thinking that because you throw a whole bunch of money behind something that that's going to lead to, you know, long-term, uh, change.

Like you said, the, the change that we're seeing in North Carolina and Georgia right now, that is a result of grassroots organizing that has been going on for 10 years, at least at this point. Linda, final comment from you. Uh, I've got folks who are texting me. They are freaking out. They're like, oh, my God, we're losing this thing. They're going nuts. And I'm sitting there going, first of all, folks, they're still counting ballots all around the country. I'm going like, seriously, settle down. But what do you say to people, Linda, who who are freaking out to say they might wake up and Trump has been reelected. There's no reason to freak out. Everybody needs to take a deep breath. We are going to defend this democracy. We're going to make sure that every single vote is counted. There are millions

of ballots that have been have not been counted across the country. And what I say to people, and you know me, Roland, very well, I was going to be in the streets anyway, regardless of who went to the White House. And people have to be prepared to either be reactive to Trump or be proactive under a Biden administration. There is no going back to brunch, regardless of how this election goes. And I'm fired up. I'm excited to continue to fight for my people. I'm excited to continue to fight for the most marginalized people. That is what we are committed to doing. And don't sleep on this election. Make sure that you are paying attention and that every vote will be counted. If we have to go all the way to the

Supreme Court, we will. If we have to go into the streets in the millions, and if this election is stolen from us, we will. We are prepared. We have been building infrastructure under this fascist administration for four years. You know us, Roland. We are some of the most strategic organizers. There are Black women that are literally strategizing as we speak, Indigenous women, women of color across this country. So I want people not to panic. We got this. No matter what happens, what we'll do is we're just going to build over the next four years. And when we come back in 2024, nothing will defeat our communities. Sure. We sure appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Roland. Bre, I'll ask the same question of you. Again, folks are just, folks are freaking, I'm just like, guys, let's chill out. In fact, I got a text message from a top political person who said, quote, we don't we won't know the winner of this election for days. They should stop watching cable news and have a drink. I mean, that might be the case and that, you know, we have known that for some time. Right. That I mean, there's there have been a lot of shenanigans going on. Even today, there were some questions around, you know, a judge having to make a ruling around ballots that were not accounted for in the post office. So, I mean, there's a number of factors. I think this is on another level from, you know, 2000 and Bush v.

Gore. And that's, again, why I think, you know, in the midst of everything that's going on, we also have to acknowledge how much worse the situation would be right now had it not been for all of the work that's been going on on the ground. And I completely second, again, everything that Linda said, that, you know, this is a long haul fight either way. And a lot of us have been saying this, that, you know, again, it was never going to be the case that we would simply go into the booth and vote Trump out and suddenly everything was going to be resolved. Trump did not come out of nowhere.

Trump rose with a movement that is representative of not just a longstanding history of racism in this country, but a particular backlash to the changing demographics, to the fact that you do have this shifting that's going on in the population and the participation of younger people and, you know, people who are more diverse. And there are people that don't want to see that. So, again, even if we had a blowout tonight, we're still looking at a situation where there is a significant segment of this country that does not want things to change. Got it. And so we are looking at a protracted fight either way. So everyone needs to, like, pace themselves, you know, and let's let's stay in this fight. There's no reason to be defeatist

in this moment at all. Brie Newsom, we appreciate it. Thank you so very much. One of the folks who have been on top of this voter suppression issues is Greg Palast, investigative reporter. He joins us right now. Greg, I'm spending a lot of time literally responding to text messages and emails saying, calm the hell down, folks. I think this is a perfect example, Greg, where people were emboldened by polls and, oh my goodness, it's going to be a blowout if we win Florida. Game is over. If we win Texas, game over. Look, you can't measure intensity in a poll. You don't know until folks show up, which is why you got to do everything you can to get your people to the poll and what you've been doing, protecting their votes at the polls. Yes, this has been the big issue for me.

