#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 5.15 Cities reopen amid pandemic; COVID-19 drug trials; #BreonnaTaylor update; Comedian Nikki Moore

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

5.15.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Cities reopen amid pandemic; COVID-19 drug trials; Lt.Gov. Garlin Gilchrist on Michigan's fight against the outbreak; #BreonnaTaylor update; Pastor rans to make a point on #AhmaudArbery's behalf; 2019 Teacher of the Year speaks; Comedian Nikki Moore #RolandMMartinUnfiltered Partner: Ceek To All Roland Martin VIPs! You’re invited to The Laugh Experience. This Friday, May 15 at 6pm PST / 9pm EST at CEEK.COM. Join Roland Martin and let’s laugh with D.L. Hughley and fellow comics Chris Spencer, Bo Dacious, Ryan Davis and Clint Coley. + Try enjoying some live entertainment in the comforts of your home. Whether you’re a music enthusiast or an ultra-base lover. CEEK’s newly released headphones hear sound above, below and from multiple directions unlike traditional headphones where users only hear sound from left and right speakers. Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020 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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at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Today is Friday, May 15, 2020, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered with the latest coronavirus numbers, which continues to rise in some areas, but a number of cities are reopening anyway. There are COVID-19 drug trials going on. We'll talk with an infectious disease specialist

about that and whether there's a possibility of a vaccine. Michigan is one of the hardest hit cities. First of all, states in the country. Detroit is one of the hardest hit cities. We'll be joined by Lieutenant Governor Garland Gilchrist to talk about what they're doing to protect the citizens there in Michigan.

Also, we'll update you with the latest in the murder of Breonna Taylor. Plus, we'll talk with a Black Lives Matter activist from Louisville and a former pastor who ran to make a point on Ahmaud Arbery's behalf. Wait till you see the video and the reaction from the white folks. Parents have

had the opportunity to see just how hard it is to be a teacher. 2019 Teacher of the Year is here to talk about honoring parents for the work that they do. Wild it out with comedian Nikkiy Moore. Plus, we pay respects to Bob Watson, who became the first black general manager

in Major League Baseball history for the Houston Astros, then became the first African American to win a World Series title as an executive. He died last night at the age of 74. Folks, it's time to bring the funk on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. politics with entertainment just for kicks he's rolling he's broke he's fresh he's real the best you, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know. He's rolling, Martel. Now. Martel. All right, folks, as of today, there are 1,477,227 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States.

88,110 deaths. So far, folks, we are fastly approaching 90,000. 307,916 people have recovered. Now, one of the things that's interesting here, and frankly, it's weird, if you will, is that you're dealing with a truly crazy person who is president. And yesterday, this nut was actually in Pennsylvania. And he made this stunning comment regarding testing that we're all still sort of trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. I mean, it's crazy what he's talking about. So Donald Trump literally said that, well, the reason we could have lower confirmed cases if we didn't test people. I don't even know

what the hell that means. You know, what we're dealing with, folks, is how truly nuts this dude is. First of all, I mean, listen to this. The best test we have tested two months ago didn't even exist. Our great companies came up with things, Abbott Laboratories and so many others.

They came up with things that Roche, they came up with things that nobody even believes. So we have the best testing in the world. It could be the testing's frankly overrated. Maybe it is overrated. But whatever they start yelling, we want more, we want more. You know, they always say we want more, we want more, because they don't want to give you credit. Then we do more and they say we want more. But we have the greatest testing in the world.

But what we want is we want to get rid of that. And we have the best test. We have tested... Oh, okay. I don't even know what that... Like, literally, I have no idea what the hell that means. I don't even... You can't even explain what the hell that even means.

It's so crazy that P.J. golfer Roy McIlroy, who has played golf with Donald Trump before, said, not going to happen again. He was highly critical of this by saying that, why you keep making it sound like we're in some kind of competition with other states? He's like, we're not in competition with other states.

Let's go to my panel. Rob Richardson, host of Disruption Now podcast. Brittany Lee Lewis, political analyst. Chris Prudhomme, Republican strategist. Chris, I don't understand how do you say just how amazing and wonderful the tests are. First of all, he tells these

Abbott tests, the FDA has now issued a warning saying that they're issuing many false negatives. Two, Trump says testing is overrated. What the hell is that? You know, Roland, there's been many times I've spoken to

you on numerous topics. I always tell the people, I mean, obviously there's been numerous challenges and obviously numerous since his I ALWAYS TELL THE PEOPLE, OBVIOUSLY THERE'S BEEN NUMEROUS CHALLENGES AND OBVIOUSLY NUMEROUS INSTITUTIONS SINCE HIS PANDEMIC. IT'S CLEAR THAT PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS HIS THOUGHTS. CHRIS, HOLD ON ONE SECOND. YOUR AUDIO IS LOW. I WANT OUR CONTROL TO WORK WITH YOU. I THINK YOU MAY NEED TO INCREASE YOUR OUTPUT VOLUME ON YOUR END

SO THEY'RE GOING TO WORK WITH YOU SO WE CAN DO THAT. WE CAN BARELY HEAR YOU. So I want our controller to work with you. I think you may need to increase your output volume on your end, so they're going to work with you so we can do that. We can barely hear you. Let me go to Brittany. So, guys, controller, y'all work with Chris on his audio. Brittany, I can't make out what the hell this dude is talking about. This is scary, Roland, to be honest, and all I hope is that the American people come is talking about. This is scary, Roland, to be honest. And all I hope is

that the American people come out and vote. I recently just saw a study that came out by one of the most prestigious medical journals calling for U.S. citizens to vote because of the botched response to this COVID-19 epidemic. And I mean, testing, testing is underrated. We have 87,000 people that have died in this country as a result of his boss response. And we're still not doing the level of testing. We're nowhere near the level of testing that's necessary for all of these states to be opening up. It's absolutely petrifying. And I pray that he is not the president, you know, when the election comes around. You know, Rob, when you listen to this full talk, I mean, here's the whole deal.

Oh yeah. So it's just downplay testing. So how in the hell are you supposed to know if somebody is sick? Well, Roland, if you try to understand crazy, you might go crazy yourself. So I can't profess to understand him at every moment, but I'm going to try a little bit. I can't profess to understand him at every moment, but I'm going to try a little bit. I think what the strategy is of not only Trump, but I'm going to

say the Republican Party, because that's their standard bearer. They're going to say, let's pretend like we don't have a problem. Let's not talk about it. Stop talking about testing. Stop thinking about it. We just need to reopen the economy. Hope everything goes well. They think that if the economy can go well and they can stop talking about this stuff, maybe they can move on to something else. Although people are dying, I don't know what else they want to talk about, but their goal is to distract and to not talk about this because he doesn't, it makes him look as bad as he really is. That's the problem. Well, yeah, I mean, I just, and again, he says this stuff, and it just literally makes no sense whatsoever. And people out there, I mean, again, the death toll is increasing.

No, the death toll is increasing. There's this balance that his people are rolling. And not only his people, there are people that want to go back out, want to open the economy, want to look for any reason to do so. And they don't want to look at the inconvenience that the fact that deaths are still rising. But, you know, there's this there's this there are businesses that are out there that want to reopen. We know the unemployment numbers are where are really at record numbers for the amount of time that we're in. So you have that going on. They want to do anything to try to push the economy back out. But here's what they need to understand, Roland.

Doing this prematurely will have long term worse worst effects because what we know, and long story, I won't get too much into this, but what my company does, we do some stuff with research and we've looked at this and people are not coming, no matter what, people are not coming out even after healthcare professionals tell them that it's okay. They're not going to come out for a good amount of time. So the economy is not going to work until it's safe. So we need to get testing up. This makes no sense for actually trying to get the economy together. But again, this guy never makes sense.

The thing here, I think we got Chris's audio straight. Chris, what's crazy about all of this, Trump at one point said we have 15 cases in the United States, we'll be down to zero. Then it was the number began to change. So then it was, well, fewer deaths possible. Then we went to 20, then 30.

Then he was like, maybe 40, okay, maybe 50, 60. Okay, now we can keep it under 100. We're at 88,000 today. We're likely going to be at 100,000 deaths next Friday. Are they going to move the numbers somewhere else? No, I don't think so. And look, the reality is that, and I don't go back to what I said initially, we all know this has obviously been a challenging process. And we know President Trump has much different thoughts than Dr. Fauci. That's very evident. It's very clear.

It's also very clear that he has his own mind and he not only says things that are factual but he also I think has a certain sense of pragmatism in terms of how he wants the economy to be, how he wants the nation to be in terms of backing good standing. So I say all that to say, Roland, look, I always say as you know we talk and I talk about what's right and I'm always honest, fair and true, as much as I am a supporter of him and, of course, also the Republican Party. But I call it like it is. He's an optimist and he wants things to be back. He said today on television the third quarter is going to be a transition.

The fourth quarter is going to be great. But you have the Fed chair who actually said something totally different than that. So I think he has a certain level of optimism. He wants the economy to get back. He wants things to be booming because obviously it's election season. So he wants things to be back on track, and I think rather quickly. But when you have a Fed chair who says something otherwise, I think it's challenging for him.

And I think he's trying to move the market. He's trying to be encouraging in a sense from an economic standpoint. Chris, he's lying. He's not being honest. Chris, he's lying. He's not being honest. Chris, he's lying. He's delusional. Go ahead, Roland. Rob, go ahead.

No, no, I'll say he's delusional. Here's the problem, and I understand, Chris, you did a great job of trying to defend him, and I'll try to help you out with a little bit of bipartisanship. The man just wanted to run a reality show. He thought he could just run this like a reality show, have a little fun, go up there, say whatever he wants. You know, the problem is he's actually going to have to work. He's actually going to have to do his job. And this is not what he signed up for.

He signed up to be a reality TV show president. This is not a game. This is real life. He should listen to Dr. Fauci. He doesn't have any medical training. Despite all the medical training he said he imported in his brain, he doesn't. He should listen to the experts. And every time he talks, the markets are going down.

So it's not working. I mean, I hear you. I know you've got to do everything you can. I think you made the best case you could, but there is nothing there. And, Robert, I appreciate that. But I also do want to point out, too, I mean, obviously he is a reality star. And I do think that, let's be frank, I think anybody, but especially for him, I think this is probably the worst case scenario any president can possibly have in terms of wanting to have a pandemic during your presidency.

Obviously, this is not something he expected. But I want to go back and look at what he's done with the first step. I mean, he's HBCU. So I do want to point out some of the things he has done. Chris, Chris, Chris, we're talking about coronavirus. We're talking about, so I know y'all want to bring up other stuff, but here's my whole point here. The man said yesterday testing is overrated.

There are 88,000 Americans are dead. We have people walking around not knowing... A lot of black folks, too. Not knowing whether they are positive or not. We have health care providers who have died. We have people, Fauci is talking about how this is impacting children from a very rare disease, and they're seeing all of these cases come up. We're seeing perfectly healthy people fighting for their lives.

We just saw the virologist for NBC News contract coronavirus. He took all the precautions. He said he believes it entered through his eyes. And this man stands up and goes, trust testing is overrated. I'm sorry. That's not being an optimist. That is being ignorant, Chris.

Ignorant. And people who look like us are dying at a much higher rate than anybody else. 40% of Michigan alone. So defending this optimist stuff is nonsense. Republicans are going to have to talk sense and say, no, dude, shut the hell up and buckle down on this thing. Stop talking about Obamagate, which is BS. It was actually Russian started. Stop trying to talk about Mike Flynn, everything else in the world.

Oh, Obama left the cupboard empty. You're the president. You're sitting in the job, bitching and moaning about everybody else, ain't going to get you anywhere, Chris. And so at some point he's going to step up. And the reason his numbers are lagging in these states, the reason seniors are going for Joe Biden at a higher rate than him, because they

see he does not know what he's doing, Chris. Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Chris responded, Rob. Chris. So, I mean, I know. Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Chris responded to Rob. Chris. Yeah, so, I mean, I think we all can conclude you say, I mean, he didn't anticipate a pandemic. I don't think anybody could.

Well, stop right there. Stop right there. Please, I wish y'all would stop saying no one anticipated a pandemic. That is a lie. There was a plan that was presented to them, his administration. They were taken through an actual exercise of a pandemic. Now, no one hopes it becomes a reality, but it is not true, Chris, that no one anticipated this. That is incorrect. Yeah. And Chris, I would say... Hold on, Rob. I need him to respond.

