#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 3.25 RMU: Senate to vote on $2T stimulus bill; Black skiers gather amid COVID-19? #BlackCensusWeek

Episode Date: March 29, 2020

3.25.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: #Coronavirus update; Senate to vote on $2T stimulus bill; Rep. Charles Booker looks to who defeat Sen. Mitch McConnell in November; WTH?!? Black skiers gathered for a conference amid COVID-19? Virus continues to take lives in Italy; #BlackCensusWeek: Stand up and be counted; African Americans are still being locked out of the cannabis industry. #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee 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. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's

dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad 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 Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, folks. Today is Wednesday, March 25th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered,

more states ordering shelter in place as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The White House and the Senate, they have struck a deal on a $2 trillion stimulus bill, yet Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott, and Ben Sasse are holding it up because they're saying that poor people are getting too much money?

Really? We'll talk with Congressman Greg Meeks, and also we'll talk with the man who was running against Mitch McConnell in the state of Kentucky. His name, of course, is Charles Booker. Hundreds of black skiers and snowboarders gathered for their annual convention

in late February, early March. Guess what? Major outbreak of coronavirus. We're talking to Michael Harriot of The Root who wrote about this. The virus also continues to take lives in Italy and mayors there are having none of it. They're going off on people.

And wait till you hear this white woman from Chicago who was not happy with another white woman acting a fool inside of a store. Ooh, white-on-white crime is a little rough. And even though we're dealing with this pandemic, it's still important for us not to ignore the 2020 census.

We'll discuss what African Americans are doing to make sure that we are signing up for the census. And also, have you noticed the cannabis industry doing quite well in this pandemic? We'll talk to three African Americans who are owners in the cannabis space about the opportunities that exist right now.

It's time to bring the funk on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the miss, he's on it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing.

Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah

He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Now fresh he's real the best you know he's rolling all right folks we continue to see so much drama all across the country when it comes to coronavirus as of today there are 59,966 reported cases of COVID-19 in all 50 states and three U.S. territories. 792 people have died as a result. As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo continues to show the kind of leadership you would think you would get out of the White House with his daily updates talking about the impact of the coronavirus and what should be happening in these

states. Here's what we have to say today. Right now, what we're looking at is about 140,000 cases coming into the hospitals. The hospital capacity is 53,000 beds. That's a problem. We're looking at about 40,000 ICU cases coming into the hospitals. We have about 3,000 ICU beds. That's a challenge. What is an ICU bed for these purposes? Basically, a bed with a ventilator. The ventilator is the most critical piece of equipment for an intensive care unit bed because this is a respiratory illness and people need more ventilation than usual. What do we want to do? Reduce the number of cases coming into the hospitals, slow the number of cases coming into the hospitals, that's what Dr. Fauci is talking about on TV every

day, flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten the curve flatten the curve flatten the curve slow the number of people coming into hospitals so we can deal with them in the hospitals and we are working on that at the same time increase your hospital capacity right so try to slow the number of cases coming into the hospital meanwhile raise your hospital capacity. We are working on both simultaneously. We have been from day one. On the other hand, Donald Trump has chosen not to have the morning sessions. Now they've been doing these 5.30 p.m. sessions. I guess they didn't particularly like getting lots of criticism all throughout the day. They're live right now at the White House. Now Treasury going to go ahead and talk to you about the

Democratic Party. I'm going to go ahead and talk to you about the Democratic Party. I'm going to go ahead and talk to you about the Democratic Party. I'm going to go ahead and

talk to you about the Democratic Party. I'm going to go ahead and talk to you about the Democratic Party. I'm going to go ahead and talk to you about the Democratic Party.

I'm going to go ahead and talk to you about the Democratic Party. I'm going to go ahead and talk to you about the Democratic Party. I'm going to go ahead White House. Give me a second, folks. We are going to pull this up here again. What's happening? So it's very interesting how Donald Trump has chosen to play this whole deal with these updates. Because you also notice that no longer is Mike Pence leading these sessions. Trump wants that attention all on him. And so we see exactly what he is doing there. All right, go now. Eight weeks of salaries as long as they keep workers employed and overhead. And those loans

will be forgiven at the end of the period as long as they keep workers employed. These are SBA loans but the Treasury will be issuing new regulations authorizing almost every single FDIC insured bank to make these. I expect by the end of next week we will have a very simple process where these can be made and dispersed in the same day. So this will be a very simple system to get money into small business hands. For companies that don't qualify that, we have an economic program of tax incentives to retain workers. And as the President said, we have enhanced unemployment insurance for people who don't fit into

these two programs that will be administered through the states. We also have economic impact payments. These will be within the next three weeks, direct payments into most people's deposit accounts. And for those that don't have it, we will be having the checks in the mail. Treasury will have additional authorities. We have $500 billion that we can use to work with the Federal Reserve for emergency programs that will create up to an additional $4 trillion, if needed, to support American business

and American workers in an unprecedented way. And then, finally, the President mentioned $100 billion to hospitals and $150 billion to states that have specific coronavirus expenses, as well as many additional things. Mr. President, I especially want to thank you and the Vice President. You are constantly available to us.

We spoke constantly. All right, folks, I don't need to hear all that damn praise. I mean, all I do is praise Trump for the podium. I want to go talk to Capitol Hill, because here's what's going on. All they hear, Mnookin, talking about this here. The problem is the bill is being held up. Why?

Because you have Republicans who are not happy with the amount of money that's going to real people. Okay. Explain that. So they're announcing a deal, but the bill has not been signed. One of the people who has been critical of this, and it's kind of stupid, is Lindsey Graham. Now, yesterday, Lindsey Graham was yelling, pass the bill, pass the bill, pass the bill. Now there's a deal. Now he's arguing, oh, that these people, these poor people are getting, you know, you're getting too much money.

I don't quite understand what in the world he's talking about because his whole deal is this is incentivizing people to go on unemployment. I don't know. First of all, they're not getting this money every single week. OK, y'all listen to him trying to explain this here. It's just crazy. Watch this. We'll know in about an hour as to whether or not this is a drafting error. I hope they're right, but I'm concerned. Let me tell you why. Under this proposal that they agreed to last night,

on unemployment, you would be making $24.07 an hour in South Carolina. There are a lot of jobs in South Carolina that do not pay $24.07. This bill pays you more not to work than if you were working. Very few people are going to turn down a 24-hour dollar deal not to work. To work for 15. If this is not a drafting era, then it's the worst idea I've seen in a long time, and I've seen a lot given the fact we're in Washington. To my Democratic colleagues, I have been one of your strongest supporters for upping unemployment insurance, but I never in my wildest dream believed that we would incentivize people

to stop working to take unemployment by increasing unemployment wages to $24 an hour. All right, so you listen to Lindsey Graham say, there are a lot of jobs in South Carolina not paying $24 an hour. That's the damn problem, Lindsey. Republicans have been fighting increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, a living wage. But he is now complaining that, oh, my goodness, that's too much. When if you actually look at the bill, the amount of money that people are getting on the low end,

it's not like this is a massive amount of money. Yet, if you look at this bill, corporations at the top, $500 billion. Hospitals, which actually has the greatest need in this whole deal, at the bottom, they're getting $130 billion. Did I just say it? Corporations, $500 billion. Hosp billion hospitals, 130 billion.

Don't you think in a pandemic it should be reversed where hospitals are getting more of the money right now because we have a significant problem in this country? Folks, is Congressman Gregory Meeks ready? All right, let's go to Capitol Hill. Congressman Gregory Meeks. He is, of course, on the House side. Congressman, when you listen now to what these Republicans are now saying, Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse, and Tim Scott, the only black Republican United States senator,

they literally are saying that, oh, my God, this is just too much money for these people. Why would they drop their job? Is he clueless? Last I checked, they're not getting this money every single month. This is one shot, correct? That is correct. And it doesn't make sense, as you said, Roman. Look, they're going after those that have the lease.

They're trying to make sure that those that have the lease don't have anything. And you look in the top, there's no limit that they would want to do. We had to fight tooth and nail. They wanted $500 billion to go unchecked initially to most of the presidents and other of the Republicans' friends and big corporations, et cetera. We had to fight with no strings attached. And now here we have a deal, and they're going to complain about what the least of these will receive. Those who are really suffering, those who are now out of work and who would want to go back to work if they were left to their own. And yet this is what they are focusing on and complaining. It just does not make common sense. And it shows who's really there for the average,

everyday, hardworking American and who's there just for the people that's at the top. Something is fundamentally wrong with their logic. And this is what we've got to put up with. So I'm still just trying to understand the rationale. I'm trying to understand in terms of what they see as the next thing. Because if you look at this whole deal, the people who are actually at the bottom economically, they're complaining that they're only going to get about $600.

Versus if you're making $75,000 a year, you could get $1,200, $500 per child. They were capping it at $75,000 a year, you could get $1,200, $500 per child. Then we're capping it at $2,400. I would think the least of these might deserve more than other people. That's just me. That's just me. Well, I would agree with you. I think that everything that we're doing is tied into those who have been victimized by the corona virus issue. They have been detrimated.

And the ones that have the least are the ones that don't have the food, the money to buy food now, the ones that cannot pay for their rent or their medicine, and we need to make sure that we keep them safe and provide them with the resources that they need based upon the logic of Senator Graham, then it doesn't make any sense. And I think that's why you are having a problem, Roland, because you're trying to be logical about it. You're trying to be intelligent about it to interpret something that is illogical like what Lindsey Graham is saying. Again, for everybody at home, I just want people to understand. So in this deal, this is a one-time $1,200 check. This is not over a multiple period of months.

