#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 2024 Review: Trump beats Harris, 2 new Black women Senators, Trump immunity, Clarence Thomas $$$

Episode Date: January 5, 2025

12.30.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: 2024 Review: Trump beats Harris, 2 new Black women Senators, Trump immunity, Clarence Thomas $$$ It's the last Monday of the year, we'll look at some of the biggest stories in 2024.  We'll also preview what to expect from Congress, the Supreme Court, and the elections in the new year.  Our panel will also make a few of their own 2025 predictions.  #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: Curl Prep | Visit https://www.curlprep.com/ for natural hair solutions! Us the discount code "ROLAND" at checkout #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man.

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We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department ofth, 30th, excuse me, 2024. I'm Candace Kelly sitting in for Roland Martin. Now here's what's coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered Live on the Blackstar

Network. Since this is the last Monday of the year, we're going to take a look at some of the biggest stories in 2024. We'll also preview what to expect from Congress, the Supreme Court, and the elections in the new year. Our panel will also make a few predictions of their own. It's time to bring in the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network fat, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best believe he's knowing.

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He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know he's Rollin' Martel! Now! Martel! Our time All right. So we know that it is the countdown to the new year. 2025 is coming. But for so many, we are thinking about the countdown also to January 20th, where we have president-elect Donald Trump, who's going to make it into office. Now, this is not without a little bit of victory on the part of Black women in America. We know that. Delaware's Lisa Blunt Rochester and Maryland's Angela Also Brooks, they're two Black women who, for the first time, served together in the history of the United States of America. We're going to open up by speaking with my panel about this

topic. I am joined now by Dr. Julianne Malveaux, economist and author. She is out of Washington, D.C. Also with us, Jolanda Jones, Texas state representative and lawyer out of Houston, Texas, and Joy Cheney, founder of Joy Strategies out of Washington, D.C. Good to see all of you here tonight. I've got all the J's tonight. I'm out of this with my scene, Candace. All right, Julianne, Jolanda, and Joy, let's go. Let me first start by opening up this victory. I mean, it is a small victory when we think about the history of Black women in America, Dr. Melvo, but certainly two Black women serving in the Senate at the same time is something that we're very proud of. Absolutely. This is an amazing moment. First of all, you know, Angela also Brooks, I supported her heavily. I think I'm maxed out on dollars.

She is an amazing grace. She's a brilliant young woman who I foresee great things from. Also, she's a fierce young woman and she comes from the working class. This is important when we look at the Senate, look at the average wealth of the Senate, which is about the average wealth, about $3 million for the average American.

It's a fraction of that. She's coming from a place where she gets us, not us Black people, but us working people, us Poe people. And so I think that that's really great. And then Lisa Blood Rochester, to have the two of them together as a partnership is a really great, what can I say, really great tribute to Black women in our work. Our work, Women with Black Women, they were behind both of these women. Thousands were raised thanks to Star Jones because we want to support those women.

And so here we are. Now we have, this is a victory. So we cannot do anything as, we have to celebrate this. We just have to celebrate this. And whatever else is going on, we have to celebrate this. So Jolanda, let me turn to you. I mean, two women, certainly making history, but certainly not a lot. When we look at the numbers, what are your expectations? What do you think they can do in terms of their new positions of power and how they can make that work for change and really kind of speak to all of the things that they promised during their campaign? That we have to manage expectations. They are in a Republican Senate. And I think the most value that they can do for each other is to be there to support each other. As an elected official myself in Texas, and I don't need to tell you about Texas,

sometimes because we are fighting every day uphill with systems designed to oppress us, that sometimes we need reinforcements when we're having a bad day, which I respectfully submit to you with Trump and the Republicans controlling everything, they're going to have a lot of bad days. And they will know between each other what they're going through. And so their biggest, I guess the most positive thing about them is that they can work and support each other and actually learn how the Senate works, you know, where the power is at, see if there are any ways for them to fit in with, you know,

the MAGA people going after the moderate Republicans. There may be some ability, but you also know the seniority matters in the Senate. So for us to think that two freshman Black women in the Senate are going to go and make a whole bunch of change, I just don't think that that's realistic. But they can try to stop things. I don't know what their strong points are. You know, like I know that in Texas, for example, we have points of order where we can actually stop bad legislation. I think that they need to take the time to learn those things that they need to learn in order to figure out how it works and then be there to support each other when they have uphill battles all day every day. Joy, you know, Jolanda does bring up a good point in that they will have to support each other.

This is a Republican-led Congress. They will have to find the means to make a way. But as a strategist, what could they do to make their way a little bit more paved? Well, I mean, one of the things that I think Lisa Rochester has going for her is that she's served in the body before, right? She's been not in the Senate, but in the House, right? So she has a sense of the rules, right? She has a staff that is a federal congressional staff that comes along with her. We know Angela Unbrook's my incoming new senator because I'm from the D.C. area. I live

in Chattanooga, Chase. You know, we're very excited about that. They're both experienced. And I think that one of the things we'll have to understand is that in the Senate, it's based on hierarchy. And so they're going to be presiding over the Senate many days. Well, actually, no, not them because we don't control the Senate anymore, but they will have rules play that are not glamorous ones, but that's how it works, right? You want to pay your dues. You want to get in there. You want to do the work of being a young, new senator. You want to get to spend time with the other senators, go to the prayer meetings, go to the prayer breakfasts, get to know them, get to know the Republican senators. Despite what we see on TV, it is a place. And by the way, I'm experienced in this. I'm a former Senate chief of staff. It is a place where you have to get to know people.

Give a shout out to my former boss, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Get to know her. She's really great about navigating the Senate. And then and then you will build up those relationships. They'll teach you, you know, from your other senators, you know, about fundraising and what the rhythm is like and, you know, what committees build on other committees to make sure you're in a position that you want to be in, not just for today, but the long haul. And so, you know, those are the things that I would recommend that they do. Get in line and just do the hard work of laying the groundwork of building a strong foundation in the Senate and making sure that you can come back in your second term. That's what the first term is all about, making sure that you are sending money whenever you can, even though we don't know where

we're going to land on earmarks as often as you can back. Getting constituent services. Senate offices are pretty much social worker services offices. Getting your constituent services Senate offices are pretty much social worker services offices getting constituent services and running Immediately so then when people call you they can reach you they have If I could just jump in here, I think joy is giving a really great advice One hand on the other hand, I especially about the constituent services, which are really important. You will live or die on those. Now, another piece of it is that I don't think that these sisters need to go in there being Mr. Bojangles, Joy.

I know that's your experience. Why Mr. Bocchang? Let me finish. Because what I really want to say is they came in to disrupt. And I would encourage them to disrupt. Angela also is a brilliant disruptor. Lisa Lunt, Rochester, a little bit less so, but still a disruptor. And so they don't need,

again, they should do the meetings and blah, blah, blah. You're giving them interesting advice. Obviously, I disagree with much of it. I do agree with the whole notion of getting to know people, but I think that they should not Bojangles it. They should come in fierce and strong because that's how they were elected.

Well, thatles it. They should come in fierce and strong because that's how they were elected. Joy, go ahead, Joy. I'll let you jump in before we move on. Definitely not Bojangles. But I don't think going in to learn how the body works is Bojangling. Yeah. I didn't take it like that.

No. There are a hundred senators, and you know whatever senator sees in the mirror every morning? A president. They all think that they can do it. And so just know that there are a hundred of those personalities and you are at the bottom of that rung. Even Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,

when they went in, people would ask Barack Obama, what's it like working in the Senate? He's like, I sharpened the pencils. I'm at the bottom of the list. That doesn't mean you cannot rise and it doesn't mean you can't be a disruptor. But people do want to get to know you. And if you want to have higher aspirations, you will need those senators to support you. So you do want to get to know them. You want to get the rules. The Senate, especially when you have a Senate where it's going to be held by a Republican

majority, knowing the rules of the Senate is really important. And I think nobody says they should know the rules, but guess what? They also should have the ability to break them. I mean, they should learn them, but they should also

break them. These sisters came in as disruptors, and I want them not to be influenced by you, but by me to say keep disrupting. And I agree, but you've got to come in and you've got to have way play the game. You can be disruptive and people not know you being disruptive. And a perfect example of how somebody came in disrupting and now she's going to ascend to leadership and couldn't is, what's the congresswoman out of New York? AOC. She came in disrupting. She came in endorsing people against her colleagues. So guess what?

