#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 4.14 #RMU: Obama endorses Biden; Black Ga. Dem backs Trump; COVID-19 update
Episode Date: April 20, 20204.14.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Former Pres. Barack Obama endorses Joe Biden; Trump blames the media for his failure to lead and proclaims his "authority is total"; Black Ga. Dem backs Trump; NASCAR ...star Kyle Larson fired by his team after spewing n-word during virtual race; COVID-19 update Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #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.
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Hey, folks.
Today is Tuesday, April 14, 2020.
Coming up on Rolling Mark Unfiltered, Donald Trump loses his damn mind at the coronavirus news conference,
attacks the media, then he actually says
he can do whatever the hell he wants as president.
He has all power.
I didn't realize we elected a king.
We'll be joined by Congresswoman Bonnie Coleman of New Jersey
to talk about how Trump has totally mishandled this pandemic.
Folks, there's a critical tool that could be used
to control the spread of coronavirus,
but will it cause the spread of coronavirus,
but will it cause the safety of African Americans across the country?
We'll discuss that.
Apparently, someone did not educate Trump, again, of the governmental structure.
He is still trying to tell people what they can do.
Y'all, it ain't going to work.
Plus, the Trump administration attempts to prove they have done a great job when it comes to handling the pandemic.
We know that's a lie.
Big news today.
President Barack Obama
formally endorses Joe Biden for president
in an 11 minute video.
Ooh, and NASCAR driver Kyle Larson
probably not happy with this whole coronavirus deal.
He used the N-word in this virtual NASCAR race on Sunday.
Today, Kyle has no job.
All of his sponsors have left.
He has been fired by his racing team
and indefinitely suspended
by NASCAR.
That's what happens when you use the
N-word.
It's time to bring the funk on Roller Mark Unfiltered.
Let's go.
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 Rolling Martin, yeah. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's Roland Martin.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rolling with Roland now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's broke, he's fresh, he's real the best.
You know he's Roland Martin now. Well, y'all, the drama continues when it comes to the White House.
And Jesus, these Corona briefings, they simply cannot get out of the way and focus on the issue at hand. Folks, as of today, 605,000 plus cases of coronavirus, 25,394 people have died.
10,000 of those people in New York City alone.
38,000 patients are recovering from the virus.
Folks, this has been just a stunning, stunning chain of events in this country over the last two months.
In his daily briefing, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, says they are flattening the curve.
He explains.
Total hospitalizations.
Actually, basically flat.
Technically, tick down, which is probably the first tick down.
So that's a good sign, but basically flat.
So we think we are at the apex on the plateau.
The number of hospitalizations went up, flattened, continuing to flatten.
Good sign.
Technically, the number is down a tad.
Statistically irrelevant, but better than being up.
The net change in total hospitalizations,
if you look at the curve, which is when you do the three-day average, which is more accurate than any one day, because remember, this reporting mechanism is new. We put it in
over during this situation, so I wouldn't bet all the chips on any one day.
But when you look at three days, you look at the overall curve, we think it's indicative.
So three-day average is down.
The net change in ICU admissions is down.
Again, the ICU admissions I take with a grain of salt since hospitals are no longer what they were,
and they're basically all ICU wards.
Folks, today's White House briefing has not started yet. We'll see exactly how crazy it is,
because yesterday was truly, let's just for lack of a better phrase,
batshit crazy, where Donald Trump actually blamed the media for his failure to lead. People should be more concerned right now with the flu in this country.
A lot of people are concerned about the coronavirus because they're hearing a lot
of news about it right now. But the reality is comparing it to the flu, for example,
it's not even close to being at that stage.
What if it is worse? Is this a moment where maybe countries put politics aside, a little bit of pride aside?
And do we have U.S. officials? Should U.S. professionals such as yourself get involved?
How worried should Americans be?
OK, so that's that propaganda video Donald Trump actually showed yesterday.
And when he got questioned, he literally said, I'm the king.
I can do whatever it is I want to do.
Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives.
The argument is that you bought yourself some time and you didn't use it to prepare hospitals.
You didn't use it to ramp up testing.
You're so disgraceful.
It's so disgraceful the way you say that.
Let me just listen.
I just went over it. I just went over it.
I just went over it.
Nobody thought we should do it.
And when I did it.
But what did you do with the time that you bought?
You know what we did? The month of February.
You know what we did?
What do you do?
The entire month of February.
What do you do when you have no case in the whole United States?
You had cases in February. excuse me, you reported it.
Zero cases, zero deaths on January 17th.
January, I said in January, on January 30th.
What did your administration do in February with the time that your travel ban botched?
A lot, a lot.
And in fact, we'll give you a list what we did.
In fact, part of it was up there. We did a lot. Look, look, we'll give you a list what we did. In fact, part of it was up there.
We did a lot. Look, look, you know, you're a fake. You know that your whole network,
the way you cover it is fake. And most of you and not all of you, but the people are wise to you.
That's why you have a lower a lower approval rating than you've ever had before. Times probably
three. And when you ask me that question, let me ask you this. Why didn't
Biden, why didn't, why did Biden apologize? Why did he write a letter of apology? No, that's very
important. Why did the Democrats think that I acted too quickly? You know why? Because they
really thought that I acted too quickly. We have done a great job. Now, I could have, I could have
kept it open. And I could have done what some countries are doing.
They're getting beat up pretty badly. I could have kept it open.
I thought of keeping it open because nobody's ever heard of closing down a country, let alone the United States of America.
But if I would have done that, we would have had hundreds of thousands of people that would right now be dead.
We've done this right. And we really, we really have done this right. The problem is the press
doesn't cover it the way it should be. Go ahead, one more.
Oh, so he's upset the press just doesn't kiss his butt and do what he wants to do. Well, today he had a photo op with folks who've survived
the coronavirus. Let's just say he is not happy with Paula Reid of CBS. This happened today.
Go to my iPad. Thank you all very much. We'll see you in a little while. Thank you.
Thank you.
Let's go, Paula. Are you concerned? You travel pretty far. It's a risk. Paula, we're done.
Paula, we're done.
We're done.
Thank you all very much.
We'll see you in a little while.
Let me just say right now, if y'all not following Paula Reid or CBS on Twitter, you should.
That's how you are to stand
up to an idiot. That's how you are to deal with somebody who is completely out of control, who
does not want to answer any questions, and who wants to berate and demean the press at every
juncture. Joining us right now is Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey.
Congresswoman, glad to have you on the show. Thank you for having me.
To look at that complete meltdown. He doesn't like being challenged. He does not like being
challenged by a woman. He has treated women in the White House press corps worse than anyone else.
And that's simply what he cannot tolerate.
And this guy actually thinks that he can do whatever he wants
as if no rules, no laws apply to him.
Sir Roland, the president of the United States
has a multiplicity of problems.
He's a pathological liar.
He's not very smart.
He doesn't understand government. He has no
compassion. He has no morality. And he has no values for anything other than what he thinks
makes him look good. And to tell you the truth, as a person who's been in government the majority
of her life, and a person who even as an AfricanAmerican in a country that didn't always treat us and doesn and to spend that time when he should be giving
us information as to what makes us safer, giving us information.
How are you going to get the doggone supplies to the people and the hospitals that need
them?
How are you going to make sure that the money that's been in these bills to protect people
who are not
getting a paycheck? How are you going to support the small businesses that are dying now because
everyone is staying home? How are you going to protect the people on the front lines in
the hospitals? Where are you going to get them the supplies that they need?
Instead, he stands up there like a raving maniac and idiot.
And it's sickening to watch. Of course, he's on the news. He's on right now beginning this
news conference from the Rose Garden. I don't carry his news conferences live when he is speaking,
primarily because he lies too much. And so to me, I would much prefer to go back and fact check what he said to ensure that
what he gave out was proper and correct. If Dr. Fauci or Dr. Burke steps to the microphone or any
of the health experts step to the microphone, we will do that. But the reality is anytime he speaks
and even Mike Pence, when he comes up to basically back up whatever he just lied about. So that's one of the reasons why we do not take what he has to say live.
We now are also going to thank God for the fact checkers.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And so and again, so it's not a question of saying, well, no, we can't play what you say, but you better be truthful when you actually speak.
Let's talk about what is happening when it comes to additional assistance. I am
hearing, I've been talking about this for the last several weeks, but it's really the case now. I'm
hearing from more and more African-American business owners who are scared to death that
they're going to lose their business. They're going to have to lay off and fire staff. They're
going to lose everything that they have. And so, you know, how what is Congress doing to ensure that more dollars are going to go to these businesses and not also be a log jam where these banks are picking winners and losers and they're leaving out many black folks?
Well, right now, there's a negotiation that's taking place that involves Democrats who want to make sure that money and resources get down to the smaller businesses, the minority businesses, women-owned businesses, disadvantaged businesses, even the nonprofits that work in those communities.
So Mitch McConnell had proposed another tranche of money, billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars, to go out to small businesses because they are using the money up really quickly. But the problem is, is that they put them in categories
where they were competing with people with 500 employees, very sophisticated businesses,
and the smaller businesses weren't getting the kind of traction that they needed or the attention.
And those that didn't have certain banking relationships weren't even getting the attention of the banks. So we're negotiating as best we can to make sure that a portion of the
money that gets out in this interim bill, and this is not the big bill or the next big bill or the
next big bill that may have to come out, but this interim bill that's being negotiated right now,
in addition to having money go out to small
businesses, that there are carve-outs for the very small businesses, for the small banks,
the community banks, the minority lending institutions that Republicans have refused to
target and support. And at the same time, we're trying to negotiate that the money gets into things like additional SNAP provisions, additional direct assistance to individuals who need those checks, as well as making sure we have appropriate PPE and other kinds of gear that hospitals need. Our hospitals are desperately needing money. And so we're negotiating that
right now as an interim bill. And it's a tough negotiation because we know that the small
businesses need additional money. It was gobbled up really quickly. We know that the smallest of
businesses, the ones in our communities, didn't get enough attention. Our churches aren't even
getting the attention that they need,
but there's supposed to be support and protection for even them. So the negotiations that are taking place right now are pretty painful, I think, but we're not going to give in until we get
some guaranteed support that gets down to the neediest, not the greediest. Let's also talk about a bill that CDC members are also pushing, and that is to compel the
federal government to release daily race data when it comes to coronavirus.
