#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 7.24 Trump troops unleashed; Lebron James voting rights group takes action in FL; Is Ebony bankrupt?

Episode Date: July 26, 2020

7.24.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Trump's troops unleashed in Portland DOJ launches investigation into the Trump Administration's use of force against protesters; Mayors are on the front lines of of policy battles about the COVID-19 response and if cities should reopen; Young Black lawyers launch campaign to get out the vote; Lebron James voting rights group take action in FL; Senate has passed a 740 billion dollar defense bill that includes money to remove confederate names from military bases; Anti-Trumpers continue their assault on Trump with new ads; More drama at Ebony, is the publication bankrupt? The Whispers are back!Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: CeekBe 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 -The Roland S. Martin YouTube channel is a news reporting site 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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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today is Friday, July 24th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered is the presence of federal agents in Portland making the problem there worse. And are these actually federal agents or private contractors? We'll talk with retired Lieutenant General Russell Honore. In Chicago, there are massive protests.

The DOJ is launching investigations of the Trump administration's use of force against protesters and those protesters in Chicago. Boy, they showed up at the home of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, making it perfectly clear they don't want federal troops in the city. Mayors are on the front lines of policy battles about the COVID-19 response and whether the city should reopen. We'll talk with Louisville Mayor Greg Fisher about that and get an update on the case of Breonna Taylor. A group of young black lawyers have launched a campaign to get out the vote. We'll talk to one of them about the initiative. Also, LeBron James Anti-Voter Suppression Group plans to register thousands of felons before November.

They're actually paying off their fines. And so that's something that Desmond Meade and Shannon Meade have been working on. Also, folks, the Senate has passed a $740 billion defense bill that includes money to remove Confederate names from military bases, yet Donald Trump still wants them on there. Also, we'll show you the latest anti-Trump ads put out by a variety of groups and we'll update you on how Ebony potentially could be forced into bankruptcy. Also, we have the funeral plans for the late Congressman John Lewis. Plus, the whispers are back. They'll join us to talk about their latest project. Folks,

it is time to bring the funk on Rolling Mark Unfiltered. Let's go. the fine and when it breaks he's right on time and it's rolling best belief he's knowing putting it down from sports to news to politics with entertainment just for kicks he's rolling it's rolling It's Roland Martin, yeah. Rolling with Roland now. He's broke, he's fresh, he's real. The best you know, he's Roland Martin now. Martin. Folks, we've continued to see massive protests takes place in Portland. Donald Trump's response to that has been to send in federal troops.

Those moms, you have had a number of moms out there, a number of moms out there. Here's a video, folks, from Portland. And it seems the crowds are getting bigger and bigger and bigger as the night progresses. Now, they've had protests there now for two months in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. Well, you had some folks with raucous behavior, some setting fires there, not predominant number of people. Donald Trump's response to that was to actually send in various federal troops. This is right here, more video here where the folks were chanting. You can even hear them say it, hands up, don't shoot.

Hands up, please don't shoot me. Hands up, please don't shoot me. Hands up, please don't shoot me. They've had nightly clashes outside the federal courthouse there, and also we've seen protests in Oakland, California, Detroit, Michigan, and other cities. Two cities that Trump says have gotten out of control, and he wants to send troops. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city could use help containing violent crime.

We'll talk about that in just a second. Lieutenant General Russell Honore, he actually posted this photo on his Twitter feed, raising the question, are we actually seeing federal agents dressed in military gear or are we seeing private contractors? The tweet that he sent out, this was the photo that he actually posted on his Twitter feed today. And you see that ZTI that is on that particular uniform right there. And so this is the tweet that he sent. He said, he said that he's, first of all, let me go ahead and pull this out right here. His initial tweet said, I'm being told by someone on Twitter that ZTI is call signs for the U.S. Marshal. He said he requests the DHS government to say these are call signs. If I'm wrong, I apologize.