Oh, go ahead. Thanks, Roland. So my thing is this. I think in any presidency, no one wants to have a pandemic, right? So when I say anticipated, that was not in his... So yeah, one could argue it's in his... I'm not going to make excuses for the man, but one could argue it was not in his thought process. I get that. What I'm simply saying is that when he was running for president of the United States, he never thought

it was going to be a pandemic. Now, does that change things good or bad that has happened? No, it does not. I can't argue with that. It doesn't change at all. What I'm simply saying is that I think based on the circumstances, look, he's president of the United States. So whether people like him or not, he is... Right, which means do your damn job! And I get it, but when you have folks, I mean, let's be realistic, when you have folks like Dr. Fauci, who's been a long-time

scientist, very smart guy, you can't take it away, very sharp guy, but it doesn't always help when they're saying, obviously, conflicting things. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. You say it doesn't help when a Fauci says conflicting things. The, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold up, hold up. You say it doesn't help when a Fauci says conflict. The problem who with conflict information ain't Fauci, it's Trump. So look, if you're Fauci, you can't sit there. Dude, this man stood at a podium and talked about infecting, I mean, taking disinfectant.

Okay? Birch is sitting there trying, like, not to embarrass him. She should have said, what the hell are you talking about? She should have still been saying, no, no, no. America, do not listen to this man. We are not going to study orally taking disinfectant. No.

Here's the problem I have with this, Chris and Roland, if you can give me a second. I've actually never shared this on TV or actually publicly yet, but my sister died earlier this year, and we didn't know what the reason for the death was. They thought it was the flu, but they said it was some type of flu that they'd never seen before.

And, you know, now in hindsight, this was in late January. It could have been this. And so, look, I don't see this as a game. And what infuriates me and really pisses me off is that somehow people wearing masks have become like a political symbol. Like if you're wearing a mask trying to protect yourself, somehow you're taking the political side. This is nonsense. Follow the data and protect people's lives. So, like, I don't understand any of this anymore.

We're not talking about a tax cut. We're not talking about policy. We're talking about protect people's lives. So, like, I don't understand any of this anymore. We're not talking about a tax cut. We're not talking about policy. We're talking about protecting people's lives. Like, I don't understand how this has become political to follow science, and it shouldn't, period. And, Rob, actually, and I do agree with you on that. Actually, I do, because the other day in the Senate hearing, it was actually pretty frustrating for me.

And I was looking at both sides of the aisle, and actually I thought to myself, I couldn't watch it anymore. Because to me, it was not about people anymore. It was about either people that love Trump or those that hate him. And so I do get you on that point. I think it's politicized so much. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. We have to remember the people.

We have to remember the people that have died. We have to remember us as Americans. But he's not. He's not, though. He's not, though. And, Brittany, that's the thing that is, frankly, frustrating because General Russell Honoré has been sitting here constantly tweeting and saying,

you have to have a national testing strategy. We don't. What Donald Trump did was say, states, on y'all, do what y'all want to do, because he does not want to shoulder the blame. He does not want to have to marshal the federal resources. That's what you're dealing with.

When you get rid of the one guy, because he wouldn't endorse you and that drug, hydrochloric, whatever the hell it is, that Laura Ingraham. I mean, Brittany, when you have a Fox News host walking experts into the Oval Office to tout this drug, not real doctors, okay? And now the study shows that drug had no impact on improving the lives of people with the virus.

Yet here you got Trump up there just, oh, it could be a miracle drug. It could work. Maybe not. I don't know. But let's try it. Let's see. And go on and just say stuff and Fauci and Birx are like, pump the brakes, pump the brakes. That's the problem. The problem here is

the crazy one is the one with the most power. Roland, honestly, it's really scary. It feels surreal. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, it's really very feel for real and you know, I think at the end of the day we think about the bracket black and brown people who are on the front lines with the central workers who are dying in bulk as a result of his you know inability to create a national strategy is absolutely

petrifying we are really you know catching the brunt of this issue and it's what is on his hands, Roland. Blood is on his hands. Where we are, Chris, what we're dealing with right now is very simple. We're going to hit 100,000 deaths by next Friday. We've been averaging 2,000 to 3,000 a day. 100,000 next Friday. We haven't even got to the summer yet.

Texas has seen its largest increase in the coronavirus cases since they started counting, and it's always happening since they began to reopen. You've got Trump out here inciting people, Chris. You've got the Michigan legislature who not going to meet because these gun-toting fools are mad because of the restrictions in the state. Republicans suing a Wisconsin governor, open it back up, open it back up, and folks are dying. And you've got the person sitting with the most power tweeting all day about obamagate and bitching and moaning

about joe scarborough and the ratings of morning joe is that actually leadership chris that a president spends more than half of his day watching tv and rage tweeting so i i think look i think from standpoint, I think he feels the media obviously clearly is not in favor of him. And I think he tries to frankly change the narrative to another thing. I think he wants to focus on, well, let me not use the word focus. I think he wants to remind people of other things that are important to him as well in addition to COVID-19. I think for President Trump, he wants to look at ways, and he's doing that now, to essentially get things back going in a more normal pattern as quickly as possible. Because,

yes, it is real. There's nothing to argue about that. This is serious, and this is certainly real. There's no way to, any other way to put it. At the same instant, I do understand that we can't live in this space forever. We can't be here for six months. We can't have stay-at-home orders for half a year. It's just, it's not realistic. The reality is that the real lives of steak, you have 25% of restaurants who are, who will not permanently open up again, period. 36 million people unemployed. Chris, Chris, how do you open up? Rob mentioned this earlier. How do you open up when the numbers show Americans are saying, I'm not going out. So what you're describing, I get all of that, but here's what's going to happen.

You're saying open up. Okay, so if I got a restaurant, I'm now dealing with some places max 50% or 25% capacity. So now I'm already dealing with a few people coming in, but now I got to pay these employees, they're full wage. And nobody's walking through the door. So I'm going to catch 22. So even if I do open up because you don't have any national testing, because you've been lagging in that regard,

the American public isn't comfortable walking outside of their doors. Not working on a vaccine is a totally separate deal. But because, again, Trump and his administration, the CDC totally screwing up, wasted two months playing around with the whole test. It was a massive failure. He's out there raised tweeting, blaming on Obama when it was his CDC

with the test. So with all of that, please tell me, how can you still have an effective reopening of the country when the American people are saying, we don't even know if it's safe to go out? Well, let me say this first, Will,

and I'll come back to that. So let's not forget Dr. Tedro and the World Health Organization. I think a big part of President Trump's frustration was initially on January 15th, right, with the World Health Organization, we had a lot of ambiguity around the human-human transmission.

And that's been known. It's just a fact, the human-human transmission. And China obviously kept their secrets. Dr. Tedros, the World Health Organization, things, frankly, were covered up. And I think that caused a lot of delays. I really doubt that caused a lot of delays. Chris, Chris, Chris,

Chris, here, Chris. That's a separate issue, though. Chris, here's the problem with what you're saying. We have the stories of our own United States military intelligence who gave direct reports to him that he didn't read in early January. The reason we spend billions on U.S. intelligence is so we don't have to wait for a report from China. The United States intelligence, we have

a unit in the U.S. military whose sole job is to track pandemics. They put it in his daily, highly classified briefing. And reports have been done by the Washington Post and the New York Times, he didn't read them.

So you could keep trying to talk about the World Health Organization. Our own intelligence was telling him this pandemic is coming. We have emails from the guy in Texas who makes masks, emails from January, saying we're not prepared for this, it's coming. who makes masks, emails from January, saying, we're not prepared for this,

it's coming. We have an email chain of health executives, CDC, all around the country, saying this thing is coming. He wouldn't listen to his own people. That was the problem, Chris. And here we are,

May 15th, three months after the fact, still trying to play catch up, and he's in denial about a national test. And American people are just sitting here and we're like, so what are we supposed to do? And he's focused on Obamagate. So go ahead. So.

So. Right. And I'm not I'm not disputing most of them. But my thing is this. My thing is this rolling was human to human transmission. Well, that's something I'm not disputing most elements of that, but my thing is this. My thing is this, Roland. Was human-to-human transmission, was that something that was looked at? Yeah, it was.

It was. So we knew the pandemic was coming. We obviously knew that. But I think a major fact and a major issue was the human-to-human transmission. That's something that has been known. But we knew it was human. We knew that.

Like, we actually knew that. I mean, I'm just trying to understand, what's your point? So my point is, we lost a lot of time, January 15th. And again, I know you're talking about the report that our nation has, but I'm talking about

the World Health Organization, Dr. Treasurer, who we were looking to in the early stages of this for information, for understanding, and for knowledge. So I get what you're saying. But we look to them for that. No, no, no. You don't look to the World Health Organization when you have a United States military intelligence unit who you pay to do exactly that.

No, you actually listen to your intelligence first before the WHO. That's just trying to sit here and pass the buck, Chris. Yeah. Be a leader. I mean, is he a leader or is he not? Like if you're in charge, act like you're in charge, accept responsibility and move forward instead of blaming China, blaming the World Health Organization, blaming Obama, who hasn't been in office for almost four years. Who else he wants to blame? He blames people within his administration. He never takes responsibility. Never takes any type of accountability.

Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris. I just want to just really say, this is a story right here. Right here. The headline is, U.S. intelligence agencies started tracking coronavirus outbreak in China as early as November. November. I didn't see that report, but I want to look at it. I definitely will read it. All right.

Let me bring in an infectious disease expert, somebody who this is what he does, because, folks, this is real what we're dealing with. Dr. Tayson Bell, critical careious Disease Specialist, University of Virginia. Dr. Bell, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. You heard the conversation we were having here. Doc, when Donald Trump stands before cameras and what comes out of his mouth, testing is overrated.

That has to anger you as an infectious disease specialist. It is absolutely infuriating to see the leader of our country spewing this nonsense. Testing is absolutely important. And everyone who has any sort of confidence or intelligence about them understands that in order to safely open up the country, to know what's going on in our communities, you absolutely have to have testing. And the reason it seems like we haven't met the goal. And so he's shifting and saying it's not important. It's always been important. It always will be important. The fact that you're not making it there, you need to own it up and just say that this is what we need to do to increase our testing capacity. You don't then say it's not important. So, yes, when I saw that, so first of all, I've learned to just expect nonsense. But, you know, every now and then it just keeps to a lower level.

This was beyond the pan, beyond the fold. And I couldn't believe it. I have no words for it. And again, when we see the fact that we just showed the graphic there, nearly 90,000 deaths in this country. We'll be at 100,000 next week. And again, the moving of the goalposts, it also has to be infuriating that we don't have a national testing strategy. That I remember the news conference, the Rose Garden. It was CVS and it was Walgreens and it was Walmart.

How we're going to have remote testing all around the country in these parking lots hasn't happened. He stood there and touted Abbott has this great test, unbelievable test. Now the FDA is warning about all his negative results because again, wasted time one or two months is critical in a pandemic. That is an eternity to be behind in a pandemic when the CDC and this administration farted around for two months and Trump is out there going, oh, there's only one person here from China who has it, or we have 15 cases, it'll soon be down to zero,

or you have Larry Cutler who said, oh, no, no, no, this is close to being airtight contained. Don't worry about it. Yeah, like I said, 90,000 people have died. The case count is actually much higher than that, most likely, because we've seen that a lot of people have died from illnesses related to respiratory causes that have not been diagnosed because they were not tested. So the death toll is much higher than that in actuality. And, you know, we talk about statistics a lot, but when we round in a hospital, we see these patients, these are 90,000 lives of men and women, a lot of them black and brown, who have families,

who have jobs, who have livelihoods. And these are people who are not coming back. They can't speak for themselves anymore. Time is life in this pandemic and information is life. We absolutely have to get responsible, accurate information out there. We have to trust the science. We have to follow this and to politicize any aspect of this is absolute nonsense and it's dangerous. A vaccine might be a vaccine by the end of the year. But we've had numerous experts who said, folks, look, it's going to be 12 to 18 months. You had Dr. Bright yesterday testify before Congress. He said it's going to be 12 to 18 months at its earliest. Your assessment of where we are.

Roland, I certainly hope that we have something by the fall. But vaccines take time. You have to go through a rigorous clinical trial process. You have to make sure that they work. You have to make sure that they don't cause more illness. So SARS and dengue fever are examples where the vaccine actually caused more harm and people got sick from it.

And so that process takes time. There is this group out of Oxford who has somewhat of a head start on the process, and they think that they can accelerate the normal timeline. We'll just have to see. So I don't think it'll be ready, but I hope that I'm wrong about that. There was a news conference today where there was this big announcement about coronavirus drugs and things along those lines again. And what's crazy is, is to watch it and listen to Trump downplay the very thing.