I was actually on the Twitter page of Justin Amash. He's been highly critical of this here. This is what he has said. He said that it should provide... Go to my iPad, please. Actually, one second. I'm going to go ahead and pull this up. And so let me pull this up so you guys can actually see what he's talking about. And he said provide one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars per adult and five hundred dollars per child for each of the next three months unless the lockdowns end sooner.

After the third month, Congress can renew, modify, or discontinue these payments as appropriate. I get the $1,200, but if you've been out of work for the whole month of March, and now we're heading into April,

a one-time check, it helps, but it's not like it digs you out of your predicament. Well, that's absolutely correct. And I will tell you, Golden, one of the things that we've had a problem with, especially here in New York, that's been the epicenter of the coronavirus scenario, it doesn't take into account cost of living.

So for New Yorkers, for folks in certain parts of California, which is the second state, if you look at that amount of money, it doesn't pay for many people's rent here. It doesn't pay. The cost of living is so high that that money is not going to take folks very far. In fact, I got... One of my folks on Lloyd Kirkendall on YouTube says, just my thoughts,

if you lost a job, you should get money. If you took a pay cut, you should get money. If you don't work, he said you should not get anything. You are not working in the first place. But that's part of the problem there because one of the reasons what Lloyd doesn't quite understand if you don't work, he said you should not get anything. You are not working in the first place.

But that's part of the problem there, because one of the reasons what Lloyd doesn't quite understand is that there are people who also are not working because the black unemployment rate is double that of the white unemployment rate. Also, there were people who were laid off before this thing hit. And all of a sudden they came now into a crisis. So this is part of the problem here, this whole notion that, oh, if you don't have a job, you shouldn't get anything. Guess what? If you got laid off three months ago, had yet to find you a job, you still got rent. You still got a mortgage. You still might have a family. And so what do you do? So what, we're going to throw folks out of their homes as well? Not all states are requiring folks to stop eviction notices. And so we still are dealing with that.

I mean, what I keep saying is that what this thing is exposing, this coronavirus pandemic is exposing the true economic system and the haves and the have-nots in this country. It is exposing what happens when you have access to lobbyists and you're able to impact bills in Congress. It exposes the crazy thinking of people when it comes to what is happening economically in this nation when you also have an administration

that's moving forward on cuts to SNAP food benefits. But let me just say this, because what you find is, and what I think really it shows, is the difference in the democratically controlled House of Representatives when you look at the bill that we initiated and that we

put out, which was for families first and then focused on trying to make sure that we took care of the release of these, as opposed to the Republican-controlled Senate, who has rejected a lot of things that we've been trying to put forward. So there's been substantial difference in the bills that were put forward that were led by the House, as opposed to the bills that were led by the Senate. And that's part of what we have, you know, that is exposed right now.

There is a fundamental difference between the two. That's one reason why I always say elections do matter, because what is blocking and what has been blocking a lot of the progressive things that we want to do on the House side has been Senator McConnell. And that's why we call things that died in the McConnell graveyard. We could go right now in depth to many of the things. And we're trying on the House side all day long. We've been trying to decipher what's in the Senate bill.

And I've talked to some of the Democrats and what the Senate to try to decipher what ultimately will be in there. We have not seen the actual text of the bill yet on the House side. We hope to get that sometime later tonight so that we can go through it. But there is a fundamental difference of Democrats and Republicans and right now of the House and the Senate and how we're approaching this pandemic that we are under. First, all right, well, look, this is just, again, pretty outrageous what is happening. Congressman Greg Meeks of New York, we certainly appreciate it. And our thoughts and prayers go to the folks in your city and state

really being hit real hard by the coronavirus. Thank you very much, Raul. All right, folks, again, this is, it's just crazy. The Trump administration, again, they announced that they've cut this deal for this roughly $2 trillion rescue package, but it has not been voted on just yet by the folks in Congress. It's not been voted on. What is happening right now is they continue to have the news conference going on right now at the White House as they are taking questions from reporters. Let's just dip into it and let's just see how fast they tell the truth and then how quickly they lie. With respect to what? On tariffs and also related also to waive tariffs and also

sanctions. We have strong borders. And would you consider to join this global effort? So before I came here, we weren't into borders. We had a country. People could come in. We had a whole different deal. Now we're up to almost 160.

Y'all know he lying. No, no, no. Go ahead and leave the audio up. Because here's what we're going to do. See, most other people just care the news conference. So he'll go back to his big, beautiful walls, which actually he hasn't built a significant amount of walls as well. Also, you talk about, you know, what's happened with the borders. Y'all, really?

Guess what? The coronavirus hopped over the wall. The coronavirus isn't stopped by any wall i'm very strong on borders and it's not stopped by any wall whatsoever but that's what you're dealing with uh with somebody right here um okay whatever i'll come back to that okay take it out i'll come back to that we talked about senator mitch mcconnell in kentucky he has of course is running uh running for re-election and of course on the Democratic side, they have a primary there. One of the folks who wants to replace him is a brother.

It was Charles Booker. He's a Kentucky official, Kentucky state official. He joins us right now. First of all, sir, how you doing? Hey, Roland. I'm doing well, brother. It's good to be with you. Certainly glad to have you here, Representative Charles Booker. You're there in the Kentucky legislature. You're running against Senator Mitch McConnell. When you look at in terms of what happened, the House passed their bill a couple of weekends ago.

He chose not to keep the Senate in session, chose to come back to Kentucky just to swear in a federal judge along with Brett Kavanaugh. And then to hear him complaining about what Democrats should be doing, he took the whole weekend off. The Senate should have been in session dealing with the people's work that particular weekend. That's exactly right. And it's just further proof that he doesn't care about us. He chose recess over leadership. And folks are dying. Folks are suffering. They're going without. And he could care care about us. He chose recess over leadership. And folks are dying. Folks are suffering. They're going without. And he could care less about it. And he looks us straight in the eyes and tells us he doesn't give a damn. And that's why he needs to go. We can't afford that right now. When you look at in terms of what is happening in Kentucky, how is your state

dealing with the coronavirus? You know, it's tough for a lot of us. A lot of people in Kentucky suffer from health issues, immunodeficiencies like I do. I'm a type 1 diabetic. And there's a lot of concern around here. But our leadership at the state level has been incredible. And in the face of our federal leadership not showing up at all and Mitch McConnell just disappearing on us, our governor has been very upfront working with us in the legislature, being transparent, listening to the concerns of

people across Kentucky, and putting politics aside. And so we're taking every precaution. Businesses are being closed that are dealing with in-person engagement, taking every safety measure to keep folks safe during this time. And we need our federal leadership to respond in suit and show up as well. When you, first of all, when is the primary in Kentucky? So the primary election was actually pushed back. So it's now June 23rd at this point, which is also another good point. I've been finding a lot for expanded access to the ballot box and we need to make sure everyone can be heard. So we're encouraged by that response.

And obviously, there are a number of other candidates who are running. What are you saying to folks there, why you should be the best person to go against Mitch McConnell in November? Well, my message is simple. We need a movement. This is bigger than Mitch McConnell. Actually, hold tight one second. Hold tight one second. What I want to do is Dr. Fauci is actually at the podium right now. I want to go to him. I want to hear what he has to say. Go ahead, Henry. A lot of good people, a lot of good professionals. I don't know. It'd be interesting to hear if you'd like to talk about the World WHO. But the fact is that I have heard for years that that is very much biased toward China. So I don't know.

The Press You want me to get you into this political mess? President Trump No, I don't want you to do that, but I will. So Tedros is really an outstanding person. I've known him from the time that he was the minister of health of Ethiopia. I mean, obviously, over the years, anyone who says that the WHO has not had problems has not been watching the WHO. But I think under his leadership, they've done very well. He has been all over this. I was on the phone with him a few hours ago leading a WHO call. Praising China's transparency, sir?

No, I'm not talking about China. You asked me about Tedros. World Health Organization praising China for its transparency and leadership on their response to the pandemic. You know, I can't comment on that because I mean, I don't have any viewpoint into it. I mean, I don't I don't even know what your question is. Can I follow up on that phone call, please? Well, let me just tell you, I have heard that for years. I spoke to him yesterday. Seems fine to me. I don't know. Okay. All right. So

first of all, guys, let me know if Fauci comes back up to the microphone. You know, he's the real expert. That's the person we actually want to hear from. Going back to Representative Booker, like I said, you're running against a number of folks in Democrats on the Democratic side. What's the case that you're making why you should be the best person to face McConnell?

Well, yes, as I was saying, we need a movement in Kentucky right now. We cannot deal with the political status quo. It's killing us. We cannot do the same thing and expect anything to change. And we need someone that's gonna fight for us. I've lived the struggle that a lot of politicians talk about and Mitch McConnell doesn't give a damn about. And coming from the poorest zip code in Kentucky, pushing through poverty, having a rash on insulin,

dealing with the trauma of losing loved ones from homicide for the past four years, I know very acutely what it means when your back is against the wall. And we need someone like this that's going to fight with us, that's going to lock arms and say that not only are we beating Mitch McConnell, but we're winning our future. No political status quo, not protesting,

not playing the same games that have caused us to lose year in, year out. And Kentuckians are ready for it. We're demanding change. We're going to lead on it. All right, then. Representative Charles Booker, certainly good luck. We appreciate you joining us on the show. Thank lead on it. All right, then. Representative Charles Booker, certainly good luck. We appreciate you joining us on the show. Thank you, sir.