This is another reason we want all police to stop using military uniforms. We'll see DHS make a statement. Then the response was, sir, some of these agents wear SRT patches or helmets. SRT is a private security company. So the initial tweet that General Honoré has sent out raised this question where he said, I'm being told by someone on Twitter that ZT1 has caused signs. First of all, actually, it was an earlier one where he talked about, he showed various patch numbers on there. But again, he's raising the question, who are these individuals? The Trump administration won't really say.

Joining us right now is retired General Russell Honoré. General, I'm glad to have you here. General, isn't this part of the problem that they don't want to be honest with Congress? They don't want to have any sort of testimony. They don't want to tell people who they are. They're driving unmarked vehicles. They're snatching people. Their names are not shown.

You have no idea who they are. We don't know if these are private contractors, U.S. marshals, agents that are part of some other department of Homeland Security. We have no idea. That's the problem, Norrell. And get this. They're wearing military uniforms, which is the original issue that got me twisted on why are these people wearing military uniforms, because they give the impression that they're

soldiers and they're using our uniform, which are designed to have us blend into terrain when we are out fighting wars, fighting our enemies, and they're coming in wanting to wear our military uniforms to give them some kind of status and as a suppression of protest. That uniform should not be used by police. Here's a video right here that I'm playing right now.

When you see this video, to your point, you think you are standing in front of members of the National Guard or of the Army. You think that's what you're doing, as opposed to when you typically see police, they're wearing black or blue outfits. Exactly. And that uniform is a uniform of the nation for those who serve our nation as commission, people who swear to support and defend the Constitution, and who are designed to protect Americans, not to go out and attack Americans. And using that uniform is plainly wrong, Roland.

And they don't need to use it. It is not designed for urban warfare. It's designed for desert and jungle warfare, not to be used. But they're using this uniform as a form of intimidation and to give them status

as warriors. What this also speaks to, we're showing the video right now, again, where they snatched one of the particular protesters. Now on the front of their outfit, it said police, but, and then you see them putting them in an unmarked car. That's not, that's just, that's just a minivan. That's not an actual military vehicle. That's not a police vehicle with lights. You don't know, to be perfectly honest, we've had some of these white supremacists who have been impersonating cops, even having the tie twist.

And so, look, you don't know who the hell these guys are. These literally, the way they're dressed and just having an outfit that says police, you could get that gear right now at some of these paramilitary places I know about in Virginia. So you don't know if I'm actually dealing with cops, military, or white supremacists or some other group. Absolutely. That is why these groups should not be operating independently of local police and local state police. This is totally wrong. We know that federal guards, U.S. Marshal, can be used to protect federal buildings. That is the extent of their work.

The way I understand the law and their authorities is to protect federal buildings, not to go out on the street and snatching people up. I don't know where that authority came from, but all these smart lawyers we got in the world, somebody needs to channel this in court immediately. Well, that's really, and so part of the problem here, you have the Oregon Attorney General, Mayor there demanding answers. They haven't even told Oregon state officials exactly who these folks are. Yeah, I just hope nothing bad happened. I hope our people up there

stay safe. They don't challenge these idiots too much. Keep standing ground, stay away from them. And so nobody get hurt because I'm not quite sure what these people will do because nobody can tell you who they are. And I know there are a lot of good federal officers, but I have no idea who these people are and what they're doing and they need to get the hell out of military uniforms. Well, it was absolutely, it's shameful what Donald Trump is doing. He clearly, Bill Barr has given him authority to basically unleash his own force against people. This is what we see in Turkey. This is what we see in countries run by dictators. That's what this looks like, General.

Well, yeah, and we don't need that here, Roland. I guess the biggest thing is that everybody just needs to get motivated and make sure they go vote because we cannot live with this anymore. Absolutely. Absolutely. General Russell Honore, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks so very much, sir. Wear your mask. Be safe. Indeed. Indeed. All right, folks. Last night in Chicago, massive protests took place there as they wanted the two Columbus statues coming down. Go to my iPad, Henry. This is video right here of what took place last night in Chicago, where police also began to use tear gas against them. There were people who were, of course, trying to remove that statue.

