#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 4.3 RMU: Gen. Honore on COVID-19 war; Rep. Pressley on pandemic response; Worst job report since '09

Episode Date: April 12, 2020

4.3 RMU: Gen. Honore on COVID-19 war; Rep. Pressley on pandemic response; Worst job report since '09 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Pre-game to greater them. Let's put ourselves in the right position pregame to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at this is pre-tirement.org brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Today's Friday, April 3rd, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, we've got a jam-packed show. Lieutenant General Russell Honore is going to be here. He says that, what the hell is the Trump administration doing?

He says Jared Kushner has no idea what the hell he's doing when it comes to this pandemic. In addition to that, we'll also be joined by Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. She talks about the impact of coronavirus, especially on the health of African Americans. In addition, we'll talk about the massive job numbers, a huge spike in unemployment, dealing with coronavirus,

and also what's going on with black folks. Why are we so more impacted? In Michigan, 13% of black people in the state, upwards of 40% of the people who died thus far. We'll talk to a reporter with Associated Press. Also, we'll pay tribute to the great Bill Withers, who passed away on Monday at the age of 81. His family revealed that today publicly,

and we have an unbelievable lineup of guests. John Legend, Stevie Wonder, Jeffrey Osbourne, Eddie LaVert, Anthony Hamilton, Keri Hilson, Dwayne Woods, Talib Kweli, Reggie Hutland, Nelson George. Folks, unbelievable lineup. Other guests as well. It is gonna be a great virtual

homecoming, homegoing for the great artist Bill Withers. It's time to bring the funk. Roll the mark, unfilter. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the spook, the fact, the fine.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's got the spook, the fact, the find. 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, yo.

It's rolling, Martin. Yeah. Rolling with rolling now. Yeah, yeah. It's Roland Martin. Yeah, yeah. Rolling with Roland now. Yeah, yeah. He's bunk, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Roland Martin now. Martin. Martin. As we have every day for the last three weeks, our focus is on the coronavirus international pandemic.

As of today, folks, there are 265,506 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States and three U.S. territories. At least 6,786 patients have died with the virus. 11,983 patients have recovered from the virus. Now those deaths, that's an increase of 1,074 people since yesterday at this time. Man, well, the million people have died worldwide from the result of coronavirus.

It is clear that we are at war with this disease, and without proper leadership, we're losing. Now, just a few moments ago at the White House news conference, Donald Trump announced that the CDC are now going to require asking all Americans to wear non-surgical mask or to wear a face mask in public. That was announced just moments ago by the Surgeon General. Anthony, go to my iPad so I can play that. Great question that you ask. It's a fair question that you ask. I want to unpack the evolution of our guidance on masks

because it has been confusing to the American people. First of all, I want people to understand that the CDC, the World Health Organization, my office, and most public health and health organizations and professionals originally recommended against the general public wearing masks because based on the best evidence available at the time, it was not deemed that that would have a significant impact on whether or not a healthy person wearing a mask would contract COVID-19. We have always recommended that symptomatic people wear a mask because if you're coughing, if you have a fever, if you're symptomatic, you could transmit disease to other people. What has changed in our recommendation?

Well, it's important to know that we now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms. They're what we call asymptomatic, and that even those who eventually become pre-symptomatic, meaning that they will develop symptoms in the future, can transmit the virus to others before they show symptoms. This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity. For example, coughing, speaking, or sneezing, even if those people were not exhibiting symptoms. In light of this new evidence, CDC recommends and the task force recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain. These include places like grocery stores and pharmacies. We especially recommend this in areas of significant community-based transmission.

That is the decision, again, shortly from the White House. Joining us right now to talk about this response, some might say greatly confusing, is retired Army General Russell Honore. Glad to have you back on the show, General Honore. Hello, Roland. Good to be with you. Yesterday, it was interesting. For the first time, Jared Kushner came out to address the public.

And he made some comments that many people found to be pretty confusing, suggesting that somehow that he needed to be able to come in and knock down these walls to be able to get government to work with each other in the private sector and how Donald Trump asked him to step in. Then he also made this crazy comment by stating that the federal stockpile wasn't for the purpose of the states, which is actually on the government Web site. They went and changed it after he made the comment. What did you make of what the hell he was talking about? That boy didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He's making stuff up.