All right, folks, I want to bring in my panelists right now. Joining me right here, Mustafa Santiago Ali, formerly with the EPA. He's with us. Also joining us via Skype is Brittany Lee Lewis, a political analyst and historian, and also Mayor Mario King, who is the mayor of Moss Point, Mississippi. Folks, let me know when we have both of them on the line. One of the things that's happening is here. You can go back to the news conference. What's happened, just keep me up as well.

Mustafa, what's happening, just go to the split screen so I can see both us as well as the news conference. Mustafa, what's happening right now is that you have a lot of journalists who are saying flat out, don't carry his news conference live because of the lies. An NPR station in Seattle, they announced they're not going to carry his news conference live, saying they don't have the capability to fact-check what he's saying because too many lies are being told from the podium. I mean, I think it's a good idea. I mean, the president's, one of the president's main

responsibilities is actually being able to share correct and accurate information with the country, to share what the steps are, where we are in this respective pandemic. And when you have someone who has a very hard time with the truth it doesn't do anything to help us to move forward it actually puts us behind the eight ball and it makes people wonder if they can trust anyone in the government right now turn this up y'all listen to this turn this up this incredible we were having the most successful years that we've ever had in the history of our country you saw what happened yesterday with the stocks and today they're up. I'm telling you, if Steve gets the deal done, the incredible incentive, it's going to take

care of people. It's going to take care of our workers. It's going to take care of companies and employees. So here's- Small and big. So turn it down. By the way, I would say we spend more time on the small companies than we do on the big companies.

Here's what's amazing. Don't you turn that down. Don't you ask about that. Turn that down. Turn that down. So here's what's amazing as you listen to that nonsense. He's talking about how he hears from all these... I want to hear a little bit of it. How he's hearing from all these businesses who say they want to get back to work.

Everybody wants to get back to work. But nobody wants to die. So the vice president's going to stay with you? Nobody wants to die. If you have a restaurant that's packed, you're not trying to die. Pence is going to continue. I'll find we can bail out of it. But you don't want to die.

You're talking about, again, putting people together. We are seeing an increase of the people dying. We're seeing that. And he's also lying. He put out a tweet earlier talking about how we've done more tests than anybody else.

Well, if you say we've done more overall tests than any other country, yes. But if you actually did it based upon the size of a nation, we have not. Yes, but if you actually did it based upon the size of a nation, we have not. Again, this is sort of the line

that he plays, and again, we're at this point, Mustafa, we still don't know how significant this thing is. I was, in fact, I'm going to pull up comedian Kathy Griffin. Comedian Kathy Griffin, y'all.

I saw this before I came on the air. Kathy Griffin tweeted out... This is what she did. This is in response... So Trump tweeted out, just reported that the United States has done far more testing, go to my iPad, than any other nation by far. In fact, over an eight-day span, the United States now does more testing than what South Korea, which has been a very successful tester, does over an eight-week span. Great job.

Okay. First of all, here's Kathy Griffin. He's lying. I was sent to the COVID-19 isolation ward room in a major hospital ER from a separate urgent care facility after showing unbearably painful symptoms. The hospital couldn't test me for coronavirus because of CDC Pence Task Force restrictions.

Hashtag test, test, test. And this is a photo of her from the hospital bed. And so Trump is out here, let's get back to like everything was, the economy was great, we were just the best in the world, the best ever, but if you're a store owner, do you want 100 people walking through the door? And you don't know whether or not you got coronavirus?

If you work in a movie theater, do you actually want 350 people sitting right next to each other watching a movie and then somebody coughs or somebody sneezes and all of a sudden the entire movie theater goes nuts because you don't know if somebody's sick. That's why the health people are saying you have to maintain this shelter in place.

And some are saying it needs to be national because we don't have a handle yet on how significant this is. And the experts, Mustafa, are saying it's not going to be until April until we think that we've reached sort of the apex to know what we're actually dealing with. The president, throughout his administration,

has continued to place profit over people's lives. We can go through all the various aspects that a presidency has to deal with, everything from environmental issues to housing issues, you know, down the line. But, you know, I'm not sure where the president is getting his information from, because I actually have talked to a number of the leading public health leaders in the country. And many of them, you remember, there was supposed to be a database.

And in this database, folks were supposed to filter in the information where the various testing was happening. So there's testing that's happening, you know, at the hospitals and other private entities are doing testing. And he also likes to take credit for other people's work. So Governor Cuomo, who has been leading in New York state, has been, you know, guiding the process. And he's actually been forcing and pushing to make sure the testing is happening, looking for the equipment that's necessary for the medical personnel to be able to do their job, you know, in an efficient way. And before that, you had Jay Inslee in Washington state. Well, again, it is just for people to understand, go to a split screen. Again, Pence is talking. And the whole point, why I'm going back and forth, because, look,

y'all need to hear what they're saying. Go to it. I want to hear what Pence has to say. The president and I were in direct contact with governors of New York, California, Washington State, New Jersey, Michigan and others. And we continue to be inspired and impressed by the leadership that governors are providing in their states, making tough choices, leading their state. So he's talking about how inspired and impressed they are. Daily Beast has a story where it shows that Donald Trump is pissed off because Andrew Cuomo has been critical of him. And Donald Trump's way of doing business is, if you're not nice to us, we're not going to do business with you. Exactly the same thing happened with Puerto Rico. I want to bring in the mayor of Moss Point, Mississippi, Mario King, who joined us on our panel, also a political

analyst and historian, Brittany Lewis as well. Mayor King, I'm going to you because this is the issue that I'm looking at here. This is about leadership, and you have somebody lying. You're in a state

where you have a governor who has a pandemic that is on the rise and he is so arrogant on not shutting down the beaches. And he's had this very arrogant view of this thing and you're sitting here going,

the numbers are increasing and you're acting like it's no biggie. And in fact, the neighboring state of Mississippi, Louisiana, has seen an explosion of cases as well. Look, let me tell you, this executive order, first and foremost, I am just embarrassed that our governor refused to act two weeks ago. So myself, me and maybe like 10 other mayors across the state put in these executive orders to mandate business closings, doing things that we felt would protect the, come in and put in an executive order mandating that these businesses reopen. OK, not only did he mandate that they reopen, he mandated that they couldn't have more than 10 people per area. So say there's a business that have an outside area, a bar area, a dining area. Based on his order, you can have 30 people in that business at any point in time.

In addition, he reopened the churches. He reopened the daycares. Knowing that we have cases, we had a case just last, on this week, on Monday, where an infant, a two-and-a-half-year-old, was at a daycare, tested positive for COVID-19, had the mom put it on there, spread it all throughout that daycare. Just like in my city, we have an individual that tested positive that had been coming to work.

This individual went to the hospital, was denied testing, sent home, went back to the hospital the next day, ended up having real bad chest pains. This individual, which is an employee for me, is now at home right now. This individual, I'm not at home, but at the hospital right now, hospital for COVID-19. These actions of these governors are irresponsible. They're just, they're ridiculous. And I think that the thing is they're playing partisan politics.

Brittany, here's a couple of things. In Detroit, they lost one of their leaders, Marlo Stoudemire, community leader in business strategies, brother, died from COVID-19 on Tuesday. Uh, according to the Henry Ford Health Systems, he was 43 years old, remembered as a dedicated husband to his wife, Valencia, and father of two young children,

uh, and again, had a social capital firm, Butterfly Effect, uh, Detroit. Also, in St. Louis, a 31 year old black woman has died from COVID-19 as well. Again, 31 years old. And so what happened there, her name is Jasmine Dixon, became the first St. Louis resident to die from a coronavirus two days after testing positive. She'd been experiencing flu-like symptoms and went to an urgent care facility on last Tuesday. They instructed her to go to the hospital emergency room where she was admitted. By Thursday, while waiting for her test results, she was placed on a ventilator because of a dangerous drop in her oxygen levels.

Her results came back Friday and she died just two days later. I'm saying all of this because all we've heard, Brittany, is that, oh my goodness, it's older Americans. We're seeing people 31, 43, 49 dying from this and people are acting as if, hey, you know what?

If you're not 50 plus, it's all good. No. And yet you have leadership. They are such he is such in a rush to have a stock market go up. He is completely ignoring the health risk in this nation. Roland, it's petrifying for a number of reasons. I think the issue with this virus is that little by little, we're finding out just how alarming and how scared we should be. You know, we're going from a place of where we have our president calling this a democratic hoax. It's the flu.

It's just going to go away. Then all of a sudden we see, okay, no gatherings that are larger than 100. Okay, it must be 50. Now it needs to be 20. Now it needs to be 10. Different states are doing different things. And I think the overarching idea that we've always heard was that, okay, it's only affecting those that are going to be immune compromised or are elders. But the reality is, like you said, we're seeing more and more cases and not only people being hospitalized that are in that 30 to 45 range, but people are dying. I've heard a couple of different stories of people dying who didn't even have underlying health conditions.