Why is that important?
Well, because we're finding out, and just really no surprise to any of us that when
America gets a cold, Black folks get pneumonia, that the disproportionate impact on the black community in both the infection as well as the death rate is something that we need to pay attention to because that's what happens to us.
And so finally, there's a discussion on the main stage.
Even Dr. Fauci mentioned it, recognizing that we've got this
disproportionate negative impact happening in our communities. So we need to have data collected
on a daily basis because from that data, we need to know where to send the resources
and to send them in an expedited way. We need more testing, we need rapid response testing, and we need
it in the communities that have been underserved as well as in other communities.
So that's why the data collection is vital.
Also, last question for you.
You early on caught the directive from the Department of Labor suspending affirmative action guidelines.
Is that still in place? You raised the issue. The National Urban League and others picked up on that.
And so where do we stand when it comes to that? Well, we sent a letter to them.
The Black Caucus has been pushing that out as well. We've asked that language in any bill that comes out under the coronavirus
support mechanism has language in it that says that you will not dispense any of the affirmative
action and EEO requirements in any government activities under the coronavirus bill.
So I haven't gotten a response from them. I don't expect them to go easily on this, but I think it is an important issue that we need to focus out as a result of this coronavirus issue.
We need to be able to benefit from it from the service perspective as well as the business perspective.
All right. Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, we certainly appreciate it.
Thank you so very much. And we'll keep giving them help. Thank you so very much.
Thank you for having me.
All right, then, folks, we want to introduce our panel right now.
Joining us is Kelly Bethea.
She is a communications strategist.
Malik Abdul, Republican strategist.
Karen Hunter, host of The Karen Hunter Show.
Karen, I want to start with you.
Watching that joke of a news conference yesterday to see this meltdown of Donald Trump,
this is a man who cannot tolerate getting questioned, especially by women. How he berated Paula Reid, how he berates
other people shows the kind of shameless attitude that he has. And coming out trying to play that
video to cover up all the screw-ups of his administration. I mean, it's a little hard to try to say it's fake when The New York Times got a hold of the actual emails
that were being shared back and forth by scientists and doctors warning them.
We've got to go quicker and faster in order to contain this.
Karen.
All right. hold on.
I'm here.
Now we got you.
Now we got your audio.
Go ahead.
I've been saying this for the better part of a year,
that journalists, and there has to be a line drawn in the sand,
while I definitely praise the people who are standing in the gap,
like Lamiche Alcindor and others, April Ryan,
and, of course, the young lady yesterday from CBS.
The reality is, if our media outlets stop giving him airtime
when he starts spreading lies, and I think CNN,
uh, for-for example, actually on their chyron said
he had a meltdown, and they-on their chyron,
they actually said-they broke away
from the lying part of the conference, focused on Fauci,
and then went back to their own panel. We need to start covering him the way he deserves to be
covered, not as a credible source, not as a medical professional, not even as a leader,
as a proper, he's using these press conferences as de facto, you know, rallies, because he can't
do those anymore. And we the, are not being served by that.
Journalism is supposed to focus on facts and truth.
And as soon as he gets up there to open his mouth, they should cut away and he should be grilled the way he was grilled every single day and not let him off the hook because he clearly cannot stand up against that.
Kelly, bottom line is, again, how this so-called grown man responds is just really shameful
because he doesn't like being questioned. When Paula Reid said, wait a minute, you played a video
and you skipped from January 17th to March, and she says, what were you doing in February?
Oh, we were doing a lot. That's not an answer. No, it's not an answer. Actually, I would venture to say that it is an
answer. It's just not the one we want to hear, right? The answer is that he did absolutely
nothing for a month and a half. And we are where we are right now because of it. So the fact that
he's saying we've done a lot, well, you did a whole lot of nothing, Mr. President. And it shows
in the numbers of people who have died. It shows in the numbers of people who have been exposed to this virus. And it shows in the lack of support that the
federal government has given out to these states. It shows everywhere. It just doesn't show in the
best light of him. And that is the problem. Malik, this is a guy who you support,
you voted for, plan to do so again. Why is he so afraid of getting asked questions?
And why does he actually have to berate people, especially women?
How he talked to Paula Reid, how he trashed Yamiche Alcindor, who was simply repeating back to him his own words, your boy is thin-skinned.
Donald Trump is thin-skinned,
and I don't think that that shouldn't be a shock to anyone.
From my perspective, Donald Trump is pretty equal opportunity
when it comes to who he goes after.
So if it's Jim Acosta, if it's not Jim Acosta, it's someone else.
So he does that a lot.
I'm not exactly sure what was going on in the White House on yesterday,
because in many, part of what Donald
Trump was making, at least the argument
about the government's
authority, it was
the different argument
in what he's been making over the past
several weeks as far as state's authority.
So I don't know what it is there, but
the young lady,
I think you said she was from CBS.
Paula Reid from CBS.
Yeah. The reporter, what I get so confused by because I read stuff and I hear stuff.
And I don't know why this point, you know, Secretary Azar, Mike Pence, Fauci, Dr. Birx, all of them have been there.
So I don't know why we don't know a concrete answer
as to what happened in February.
I don't think that we need to get to know Trump
to ask Trump to explain February.
I mean, they've been there.
The professionals, Azar, all of them have been there.
So ask them the questions.
Okay, but Malik, but Malik, but Malik, you can't ask them the questions when Donald Trump is hogging the microphone.
Just yesterday, hold on one second.
Just yesterday, Anthony Fauci gave an interview and he talked about, he said, these news conferences are draining.
And somebody said, why?
He said, because they're long.
Here's the reality.
Donald Trump stands there to commandeer the microphone to say nothing.
He literally repeats information.
Oh, things are going great.
This is just wow.
No one ever could have expected this.
This is just the business community response.
He's repeating the same thing. The problem is he won't let the experts talk because he demands the attention.
That's what narcissists do, Malik. Well, I'm not. Yeah, he commands the attention. But
in each press conference, I think maybe with the exception of yesterday, Donald Trump leaves. And so
the secretaries, the professionals, all of them are there. So I don't know why at this
point we don't have an answer. Why haven't the Republican, I mean, the reporters drilled
the administration outside of it. Put Trump to the side. He has people there to answer
these questions. And even in his absence, they're there to answer these questions. Melly, come on. Even in his absence, they're there to answer these questions.
Karen, even...
Fauci is on television every single day.
I mean, so it's not like these people aren't available.
I just don't know why we don't have an answer
from the people who are there when they're not with Trump.
Karen, you know this is laughable
because he won't let them talk.
No, and because this is a rally
for him, he's not giving up
that mic. This is the only opportunity he has
to reach his base every single
night. He has full court
with his base to deliver the
lies over and over and over
again. And again, if the media would just
cut away from him, wouldn't give him this
airtime, he would have to be quiet
because all he cares about are his ratings, right? And he has ratings because the media feels
compelled to show him every single night. I don't even tune in anymore, Roland. I don't
know how anybody's doing it. I don't know how anybody is listening. I'll see Fauci when
he's off. I'm out. I watch Andrew Cuomo every day. I watch Phil Murphy because I'm from
Jersey, but I can't tune in to Donald Trump's press conferences. And I don't know how this gentleman is doing it.
I feel like we're being punked right now by him.
Here's the deal, Kelly. This is just-
You're not getting punked. You don't have to worry about why I watch the press conference.
That's for my purpose. It's not yours.
Kelly, this is real simple. This is real simple. Donald Trump did not like the attention that Mike Pence was receiving,
that Dr. Anthony Fauci was receiving.
He chose to interject himself into this.
He has routinely made stuff up.
He has routinely lied.
He has routinely put out stuff that hasn't even happened
and touted as a big announcement.
I mean, more than a month ago,
there was a news conference
where we had the CEO of
Walmart and the CEO of
CVS and the CEO
of Walgreens, and we were
going to have these drive-through
testing for
outposts and
parking lots.
Kelly, none of that has happened.
None of it. None of it.
And he only did it on a Friday because the stock market was tanking,
and he precisely did it at 3 p.m. in order for the stock market to rebound.
It ain't happened.
And he just makes stuff up, and you got to have,
and then Pence doesn't want to
embarrass him. So comes back to affirm the lie, which is why I can't take him anymore. Cause he
just affirms the lie. That's the real deal, Kelly. It's really frustrating. Um, to Karen's point
about why the media is feeling compelled to even, uh, show these press conferences is that traditionally you give
deference to the president whenever he's on a podium. Now the problem is the deference is really
just a game at this point. It's really just a farce and, you know, a bunch of pomp and circumstance
with no real weight underneath it because he has taken the weight out of it. He has
really diluted the power and the authority of the presidency of the United States. And it's
just incredibly, incredibly sad. To your point, Roland, about the Walmart and Walgreens and the
whole drive-thru, I didn't anticipate anything happening out of that anyway, because again,
we are dealing with a liar in chief. We are dealing with somebody
who routinely lies, who routinely tries to smooth things over and gloss things over with his words,
which are quite limited by the way. And we just have to deal with the fact that
he will consistently make promises he can't keep. And he will strategically place those promises
in timeframes that are crucial to either a stock market or a deadline or something
that is pressing for the American people. It's just incredibly sad.
I just, again, like Karen said, I'm frankly tired of it. With Pence even backing up his claims, the only difference between Trump and Pence is that Pence has a more extensive vocabulary for his lying. him. So a liar is interrupting a liar who is completely ignoring the people who are actually
telling the truth, like Dr. Fauci and others. It's just it's very convoluted. It's very frustrating.
And I just am tired of it. I'm well, here's here's the new line, Malik. So a few moments ago,
Trump announces that he is pulling funding from the World Health Organization because
the group praised
China's transparency.
That's what he said.
That's what Donald Trump just said
a few moments ago.
Go to my iPad, please.
Hello? Yeah.
This right here,
Malik, is a tweet
that your guy sent out at 4.18 p.m. on January 24th, 2020.
China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus.
The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.
It will all work out well.
In particular, on behalf of the American people,
I want to thank President Xi.
Malik, your guy just stood there to say
he's pulling money to the World Health Organization
because they praise China's transparency
when he
praised China's
transparency.
Well, to be fair,
that was on January 24th.