And look, this year I did an analysis of the purge, the massive purge that's going on. And by the way, if you go to gregpalace.com, Leonardo DiCaprio hosted a little film I made about the massive purges going on throughout this country. What do we mean by purge? It means that they're canceling people off the voter rolls. It's one thing it's not being reported. You know, when I was working for BBC television and The Guardian, when we reported races in Britain and in Europe, but especially in Britain, if we not only told you what the votes were, we told you about the non-votes. If there was a vote that was cast and not counted, spoiled and thrown away for some reason, there were always just a few,

a handful, you know, a couple hundred in a region. Well, we don't discuss that in America. We don't report the fact that in 2016, 925,000 people were shunted to provisional ballots, which were rejected, thrown in the garbage. That's the official government number. I think it's the real ones higher, over a million. Just short of a million votes thrown in the garbage.

Whose votes? Well, if you're African-American, I think it's the real ones higher, over a million, just short of a million votes thrown in the garbage. Whose votes? Well, if you're African-American, the chance your vote, your provisional ballot will be thrown in the garbage is 300 percent more likely than if you're white. Now, how do you end up with this provisional ballot rolling? It's because you show up and they say you're not on the voter rolls anymore. How does that happen? It doesn't happen in other countries. Some of the countries don't even bother to register voters like did this analysis for the ACLU of Georgia and for Black Voters Matter. And we got the experts.

I had to sue this scamp of a secretary of state, this Republican hack named Brad Raffensperger, who took Brian Kemp's place. Remember, he's the guy that stole the race from Stacey Abrams by removing voters before his election in 2018. But it's not just Georgia, but Georgia is important. Removing 200,000 voters illegally, overwhelmingly voters of color. I've got their names and addresses, every single one. And that could change the U.S. Senate. We've got two Senate seats which are like this. We got the Ossoff-Purdue race. Perdue should lose that. And we've got Reverend Warnock, who's running in the special election. This could change the

complexion of the United States Senate, and they're trying to steal it. Whether Biden wins or not, that's only part of the action here, my friends. So I'm very concerned. Now, all those people say, should I panic? And some people are saying, don't panic. I'm not saying either. What I'm saying is open your eyes, be realistic, and understand. When they said the polls were wrong in 2016, no, they weren't. I told you in September of two months before the election, Trump would steal it.

He could still steal it now. But you know what, Roland? Here's why I'm not too worried. You can't steal all the votes all the time. We know that. And they, you know, yeah, they could steal 200,000 votes in Georgia. But there are several million other voters that could make the difference. So I'm concerned about the purges in Georgia and in other states, including the effects in North Carolina and Michigan.

And so I don't know what the result will be, but it's about time America wakes up to the fact that we are removing people of color from the voter rolls en masse. And it's just not covered in the media, except on Roland Martin Unlimited and unfiltered, I should say. Greg Pallast, man, we always appreciate the work that you do, keeping folks informed. We're going to keep watching these results to see what happens, and I suspect we're going to be here for quite some time. We certainly appreciate it. Might be calling you back, depending on what happens in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Yes. Nasty work in Ohio. Again, that should be a blue state. But they removed 800000 voters from the voter rolls of Ohio.

Well, in Ohio, that's that's that's where the voter actually filed a lawsuit. They went all the way to the Supreme Court and they that in the Supreme Court rule that purging was allowed. Yep. We can we can just remove voters in America. Well, God bless America. And I hope you do, Roland. Let's let's keep our fingers crossed. Again, they can't steal all the votes all the time. So don't panic. Let's just force the voting. Let's make sure that this time, though, that if there's trouble, that we don't have Democratic candidates that just say that just hold up their hands and walk away. It's time to defend the right to vote, period. All right, then. I really appreciate it, Greg Powell. Thank you so very much. Thanks.

All right. I want to go back to Chris, Mark, Janice, and Spencer Overton. I'll start with Chris Metzler. Is Chris still there? Okay. Is Spencer still there? Okay. All right, folks. We switched out the panel there.