So it's absolutely petrifying, and it scares me yet again for the misinformation that continues to be floated around. And this, Mustafa, is why this thing is so major, because when you have a 21-year-old woman in the U.K., no symptoms, dies of coronavirus, then you're having people who are in their 30s and 40s, you're hearing these different stories, it causes you to start going,

wait a minute, hold up, what in the heck is happening? But again, the rush to try to just go back. Donald Trump literally could be endangering millions of Americans if we move forward with this idea of just reopening businesses, as he keeps saying, reopening the country. Well, I mean, I think we should be even more honest than that because he is endangering lives. It's not, will he? The question is how many more will actually be in danger? You know, it's really interesting if you're a student of history and you remember what Marie Antoinette shared when she said, let them eat cake. The way that many of these governors and the way that the president

and others in his cabinet have been dealing with this situation is the exact same thing, where they're saying that your lives are not that important. When you're dealing with these economic situations, they're like, well, you just have to deal with it and you have to figure a way through this process, even if you're one of the most vulnerable inside of our community economically or from a health status. The thing that jumps out for me, Mayor Mario, is that when you start, when you're seeing what's going on, when you see what's happening in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans, when you start, when you're seeing what's going on, when you see what's happening in Louisiana, especially in New Orleans,

when you see what's happening in New York, when you're seeing what's happening in other places, you don't know what you don't know. And that, to me, is the greatest danger. Not knowing. Every doctor that

we've had on this show since we've been covering this they've all said the way you're supposed to attack this thing is you first of all figure out where's the problem is it high is it mid is it low how severe is it and then what you do is you didn't craft a response to it. What you have here is somebody who wants to rush and he literally said yesterday that we're at the tail end of this.

Yet the health experts are saying we haven't even reached the top of the hill to start coming down. He's like, oh, we're only at the end. Go ahead. All right, but what you know is, I don't even want to say that is what

they don't know because, look, they know that people are dying. They know that they have not acted. They know that they're trying to protect their economy in their own pocketbook. However, they're doing it at the risk and safety of all Americans. In Mississippi, as we stated earlier, I'm just appalled that these types of actions are even being allowed, and we have no remedy from a municipal level. But the biggest issue with this is that they're intentionally ignoring the advice of those medical professionals,

those researchers. They keep saying go to the CDC website. They keep saying go into the State Department of Health websites. But they're ignoring that advice themselves. And on every state website in Mississippi, there's contradicting information from the order that the executive order that the governor put in. Again, it's just so much wrong information, misinformation. I don't know what you call it at this point, but I think it's intentional. I do not, I'm not making any excuses for these individuals. They are leaders. They should be leading,

and they're not doing that effective or efficient. Brittany, Sam Stein, who is with the Daily Beast, he just tweeted this three minutes ago. He said, from the tone of Trump's, go to my iPad, from the tone of Trump's pressure, you would have no clue that it's been the worst 24 hours yet in terms of infections and deaths in the U.S. It's all optimism and self-congratulations up there,

and I suppose that's his goal. It's unfortunate, and it's scary, and it's going to be at the cost of American lives. And to me, it almost sounds, you know, it's ableist, right? This idea of, well, you know, the economy is going to suffer. We have to open everything up. You know, the cure can't be worse than the cause. But the reality is, first off, your economy isn't going to bounce back completely as long as you have people who are scared to go outside. They're being immune compromised.

Like you said, we've had one of the worst days thus far with this virus. And I don't think Donald Trump cares. I think that's very clear. He cares about the economy. He cares about his own pockets. He cares about the corporations that he partners with. He cares about the economy. He cares about his own pockets. He cares about the corporations that he partners with. He cares about their pockets. He doesn't care if people die,

especially if they're old or elderly or an immune compromise. He says they're making a great sacrifice for this country as far as he's concerned. That was a video that was put out by an anti-Trump group that really lays bare the lack of leadership we're seeing coming from Washington, D.C. All right, folks, check this out. Crisis comes to every presidency. We don't that. What matters is how they handle it. Donald Trump didn't create the coronavirus, but he is the one who called hoax, who eliminated the pandemic response team and who let the virus spread unchecked across america crisis comes to every president this one failed unite the

countries responsible for the content of this advertising uh folks um was interesting though, Mustafa, that you look at public polling. He's got high marks, above 50%, for handling of this. Approval rating has gone up, even though it's around 49% as well. But if you begin to break those numbers down, that was polling that was done a while ago. And what you're seeing is the cheerleading, the cheerleading, how great we are, all these amazing things that we've done. But you have companies right now

who have said point blank. They say that if the National Defense Production Act was put in place, they're saying that we would have actually been able to create those ventilators and we would have had those ventilators already made and they would all be in place by mid-April or so. He said they would actually be there. I want to go back to the

news conference. Dr. Fauci speaking. Go. We now have multiple different countries that have gone through various phases of their individual outbreaks and you could learn something from them about where you are in your own outbreak. For example, when China went up, what happened is they just didn't turn around. They went from going to, I'll just take an arbitrary number, 500 new cases a day. The next day it was 1,000 cases, then 1,500, and then 2,000. But once the number of new cases each day starts to flatten out, that's when you get to that point where the inflection goes down. So if you what things we want to look for, the things that Dr. Birx had mentioned, that doesn't mean you declare victory when it does that, but you know you're at

least on the way to where you want to go. And I think that's really very important. The third and final thing that I think gets back to the question that many of you in the audience have asked of us is about would this possibly become a seasonal cyclic thing? And I've always indicated to you that I think it very well might. And the reason I say that is that what we're starting to see now in the southern hemisphere, in southern to see now in the southern hemisphere, in southern Africa and in the southern hemisphere countries, is that we're having cases that are

appearing as they go into their winter season. And if, in fact, they have a substantial outbreak, it will be inevitable that we need to be prepared that we'll get a cycle around the second time. What does that mean for us and what we're doing? It totally emphasizes the need to do what we're doing in developing a vaccine, testing it quickly, and trying to get it ready so that we'll have a vaccine available for that next cycle. In addition, to do the randomized controlled trials of drugs so that we will have a menu of drugs that we have shown to be effective and shown to be safe because I know we'll be successful in putting this down now, but we really need to be prepared for another cycle. And what we're doing, I believe, will prepare us well. Thank you.

Thanks, sir. We'll take a few questions. We'll stop up point there again. Let the damn experts lead. Mm-hmm. I mean, Dr. Fauci, everybody has a lot of respect and trust that he's always going to give you some real talk. And then, you know, whether it's good news or challenging news, that he's going to share it with you in a very straightforward sort of way. But the other part that he shared, you know,

when he was talking about numbers and using the example in China, you know, we got 360 million people in this country. And so far, you know, we've just had a handful of folks who are being impacted when you look at that larger number. So we need to get prepared. We need to make sure that social distancing is something that we're incorporating in a real way. As they say, we need to flatten out the curve. But we've also got to be extremely focused on our most vulnerable communities because they are the ones that are going to get hit extremely hard. Lives will be lost.

But also long-term, long-term types of situations are going to come out of the needs that are there around folks in economic situations, their health, the costs that are going to come out of this. So we've got to just be focused. We've often talked about on this show, folks, what happens when you make decisions late. That's one of the reasons why Mayor Mario King is talking about the lack of leadership with the Republican governor in Mississippi. Same thing is happening in terms of what really happened with this administration in the early parts. We really knew since January what was really going on here. But the problem is what then began to take place when you had events in February and March.

Now, look at the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit. Several people have gotten sick as a result of being there. Same thing happened with the National Brotherhood of Skiers, America's largest organization dedicated to supporting and developing winter athletes of color. They hosted their National Ski Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho from February 29th to March 7th in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Well, the 600 people were there. Well, Michael Harriot with The Root writes that a number of people have now tested positive for coronavirus and have gotten sick. He joins us right now. Michael, this is one of those things that, again,

if you had an administration that took this thing seriously in January and then begin to tell people, do not have these mass gatherings of people in February or March, we wouldn't be here. I think back to the fact that February 14th through the 17th, I was at NBA All-Star Game in Chicago, mass gathering, thousands of people there. This took place and we were, I remember Senator Kamala Harris put a video on her page on February 12th where the Trump administration people would not show, did not show up to a hearing that they had a national homeland, Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Committee hearing that was on February 12th. But it was really the third week in February when this thing really

began to pick up and the group still met and now people are paying the price for these gatherings. Right. I think if people would have known in advance, they may have made alternate decisions. But again, the government and the people who really knew how dangerous this coronavirus was didn't inform the people. You know, we knew in you know, we know that now we know that Burr and senators and the Trump administration and CDC officials were telling the Trump administration as far back as January. But they didn't make actions mostly because they wanted to keep the markets intact. And so it may be that many of these people who are now sick wouldn't have come down with this illness if not for the inaction of the Trump administration. Talk about what you have learned when it comes to people who have been impacted, who've gotten sick from that skiers event?

So far, we have about a half a dozen people who have tested positive for coronavirus, and over 100 people who have been sick with flu-like symptoms. And the numbers are still rolling in. Of course, these people were from all around the world, really. There were, you know, 40 people who were sick from London, England. You have people who were sick from California. 37 members of one group were sick, 40 out of 55 attendees from another group. So the numbers are still rolling in, but we do have a half a dozen confirmed cases of coronavirus. We don't know how many of those people have been tested, but we do know that at least 100 of those people have reported that they have had flu-like symptoms. And Michael, this type of gathering

is part of the problem when you have people who are coming from all over the country. So then what then happens is you may be from another country and then you're not sick, but you go to this event and all of a sudden you now go home and you begin to infect other people. I remember seeing a graph of a woman in South Korea, an older woman. Doctors told her to get tested. She ignored getting tested. Then she then went to a church service near the hospital. Then she went to a buffet. They said they had 30, it was like 30 some odd cases of people in South Korea. She was number 31. This woman was responsible for

infecting more than a thousand people. Well, you think about, you know, the gathering, this kind of a gathering, this large of a gathering, right, with people from all around the world. Think about the number of flights that those people were on with other people who weren't attending a ski summit, other people who might not have come into contact with those people who had coronavirus. You know, we definitely know some of them, at least six people, all from six different groups, right? So you can imagine that six of those, none of those people were from Idaho where the event was held. So you would imagine that they took flights back to their homes.