If you keep in mind, it was, I think
it was January 21st when
Dr. Fauci was one of the ones
who was saying that although we should take it seriously,
that this virus is not something that.
No, no, no. Malik, Malik, Malik, you're trying to move the goalpost. Malik, Malik, one second.
We're not discussing taking something seriously. We are discussing Donald Trump.
No, no, no, no. Donald Trump literally just said at the World Health Organization praised China's transparency, which he criticizes.
Donald Trump right here is praising China's transparency.
What's the difference?
Yes. And to finish my point, I think around that time, at least according to the reports that we have thus far,
the United States was operating under a different assumption
about where China was in their transparency.
Actually, if Donald Trump had listened to his intelligence,
because that was an intelligence unit who was saying at that time
what was actually happening in China,
and it actually wasn't measuring up with what China is saying.
But your guy didn't listen to the intelligence.
Well, it seems as if you believe the New York Times article
that there was a lot of discussion January up until now
where there was some disagreement.
I believe even in that article it talks about the fact
that there was disagreement between those government officials that you're referencing and his public health
experts. So there was some, you know, I guess some disagreement there. But for the most part,
in January, we were operating under a totally different assumption as far as where the virus
was. But I do think that there are lots of things.
I do believe that there are a lot of things,
a lot of information we can get from these press conferences,
but I don't know why after all of this time,
and again, I'll repeat, put Donald Trump to the side.
Donald Trump leaves the podium at some point.
He goes out the door.
But the reporter should start asking those questions.
What happened in January? You know what, Karen?
Yeah, ask
Azar about stuff like the
testing failures. Ask him about the
reagents. You can continue to ask
these questions. Hey, Malik,
Malik, Malik. Why do you act like he hasn't tried?
Why do you act like these reporters have not tried
to get the truth out of the president?
You see every single day these reporters going at him, asking the hard questions.
Here he goes.
Well, if you bother.
Hold on one second.
Hold up.
Hold up.
Hold up.
That was Kelly.
I want to bring in Karen.
Hold on, Malik.
Malik.
Malik.
Hold on.
Karen, go ahead.
I'm just saying that the gaslighting has been very effective, as we see, Exhibit A.
And what's disturbing is there's nothing that we're going to be able to say to convince this gentleman that Trump doesn't walk on water,
that he's not almighty, that he has not corrected everything that he does.
And that's what's really disturbing.
A lot of us are wasting our breath trying to put logic on this.
This is illogical.
This unwavering support of Donald Trump is illogical.
It makes no logical sense on paper or anyplace else. And I don't know
what, quite frankly, we can do to change
somebody's perspective who has been gaslit
into oblivion and who buys
these lies. They've drank,
they've taken the Kool-Aid in,
and it tastes delicious to them, even though
there's arsenic laced in this Kool-Aid.
I don't know what to do about this, Roland.
It is the frustration of my life
right now. Well, it is.
It is.
It's amazing to watch what's going on.
Hold on one second.
Hold on one second here.
Hold on one second here because this just getting it this in here.
We talk about how these how these things are shifting and moving.
Mayor Latoya Cantrell just held a news conference a little while ago where she is urging large events in New Orleans not to take place until 2021.
Jazz and Heritage Festival, Essence Festival.
She held a news conference where she said these should not be pushed back towards the end of the year.
Of course, Essence is normally in July.
They were talking about looking at doing it in August and September. She is now saying that that should not
happen in 2020. New Orleans has had a serious outbreak of coronavirus. A significant number
of people have died, a number of them African-Americans. Kelly, is that a smart call by the mayor?
Even though this is April, even though folks are talking about,
Trump is talking about reopening, possibly, quote, reopening the country May 1st.
Here you have the New Orleans mayor.
I mean, look, the Essence Festival is the largest live event in the country,
attracting upwards of 400,000 people to New Orleans. That is a huge, it would be a huge financial hit to the company because it is the biggest revenue generator for Essence Communications.
Kelly?
I totally understand both sides of this, both from an economic and entertainment perspective, but also this is a public health emergency.
We are in the middle of a pandemic, and even though this event, Essence Fest, is scheduled in July, we really don't know exactly when the curve is going to be on the downside and flatten out altogether. So as a precaution, I do think it is smart of the New Orleans mayor to just say,
hey, we're not going to have this festival.
Yes, it is a sacrifice economically speaking, but this is also a show of how this mayor and municipal government is really taking the value of people over money.
So I applaud them for that.
Karen, she said that she is concerned not only with the containment of coronavirus in New Orleans and Louisiana,
but also from states where people will be traveling. So far, New Orleans has had 21,500.
Excuse me.
Louisiana has had 21,518 people test positive for COVID-19.
1,013 people have died.
This obviously is different because by her saying don't even do it in 2020, what she's basically saying is this thing will not be
under control and contained by June, July, August. She's saying don't even think about
the rest of 2020. That's a huge, huge call by her. We're talking about reopening this country
when probably roughly less than 10% of us have even been tested.
How in the world can and unfortunately, black people are disproportionately impacted from Chicago to Detroit to New York to New Orleans,
where we make up a small percentage, but are the face of covid-19, the face of coronavirus to have 400000 basically black people descend on a city and then come back into our own respective cities,
many of us carrying the disease without knowing it, without symptoms, but having these underlying conditions,
also having these close quarters that we live in, unless we have widespread testing,
unless everybody that comes in gets tested and then they get to come in, I can't see it opening back up.
That would be irresponsible.
Mellick, go with your comment.
Yeah, you know, it's a hard decision for the mayor to make, and I'm pretty sure that others
around the country are going to be making similar decisions.
But I just want to address Karen very quickly.
Hold up.
She made a lot of statements there.
But what I will say, Karen, to you specifically, if you want to know where I disagree with Donald Trump, I suggest you type my name into Google.
And you'll probably see that there are many instances where I absolutely disagree with Donald Trump.
First, Roland, you're going to wave that off.
Millick, I'm waving.
Millick, one second, one second.
Millick, I'm not dealing with all that. First of all, I'm talking about New Orleans. I'm talking. I'm not dealing with all that.
First of all, I'm talking about New Orleans.
I'm discussing
New Orleans.
That was the story I moved to.
I didn't get a chance to respond to your guest
attacking me on your show.
I didn't get a chance to respond to it.
It's no big deal.
Nobody attacked you. It was her comment.
First of all, it wasn't even an attack.
That's what she just did
and you know
that she's lying.
Here's the deal.
I'm not wasting time on that.
All right, here's the deal, folks.
Here's the deal, folks.
Here we go.
Google and Apple announced
that they will collaborate
to enable coronavirus
contact tracing
on our devices.
What that means is
they'll use location data
from your phone
paired with COVID-19 status also stored on your phone to triangulate who may have possibly been exposed and infected.
This is already happening in China and South Korea, and there's no federal privacy law in place for this.
So what does that mean for African-Americans who we know are already over police?
Joining me now is Angela Benton, founder of Streamlytics.
Angela, glad to have you here. So explain this tracing thing.
I mean, is the goal of it to be able to have an understanding of the coronavirus in your area or your surrounding area?
Yeah. So contact tracing basically is a methodology that folks in public health tend to use to track contagion or the spread of a virus.
The reason why this is so important right now is because, as you mentioned, Google and Apple, they're teaming up together to use data, location data that is on your phone.
The first phase of it will be through an app that they release that's voluntary. But
then the second phase, they're actually changing their operating system to enable access to your
location data and also your health data that might be stored on the phone. All right. So how does it
impact us? Does it help us? Does it hurt us? Can police use this for other tracking purposes? Who will be in control of this data?
That's a great question. There's no data privacy law at all right now, which is a huge issue.
And so when you take into account minority audiences who are basically affected way more than a lot of other demographics, it's a huge problem. And what comes into play is,
you know, historical mishandlings of tracking or, I think the word that I'm using, I wrote a whole
op-ed about this on my blog, but essentially the freedom papers. And so while we do want the country to be reopened and we do want to use contact tracing, we want to do it responsibly and we want to do it with a data privacy law in place. for African-Americans, because as you just mentioned your story before, you know, New Orleans, which is hugely impacted, folks like Google and Apple will potentially give access
to your data to other government officials and will be able to track who you've been
in contact with, who you've been around.
Hmm.
OK.
What? So is this actually happening are they proposing it and who gets control it local state federal or can they do whatever they want to do well right now tech companies are
pretty much doing whatever they want to do already with your data. And they are giving an API basically to
local government officials. So the people who will have access to your data is everyone but you,
basically. So I hope that answers your question. Well, that certainly is quite interesting.
Look, I understand folks want to focus on safety, want to focus on the health, but we still have to factor in how data can be used against us for whatever purposes.
And then the key is who controls the data, who owns the data.
And, yeah, we know all these tech companies have run into problems with the federal government
when it comes to privacy issues.
Right.
So the privacy issues are huge. And there was actually a bill that was introduced on March 13th.
The issue is we really don't want something to be fast-tracked because of all the chaos that's going on with the pandemic.
And so it's very important for, number one, communities of color to even understand that there's no federal data privacy law at all
right now. But you can use your voice, let people that you know sign a petition. You can go to
gotmydata.com. I have a petition there. This is something that I'm personally doing outside of
my company, Streamlytics, just because this is hugely important
to communities of color and nobody's talking about it. So, you know, it's something that we
don't need to overlook. I'm writing a letter to Congress, the Federal Trade Commission,
who will likely oversee a lot of this. And we're letting them know specific things need to be
included in any data privacy laws that are expedited.
Gotcha. All right, then. I certainly appreciate it.
Angela Benton, founder of Streamlytics, thank you so very much.
Thank you.
All right, folks.
During yesterday's press briefing, Donald Trump revealed that he thinks he's a king.
Check this out.
By your understanding of your authority vis-a-vis governors.
Just to be very specific.
For instance, if a governor issued a state home, when you say my authority, the president's authority.
Not mine, because it's not me.
This is when somebody's the president of the United States, the authority is total.
And that's the way it's got to be.
Your authority is total.
It's total.
It's total. And the governors's total. The authority is total. It's total. It's total.
And the governors know that.
The governors know that.
Now, you have a couple of bans of...
Excuse me. Excuse me.
Could you rescind that order?
You have a couple of bans of Democrat governors,
but they will agree to it.