And that which is still illogical. So I want to play this for you. I know you will. Any questions, please? Yeah. Mr. President, you said no vaccine. Vaccine or no vaccine, we're back. What did you mean by that? Yeah. The Press The Press The Press The Press The Press

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The Press The Press The Press The Press The Press The Press The Press So many other cases where you had a problem come in, it'll go away at some point. It'll go away. It may flare up and it may not flare up. We'll have to see what happens. But if it does flare up, we're going to put out the fire and we'll put it out quickly and efficiently. We've learned a lot. Steve, do you have a question? We've heard that the vaccine typically would take 12 to 18 months to develop. How can you do it in a speedier fashion? What makes you think this will work? Well, they started actually, I guess you heard in January, early January, and they've been working on it. I know so many and private companies have been working on it. The government's been working on it. So we've got the time because we put a very and they've literally been working 24 hours a day. So we've got we've got the time and we hope to be able to do something by the end of the year or shortly thereafter. But again you know it's not solely vaccine based. Other things have never had a vaccine and they go away. So I don't want people to think that this is all dependent on vaccine but a vaccine would be a tremendous thing. And I will tell you, therapeutically or therapeutics, what's going on there is equally as impressive. We have some things happening. You know, we have the rendisivar from Gilead. We have other things that are very good. I think that a lot is happening therapeutically. I can't say that it's

relatively speaking equal to what's going on with vaccines, but I think it's doing very well, very well. So therapeutics are a big factor. Yeah, please. Is there a global competition? Dr. Bell, can you even attempt, please, by all means, just go right ahead. I don't know what the hell I just heard. Can we just shut him up? I mean, let's just get him off the stage. At some point, someone who's working around him needs to say this nonsense that's coming out of his mouth

is making the country less safe. People are going to die if you give inaccurate information. It's remdesivir, first of all. That's the name of the drug. It has efficacy. We've talked about that on the show before. We have that. We don't have a vaccine yet.

So to tout a process where we don't have anything yet and say that it's more promising than something that you've already developed and you see that it has an effect, that's utter nonsense. And this talk about it's going to go away, it's going to go away. Right. It's like pollen. Oh, it's going to blow away. It'll be gone.

We've seen time and time again that infections like this can come back. They can persist in the summer. 1918, the Spanish flu came back with the rage the second season in the fall. It actually killed more people in the second wave than the first one. Exactly. You just need to pay attention

to history, pay attention to your scientists, and if you don't know, that's okay. He's not a physician. No one expects him to be a physician and to understand the subject matter. That's okay. He's not a physician. No one expects him to be a physician and to understand the subject matter. That's okay. That's not your job as a leader. Your job as a leader is to get people around you who know what they're talking about. And when something comes up that they're a subject matter expert in, you get out of the way and let them talk.

And the fact that Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, the people who know what they're talking about, Secretary Azar, they are not on stage anymore. That is really concerning to me. And the fact that it's replaced by this person who is spewing utter nonsense, it makes me mad because, Roland, honestly, physicians on the front line, nurses on the front line, we will see the effect of inaccurate information, of inadequate testing, of inadequate care, of racial disparities. We will see all that manifest in the unit, in the hospital. We will see these people suffer. We will see these people die. And when the power of accurate information can help turn a tide of this pandemic and you just see what's happening on the stage right there, I'm so angry right now. I do have to ask you this before we go, and that is,

I saw this story about Dr. Joseph Fair, the NBC news reporter, who said he did everything right. He said that he followed every preca precaution flew on a pack plane somewhere he believes he got it through his eyes so so now so now so now i'm like okay so do we i mean everyone's saying mass but do we now have to wear goggles do we not i mean what you know what do you make of this right um so we've known for a while that if you're in close contact, it can be contracted through all of your mucous membranes. These are your surfaces that make liquid. So your nose, your eyes, your mouth are included in that. If you're in close contact,

then it can get into your eyes and cause infection that way. And that's why part of PPE, when we go into patients' rooms, includes a mask and goggles or some form of eye protection so that we can make sure that we protect ourselves that way. I think for the general public, if you're maintaining that social distance of six feet or more from people, the chance of those secretions or things that come out of people's mouth or their nose when they cough or sneeze, not as far to get directly in your mouth. But if you are going to be in close contact with other people for a prolonged period of time, I'm thinking dentists, barber, that's a good idea to put some eye protection on. Dr. Taysom Bell, we certainly appreciate it,

man. Thank you so very much for your insight. Thank you. All right, folks, let's go to Lieutenant Governor of Michigan, Garland Gilchrist. They have been dealing with a major issue there. Many people in Detroit have passed away from this. We have seen just this dramatic impact as well. He has created a task force to tackle the racial disparities as a result of social inequalities in places like Detroit and Flint. Lieutenant Governor Gilchrist, how are you? Roland, it's good to be here with you, my friend. First and foremost, let's talk about this.

You just heard Dr. Tayson Bell. You hear this nonsense coming from Donald Trump that this thing might just go away. Well, vaccine, maybe we don't need a vaccine. We got therapeutics or whatever. Yet we're seeing people who are, I mean, a bus driver in Detroit, woman calls, he's dead two weeks later. This is not, and all the people trying to talk about, you know, a bus driver in Detroit, woman calls, he's dead two weeks later.

This is not, and all the people trying to talk about, you know, HIV and AIDS, look, you can get HIV or AIDS and you can live for the next 20 years. We're seeing people who are dying two weeks later. I mean, this is real. And to put this in on a personal perspective, I've lost 20 people in my life to coven 19 including a cousin yesterday i mean this is hitting our community the black community in

particular in ways that it's not hitting other parts of the of the of our population i mean in michigan black folks make up 14 of the population yet we've accounted for 40 percent of the people who've died 41 after the people who've died in the state of Michigan. So that disparity is clear, and this virus kills so quickly. And to your point, you know, we have so many people, so many people of color and Black folks are overrepresented in the people who, even in the midst of the stay-at-home orders that have been in place in Michigan and other parts of the country, have still had to go to work because you work at a grocery store, you're a bus driver, you're a nurse, you're an administrative professional at a health care facility, you're a utility worker, you're a nurse, you're an administrative professional

at a healthcare facility, you're a utility worker, you're a first responder. And so you're out there risking your life to make sure others can stay home and stay safe. And that is one of the things that the Task Force on Racial Disparities here in the state of Michigan is looking to tackle. What kind of protections can we have

for uniquely vulnerable people? And in places all around this country, that's black people. Are you in Michigan, are you getting what you need or are you still battling with other states for PPE, for other things along those lines? Because you swear, listen to Kayleigh McEnany and Trump, that all states are getting everything that they need.

We're all fine. We're great with tests. Everybody is good. I mean, the lack of a national strategy on testing and on personal protective equipment absolutely directly contributed to loss of life in my city of Detroit, where I'm speaking with you from right now, in the state of Michigan and across the country. We have worked hard, and frankly, I think every state, state leaders across the country, have worked as hard as they can to try to procure equipment,

to procure testing kits and testing component in the absence of that national strategy. And we've put in place plans where now FEMA is stepping up and now they are delivering equipment and testing swabs and components so that we can ramp up our testing because there is no way to move forward without adequate testing. But we still need more from the federal government. This is the job of the federal government to make sure that every state in our nation has the resources they need to respond to things that are bigger than statewide problems. And certainly a global pandemic qualifies for that. So we're on the right path thanks to the professionals who've been working so hard in Michigan, in the public and the private sector, at the municipal level and the state level. People

have really stepped up and stood tall. So I'm proud of that work, but we have a lot more work to do and we can do it better when we come together. When we talk about how so many of us are being impacted, New York Times has a story now about all of these hospitals who have stopped surgeries, losing lots of money. Mayo Clinic could lose $900 million this year. Johns Hopkins, $300 million. But many of the hospitals that serve low-income folks are even in a more desperate situation. What is it looking like there in Michigan? I mean, it's been a tough situation, and it's been, frankly, tragically ironic to see hospital systems doing cutbacks in the face of the biggest public health challenge of any of our

lifetime. But, you know, it calls into question and under a bigger understanding as to how hospital business models work. You know, certainly the reason that we asked for there to be a pause in those sort of elective seizures is because we needed to make sure that all the equipment was available to treat the spike of a potential spike in COVID-19 patients, that we had as much medical, equipment, hospital, bed, ICU capacity that we could take care of people who may have contracted this deadly virus. And so as we move forward, as our public health system has built that surge capacity and now may have the ability

to withstand any surges in the future, now we're on a path towards reengaging those type of activities and those kind of surgeries, and I think that's gonna help that hospital business model. Before you go, I've got to ask you about this here, the decision for the legislature not to meet because of these armed protesters. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I can't imagine state legislators, if a group of black protesters were there,

they're saying, oh, no, we're too scared to meet. That's why you have police. That's why you have folks there. They're saying, oh, no, we're too scared to meet. That's why you have police. That's why you have folks there. I mean, that to me, basically, these thugs got exactly what they wanted by intimidating state officials in Michigan. Well, let me be clear about something. First of all, I'm the president of the Michigan State Senate, the first black person to serve as lieutenant governor in our state. And so I was presiding over the chamber when you had men with guns as tall as I am, and I'm six feet, eight inches tall. They're parading and intimidating and brandishing them and scaring lawmakers. And, you know, we had a lawmaker from Detroit who wore a bulletproof vest because she feared for her

safety. You're absolutely right that if a group of armed black men came to the Michigan Capitol, where we still are one of only two states that allows open carry in our state Capitol, yeah, that could have went a whole lot differently. And we're certainly thinking of the history with the Panthers when that happened, and they changed the laws in the state of California and across the country. You know, but I want to be clear. They were not there, frankly, about the stay home, stay safe order. They weren't there about COVID-19 because like you can't shoot a virus. So having a gun at that kind of protest or demonstration has another purpose.

And especially when you couple that with the racist imagery you saw. I mean, we had a state senator wear a Confederate flag on his face. We had people having those Confederate flags draped on those weapons. We had Nazi swastikas. We had, you know, sexist symbols

of people hanging Barbie dolls because we have a female governor here in the state of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. That was a political rally empowered by the dangerous and destructive rhetoric of the president who has politicized the response to this pandemic in a way that is costing people lives. And those people thought they were standing up for him. They were standing up for politics. But our role as state leaders and as public servants is to protect and promote public health and public safety. And so that means that we're going to make decisions for people and not for politics. And going forward, we're going to make sure that we have a more equitable distribution of how law enforcement treats people who are not stepping

up and doing what they need to do to protect themselves, their households, or our communities. So will the legislature in there in Michigan, will they step up and ban guns in the state capitol? I mean, that, I mean, go ahead. The ball is in the legislature's court. So our legislature in Michigan is controlled, both chambers, by Republicans. And I think the reason, or one of the reasons why you haven't seen stronger action, and instead you've seen fraternizing with those people who are in our gallery with long guns, is because, frankly, they agree with the protesters. Because as I said earlier, they have politicized the response to a pandemic. We are planning in the best interest of public health and people following the world-renowned experts, including the leadership of our medical executive, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, a Black woman.

They may not like the fact that we have such a diverse leadership team here in the state of Michigan. But I'm here to tell you that we're working on behalf of the people of Michigan, and we challenge the legislature to step up and do the right thing to make sure that lawmakers can do their job and conduct the people's business. Legislature claims they want the power and the opportunity to do that. It's difficult to do that under the intimidation of open carry brandish firearms. Lieutenant Governor of Michigan, Garland Gilchrist, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland. Take care and stay safe. Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

Bring my panel back into this. Rob, Brittany, and Chris. Brittany, you heard Lieutenant Governor there. That says a hell of a whole lot that the legislature will not meet because of these thugs and their guns, and Republicans have no problem with it in Michigan. That is sickening. I mean, I love the point that he made in terms of, you know,

if this was a group of black folks that were armed like that, we absolutely know that this wouldn't be the response. I also like this point that said that this was like truly just, this is a political moment and they're making it a political situation as opposed to dealing with the health needs of the state and of the country. So it's unfortunate that. Chris, what do you make of that? What do you make of a legislature

not meeting out of fear of these people walking around with guns? Isn't that the point of state police? Yeah, I think frankly, there's no talk around that. I'm all for, obviously, bearing arms. I think it certainly poses a challenge.

When it comes to being, obviously, doing legislative duties, they shouldn't feel intimidated no matter what political party you are. They should be free to do their job. There's just no way around that. I think it's something that's challenging. I actually like what Senator Governor Gilchrist said best. I mean,

you can't shoot a virus. I think, obviously, they knew what they were coming from. They knew the intention. They knew the motive. I think it was to intimidate. And I think obviously they knew what they were coming from. They knew the intention. They knew the motive. And I think it was to intimidate. And if they want to have the state reopen, I think there's different ways to go about that. President Trump has talked about making a deal,

but I think there certainly is ways to go about that if they want the state reopened. And I don't think intimidating legislature is the best way to do so. Rob, real simple. What these are, these are the Tea Party thugs who Donald Trump is trying to rile up because he needs white anger and resentment

in order for him to try and win in November. Yep, pretty simple. And let me just say, here in Ohio, we actually shut down businesses as well. There were some protests, but not near that level. I wonder why. Oh, because we have a Republican governor. Because this is not near that level. I wonder why. Oh, because we have a Republican governor, because this is not about the virus. This is just about trying to get people mad. And what does the Confederacy have to do with the virus? And

what's swastikas? What does any of that have to do with the virus? Hmm, it doesn't. These people are just trying to intimidate. They're looking for reasons to be angry. And they are thugs, and they need to be checked and I think this is about intimidating people, it has nothing to do with the right to bear arms nothing and in fact, that legislator who wore the confederate mask

first tried to deny what it was then admitted it was indeed a confederate flag mask right that's what they do they deny and then they try to blame you when you call them out on their racism. Like, why are you always talking about race? Why are you being racist? Like, let's stop.