Them colleagues ain't about to support her for nothing. So you've got to be super nuanced and I think the best thing an incoming person into any elected body can be is to go in and learn the rules, figure out which rules you're going to master, figure out where the power resides, go talk to people, carry their briefcases, sharpen their pencils. You might even play like you don't know what you're doing and you might play dumb and you might flatter them to get them to spill secrets to you that you will use very effectively once you've been there a little minute to be an effective disruptor. All right, I'm going to jump in here because listen, two sides of the coin there. I want to hear from the comment section what people think about this two sides of the

coin. Before we go over to Shamari figures, let's go down to Alabama. Listen, not since the 18, what, 1832? Has someone been in the House of Representatives in this position, a person of color? Certainly a big deal, but there had to be a redesigning of the district in order for this to happen. You know, Dr. Malveaux, this is why we recognize what is happening when it comes to redlining and fighting courts to make the change. Here we have District No. 2. A big deal, obviously, because this is someone who finally was able to cross the bridge and win. That's for Dr. Malveaux. I'm looking at Alabama and that District 2 and the ways that it had been gerrymandered and what people have

done persistently to stop the gerrymandering. And I think that this is a victory, but it's also a challenge. And the challenge is that it's a one-off. We have legislatures changing. We have judges changing. This is a good thing, but it's not a permanent thing. And then I think we're all concerned about. So Mari figures is a great candidate, great guy. But is this a sustainable victory? That's my question. Is this a sustainable victory?

Joy, I'm going to pass the baton to you. Is this a sustainable victory? Is this just a one-off? Obviously something we can all be proud of, making headlining news, and we'll be watching to see what he does next, having already worked in the Obama administration. But what are your thoughts? So first of all, full disclosure, Shamari's friend, at least his wife, is a very good friend. I texted with her to say that we would be talking about him tonight. I think that this is a pattern for when courts work to protect Black voters voters and we can end up here, we can actually win. And then the party supported him. And he was someone from the state who had

had federal experience, went back home, was able to really advance. And there was a lot of support around him. The party supported him. This is sort of, I think, a pattern, not just for him, but I think that we can see repeated elsewhere, especially when we pay attention to redistricting. We are armed. So I hope that we are gearing up for that when that time comes around, coming forward, which means we need to be preparing now so that we can be ready to be able to fight these battles. And it's going to be like this district by district. Let me just also say that Sudha Mari is a young guy. He is a family man. He is someone who represents, you know, when people see him, they see themselves in him. They feel like, you know, the Democratic Party isn't all

oxygenarians, which we love them too, but we have to have intergenerational leadership. So I'm just so excited about not just him winning in District 2 and what we were able to do with the registrant in there, but his runway. Young guy running wings that we can have a long runway. Perhaps, who knows, going to President Shamari Fitness. Yeah, Jolanda, certainly she's making a good point. Listen, the younger, the better in terms of how many decades of our life will he be potentially in office. Just a good precedent, I think, in terms of how the court system works that brought us here to now a small victory in some ways, a big victory in many other ways, but certainly more than a good start, Jolanda. So, yeah, so I think it's a big victory. I think

there's not going to be redistricting until, was it 2030, right? So he'll hold onto that seat for at least six years. I think what's beautiful about congressman-elect figures is that he comes from people who can help him. His mom is a great senator. His dad was a senator. I don't know if you guys know this, but his father represented the woman, I can't remember her name, who bankrupted the KKK. So, and he's a lawyer. So as a lawyer myself, there are some skills that we have that help us figure out how to navigate systems and are able to find the right answers. He's smart. He showed that he could win in a big field. There was a big field that he had to win

and he won in a runoff against a very, I guess, respected state representative in Alabama. And so I'm excited for him. I'm excited to see a Black man be in Congress. I think representation matters. And again, some people get elected and they are the first person in their family and they're not from a political environment. And so they're there by themselves. And I think the beautiful thing about him is he has the right

degrees. He has the right life experiences. He's got a family to keep him grounded. He's got six years before he has to worry about redistricting. And he's got some people who can help him navigate the system. So I am excited. And I believe that in D.C., under these very difficult circumstances, that Democrats are going to stick together, I hope. But Black Democrats are going to stick together because they know the target is on us. So way to go, Congressman Elect. I can't wait to call you Congress. All right. Six years, certainly a lot of time to make some headway. When we come back, we are going to be talking about someone who was not strange at all to going viral, being in the headlines, a congresswoman from Texas. You're watching the Roland Martin Network. I'm Candace Kelly and we'll be right back after these

messages with more for what to expect down the line in 2025 for hard lines that were made in 2024. Now streaming on the Blackstar Network. I was challenged by my uncle early on before I even had a career. Like I was maybe eight years old and my uncle said, what do you want to do? And I told him I wanted to be a rapper. And he said, OK, well, I don't know anything about the music business.

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though I ain't never known him to be filtered is there nothing is there another way to experience Roland Martin than to be unfiltered of course he's unfiltered would you expect anything less why watch watch watch what happens next All right. As we look at 2024, we have to look at Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. She's no stranger to going viral. But this year, it was this moment that sparked many, many, many viral moments. Now the chair recognizes Miss Green for four minutes and 21 seconds. Mr. Chair, point of order. It's me.

Ms. Crockett. I'm just curious, just to better understand your ruling, if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleached, blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct? A what now? Chairman, I make a motion to strike those words I don't think that's a line I'm trying to find clarification on what

you said we're not gonna we're not gonna do this like you guys I'm trying to get clarification. Look it, calm down. Calm down. No, no, no, because this is what y'all do. So I'm trying to get clarification. Hey, Ms. Crockett, you're not recognized. Ms. Crockett. I can't hear you with your yelling.

Calm down. No. Will you please calm down? Don't tell me to calm down. Calm down. Because y'all talk noise and then you can't take it. You're out of control. Because if I come and talk shit about her, y'all don't have a problem.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman. Order. All right, her alliteration calls many creators, including Roland Martin and Spilter's own Kenan, to make some great music. Bad Bill Shane, bad Bill Shane, whole lot of frontin', whole lot of frontin', all in my lane. Yeah, it makes you move a little bit. Hi. Jolanda, what's going through your mind when you see this again and as you move your shoulders a little bit to the beat? So I served with Congressman Crockett for a small segment when she was in the state house. And the thing I love about Congresswoman Crockett is this. She literally uses her street skills because up in the hood is real important because you got to be able to come back

she uses her legal skills i.e she challenged them on a point of clarification using their parliamentary procedure after the house let marjorie taylor green be disrespectful and talk about her eyelashes and sometimes you need to say stuff to get people's attention. And what's important about that is it challenged the notion because four people consistently say that politicians are not in touch with their constituencies. They talk over their heads. And Jasmine made it real simple. That's right. She made it real simple. And she basically used black nomenclature because we've all heard of bad built people. We've heard of, you know, butch built people. We've heard of bleach blonde ditzes, which those six words brought so many different thoughts into my mind. Right. But what it did most importantly is it pushed back on bullies who were who are not accustomed to being pushed back on because the Republicans think they can out yell you out, shout you.

And because they have the numbers and they can just bring you down. And I thought the Congress and Crockett was brilliant. I also believe that black people felt empowered because people culturally appropriate us. They never listen to us. And guess what? She won that. She did. And she didn't just win that for that moment in Congress where she made them think about, I want to talk about decorum. Well, this ain't decorum. But she made black people feel great, just like that woman on that ferry the year before.

You know, Joy, I think one of the things that Jolanda brought up is 100% correct. And that is that she has the ability to really speak to people in their own language, make them feel like they are part of this world that so many people feel like they are shut out from. You know, folks still won't go to vote, but she's someone who opens the door and says, come on in, I'm talking your language.