And then overnight, the crime was to go change the website to try and match what he said so there's a bunch of people complicit in covering him saying something didn't know what the hell he was talking about so the guy made a mistake we can make a mistake and misquote something but the purpose of the national stockpile you can go back to the national defense authorization act to the National Defense Authorization Act, to the money Congress pays every year for the government. It funds the national stockpile for the use of the federal government as needed in supporting anything that happened in the world or anything that happened here in the United States

where we need that stock that it's on the ass. He had no idea what the hell he was talking about. But the second thing, they went and changed the website to match his words. These people are unscrubable. They are unbelievable. Daniel Dale, who is a reporter who basically, even when he was working in Canada, tracks the lies, if you will, of Donald Trump. And this is what he posted. This here is the, I'm showing right now, the screenshot from the website, Anthony, go to

my iPad, of the Strategic National Stockpile. To all y'all, this was the screenshot from yesterday, people. It says, Strategic National Stockpile is the nation's largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency. Organized for scalable response to a variety of public health threats, this repository contains enough supplies

to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously. Now, folks, that's what that website said yesterday prior to 5.30 p.m. before yesterday's briefing. This, folks, is what you will now see if you go to that website. The Strategic National Stockpile's role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately found that is unbelievable that you would literally change the website to match what jared kushner said at a news conference when what he said is bs because what the website initially

said is exactly the purpose of the federal stockpile. Exactly. You know, this is what happened when you bring family and volunteers into the White House. Every principal around the White House has to take an oath. I'll have a wonder, did Jared and his sister ever take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States? Because they cannot be held accountable for what they say. If the CDC guy or the Surgeon General said that, they could be questioned and say, hey, did you lie to the American people? Did you lie as a commission officer who swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. He'll walk this guy, come make stuff up, then overnight change the website to match his words.

This is like a gangster operation, if I've ever seen one. And I don't know what Jared's doing, but he needs to go find something else to keep himself busy. Because this, this is too complex for him to jump in and try to learn this complex system it took me 37 years to learn it and he can't walk in and start making stuff up and try to solve this issue uh in the middle of this disaster roller and what gets me general let's not act as if fema has not had to deal with national emergencies before i I mean, you actually have, it's the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Not only that, were you bothered yesterday by that admiral, I believe, when he said that they are delivering federal equipment to private companies to distribute as if the federal government doesn't have planes and trucks?

It is the weirdest statement I've ever heard by a commission officer. Matt Hamrill is the vice director for logistics for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I've never heard the government participate in something like this. So literally, the air bridge that they have arrived, most of this stuff is coming out of China. They arranged the aircraft to come here. The airplane land, let's say it's in New York. Then they take half of the supplies FEMA take control of. Then they let the private sector have the other half. What kind of deal is that?

And then... We're paying twice for this stuff. Right, and then with the private... What they're doing is, they're then turning around, see, the private sector's then turning around and then trying to sell masks to states for

six, seven, eight, nine, ten dollars that normally cost a dollar. And we'll put a brother in jail for selling a cut CD. What's wrong with this? This make no sense. Last month, you don't need a mask. This month, yeah, we think you need a mask. It's unbelievable.

The truth keep changing, Roland. It's unbelievable. The truth keeps changing, Roland. It's insane. Well, not only that, first of all, he bristled at the news conference when he was asked, where's Dr. Fauci? And Trump was like, well, sometimes that happens here, sometimes he doesn't. And my deal is we trust Fauci more than we trust you. The thing here that for a lot of people out there who don't understand, and again, I've never been in the military but i've trust me as a journalist i've covered enough disasters hurricanes tornadoes i've interviewed enough people in military our military is used to moving stuff real fast real quick all over the

world this idea that our military i've had two four-star generals on here, Lloyd Austin and Kip Ward. Our military can move faster than any... I mean, give me a break. So these guys are trying to act as if, like, oh, no. No, we've got to have

these companies in their truck. They do these things every single day. And, no, the problem is that Donald Trump has aligned with the Chamber of Commerce. And these people are making millions and billions from this national emergency. And that's the real deal. It's called disaster capitalism. It happened after every disaster. Favorite companies get the big contracts.

They take the money off the top. Look, Roland, this same FEMA region that's dealing with New York, FEMA Region 2, they have not repaired the houses in Puerto Rico. They have not repaired the houses in St. Croix. And now we're asking them to deal with the hottest spot in America. And they're doing this with an acting FEMA director. What in the hell is going on? But let's roll. Let's talk about this for a minute. Because our people got to know we've survived a lot worse. We got to take care of one another.