Just give me a second. Let me see who is who is with us. Rob Richardson, Disruption Now, Disruption Now podcast is there. Rob is there. Melanie Campbell, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. And we're going to be bringing back Mark Thompson, also Tiffany Lofton with the NAACP. Rob, I want to start with you. What's happening in your state of Ohio? Early reports had Biden looking well. According to according to CNN, Trump is ahead by five in Ohio. It looks like 74 percent of the vote in. Is that which is that what you're seeing as well yeah it is what i'm saying um it's about what i expected uh i know ohio pretty well having run uh across the state

i know every part of the state pretty well got over two million votes and i saw the similar pattern like when he was up and people were saying he's up in ohio uh i know because i was up 10 15 points in ohio for a long time in night. And then when those smaller counties came in, I mean, what he has done is he's engaged a lot of voters that weren't there before in Ohio. So he has done that and he's done that successfully. What I think the lesson for Democrats is, and, you know, we'll have to see how the night goes. But regardless, the fact that this race is closer than people had expected, I think, is because I don't think there's been enough attention on really hyper-focusing on your base. Like, Trump went after his base specifically. And you can see on YouTube, I saw ads specifically for black men. There were ads specifically for Hispanic men.

Like, there were ads over and over and over and over and over again, targeting them. And I think too much for the Democratic base is like, we're going to win that. Let's figure out, let's get people in the middle. And I hope that works. If it doesn't, I think there's a lesson in that you have to make sure

that you have the people in your base on board. Everyone was talking about, well, we're going to win all these states. We're going to win Texas. We're going to win, we're going to see what happens in Georgia. But all these places that I hear every year we're going to turn, but not actually focusing on the bread and butter and the concrete of the actual party. I think there has to be some focus on that, regardless of what happens tonight, because I don't believe it should be as close.

Even counting all the chicanery, even counting all the suppression, there's enough votes there, I think, to not make it as close as it is now. I'm sorry. I have to disagree with that, Melanie. I go back to what I said in 2009. we are living in the age of white minority resistance right white minority resistance to the changing demographics in this country when rob talks about uh trump and that base when he is that hardcore base on the issues of immigration that hardcore base when he attacks black lives matter uh that hardcore base i'm telling Black Lives Matter, that hardcore base. The polling showed it. There was a poll that was done by Pew in 2009.

The question was asked, are you optimistic about the future of America for your children? Black people, Latino people, Asian, Native Americans, more than majority said yes. White folks were the only ones less than the majority. September 2016, another poll was asked, are you optimistic about the future of America economically for the next 10 years? Black people, lowest wealth, highest optimism.

Latinos, second highest optimism. Then Asians, lowest optimism, the Asians. Lowest optimism, white Americans. Trump and the Republican Party is appealing to the white fear of the future. And these white voters are responding accordingly because they see him as the last line of defense for them. Melody. Roland, yes. Because at the end of the day, that's really that when they talk about the silent voter, right? I think that's some of what we're seeing. And so for us, and on the other side of

that equation, we also know that that's also the issues around racism. That's why it keeps, that keeps being the number one issue for us. Racism, hate crimes, right? You know, other issues, of course, of justice, but racism and hate crimes. We see that with black women. We see that as far as our essence poll, BWR essence poll for the last three years, because it's becoming more and more overt. And then folks, no matter what's going on, we know that even when it came down to COVID-19, when it was not clear that it was African-Americans who were dying disproportionately, people were wearing a mask. When they heard that it was black people that were dying most of it, all of a sudden, it's about my civil liberties, right? So there's a lot—race and racism in this country is part of why this country is not going to move forward until we address it. And so I'm still hopeful,

and I'm partisan because I can't be out here saying who, but personally, I'm hopeful that we will still, by the time the dust settles, this country will have moved more forward. Because otherwise, what we're saying in this moment, with all that

has happened, if we vote in a way that white folks vote the way I think a lot of them are still voting, we still don't know, then they're saying they would rather tear down the democracy and allow for there to be an autocracy, to allow for there to be one person who could rule it, change what it is, if it's going to keep white people at the top but why is that a shock mark that's not a shock to me no not shocked to me either no and and you've been saying it i think the thing we have got to acknowledge is that the people who are voting for Donald Trump are willing to give their lives to sustain white supremacy. And I mean, Mark, Mark, hold tight one second. Mark,