That's right. She is brilliant. She did challenge them on the rules. Right. So she understood for all watching, you got to know the rules in order to challenge them. And then you can challenge them in your own language. Right. And your own with your own flair, which is what she did, which is what we love. And people want to believe that their members of Congress are fighting for them, right? So definitely not one who engages in that kind of detour. I don't. Did I love it? No. If my kids had been watching that day, I would have been humiliated that they were watching this whole display. That's bad. I may be wrong about that.

Many people are looking at that and feeling like, you know what? When people challenge me like Marjorie Taylor Greene did, when they talk to me like she did, sometimes you got to growl back, take it to them, let them know that that's not acceptable and it won't be tolerated. And they need to feel that people are willing to kind of get in the muck a little bit on their behalf. And that's what President Crockett does. And she does so brilliantly. So even though, yes, I already discussed that I'm a Senate person and we don't like that.

But it is sort of how you have to mix it up sometimes in the House. And frankly, it reminds people that no one denies that you are a constituent of hers and she is fighting for you. Yeah. You know, Dr. Malveaux, a lot of doors were open for her to respond to. They assessed her looks. They assessed how she talked. They basically said she was a wild woman. Calm down, calm down. These are all things that taken one in and of itself, you just can't do to any woman, especially not a black woman on the floor, you know, when you are in Congress, not a good idea. And she showed them. Absolutely. First of all, it was a brilliant alliteration, the BBBBBB, which built whatever. It was a brilliant alliteration and showed her chops as an orator and as a sister in the struggle

number two marjorie taylor green okay what can we do with her folks can we figure something out can we like have a paper bag party on her behind y'all know what i mean but um because she's just out of order out of line she's talking about people. But because she's just out of order, out of line. She's talking about people's eyelashes because she can't read. Because if you could read, you would understand these people are reading the same documents you are. So just Marjorie Taylor Greene. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. But most importantly, what Jasmine Crockett has done, as I think both of my colleagues have said, she has empowered Black folks to push back. And there has to be a pushback because too much is up these days.

We're hearing about a little boy in Cape Cod who tried to drown a black child. We have Roland regularly features these Karens and crazy people who refuse to allow people to have access to their own space. And so then we have this woman who's a Congresswoman who disrespects other Congress people, but we have one who pushes back. And that's a blessing. That's a Congresswoman who disrespects other Congress people, but we have one who pushes back. And that's a blessing, and that's a lesson, and that is empowerment for our young women and men. We don't have to take this step, and we won't. And we simply won't.

Hey, to Marjorie Taylor Greene, may she live in Congress for a very long time. May she thrive and grow and help all of us. I'm excited for her. Let me say this real quick. It was a perfect example of Marjorie

Taylor Greene and the people that couldn't control the circus in Congress. They effed around with the wrong person and they found out. There you go. All right. Let us talk about now Trump and his immunity. That was a big one during 2024. Ultimately, I think a lot of people would argue, Joy, that Trump was a winner in all of this. I mean, not only was he on the cover of Time Magazine, but when we look at what the Supreme Court said and their decision

about Trump and whether or not he was immune, official lax versus unofficial lax, there was a lot of leverage that he was given. What are your thoughts about Trump, his immunity, and where we see that going in 2024? Because these charges perhaps could come back once he's out of office. The fact that he's in office, that draws the distinction, Joy. Yeah. Well, let's be clear. Time magazine, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Hitler was on the cover of Time magazine once. Personal fear can be a negative thing or a positive thing. So I would I wouldn't take that, you know, take that from what it is. Yeah, I mean, he did, he lost some, but he won some. That is the nature of courts, right? Ultimately, he won the ultimate

prize, which was he was able to be reelected. And that's really all this was about for him. For us, we were engaging in the rule of law and doing what was necessary. A person was violating the law with impunity, given many opportunities to find some kind of plea deal, some kind of out, chose not to take any of those. to go to trial so that he could have verdicts, so that he could use them as fundraising mechanisms, so that he could use them to rally his base. And it worked. Some of these cases will come back. He will probably commit more crimes that will have to be investigated. I think the Supreme Court has made it very difficult to consider doing that. They've made being president really above the law. And so I think we're going to see those laws though tested the bounds of, we're going to have to have lawyers who are willing to take the case, bring it forward so we can provide parameters around what it means for the president to have almost complete immunity for all decisions made. We're going to have to test like sort of what that means within the, you know, within the context of his job. I think

that's what we're going to have. We're going to go used to whether we're going to see any of these things that are based on the first administration come back later, probably unlikely, probably unlikely. I'm sure some of them will be time limited out. Others of them, just the moment has passed. You know, he is. I just think that, you know, you have to pick and choose what you're going to be your priorities. But I think more important is figuring out where are the bounds of the Supreme Court decision and frankly, holding him financially liable. I think there will be financial liability, but I don't think we're going to see him in jail, guys. We got to let that go. Yeah. Dr. Malveaux, interestingly enough, the door is open for charges to be potentially brought back. But like Joy said, statute of limitations. Will anybody be interested in bringing those

charges? But at this point right now, we know that Jack Smith has dropped those four charges. And so Trump, he's smiling in these pictures for a reason. He's smiling for a reason. He's off the hook for a number of things. And I think that if we go back, it's not likely that four years from now, first of all, never mind, I'm not going there, but four years from now, really,

is there going to be an interest or is he going to be alive to basically deal with what goes on? So, look at that. I think basically he's off the hook. But that I think basically he's off the hook. But that doesn't mean

he's off the hook, hook, hook. Because what we have is a person who has been convicted of 34 felonies. We have a person who is liable for at least $5 million

and perhaps more for a sexual assault of E.G. Carroll. We have a person who is on the record talking all kinds of major spit. And so while he may be off the hook in the shortest run, in the longer run, we have is a flawed president who basically, this is his legacy. His legacy is that he's a liar, a crook, a loser, and whatever else we have to say that there it is. So, you know, I think Joy is right. We're not going to see in four years, people are going to go after him if he's even with us in four years. But I do think that there's always going to be an asterisk behind his name when you talk about this 47th president. And that's the bottom line. He's never

going to be free of what he did. Although he'd like to be. That's right. In fact, today we heard from the courts that I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes

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I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. That $5 million defamation fine that he had is not going away. That just happened today. So you do win some, you lose some, Jolanda. I just think that, so again, I'm going to put my lawyer hat on. Okay. I think that Trump's immunity has long-term negative effects for this country, generally, and for Black people, period. Trump is now set loose, let loose by Supreme Court, who said, screw stare decisis. For those of you who aren't lawyers, stare decisis, for the most part, in white people's terms,

is the rule is what the rule is, sort of like we had a right to abortion, sort of like Black people had civil rights. And the Supreme Court has said, screw all that, and whatever Trump does is okay. They absolutely vote on very important issues along party lines, and I fear that Trump is gonna put more people on the Supreme Court, which is why he appeals everything. Because he knows if they can find a federal question in there, because there's got to be a federal question before to go to the Supreme Court, that he's going to get off. And it terrifies me. And yes, people will fight. They will. But Trump has really stacked the courts for the rest of his life and probably for his estate when he dies to protect it for his children.

And he is going to do everything he can do in all of his cronies to put America in a place, in a space to go back. I'm telling you this, it terrifies me as a lawyer. And if he dies in office, he's setting the stage for J.D. Vance, who's worse than him, to take office. I worry, again, as a lawyer, if we'll even have a right to elections, to free elections. So he,

trust me, Trump, with his, the one thing I can say about that man, and he is an evil man, the one thing I can say about him is he's been playing chess when everybody else has been playing checkers. He has been putting young people in office. The Republicans really have been doing that. And they are trying to figure out what laws they can undermine. They take these little lawsuits in little obscure places nobody's paying attention to, to get them up to the Supreme Court. And he is going to set us back.