We got to take care of our elderly and our relatives that have secondary conditions that might get exposed. And we've got to make sure none of our preachers are going out there trying to hold no group service or church on Sunday. We've got to work inside our community and help take care of one another and take care of our people and support the nurses and doctors in our community, regardless of what flavor they are, support them so they can go back and take care of people in the hospital. I think that is what's going to save this because, as I've said before, the only one going to save us is us, and the people are going to have to look out for one another

and take care of one another in this time of need. Also, I think also that people are now seeing the BS that we're hearing. The ABC, as well as Rasmussen, shows that his approval ratings have dropped and his handling of this crisis has dropped. And in fact, I dare say, because he got so excited with that New York Times story over the weekend about the ratings of these news conferences. Since he's taken the news conferences over, he now actually looks worse because the lying, every time he stands up there and lies and then has to get corrected by Fauci or come back, it shows he's incompetent in what he's doing.

In general, what it's doing is it's actually putting the nation at risk. I have never seen a commander-in stand in before microphones and say, why do you need so many gowns? Why do these hospitals need so many masks? Why do you need so many ventilators when in a moment like this, you don't give a damn about you you say, go make a million ventilators, and if we only use 500,000, we'll figure out where to store the other 500,000. But you don't nickel and dime America while people are literally dying. It's a sad case to say that many people will die in the coming days because we don't have ventilators. Many of our doctors and nurses will get sick because they're not properly

protected by having a proper PPE. And Roland, we don't have a quick test, but these doctors and nurses need to be checked between shift so they're not taking this home and they're not bringing it back in the hospital. I'll give you a number. We have one hospital in New Orleans where 16 healthcare workers came up positive. That next day, they isolated another 314 people who had worked with them the day before. That's the danger of not having some quick tests

that we could test people who's working to try to save lives, Roland. That's the sad thing. And we were told, I mean, I sat there and watched it, CVS and Walgreens and Walmart, we're going to be using their parking lot parking lots for massive drive through testing. None of that's happened. We haven't seen it. Uh, we have, and we wasted frankly, two months when it came to the labs.

And so the problem is you don't even have enough labs to now process those those tests as well. I mean, but but this is what happens when you have incompetent people who are in charge. You have been sounding this alarm. It was glaring and all the sugarcoating. Oh, we're doing great. We give ourselves a 10. We've been wonderful. We've been phenomenal and awesome. Look, all that pat on the back means nothing when people out here in New York are dying, when the cases are exploding in Mississippi, in Florida, in Louisiana, all these different places. And finally, you're seeing these red state governors finally wake the hell up and have shelter in place. And even with shelter in place, all these people who keep saying that this is going to somehow destroy our economy.

You know what actually destroys the economy? Uncertainty as to whether or not I can go out and if I'm going to get sick so they can rush. They can try to rush through this and get us back circulating. But what kills you is people say, I don't know if I don't want to go to work or go out because I might catch it and might die. That to me is the scariest thing if you don't have shelter in place all across the country.

And think about this, Roland. We've got a lot of people out there stocking shelves at minimum wage. There are clerks at the stores, minimum wage, and I don't mean $15 a million wage. A lot of them are working for eight, $9 an hour. Yep, yep. Why wasn't something included?

We need those workers. Yeah. You have the best supply chain in the world. If you don't have a delivery system, you can't get there. We need to take our hat off. The men and them are all people, minority people doing these jobs. What happened if they said, I'm not going to risk myself to go out here. Yep. For nine dollars an hour. And what's great. Witness to them and we see them in the store. We got to thank them, Martin. And what's crazy is we now know that the coronavirus can actually be made be somehow stay on boxes.

And so we also got to make sure that they have been tested because they're the ones who are also touching goods, things along those lines. And here's the last thing, General, the point that you just made. With this coronavirus pandemic has also shown everybody, the people who get overlooked in our society, nurses, teachers, medical professionals,

store stockers, all the people who are... Trump drunkards. All those people. We need every single one of them. Otherwise, we can't even go to the store and buy goods. Isn't that quite interesting?

Yeah, and we ought to use this time, all of our friends you got coming on, to put some hellified heat on Walmart to pay our people a living wage and with health care. There's no reason why they're not paying people a decent wage with health care. Because right

now, many of those workers have to go on Medicaid and ask the government to take care of them. Because Walmart is more worried about profit than they are taking care of their people. And now is the time to put the heat on them. Retired General Russell Honore, always

appreciate your candor and honesty. Thanks a lot for joining us. God bless. Take care of our people. Test, test, test. Yes, sir. You take care of yourself as well. Folks, earlier today I had a chance to talk with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts about this coronavirus pandemic. Remember, she also was impacted when she had to self-quarantine when she was possibly exposed to this whole issue.