hold tight one second. Jamie Harrison is now speaking, giving his concession speech. Let's go to listen to that. OK, folks, you should be able to. All right. We should be able to see it. Let me know where you do see it. We're going to go to that in a second. All right. Mark, go ahead. Continue. We're going to get the Jamie Harrison speech up. Go ahead. Well, just quickly, they're willing to die to uphold white supremacy, and that's literal, because they're voting to reelect someone who is killing them with COVID, okay? And just as much as Reverend Barber and I have talked about, and you've talked about the need for a third reconstruction in America, this is a second or third reclamation, which is what happened after the first reconstruction, when the white supremacists came back in power. This is a second or third reclamation, which is what happened after the first reconstruction,

when the white supremacists came back in power. This is still a white lash against Barack Obama. And people see the handwriting on the wall. The demographics in this country are changing. And I agree with you wholeheartedly, Roland. This is about fear. It is about the fear that Dr. Wilson talked about, that Dr. Trisha Newton talked about as well. And so that's that's really what we're up against. We've got to get ourselves together.

We've got to once again be willing to sacrifice and do whatever we have to do in order to bring about change. And to Melanie's point, I love Melanie. Melanie, the thing I would add to what you just said, though, is that they don't care about democracy any more than Putin does. Putin wants to destabilize his government, every other government in Europe. Trump wants to help him. But Trump's supporters are like those that existed during segregation. When we stayed in the hotels that were segregated, they burned the sheets in the bed. When we got in the segregated pools, they drained the water. We had a black family in that White House. And so to some of these people, I think America is now soiled. So they want to tear it down and destroy it to retaliate for the black family that soiled the White House, that's what they're willing

to do. After all, that's why Donald Trump allegedly went to Moscow and had what was done in the bed that they slept in. I think it's that same mentality, to risk your life in a pandemic, to allow someone to stack and pack. He's the one doing the packing on the Supreme Court, not the other side. For all of that to be allowed to happen, to vote for someone who does not have the best interests of anyone at heart, to me, it proves the point that white supremacy is the order of the day.

Let's go to Tiffany Lofton with the NAACP. Tiffany, all right, folks, let me know when we get Tiffany back. Here's what we'll do, folks. We're going to try to pull up Jamie Harrison's speech in just a moment. He is still speaking, giving his concessions speech there in South Carolina. And so we will hear from him. Tiffany is there, but I got to go to a break real quick. We come back to the break. We will hear from Tiffany Lofton and then we'll pull up Jamie Harrison speech as well.

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Roland Martin Unfiltered. Let's go to Tiffany Lofton, T. Jones. She's, of course, with the NAACP. Tiffany, we are still waiting for critical results coming in from Georgia, North Carolina, of course, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona. I mean, in Wisconsin, those states are going to decide this presidential election. According to what I'm looking right now, Trump is leading in Texas. He's leading in North Carolina. He's leading in Georgia, leading in Ohio.

Looks like this election will come down to those three critical states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. You know, I'm here in Michigan right now, Roland, partnering with WokeVote and Until Freedom for the last week and a half. I've been on a bus traveling from Atlanta to Raleigh, North Carolina, to West Philadelphia, where Walter Williams Jr. was murdered, and then to Pittsburgh, where it was windy as all get out. And now in Detroit, we were in Dearborn a couple of minutes ago. We just, just, just got back from Dearborn, the last polling location. And we waited until the last person who was standing in line got a chance to cast their ballot and vote. And in all these cities that I've gone to,

and especially here in Michigan, since I spent the last day and a half, the two things that stick out to me are, one, everybody understood that voting early was important, and two, that people had plans. We canvassed and knocked on doors. We met up with Pastor Michael McBride out of Oakland in Raleigh, North Carolina. And Angela Rye turned up when we were in North Carolina as well. And in every canvas site that we went to, we knocked on doors.