Because of these massive protests, because of these massive protests that took place, Mayor Lori Lightfoot realized that she had a significant issue on her hand. As a result, they did begin to remove two of those particular statues. This is video. Actually, I'm going to pull up right here. This is video right here of one going to pull up right here. This is video right here of one of those statues actually being removed. She ordered that to take place because residents were going to take those statues down. Also, folks in Chicago have been protesting the fact that Lori Lightfoot, the mayor there, initially said she was going to oppose Donald

Trump bringing in those same troops in Portland to Chicago. She said, absolutely not. Then she changed her mind and said she welcomed their assistance. And this is how folks responded last night. Back up, back up, we want freedom, freedom, all these racist ass cops, we don't need them, need them. Back up, back up, we want freedom, freedom, all these racist ass cops, we don't need them, need them. Back up, back up, we want freedom, freedom, all these racist ass cops. Since we know how you really feel, it's how we feel. Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Donald Trump.

Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Donald Trump. These protesters were not playing. They were actually near Lori Lightfoot's home. This is earlier videos. They were actually marching down the street to her home in Logan Square. Police! Police! Police!

Police! Police! Police! All right, folks, the DOJ and Department of Homeland Security, they have launched investigations into the Trump administration's use of force against protesters. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has launched that investigation. They will investigate the use of force allegations that took place in Portland and Washington, D.C. Now, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, General Joseph Khafari, also announced an investigation. The office will investigate the detainment and placement of protesters in unmarked vehicles by DHS law enforcement. Now, those investigations come after top Democrats wrote a letter to both inspectors generals. The letter urges for review into the

actions of federal law enforcement. Folks, what we are seeing all across this country are protesters in these cities making it perfectly clear they want to see changes in this country. Here we are nearly 10 weeks after the murder of George Floyd. That is what has unleashed these protests all across the country. We're seeing continuous protests happen every single night. Although you're not really seeing lots of attention on national media, these protesters are going out there. Portland right now is getting a lion's share of attention, but we're still seeing protests in Chicago, as we said, in Oakland, in San Francisco, all different parts of the country, they're targeting this whole issue of defund the police, which really means shifting the resources away from all these dollars going towards law enforcement and shifting dollars into other areas to address issues like mental health and the homeless.

Now, again, local officials are trying to deal with this in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. You throw in racial unrest, the whole economic recovery, all sort of things actually are going on. In just a second, I'm going to talk to the head of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, of course, the mayor out of Louisville, Kentucky, Greg Fisher. Folks, let me know when he is there. But I want to right now bring in our panel, Rob Richardson. He is the host of Disruption Now podcast. Derek Hawley, president, Reaching America and political analyst. Dr. Neombe Carter, Howard University Department of Political Science. I'm going to start with you, Rob.

You heard the general there. The issue that we're dealing with right now in Portland, how do you not tell local and state officials who the hell these people are? You're snatching people off the streets. You're putting them in unmarked vehicles. You've got these so-called troops, okay, which we know really is military. They're wearing camouflage gear. You heard what General Russell Honore had to say. People don't know who these folks are. No name identification, no nothing. All you see is camouflage outfit, police in some cases. Yeah, well, you have a president that doesn't believe in the rule of

law. So it's not surprising that he's going to do things like this and not actually consult with local authorities. Just just just a little check here. Like it rarely happens in American history. It's hardly ever happened where you have the president and he goes into local communities without the support of the local communities. And not only does he not have the support, he doesn't even tell him he's coming in and they go in unmarked cars. That doesn't sound like something America would be proud of. That sounds something like Russia would do. But I guess this president wants to be like Russia. I guess he's coming close to that goal because secret police snatching protesters off the street because you disagree with them. Like this is what we're doing. This is not who we're supposed to be. But this is who this