And I do want to point out, and obviously, clearly that's wrong, obviously, trying to cover up the Confederate flag and then say it was. I'm with you on that. But what I do want to point out, not every Republican, let me say this carefully, I think people associate many times, especially in this particular administration, people talk about the Republican Party, they talk about racism and Confederate flags. I mean, I'm black. Chris, Chris, Chris, let me ask you a question. Out of both political parties,

which one defends the Confederate flag over the other? Well, so I don't want to say it's a party statement. Okay, okay, okay, okay, Chris. If there are people who are members of the Democratic Party and there are people who are members of the Republican Party, which one of those members are more likely to defend Confederate flag and Confederate statues? Which one?

So I think we all know that traditionally, if there are any individuals who have any of those type of issues, it's generally it's on the right side. Their party affiliation is on the right side. So let's unpack that. So the point I'm making is anytime you see these... So, in Congress right now, who is the person who lost his committee assignments because he made, essentially, what white supremacist

views? Is Steve King a Republican or a Democrat? Well, now, Steve King is a whole other situation. No, no, no, no. Is Steve King a Republican or a Democrat? He's a Republican. Now, when you look at Mississippi, who... In terms of Confederate flag, recognizing Confederate history,

Virginia, recognizing that, who is more likely to recognize the Confederate history, Republican governor or Democratic governor? I would say Republican governor. When you've had people in Tennessee and North Carolina who have argued keep up Confederate statues, are they Republicans or Democrats? But again, I also want to say this on Confederate statues.

I didn't say white or black. Are they Republicans or Democrats? Which one is it? Republican. So what you have is, so anytime, so in 2020, so in 2020, if an issue comes up that involves Confederate flags, if you had to put money on it, you would bet they are more likely going to be Republican than Democrat.

Yes or no? It's deeper than, go ahead. Chris, yes or no? 100%. Yes. Yes. Yes. Republican.

100%. I would bet. Yes, Republican, 100%. So what does that say that Confederate flag-wearing, Confederate statue-loving people are more comfortable in the Republican Party than Democratic Party? What does that say about the Republican Party? I think it says that there are certain members, and again, let's use Steve King as a great example. I mean, many of us in the Republican Party and other members of Congress, people have talked about it. That's a different scenario. Steve King is, I think we all know.

Is he still in the party? Yep. Chris, is he still in the party? He is. Has he been expelled from Congress? No, he has not. He has not. Is the Republican Party still accepting of Steve King? So behind closed doors, I...

No, no, no, no. Not behind closed doors. That's my point. Rob, go ahead, Rob. Go ahead. Chris, I'm actually going to help you out a little bit here. So, look, the fact is every Republican is not racist, and that's not what I'm saying. I ran for office.

I got support from Republican donors, some. Not very many, but I did get some support. So I'm not going to say that, okay, people across the board, anybody that's a Republican is a racist. Here's the problem with this current president, though, beyond what Roland just went through. You have people in his administration that are white supremacists. You have a president that has embraced, that have said things that no other president has said.

He's talked about, I'm a nationalist, kind of hitting, wink, wink, white nationalists. He's got people in there who are actually proclaimed white nationalists working for him. And people are okay with this. So the problem with the party is that they're indifferent. They'll tolerate this overt racism. And the Republican Party used to be the party of just,

you know, they would just do the little dog whistle. It's a bullhorn. Clearly he is calling for people to come out. Clearly he's inciting this and he's creating this culture that is empowering people to feel as if they can push back in a way more overtly. So it is dangerous, and we have to call it out. So we need people not only behind closed doors but directly confront the hate

because it's having dramatic effects, as I'm sure we're going to talk about more. And, Rob, I certainly like your thought process and how you speak and look. And I'll say this. Speaking of hate, one of my frustrations that we were, several of us were at the White House during Black History Month. We had a reception and the president held nine. But let me tell you what my frustration was. When we talk about hate, a very close friend of mine, an attorney, Mark Little, received a lot of criticism. When I say a lot, they made fun of him on SNL, CNN, the whole nine.

Don Lemon did the whole thing on him. And simply because he sat there and he prayed for President Trump with him. And he got a lot of criticism. There are a lot of criticism for that. People, how dare you do that? How can you pray for a man? So to me, I'm a Christian. So a black man, black Republican, but I'm a Christian, strong Christian.

But at the end of the day, whether people like him or not, I'm never against. You talk about hate. I'm never against praying for someone whether people like him or not, I'm never against you talking about hate. I'm never against pranking someone whether we like them or not. I think we should pray for any president, but especially President Trump. He has a lot going on, obviously. But that, to me, I think we should address issues on both sides, because that's hate. If you can't

even pray for a president of the United States, that's absolutely crazy to me. People are upset about that. I'm sorry. Is this the same man who ridiculed Nancy Pelosi for saying she prays for him? Well, the thing is... No, I'm asking you a question. Is this the same man?

Did Donald Trump ridicule Nancy Pelosi for publicly saying she prayed for him? But this is the same Donald Trump who white conservative evangelicals love, who they hold up, who talk about how God placed him there. So, Chris, if you're going to take offense to people being critical of Mark Little, well, then you should be criticizing Donald Trump. If you're going to say as a Christian,

that's why you don't like their comments, well, then you should be equally offended when Donald Trump ridiculed Nancy Pelosi for saying she prays for the president. Do you? But also, but I want to say this, really. I do want to say this. I think you and I both know Pelosi

doesn't like the president. No, no, no, hold up. Can you answer my question? Was it wrong? So, if Nancy Pelosi said, you said, I'm a Christian. Nancy Pelosi says, she's a Christian. Nancy Pelosi says, she prays for the president. Donald Trump claims to be a Christian, ridiculed

her. So, if you are going to get upset that people ridiculed Mark Little, are you not as offended that Donald Trump ridiculed Pelosi for saying she prays for him. Yes or no? But the difference is Mark was sincere and serious about it.

Hold on. I'm not sure if it was sad. Wow. Hold on. I'm sorry. So hold up. You say you're a Christian. So how can you as a Christian determine the sincerity of Nancy Pelosi when she made the comment? Are you saying that Nancy Pelosi was not being sincere?

Are you saying that she's a fake Christian? So I'm not saying she's a fake Christian, but I think it was said... So, again, I wish we had the clip to look at it, but... Keep talking, I'll get the clip. Hold on, hold on, keep talking. Keep talking, I'll get the clip. Wait a minute, Rob.

If you don't mind, sorry. But I'll say this. If you don't mind. Sorry. But my thing is this. My bad, Rob. But my thing is this. I think it was in a context of kind of satire. Like, let's really be real.

Pelosi. Now, don't get me wrong. Does she want him to do well? Does she want our country to do well? Let me just say that. Yes, she does. But what I can tell you, and no, not about being a she does. But what I can tell you and know not about being a Christian, but I can tell you is this. Mark sincerely. Set there and had a strong and powerful prayer, not for attention, not for a grandstander, because he generally felt and wanted the president to do well, wanted our country to do well.

Now, Pelosi, on one hand, can talk about President Trump, say all these negative things and this and that. And not just negative things as in, he's not doing this and that, he doesn't like him. I mean, harsh things. And I'm not saying he doesn't say things about her. I'm talking about her right now. But then you turn around 30 seconds later and say, oh, you know, I had a prayer for him to hope the best and whatever she said, and, you know,

wanted the Lord to touch him, wanted him to do really well. That doesn't add up to me. It doesn't make sense. We all know it doesn't add up. So, and in fact, well, first of all, what you just said is not what she said. In fact, you asked for it. Here it is. Go to my

iPad, please. Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker? I don't hate anybody. I don't have a grave in the Adler House. We don't hate anybody. Not anybody in the world. they don't like the guy. I have nothing to do with it. Let me just say this.

I think the president is a coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence. I think he is cruel when he doesn't deal with helping our dreamers, of which we're very proud. I think he's in denial about the climate crisis. However, that's about the

election. This is about the election. Take it up in the election. This is about the constitution of the United States and the facts that's about the election. This is about the election. Take it up in the election. This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president's violation of his oath of office. And as a Catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don't hate anyone.

I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love and always prayed for the president. And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time. So don't mess with me when it comes to words like that. Chris, you called that satire. So, I don't think that she... And I'll be clear, I didn't say the word hate.

But I will say that... No, no, no, but what you said is, no, you said her comments were made, they were satirical comments. We just played them. I did say that, correct. We just played them. I did say that. What was satirical about what you just heard? Because my thing is this.

She can't say negative things about Trump, and he's this, he's difficult playing, all these negative connotations she talks about the president, right? And then you can't say 30 seconds later, I sincerely, and I'm not saying she doesn't, but what you can say is... Actually, you can. What she said is, Brittany, she separated. She said, stop, that's politics. On this, she was

real clear. She simply, she said, wait a minute, that's politics. She said, take that up in the election. Brittany, go ahead. Absolutely. You know, she said, wait a minute, that's politics. She said, take that up in the election. Brittany, go ahead. Absolutely. You know, I think this is a lot of political theater. And I think, you know, at the end of the day, whether or not Nancy Pelosi wants to pray for somebody is really beside the point, because we're talking about Christians being invested in making a difference and doing Christian-like things. And we would actually have to talk about the policies that Donald Trump is trying to uphold, which are obviously not Christian in and of themselves. You're not going to lock kids

in cages along the border if you actually are a true Christian and you care about individuals. You are not going to allow white supremacists to do things that's going to incite violence against Asian Americans, against black Americans, if you are a true Christian. I think it's very evident that Donald Trump's policies don't speak to someone that is actually a Christian or that actually wants the best for this country. And I think whether or not Nancy Pelosi is criticizing Trump, I think is really beside the point. Like she can pray for him, that's fine. But at the end of the day, I think it's very interesting. We see all of these Christians supporting and backing Donald Trump, knowing that his policies aren't very Christian-like at all.

Rob and Chris. Rob and Chris. You're not going to like some of what I say. Where I thought you were going with this is the fact that simply because a Black person happens to be a conservative or happens to be a Republican means that they're a sellout and we have to hate them and talk about

them a certain way. I disagree with that completely. Now, that being said, I have black conservative friends, and I will wound them with the truth because real friends will hold you accountable. And this president is not like normal Republican presidents. He requires another level of introspection. He requires another level of criticism because he has embraced hate in a way we haven't seen before. Therefore, we're not talking about how much money one gets or we're not talking about economic policy. We're talking about the fact that he doesn't respect people of color.

He doesn't respect black people. And that's the problem I have with the words he says. That's the problem. And the climate he creates, it is dangerous. That's what I think. And that's the reason why we have to call these. That's what I think. And that's the reason why we have to call these things out when we hear them. Chris, final comment. Thanks, Will. I just hope that we can all come together. And I generally mean this. I hope we

can all just come together. And I think it's a lot of backpiting on both sides, obviously. It's a real problem. So I really hope that we can generally put all of our issues aside and really come together, not just for COVID-19, but as a nation, because there's a reality. President Trump, let's say he gets reelected, right, which I think is a strong possibility. It's another four years. And I'll say this overall, not just as American people, but

obviously as a black man in our community, we can't sit for, at that point it would be nearly a decade, eight years, right? It's almost ten years. We can't sit here and be pissed off and nothing happened. We have to sit here and say, okay, how can we advance ourselves as a culture? How can we do the best for us as people? That's why I think it's important. So my biggest thing that I always tell folks all the time is that you can't sit here and be frustrated,

be angry and not want to have anything done or be mad because someone so talked to them and someone so didn't talk to them. We have to be about what can we do as a country, as a nation. And overall, our community has suffered for so long. We have to look at this and say, OK, he's now president and he's elected president. What can we do to come to the table to doing things better for our community? That's what I really urge us to do and come together to talk about. And maybe, Brolin, that could be a segment on the show.

I think it's really important that we look at that and say, what can we do to work together and help advance our community? I have no problem working together, but when this administration is afraid to come talk to black media, that won't happen. When this administration is afraid to sit down with black people who disagree with him, that's not going to happen. And we're

going to have an honest conversation. When you have this administration, okay, who on one hand wants to tout the First Step Act, but on the other hand sides with cops when it comes to consent decrees, when it comes to prosecuting people at the highest levels, reinstating private prisons, we can have a much broader conversation.

But this is real simple. This administration does not want to actually have that conversation. And guess what? This is open anytime, any day to any of them, but they are afraid to come have the conversation because, see, they know this is not Fox and Friends. There are no airheads named Ainsley Earnhardt and Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy here. You're not going to have airheads like Peter Hegseth. You're not going to have people who are lackeys like Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity.