The people in the homes were saying we already voted. We already voted. Or they said, I'm voting tomorrow morning or I'm on my way to vote after work. People had a plan. And so, you know, when I showed up this morning at 6 a.m. to the Detroit NAACP, where Camilla Landrum is executive director, they had a entire layout of two poll monitors per voting location. There were 25 locations here in the area. They had lawyers on deck. They had a hotline that folks were able to call to get advice about what it is that they need to do to make sure that their vote got counted. And I saw a lot of young people. I saw a lot of Black people. You know, I don't want to, I know what I felt like in the last presidential election where I was anxious. And I was actually on your show. If you remember this last time that we did this and we woke up the next morning and I had to fly

to Florida when I found out that Donald Trump became the nation's commander in chief. And so I am I'm tired. I've been on a bus. We've been organized knocking on doors. I've been meeting a whole bunch of people and kids. And the NAACP Youth and College Division has been working really hard to register and make sure folks are verified so they can check their voter registration status. We've made over 2 million text messages, over 82,000 phone calls, our young people in the NAACP. And I don't want to give my hopes up yet. I want to wait and see what's going to happen. I want them to count all the votes, every single vote. Um, and, and we'll see what happens. Um, the, um, again, we're looking at, we're looking at these different results. We're looking at, uh, how, uh,

they are all playing. And, uh, Henry, if you can, um, do you see my iPad here, Henry? You do see it here. Look guys, this is very simple. So I've been on 270towin.com. I've been looking at different states. Again, we're waiting on election results. Let's assume Trump wins Texas. Let's assume Trump wins Georgia. Let's assume he wins North Carolina. Let's assume he wins Ohio. Let's assume he wins Pennsylvania. Let's assume Biden wins Wisconsin and Michigan. That means this entire election is going to come down to Arizona. Those 11 electoral college votes in Arizona are going to decide this race. Now, we heard earlier from the folks in Michigan that we won't know for

several days because of ballots that are coming in. So that's one of the things that we won't know for several days because of a balance that are coming in. So that's one of the things that that that we won't know. And so same thing. We don't know in terms of Pennsylvania as well. So, again, if you if this race comes down to, frankly, Pennsylvania and Arizona State, Tiffany, it will be several days before we know. Now people understand why Donald Trump was attacking the Supreme Court for allowing those ballots to be counted with the extension in the state of Pennsylvania. That's right. That's right. It was all strategic. He was thinking about the future. It's everything he did was strategic. He's a fool, but what he did was strategic. And so, you know, I think it's by November 10th, all the states have to have declared who the winner is. So this could take a few days and folks need to hold on and buckle up their seat, you know, their seatbelts so that we don't jump to any conclusions first until every single vote gets counted.

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, folks. And so. So so here's where we are. Here's where we are in terms of this. It is 1051 Eastern, 1051 Eastern. There were all these different stories saying, oh, by 10 or 11 o'clock, we will know who actually will win this race. Rob, I told everybody, no, we're not. I said, I'm telling you all right now, you might as well be thinking about 12, one o'clock, two o'clock, because if you look at the map, I go back to what I said, Rob, to folks when I was on MSNBC, I said it, people, Donnie Deutsch, oh my goodness, thought I was wrong. And I said, look, white people are going to have to prove to me that they are going

to say no to racism. The reality is this here. I mean, look, when I see these Republicans out here, when I see them, like I saw Geraldo and Ari Fleischer and all these people given the reasons why they support Trump. And it's like, oh, I mean, Jack Nicklaus right there in your state of Ohio tried to say, well, yeah, you know, we disagree with his tweets and some of the mean stuff he say. They don't care. No, they don't. They don't care. They are. What you find here is this boils down to one thing that they're saying is I don't give a damn how racist, how sexist, how crazy, how outlandish. I don't care how he frankly hasn't even remotely governed accordingly with coronavirus. We want power.