They will agree to it.
But the authority of the president of the United States
having to do with the subject we're talking about is total.
That is utterly laughable. Joining us right now is Patricia Broussard.
She is the constitutional law professor at Florida A&M University.
All right. I'm sorry. Excuse me for laughing.
But Patricia, really, really, you didn't even, forget reading the Constitution.
You can at least, you know, you can at least just walk by it and know that's just stupid.
Well, under normal circumstances, I would agree with you 100%.
Probably last month, I would agree with you 100%.
So, you know, there are two different questions you're asking.
You're asking, is it constitutional?
That's one question.
You're asking, can he do it? That's an entirely different question that you're asking. You're asking, is it constitutional? That's one question. You're asking, can he do it? That's an
entirely different question that you're asking.
And first, let me thank you for having me on.
And secondly, let me shout out
the Florida A&M University College of Law,
my colleagues, and especially my students
who I love dearly, and to
my alma mater, Howard University School
of Law. So, you know,
in answering this question... Doc, you're getting all the shout-outs in!
Well, you know... You leaving anybody out? shout-outs in! Well, you know,
You leave anybody out? You want to do
your high school, your middle school,
your elementary school?
Well, you know, this is such a hard time
for everybody. The students are
suffering really a lot, so
I have to prep them up, prop them up
a little bit. But to
the first question, you know,
when I saw that clip, I was like, what is he
talking about? So if you have to guess what he's talking about, if you have to speculate as to what
he's talking about, you know, he's probably not talking about anything that makes any real sense.
I couldn't figure out if he was talking about powers that he derived from the Constitution,
inherent powers of the presidency, emergency powers, or what exactly he was talking about.
But I concluded that irrespective of if he was talking about constitutional powers,
inherent powers, or emergency powers, that he would still be wrong with respect to whether
those are constitutional. So that's my first answer, that we can go through an academic
analysis of all of those powers and we can see that it's not in the Constitution that says he can do that.
It's not an inherent power because the court has said in Youngstown's sheet and tubing
company that there is no inherent powers to the presidency.
And that has been debated since the Constitution was drafted.
Alexander Hamilton said there were inherent powers.
James Madison said there were
not inherent powers to the president. And by inherent powers, we mean powers that are not
listed in the Constitution, but are derived from the position of being president. For example,
you know, if you're the president of a fraternity, you get to bang the gavel. So it doesn't say that
in the rules, but it says that inherently because of what you get to do. So no inherent powers,
the emergency powers are circumscribed and limited. And so I have no idea what he's talking
about. Now, when he said something about, I have many, many, many powers, that's what led me to
believe that he was talking about the emergency powers act, because there are actually 136 actions
that can be taken as a result of that act.
But there are there. It's circumscribed. It's not unlimited.
But the thing about it is there's this little thing that we have called the 10th Amendment.
And the amendment says that all the powers that are not explicit, all the powers that are not delineated in the Constitution, go to the states. So I find it ironic that you would say on the one hand, states, you're on your
own, get your own respirators, ventilators, masks, you can do this, and then to turn around and say,
we're going to dictate the parameters of how you handle this emergency that we have stepped back from.
So I think the 10th Amendment is very clear here that the governors can make decisions.
The problem I have and my hesitancy, and the reason I said, if you had asked me this
last year or previous to this, I would have said, oh, unquestionably, he can't do
this. The problem that I have and the wild card that I have is the United States Supreme Court.
I'm not sure, you know, when you see a Supreme Court ruled that in the middle of a pandemic,
you can have an election, no problem. When you see a United States Supreme Court that says,
oh, it's okay to have a travel ban, when you see a United States Supreme Court that seems to,
and I can only speculate, that at least four or five members at least bow down to the president.
So I think he's feeling pretty confident that the court will back him. But in addition to that, what are we going to do? Because
when I read that constitution, it says we the people. And so I think the power is in our hands
to say we're not standing for this. But like I said, the question is, is it constitutional?
I'll say no. The question, if the second question is, will he do it? Can he do something?
I wouldn't put it past him. Because here's a guy who guy who remember when he came in, he's like, oh, I'm told I can do whatever I want.
That no laws apply to me, that he can't. His whole deal is I can't be charged.
You can't do anything. He has uttered many times before, I can do whatever I want. And he actually believes that.
But here's what's interesting.
So clearly there was a conversation probably with some Republican governors and some Republicans in Congress.
And so this is Donald Trump a few moments ago on that whole issue.
Watch this cleanup on aisle seven.
The plans to reopen the country are close to being finalized,
and we will soon be sharing details and new guidelines with everybody.
I will be speaking to all 50 governors very shortly,
and I will then be authorizing each individual governor of each individual state
to implement a reopening and a very powerful reopening plan of their state at a time and in as most appropriate. Doc, I love this.
I'm authorizing governors
to reopen their states
when you can't authorize Jack for governor.
Yeah, under what authority are you trying to do that?
That's the cleanup.
That's the cleanup.
The cleanup is I screwed up yesterday. The cleanup is, I screwed up yesterday.
I know the hell I was talking about.
Now I'm authorizing each governor.
No, I'm authorizing
individual governors
of individual states
on a powerful plan
to reopen their state
when you can't tell them
what the hell to do.
You're not the boss of me.
Not with respect to that.
And like I said, the irony behind saying,
you're on your own, get your own ventilators,
get your own mask.
Right.
And if you try to get them,
we're going to intercede in some way and prevent that.
And then to turn around and say,
but I get to decide the parameters of your plan.
I think that's intellectually dishonest,
and that's not going to happen, period.
Patricia Broussard, Constitutional Law Professor
at Florida A&M.
We certainly appreciate it.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much.
Good night.
All right, then.
Malik, what the hell is up with your boy?
He now can tell governors what to do in their state
when governors have also limited power
to tell mayors and county execs what they can do.
I thought y'all Republicans believed in less government
and small government and local control.
What I can say is that throughout the day,
and actually before we came on,
I was listening to Judge Jeanine Pirro
basically say the same thing that the professor just said.
I don't know what, I honestly do not know what,
I don't know where Trump got this argument from
and asked the professor
what he was trying.
You know where he got it from?
That empty space between his ears.
Yeah, I don't know
where he got it from. It is antithetical
to what he has been saying
about the federal government's role
versus the state role.
So when you have people
like his very big
supporters like Jeanine Pirro
and even earlier this morning on
Fox and Friends essentially asking
the same question like, no, that's
just not how it works.
The president doesn't have
absolute authority over states at all.
So Karen, now we know why
he reversed field because Fox
News told him to do so.
Yeah, that and Gazoo. You know, Roland, now we know why he reversed field because Fox News told him to do so. Yeah, that and Gazoo.
You know, Roland, as we sit here and talk about Donald Trump, you know, we have before us quite a big road to hope.
You know, this this election in November is probably going to be the most pivotal election of our lifetime. And yet we still have a vast majority of Americans, a vast number of Americans, maybe not the majority, who are still in this
Trump bubble. And I don't want to stress this more poignantly, but I feel like we are spending a lot
of time ridiculing this man who is ill-equipped for this position, who never has run anything
well in his entire career. He knows how to bankrupt something,
which is what we are in right now,
bankruptcy both morally and physically.
And let's start focusing on the kind of world
we wanna see moving forward and the kind of leadership
we deserve to have as American citizens.
I think we're splitting hairs here.
This man is a disaster on so many levels.
Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall, it is broken,
and we need to figure out, we the people,
how to put it back together. Let me just thank you for the great guest you've had
on. That constitutional law professor was amazing. And I think she poignantly spelled out exactly
where we are as a nation. We need to look to what we need to see come next, Roland. This man,
I just think we're spending a lot of time on how silly he is.
No, but here's why.
But Kelly, here's why I spend the time.
Because here's the deal.
I think his ignorance has been normalized.
I think his overreach has been normalized.
I will never forget, Kelly, watching Morning Joe.
I was listening to Morning Joe.
2015, the New York Times did a story about Trump's relationship in history with women.
Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin were like, oh, well, people know about him and women.
And then Halperin's like, well, that's the best they got.
That's not going to do anything.
I saw that actually happen where they blew it off.
And I think if we blow off and ignore how this man has disdain for the Constitution,
how he gave a speech in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention
saying, only I can fix this. But in the Rose Garden, he goes, I have no responsibility with
this whatsoever. It needs to be highlighted because people out there who believe in the
okie doke need to understand how absolutely crazy, deranged, shameful this man is
and why he has no business being the Oval Office Kelly. I definitely agree with you that his
ignorance needs to be highlighted. I think the problem with mainstream media at this point is
that they're not highlighting the ignorance. They're just putting a camera on his face and
letting him talk. There you go. That is the problem. No one is really checking
this man for the... the multitude of inconsistencies
with his rhetoric, with his planning,
with his strategy, if you want to call it one.
It is just a camera in his face for the sake of having
a camera in his face. the sake of having a camera in his face.
And frankly, there are a lot of people in the media right now who are afraid to go ahead with him and actually ask him the hard questions, which is why I applaud Paula, which is why I applaud the other young woman journalist who was in the Rose Garden, which is why I even applaud the professor
who was on, who was able to break so accurately and beautifully, I might add, exactly why he can't
do what he says he wants to do. So we do definitely need the coverage of the president in a way that
actually highlights his flaws, as opposed to just having a camera in
his face to illuminate his ignorance. There is a difference. We need to really get down to the
nitty-gritty and just ask the hard question and risk the possible backlash from the president
in doing so. Because at this point, like you said,
his ignorance has been normalized. And if we just let that happen even further, we're going to
end up having another four years of this man, which I'm afraid might happen anyway,
for a multitude of reasons, but hopefully not. If we are, if we keep going this route
and just normalizing the ignorance, normalizing the racism, normalizing the bigotry, we're going to have another four years.
This pandemic is going to extend and we will be in a much worse position come 2024.
And look, Melick, we know he's a liar. That's that's like not even something we can say. Well, not quite sure he lies and he lies about lies.
One of the things that, again, the New York Times story also revealed is that he was angry when you had one of the federal officials who talked about the impact of coronavirus.
He puts Pence in charge and goes,
no more alarming statements.
Donald Trump said out of his own mouth,
we got 15 cases, we're going to soon be down to zero.