And I don't know how long it will be before the Supreme Court granted him immunity, has put him in a position to be the most dangerous man in the universe. And he absolutely is. And I pray that we come out okay after this. Jolanda, I'm going to stick with you because you mentioned the court system. You mentioned how he stacked them. And when we look at 2024, we cannot not talk about Justice Clarence Thomas and the ethics violation. Supreme Court of America. Here we are, investigations have just finished up, and we're looking at somebody like Clarence Thomas. So they're saying Tech took many, many, many, many trips. What do you say about the Supreme Court and these ethics violations that they have been running from for quite a while? In fact, the guidelines that they have to follow in terms of what they've gotten. They're voluntary still.

All I can say is this. Clarence Thomas is the epitome of Stephen on Django Unchained. And as a consequence, he absolutely hates being Black. He married an ugly white woman. I hate to say it, but it's true. He has benefited and those are the types of black people that Republicans and conservatives like to put in places of power. And they're going to continue to make excuses for him taking luxury trips, getting private

tuition paid for his family members. Because you know what? Black people would have never got sold into slavery if it weren't for people who look just like us validating the slave catchers. And Clarence Thomas is that person. And I want him, I wish that he would be impeached. It's not going to happen. Again, right is right and wrong is wrong is how I was raised. But what I found out, especially since I've been elected and I've been in the back doors and I've been in the back rooms when people are doing things there are special rules for people that are supported by the people in power and so yeah we're gonna continue

to find out things that Clarence Thomas has done which started out with him doing what he did to a black woman, and they overlooked that, and they overlooked that, and they're going to continue to do this. So what we have to do as Black people is we have to be prepared to fight, and I'll use a basketball analogy. I was in All-American basketball. We got to fight the other team, and we got to fight the refs too, and we just have to keep fighting, and we need to use the skills that we learn as enslaved people to come out of this on the other side. Don't know how long it's going to last, but I promise you this. That Supreme Court could literally set our civil rights back for at least 50 years.

Well, they said they were going to do it. They said they were going to do it. When they took Dobbs back, they also talked about same-gender marriage. They talked about a number of other things. That was Thomas. Clarence Thomas is

a very damaged human being. But he said, he talked about what they would take back. And so they talked about it and now they're going to do it. And the issue is, I think, as you said, Sister Jolanda, you know, some people play chess and others play checkers. And Democrats have been caught playing checkers far too many times, but neither here nor there around the chess and the checkers.

The issue is how do we go through the next two years? Cause I'm claiming that Democrats will take the house back. I'm claiming that, but it's going to be some steady work and I don't see anybody lining up to do the work. Joy. Let me just say, we're not even playing checkers. We're playing tic-tac-toe. I'm not even going to worry about talking about Clarence Thomas. He has all the things that my co-panelists have already said. And then some, he's an embarrassment, whatever. But the truth is,

he's doing what he can do because the Senate rules, excuse me, the ethics rules for judges that apply at the lower levels of the federal circuit do not apply to the Supreme Court. They are sort of on a honor code kind of, we'll just do what's right kind of, you know, we'll just do what's right kind of practice. And that obviously has never worked, not just for Clarence Thomas, but by so many, including some who have gone on. So Clarence Thomas is just following in the tradition, but he's a little more stupid. He's doing it more brazenly than the others, but he's learned from the best he knows he can, right? So that's what he's done. The real argument, the real shame is that the Senate Judiciary Committee has not been able to

hold the Supreme Court accountable to improve, to change those rules, to even hold full public hearings in the way that they should have been held, that the Biden administration has not held them accountable. If the chief judge won't come to you, then you have to take it to them. We just simply have not done it. We have confirmed a lot of judges. And so I want to kudos to the Judiciary Committee, kudos to President Biden for confirming so many judges, but we have not held the Supreme Court accountable and we have allowed that institution to diminish itself in terms of public trust and accountability. That is the Democrats' fault because we were in power, we are still in power for another day or so over the United States Senate. And we did not take the opportunity to Jasmine Crockett style, right? Fight for them. You know, we were too reliant on, like I said,

it keeps coming up that senatorial decorum where we don't, we wait for them. And then, you know, I had, it's my friend, Ellie, Mr. Stahl said, have we tried beseeching them? I mean, we literally have been too polite. It's a complete power grab by people who are completely unethical and will be viewed over time as unethical. And Donald Trump is counting on that. He's not only counting on their ability to be bought and paid for, but he's counting on us being too almost arrogant in our own superiority to just actually fight for the American people and the Constitution. All right. Well, listen, this was filling the headlines in 2024. We're going to see a lot of it still in 2025. It's still ongoing. Whether or not any of them, any of the justices will be held accountable, we will have our eye on that in the upcoming year.

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Discover how equity crowdfunding can serve as a powerful tool for funding Black businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to raise capital directly through their community through the jobs ad now streaming on the black star network i was challenged by my uncle early on before i even had a career like i was maybe eight years old and my uncle said what do you want to do and i told him i wanted to be a rapper. And he said, okay, well, I don't know anything about the music business. So what you should do is learn everything there is to know about the music business. And I'll make sure that you have the resources to push you through.

And so I went and bought books. All you need to know about the music business hit me. And I just went and bought a bunch of books and just started reading as a 10-year-old. Just reading, reading. And so I learned, so I learned you know all things licensing mechanical rights I learned about publishing learned about how composition is broke up into two pieces the the writer's portion and the producer's portion so by the time I actually learned I came back I was ready to like okay I got it he would go to prison so I had all this information all this knowledge all this knowledge

now that Roland Martin is willing to give me the blueprint. Hey, Saraz. I need to go to Tyler Perry and get another blueprint because I need some green money. The only way I can do what I'm doing, I need to make some money. So you'll see me working with Roland. Matter of fact, it's the Roland Martin and Sheryl Lundgren show. Well, should it be the Sheryl Lundgren show and the Roland Martin show? Well, whatever show it's going to be, it's going to be good. So let's talk about shooting. Certainly we are not going to cover all of them. Unfortunately,

just too many. But when we look at them, there are some that we do want to highlight. When we hear the name Sonia Massey, we hear the name Takiyah Young, Daniel Lewis. Daniel Lewis outside in the back, had a gun on the back of his porch. He was shot by the police. Sonia Massey, inside of her home, shot by the police. She thought that she was being burglarized. Takiyah Young, this was the 21-year-old who was fatally shot inside of her car by an officer. She was parked at Holger's. When we look at a lot of these cases, these are things that, you know, they're just repetitive, Dr. Malveaux. I am not sure what is the answer here. But what are your thoughts about these shootings that just continue to happen?

These police officers that plead not guilty and have gotten off on some charges. Of course, some of them held accountable in terms of how many years they're going to be serving. But just a mixture of thoughts, because there's so many shootings that police officers just are not answering to. Well, this is lynching culture. Lynching culture says that white people can do whatever they want to to black people, or anyone can do, because not only white people, anyone can do whatever they want to do to black people or anyone can do because not only white people anyone can do whatever they want to do to people and in fact no consequences the good news is that over the past two decades we've seen more consequences we've seen more people arrested but they represent perhaps one percent of those who kill Black people. And apparently it's okay to kill Black people.

And while we have very great lives in the Congress, we have so many who are silent. And silence is complicity. When you look at some of these things, a sister is approaching her stove, boiling water. She says, I rebuke you. He did not make any move to hurt that man, but he chose to kill her in cold blood. And we have so many of those. And so I'm not sure, sister, where we go with this because it's too much. And I think that it's not just the incident and the people who are close to the incident. It's our collective consciousness about lynching culture.