Here's my conversation with her. All right, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, always glad to see you. Talk about your personal coronavirus scare I mean you had to self quarantine yourself just share with share with our folks how scary that was for you and your family no absolutely so this was you know probably 14 days ago and the the situation was was much different than it is now for our country. Right. But what happened is that I was experiencing shortness of breath, tightness in my chest, um, fevers, and, um,

my symptoms were not subsiding and I was considered high risk because my colleague that I sit next to in financial services, uh, representative Ben McAdams had tested positive and in fact was hospitalized. And so I had been exposed. I also have asthma and I also have alopecia, which is an autoimmune disease. And so for all of those reasons, I was considered high risk. So sort of what happened is I had these symptoms. They were not going away.

I contacted my PCP. She then conducted an online triage. That's how they determine what category you fall into. Recommended or referred me to a testing center. I went there to Mass General and was tested both for the flu and also COVID-19. Fortunately tested negative for COVID-19. I did have the flu. And so that is what was going on, but it was very frightening. And the thing that I was thinking about,

my mind was racing about a lot of things, but just that if you are sick, you are also going through this alone. My husband was ready to fight folks because he was not going to be able to be with me. So for anyone, because you have to also prioritize containment. So you're not feeling well, you're afraid, and then the people that would normally calm you and comfort you, you can't be in proximity to you.

So you are completely going through this alone. But I just, you know, I thank God that my test was negative and I continue to lift up and send up prayers for all those that are battling this virus and for the surviving family members, for those that we have tragically already lost to this pandemic. Let's talk about this coronavirus pandemic

and really this, that I'll call this lackluster federal response. I mean, you have Donald Trump standing at the podium saying states should be getting their own ventilators, wear the backup. When you talk about him questioning whether or not hospitals really need as many gowns and masks that they should.

I mean, this really is not a state-by-state emergency. This really is a national emergency, and this is where the federal government should be leading, as opposed to saying, hey, you guys go out there and compete on your own, and now you've got people price gouging with masks. I mean, this is an abdication of leadership. Absolutely, he's been criminally negligent. And as you know, I've always referred to him as the occupant because he embodies nothing that is presidential,

either the strategy, the intellect, the empathy. And so what he's been doing is, it's just that. It's criminally negligent. It's the misinformation, just reckless and irresponsible. And we're going to continue to do everything we can, albeit remotely, to conduct the role of oversight of this administration while we're in the midst of this pandemic. But that won't only be while we're in the eye of this storm. It'll be beyond that. And there will be accountability. We'll better understand who knew what and when. And they'll be taken into account. Right now, what I'm focused on is making sure that the CARES Act, our third relief package, that it is equitably implemented. This virus is not one that discriminates. And so our response, both from a public health frame and an economic recovery frame, should not discriminate. We need to protect, keep safe and healthy, and ensure that every individual worker and family can weather this storm and

recover in the aftermath. When you talk about that oversight, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has created this select committee, and Republicans are already upset. They're angry about it, which doesn't make sense because you should want to ensure that the funds are being dispersed properly. Even when Trump signed the bill, he then made this signing statement pretty much saying, look, they're not going to have oversight over many aspects of this. That's the job of Congress. It is to have oversight. Well, I agree. And, you know, again, in these times, that's been one of the greatest challenges, is that the Congress, we are co-equal branches of government. It is our constitutional

duty, however, the House, to be the checks and the balance. And this administration has stonewalled, obstructed, evaded all of our efforts to do that. But, you know, we persist. I'm grateful that this special committee or task force has been put together. Certainly grateful for the leadership of our chair, Whip Clyburn, assuming the role as the head of that task force. But again, I'm focused on ensuring that on the ground, by partnering with my state and local colleagues, that the implementation, God whether you're talking about the economic recovery and the stimulus funds and those grants and loans and how they'll be awarded, or whether or not you're talking about access to testing and to treatment. And on that front, I do just want to say that history has already shown us that the response is disparate. If you look at the pandemic of H, well, it didn't become a

pandemic, thank God. But if you look at the H1N1, black folks disproportionately represented the highest mortality rates of H1N1. And that's why I've partnered with Senator Harris, Senator Booker, and Senator Warren in pushing Health and Human Services to collect in real time and to disaggregate data when it comes to testing and to treatment, racial data. And in fact, I was watching, looking at a tweet from the Associated Press report yesterday showing that African Americans make up 13% of the the people of the population in the state of Michigan. It represents 35 to 40% of all deaths so far in Michigan.