Cutlow went out there and said,
airtight containment, we're basically there.
Donald Trump repeatedly downplayed coronavirus.
Then he wants to say, Malik, oh, the Democrats were focused on impeachment. So therefore, that's where all of attention was when we got video from February 12th of Senator Kamala Harris saying,
why did no Trump officials show up to a Department of Homeland Security committee to discuss coronavirus.
And their response was, we haven't gotten our talking points together.
He is a liar and he has failed in this response.
And we did waste an entire month because of sorry leadership, Malik.
That actually happened.
It's indisputable.
Well, two things.
Two things.
I don't believe that the press hasn't been covering Donald Trump.
It's been a pretty much daily deluge of stories about Donald Trump
where the press is challenged.
So I do think that the press is asking those hard questions
that you all think they should ask.
The second part, and I'm glad you actually mentioned the New York Times article, because in that article, I think you're referring to the CDC official who came out and made the statement.
As per what the article said, they were planning to have officials were actually planning to have a conversation with Donald Trump after he came back from India. Well, what happened is, is that that CDC official got out
ahead of that group that was going to meet Donald Trump and then came out with a statement about the
need for social distancing. And I believe it was after that, that's when the market actually
collapsed. So if that's the person that you're talking about, I can see Donald Trump having a
problem with that because she got out ahead of him and the committee that was actually going to him to talk about those.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
And she was only focused on trying to save lives.
And the reality is no more alarming statements.
And he kept downplaying it.
It wasn't until the middle of March.
Then he lied to us by saying, I always thought,
I always took this pandemic seriously.
Not when you're on video saying,
he actually even said,
if he was CNBC in January,
I think it was January 21st,
where he said,
oh yeah,
that's just one person from China
in the US.
He said it.
I mean, it's on video.
Now, if you ask me, you know, personally,
I don't think that Donald Trump did not personally himself take it seriously. He projected something that was a little different. And I will give you an example of what I'm talking about here.
Yeah, I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. It's similar to a mayor of a city or a governor of a state or something.
If there's a problem with violence or anything, that they publicly may actually try to downplay
it.
If you read that New York Times article, and I read the entire article, it was actually
a very good article, but if you read that article, there wasn't a lot that the government
did not do as far as Donald Trump, whatever
he decided to, however he tried to downplay it.
If you read that New York Times article, there was a lot of stuff about government bureaucracy,
you know, internal deliberations, disagreements here, disagreements there.
But it goes back to what I was saying early on.
There's no reason that outside of Trump, with the availability of the people that have been around him on not just Fox News, but on CNN, on MSNBC, on all of the shows, with the number of people that have been out,
it's no reason why we can't get the answers to those questions from the people who were in charge, like directly responsible for those things.
I don't think that we just have to get those answers from Donald Trump.
There are people out there who can give us those answers.
Karen, I'm just going to let you respond to that one,
because that's just light work for me. Go ahead.
No, I don't even want to.
I think that if you could convince me, Roland Martin,
that putting out the facts and having a whole dissertation
on all of the
lies that Donald Trump has put forward, how damaging he is to this republic.
All right, Karen, you froze there.
We there?
Karen, you still there?
And asking.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, you froze there, but go ahead.
Oh, more people know about Tiger King, Carole Baskin, who killed her husband, all of the details, who got new teeth than they know about the record of Donald Trump during this pandemic.
And that's really what's at the crux of this. Most Americans want to bury their heads in the sand.
They want the headlines only and they don't want the details. If they like Trump, they like Trump.
And there's nothing you can do to convince them not to vote for him. And that's our uphill
battle.
But you know what though?
To me, the battle
really is not, here's the deal.
Crazy Trump people are going to vote
for Trump, okay? You can talk about all
the lies and everything. The key though
is, here's the reality. He got
3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton
did. He only won the presidency
by 78,000 votes, 72,000
votes in three states.
We just saw, Kelly, what happened in Wisconsin
where Republicans tried their best
to steal an election with
the Supreme Court justice, and they got their
asses handed to them because
people said, nah, it's not going to happen.
I mean, they tried everything. The key right
now is you keep exposing the lies, you keep showing the lies, and you also do it.
That's why, Kelly, he's suing these small TV stations who are airing the Priorities USA ad that's also putting him on blast, that's showing how he lied.
Folks, cue that up. I want to play that ad because what he's doing is that they're trying to sue media outlets because he doesn't want people to hear his own words.
It's laughable, Kelly, to sue somebody saying, oh, they use my own words.
He then runs the ad yesterday using Maggie Hayterman's words out of context to support his position.
That's what's going on. And so the people who sat on the sidelines could defeat Donald Trump.
And so I say you don't waste time trying to convince a Trump supporter not to vote for him.
You convince the people, Kelly, who didn't vote in 2016.
Why crazy man got to go?
Kelly, your comment on my next story.
I definitely agree with you there.
The undecided voters
are going to be the
make or break deal regarding
this election because progressives,
you know, we know who we're
going to vote for because there's
only one option at the moment.
You know, Republicans,
conservatives, they know
who they're going to vote for because Donald Trump is the only one on the ticket, if I'm not mistaken.
But the undecideds, they're going to be the crux of this.
The people who are still, you know, grieving over the fact that Warren's gone or Sanders is gone or Harris is gone.
Those are the ones that we're going to have to like be like, look, I understand that ideology wise they were more akin to you, but this is a do or die moment.
It really, really is.
And to your point regarding Trump suing small media people, at some point these judges have to say, you know, what he's doing is frivolous lawsuits,
and I'm pretty sure
you can't do that either,
that you can be sanctioned
or fined or whatever
about it. I can't remember the actual procedural
stuff, but
he definitely can't keep
doing this without ramification.
Well, look, they can keep trying to file lawsuits,
and here's the actual priorities you say ad
that Donald Trump is really so upset about.
And they're suing this small TV station in Wisconsin.
Why Wisconsin?
Ooh, because that was one of the states
he barely won in 2016.
And every vote matters in Wisconsin.
Here's the ad.
The coronavirus.
This is their new hoax.
We have it totally under control.
It's one person coming in from China.
One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear.
When you have 15 people and within a couple of days
it's going to be down to close to zero,
we really think we've done a great job
in keeping it down to a minimum.
I like this stuff, I really get it.
People are surprised that I understand it.
No, I don't take responsibility at all.
Priorities USA Action is responsible for the content of this ad.
The coronavirus.
This is their new home.
He said we need a few, uh...
We got 15 cases.
Be soon, in a couple days, soon down to zero.
Guys, pull that graphic back up.
That's showing the number of cases today.
No, not that one.
The one from the beginning of the show.
Donald Trump said in the middle of January,
no, in February, that we got 15 cases.
In a couple days, it'll be down to zero.
Folks, as of today, April 14th,
there are 605,354 cases, all 50 states, three U.S. territories.
Now people have died in all 50 states. He said it's just one person from China. As of today, there are 25,394 patients who have died, Americans who have died
from the coronavirus. Some states saying they're not even fully counting the people who have died
from it. But Donald Trump was trying to keep our hopes up. Well, today, folks, President Barack
Obama got himself involved in the presidential
campaign by releasing this video endorsing his vice president, Joe Biden, for the office of
president of the United States. Hi, everybody. Let me start by saying the obvious. These aren't
normal times. As we all manage our way through a pandemic unlike anything we've seen in a century,
Michelle and I hope that you and your families are safe and well.
If you've lost somebody to this virus, or if someone in your life is sick, or if you're
one of the millions suffering economic hardship, please know that you're in our prayers.
Please know that you're in our prayers. Please know that you're not alone.
Because now's the time for all of us to help where we can
and to be there for each other,
as neighbors, as coworkers, and as fellow citizens.
In fact, over the past weeks,
we've seen plenty of examples of the kind of courage,
kindness, and selflessness that we're gonna need
to get through one of the most difficult times
in our history. Michelle and I have been amazed at the incredible bravery of our medical
professionals who are putting their lives on the line to save others, the public servants and
health officials battling this disease, the workers taking risks every day to keep our economy running,
and everyone who's making their own sacrifice at home with
their families, all for the greater good. But if there's one thing we've learned as a country from
moments of great crisis, it's that the spirit of looking out for one another can't be restricted
to our homes or our workplaces or our neighborhoods or our houses of worship, it also has to be reflected in our national government.
The kind of leadership that's guided by knowledge and experience,
honesty and humility, empathy and grace,
that kind of leadership doesn't just belong in our state capitals and mayor's offices.
It belongs in the White House. And that's why I'm so proud to endorse
Joe Biden for President of the United States. Choosing Joe to be my Vice President was one of
the best decisions I ever made, and he became a close friend. And I believe Joe has all the
qualities we need in a president right now. He's someone whose own life has taught him how to persevere, how to bounce back when
you've been knocked down. When Joe talks with parents who've lost their jobs, we hear the son
of a man who once knew the pain of having to tell his children that he'd lost his. When Joe talks
about opportunity for our kids, we hear the young father who took the train home each night so he could tuck his children into
bed. And we hear the influence of Jill, a lifelong teacher. When Joe talks to families who've lost a
hero, we hear another parent of an American veteran, a kindred spirit, somebody whose faith
has endured the hardest loss there is. That's Joe.
Through all his trials, he's never once forgotten the values
or the moral fiber that his parents passed on to him
and that made him who he is.
That's what steals his faith in God, in America, and in all of us.
That steel made him an incredible partner when I needed one the most.
Joe was there as we rebuilt from the Great Recession and rescued the American auto industry.
He was the one asking what every policy would do for the middle class and everyone striving to get
into the middle class. That's why I asked him to implement the Recovery Act, which saved millions of jobs
and got people back on their feet. Because Joe gets stuff done. Joe helped me manage H1N1
and prevent the Ebola epidemic from becoming the type of pandemic we're seeing now. He helped me
restore America's standing and leadership in the world on the other threats of our time,
like nuclear proliferation and climate change. Joe has the character and the experience to guide us through one of our darkest times
and heal us through a long recovery.
And I know he'll surround himself with good people.
Experts, scientists, military officials who actually know how to run the government
and care about doing a good job running the government and know how to run the government and care about doing a
good job running the government and know how to work with our allies and who will
always put the American people's interests above their own. Now Joe will
be a better candidate for having run the gauntlet of primaries and caucuses
alongside one of the most impressive Democratic fields ever. Each of our candidates were talented and decent,
with a track record of accomplishment, smart ideas, and serious visions for the future.