Again, understand that people can do whatever they want to black people and expect no consequence. You know, Jolanda, this does say something about the system. I mean, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Let's see, we had A.J. Owens out of Florida, Susan Lorenz, she did get 20, 25 years for shooting her, even though at the time the shooting happened, she was able to go right home. But she was eventually sentenced. I just think it says a lot about the justice system, Jolanda. Depending upon where you live, the state, the street, the county, it all comes out to be very, very different. I actually don't believe that it depends on where you live. Consistently, the vast majority of the times when police officers are charged with crimes against black people, like killing unarmed black people. They generally walk. Only relatively recently

with President Obama was president, were we even starting to see where police officers were being held, and I'll say partially accountable, because had they killed a white person, police officers would have gotten life, a person would have gotten life or whatever. And I think that it's only going to get worse with Trump. It is now going to be open, well, more open season because it's already been open season on us, open season on us. And part of my law practice is I'm a criminal defense lawyer. When you look anywhere, here in Texas, for example, white folks and Black folks can do the exact same thing. White folks will get a warning or they'll call their parents and take them there and the black kids will get put under the jail. So there's just disparate

treatment. So there's disparate charging and there's disparate treatment. And all of the federal cases where police officers are charged or have been convicted with killing black people, I absolutely believe my prediction is that Trump is going to exonerate them, that he's going to pardon them. I believe that. I don't believe the federal government, when Trump is in office, will be prosecuting police or federal claims, civil rights claims, those kind of claims. It's going to be left to the states. And then that's when I think it's going to matter where you live. And if you're in an urban place, you probably have more of an opportunity to see some justice. But as long as they have governmental immunity from police officers, it is very different.

It's very different. And even as between police officers, look at the color of the police officers who kill somebody. You look at those police officers, I think it was in Memphis, where they killed Tyree Nichols. Sure. They didn't get convicted of the highest ones. There's never a bad police shooting because collateral damage is okay because they're fighting the boogeyman or whatever. But white officers get off way more than black officers. So even though that dude was an Omega and they were all black police officers, guess what they found out? They was

black first. So I think it's going to get worse. I think black people really need to be worried. And if you think that it was open season on us, it's going to be the wild, wild west on us. And we're not, we're going to see a lot less police accountability and convictions that don't get overturned or pardoned. You know, Joy, a real lesson in civics and democracy here, because as Jolanda was saying, depending upon where you go in terms of charging up or down, well, most DAs are elected. Who did you vote for? You really need to know who you are putting in offices because that's going to be the person that you are coming in front of if that ever happens to you. It is important who you vote for. We talk about in terms of president and congresspeople. What about that DA? I think a lot of lessons here.

President to dog catcher. Every election matters. And in this case, we don't even have the Justice Department that'll be able to give them pause, right? Knowing that you can have a Justice Department that decides to launch its own investigation or to, you know, engage in some kind of pattern of practice investigation, some kind of deal with the police department to address not only the individual crime, but perhaps broader crimes that might be committed in the district. They will know that the Trump Justice Department is not going to do that, and worse, might even encourage attacks and more criminality against Black and brown citizens and non-citizens who are at the hands of the police. What we know is it's true. Black lives just simply do not matter as much. Just as we know Palestinian lives simply do not matter as much. Just as we are going to know continuously that immigrant lives do not matter as much. That's what we ushered in. That's the new era or the reverting back to old era that we ushered in.

That has not changed. And yes, we had a few green shoots with George Floyd, or perhaps we'll have some green shoots in what just happened in New York. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority of the time they get off. They get off, especially when the things quiet down and we're not looking anymore. They simply get off. So I can't say more than what my co-panelists have already said. Dark days are ahead in terms of police brutality, because we haven't really even addressed the ultimate issues, which is that it's not just that police are the problem, it's that we don't have

the other resources in play that would help address some of the issues that are happening in our communities, right? And we have invested in training of officers when that's not enough. Just some of these police officers simply should not be on the beach. They are not fit for public service. So we talked about police officers. I also want to talk about people who are out there like Susan Lorenz, who we mentioned a little bit earlier. She got 25 years for shooting A.J. Owens, a Black woman who was a mother of four. Then we have another private citizen. We've got Daniel Penny. He was acquitted he was acquitted, actually, two different outcomes. You know, Jolanda, I'm really interested in your thought about citizens

taking lives, taking the law into their own hands and doing what they think is fit in order to defend themselves. It's called vigilante justice and it depends who doing the killing and who got killed. And it's terrible that you can predict probably what is going to happen. I mean, I didn't find it unusual that after Daniel Penny was found not guilty that he was hanging out with President Trump and all them other anti-Black people that's about to have a whole bunch of power. And for me, it's really sad. I mean, I read the history books back when they taught it in history of just a little bit about lynchings and things like that. And we thought after the civil rights movement, which really it never ended, that we didn't have to see those kinds of things where they would break into your house and drag away families,

look for kids to kill them, and we're going back. And so for those of us who don't appreciate that elections matter and they do have consequences, When you see a lot of these white folks go and they kill us, and if you paid attention to the trial, you will see all the tropisms and the caricatures that they make of Black people. Of course, he had to be violent. That man didn't hardly weigh anything. He was a very slight man. And he literally held him in a chokehold for, I think they said, six minutes. Right. And he wasn't moving for like five of those minutes. Right. And you knew that he was knocked out, unconscious, incapacitated. And we know if we cut off your air, you are going to die eventually or have severe brain damage. I say that all to say this, that white folks are terrified that we're going to take over and they are doing all that they can do to hold on to the power that they have,

because they aren't making babies as much as us or as brown people. people and we, this country and the world is going to see a lot more lack of accountability for people who kill Black people. Now, if the person had been white, there's no doubt in my mind that he would have been convicted. But again, as Joy said earlier, Black lives literally do not matter. Listen, before we go to break, there's one more thing that I want to touch upon. I don't think it's going to take a lot of talking on each of our parts to talk about the pardon of Hunter Biden, as well as a pardon that is probably coming by Trump of himself. Joy, this was in the headlines all year we finally got the answer this month but joy we are not surprised no i don't not only we're not surprised joe biden would have been crazy if he hadn't parted his son

that's right let's be yeah give me a break get out of town like i can't even believe we're still talking about it yeah i never understood why he said he was going to do it from the jump that's the thing i think that's confused people but you Donald Trump is, forget it, whatever. There is no way that Hunter Biden would have been in this situation he had been in. But for the fact that he was a Biden, this would not have gone forward. He would not be facing jail time, even if he were Black, right? That this was definitely politicized. But that said, whatever happens to Hunter Biden, I couldn't care less. God bless him. Whatever. Jail, no jail, whatever. He is not my concern. My concern are the Black and Brown people who are going to be under threat during this Trump administration. And let me just, let me just take it one step farther. If you've been listening to what we've been, what people have been saying

when they've been videotaping black people being harmed or, or anyone being harmed by whether it's cops or, or individual citizens, they've been saying, drop that phone and engage, right. And fight back. And I believe we're going to have some situations where black and engage right and fight back and i believe we're going to have some situations where black and brown people and white people too fight back they might attack those cops who are trying to kill someone they might attack that citizen who's trying to kill someone and the real test of whether we believe they're that the lives matter is if we'll protect those people who are intervening and playing heroes when they drop that camera and say, I'm not just going to videotape you killing somebody. I'm going to intervene. That is going to happen. And there are going to be a lot of white people, trust me, who are going

to have their ass whooped. Dr. Malveaux, we probably see a pardon coming from Trump of himself. Would you agree? More than likely, he's going to do whatever he can to protect himself. He is in so much trouble with lawsuits all over the country. Yeah, he's going to do whatever he can to protect himself. But let's be clear, he is a convicted felon. No matter what he does to protect himself, he is a convicted felon. And so, you know, that is that. You has now been found guilty. Five million dollars. And there's another 80 million on the table. Meanwhile, what my biggest challenge

is, is that I don't understand how these people bought the bullshit. Excuse my language. I try not to curse just because Roland does. But why they fought the bullshit? This man, he's going to lower prices. Did he lower prices? No. Then he turned around and said,

I can't do that. Okay. You know. There's so many things that he said he was going to do that just within these few weeks, he can't do. Here's what he can do. He can put a litmus test on appointees. You must have harassed a woman in order to be a Trump appointee.