president is. It's up to us to make sure that sure that we take our protest and make sure we go to the polls. Because if this continues, if we're able to validate this, if you think this is bad, just wait till we get another round of this. We can't do it. We can't afford it as a country. Secret police, that's not America, Derek. And the Trump administration doesn't want to give any answers. Their whole deal is, oh, no, we don't care. We don't really answer to anybody. But to have individuals who work for the federal

government and you don't even know, the point I made to the general, we have examples where the cops actually arrested individuals, white supremacists, who were impersonating cops, looking like cops, having their twisted ties. You don't even know

who the hell these people are. My response is, who the hell are these fake ass protesters who are tearing up the streets in Portland, Oregon right now? If you weren't tearing up the streets and acting like you were supposed to, you wouldn't get arrested. So Derek, hold up there. Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold up. You don't care who they are? Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. You don't, wait, wait, one second, one second. Derek, one second, one second.

Derek, hold up, one second. No, no, no, hold up. You just said, Derek, Derek, Derek, you just answered the question. You just said you don't care who these federal folks are? No. What's going on in Portland? Are they tearing up these streets right now? No.

If they are hired by this federal government to go in and kill the streets, they by all means do so. So wait a minute. Hold up. So we are the United States. One second. Derek, Derek, we are in the United States of America. We have where – one second, Derek.

Hold up. Derek, one second. Derek, wait a minute. Derek, wait a minute. Again, this ain't politicization. This is asking a very basic question. If you have individuals in unmarked vehicles wearing military gear, having no idea, Derek, I'm not done.

I'm not done. Having no identification, that doesn't bother you? Well, I've been picked up in an unmarked car before. Many people have. first of all that's that's that's simply not that's actually not true. Dr. Carter, we have seen examples where they are grabbing people, detaining them. I'm not done. I'm not. I have a question for Dr. Carter. Hold on, Derek. Derek, I have a question for Dr. Carter. Dr. Carter, we have, we're seeing examples where they're grabbing people, detaining them.

No one knows where they are taking them. You don't know where. one second, Derek, Derek, one second in this country, Dr. Carter, you do not put people in essentially, uh, uh, black sites where people don't know there is a thing in this country. I am talking Derek, Dr. Carter. There's a thing in this country called due process. There is still a United States Constitution. Am I correct? Well, that's the problem with this.

I think what they're doing is actually making things more violent and making things more confusing and actually putting the lives of actual law enforcement, local law enforcement, and the military in danger because people don't know who these people are. And taking somebody off the street is called kidnapping,

right? There is no identification. If something happened to me or anyone else, my parents or anyone who cared about me wouldn't know where I was, wouldn't know how to come get me. And I think this is the kind of behavior you see in states that are trying to legitimize military authority. This is what we would call a failed state under any other circumstances. I think that's the part that is really disturbing or should be disturbing for people, is that having federal law enforcement or people with federal authority, right, because we don't even know that they're law enforcement or military, is the really scary part because this is the kind of thing that you see countries

do when they want you to get used to military rule. And that's not something that Americans are used to and shouldn't become used to and shouldn't legitimize in this moment. I don't care how much you want law and order. It shouldn't come at the expense of constitutional principles and constitutional rights. So there. So there if there's a constitution in this country that we still have, and when a person is arrested, and then if you need to be able to, okay, go there, find out what

the charges are, uh, potentially bail them out. If you don't know who picks them up, if you don't know where they're going. You're just so like, uh, we'll see. Are you telling me you are perfectly fine with that in America? No, and you're putting words in my mouth. That is not what I said. No, I am not absolutely

okay with that. But what I am okay with, if your ass is out tearing up, you need to be arrested. Okay, but Derek, Derek, we got that. You asked me a question, bro. You asked me a question. Now, go do your investigation and find out who these individuals are. And once you come back and find out who they are, because these people, they're arrested