And that's certainly true of the candidate who made it farther than any other, Bernie Sanders.
Bernie's an American original, a man who has devoted his life
to giving voice to working people's hopes, dreams, a man who has devoted his life to giving voice to working
people's hopes, dreams, and frustrations.
He and I haven't always agreed on everything, but we've always shared a conviction that
we have to make America a fairer, more just, more equitable society.
We both know that nothing is more powerful than millions of voices calling for
change. And the ideas he's championed, the energy and enthusiasm he inspired, especially in young
people, will be critical in moving America in a direction of progress and hope. Because for the
second time in 12 years, we'll have the incredible task of rebuilding our economy. And to meet the moment,
the Democratic Party will have to be bold. You know, I could not be prouder of the incredible
progress that we made together during my presidency. But if I were running today,
I wouldn't run the same race or have the same platform as I did in 2008. The world is different. There's too much
unfinished business for us to just look backwards. We have to look to the future. Bernie understands
that and Joe understands that. It's one of the reasons that Joe already has what is the most progressive platform of any major party nominee in history.
Because even before the pandemic turned the world upside down,
it was already clear that we needed real structural change.
The vast inequalities created by the new economy are easier to see now,
but they existed long before this pandemic hit.
Health professionals, teachers, delivery drivers, grocery clerks, cleaners, the people who truly make our economy run, they've always been essential. And for years, too many of the people
who do the essential work of this country have been underpaid, financially stressed,
and given too little support.
And that applies to the next generation of Americans. Young people graduating into
unprecedented unemployment. They're going to need economic policies that give them faith in the
future and give them relief from crushing student loan debt. So we need to do more than just tinker around the edges
with tax credits or underfunded programs.
We have to go further to give everybody a great education,
a lasting career, and a stable retirement.
We have to protect the gains we made
with the Affordable Care Act,
but it's also time to go further.
We should make plans affordable for everyone, provide everyone with a public option, expand Medicare, and finish the job so that health care isn't just a right, but a reality for everybody.
We have to return the U.S. to the Paris Agreement and lead the world in reducing the pollution that causes climate change.
But science tells us we have to go much further, that it's time for us to accelerate progress
on bold new green initiatives that make our economy a clean energy innovator,
save us money, and secure our children's future. Of course, Democrats may not always agree on every detail of the best way
to bring about each and every one of these changes. But we do agree that they're needed.
And that only happens if we win this election. Because one thing everybody has learned by now
is that the Republicans occupying the White House and running the U.S. Senate are not interested in progress. They're interested in power.
They've shown themselves willing to kick millions off their health insurance and eliminate pre-existing
condition protections for millions more, even in the middle of this public health crisis, even as they're willing
to spend a trillion dollars on tax cuts for the wealthy. They've given polluters unlimited power
to poison our air and our water and denied the science of climate change, just as they denied
the science of pandemics. Repeatedly, they've disregarded American principles of rule of law and voting rights and transparency.
Basic norms that previous administrations observed regardless of party.
Principles that are the bedrock of our democracy.
So our country's future hangs on this election,
and it won't be easy.
The other side has a massive war chest.
The other side has a propaganda network with little regard for the truth.
On the other hand,
pandemics have a way of cutting through a lot of noise and spin to remind us of what is real and what is important.
This crisis has reminded us that government matters.
It's reminded us that good government matters.
That facts and science matter.
That the rule of law matters,
that having leaders who are informed and honest
and seek to bring people together rather than drive them apart,
those kind of leaders matter.
In other words, elections matter.
Right now, we need Americans of goodwill to unite in a great awakening against a politics that too often has been characterized by corruption, carelessness, self-dealing, disinformation, ignorance, and just plain meanness. And to change that, we need Americans of all political stripes
to get involved in our politics
and our public life like never before.
For those of us who believe in building
a more just, more generous, more democratic America
where everybody has a fair shot at opportunity,
for those of us
who believe in a government that cares about the many and not just the few, for those of
us who love this country and are willing to do our part to make sure it lives up to its
highest ideals, now's the time to fight for what we believe in.
So join us. Join Joe. Now's the time to fight for what we believe in.
So join us.
Join Joe.
Go to JoeBodden.com right now.
Make a plan for how you are going to get involved.
Keep taking care of yourself and your families and each other.
Keep believing in the possibilities of a better world,
and I will see you on the campaign trail as soon as I can.
Thanks.
Man, that's what a real president sounds like.
Also, folks, a recent poll by BlackPak,
an organization that helps get Black people elected,
to the polls revealed that Biden's chances
for election increase if he selects a Black woman
for his running mate.
38%.
38% of those polls said they already plan to vote for him, but that would make them more enthusiastic about it.
27% said it doesn't change much.
17% said it would make them more likely to vote for Biden.
And 5% said it would make them more likely to turn out and vote.
Kelly, I want to start with you.
Your thoughts on Obama's now in the game.
Was that a great opening statement to begin with for Joe Biden?
It's just refreshing to have somebody in the spotlight who knows more than 10 words at a time.
It was just very nice to see someone who actually acts presidential. I'll just say that.
As regarding what he actually said, I mean, I don't see anything wrong with it.
Like, he was absolutely right, specifically when he said Republicans aren't interested in progress.
They're interested in power.
And that has been evident for the past four or five years of Trump running for office and now having the presidency.
It has been a whirlwind of cronyism, nepotism, xenophobia, racism, but more importantly, just power.
And we have to dismantle that because we see what it gets when we are close to absolute power.
We do have Democrats in various spaces in the federal government being, you know, SCOTUS, legislative branch, et cetera.
But the fact that Republicans control the House, Republicans control the Senate, and we have a predominantly conservative Supreme Court, we see what happens with our jurisprudence.
We see what happens with our legislation, and we see what happens with our execution plans when all three branches are controlled by one party that is not interested in the people, but in power.
So Obama is absolutely right when he said that we need to fight back on this.
And Joe Biden is running for president.
Join Joe.
Now, your second point regarding a black woman being vice president, I don't have a problem with that either, obviously.
But it has to be the right black woman.
It has to be somebody who aligns with the real core of the Democratic Party, with the crux of Joe Biden's platform and policymaking.
And I haven't seen anybody as of yet in the spotlight
in that regard.
I do have my personal pick
on who that should be.
Whoa!
Val Demings.
Okay.
Yes.
Val Demings.
And I haven't,
but my thing is,
I have not seen...
Hello?
Go ahead, go ahead.
Okay.
I have not seen the push for her so much as I've seen a push for Kamala Harris.
Yeah, because. Yeah. But OK. But Kelly, there is a reason behind that.
Val Demings didn't run for president. No. Congresswoman Val Demings did not run for president.
She did not have an entire infrastructure behind her. And from a national standpoint, from a national standpoint, people only saw Congresswoman Val Demings on a national level during the impeachment.
And so you only had a very small window there of what, three weeks where you actually saw her operating on national stage.
So it's no surprise that national push because Kamala Harris still has an infrastructure in place of supporters who are pushing her.
Oh, I totally understand that. No, I completely agree with you as to why that push isn't there.
I would just like to see more of a push for Val Demings.
Just because you don't have the infrastructure now doesn't mean that the infrastructure can't be built.
Well, well, I would go ahead and lead the Val Demings VP Coalition.
Karen, go ahead.
I will join you, Kelly.
I think you are spot on, by the way.
I just interviewed Val Demings today on my show.
Law enforcement definitely is totally a badass in Congress.
But more importantly, she gives you Florida, which is a state... California's already
a wrap. You know, California's going
to go for Joe Biden. Florida's
one of those swing states that we absolutely
need. And she's somebody who is not only
well-liked in Florida...
Hold on.
How does she give him Florida?
Because people
are going to turn out. Florida just had
an election, right,
where more than, what is it,
more than a million new voters
who were formerly incarcerated,
who were formerly disenfranchised,
are now able to vote in Florida.
But here's the deal, though.
Let's just be clear here.
Mella, you can come in as you want to.
John Edwards on the ticket in 2004 didn't give Kerry North Carolina.
Lloyd Benson on the ticket in 1988 didn't give Dukakis Texas.
We can go down the line.
So I think that, I think, I think, I think, hold on, hold on, hold up.
I think that Convention of Wisdom was the case prior to 1980.
I just think that we're in a totally different world now.
I'm not talking conventional at all.
We're talking Val Deming.
We're not talking conventional.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Hold on.
You said Deming's.
Black men who show up to vote.
But wait a minute, hold up.
You said Demingings gives in Florida. What I'm saying is there Al Gore, Al Gore, when he ran for president, didn't even win his own home state. He did
not win Tennessee. You're correct. But I'm not talking conventionally. I'm talking about
what Joe Biden needs to win. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I'm asking. He's going to
be the last man who sat out in 2016 because they didn't like Hillary Clinton. They do
not like Kamala Harris. They need to show up for somebody that they actually
can give them that.
So hold up. You're saying that black men
one of the things we heard
that black men didn't like Harris
is because she's a prosecutor.
So you're saying they're going to show up for a police chief?
Yeah, because they're not the same.
Yes, I am saying that.
And I stand by it. I'm the one that predicted
Trump was going to win in 2016.
Not a lot of people, including the polls, predicted that. Val Demings gives gives the Democratic Party everything they need to give.
They she gives them legitimacy in the black community. She is a she is not a politician, a normal politician.
Right. No, no, no, no. But just to just explain, just I mean, unpack how if black men did like a prosecutor, they don't like a police chief.
They don't like Kamala Harris. So let's let's just be plain speaking.
OK, it doesn't matter that she's a prosecutor. That's just an excuse or reason why not to like her.
They don't like her for a lot of reasons. Val Demings does not carry the same baggage that Kamala Harris carries.
And I think in many ways, her being that politician and running for president actually hurts her.
Putting her on the ticket is not going to help Joe Biden.
I don't believe that.
I think Demings helps him way more than Kamala Harris.
Melick.
Actually, you took what I was getting ready to say about Al Gore in Tennessee.