Well, speaking of Idaho, speaking of Idaho, the governor today. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. All the people on the flights with those people are now subjected to coronavirus. Not just flights, but also every restaurant they went into, every every other public place they went into. You name it. It also had all the impact. Not only that, you spoken of Idaho. Guess what? The governor of Idaho today ordered a shelter in place for the entire state. What we are seeing, Michael, we're now seeing, we're seeing governors who are saying, I can't trust what the hell is happening in Washington,

D.C. I've got to protect my own people. Right. You know, if you compare the numbers in Idaho with the numbers of people who attended that conference, 10, the number of people who have come down with coronavirus from that conference who have tested positive now is more than 10% of Idaho's total cases. So imagine how that's spreading. Michael Harriet with The Root. We surely appreciate it, man.

Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. All right, folks, you want to talk about how people handle these things? Italy continues to have new cases of COVID-19 and a group of mayors are furious because people will not stay at home and they have been, let's just say,

quite vocal in letting them know. la festa di laurea. Mandiamo i carabinieri ma li mandiamo con i lanciafiamme. Che domani vi becco, domani! Non pensiate tra anni, domani! Sono il sindaco, sul mio territorio non si passeggia. Non vi posso impedire formalmente di uscire da casa? Bene, vi impedisco di passare sul suolo pubblico. Allora mi rivolgo a voi, ma dove cazzo andate? Dove andate con questi cani che ci hanno la prostata infiammata? Non è previsto il ping pong, non potete giocare a ping pong, andiamo alla playstation. Siccome io sono il sindaco di questa città, in questa città il decreto lo faccio rispettare io. Se ne deve andare a casa adesso, non voglio le scuse.

Tutti? Tutti, Se ne devi andare a casa adesso non voglio le scuse. Tutti? Dovete stare tutti a casa. Non si può stare in mezzo alla strada, come voi devo spiegare? Non si può stare. A casa. La massa, le fidanzate con la massa ci vogliono. Se cazzo di parrucchiere che vanno in casa a giustare i capilli è bene, a che cazzo servono? Cioè ma l'avete capito che Uta Vutu è un giocano? No, I'm gonna have a conversation with the panel and to buy some time. Cazzo d'andava ne per sti capilli aggiustati da Uta Vutu? I met a fellow citizen who was kindly running up and down the street accompanied by a dog visibly shivering.

I stopped him and said, look, this is not a film. You are not Will Smith in I Am Legend. So, go home. Look, I'm going to tell you, we've seen so much here. We've seen people on the beach have hockey parties. We've seen people just not listening. We've seen people congregate at parks. We've seen them. Well, but this is the deal, though. You know, Roland, think about this.

Me as a mayor, I put in a mandate to stop these things. And then here goes the governor that comes right back out and say, hey, reopen the beaches. Reopen the restaurants. Reopen this. Reopen that. You can do what you want. Just it's a strong urge. He said this is what his words was, his exact words. He said this is no longer a recommendation. It is a strong urge to follow the CDC requirements. People need more than going to the website. They keep saying they want to put the faith in the people. If we keep putting our faith in the people, we're going to keep seeing the numbers rise. Everybody is not going to adhere to what they're telling them. And I just think that it's very sad. And I just think it's bad.

When you talk about patient 31 from South Korea who was in the church, we have, we have, so I closed down all the churches here because some people still wanted to have churches. Some people didn't understand it. Some people didn't agree with it. But I said, we need to close down the churches. Now you see all this. You see things happening like Patient 31. You see these. It's the same thing I could tell you I've been telling you the whole time. You see every single environment that they've opened up are environments that are known places to spread this disease. So to open them up is a complete disregard and a complete irresponsibility of leadership. But as mayors that took a stand in the state of Mississippi, who was completely, I'm talking about its preemption at its best,

and the irresponsible action of the governor at its worst for him to be able to put that executive order in that clearly that says that all of our orders are null and void at this point. So we have no option or no ability at this point in time to even act in the state of Mississippi if our measures are more extreme than the governor's measures based on his

executive order. And Brittany, I thought Republicans always loved local control. They absolutely do. It's scary. Even listening to Mike Pence say yesterday, he literally said in the conference, he said, we are using a strategy that is locally executed, state mandated, and federally supported. And you've had several experts come out and say, this needs to be an all hands on deck

federal mandate. We all have to be on the same page at the same time to slow this down. And, you know, it's falling on deaf ears. And like was said earlier, as long as we continue to see the differences happening in states, in different local municipalities, we're not going to get this thing under control. And quite frankly, I absolutely love that video of all of the Italian leadership. I know they're cursing. I know they're using funny examples, but they give a damn. And you should give a damn when people's lives are at stake.

It's just, Mustafa, what's interesting is you see what people are doing out here. There was a question that was asked at the news conference today of Dr. Fauci. Is it helpful for people to be sewing masks for health workers and others to wear? My mom is one of the people. She's sitting here, you know, sewing masks. He said, you would only recommend that under desperate situations. I don't see that now as a necessity. That was interesting. So mama, stop sewing. Just messing with you. But what's interesting here is when you look at those mayor's reactions and we look at the deaths in Italy, I mean, these are mayors pleading with people. The difference, I think, what you have here,

and I think this is, I think, a fundamental problem with folks in America. These people run around with this whole deal, this whole notion of, we're free, we're free, we're free, we can do whatever we want. When you hear idiots like the Lieutenant Governor of Texas,

when you hear Brit Hume going, yeah, then you hear this dumbass Glenn Beck who literally is echoing the same thing, oh yeah, just let folks die. He said, I would rather die

than, first of all, I can't even paraphrase this idiot. I'm going to play it for a second. And you listen to these people and you're going, are y'all insane? Are y'all truly insane? Well, you know, the Italian mayors understand the deadly

seriousness of what's going on because they have seen how quickly this can become a devastating type of a situation. In America, we often have this invincibility sort of shield that we think we have around ourselves and around our country. And now we have something that no one was prepared for, that our government decided not to, you know, get in front of. And we've got folks who have this culture, again, of invincibility that we have to address. Because if we don't, lots of people are going to actually lose their lives. And as we've seen on the show today, you know, it's not just the elders. You know, it is across the spectrum of ages and across

the spectrum of races. So we got to get focused. In a moment, we're going to talk to a Howard University student who has spent some time in Italy. But I so, we gotta get focused. Uh, in a moment, we're gonna talk to a Howard University student who has spent some time in Italy. But I gotta play this for y'all, and I gotta get y'all's response. Here's this idiot, Glenn Beck. Okay? He actually said this. And see, let me tell y'all,

the problem with people like Glenn Beck, same with Rush Limbaugh, all people who watch Fox News, a bunch of old white people. Basically, they trying to kill off their own audience. Listen to what Beck said. I sincerely hope that we are not at a place as Americans to where we are going to let the Democrats jam down the Green New Deal because we're at home panicked.

I want to have a frank conversation with you and ask you where you stand. I mean, I'm in the danger zone. I'm right at the edge. I'm 56. In Italy, they're saying if you're sick and you're 60, don't even come in. So I'm in the danger zone i would rather have my children stay home and all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working even if we all get sick i'd rather die than kill the country because it's not the economy that's dying it's the country and I'll

show you just what's happening to us just by looking at the talks with the stimulus right now we have that coming up I would rather okay let me play just one more for you just to show what these right-wing nuts are saying and these right-wing nuts are listening to when it comes to coronavirus. One more greatest hits from the clueless one, Glenn Beck. Americans don't cower. Americans run up the stairs of burning buildings. They don't run out of the building and cower.

We know there's a problem with the virus. We know people are going to die. We must take that seriously. As I have been saying for I don't know how long, the problem is not the number of dead that we're trying to avoid. The problem is we are trying to make sure that our hospital systems are not overwhelmed. So I've been on that before the media was on that. I was talking about that before anyone was talking about that. Now it's time for you people in the media to shift your gears and understand there's another nuanced level to this story. And that is the illness that will kill the American dream. And that illness is the engine has been turned off. Who's willing to step to the plate?

I contend there are millions of Americans just like me that will look at their children and their grandchildren's future and they will say, I am not going to have them a slave to debt. I am not going to erase their future because I was afraid to die. I'm not afraid to die. I am afraid that our nation might die and that dooms millions to poverty illness starvation and a lack of hope let's see if that will trend mustafa here's the deal as somebody who's focused on environmental justice what you just heard right there is their entire deal while they're against the Green New Deal. Because for them, it's all about money. And their whole deal is we shouldn't be spending any money

when it comes to saving the environment. We shouldn't be doing this because it's gonna cost us money. And it's so idiotic because they actually believe nothing is happening to the earth. They believe that, yeah, stuff is melting and yeah, we see warming and we see all these things.

That means nothing. Just keep the money flowing. This is real simple. The Bible even says it. You can't take it with you. Yeah, right. Well, you know, it's real simple. So in relationship to the Green New Deal, I love when they bring this up because the Green New Deal is actually about strengthening our country and creating economic parity, something that they definitely are not interested in. It's about creating a whole new set of millions of new green jobs. It's about making sure that everybody has access to health care. And the reason that it is in there like that

is because we know that communities of color, lower-income white communities and indigenous communities have been dealing with the impacts from pollution, which has been impacting their health and is now making them more vulnerable to the coronavirus. And sometimes they don't want to have that conversation necessarily about that. And also, you're right. You know, the first principle of environmental justice is about honoring mother earth. And if you look at the IPCC report and

the national climate assessment report, these are reports that are put together by the top scientists around the planet. They already sent a warning out to us that there would be more infectious diseases that we would have to deal with pandemics and all these other types of things as the planet continues to warm up and people need to actually pay attention to what's happening. It makes no sense right now, folks. You talk about what's happening in Italy. It is not good at all. Joining us right now is Fatal Saul, a Howard University student who spent time there in Italy, who has just returned.