See what's going to happen here? You're going to get asked real questions based upon real facts. And this administration simply can't handle that. But if they want to have the conversation, Chris, please carry the message to them. I'll be happy to have it any time any day anywhere. We come and roll it up. And I'll say this I certainly will fill in that message. I think people like you're on I think will be probably great to

speak to. Well, but I'll be happy to talk to you Ron, but when I moderated the National Minority Supply Development Council town hall. Geron as well as Ashley Bell, didn't show up. I was the moderator. Again, let me know when they want to have a conversation. We're here five days a week, two hours a day, 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern. Got to go to break.

We come back. We're going to talk with the Black Lives Matter activists in Louisville about the Breonna Taylor case. That's next. Roland Martin, Unfiltered. We can face this pandemic head on. We can do what it takes to protect our families and our communities. Together, we can get our economy moving again, but not without the tools and resources we need to get the job done. To win this fight, it is going to take a public service army. Don't let Congress fire the frontline workers who can save us.

Text FUMD to 237263 to tell Congress to fund the frontlines. I would have never been able to raise five kids alone without this excellent job and the security of my union working closely with my employer to make sure that I got the raises I deserved, that I had the medical benefits I deserved, that my children needed, making sure I have job security, making sure that I'm overall successful. It's exciting to keep making a difference. It's exciting to just be part of such a great cause involving people, which is what I love to do.

All right, folks, Black Lives Matter, Louisville has released a list of demands regarding the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police. They're asking for a transparent investigation, dismissal of charges against her boyfriend, and the release of 9-11 recordings. Joining me now is Chanel Helm. She's the core organizer for the group. Chanel, glad to have you on Rollerbutton Unfiltered. Thank you so much. It is unfortunate this case has not gotten the attention organizer for the group. Chanel, glad to have you on Roller Barton Unfiltered. Thank you so much.

It is unfortunate this case has not gotten the attention it deserves early on. It really took black folks having to yell, scream, holler, and protest just to get the attention it deserves. This shooting took place in March. Yeah, the early morning of March 13th, one of our accomplices hit us up and was like, they shot somebody, it's a mess out here us up and was like, they shot somebody. It's a mess out here.

And I was like, what do you mean it's a mess? She's like, they've just been out here for a very long time. And so that's when we knew that something was way, way wrong with the situation. A few of our adjacent family members of some cases that we had before were like, they went in a botched raid, they did another no knock, and she's gone. And I'm like, who? And they said, Breonna Taylor. And then we started getting the information. And it's just been crazy ever since. I'm so thankful that they were able to get legal counsel and start that right away. But LNPD, Louisville Metro Police Department here has been ambushing black folks, especially in the last four years, just repeatedly. Two weeks later, they ambushed a black man outside of the hospital downtown in the middle of COVID. And six months before that, Shelby Gadsway at a Kroger's, especially like almost a year to a white man walking into a Kroger's shooting black people.

And this is a year today that they ambushed DeJuantes Mitchell after some rogue surveillance. It's just been really tiring. But, you know, we're ready for the fight. And the demands we sent out, it's just got to build a foundation for it to stop, actually. The of course, the governor is now called in for a transparent stop, actually. Of course, the governor has now called again for a transparent investigation as well. You have folks who are saying these cops should be suspended. Three cops involved.

They're in death's duty, correct? Yes, they are. Those cops actually should be fired, and we are really calling for one of the early Ferguson demands, which was snatch their pensions, too. We watch these cops across the nation, you know, do horrendous crimes, murder people and then be able to get placed, you know, in different police departments as if, you know, they made an accidental mistake or they've had a

lot of tardies at work. They've murdered people. And so we believe that they shouldn't be able to get that job again. I know the family is asking for them to go to prison, but we know that there's protections even if they were found guilty. They get out early or they have special prisons that they go to. We believe that snatching that pension would be a key message, not only in just this situation, but any other situation where officers make it their option to take somebody's life on the street. Of course, families filed this particular civil suit. Obviously, COVID has impacted public protest, things along those lines, but have there been demonstrations there in Louisville since this happened? Yes, particularly with white folks who want to participate in action.

Louisville's shown up for racial justice. They did a particular action this morning. They've been protesting actually every week with the noise parade to let people out of prison, and today was devoted to Breonna Taylor. A few white people also went to the mayor's house and protested outside of his house in his neighborhood. We kind of found out his neighbors aren't too fond of him either. All right then, Anthony, what assistance do y'all need? What do you want people around the country to be able to do to help y'all there in Louisville? Please sign

that petition by color change to get these officers fired. It will send a message. We're pushing that for other families here locally as well. We want people to really research what it means to have civilian control over police accountability. That's really important, especially in situations like this. And it could lead to making policy where independent investigations take place, ones that are open. We know that this is a civil institution. The law enforcement agency is such as the police, and we should be able to make that decision in their investigations, what information has been pulled and what hasn't been pulled. And we also want Kenneth Walker, the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, all his charges released for defending his home in a botch raid that night. One of the things I've been talking about, how how side of the NRA has been. Have you seen have you seen Second Amendment gun activists standing up for Kenneth? So, right. It's been kind of interesting. A few of us have gotten

hit up by some militia folks. I'm not for sure if you're aware of, in February actually, we had some militia folks, we are Gun Rights Kentucky, I don't know what their name is, but they went down to our capital and did a protest. Kentucky is not a state that is threatening anybody's Second Amendment rights. We don't even have the opposition as most other states are. I mean, we're McConnell country, right? Rand Paul country,

that are actually threatening anybody's Second Amendment rights. However, they did hit me up to offer any type of protection during a protest, and I thought that was extremely weird, especially given their history and who they kind of look to as a mortar in this time period. But hearing anything from Second Amendment rights folks,

of course, when it comes to black bodies, were just really ignored in that situation. Kenneth Walker had every right to defend his household that night. We are seeing the injustice around whether or not we can carry guns or not. And I'll take it back to that situation where we had that white man shoot up the progress and kill two black elderly folks. He got into a shootout after he left in November of 2018. So what we're seeing here lately, especially during COVID, is really showing a lot of true colors around like what are white politicians and what militia folks actually who values whose Second Amendment rights.

It sure isn't black people. All right, then. Well, we certainly appreciate it. Keep the good work up and putting pressure on the folks there because it is certainly needed. Chanel Helm with Black Lives Matter Louisville. Thanks a bunch. Thank you so much, Roland. All right, folks. Going to a break. We come back. We'll talk about

this white man who shown support for Ahmaud Arbery, ran down his street with a TV about this white man who, showing support for Ahmaud Arbery, ran down his street with a TV on his shoulder, and nobody stopped him. He didn't get shot, and no one called the cops. He will join us next on Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real.

It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered. Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. you All right, folks. The folks at Seek, go to my iPad, please. At 9 p.m. Eastern, they're going to be having this first-of-its-kind virtual comedy experience.

D.L. Hughley, Chris Spencer, and others. Again, you see the countdown clock right there. It's going to be in one hour and 21 minutes. And so what you just saw there, this is the Seek VR headset created by Mary Spiel, the sister. We had her on the show. Black woman, she actually is the inventor of this particular headset. And so what happens is you just simply place your phone right into here and then, of course, close it up and then go to their website and then their app

and you can actually experience the Comedy Showcase. And so they have these headsets, these VR headsets on their site, Seek.com for sale. Then also they have these 4D 360 degree headphones.

First of all, I love the two stuff because they're in black and gold, my frat colors. But these are awesome because for gamers, it comes with a detachable headset. And again, folks, it gives you 360-degree sound, amazing sound. If you want to buy these, you have a promo code you can use.

This is just for our followers. And it is RM for our followers. It is RMVIP2020. RM. We should have a graphic. So guys, next time on Monday, be sure I need a graphic. So RMVIP2020. RMVIP2020.

Put that promo code in. If you want to buy the headphones, buy the VR headset, you get that discount to buy it. They're amazing. But again, be with me. I'll be there checking out the Comedy Showcase. I'm definitely going to have these on because I want to experience. Again, they've never done this before, a live virtual reality comedy showcase.

And so I'm looking forward to that. So that's going to be, so you go to SEEK.com, C-E-E-K.com. And again, you'll see right here, go to it. It's in one hour and 21 minutes. And so I'm certainly looking forward to hanging out with Dio Heegly, Chris Spencer for this one of a kind deal. So SEEK.com, R-M-V-I-P 2020. So be sure to check it out. We thank SEEK for partnering with us here at Roller Mark Diner Filter, just like we thank AFSCME for partnering with us as well on the show.

And shout out to Lee Saunders. Today is his 69th birthday. Lee is, of course, the president of AFSCME. So happy birthday to my frat brother, Lee Saunders. Folks, on Ahmaud Arbery's birthday, thousands around the country joined with hashtag RunWithMod movement and documented their 2.23-mile runs using the hashtag. Well, a former pastor in Vero Beach, Florida, ran more than two miles while clutching a flat-screen TV

to prove that the color of his skin was enough to protect him from the fatal treatment that Ahmad received. Watch this. Hey, guys, going on a nice leisurely jog here in the south, in a suburb, carrying a TV, and perfectly safe. Wonder why that is. I run with Amat.

All right, I figured it out. I've got my hat on backwards. I'm shirtless, like I'm on some episode of Cops. I'm running with the TV. Someone's gonna stop me now for sure. Because if not, what was the problem with Ahmad? Hey, Mom, when I told you I was going to run through a neighborhood carrying a TV, did you worry for my safety?

No. Did you think someone would call the police? No, of course not. Huh. I wonder why that is. Joining us now is that former pastor. Did you think someone would call the police? No, of course not. Huh. I wonder why that is. Joining us now is that former pastor, Richard Desmond. Richard, welcome to Roller Martin Unfiltered.

It's absolutely my pleasure to be here. Well, not to be funny, but it's my privilege. That video that you did that's gone viral, a lot of people have been talking about it. And you said that here you are running an outfit with a TV and people are just waving at you. How you doing? Like literally gave no thought. Why is this dude running down the street with a TV on his shoulder? None whatsoever.

And I knew that people weren't going to react. I knew the police weren't going to be called. I could have made good money betting with some people on that one, I guess. But the reality is I've even walked into half built houses, been caught one time by the owner, and he ended up showing me around after we talked for a little bit, told me to come back in a week and see how his progress had gone. That's crazy. And see, what's interesting about this is so many people since

the story became national, Aubrey's story, people have been saying, black people, white people saying, I always do this. Now look, the house I had constructed, I didn't walk in the damn house but one time because I'm like, I don't see what the heck is going on.

I'll come back when the walls are up and it's all done. But that's a thing. But all of a sudden, what you're proving in your video is that when you change the color of the person's skin, it changes people's whole view of that situation. And Roland, let me be clear about this. I was the kind of person that when I first heard the concept white privilege, I didn't think it existed and argued against it

because when I thought of privilege, I thought of sipping champagne on a yacht. There you go. And just living in luxury. What I didn't understand is the basic human decency that people of color don't experience. Well, you know what? What you just said is what I have long said, that the problem with the phrase white privilege

is that, yeah, most people hear white privilege and they think an aristocrat, they think a wasp, they think somebody who is rich, not realizing that you can be the brokest white person in the world, but you get white privilege just because you're white. One of the things that has really come out to this, because I've been invited to all these amazing conversations,

and I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm figuring things out for the first time, is that a lot of people of color, they don't know how little we know as the white community. We hear about this every once in a while. Yeah, we do. Some while. Yeah, we do. Some do. Yeah, some do. But a lot of us are ignorant.

We just don't know how bad the problem is. Well, actually, in Dr. King's book, Chaos or Community, where we go from here, he talked about it. He said white people literally have no idea about their own lack of understanding about America's racial history. And they live in sheer denial.

And so when things happen, they go, oh, my God. I mean, I'll give a perfect example. When 2012, I was in Columbia, South Carolina. Eric Erickson, big-time conservative, far right, then working for redstate.com. We were standing outside the hotel. We had gotten to the hotel. We had both... I rode with him from Charleston to Columbia. CNN says,

hey, we need y'all to get to the venue earlier than we thought. We quickly get dressed. We go downstairs, and we're waiting outside for the car. This Asian woman gets out of her car. We're both standing... We're suited and booted. Now, I've got tie on, pocket square.

I'm dressed way better than Eric. Okay. But she literally walks up to me and sticks out her keys. And Eric goes, wow. Wow. I'm like, I don't park damn cars. And Eric said, what you just said, Eric said, Roland, all these years, I have heard black people describe this very situation. And I felt that they were just, you know, not making it up,

but just embellishing and it wasn't that big of a deal. He said, this is the first time I saw with my own eyes what black people experience. And he just he was just blown away. He went on his radio show that that following Monday and talked about it. And he said, I never experienced it. And that's part of the deal. I think what these videos have done, these videos have shown white people. And it's like, damn, these black people were not joking.