That's correct. That's correct. And they they care about power. They care about whatever it takes. And they believe in some evidence shows that they're right. His personality, his persona will engage enough people that it will allow more people to come out. I'm not saying he's won this race, but regardless, he's been able to get more people out than some expected. Not you, not me, because I've been through it on the other side many times. I've seen those polls. I've seen what people say. And I don't underestimate, I've never underestimated since 2016, what Donald Trump is able to do in terms of getting his people to come out. He knows how to do that, which is why I still go back to Merle's point. I mean, Democrats still can do better at focusing on giving hope and focusing on their people and making sure that they are more engaged. And I do think they still take us for granted,

even though I am a Democrat. I still think they can do better to make sure they have an agenda and they're specific about what they want to do. That being said, yeah, I mean, this is showing, these numbers tell me everything I need to know about race and racism in this country. And even if Joe Biden goes on to win, I will tell you, there's a lot of people in this country that are okay with using race, that are okay with racism, no matter what it does to us. And we have a long fight ahead of us. But that itself, Melanie, is not a shock. That is America. I mean, that is America. And now we're really in a situation. Look, here's the deal. The last election, and I kept, again, I don't, I get all these other people playing with the magic walls and punching up counties and all this sort of stuff like that.

I'm sorry. The last election, 71 percent of the total electorate was white. Seventy one or seventy two percent. I said that this election, it should drop to 68 to 69%. What that means is that still more than two thirds of the people voting are white. And so you, it's understanding these dynamics and understanding the dynamics of power. And people have to, people have to look at that. They have to look at the fact that Republicans coalesce around candidates. For all of the stuff you heard from, all the stuff you heard from never Trumpers and all the people, we could play all those sound bites of Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, all sitting here calling Trump every name in the book. They all sat there and campaigned for him. And on Democratic side, here you were.

You still had people who were saying, man, my person should have won. This should have happened. It should have happened. It's a difference in terms of how you coalesce because it's a difference in the understanding of power. Yes. Yes. And one of the things and like you said, we're not going to know tonight. But I I can't sit here. I've known you a long time and say that, you know, there's a level of sadness that I feel in knowing it, but yet still leaving our hope that something different could happen. that there's a level of sadness that I feel in knowing it,

but yet still leaving out hope that something different could happen when it comes to the issue of race and the way white folks think about that. And even if Biden wins this electoral college tonight, there are a whole lot of white folks who are okay, as you stated. So we've got a lot of work to do. And then I look at the South, where 55% of our people live, who, and I say the South ever could change, right? So prayerfully, something out of the South will still come out on the positive. But we really do have-

I can take my seat back. I'm just concerned about the positive. But we really do have to rethink. I'm just concerned about the audience. Again, Mark Thompson, let me say this, and I need to walk people through. The election ain't over. Mark, I'm not

sitting here freaking out because, one, it was going to be tight. I'm not freaking out because you're going to be counting ballots for days in Pennsylvania, in Michigan. Okay. So North Carolina. So my whole deal is got this thing is not. So again, I get it. I think the problem is if you set yourself up expecting a blowout, I remember all the people, oh, oh, I might get 400 college votes. I wouldn't even entertain that conversation on the show because it was illogical. It was utterly illogical. If I, if I played with the map, if I play with the map right now, the only way that would happen

for, for somebody way that would happen, for somebody to think, oh, he was going to win Texas and Florida and Georgia and North Carolina and was going to just wipe away those, oh, he's going to clean up Ohio and Pennsylvania. They were not paying any attention to anything that happened before 2016 and then present day. Yeah. I agree. There still is a ways to go.

I still, I will say this, what gives me anxiety is that if these four states you mentioned, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, I don't think Arizona, I think that's running away. It looks like it's really going to be tight in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina. If that stays tight, the Trump campaign is going to try to go back to court. Of course. And try to get the Supreme Court to try to stop this count. I think that cumulatively, one of the mistakes that has been made in this country is that everybody's become used to the election being over on Tuesday night.

When, in fact, you know, there's a certification process, there are mail-in ballots, even military ballots. And a lot of people just don't know that. That's why everybody was prepared for tonight. Well, let's also be honest first of all we've only had if you look at the last 10 elections you only had really really airtight elections this one in 2016 and then you go about 2000 so it's not like you i mean so that granted that's three but that's one of the things that we have here hold tight one second i gotta i gotta go to break in a second when we come back uh we're gonna add rc.C. Maxwell, Republican, Republican strategist.

When we come back, also the rest of our panel as well. So folks, hold tight one second. Quick pause. Station ID for the folks with the Black Information Network. You're watching Roland Martin unfiltered election night 2020. A lot of times big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires

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