Don't y'all think that that's kind of how it is? You must have harassed a woman to be a Trump appointee to the Congress, to the cabinet, to all of that. So as I look at this situation and look at what we have in front of us, all I have to say is that we have got to figure out how to push back. He is elected, and shame on y'all Americans who thought that was a good idea. But he was elected. We got that. But what can we do to fight back? One of the things that I'm proposing is that we look at people who are working class and push them for Congress. I think one of the things that Democrats did is they lost track, lost touch with working people. AOC is a good example of somebody who came out of nowhere. She was a barista or something like that.

We need more people like that in Congress to really raise the issues. And I think that this is a time to begin to do some of that. All right, Jolanda, I'll give you about 10 seconds before we go to break. We will see Trump pardon himself. Oh, yeah, but here's the deal. Biden needs to pardon a whole bunch of more people. He needs to pardon all the Black people, especially the electeds, that he's going to go after, and he can protect them from federal stuff where the Justice Department goes against them. Because these are the Black people we have left in Congress and in the Senate or wherever to help us. And they're going to go after them.

That is what Trump is going to do. And we need somebody in government. So he needs to do more pardons, not less. All right, Jolanda, thank you for knowing that in 10 seconds. We are going to take a break, but we're going to have more of the headlines that you have been talking about in 2024. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Coming soon to the Blackstar Network. Well, y'all, when you're on that stage and you're seeing two and three, four generations in the audience,

that's got to speak to you about the power of what y'all have become. Oh, most definitely. I think we were doing our show before our break, and remember, I was watching this kid. I could not take my eyes off him because he was about nine or so. He was sitting in the front row with his parents. Over on the right-hand side, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was amazed that this kid knew everything. And I was like tripping to see how how many songs this cat this kid actually knew and he knew them all and he and he knew them all we had to go over there and bring him on stage

and take a picture with him you know at the end of the show and stuff because it was just that amazing it's like this is crazy you know the music travels uh everywhere you know like like what philip was saying seeing this young kid then you see hear our songs on commercials cold commercials then you have the younger ones that seen out Curl Prep Natural Hair Solutions at CurlPrep.com. I'm in shock. For curls, locks, braids, twists, and even those wigs and extensions. Women, men, and children are loving this line. Look at this video and you be the judge. People line up to see this product in action at hair shows and when they take a seat

and try it, they don't believe it's their hair. Buy the products at CurlPrep.com. It works on all hair types. Use code ROLAND, that's R-O-L-A-N-D, lowercase letters, to get a 15% discount. Parents, remove the ouch. You will love this system because you can... I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod.

And this is season two of the war on drugs. We are back in a big way, in a very big way, real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star studded a little bit, man. We got a Ricky Williams,

NFL player, Hasman trophy winner. It's just the compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. HL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We gotta set ourselves up. See, retirement

is the long game. We gotta make moves and make them early. 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 thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Comb the product through your child's hair with your fingers. Brought to you by A and subscribers on the same page. Fanbase was built through investment dollars from equity crowdfunding from the JOBS Act. People just like you help build Fanbase. And we're looking for more people to help build Fanbase. We are currently raising $17 million in a regulation, a crowdfund on start engine. We've already crossed $2.1 million,

but we're looking to raise more capital from people just like you that deserve the opportunity to invest in early stage startups without having to be accredited investors. So right now I'd like you to go to startengine.com slash fanbase and invest. The minimum to invest is $399. That gets you 60 shares of stock in Fanbase right now, today. And then use Fanbase to connect with friends, grow your audience, and be you without limits. 2024 was a year of indictments accusations let's talk about Sean Combs let's talk about the fact that he still remains in a detention in a jail in Brooklyn. We know that this has now become the tale of two Shons, not just Sean Holmes, but also Sean Carter.

I want to open up the floor with you, Dr. Malveaux. He appealed so many times in order to get out. It didn't work. Sex trafficking, racketeering amongst a list of things that he has been charged with. What are your thoughts about how this will turn out? Well, it ain't going to turn out right. We can just agree with that. I'm disturbed about a number of things around this. First of all, the allegations which seem to be

on point. At the same time, I want to put race into this and talk about the white folks who have done this and worse and have spent less time. I'm not saying that what Sean Combs has done is correct at all, but I'm looking at the racial implications of this. The other thing, however, is the predatory capitalist use of women's sexuality. The fact that women are easily and often trafficked and that this is something that for many of us, including black folks, seems to be okay. So I'm concerned about that.

I don't have any good vibes about any of this. The allegations seem correct, and the charges seem correct, and at the same time, the racial differences seem glaring and like i said i just i don't feel good about this i don't feel good about this i have prayers to um everyone but especially to the women who have been trafficked and victimized and we have to go back to that we got to get rid of the celebrity get rid of that and go back to the women. Who are these women? What can we do to be supportive of them? Jolanda, your legal hat is always on.

That same Tom Holmes is your client. What are you telling him at this time? Are we looking for a plea deal? Well, first of all, I'm waiting for discovery to find out the evidence that they have, right? Because sometimes evidence is good. Sometimes it's bad. I've had murder cases thrown out. I've had court-appointed murder cases thrown out, because when they come at you, they come at you. Now, generally, like federal charges,

they've done their homework and they have the goods. I will say that if you look at Weinstein and Epstein, they stayed locked up as well, right? The thing I say with Black folks, we have got to be careful. We can't get away with what white people get away with. We just can't. So we've got to ask ourselves, if this came to light, I mean, do we get out of it? And my standard for myself is what I do in front of my grandmother. If I can't do it in front of my grandmother, then I'm not going to do it. I used to be married to a professional basketball player. I've been around people in the entertainment industry. And the things that go on, I'm wondering why these women here, right? Because they're surrounded by misogynists and I know they trying to come up, but then the men are just arrogant. They're just arrogant. And I think that is a terrible combination to have.

So this is America. We are innocent until proven guilty, at least in theory, although I don't believe that that's how it works out in practicality. If I'm his lawyer, I'm asking, you need to tell me what you did because we have attorney-client privilege, because I can't protect you from or try to protect you from what i don't know and and and as a lawyer as a criminal defense lawyer you hope you wish you pray your client tells you stuff because there's nothing like being pinesided right if i'm his lawyer i'm telling him go way back as far as you can remember any anybody you have problems with who doesn't like you what do they know like like what evidence do they have because the best lies are lies that have

some truth in them so they go back to the truth and say hey now that's true it's got to be true so right now it's early on and they need to be evidence gathering and they're not going to let him out so and he needs not i would tell my client do not talk on the phone it's recorded and i would tell my client to tell his family, tell your family that ain't got no friends. The only person that can help you get out of this, if you can get out of this, is me. They don't need to talk to anybody about this because everybody's trying to come up and you tell them just a little bit of truth. They will wind it. Next thing you know, they're famous and you locked up.

Joy, 2024, we heard a lot of witness tampering when it comes to Sean Combs. And of course, now we have this other added element of Sean Carter, which I think when he came out the gates, he hit in a little bit of a different way, certainly with a lot more punch there. You're a strategist. What are you telling Sean Combs and his people now or even Sean Carter and his people? So, I mean, Sean Carter needs to be quiet and be working his legal angles to try to say as far from this as possible and to say that this is about him being swept up in a fever. If you're Sean Combs, because I have a legal background as well, if you're Sean Combs, you're, you know, as my guest said, you're also saying, look, this is ultimately about, you know, what is the actual evidence? There has been a lot said, a lot of put out in the media, but ultimately this is going to go to trial. We're going to have actual evidence.

We're going to see if there are any technicalities. You're going to try to pull any technical threads you can, because that's the only thing that's going to benefit you. His career is over, right? Public persona is over. He's trying to stay out of jail. Now, one of the things, and this is to talk about what Ms. Malveaux was talking about earlier, Dr. Malveaux was saying that, look, there is a racial element here. I want to see all these people go down. It is wholly unacceptable to me, and it always has been the Black women have been allowed to be abused by the music industry, as well as any other industry, but we're talking about music industry. I don't want to get distracted. And it's being done by Black men, but not just Black men. It's also being done by some of the owners of these music companies, right?