First of all, Fatal, coming back, did you get to self-quarantine when you came back from Italy? Yes. So I'm actually a Howard University graduate. I go to Johns Hopkins SAIS right now. It's in Bologna. I've been there since August. But when I got back, I did have to self-quarantine. I'm staying at an Airbnb just away from family just to keep things safe for the meantime right now. Give us a sense. First of all, how long were you in Italy? So I've been in Italy since August, and I had to abruptly leave on Monday. And when you say abruptly leave, what were you, what was it, ordered out of the country?

Who made you leave Italy? Yeah, so the problem was that we were getting updates from our school for the past couple of weeks. Honestly, starting back from, I would say, February, like the last week of February. But the problem was that as soon as I saw the U.S. State Department notifying U.S. citizens who are out of the country to just go back home, essentially, because they said if you get stuck in the country, then you won't get any help. I said, OK, this is the time that i need to go back and then uh the woman who's over student life and activity at my school also sent a message saying hey guys if anybody is thinking about going back home you

should do so soon because italy is about to get more strict in terms of travel like i just heard i believe on monday they canceled public and private transportation within and going out of the country, any city, any region. And so I said, okay, I need to go back home. You were there since August, which means that you were seeing this thing up close, which where in Italy were you based? I was in Bologna, Italy. It's in the Emilia-Romagna region. So it's kind of in the middle of Italy. And being there, you're seeing the closures, you're seeing the panic that set in. Just describe for the folks watching Roller Martin Unfiltered, just what it was like to be in the middle of that. So honestly, I have

to say it wasn't much of a panic. And I personally think that's because of the culture. Maybe that's Italian culture, European culture. But it wasn't much of a panic. Like when I saw videos on Twitter, Instagram, family members calling me, like being really, really scared for my health. I was like, well, guys, everyone here is pretty calm, like nothing is sold out at the grocery stores. People were practicing social distancing. People were standing a couple of meters apart. Over time, more people were wearing gloves,. People were standing a couple of meters apart. Over time, more people were wearing gloves, more people were wearing masks. So in the meantime, while things were getting worse and worse, I kind of felt comfortable because I saw the necessary steps

being taken. Like the prime minister of Italy put in a decree saying like, okay, if you're going outside, and this was for the whole entire country. At first, they focused it on the Lombardi region, but then they spread it out to the whole country. So they said, if you need to go outside, it only needs to be for essential reasons. The grocery store, the pharmacy store, some people were still going on jogs and runs, what may have you.

However, if you didn't have a certain paper, like, on you, the police were liable to stop you, and you could get a citation. So I think that is what automatically had people like, oh, we need to stay inside. Is it also because, frankly, they listened to their leaders and leaders took decisive action as opposed to this sort of meandering, slow, we're not quite sure what we want to do in the United States? Yes, I agree. I think one thing that was interesting for me is looking at Italy's government, its unitary system. So I was surprised at how steadfast and quick all the decisions were made.

My school was keeping up with everything that the government was sending. So as soon as they said the decree was put in place, they sent us the exact same thing, the form that we needed, everything. And so, yes, Lombardi had the most cases. But once the country was saying, like, okay, this is actually getting out of hand, they said, we need to send this all throughout. Well, that was absolutely smart. And being somebody who was there as Italy was grappling with the rise in numbers, the rise in deaths, what should be happening in the United States?

Okay, I think a couple of things need to start happening in the United States. First of all, when I was getting on my plane from Rome to go to JFK, they said, if you don't have a mask, you're not getting on the flight. So they were automatically passing out masks for people. And then as soon as I got to JFK, I thought in my head, oh, they're gonna be testing. No, the only thing that they did was take our temperature.

And if someone had a temperature that was probably like a flu-like temperature, they pulled them to the side. I had only saw one person get pulled to the side. Other than that, people were still just leisurely traveling. Like I had to go back home to Detroit. So when I was going through the airport, I'm just seeing people just chilling

as if nothing is going on. So the first thing that I believe needs to happen is if most airports don't, like most major airports just need to get shut down because flights are still running out. People are just going about is if most airports don't, like most major airports just need to get shut down because flights are still running out. People are just going about and people are doing this because of consumerism. They've lowered the prices for the flight. So of course people are like, oh, I'm going to go. I'm going to be carefree. I'm not going to care. However, once you really see

the effect and how quickly it's happening, that needs to change. Because right now there's about a thousand cases in the city I was living in, Bologna. And when I just looked at Michigan's website, it's already 700 in Detroit. So that just shows you how fast it's automatically spreading in the states because people are still traveling. So the first thing that needs to happen is people need to take this serious because it's an actual pandemic and they need to stop all non-essential travel. That's the first thing. I think that in terms of restaurants still being open, at first, Italy had put in the decree saying, okay, from six to six, bars and restaurants will still be open. But then once they saw it kept

rising, they were like, actually, they're closed. Some are still open. So some delivery people, some delivery options are still being held. So if you want to order something, like a delivery person will come to the house. But other than that, things just need to get closed. If it's not a grocery store, if it's not a pharmacy, if it's not necessary, it does not need to be open. Well, we talked about the whole travel deal. I mean, I think it was just so dumb to me

a couple of weeks ago. People were like, oh my God, look at cheap flights. Let's go. And I'm going, I mean, I knew someone who said her son talked her into going to New Orleans for spring break. And I'm going, I mean, I knew someone who said her son talked her into going to New Orleans for spring break. And I'm going, do you see what the hell has happened in New Orleans? Stay your ass at home. And then they actually

left. They actually left a day early. But I'm going, he talked you into going to New Orleans on spring break to be with crowds. I'm honestly like, for me, I'm just kind of flabbergasted because I mean, I'm young, you know,

like I was already hearing everyone speak and what you guys were saying, like everybody is catching it. I mean, being in the city I was in and being in Italy, it has the oldest population, like the largest elderly population in Europe. So that's why so many people

were passing away and so many elderly people are passing away. But that's why so many people were passing away and so many elderly people are passing away. But it's like being in the heat of things was, it was frightening. Like it was scary. You know, yes, it was calm while I was over there, but to go back home and see things like, it's just like nothing is going on.

Like everybody is just chilling. I was like, so are we just, we just don't care? Like Italy suspended mortgages, mortgages across the entire country. And it's just like, what steps are we taking to ensure that one people's health is insured? I mean, my mom is a teacher. And so the fact that like just knowing that people are still being placed in situations where they're not, you know, I mean, DPS is closed, thank God. But it's just like knowing that these institutions and all of these companies are still running just to make a buck. It's like, it just feels as though they don't care about the people's lives. All right. Howard University graduate, Fatal Salt, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks. Many African-Americans are concerned that the lack of access to capital

and systematic racism, excluding them from the cannabis business. But guess what? During this coronavirus pandemic, cannabis companies are actually doing well because in many states they have been deemed to be essential businesses. Joining us right now is Jennifer Snowden. She's the founder of High Road. Okay, first of all, let me know we have all three of our guests. Do we have any of the cannabis guests on?

All right, if you have those guests on, let me know. It's been really interesting, and I'm going to go to Mario and Brittany just for final comment on that. A couple of things. One, I want you to comment on what Fat Tal just said, but also, what's interesting, how these businesses are all working and using their lobbyists to ensure who gets to stay open,

who gets to get closed, and all of a sudden who are deemed essential businesses. Mayor, I'll start with you. How are you determining who's essential, who isn't? I determine who's essential and who's not essential based on starting from the top down of the need base. So like looking at health care professionals, then you look at the gas stations, how things that people need, the health care professionals actually need to get to work and then places that can actually operate from home. So that's what I did. But I think with what the individual said, the student said from Howard is that that from John Hopkins that was beneficial is they had a uniform effort. When everybody's doing something different, they just leave one community and go to the other. And then, you know, Mississippi, this vulnerable population we have,

we're 49th on the least healthiest state. Right next to us is Alabama, number 50. Right next to us is Louisiana, number 49. So next to us is Louisiana, number 47, 49. So right, our border in states, we're the least healthy. We have a very vulnerable population. And for us to not be taking the same measures as Italy, it's just shameful again. But I'll tell you, based on what this individual,

this idiot that I see him on one screen that was saying, you know, Americans are not cowering down because they want to stay at home and live. Only idiots would say that, oh, I want to go and I'm willing to die. I'm willing to go out and die to save the economy. Well, if you go out and die, then we don't have an economy anyway. So they just, everything that I'm hearing, and again, just these executive orders from these non-mandated governors and all this just it's just foolishness rolling and i've never seen such foolishness in my life and i've gotten so many calls and and people local businesses lobbying hey i'm essential because of i sell right well you know it's it's

a lot of that foolishness like that going on but that's why i think it's important that you make mandates that you stick with them right and that and us as leaders got to do a better job at doing that. Mayor Mario King, Moss Point, Mississippi. We appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, Brittany, your take on what Fatow had to say again and what is happening when it comes to what is deemed what are deemed essential businesses. I mean, I think I think it's interesting that these cannabis, these CBD companies are are deemed essential businesses. I mean, I think it's interesting that these cannabis, these CBD companies are being deemed essential businesses. I guess it's like, yo, we need people not to have any anxiety.