Right. Yeah. And can I just say, you know, anytime we talk about race, people will, there are those that will throw barbs and accusations of race baiting. Race does matter. And I want to be very clear, no one is accusing our heroes that are patient facing on the front lines, our doctors of racism. What we're talking about is systemic structural racism, where black folks will show up presenting

with symptoms and they will not be taken as seriously, treated as equitably. We need the data in real time because that will directly inform how we coordinate and marshal resources. And again, this is not dramatics or hyperbole. We saw with H1N1 that black folks disproportionately bear the burden of that virus and also of mortalities. We are also vulnerable. We all grew up with folks in our family saying that they had the sugar, and these disparate health outcomes and health disparities like diabetes, like asthma, like heart disease, they become such a conflated part of our health identity. As black and brown folks said, when people talk about folks being at risk with underlying conditions, we don't even think that means us, but it means most of us. And that has everything to do with unequal access to

healthcare, neighborhoods that are not an ecosystem that support us thriving and being healthy, and the list goes on and on. So not only are we more susceptible to the virus, but we are more susceptible to the most severe consequences of it if we do contract it. And as a part of that, again, I think about the young man who was in Michigan, who was showing symptoms, went to the hospital,

he got turned away. When I think about, again, where we are now, because this administration utterly failed early on when it comes to testing, and they're out there touting, oh, we've done 1.3 million tests. But the problem is there's a big Rose Garden news conference where Trump has CVS and Walgreens and Walmart and how we're going to be doing all of this testing in parking lots. But the problem is that hasn't happened. But even if you did have massive drive-thru testing, you don't have the capacity in the laboratories to be able to process it, again, because we pretty much screwed around for 30 to 60 days. And so we're still sort of stuck in this conundrum where there are people out there

who are actually sick, who can't get tested. There's a nurse. Her name is Veronica. She follows me on Twitter. She just tweeted me last night and she said, I've been admitted to the hospital where I work. She was just tested. She was showing symptoms last week, Congresswoman. And she, as a nurse, working at this hospital, could not get a test. Now she has it. She's been admitted.

Roland, it's just criminal. There is blood on the hands of Donald Trump and his administration. Now, in Dr. Fauci, I trust. In Donald Trump, I do not. about cocktails that they could create on their own to cure COVID-19. Drugs that treat lupus have been bought in mass and people again disproportionately African-Americans who are living with lupus cannot access these drugs that they need to stay healthy and to stay alive. The list goes on and on just with the recklessness

of this administration. And again, there'll be time to take him to account. I was, I try to stay out of my mentions. My team asked me not to engage the trolls, but someone had, you know, there were people repeatedly commenting about the fact that we need more elected officials that are legislators and not activists.

You are clueless about the times that we find ourselves in. You have got to be both. When you are dealing with every ism, the callousness, the cruelty, the chaos of this administration, you will not get anything if you are not being an activist. And now he has reduced our governors to more than activists on behalf of their states, but beggars having to post live Twitter videos begging for equipment to keep their frontline health workers safe and health care workers safe. And also to ensure that patients have the equipment and the medications that they need to recover. It is just unconscionable. And so we're working, you know, remotely. We're on the phones all day and marathon teleconference calls and Zoom meetings,

both around the implementation of the CARE Act, gearing up now for a fourth package, which will be focused on infrastructure and recovery. I'm certainly going to be fighting for the definition of infrastructure to be expanded and more comprehensive and robust. Infrastructure can not only be about broadband and roads and bridges and transportation infrastructure. Housing is infrastructure. Child care and caregiving, that's also infrastructure. So these are some of the things we'll be focused on. And I remain very alarmed about what is happening to our most vulnerable and amongst those, including our incarcerated men and women who are quite literally sitting in a petri dish being left to

die. The thing about this administration is that they have been slowly killing us with their discriminatory policies and their negligence every step of the way on every issue. Now they're just doing it more bluntly. And that's true for every person who calls this country their home. When we talk about, obviously, what is happening with our personnel, when you look at these daily news conferences with Governor Andrew Cuomo, when you see what is happening with Governor Pritzker, the attacks on the governor in Michigan. Really, I think what is happening here is there is pretty much, here is a guy who frankly is used to trying to make a quick

buck. And I think what is happening is, I think what he is doing is he is prioritizing the ability to, frankly, for these businesses and these companies to make a whole bunch of money off of this situation, as opposed to using the power of the federal office to be able to say, not going to happen. So by refusing to properly use a National Defense Production Act, he's pretty much saying, no, no, no, no, because he's allowed the chain of commerce to convince him don't do it. So these companies can essentially price gouge. Mark Cuban has been blasting 3M saying, how dare you allow your suppliers to take your 3M mask and then now be selling them for eight to 10 times the normal price. Trump doesn't want to do anything because, again, this is a way for his business people in this pandemic to make millions upon millions, as opposed to saying the safety of Americans is most important to suppliers, any of you charge more than $1. If you charge one cent over that,