This stuff actually happens. Just like the Vietnam War, when all of a sudden people saw the videos of the horrors of war, it kind of woke them up to it and said, this isn't okay. I think that the videos of Ahmaud, I mean, that's what happened to me. It was a compound effect. There were some videos that led up to this, but when I saw Ahmaud's,

I still sometimes close my eyes and I see him dying. And it's what compelled me to say, okay, this is a human problem. We need to speak up, and the people in my community need to speak up. And I applaud Sean King for giving me very simple instructions because that's the thing. I am a millennial. I do as little as possible typically. He made it

really easy for me to know what to do. He told me exactly what to do. I just carried a TV while doing it. Well, I think that I want to bring in my panel right here, Rob, Chris, and Brittany. I'm sure they have some questions for you. Brittany, I want to start with you. Sure. I applaud you for what you've done. Thank you so much for bringing attention to this. I thought you brought up a really excellent point about saying, you know, white folks in this country are really ignorant. What I think is interesting, and this is me coming from the educational perspective, do you feel as though race and racial history in the country is something that you learned when you were growing up through the secondary school race and racial history in the country is something that you learned when you were growing up through the secondary school system and perhaps even in college?

I mean, I think I heard the Cliff Notes versions of it, and I independently studied a lot on Martin Luther King, Jr., but I've probably learned more about the history of race in the last week than I have in my entire schooling. Chris, your question for Richard Desmond. Yeah, Richard, first of all, I want to say I think it's phenomenal what you did, and I think it's truly inspiring, and I hope others can do the same, but I really want to understand all your faith, and I think it's truly inspiring and I hope others can do the same. But I really want to understand all your faith. And I think it's phenomenal. So what was your real inspiration? I know you tell you talk to Sean King. What was your inspiration and the impact that you really want to make? What inspired you to do so and what kind of impact would you really expect to make when you first thought of this?

I was really hoping that I would get a thousand views so you gotta understand this like this is totally unexpected and it's opened my eyes to just the need for people or the well maybe the lack of support of people in my community speaking up against this issue there's a lot of us that do care so now i'm kind of going okay now that this reaction has taken place and i'm learning all about the problem my eyes are opening you know what's next and because the forethought wasn't much it was just something needs to be done it was a compound effect and yeah my hero and inspiration is of course jesus christ which a lot of people think of as a shockingly bleached skin, fine robe wearing religious man. But he actually was a revolutionary who created the first society

that all people of all walks of life called each other brothers and sisters. And so I hope to follow in his footsteps as best I can and try to figure out how to create bridges for unity in these very complex cultural problems that we've had for hundreds of years. My part is probably going to be small in that, but I want to do whatever. Rob? First of all, I also want to share in applauding for what you've done. And Chris kind of asked my question, but I have a follow-up to that. So you were, it sounds like, if I'm correct, you were inspired and really changed your perspective seeing the injustice of what happened to Ahmaud Arbery. If that's the case, how do you think we have to take, I want you to take yourself back to the mindset you have.

I think the reaction to when you hear something like white privilege, I think you described it best, somebody is rich or something like white privilege. I think it's you describe the best. Somebody is rich or something like that. But there's also this, I do think this automatic reaction because people are like, well, that's just a way of trying to blame me for something. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not a racist. I didn't kill Ahmaud Arbery. How do we, because I think we as black people can talk about it forever and we have to live it. We have to go through it. We have no choice. How do you think we can reach more people in your congregation and others who might have the same initial reaction to say like, well, I didn't kill Ahmaud Arbery, so why should I be concerned about that? Well, I think one of the things that happened with me that has really helped me become not only

a one-time TikTok video guy, but somebody who wants to take up this mantle is by the reception that i've gotten that it was so welcomed and i've been invited into conversations like this and i just absolutely am floored and amazed and honored to be part of these conversations so that's part of it but what i'll say is to speak on one of the things you you kind of reference is i'm not a racist, right? I'm not a racist. So the moment you call someone a racist, they're immediately always trying to think of the reason why they're not a racist. And they'll always find something.

No matter how racist the person is, they'll pretty much always find a reason. I've got a black friend. We've all heard that that kind of stuff and instead what i'm trying to do is to when i talk to my white friends about the prejudice the prejudgments that they're making in their lives and their hearts that are actually negatively affecting other people because while you might not consider yourself a racist and i'm talking to my white community here but when you might not consider yourself a racist you probably have pre-judgments that might be negatively affecting people and so i don't know that's at least one of the ways i think

we can turn the conversation to a way that that is a little people are a little bit more receptive to have white awareness maybe there's something going on this is what i've said to my white friends maybe there's something going on in the community of inner city and people of color that you're not aware of. Is that possible that there's some things that you're not aware of? And you should go, well, yeah, probably. Maybe we should listen. That's that's what I'm saying. And I will also say one final thing if we can on this. It's as we go to churches, I'm also a Christian, too. And I think we have to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations. And it's not comfortable to talk about race. The truth is, I think there are some people that are well-meaning, but just don't want to have the conversation because it's too difficult.

So, but that leads to indifference. And as Dr. King said, indifference is the biggest threat to injustice. It's not the people that are, it's obviously tragic what happened to Ahmaud Aubrey. But the point is the conditions and the environment and the microaggressions that created the condition where that could happen, the system where you don't even have a charge. This was on tape. This was known. And the fact that this could go on tells you that this goes on a lot more often and people accept it because of indifference. So I think we have to put ourselves in these uncomfortable situations as Christians. So I admire what you're doing. I say keep putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. I think what it requires, I think

it requires white people like Richard to go talk to white people. Absolutely. Because the reality is, Richard, and look, the reality is there are things that you have heard in conversations your whole life that no black people were present.

And what it requires is it requires somebody white at that moment saying, hold up. What do you mean by that? Explain that. Why is that your view? And that's the piece. That's the thing that it requires. You need white people in white places,

in white spaces, challenging other white people on exactly what you talked about. There was this moment that I listened to an audio tape about Breonna Taylor. And it was sent to me only because I'm now part of this community and been welcomed into these conversations, so I wouldn't have known about this. Like, I wouldn't have... Breonna Taylor,

I probably would have never heard her name. And there was this moment when I was listening to this very emotional tape and thinking, this isn't comfortable. I'd rather not look at this. And then I thought, you know, I actually could not look at this. And my follow-up thought was, what a shame that would be if I decided to choose to take a blind eye

to hurt and injustice that was happening throughout this country just because I could. That's the thing that we need to fight with the white community for, in my community, that I need to fight, I'll say that. Because that's my part that I can hopefully play, is to say, I know we could put a blind eye to this,

but that's not what we meant by color blindness, is that we're blind to injustice. That's not what we want. We want white awareness. Richard, you make a great point. Sir, we appreciate it. Thank you so very much for doing that video, and hopefully there are people who are going to be paying attention and will be listening

to what you have to say and having those very difficult but critically important conversations. I thank the real warriors like you guys who are fighting this fight every day. I'm just grateful that I was able to make an impact, even a small one. All right, then.

Thanks a lot, sir. God bless. All right, folks. There have been parents who have been losing their ever-loving minds as it relates to this whole COVID-19. Just, I mean, it's amazing how parents can't handle being locked down with their kids. This is not just, trust me, an American thing. I'm going to show for you in a second this video from Israel, where this woman was just outside

of her mind because of the whole deal. I'll pull up in a second. Just give me a second. There have been some other videos and I'm trying to find those. A couple of black mothers who are just hot, mad, angry.

And it's been, for a lot of us, it's been hilarious to see these reactions. But I think people are now realizing that, you know what? People talk about teachers and principals, but all these people having for the first time getting a taste of what life is like for their kids at home,

yeah, it has been certainly eye-opening. And so I'm going to have that video ready in just a second. But I want to go to a couple, bring a couple of our guests right now on this whole issue. Rodney Robinson of Virgie Benford Education Center, Richmond, Virginia. He's a 2019 National Teacher of the Year. And like I said, folks have been looking at, you know, all around the country,

parents having to deal with homework and all this sort of of stuff and they realize this stuff ain't easy uh check out this teacher here check this out ודמיינו כמה וואטסאפים, כמה מורות לכל ילד, כמה מקצועות לכל ילד. יש לי רק שני מחשבים בבית, הם רבים מהבוקר על המחשבים. אחד המורים של הבת שלי חי בסרט שהיא בשמונה בבוקר תושב וירות אותו על המסך, היא בשמונה בבוקר רק הופכת שד במיטה. מה נראה לכם? המורה למוזיקה של הבן הקטן שלי, היא שלחה תווים הבוקר. מה אני אעשה עם המידע הזה? מה, אני יש לי הרכב של איזו להקה? אני לא יודעת לקרוא תווים הבוקר. מה אני אעשה עם המידע הזה? מה, אני יש לי הרכב של איזו להקה? אני לא יודעת לקרוא תווים. שנייה אני מוציאה קלארינט ויושבת עם הבן שלי

לעזור אליו עם התווים. די חבר'ה, מורים, תנמיכו, תנמיכו ציפיות, זה לא הגיוני. וכל היום איך הילד מרגיש? איך שיצייר ציור? איך הילד מרגיש? הוא כל היום בפלאפון. טוב לו? ישנים טוב, אוכלים, לא מפסיקים לאכול. איך הוא מרגיש?

תשאלו אותי איך אני מרגישה. קורסת! אני עוברת מילד לגלג, הנה מדעים, הנה מתמטיקה. הנה, חלס, גם מאיפה אני יודעת את כל הדברים האלה? עכשיו הילדים שלנו יעלו עלינו כמה אנחנו סתומים? זה לא לעניין, באמת. אני יודעת להפוך שבר מדומה. גם אם הוא מדומה, אני רוצה להבין מה, שולם צריך את הסקט, או הוא לא אמיתי, עזבו אותו בשקט. מה אני אומרת פה? גמרתם עלינו, זה רק the New York Post. That was too funny.

Let's now go to Rodney Robinson. Rodney, there's a lot of parents who are like, I did not know all this stuff teachers went through. Yeah, yeah, everybody's struggling right now, you know. Nobody's really prepared for this, teachers and students included, especially the parents. But we just do the best we can to make do in this situation. The real

problem is I think too many people are focusing on academics. Right now, we need to focus on the social, emotional well-being of our children. Their lives have been interrupted like never before, and they're struggling to handle all of this immediate change, so

we really need to stop worrying about their academic ability and worry about their mental health and make sure that they're able to cope and survive and deal with the current situation. But I think also what's happening is parents are also realizing the amount of work, the amount of homework and assignments and follow-up that kids are dealing with, which you're not going to say they are now sitting in the same position as the teachers.

It's kind of like, yeah, but you might only have one, two, three, four kids. Now imagine being the teacher and you're dealing with 20 or 30 in a classroom. Yeah, it's really trying time for parents. I think I was talking to Google the other week, and one of their most researched terms lately is how to thank a teacher, because parents are really appreciating the struggle that teachers are going through right now. And I'm really thinking about teachers who are parents, because you have to educate your students, but at the same time, provide an education to your kids all in the same 24 hours of a day.

And that's really, really hard right now. And so I salute all the parents and all the teachers who are struggling and maintaining during these trying times. We don't know how long this is actually going to end. And so for the parents who are at their wits end, what tips can you give them? For the parents who are at their wits end, I just say keep striving. Do what you can. I said earlier, this is something that has never happened before in the history of education. And so just do what you can. We know things are stressful right now.

If you can't keep up with academics, just sit down and read a book with your kids. Have a family group study of a book. Literacy skills transfer no matter what subject you're doing. So just do what you can. Do not overburden yourself because we're struggling right now. Everyone's struggling. You know, people have bills, people are losing their jobs, family structures have been changed, and it's really added stress trying to keep up with such academic rigor. So take a step

back and just read a book, and just keep your kids updated on literacy skills, and then once schools open up, turn them back over to us, and we'll meet them where they're at to give them the education that they need. I have a question or comment from each panelist. I'm going to start with Chris.

So my question, so I have nieces and nephews, and I know it's obviously, and first of all, congratulations to you. I know it's obviously been a challenging time. But so when you look at the school, and obviously now you're looking at parents homeschooling, practically homeschooling their students. Do you think this is something that we can look at in a long-term perspective that we should look at in terms of just keeping students at home? Do you think it's more effective, per se, because they're in a family environment? No, because ultimately kids need socialization. And schools are a place that

teaches socialization skills as well as academic skills. You can't keep a kid at home their whole life and say, hey, go out into the world and get a job and socialize with people when they have never dealt with people outside of their community. And as segregated a country as we are, if we keep kids at home, there are some people who will never see someone of an additional race or have interaction with someone of an additional race. So it's really important that we keep the school structure. But ultimately, this is a moment where we can reimagine what schools are. I think this is probably the biggest change to education since Brown v. Board.