Including, you know, Jewish people, white people, et cetera, who own these companies, who are making money off of our demise, who knew that these parties were happening and who are okay. So yeah, I want to figure out who was at the parties, who saw what, when. They could all go down as far as I'm concerned. Their music's not that good. Your talent does not excuse your criminality, but it can't just stop at them. We got to get all of these execs who allowed it to happen. I want them to go to jail too. It will be wholly unsatisfying if we get Sean Combs,

a relatively small fish when you look at the entire music industry and don't get the people who allowed it to happen, who encouraged it to happen because it's how we kept people in line and distracted. So that to me is where we need to be focused.

And frankly, if you're Sean Combs, you're also trying to figure out who is a bigger fish than you. Sure. Sure, sure. Joy is really speaking to something that's really important, which is the culture of predatory capitalism and predatory massage as well. What I'm saying is that these things in the entertainment industry, and not only in the entertainment industry, and thank you, Joy, for raising that, these things occur because people allow them to occur because they feel that they can't do anything different because that's just how it is.

That's not how it is and it's not how it has to be. I think we really need to drill down. The wrong is wrong, but let's drill down to culture. Jolanda, I want to move on. I want to talk about Fonny Willis, Nathan Wade, the accusations that we saw on display. We heard every detail of it. It captivated the nation as we watched all the details. We learned about her, her father, places that they met. We learned about Nathan Wade. We learned about him being on the case. And then it ultimately happened, Jolanda, she is no longer on this case. I wasn't surprised. Were you? I was not surprised. As I said before, Black folks don't get to do what white folks do, right? I'm proud to say that I was a host of a fundraiser here in Houston to keep her reelected because we need people who are unapologetic and

who are unfearful of Donald Trump. So now they've taken her out of it. So I don't know what's going to happen. I suspect that whatever prosecutor takes over for her is not going to be relentless in bringing down a criminal. Now, again, the beautiful thing about Trump's inability to pardon himself on state cases is that people like Fannie Willis can bring state charges against the president and he can't stop those. But let's face it, I'm elected, Fonny's elected. We date people. We go out on dates. Why is it nefarious? There are a lot of people that date, like you meet somebody in a, I guess, professional setting, maybe you end up liking them. So they were making something nefar affairs. I'm not convinced that their relationship had anything to do with this. And that is a tight walk, a tightrope that we as elected officials

walk. Now, my rule for myself is don't mess with nobody in the political arena. And mine is try not to mess with no lawyers either. Right. Because there are ways that people that are evil can try to turn innocent things that normal people do. People meet people at their work. People meet people in church. People meet people in professional events. But Jolanda, really. I mean, on one hand, I hear you. I hear you.

On the other hand, the appearance of what I'm doing in this case was overwhelming. It wasn't that she just was dating the dude. It's that she dated the dude that she appointed to a very sensitive situation so i'm not i'm not down on my sora at all i think she's a bomb bomb bomb but i really do think that discretion would have been the better way of dealing with this and i think that she gave them an opening and you you know good and genie well that these people, these Trumpies will take an opening wherever they can. But you heard what you heard.

You heard what you heard. I'm talking, please. It would have been better if she walked on by the long, tall, very good looking man until this thing had to happen. But can I just say though, it wasn't about their relationship. It was that she appointed him to this role and then they didn't disclose it.

Many people date, you're correct, especially within the legal profession. There's nothing wrong with that. Any kind of profession, even in workplaces, people date, but you know, damn well, you got to disclose it. You know, that it can be an issue. You know that when you are on this stage, when you are dealing with a case as consequential as this one, a case with lawyers that's competent at these will ultimately be, you know, some of the ones were not that competent, but you know, he has people behind him they're gonna pull on every thread that is available and so you handed it over to them and then upon being caught you did not pre-intermediately get out of the way and say you know what maybe we didn't handle this right not only is he gonna pull out i'm gonna pull out and let my office continue with

the case. Let's not make me the issue. Let me move on. You say it's me. Okay, I'm out. She did not do that. She did not do that. She chose to fight. Sometimes you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run. She did not do that in this case. It was a gross error in judgment. And we can love her, fellow Howard. We can love her. We can think she's brilliant. We can appreciate her fight and still say, sis, in this, you called it wrong.

You let your error. I agree with you 1,001%. I think that a lot of us really appreciated her, appreciate her, appreciate the part she put in and the work that that team did. But I agree with you, Joy, a thousand percent. I'll agree with you often. All right. I want to say this very differently. I want to say this really differently. I said this before. When we achieve these heights that we achieve when we're elected, we have to be keenly aware that they're going to come after us. And as you said, Dr. Malco, and pull threads, right? And so I think she did have some errors in judgment.

Absolutely she did. But a lot of times we don't need to get ourselves in situations because you can play it out to us because you have all of the information, right? We know what we're doing and we can project, okay, if this comes out, it's gonna be really bad. And I think that as elected officials, we need to do a better job of deciding on these things.

We can't do what regular people do. Well, first of all, what y'all need to understand, I'm going back to years ago when I think it was Congressman Diggs from Detroit was convicted of some bullshit, for want of a better word. But the bottom line is, you black. That means you're a target. That means that you have to be impeccable in your ways. Because guess what? If there's any little dropped thread, somebody is going to find it. And we've seen this time and again with our Black elected officials. Dr. Malveaux, I'm going to jump in because we have certainly a lot

of other topics to get to as we look back at 2024. Stay with us. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered here live on the Black Star Network. We'll be back after a break. Coming soon to the Black Star Network. Well, y'all, when you're on that stage and you're seeing two and three, four generations in the audience that's got that's got this speak to you but the power of what y'all become oh most definitely I think we were doing our show before our tour before our break and remember I was watching this kid I could not take my eyes off him

because he was about right nine or so he's sitting in the front row with over on the right hand side yes yes yes yes i was yes i was amazed that this kid knew everything and he was i was like tripping to see how how many songs this cat this kid actually knew and he knew them all and he and he knew them all we had to go over there and bring him on stage and take a picture with him you know at the end of the show and stuff because it was just that amazing. It's like this is crazy. You know the music travels Everywhere, you know life Like what Philip was saying seeing this young kid then you see hear our songs on commercials cold commercials Then you have the younger ones that sing out here on music and animation.

Curl prep natural hair solutions at curlrep.com. I'm in shock. For curls, locks, braids, twists, and even those wigs and extensions. Women, men, and children are loving this line. Look at this video and you be the judge. People line up to see this product in action at hair shows, and when they take a seat and try it they don't believe it's their hair buy the products at curlprep.com it works on all hair types i know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time have you ever had to shoot your gun

sometimes the answer is yes but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1.

Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st,

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game.

We got to make moves and make them early. 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. Use code ROLAND, that's R-O-L-A-N-D, lower case letters, to get a 15%

discount. Parents, remove the ouch. You will love this system because you can comb the product through your child's hair with your fingers. It's all at CurlPrep.com. Use code ROLAND, lower case letters, to get a 15% discount.

Hi, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. Fanbase is a free-to-download, free-to-use, next-generation social media platform that allows anyone to have followers and subscribers on the same page. Fanbase was built through investment dollars from equity crowdfunding from the JOBS Act. People just like you help build Fanbase, and we're looking for more people to help build Fanbase. We are currently raising $17 million in a Regulation 8 crowdfund on StartEngine. We've already crossed $2.1 million, but we're looking to raise more capital from people just like you that deserve the opportunity to invest in early stage startups without having to be accredited investors. So right now, I'd like you to go to startengine.com slash fanbase and invest.

The minimum to invest is $399. That gets you 60 shares of stock and fan base right now today, and then use fan base to connect with friends, grow your audience and be you without limits. Thank you. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 76 governor in January of 1971. As President Carter's successes included an increase of nearly 8 million jobs, a decreased budget deficit, the Panama Canal treaties, normalized relations with China and Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel. Carter's administration oversaw the creation of two cabinet level departments, Energy and Education.