we're going to go after you. That to me is how you care for your citizens and you use the power of the federal office to make it happen. Absolutely, Roland. And for those who have, you know, said that we need a businessman running our country, let's not forget that Trump was a failed businessman. And he's also one who's void of any empathy and morally bankrupt. I think he's been gleeful in his control over supply and demand and that he has, you can see direct correlations with his politics and how he has engaged and what governors he's been combative with, who he has celebrated and been responsive to. It is just unconscionable. And there is blood on his hands. People have died, and people will continue to die because of his science denials and because of the criminal

negligence of he and his administration. And I appreciate you, Roland, excuse me, parsing your words, because I see folks online saying the federal government is failing us. No, Donald Trump is failing you and our Republican colleagues. The federal government is not failing you, because this Democratic majority Congress fought hard to make that CARES Act, which was just a massive bailout for corporations to fight tooth and nail to center individuals, families, and workers. And the things that we did get relative to direct cash assistance and, you know, pausing student loan payments and stopping involuntary garnishment of wages and benefits because of student loans, $100 million for the Bureau of Prisons, $850 million for our state and county jails, $4 billion for those experiencing homelessness,

expanding the unemployment provisions to include self-employed, independent contractors, gig economy, artists, and all of that is because Democrats fought for it. And we had to fight tooth and nail for that. So the federal government is not failing you. This Democratic majority-led Congress and our colleagues on the Senate side are fighting tooth and nail. But it's a shame for that. So the federal government is not failing you. This Democratic majority-led Congress and our colleagues on the Senate side are fighting tooth and nail, but it's a shame we have to fight this hard just to center the humanity and dignity of all people. Last issue here that I want to deal with, that is, of course, the money in this $2 trillion deal that's targeted at small businesses. We had John Hope Bryant on the show yesterday, and really trying to get African American businesses to apply for those dollars, saying, look, there's no reason in the world we should

see these small businesses, these barbers, these salon owners, people who own restaurants, who own clothing stores, people who are individual contractors, that money is there for us as well. And so just please speak on how vital that is for black businesses to not procrastinate, to not think it's not for them to access those dollars so we don't lose those businesses and people aren't really suffering more. And the people who they employ aren't suffering. That money is meant to keep them employing their people. That's right. And we had in mind specifically beauty salons and barber shops, you know, any cannabis businesses. I mean, that's one of the businesses I'm, you know, thinking about might be stigmatized in this as they always are. And we've been fighting

so hard for more of us to own those businesses. But, you know, we want everyone to apply. I do have to say that we continue to have concerns about the capacity of the Small Business Administration. They are not used to being contacted by nonprofits, by faith-based institutions, as well as small business owners. But the grants are there, the loans are there. And the other thing is that it's first come, first serve. So many of us, of our businesses, are already starting out behind. So we need you to apply. Myself and other colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus are looking at creative vehicles where we can do online sort of tutorials, because we know that the application process can be intimidating

and somewhat onerous. And again, we have concerns about the SBA's capacity to process these loans and grants quickly, but we need you all to apply. In the meantime, for the fourth package that will be focused on recovery, we'll continue to fight for an equitable economic stimulus to ensure that our businesses are not left behind as they have been so many times before. All right then, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. Certainly appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.

We're going to keep plugging away and keep informing our people so we have all the right information. All right. Stay safe and healthy. Thank you. All right. Take care. All right, folks. As you heard Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley say, she talked about the impact of African-Americans having greater deaths as a result of coronavirus. Michigan is now reporting the racial breakdown of COVID-19 cases. So far, 10,791 positive cases have been reported and 417 deaths.

Of that number, African-Americans account for 35% of the cases and 40% of17 deaths. Of that number, African Americans account for 35 percent of the cases and 40 percent of the deaths. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, just 14.1 percent of Michigan's population is African American. Joining us right now is Kat Stafford. She's a national race and ethnicity reporter for the Associated Press. Kat, this is certainly startling numbers and it shows how, again, when we hear the phrase, America gets a cold, Black America gets a flu, now in this case, coronavirus is showing the racial disparities that exist in the United States. Yes, and this is data that we have been pressing a number of states for,

especially states that have significant African-American populations. And just to note, you know, as of today, Michigan has actually surpassed 12,700 cases and 479 deaths. And we are still seeing that hold in terms of that percentage of African-Americans who are being impacted by that. And when you think of Detroit, when you realize that the city has 78% of a population that is African American, that's who's being hardest hit. And Detroit is a city that's similar to other ones around the country. When you look at New Orleans, when you look at even Chicago, these are cities that have systemic issues. These are cities that are dealing with concentrated poverty. And so when you think about