I don't think that Val Demings can carry an entire state as a VP. So I don't
think that she would be helpful to Joe Biden at all. But what I will say is that, you know, I'm
not, you know, I like Kamala Harris, but I don't see how you get past Kamala Harris,
the former California attorney general, current United States senator,
the only black female United States senator and presidential candidate to Val Demings.
And I like Val Demings. In fact, I was one of the ones who said that, you know, she probably
could make a good VP candidate, but I don't see how you get past. She's not going to help
Biden carry Florida, but I don't see how you just get past Kamala Harris to Val Demings.
If you're going to get a black woman on the ticket, that person probably needs to be Kamala Harris.
I don't think that that I don't think she will ultimately help Joe Biden win.
But I don't see how you get past her to Donald Trump.
OK, that would sooner give Joe Biden the Bible belt.
He,
she would sooner give him the Bible belt that Kamala Harris.
How?
Wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait,
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait Bible Belt, first of all, are we speaking of a state or a region of the country?
What are you talking about?
Region of the country.
Where?
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You think that if Joe Biden chooses Congresswoman Val Demings, that's going to put him over the top to win Alabama, Mississippi and Texas?
I'm saying that if he chooses Val Demings over Kamala Harris,
that would put him over the edge in terms of...
In Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.
They resonate more with Val Demings
than they do with Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris, as accomplished as she is,
does not resonate with every single black person.
First of all, I don't think for a second
that he could pick
Senator Kamala Harris, he can
pick Congressman Val Demings,
hell, he can pick Obama as his running
mate, and he ain't gonna win Mississippi,
Alabama, and Texas.
I'm not saying win it, I'm saying
win it. You said no, no, you said
no, when you said that puts him over the top,
that means win.
OK.
OK.
No, I'm just trying. No, no, no, no. Literally, I'm just trying to understand.
When you say that puts him over the top in those states, that means you're saying that if he picks Congresswoman Demings,
he can win Alabama, Mississippi and Texas by picking Demings as his VP.
Not in terms of winning the
election. I'm saying... Well, what is he going to win?
He already got the nomination.
Okay. No, no,
I'm trying to understand. When you
say over the top, what does that mean?
She's saying
that Val Demings gives him
more sway in those areas where we
need people to show up. What Kelly
was saying was that this is about the people who are not, who are undecided right now. A hundred
million people did not show up to vote in 2016. In order for the Democrats to win, you're going
to need at least half of those people to show up in November. And Val Demings gives, I believe,
Joe Biden a better chance at getting those people who are on the fence in all of those states,
those swing states like Texas,
like Florida, like even Wisconsin,
which is one of the most...
Texas ain't no swing state!
Listen!
Karen!
Karen!
I am a registered voter in Texas.
Show me where Texas
is a swing state. Republicans
control every statewide
office in Texas. Where isn't a swing state. Republicans control every statewide office in Texas.
Where is it a swing state?
Listen, things are changing so rapidly.
It ain't changed that fast.
All right, well, let's see.
I would love to see.
Hold up.
I just want to help you all out.
Texas is not a swing state.
Beto lost by 2.5 points
to that boy
Cruz. Texas ain't
a swing state. Until
you register at least
30 to 50 percent
of the 2 million
eligible but unregistered
Latinos, Texas is going to be a
red state. I know all that
other stuff. Look, I
am still registered in Texas.
I'm just saying, y'all, it ain't no swing state.
It's not.
It's not.
It's not. I mean, I feel you.
I wish it was.
It's the best pick. And I fear that Joe
Biden's not going to pick her.
All right. Final comments.
First of all, anything to say about Obama's
video? Anybody?
Excellent. I think it was excellent.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
It's great to see my former president
out there.
I don't think that, unfortunately,
Barack Obama can't run for a second term.
So I don't think that he'll be much
help to Joe Biden if you look at Obama's history of endorsing candidates.
I expect him to be out on the campaign trail.
He will generate a lot of support, definitely more.
He can bring some of the black women out.
He can have Michelle Obama and others out there.
But ultimately, it's Joe Biden's race to run.
And I don't see him winning really against anyone. I think 2016
was his year, his best year to beat Donald Trump. And I think had the Democrats actually put him up
as a candidate over Hillary Clinton, we may be having a different discussion of who's president
now. But I don't think Obama's going to matter ultimately as far as helping Biden get elected.
Here's what I was—
But it's a good thing. I like Obama.
Go ahead.
Who else is going to comment?
Go ahead.
I think when he said that the Republicans are all about,
not about progress, but about power,
and that this is not about going back,
because a lot of people think they're putting a band together again.
This is going to be Team Obama.
But moving forward, I like the notion of Biden having a coalition
of people who know how
to do this. And I think Barack Obama is bringing to the forefront that there's going to be a team
of people around Biden. It's not just about him, but a whole coalition to put Humpty Dumpty back
together again. And I was encouraged by that. Kelly? I just believe that whatever happens with this election, with Obama's endorsement and Biden's campaign, we will actually see a glimpse of what a functional government will look like.
Right now, we are in chaos and we are just disjointed as a country.
I'm sure we have some historical references of, you know, instances where we have
been divided like this before. But as somebody who is living right now, this is unprecedented.
And Obama gave me just a little glimpse of hope that we could possibly return to a semblance
of normalcy. It will never be what it was, but at least it could be
a little bit functional again. Well, again, I think when we use the word normalcy, I think for me,
we don't necessarily need a return to normal. Normal wasn't always great for Black folks,
but I do think we want to get away from crazy. And so I think that's one of the issues there.
I will say this here, though, in terms of whether or not he picks Congresswoman Demings or Senator Kamala Harris.
I know both of them very well.
Here's the conundrum that Joe Biden is in.
It's going to have to be a black woman because here's why.
Here's why. This is real simple.
OK, you can have all the people they throw.
They can throw out Senator Amy Klobuchar all day.
They can talk about all Klobuchar. Klobuchar can help him win the Midwest.
Let me just go ahead and say this right now to Team Joe Biden.
So let me explain to you how this is going to play out.
If you pick somebody who's not black and I'm just trying to just express to y'all what's real right now.
If Vice President Joe Biden picks somebody other than a black woman to be his VP, he is guaranteed to lose.
Here's why. Because the one criticism that black people have consistently made about Democrats is that we are your political sharecroppers.
We toil the soil, we carry the water, we do all of the heavy work, and then we don't get to benefit
from the proceeds from the land. Joe Biden, flat out,
undeniable, cannot be
argued anywhere,
is DOA politically
if it is not for black people
in South Carolina.
Period.
So what you would be saying is
thank you for
saving my nomination,
saving my political rear,
and I'm going to choose somebody who's not African-American.
Now, let me be real clear.
It does not mean that black people are saying,
oh, if it ain't one of us, I ain't voting.
What it is going to do is give legitimacy,
legitimacy to the people who say, see, there they go.
There they go.
They did it again.
We saved your ass.
Then you don't pick one of us.
What Joe Biden cannot afford is a 2.4% decrease in black turnout
that Hillary Clinton saw.
He is not the same person.
There are people who did not like Hillary Clinton.
There were white men and black men and Latino men. There were white women, black women. There
were people who did not. Her narrative had been etched in stone before she even ran in 2016.
But what Joe Biden cannot do, he can ill afford to lose black support.
And black people want Trump out more than anybody else.
Now, wasn't the argument also that the reason Joe Biden should be the nominee
is because he can appeal to the white folks in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin, in Michigan.
So if that's the case, then why would you pick somebody who could supposedly appeal to the very constituency that you supposedly can appeal to?
He's got a tough decision.
But I'm telling y'all right now, if he picks somebody to be his VP, and Senator Elizabeth Warren is phenomenal.
There are a number of other people out there.
But I'm telling you, it will open up Pandora's box.
And you are going to hear a hell of a whole lot on social media, on black radio and other places.
And that is something that he can ill afford at this time
gotta take a break short break we come back lord i can't wait till the pound talk about this one here
white boy driver uses the n-word he ain't got no job today that's next on roland martin unfiltered
you want to check out roland Roland Martin Unfiltered. 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.
Alright so a lot of y'all always asking me about some of the pocket squares
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This is why you should join the fan club
All right, y'all you know what y'all go ahead and get to go and pull up the crazy ads why people stinger I
Don't I keep I keep trying to tell y'all go ahead and pull up the crazy ass white people stinger. I keep trying to tell y'all,
whiteness will show itself at the wrong time and the wrong place.
And Lord, this little boy from NASCAR done got himself in trouble.
Y'all got the stinger.
Go ahead and play it.
No charcoal grills are allowed. I'm white. I got the stinger. Go ahead and play it. No charcoal grills are allowed.
I'm white.
I got you, girl.
Illegally selling water without a permit.
On my property.
Whoa!
Hey!
I'm uncomfortable.
Well, NASCAR star driver Kyle Larson was suspended indefinitely without pay on Monday because this happened during a live stream of a virtual race on Sunday.
The car on the left side, clear inside.
You can't hear me?
Hey, nigger.
Oh!
Oh!
Oh, my gosh!
No way! No way!
No way did that just happen.
Kyle, you're talking to everyone, bud.
Yikes!
The people reacting were the other NASCAR drivers, okay?
So here's what was going on, Karen, and Kelly, and Malik.
So NASCAR's been holding these virtual races because of coronavirus.
Can't hold these events.
So they created this deal where these drivers are driving these online games.
And actually, a couple weeks ago, Fox Sports actually did a broadcast.
Actually, it was pretty damn cool.
Did a broadcast of this virtual NASCAR race.
Pretty cool.
So they're talking on their headsets with their crew as if they're in an actual NASCAR race.
That's what the setup.
So I want you all to play it again, and then we'll just go ahead and play it.
There's a car on the low side, clear inside.
I can see it. You can't hear me?
Hey, nigger. Oh! Oh! Oh, my gosh! Kyle Larson dropped this video after he got suspended.
Yeah, I just want to say I'm sorry.
You know, last night I made a mistake and said the word that should never, ever be said.
And there's no excuse for that.
You know, I wasn't raised that way.
You know, it's just an awful thing to say. And I feel very sorry for my family, my friends, my partners, the NASCAR community,
and especially the African-American community. You know, I understand the damage is probably
unrepairable and, you know, I own up to that. Um, but I just wanted to let you all know how sorry
I am. And, you know, I hope everybody is staying safe during these crazy times. Thank you.