And it's really important that we reimagine what school could be so that all students could have great outcomes and become what they want to be in life. Right now, we know that's not happening in schools. COVID-19 has exposed a lot of inequities. And so as we go back to school, it's our opportunity to attack those inequities to give every student a fighting chance at a quality education. But couldn't one argue that they're more focused? But couldn't one argue that they're more

focused because it's more one-on-one as opposed to having their friends around distracting them and things like that? Any thoughts on that? But who's one-to-one? When you're talking about kids that are doing well, you're talking about kids that are privileged. A lot of my kids' parents are working and parents are struggling. They're essential workers.

They're not there to give them the one-on-one attention that they need. A lot of times when we're grading students right now, we're not grading academic ability. We're grading their privilege. Whether that's privilege to have technology, privilege to have parents who are there educating them, and just privilege.

And it's really, really not a good idea to keep children at home. Yeah, I mean, even to add to that, you know, if you look at, first of all, you said it well, the folks that have privilege can do that, but even the folks with privilege, if you have, I can speak from experience, even when you have, if you have jobs, if you have a job to do, you got to work from home, you work at 10 hours a day, and you have to manage how the kids are going to do, how they're going to do their jobs, how they're going to do their homework, and you got to put their lesson plans together. You have to do all that because the teacher can, is doing some of what they can, but they can only do so much. That is difficult, even with

privilege. Take all the privilege away. and you have a lot of our communities where they are the frontline workers. They are, so they can't even be there. So I wanna really highlight what you just said. And by the way, thank you for the work you do as a teacher. I think teachers and all essential workers, which we learn what essential workers are, are not respected.

So I'm glad everybody's getting all the thank yous. But as I say to people, if we're having to thank everybody all the time, that means they're not paid enough. So how can we make sure that after this, you get more than a thank you, you get nice commercials that are million dollar commercials to thank everybody, so the companies can look better? How do we actually make sure that people that we can have something out of this moment to show us, okay, we need to actually pay teachers, we need to pay truck drivers, we need to pay the people at Amazon, not just make Jeff Bezos a trillionaire. How do we make sure we use this moment to invest in people? Like you said, how can we do this? We can just take that as a micro point and invest in teachers, because we know states,

sorry to go on long, but I'm passionate about this. There are states that are talking about all this right now, how important teachers are, and they're cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in education at the same time. Well, the reality is we have to organize because as we go back to school, we know that budgets are going to be short, and we know that education is usually most cities and states, even the national government, that's their honeypot. If they need money for other programs, they take it from education. We need to make sure that that doesn't happen. We need to put people

in the White House, put a secretary of education who actually cares about kids and all kids, not just those of privilege, and actually wants to put in policies that support teachers. Then we need to hold Congress accountable for funding our school. We need to make sure that we have all the funding available for all kids to get an equitable education. And on a local level, we need to show up to these school board meetings. I spoke to a school board, several school board members who said, if we had just had seven people show up, I really could have changed policy.

And if showing up isn't good enough, run for school board. That is the most democratic position in the United States, is running for school board, because you control curriculum, you control what your community prioritizes, and you control the future of the kids in your community. So just run for school board and advocate for those things. And teachers will in your community. So just run for school board and advocate for those things. And teachers will have your back. And right now, parents will definitely have your back after experiencing what we go through every day. Last question. Last question from Brittany. Brittany, last

question. Do you have an opinion in terms of when the school should be opened back up? Do you think that we'll be prepared by September? And if we don't, like, what will be, I guess, what type of things do we need to worry about? Well, the reality is we need to listen to science. You know, we need to stop listening to politicians who have agendas or who are trying to open up the country.

We need to stop listening to economists. We need to listen to science. And when the scientists say it's okay to go back to school, that's when we need to go back to school. Because if we're not, we're putting kids in danger. I saw a report that said all kids should be six feet apart, where if you're in a class with 50 students, there's no way possible for you to sit six feet apart. So it's really, we have to listen to the scientists, but at the same time, us in education, we need to be innovative. We need to attack all the issues to make sure all kids have access to technology, resources, and learning during this

time period, because school may look totally different once we finally get back to school. All right, then. Look, we certainly appreciate it, man. Thank you so very much for all the work that you do, and keep it up rodney robertson of of course uh richmond virginia the 2019 national teacher of the year thanks a bunch all right thank you high schools may be closed man graduation ceremonies may canceled, but we won't let that stop us. You threw out old traditions, so will we. Join us on May 16th as we all come together. Say goodbye to the end of an era and welcome a new beginning

with you at the center. It's time for America to celebrate and honor you, the high school class of 2020. All right, folks, we certainly want to thank the folks with XQ America for what they're doing when it comes to that. That's going to be Saturday, 8 p.m. President Barack Obama will be a part of the Graduate Together, a social media, frankly, just a huge celebration for all the graduates in 2020.

And so we certainly featured artists, include Kevin Hart, Zendaya, Pharrell Williams, the Jonas Brothers, and more. Again, it's brought to you by the folks at XQ America in partnership with the Entertainment Foundation. Check your local listings because a number of the networks are going to be airing those, airing the celebration.

We'll be live streaming it right here on our Roland Martin unfiltered platform as well. And so we certainly want to thank everybody for doing that. All right, folks, in today's tech segment, we have a unique product. Pop-Up Commercials is a company that creates advertising space for streaming companies when their subscribers press the pause button here's how it works pop-up commercials creates additional advertising inventory

for content providers simply by pressing the pause button on the remote control in other words you're watching TV you pause it and the commercial pops up we've already built several prototypes on different platforms we have In other words, you're watching TV, you pause it, and a commercial pops up. We've already built several prototypes on different platforms. We have agreements with some of our strategic alliances, and our utility patent is paid for in full. There's a few problems in this space. The first is a bit personal. I worked in Hollywood for 20 years and saw a lot of filmmakers and production companies throw thousands, sometimes millions of dollars down the drain because the film they worked so hard to produce couldn't find distribution.

Well, that problem can be solved through digital advertising, but 69% of viewers already feel that ads and free content are too intrusive. In other words, you guys are tired of commercials interrupting your favorite TV shows. This is where pop-up commercials can help because we're allowing the viewer to potentially have a commercial-free viewing experience if they never press the pause button. We're also generating revenue for the content provider when the viewer does press the pause button. And three, we're filling a void, which is a lack of available video advertising space that a content provider can even sell to an advertiser. The digital video advertising market is an $18 billion a year industry.

It's set to explode to about $30 billion by 2022, at which point we expect to have just under 4% of the market. We make money with content providers that distribute TV and film, streaming radio, video games, and podcasts. And we earn roughly 25% of all revenue generated from CPMs or cost per impressions when their subscribers pause. Our competition is AT&T and Hulu. They have a very archaic method of delivering ads compared to us but we love our competition because them along with a few others have market caps of 200 billion each and can easily buy us out which is part of our exit strategy our team has a strong background in tech

entertainment media and advertising all key disciplines for success in this business a few takeaways for you guys that we're in between alpha and beta. We have agreements with some of our alliances and we do have an exit strategy through our competition. Thank you. Joining me now is the CEO of Pop-Up Commercials, Charles Johnson. Charles, glad to have you on the show. One of the reasons we're doing this because we wanted to highlight what African-Americans are doing in the tech field. And the reality is, I mean, this is a place in the advertising world anyway. There are few of us. And so it's the same case in tech. Absolutely.

Man, you're doing your homework. Where did you even find that? That intro there. We have a few changes that happened from there. There's a lot of updated information. But, yeah, you're right. There's definitely a void of color in the tech industry. And I didn't realize that until I started getting into it.

My background is actually in entertainment as a writer. But once I saw the void in this, you know, I took full advantage of it. And so for this technology, obviously you're looking at publishers, people who have blogs, things along those lines. And so do black people even know y'all exist? No, a lot of people don when you were talking about the IG battles with babyface and Teddy Riley and the problems that he was having with his platform and the media was kind of beaten up on I'm sorry the public was kind of beating up on him on Teddy saying it was his fault and you came out and said no it's not really his fault it's the limitations of Instagram that's not allowing him to do exactly what he needs to do.

And you went even further and said that he really should be monetizing that battle on his own platform, not really throwing that money away to Instagram. And I think what's going on is that a lot of entertainers and content creators, even like yourself, you don't really have or don't have access to people like myself to say hey here's a way for you to make additional money on top of

what you're doing or in place of it so explain people how does it work if somebody out there they've got a website they've got their blog so how does it how does this work? If somebody out there, they've got a website, they've got their blog. So how does this work with them? Sure. I wish I had to share my screen, but I'll just do like this. So here's Roland Martin Show. Here is an ad server company. So someone is watching Roland Martin Show and they press pause, a commercial is going to pop up right in the middle of the screen.

But that commercial has to come from somewhere. So it's going to come from an ad server company. So your viewer is watching it. They press pause. It sends a signal to me, and then we send that signal to the ad server company and say, hey, Joe Blow is watching this. He likes Nike and Lexus. Nike and Lexus will battle over

which commercial should be sent to you, and then they send it back to us, and we send it to them, and this all happens in fractions of a second. Wow, wow. And so have you been... So when did y'all launch it? How long has it been operational?

And what is your hope? How many publishers do you want to have by the end of the year? Oh, boy. I want to try to get as many as I possibly can. But we're in testing phases right now. We're up and running on iOS, Android and the web, which is essentially what they call web and mobile. We're going to start integrating into connected TV, which is like Apple TV and Roku and Android TV. That's going to be our next phase.

So we're doing testing right now. We're in talks with this company in Southern California called PilotX. And with them and Rolling Stone Magazine, we're going to be doing a test with them, as well as a video game company actually out in Houston to start our testing with them, get some data going and then that should be able to attract not only the advertisers but publishers as well. Got you. Now, do you have, now, so are your advertisers already lined up?

There's a couple of ways to do it. So I have someone that's handling the advertising specifically because it's not as easy as it sounds. Right. But they have relationships with ad agencies and with ad exchanges. That's kind of like the sea of commercials that when someone presses pause, there's a little bidding process and then the commercials go through. They have relationships with those two entities, and that's how the

commercials will be served. And you don't want to, it's kind of a timing issue. You don't want to go too early, but you also don't want to go too late. So when we do a test with any of our publishers, we want to make sure that the publisher is kind of publicizing their platform, letting them know what they're going to be doing. So in the case of Teddy Riley and Babyface, let's say they partner with us. They would essentially use Instagram as their platform to talk about, hey, we've got a battle going on, this, that, and the other. We would go to the advertisers and say,

hey, Teddy Riley and Babyface are having an Instagram battle or a battle on this day. Let's put a budget together because this is the amount of traffic that they have going through it. And, you know, then it's a slam dunk from that point. It's all about marketing at that point. All right. Where can people reach you guys? I'm sorry. Where can folks reach you? Oh, if you want to, through email, it's info at pucks.tech. And that's P-U-C-S dot tech, T-E-C-H, info at pucks.tech. Or you can call us directly at 310-894-1202. All right, then.

Charles Johnson, Poplar Commercials. Well, appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, then, folks. Got to go to commercial break. First of all, let me thank everybody on the panel. Rob, I appreciate it.

Brittany, I appreciate it. Chris, thank you so very much. Enjoy the weekend. Stay safe. And, of course, wash your damn hands. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much, folks. Going to go to a break. We come back.

A little fun with Nicky Moore, the comedian, next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roland Martin Unfiltered, support the Roland Martin Unfil one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roland Martin Unfiltered support the Roland Martin Unfiltered Daily Digital Show

by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. All right, folks. Every Wednesday and Friday, we have a little fun with our comedians. Today, it's Nicky, who's in the house. Nikki, what's up?

Hey, boo. I miss you so much. Hold up. What happened to the big-ass, wild, creative glasses you always wore? What's up? Wait a minute, Roland. My glasses are right here, but I'm feeling a little like... Oh, I thought you got LASIK or something.

No, I did not. Because LASIK only works for short term. Not wasting my money. I miss you so much. What's been up? I mean, you know, you're on lockdown. You can't go nowhere. I just want to go outside. I just

Can I cuss? I'm sorry. Yeah, the show's called Unfiltered. It is called Unfiltered, but you're still a clean-cut cat. I just want to go outside, man. But I ain't taking no chances out in these Corona streets. Because people stupid. People stupid.

They are stupid. They are stupid. My grandmama ashes. Girl, stop. Okay? Leave your grandmother out of this. Let me tell you something. My grandmama loved Roland Martin, so you shut up and take her.

She loved you. No matter what. He was not doing nothing. She told me back in, like, 2000 early something. I didn't even know who you were, Roland. See? And she told me that this guy is somebody

that you need to pay attention to. Well, listen to your grandmama. I did. And she was right. She was right. Hey, boo. Absolutely. That's how we're doing. So much. What do you make of this fool,

the orange one, down the street? He's three blocks from where we are in our office right now. Rolling. Oh, so you downtown? You downtown, by the way? Yeah, we downtown. We three blocks.