how it's impacting black folks, you know, a lot of people are saying we need more testing. We need to be able to get people to these testing sites. And there's a lot of concern about who's actually getting the resources. In fact, ProPublica did this story. Anthony, go to my iPad. As of Friday morning, African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee County's 945 cases and 81% of its 27 deaths in a county whose population is 26% black. racial breakdown. It was Congresswoman Pressley as well as Senator Elizabeth Warren who sent a letter asking for federal officials to track this data by saying that it's important for us to know who is actually dying because that speaks to, again, lack of health care. It speaks to who has persistent conditions. It speaks to economics. The question is, who's getting treatment? All of those things, this is where race still matters. Right. And also, when you just think about the data, if states were to actually track this and release this information, a lot of medical experts have

said this will help them better take care of the patient population. This will help cities be able to identify, okay, this zip code needs more testing. This zip code needs more ways for us to find places for people to go get tested from. So it's not just a matter of people want this data. A lot of experts are saying that this is a crucial piece of information that will really help the country better fight this virus. Are we seeing more states? Are they going to go towards this or are they resisting this? Well, in my reporting so far, not that many states actually are reporting this. Michigan just started Thursday. Thursday was the first time this information became available.

And what's important to note is even though they released this information, it's not a totality of what's happening here. There's a large chunk of that data where over 30% of it is unknown. So that's kind of concerning because we don't know who are these people. But you have some other states, like you mentioned, Milwaukee has been doing an excellent job. Some individual counties have been doing an excellent job as well, but still, we're not seeing a robust effort across the country. And again, that's why I think you saw Congresswoman Presley and others, Elizabeth Warren, really pressed for this type of precedent to be set because their argument is how else will we know who really needs this treatment? All right, Kat Stafford with Associated Press.

We certainly appreciate it. Great reporting. Thanks a lot. All right, folks, we talk about the economic first, the health impact. But now let's go to the economic impact. The U.S. economy lost jobs for the first time in a decade in March, and the unemployment rate rose more than expected to 4.4% as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The Department of Labor released its monthly job report today, and it showed some startling numbers, but they actually are worse than what they released

because the Trump administration actually told some states to stop counting the people who are filing. Joining us right now is Banja Ajilore, senior economist at the Center for American Progress. Banja, give us a sense of just, okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I thought we had Banja up. Okay, Banja there?

Oh, yes. Ben Gess here. All right. Glad to have you here. So give us a sense of, break down these numbers, what were released today. I mean, they released this. It's actually worse than what they released today i mean they released this is actually worse than what they released yes very much so so when it comes to the unemployment numbers what they do

is they measure these numbers starting the second week of each month so the numbers that we see today there was an increase in general unemployment from 3.3 percent up to 4.4 percent so that was a huge one percent jump now for africanAmericans, it jumped up from 5.8% to 6.7%. But one of the things that we've seen recently in the last two weeks is the number of unemployment insurance claims going up by 10 million. So it's actually much larger. And so the next month when we get those numbers, we'll better reflect what's happening now. So while there's a huge jump already, it's going to be much worse. And when you talk about those numbers, look,

we already saw, what was it? Was it 10 million unemployment claims were filed? Yep, over the last two weeks, over 10 million unemployment insurance claims. And like I say, we know that Trump asked Ohio to stop counting because they actually wanted the jobs report to look better because they were anticipating these numbers.

Yeah, so one of the things is that each week that we have the new unemployment insurance claims numbers, but during the week, states can sometimes claim, say, OK, this is what we have for the state. And so what the administration asks is that the states stop reporting that and just leave it to the weekly claims. And so what they didn't want to have happen is that people start worrying throughout the week up until Thursday. But the

thing is, each Thursday they're going to have to announce what the number of the UI claims are going to be, and those are the numbers that we have to go with. So what should we be bracing ourselves for and preparing when it comes to the next month, when you think about unemployment numbers, jobless claims, everything dealing with the economy. So one of the things we're going to have to anticipate is that we're going to have unemployment numbers probably upwards of 10%. Some people are saying 13%, 15%, even higher. But one of the things we have to realize is that the reason why we have such high unemployment numbers is because we have this public health crisis, and it's driven primarily

by this public health crisis. And if we don't tackle this public health crisis, we're going to keep having these high unemployment numbers. How do you think the $2 trillion stimulus plan is going to impact that? We had John Hope Bryant yesterday on, founder of Operation Hope. He talked about what this could very mean for small businesses. If that kicks in, will it sustain us or can we expect that number just to keep going up regardless of even this $2 trillion plan? So one of the nice things about the CARES Act is that it includes expanded unemployment insurance benefits. Over the last, since the Great Recession, many states, and a story came out about Florida, how they've made unemployment insurance benefits more restrictive, made less people less eligible,