Here's a look at others we lost in 2024. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 © transcript Emily Beynon © transcriptF-WATCH TV 2021 © BF-WATCH TV 2021 © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you. You Now streaming on the black star network I was challenged by my uncle early on before i even had a career like i was maybe eight years old and my uncle said what do you want to do and i told him i wanted to be a rapper and he said okay well i don't know anything about the music business so what you should do is learn everything there is to know about the music business and i'll make sure that you have the resources to push you through. And so I went and bought books, all you need to know about the music business,

hit me in, I just went and bought a bunch of books, just start reading as a 10 year old, just read and read. And so I learned, you know, all things, licensing, mechanical rights, I learned about publishing, learned about how composition is broke up into two pieces, the writer's portion and the producer's portion. So by the time I actually learned that came, man, I was ready to like, okay, I got it.

He was going to prison. So I had all this information. All this knowledge. All this knowledge. You like, well, what am I gonna do with it now? what's up y'all look fan base is more than a platform it's a movement to empower creators offering a unique opportunity for everyday people to invest in black owned tech infrastructure and help shape the future of social media investing in technology is essential for creating long-term wealth and influence in the digital age. The Black community must not only consume tech, we must own it.

Discover how equity crowdfunding can serve as a powerful tool for funding Black businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to raise capital directly through their community, through the jobs act. Curl prep, natural hair solutions at curl prep.com. I'm in shock. For curls, locks, braids, twists, and even those wigs and extensions. Women, men, and children are loving this line. Look at this video and you be the judge. People line up to see this product in action at hair shows,

and when they take a seat and try it, they don't believe it's their hair. Buy the products at CurlPrep.com. It works on all hair types use code roland that's r-o-l-a-n-d lowercase letters to get a 15 discount parents remove the ouch you will love this system because you can comb the product through your child's hair with your fingers. It's all at CurlPrep.com. Use code ROLAND, lowercase letters, to get a 15% discount. I'm Russell L. Honore, Lieutenant General, United States Army, and you're watching Roland Martin on Viltrox. all right we are a couple of hours closer to 2025 because of that. We're going to look ahead, look ahead with my guests, figure out what are some of the predictions. Maybe there's some advice

that we have to share as we go into 2025. Maybe advice of joy. I don't know. Maybe something having to do with, let's say, January 20th and what comes after. Joy, let me start with you. Hopefully we'll see a lot of joy, you and the joy that we feel in 2025. But what do you think or predict for this next year? You know, I think we're going to have to fight. We're going to have to be prepared to fight, but we're going to have to pace ourselves, which means we're not going to be able to run after every individual little thing. If you live in Washington, D.C., as Dr. Malvo and I do, go out of town. I just bought my ticket to Orlando, which is where I'm from. All the Republicans will be here. I'm going to be in Florida. You know, get out of dodge. Be careful with yourself and really kind of have impact as

opposed to running after every single thing that you could possibly run after in what will be the chaos of the Trump administration. And then I think it's also time to focus local. They're going to be looking towards national. We have to focus local. This is the time to run for office, to move back home if that's what you want to do. This is the time to invest in local candidates, to focus, you know, to do your thinking globally, but you're acting locally right now in this next two years. All right, Dr. Malveaux. Well, I agree with Joy completely on this one. I do think that we do need to think locally. I think that there are lots of fights,

lots of resistance, lots of stuff, low-hanging fruit that we can deal with. And so I think that's really important. But I think the other thing is everybody's focused on the cabinet. Let's look at the other people. Let's look at the undersecret cabinet. Let's look at the other people. Let's look at the

undersecretaries. Let's look at the deputy assistant secretaries. I'm especially concerned about education, of course, being that I'm an educator. I'm concerned about what's going to happen in the Department of Education with this while

the woman, she comes out worldwide wrestling or something. Has about as much interest in education as I do in the planet of Mars. She's there. We're going to have to be looking.

We're going to have to find allies. The fact is that we know we lost. We lost the election. We lost the Congress. We lost the Senate. But there are some

good Republicans that we can find alliances with on certain issues. Every Republican is not anti-climate change. Let's look for them. Every Republican is not anti-education. In fact, Republicans have been really stalwarts in supporting HBCUs. Let's look for them.

And let's just keep looking for allies who we can chip away at. These next two years are going to be really hard. But guess what? Nobody told me the road would be easy. God ain't brought us this far to leave. All right. We should look for allies. But, Jolanda, what else?

What other predictions do you see for 2025? I actually took some notes because I wanted to make sure that I said them. The first thing I believe that we need to do if we hope to take back local houses and national houses and government is that we, the people that are elected, we need to invest in young people and help show them the ropes to stop staying elected forever. That's the first thing that we need to do, which is why they really aren't engaged with us. The second thing that I think we need to do just as human beings is we, to those who are given much, much is expected. We need to be altruistic and help people because there's going to be a lot of people who are not going to have their needs met because of this election that just happened. I think that people in the future need to pay

attention to how we vote, not how we tell you we are fighting for you. Because I think that if you actually pay attention to how we vote, that will tell you a lot of things that sometimes elected officials are not honest with what they do. I also believe, as Joy was talking about, you need to take a mental health break because this road is going to be tough. My father committed suicide. People may not know that. I was with my dad when he committed suicide. Believe me, I've had a whole bunch of therapy. Black people especially need to, we need to reinvigorate, which is why I'm leaving on a plane tomorrow to go to another country. I ain't going to be here when a new year comes in. And then and because I believe this, that we are in moving forward come January, whatever day Trump is getting sworn in.

We are going to be in the life or death fight to maintain our civil rights and to not go back. And we need to be ready mentally. And we need to be ready with our allies. And we need to pay attention because what we don't know can literally destroy us. Those are my predictions. And I'll be working out again if you can't see. Oh, look at that. Look at that. Okay. Wow. You know what? This is what 59 looked like. That is 59. Look, look, look. You got a lot of people who are going to be writing you. How did you get all this? Well, this is what 71 looks like. All right. Well, listen, some great advice there. I also want to add this. I know that a couple of you are getting on a plane tomorrow or sometime soon. Also, let's think about a little bit of joy in 2025. We're here.

That's half the battle. I know that we've got plans about allies and politics and mental health, and that is great. And mental health and joy go hand in hand. How are you bringing yourselves joy out there, everybody who's watching right now, we're here. That is half the battle. Let's also think about joy as we think about some other just things that we know we're going to have to deal with that we don't want on our plate in 2025. Let's be happy.

Yes. Joy is resistance. Joy is resistance. We ain't pitiful. We ain't no ways tired. We are all that and three bags of whatever kind of chips you eat. I am excited for 2025. I'm probably the eldest on this conversation, which is okay.

And I'm really grateful. I mean, I'm in a space where I'm just thanking God for everything. Yes. And thanking God for y'all. And thanking God for the many ways that we continue to rise. Amen. As Dr. Martin, who was one of my mentors, said to me years ago, you know, and y'all have heard it, people tell you tell you, if people tell you who they are, leave them.

She also said, get an old aim for sissies. Because there's always going to be challenges. The older you get, the more challenges you're going to deal with. But the last thing that she said that sticks with me right now is, whenever I think of you, I call your name. Whenever I think of you, I call your name. Whenever I think of you, I call your name. All of us have had so many people that have been so meaningful.

Do we call their name? Do we call them up? Do we deal with them? That's where we are. And it makes me smile to have had a mentor who gave me so much wisdom to say, when I think of you, I call your name. And we are going to end on that high note today.

I want to thank all three of you for especially ending on Joy, Joy, Dr. Julianne Melvo, Jolanda Jones, and Joy Chaney. Happy New Year a little bit early, and thank you for allowing us to go through 2024 with you. We always love what you have to say, and we look forward to seeing you in the to say, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year, and we look forward to seeing everybody out there who is watching

us now. Throw some comments below. How are you spending the new year? How are you bringing joy? I'm Candace Kelly, filling in for Roland Martin here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Happy New Year a little bit earlier, and see you in 2025. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Love you in 2025. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.

Love you, sister. A real revolutionary right now. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. I love y'all. All momentum we have now. We have to keep this going.

The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir.

Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change

a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.