Listen, the Cheeto in chief is just, oh, he's, he's, he's, I don't, I don't even know what to make of him. I'm scared of him. I'm scared of him. I'm scared. I'm terrified that this country has allowed a lunatic like that to take, you know, space in every aspect. They keep letting him do stuff. Well, look, and you see his wife lying. I don't want no part of this. You will never see her.

Never. No more. I don't blame her. You know what? I think she hanging out at a house in Prince George's County. I don't even think she had the crib. She like... She not even in D.C.

She not in D.C. I'm telling you, she in Prince George's County. Listen, Melania is somewhere that she's probably not even in the country, okay? If I was her, I wouldn't be in the country. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Gotta ask you this here. It's a lot of mad, upset high school students. They don't have their prom. They don't have

their graduations. They all down, depressed. If you had a high school graduate, a kid who was all upset, what would you tell them? Oh, man. I would just tell them, listen, we don't control this, so when you do get old enough to vote,

pick the motherfucker who got the smallest feet, because no matter who wins, they're going to have their feet so far up your ass, it ain't going to make a difference. That's what I would tell them. So what you're saying is, to the high school graduates, if you're mad about your graduation, your prom, make sure you're behind, vote in November.

Make sure you vote. As soon as you can, make sure you vote and vote for somebody who has a sense of sensibility. Vote for Roland Mark. I'm writing you in. No, don't write me in. That's a wasted vote. Get this fool out.

So what about this here? So being on lockdown, it's a lot of. Get this fool out. So what about this here? So being on lockdown, it's a lot of people say they've saved a lot of money. Have you done that? Dude, I looked at my bank account today. I was like... I did that. I did that. See, because you're not going out

buying drinks at the club. You're not traveling. Hell, you ain't spending money on dry cleaning. You ain't buying clothes. I'm not even online shopping. A lot of people are online shopping. I'm not doing nothing and my shit is stacking. I'm so excited about that part.

Like, keep me locked down until at least the end of June. I'm happy about that. Happy about that. I feel like I'm going to come all the way up. But what's the first thing you... Okay, so let's say... Let's say we get past all this Rona drama. What's the first thing you want to do?

Rona, the first thing I'm gonna do is get my feet done because they crusty. They crusty. And I need a man. You married, so it ain't no issue for you. Why can't you do your feet alone? Huh? Why can't you do your feet at home? Dude, I tried, but it ain't the same. It just ain't the same.

Let me tell you something. The first course of action is this husk is, like, industrial on these feet. It's rough. I'm not even kidding. I'm not ashamed, but I'm embarrassed, okay? Like, I have some really hood, like, industrial husk on my heels. I can't, no matter what I do. You don't have one of those things that shaves all that dry skin off?

I do. I got a pumice stone. I got everything. But I think, you know, I think I got some gator in me. I think, you know, I think I got some gator in me. I think, you know, I'm related to an alligator or something. I do. It's not working. It's just not working. I looked at my feet today, and I was like, I will show you, but

you know, I can't. You talk about not having a man, but there's a bunch of people married. It ain't like much is popping at their house. I know, right? I know. One of my favorite corona clips is the one where the dude's like,

you're going to be quarantined with your wife, A, with your wife and child, or B, he said B, B, B. Right, yeah, she wasn beat. Right, yeah. She wasn't too happy with that response. He didn't even care what people said. And shot him a look. Right, he didn't care, didn't care, didn't care, didn't care. Yeah, but I feel bad.

How you doing? Is it like you and your wife getting closer? What's happening? No, she upstairs and I'm downstairs. I got three levels. So you know what? Go do what you do. Let me tell you something. J-Hood is bad got three levels. So you know what, go do what you do. Let me tell you something. J Hood is bad, though.

She's bad. Go on, go on, do what you do. Go on, do what you do. She bad. She bad, so. Go on, do what you do. You happy. Go on, go on, do what you do.

I'll be over here. Can I tell you? I'll be here with my tech gadgets and everything. I'm good. You are a techie. You are a techie, Cat Rowland. Like, you are super techie. I have never, you taught me, remember are super techie. I have never...

You taught me... Remember you taught me about the Mevo and all of that stuff? Right, right. I really need you right now, Roland. Well, trust me. A lot of folk been calling me trying to... Picking my brain. A lot of comedians, entertainers, and others.

They're like, Hell, Roland, you've been doing this for years. The world caught up with you. So all these TV people got studios in their house. I mean, I got a green screen, light. I got a whole studio in my crib. And had it for many years. So people slept on you, Roland.

I tried to tell them. I always knew. I always knew. You were like the most techie person. You taught me a lot about technology. But the thing is, like, you that cat, like, give me the phone. And you take the best pictures and you get the best angles. See, that's gone now.

And you got the technology, though. See, that's gone. See, now we got to take selfies. I'm going to be like, back up six feet. Back up. Back your ass up. Back your ass up. All selfies now going to be like, back up six feet. Back up. Back your ass up. Back your ass up. All selfies now going to have some distance.

Listen, selfies is across the hollies now. And if I'm going to take somebody's phone, I'm going to have gloves on. Across the holly. I ain't touching your phone. Right. This is what you got to do. See, the way you do it.

See, let me explain something to y'all. I'm going to show y'all real quick. Let me show y'all how you take selfies, all right? Let's see here. Henry, do you see my phone? I'm looking. Henry, do you see my phone? Yes.

Okay. All right, Henry, switch the shot. Okay, so y'all see there? Normally, you take a selfie, y'all. I don't know why it's not going... Okay, I'm going to leave it right here. Okay, I don't know why it won't go horizontal. Okay, it's not on screen lock.

It turns. It's not on screen lock. Okay, listen. Let me show y'all something. Normally, you take a selfie, and y'all see right here? The person is right here. Yeah. You're going to have to go high.

You're going to have to say, stand back there by that pillar. Stand back there by that pillar. First of all, what is that attached to the phone, though, Roland? What is that? Okay, what do you mean what is attached to it? This is an adapter. Like that thing hanging off.

This is an HDMI adapter. Oh. All right, switch shots, Henry. That's what it is. This is an HDMI adapter that allows you to be able to plug your phone up to an HDMI where you can plug it up to your television or some other source. That's how you're able. Can we do like a Roland Martin digital media workshop?

Yeah, we can do that. Y'all got to pay for it. I know. I'm going to set it up. Can I set it up? Yeah, we can do that. Y'all got to pay for it. I know. I'm going to set it up. Can I set it up? Yeah, we can do that. We can do that. I did one for the preachers the other day.

Jamal Bryant asked me to do it. Yeah, because I was walking them. Because I'm tired of these preachers doing video, and they got the laptop, and all you're seeing is nose hair. I'm like, no. Hallelujah, hallelujah. I'm like, I need you to raise that iPad where it's eye level. So, yeah. Very medium.

Very medium muscle. I had to let him know. I had to let him know. Alright, Nikki, we gotta go. What's your cash app? Because you at the house. My cash app? Yes. Jokes USA, Roland. Everything is just Jokes USA. What is it? I'm Nikki Moore Funny. Y'all got two K's. I only need

one. I only need one. One K. Blame it on Henry. That's Henry's fault. And Henry's an ass because he's my friend. I love Henry, but he's mean to me. And I think that's the reason I love him. So what's your Cash App again?

Nicky More Funny. No, my Cash App is Just Jokes USA. Just Jokes USA. Yeah, don't send me no money, though. Just follow me. Follow me everywhere. I'm Nikki Moore Funny. All right, y'all, don't send Nikki money,

but y'all can send the show money. Don't send me no money. Send the money to Roland. You know why? Because that'll save me on my annual subscription. Send the money to Roland Martin Unfiltered. I don't need no money. Uh-uh.

It's dollar sign RM Unfiltered. Get it right. Get it right. That's what it is. Dollar sign RM. I'm a member. I subscribe. I appreciate it.

So what I need for everybody to do, Roland, is to follow you because you are still the only news platform that we have who tells us the whole fucking truth about everything. Well, that's the only way we do it. Yes, man. And I

follow you every day because this is so important and I can't wait for you to be on every fucking platform everywhere. Well, we're getting done. We're going to make it happen. Nicky Moore! Thank you. I appreciate it, darling. You take care. I love you, dude. I love you. I miss you.

Miss you too, darling. Take care. And my grandmama ashes miss you too. Girl, go on. Go on. Don't you hold them ashes. Go on. Go on with that. Keep them ashes right there on the floor, on the counter. You can stop hating on my grandmama. I ain't hating on your grandmama. I'm saying, but leave them ashes where they are. All right. I don't want you to

spill nothing. All right. Thank you, Rollin. All right, folks. Love you, darling. Y'all might wonder why I'm wearing my Astros jersey and especially the orange rainbow hat today. It's in honor of this man right here. Bob Watson played 14 years in Major League Baseball, many of them for the Houston Astros. He became the first black general manager

in Major League Baseball history in 1993 when he took over as the GM of the Houston Astros. Then he became the first, served there for two years, and then two years, then became the general manager of the New York Yankees. Became the first black general manager to win a World Series title in Major League Baseball history. Bob Watson died Thursday night.

It was a long battle with kidney disease. He was 74 years old. His son announced his death on Twitter. In fact, he played 19 seasons in the Major Leagues, 1966 to 1984, 14 of those with the Astros. I remember him playing. Of course, we used to go to Houston Astros games, me, my brother, and my sister would always see him playing those games. An absolutely amazing man. And again, the Jackie Robinson of black executives in Major League Baseball. And so he was an unbelievable guy. Again, made history when they won that World

Series title. And look, there needs to be more executives. He later worked as the league's vice president of on-field operations for eight years before retiring in 2010. In March, the Houston Astros dedicated a youth facility in his name. He survived by his wife, Carol, his daughter, Kelly, and his son, Keith. Our thoughts and prayers are with them all who love Bob Watson. And so we want to certainly pay tribute to this pioneering brother. All right, folks. All right, here we go.

It's Friday. We got to go. The D.O. Hughley show on Seek starts in 45 minutes, but I do not want to go until we are able to hear the people who have given to us in the last 24 hours who have joined our Bring the Funk fan club. I told y'all, everybody who gives 50 bucks or more

gets a personal shout-out from me. I ain't disrespecting the other people who've given. I appreciate what y'all have done, but, you know, these are people who've given 50 bucks or more. Let's go to it. Adrian Wiseman, Alfreda Crowther, and Drett Duncan, Anthony Brown, Anthony Perkins, Antoine Stevens-Phillips, Arnetta Henderson, Let's go to it. Deon Smith, Donald Rubin Realtors, Dondria Morgan, Donnie Stewart, Dre Buzz, Duchess Britton, Fran Owens, Gene Allen, George Johnson,

Harry Crockett, Johan, John Matthews, Joseph Williams, Joy Hilton, Kenneth Johnson, Kimberly Edwards, Lazelle Thomas Connors, Marisha Foreman, Mary Creighton, Michael Lomax, Mildred Johnson, On The Way Services, Pamela Ross, Queen V, Robert Carter, Robert Holman, Sarah Snyder,

Sakithia Austin, Shelly Williams, Stanley Lewis, Tyrone Lee, W Woodrow, Vonnie Carpenter, Walter Shahid, Pamela Matthews Johnson, Mikael Israel, Phyllis Alsop, Veronica Freeman, Maseel Montanez, and my girl, Hollywood writer and producer, Marbrot Akil.

Y'all, I appreciate all of you who support Roland Martin Unfiltered. Your dollars make it possible for us to do what we do every single day, bringing you the kind of information you're not seeing in other places. If you want to join, give to our Cash App. Dollar sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal is

paypal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered. Venmo is at rmunfiltered. You can is at rm unfiltered. You can also mail it to us. Mail it to New Vision Media, Inc. 1625 K Street, Northwest, Suite 400, Washington, D.C.

2006. Those of you who are watching on YouTube, you can give right there on YouTube. We certainly appreciate those who do. I see Honey Ghana Tane. She gave $100 on YouTube. We certainly appreciate those who do. I see Honey Ghana Tane. She gave $100 on YouTube today. And so we

appreciate it. My bad. She said, Roland, please don't shout me out. My bad, honey. I went ahead and shouted you out. But I appreciate it. Thanks a lot, folks. Don't forget, Henry, show them a graphic of D.O. Hughley. Folks, go to seek.com in 42 minutes. They're going to have the VR showcase.

Looking forward to that. I'm going to be watching. I hope y'all watch with me as well. It's going to be a great experience. The first ever virtual reality live comedy showcase. Man, that's going to be some fun. And so we're looking forward to it. All right, y'all, hope you have an absolute great weekend.

We always end the show rolling all the names of people who join our Bring the Funk fan club. We want your name on it, but you gotta give. Please do so, help us with what we do. Holla! 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 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper.

The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at TaylorPaperCeiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.