and really tried to make the program not work. Now, in the $2 trillion bill, they have a lot of provisions that expand unemployment insurance. There's even work sharing that's going to help people who, firms that don't want to lay people off, but still want to keep these people on board. There's those kinds of programs. And so as long as those kick in, as long as those businesses and the states actually engage in those programs, that's going to really help out. But there's still more that needs to be done because you look at other things like not just unemployment insurance, but things like paid sick leave, paid leave, things for childcare.

Those things were absent in all the previous bills. And those are the things that are gonna need to be in place to help us sustain us through this public health crisis. All right, Bonjour, Anjuloray. We certainly appreciate it for breaking the numbers down for us. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. All right, folks, now it's time for our weekly American Worker segment. Changing the mind is very difficult on how white people act and how they grow up. But if you get somebody that makes it inspiring and and you can motivate them, and you can educate them, that's where you change the dynamics for the future of our children. I'm George Morales. I'm the constable of Precinct 4 here in Travis County.

I'm raised in Southeast Austin, in a community called Duff Springs. In the late 80s, early 90s, it was really hard in our community in Duff Springs. In the late 80s, early 90s, it was really hard in our community in Duff Springs. We had a lot of gangs and drugs that were being sold in our communities. I came up in law enforcement seeing a lot of constables

put themselves in the forefront. It's a community-based office. You wanna be out there amongst the community and show them the better side of law enforcement, show them that hard work does pay off. That's comfortable work to me. As the president of the Dulce Springs Advisory Board, our goal is helping the rec center grow,

implement programs. We do events from Easter, which we have about 2,000 kids. The back to school bash, we did about 3,500 backpacks. I think a lot of kids may see him as a hero because he gives back to the kids. It's like he's always talking to kids. He's always around youth. He knows that it's the next generation

that's gonna take over. I don't do this by myself. I was taught by my union that if we work together, things happen. If we speak up, things happen. Union is strength in numbers. And I bring those numbers from the Dustbins community, from the Precinct 4 community.

And that's the union pride that I have. All right, we certainly want to thank the folks at AFSCME for being one of our partners here at Roland Martin Unfiltered. And we thank them for their support for making this show possible. All right, folks, breaking news out of Tennessee. That state has repealed a law that tried to impose criminal penalties and fines on groups that register people to vote.

The Lawrence Community for Civil Rights Under Law, along with their partner, sued Tennessee. The state knew the law was discriminatory and unconstitutional, according to the lawyers. Well, guess what? They've now realized that, and this, of course, is a huge win for the people of Tennessee.

Also, some other breaking news here in Chicago. Cook County Judge Tony Preckwinkle has fired the chief architect, Anthony, go to my iPad, of the COVID-19 response, who is the chief operating officer for for the county, for that particular county. Dr. Terry Mason, of course, a longtime doctor there, was fired by the county judge today. No reason given why all of a sudden in the midst of this, she would fire Dr. Terry Mason. I've known Dr. Mason for years, an amazing doctor, used to be with the city of Chicago and was a chief medical officer for Cook County, then became the chief operating officer, the number two official for the county.

I reached out to him, have not heard back. And again, no reason why the county judge, Tony Preckwinkle, has made that, county board president Tony Preckwinkle, has made that decision to actually fire him from that position. So we'll be getting more details on that when we can. All right. So a lot of y'all always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I wear. Now, I don't know. Robert don't have one on. Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones. And so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago,

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

so this is really a pretty cool pocket screen and what I love about this here is you saw when it's in in the pocket you know it gives you that flower effect like that but if I wanted to also, unlike other, because if I flip it and turn it over, it actually gives me a different type of texture. And so therefore it gives me a different look. So there you go. So if you actually want to get one of these shibori pocket squares, we have them in 47 different colors. All you got to do is go to rolling this martin.com forward slash pocket squares. So it's rollingthismartin.com forward slash pocket squares.

All you got to do is go to my website, and you can actually get this. Now, for those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our Bring the Funk fan club. And so that's what we want you to do. And so it's pretty cool. So if you want to jazz your look up, you can do that. In addition, y'all see me with some of the feather pocket squares.

My sister was a designer. She actually makes these. They're all custom made. So when you also go to the website, you can also order one of the customized feather pocket squares right there at RolandSMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So please do so. And of course, that goes to support the show. And again, if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club. You want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland

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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. 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 the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early.

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