So look, let them get high. You know, I think it's interesting. I think we can look at the cannabis industry and the businesses the same way that we look at the alcohol business, right? It's like, you know, a lot of places have deemed that as essential business as well. And I think the reality is that, first off, people are going to smoke their weed and they're going to drink their liquor, especially in a time of self-quarantine. But I also think it's a bit of a slap in the face when we think about all that. And I know you're getting ready to talk to a bunch of experts on this, but I think it's a slap in the face for so many people who are still sitting in prison as we speak, potentially being infected

by the coronavirus as a result of a marijuana charge, and these places are considered essential businesses. So it's an absolute slap in the face. All right, then. Brittany Lewis, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks. All right, folks. Again, let me know when we have our cannabis guests up.

I'm going to go to a break right now. We'll be back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there?

Roland Martin Unfiltered. Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. All right, so a lot of y'all are always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I wear. Now, I don't know. Robby don't have one on. Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones.

And so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago, and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square. This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool. And so I tracked down, it took me a year to find a company that did it and so they basically about 47 different colors and so I love them because again as men we don't have many accessories to wear so we don't have many options and so this is really a pretty cool pocket screen and what I love about this here is you saw when

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

There's a discount for you to get our pocket squares That's why you also got to be a part of our bring the funk fan club And so that's what we want you to do And so it's pretty cool. So if you want to jazz your look up you can do that in addition y'all see me with some of the feather pocket squares my sister was a designer she actually makes these they're all custom-made so when you also go to the website you can also order one of the customized feather pocket squares right there at Roland S Martin comm.com forward slash pocket squares.

So please do so. And, of course, that goes to support the show. And, again, if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club. All right, folks, cannabis companies, essential businesses, let's talk about it. Mary Pryor is chief marketing officer for our company Tonic Vibes. So, well, I'm going to start with you. I'm going to talk to a couple other people in just a moment. But Mary, I mean, I've been talking to

cats who are in the space and they said, y'all doing gangbusters with this coronavirus. Just that, you know, cannabis is medicine, right? So whether you are on the TH side or the CBD side, this is a very high anxiety moment. I was up late last night watching Swiss Beats and Timbaland, and then I was just seeing that the traffic of amount of people that are just waking up was very, very high. So if you're worried about how you're going to eat, how you're going to pay your bills, if you're watching this knucklehead on TV, if you're doing all of these things, you're definitely going to have a raised stressor about yourself. And so CBD does offer support in terms of anxiety, in terms of insomnia, in terms of pain relief. THC does offer support in that way as well. So if you really need this medicine and you have an autoimmune illness, cancer, AIDS,

or any type of medical condition that involves inflammation or pain, you can't exactly go to the hospital. The hospitals are overloaded. You can't exactly see if your doctor is going to always be available. Your doctor is overloaded. Your doctor's office isn't open. So if you've been using this as medicine and you've had access to it, stopping that process is just going to make things worse for you. And I was talking to an official with one of the largest publicly traded cannabis companies,

and he said they made sure when these governors were deeming essential businesses, they made sure that cannabis companies were part of that essential business. Yes. So the thing about what's amazing about us is that essential business, like we provide a service that has been allotted by most governments in legal states, whether it's mostly medical or medical and rec like California that serves people that need access to this for medicine for their bodies. I definitely think that given where we're at with not knowing when this is going to end in my prediction, it's definitely four to six months. We need to be able to give people a way to find relief. This is not going to be a situation that ends in two weeks. We also do not know from the leadership that is currently in charge what they're going to do next. But it's important to have access to this because this might be one of the only few things that people can actually use that's now, thanks to the farm bill last year, is legal on the hemp and CBD side.

All right. Mary, before you got to go, tell people exactly what is Tonic Vibes? So Tonic CBD is an amazing company. We are a woman-owned farm in upstate New York, hand-grown, sustainable, organic. All of our items come directly from the farm. We have a lot of botanical blends as part of it, such as like ashwagandha, black seed oil, and a bunch of other elements that aid in supporting autoimmune and all over filling in the gaps of the endocannabinoid system. You can find us on Twitter at tonic underscore CBD or tonicvibes.com. You can also

follow me at CannaClusive, which is a collective of eight black and brown women. They're doing work to improve inclusion and access in the space of cannabis overall. So it's here to stay. I use it. I have Crohn's. Without CBD or cannabis, I would be on the floor screaming,

crying out to Jesus, listening to a lot of whining records. So I am here. Mary Pryor, Chief Marketing Officer for Tonic Vibes. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland. All right, folks, joining us right now.

Also, Jennifer Snowden. She's the founder of High Road, and she's with us right now. Folks, is Hope there? Is Hope Wiseman there? She's in Maryland. Okay, hold on one second. Is Hope on? There you go.

All right, Hope Wiseman is founder of Mary and Maine. First off, Jennifer, tell our folks, what's High Road? So High Road is actually a delivery platform that allows us to help dispensaries like Mary's actually get, or like Mary and Maine, rather, get their products to their customers, which is even more important right now than ever before. And Hope, what's Marion Maine? So Marion Maine is a medical cannabis dispensary in Prince George's County, Maryland. I am the youngest African-American woman in the space, and it's been really great to be able to serve the patients in our area as well as be able to inspire other entrepreneurs in the space.

So Jennifer, I want to start with you again. I was just saying to Mary that to see the in the states where these governors are determining that cannabis companies are essential businesses. Have you seen an uptick in business, an increase in business? And just what is your what are your thoughts since this whole coronavirus thing started? So, yes. The short answer is yes. We've seen almost a 40 percent uptick in our business in D.C., which is amazing.

And, you know, for us at least. But it also is a sign of the times, right? Like people are scared to leave. They're taking heed to the orders that our mayor is giving us and the governors are giving them, like stay home. But to Mary's point, they still need their medicine. And anxiety is probably at an all-time high all around. So, you know, this has been a vessel, I think, to help a lot of people get through what is this really challenging time. Hope, same for you.

Yeah. So at the store, I remember the day that the governor issued the stay at home order, or even the first time when he first ordered for gyms and restaurants to be closed that day. I mean, we did almost 100% of what we normally do on that day. So people, you know, you definitely saw the fear there. And we've seen consistent through this there. And we've seen consistent through this whole virus, we've seen consistent uptick in sales. And I do think that it will continue throughout this entire process. I agree with Mary that it's going to be much longer than two weeks, like our president is hoping for. I think that this is going to be a few months.

And we're prepared to be able to serve our patients because they need their medicine regardless. Well, when we talk about one of the things that Mary said, Jennifer, was that a lot of people were just anxious, a lot of anxiety. People are questioning, you know, what's going to happen with them financially, with their jobs. And for the people who are not using cannabis for medicinal purposes, for those who want to use it for recreational, folks are clearly turning to this as an option. That's right. And the interesting thing, and Hope, I'm not sure if you've seen this too, but we're finding that there's a much higher purchase rate of non-flour products. So edibles, tinctures, more consumable products.

I don't know if it's because we're all stuck at home and with kids and in close quarters at this point. But that's been the other interesting thing that's been happening since people have been back at work. Hope, go ahead. Yeah, so for me, I'm definitely seeing a mix of products being bought right now. But, you know, flour is definitely number one in my store. I think we're going to consistently see that, at least where I am and where I'm located.

So I think it really is about location right now. But I definitely think that people are getting used to trying other products. Now that they're staying home, they're more open to the idea of edibles. I think edibles have scared people off in the past because of their high potency. And you hear a lot of stories about people going through edible trips. But now that they're going to be home by themselves and people are experiencing more anxiety than usual, they're more likely to try these more consumable products. I think that's why you're seeing that uptick, Jennifer. Hope, when you talk about where you are,

because you're, are you still the only African American with a dispensary in Maryland? No. So there are, there are about four of us. Good. Because at one point it was just you. Yeah, I was, I was definitely one of the first to open, for sure. And there is an African-American cultivator and processor as well. So, you know, we are here. There are not very many of us. And even Jennifer is in our small network. So we all know each other and support each other very much. Jennifer, there are these opportunities.

And unfortunately, one of the things that we're going to be doing is we're going to actually be creating a dedicated segment specifically to the cannabis space. Because, look, the bottom line is African-Americans cannot be. Look, we were locked up as a result of cannabis. So we damn sure need to be participating on the economic side now that many of these states are deeming it legal. And so talk, if you will, about the opportunities that really are present in this industry and really what should African Americans be thinking about if they want to enter this space?

Right, I mean, and you hit the nail on the head. I think it was Chelsea Handler earlier this week who tweeted something to the effect of, imagine being incarcerated right now for cannabis, only to find out that it's now deemed an essential business, right? So there's clearly a problem there. One of the things that I found interesting in terms of approaching this industry is, you know, this industry is growing to be, you know, projected to be about $30 billion industry in the next couple of years, right?

It's a huge industry. It's not one-sided. So while people like Hope are on the front lines in the dispensaries and we have the cultivators and the processors and those like plant-touching business opportunities that are there, that are very competitive because states issue very limited licenses for each of those roles, right? And oftentimes it's hard for us to get access to those licenses. There's so many other supporting roles that have to hoist up this huge industry. And so I think it's really important for our folks to look at all of those ancillary businesses that exist around the plant touching parts of the industry and figure out how you can use the skill set that you currently have, how you can tap into

whatever resources you currently have and create something there you currently have, how you can tap into whatever resources you currently have, and create something there. I mean, if you think about it, if you are in marketing or branding, pivot and then become the go-to marketing and branding person in the cannabis space. If you're an accountant, do the same thing. Understand the tax law around cannabis industry and be that person, be the go-to for them. Basically, whatever it is that you currently do, there is a role for you in this industry because it is so large. And so I think really focusing on trying to create those lanes and those ancillary spaces is what we should be doing. Hope? I agree 100%. I tell people all the time the route that I took to get into the industry is not necessarily the easiest. And there's a better way to get in. And I definitely think ancillary services are the way.