Hmm.
Okay.
Well, Kyle, I hear you.
But eight hours ago, folks, go to my iPad, please.
Eight hours ago, this dropped.
Breaking news.
Chip Ganassi Racing ends relationship with Kyle Larson.
Why is that the case? Kyle Larson's
sponsors dropped
out. They dropped him.
McDonald's was one of their sponsors.
They need black
customers.
I think Visa or
one of the other companies as well.
I'm going to start with
Kelly. I love the whole video. I'm going to start with Kelly.
I love the whole video.
I wasn't raised that way.
It was wrong.
But he said nigga
real fluidly. It was very
fluid. It just sort of just
came out with ease.
I mean,
that was just... I wasn't surprised at all at all and the way that
he said it with the hard r like he wasn't even trying to you know conflate what he was trying
to say like he knew what he was saying he said it with with gumption and with confidence like he he said it before so i don't necessarily buy the whole
you know i wasn't raised that way etc etc i mean maybe you didn't say it in your household but you
said it around your friends you said it around some people who didn't catch who didn't check
you on it you know you said it often enough for you to slip in the middle of a professional setting for him.
That is a professional setting.
Yeah.
He said that doesn't work.
Yeah.
So let me go.
So, Karen, this is for the NASCAR statement.
Lawson has earned six victories, 56 top fives, 101 top tens.
Here we go to my iPad.
Eight Bush Poll Awards in his NASCAR Cup Series career.
All but four of his 223 Cup Series starts have come in the number 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.
He registered one top five finish and three top tens and four starts this year before the COVID-19 pandemic placed the NASCAR season on hold.
His contract with Ganassi was set to expire at the end of the year, making him a free agent.
I can't for the people out there who are black who don't follow NASCAR.
Some of us do.
Well, huh?
Some of us do.
Some of us do.
First of all, that's why I said for the black people
who don't follow it, because it's only a few black people
who follow NASCAR.
The reality is the teams, the Chip Ganassi,
they own the team.
They have the sponsor deals.
And when the major sponsors pulled out of that number 42 car,
they had no choice but to fire him
because it costs anywhere from $15 million to $20 million a year
to fund a top-level NASCAR team.
They can't afford to lose that money.
They had no choice but to fire him when they lost that money.
Right.
And money is at the root of all of this, right?
So, but at the end of the day, you know, there's an inconsistency in the black community about the use of that word.
And we give some people a free pass to use it.
And other people, if they're cool, if they're down with us, they get to use it with the hard R or the A at the end.
And then we get outraged when people use it as they do quite frequently on these video game
platforms. And I don't know if you guys have kids
that play, but they say some really horrific
things and it's never monitored
and that he's famous
puts a
bullseye around him. But the reality is
we accept this behavior all the
time, unfortunately. But this is
actually not about us, though.
No, but it should be, though. No, no, no. First of all,
first of all, as somebody who, first of all,
I agree. If you use the N-word on my social
media, I'm going to block you. I don't allow
it. But the reaction here,
though, that reaction
wasn't from black people. He dropped it on
Sunday. He gets suspended
by NASCAR on Monday. His
sponsors drop him on Tuesday.
And so what I'm saying is those corporate
sponsors responded immediately to, no, no, we can't be funding a white guy who's using the N-word.
Go ahead. Well, they look at their balance sheets and they know that the African-American community
spends a trillion dollars. McDonald's is one of the biggest beneficiaries of our dollars,
Popeye's and others, right? It is not financially prudent to piss off black people, particularly in this marketplace.
When you need our discretionary income, even if we don't have it, we spend it, a trillion
plus annually on their goods and services.
It's just good business.
And I wish we would leverage that power so much more frequently than we do.
Here is, I'm going to pull this up here, Malik, before I go to you.
This is the story from ESPN.
McDonald's, here we go to my iPad.
McDonald's, Credit One Bank, and Fiserv, a financial services technology company
that runs the Clover platform that had sponsored larson terminated their
sponsorship deals chevrolet terminated its personal services relationship with him uh
brent powell president of plan b sales and marketing was the only sponsor to remain behind
larson he said the driver called him personally quote, express his regret about what transpired.
But the reality is this here.
He cost himself a whole lot of money, Malik.
Yeah, he did.
And I think I didn't realize until I was reading up on the story that he's actually half Asian.
But usually, you know, there are many times
where I'll say we have to understand the context
in which these remarks were made.
But he didn't say nigga.
He wasn't talking about, like, my niggas in Paris
or that's my nigga or something like that.
He said nigger.
The E-R really, really matters here
because that means it was deliberate.
And the reason that you know that he was deliberate in saying it
is because after they
said, oh, you're listening to
everybody, he laughed it off. He didn't
say, oops, or anything.
He said, I think that was him.
I'm assuming that was him that did
the, oh, I think that was
actually Kyle Larson who did that. So he
didn't say, oh my goodness, I didn't mean
to say that or anything.
He laughed. And so
he kept driving.
It's not going to matter.
I'm sorry, go ahead. He kept driving.
I mean, he was in the race and he kept driving.
But here's the deal, though. First of all, let's just be real
clear, okay?
I don't give a damn about the E-R
or the A. It's the same word.
Okay? That don't change
no context. Don't change
the meaning. We black people
do it. It's the same. The word
is the same. Okay? I don't even go down
that line. But what's interesting
is that he's
out, and obviously this is a different deal,
but remember Riley Cooper?
The Philadelphia Eagles
wide receiver.
Remember, he kept playing.
He didn't get cut by the Eagles and later signed a whole new contract.
And so it was interesting in terms of how that transpired.
And, again, you could talk about NASCAR and Confederate flag waving
and all that stuff, but the bottom line is here.
Those teams are like, yeah, those companies,
mm, no, you got to go, player.
You got to go.
But that's why I keep trying to tell these people out here,
y'all can dance around as all you want to.
I'm just saying, to the people out there,
it drives me crazy when they say,
and I've had black people tell me,
man, I just can't stop saying the word, yes, you can.
I said the word probably the first 20 years of my life,
and then when I realized, okay,
why the hell am I using the word of white oppressors?
Stop.
Don't use it.
Don't even try.
Don't all I'm going to use it sometimes.
No, do not use it.
I only use it within the context of these stories
because I don't want to say, well, so-and-so said the word.
No, no, no, I'm going to say what exactly he said.
And that's just the real deal here.
But as I say, you're going to learn today,
and it cost him some serious money.
Some serious money.
Folks, it's been a pleasure.
Click Karen.
Glad to have you today via Skype.
Kelly, thanks a lot.
Miller, thanks a lot.
Folks, don't forget, if you want to support what we do here,
Roller Martin Unfiltered, look, we're the only show out here
that's bringing y'all news every day.
In fact, today, Tegna announced that they are canceling
the show Sister Circle.
It aired on TV One.
It was not, let me tell y'all, Sister Circle was not a TV One show.
TV One was paying about $300,000 a year to license
Sister Circle from Tegna.
Tegna was a local television station group.
The show was shot in Atlanta.
They announced today Sister Circle is canceled.
So what does that mean?
Of the eight targeted networks,
networks targeted or owned by black people,
there is not a single daily show.
That's news and information.
I'll put Sister Circle in that category.
A lot of topics they did.
There is not one.
There's not one on TV One.
There's Sister's channel, MyCleoTV, MyCleo, BT, BT Her, Aspire, Magic Johnson's channel, Revolt, Diddy's channel, Own, Oprah's channel,
Bounce, a broadcast network.
That's eight.
Black News Channel, they just started.
They just filed their CEO,
but people barely even see them,
so they're still just trying to get people
to even see that they exist.
So the reality is this, people.
We the best game in town.
We don't do specials on black people with coronavirus.
We do it every single day.
We don't do specials on African-Americans
and mass incarceration and the criminal justice system.
We don't do, oh, a five part series.
We're here every single day, holding it down,
speaking to the issue that you care about,
having the top black experts around the country
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Radio One laid off 400 people.
Cumulus laying off people like crazy.
I can go, all these media companies,
ESPN, Disney just announced
they're asking their top 100 stars to take a 15% or 25% pay cut
because primetime ratings are down, advertising is down.
I'm not trying to lay off.
Y'all, we only have a staff, literally, total of 10 people.
I'm not trying to lay people off.
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We need you to join our Bring the Funk fan club.
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I've had people who say, hey, I don't use any of those.
Can I mail a check?
You can do that. Just go to RolandSMartin.com and just send me an email. But I'm saying that
because it's this year. And again, I appreciate the special that Diddy did on the state of
emergency, black people and coronavirus. Oprah is doing a special for her series that she does with Apple Plus and with
her Instagram. But we gotta
have this discussion every day.
We can't just be doing
a special
because we ain't just special.
We ain't a special folk.
What I mean by that is we can't just
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That's what we produced.
That's way more than what we produced at TV One on a $5 million budget.
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$5 million could fund this show for the next five years.
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Well, let me go right there.
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Got something for you as well, folks.
And so on Thursday, on Thursday,
my man Gerald Albright is going to be here.
Go ahead and play a little bit of this and I'm gonna come back and tell you. So on Thursday, 7.45 p.m.,
after we get done with the show,
Gerald Albright is going to have a live jam
from G's place, from his house.
We're going to stream it across
Facebook, YouTube, Periscope,
Instagram Live. It's going to be
benefiting the Musicians Relief
Fund. The money raised
during this 45-minute jam session
will benefit the Musicians
Relief Fund. I told y'all
ain't nobody else doing what
we do. So my man Gerald Allwright, my
frat brother, is going to be with us
745 to 830
for a live
jam session right here
on Roland Martin Unfiltered.
That's why we do what we do.
Go to the Instagram page, Facebook and Twitter.
You'll see his cash app
to benefit the Musicians Relief Fund
because y'all, it's a whole bunch of musicians
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and Gerald wants to help them out.
So a live 45-minute jam session right here on Thursday.
Y'all, you know it's gonna be funky.
That's why we do hashtag Bring the Funk.
I got to go. Holla! A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways.
Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up.
So now I only buy one.
Small but important ways from tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding.
If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it.
I'm Max Chastain.
And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen
to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?
Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.
This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.
I get right back there and it's bad.
Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Clayton English.
I'm Greg 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 podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
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-up way, 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.
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