I always tell people, like Jennifer regulations and the regulations that I operate under so that when you're offering me your services that I don't have to teach you that. Even attorneys and accountants, sometimes I find myself teaching them and I'm paying them to learn almost to an extent. Even with contractors, there might be some, you know, there are county regulations that they're used to dealing with. And then we have these, you know, cannabis focused regulations that might even somewhat conflict with what the county says. And I would need them to be able to decipher that without me having to be that compliance person. So that's why it's really important to have specific, to kind of niche down your expertise and focus on cannabis if you want to focus on cannabis, because we will pay a premium to those vendors that really understand

our industry because there are so very few that do. All right then. Well, we certainly appreciate both of you are doing. Jennifer, where can people find you on the World Wide Web? Highroadapp.com or on Instagram at Highroad. Hope, where can they find you? You can find me personally at IamHopeSoDope on Instagram and Twitter and then my company at Mary andope on Instagram and Twitter, and then my company at Mary and Maine on Instagram and Twitter,

and then our website is the same, MaryandMaine.com. All right, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Look forward to having y'all back. Thanks, Roland. All right then. And so Mustafa's still with me now. Mustafa, even though we were talking about coronavirus,

a big issue that's still happening right now is the census and the impact of that on African-Americans. Melanie Campbell is the president and CEO, of course, of National Coalition of Black Civic Participation, also convening the Black Women's Roundtable. They have been really focused this week on driving messaging out, getting us to understand. African-Americans were undercounted. I think it was around 2.1% in the last census. That's billions of dollars we're talking about. It most definitely is.

And those billions of dollars do all kinds of things for our community if we get engaged in the process, helping to make sure that resources are making it to our schools. And we know that we've had crumbling infrastructures there. It also helps to make sure, you know, the basic stuff, the bridges and all the various roads that sometimes we get so frustrated with, making sure that resources go there as well. And it just helps to also make sure that we're being counted. And it also, politicians pay attention. You know, everybody takes a look at the databases and the information

that comes out of the census, and it helps them to make decisions in many instances of where they're going to focus and how seriously they're going to focus in those respective areas melanie uh what has been uh the focus this week with this digital campaign you and others are involved with including including us including us here roller mart unfiltered okay hi roland uh and thank you thank you for uh partnering with us on the campaign it's really taking the time for folks who while we're going through this coronavirus especially, initially we were going to be having this black census. We've been knocking on doors and canvassing and doing major phone banks.

But obviously the coronavirus changed all that. So we shifted and said, okay, we're all at home. We're getting this mail. People are getting the census information. How can we utilize social media, utilize some ways that are safe for folks to get involved? So we pulled together our coalition. They've been planning this for months. And we just started focusing it on different kinds of the undercount, if you will. So we know children children zero to five. So every day, starting on Monday this week,

all the way through the rest of Sunday, the seven days of really encouraging folks to get counted, educating our community about why it's important. And even as we were talking about the coronavirus, I had to come take an essential flight to Florida for a family member who passed away, had to go right into Miami. And just being in Florida during this time is really like hitting home about the realities.

So we talk about the census and coronavirus. Well, you want to have enough hospitals. You want to have enough facilities. We're hearing all of this that impacts our communities. And health is right there at the top of the list right now. And so when we say, well, that's connected to the census, how many hospitals you have in your community based on your population. And if you have an undercount,

you're not going to have enough of those, of hospitals. Our children going to school, having the kind of resources. Now children are having to be at home and do homeschool, if you will. Just being able to have enough resources for children to be able to even in times like this. So Monday, it was about children under zero to five. Yesterday, we focused on black men.

Today, it was focused on black women and families. And black women, we know most of us are heads of household. So it's very important for black women. And so every day has a theme. Tomorrow, our black immigrant leaders are coming together, organizing the Caribbean and African community. On Friday, our young people are having a focus around youth and young people getting them focused. And each area is focused on different constituencies driving that. The LGBTQ plus community is also organizing the LGBTQ community on Friday. Saturday, it's about a senior. Check on a senior day.

Pick up the phone, call a senior, find out they filled out that form. Also, focusing on elements around workers, and especially in this corona time when so many people are at home, not working, people being laid off, and while they're playing games in Washington, D.C. right now with the Republican leadership not passing this bill that needs to be passed of too many folks who need help now. And then on Sunday, we close out with our faith community around really lifting up the faith community that has the power to help us get counted. And at the end of the day,

to try to get as many of us to fill out that form before April 1st is our goal. Today you had a Twitter town hall. This is the graphic that we shared on social media. And how did that go? It went really well. We trended number five. So I think you tell me, because you're the social media guru.

That's good. That's the trend. That's good. We were number five trending. That's better than number 50. Hello. And so we're just going to keep doing what we're doing. And thank you for being a great partner.

Mustafa Ali as well over there. Wish I could be in the space with you guys. But thank you for helping us keep pushing. We're just going to keep pushing and then keep finding other creative ways and working in unity. That's the whole thing. Maximizing the resources that we have

and civil rights and social justice and communities and doing it together as much as we can. Mustafa, the thing that's important for you to understand you don't have to wait for somebody knocking on your door or for that for that to come into the mail you can go online and fill the census out right now exactly and you got the free time to actually do it right no excuses it's right and it's it equates the power for our communities and sometimes we forget that. In many instances, you know, we are always struggling

to figure out a way to actually have power. The census is one of those ways that we can actually do it. All right, final comments, Melanie. Okay, tell folks, just get counted. Take the time, you know. It's about money, power, and respect. It's our time to grab it while we... No excuses, no excuses.

Fill out that form. Be counted. Oh, you're absolutely right. So we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a we, no excuses, no excuses. Fill out that form. Be counted. You're absolutely right. So we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Melanie Campbell, President and CEO, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. Thank you. Folks, when you talk about activism,

when you talk about what is happening in terms of what's important, well, D-Nice has been partnering with Michelle Obama's initiative, When We All Vote. And so they partnered today for, they called it, first of all, let me pull it up here. It was related to a couch something. I thought it was pretty funny. So this is the graphic right here. Let me pull it up. Give me one second, y'all.

It was a couch party, a voter registration live set. It is actually taking place right now on his Instagram live page. Again, Michelle Obama's group, When We All Vote, Stephanie Young, who really made this possible with D-Nice. And so he's been, of course, spinning for the last week, went from 200,000 to 1.5 million Instagram followers over the weekend. And so they are having a very good time. I want to thank everybody who's been on our show. We're going to end the show with a little D-Nice as he's doing his thing. We've been, of course, I want to thank everybody who's been on our show today.

All of our panelists want to thank Mayor Mario King, Brittany, as well as Mustafa for being here. All of our guests as well. Folks, I keep telling y'all. OK, and you think you think, hold on, don't go to it yet. You think I'm lying. You are not seeing these black experts on these other networks. You're not seeing it. You're not seeing African-Americans talking about these issues. This is why we are here. We need you to support what we do. Your dollars make it possible. The people want want to thank everybody who's been, who joined our Bring the Funk fan club, who've donated, folks have given to us on Cash App, PayPal, and Square. You can do it right

now. If you're on YouTube watching right now, you can also support us as we speak. You don't even have to go to the website. You can do it right there on YouTube. Yep. All those dollars come right to us. I just want to thank everybody who has supported what we do. You can go to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com to also join what we do. And so we want to thank you for all of that. Tomorrow on the show, we're going to be talking about HBCUs,

how they are being impacted by this coronavirus pandemic, and in the stimulus bill, are there any dollars for those HBCUs? We're going to break that thing down on tomorrow's Roland Martin Unfiltered Friday. We were going to have it today, but three times a week,

we go, you know what? Look, I got lots of comedians out there. They've been hitting me. These cats aren't booked anywhere. We were going to have Jay Anthony Brown today. We're going to try to get him on the show tomorrow, but we're going to have our black comedians who are going to be joining us on the show.

I'm going to try to get them on every day, but at least three days each week to give y'all something to laugh about. And so we're gonna start doing that. If you're a comedian out there, you wanna come on the show, go to RolandSMartin.com, send me an email, and we'll check out and see if you're funny first.

But looking forward to having Jay Anthony Brown, Chris Paul, Huggy Lowdown, and others join us right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Because what we do, y'all, we serve you. We keep it real. We keep it black unapologetically. We're going to take it out with D-Nice. Spin it with all the folks on the couch.

WhenWeAllVote.org. WhenWeAllVote.org. I'll see y'all tomorrow. Howl! Howl! Over 6,000 volunteers. Actually, we ended up with over 7,500 volunteers. Come on. We got a whole lot of soul. Feel alright. Mini skirts, maxi skirts, and afro hairdo.

People doing their own thing. Don't care about me or you. That's all that's gonna come here. I'm not all of the volunteers. We're at 95,000 eligible voters. And we got a dug on me now. We're gonna take,000 eligible voters. And we got a dog on me now. We're going to take care of business too. Listen to the drummer playing his beat.

Listen to the bass man go get that same groove groove Listen to the guitar What's up, Roland Martin? So some tune Very good Go on, guys Hello, Valerie J What's up, Roland? Do you

Get it for me now? Oh, yeah. I'm talking to you. Nice. Listen. Listen good. New York, you know. He's got a whole lot of soul.

Good God. London town. He's a good dog, I'm on the road. Yeah. Nassau's got sunshine. And this you all know. Yeah. you you you you you you you you you 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.

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication.

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two 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 starts that 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 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. This is an iHeart Podcast.