because I've seen some reports. Everyone that they arrested, they let them go. So this narrative you're pushing right now that the people got locked up and we know where they were and we couldn't get released off, that's bull. Because everyone that got locked up and we know what it were. We couldn't get released. That's bull because everyone got locked up. According to these other reports, I've seen what reports are really know what reports where people do know what report these guys did not have the authority to arrest them. What reports? I watched it on the news right here. What news? This is, what is it called? I mean, I think even five.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, doc. No, no, doc, doc, doc. Hold on. Hold on. Newsy, Newsy, Newsy, N-E-W-S-Y. So Derek, Derek, Joe, so Derek, Derek, I just want to be clear. You, hold on. I just want to be clear. You just said that these people are getting picked up, arrested, then let go because.

Derek, one second. One second. Derek, Derek, one second. One second. One second. Derek, one second. You just say it. I just want to be clear.

Derek, Derek, I'm going to finish. You don't know. Let me play it back. You just said they're being there. Derek, you know going to finish. That's what I just said. No, no, let me play it back. You just said they're being... That's what I just said. Derek, hold up. You said they're being picked up, detained, arrested, detained, then let go. One more second.

Then let go because the folks who picked them up didn't have the authority to do so. Is that what you just said? That's what I just said. So isn't that the problem? The problem is getting these bammers off the street. Wow. Rob, Rob, Rob, I don't understand what I just heard. He, Derek just said they have been arrested, detained, investigated, and then, and then, wait, hold on, let go because the Federals didn't have the authority. Isn't that the problem, Rob? You said arrested.

You used the word arrested. Hold on. Rob, go ahead. Rob, go ahead. You have people like Derek who will argue, yell, and scream about small government when a Democrat's in office. Suddenly, this is the biggest overreach of government I've ever seen. And everybody's silent or they're going along with this. I don't understand.

Either you believe in the rule of law or you don't. Either you believe in small, limited government or've ever seen. And everybody's silent or they're going along with this. I don't understand. Either you believe in the rule of law or you don't. Either you believe in small limited government or you don't. Clearly you don't. And someone's rights being violated, having secret police on the street to go after protesters because you don't like the type of protest that they're doing. These ain't protesters,

Rob. These are not protesters. I said it in the beginning. Derek, Derek, Derek, Derek. One second. Rob is going to finish. One second. One second. Rob is going to finish.

I'm going to go to Derek. Dr. Carl is going to get her point in. Then I'm going to my next guest. Rob. I want to know where you were with Clive and Bundy when President Obama was president. And you have people that were on federal property taking it over with guns. President Obama actually backed off, but they were there, and people were complaining about big government. Now we have people that are standing for Black

Lives Matter, wanting to remove statues of Christopher Columbus for all the things that he did. And you're saying, let's just let the secret police come in and take people in. No, no, Rob. That's not Rob. You're putting words in my mouth. Rob, you're putting words in my mouth. What are you saying? You're putting words in my mouth. Okay. All right, Derek.

Derek, make your point. These same people, these same people that you claim are protesters are the same ones that showed up at Mayor Lightfoot's house and Mayor Bowser's house here in Washington, D.C. These same peaceful protesters who, these are Democratic leaders right now, but these same peaceful protesters are showing up at Mayor Bowser's house because of school

board choices about going back to school. These people at Lightfoot's house are showing up because, not because he's sending in those same people in uniforms that are in Portland, because they're sending in an FBI task force to deal with some of these gangs and the shootings that is going on. So these people are out in front of her house just because of that. So the narrative that you're pushing and you're trying to put it in my mouth, no, that's wrong, man. One second, one second, one second, Dr. Carter, Dr. Carter. I was just going to say, I think it doesn't really matter who's in office.

Protesters have a right to be where they are supposed to, where they want to be in protests in the way that they see fit. When they were in front of Muriel Bowser's house, Mayor Lightfoot's house, that was because they felt that there was an injustice. That's what protested there for. That's why the Constitution protects people's ability to protest. I think it echoes the fact that many of these issues are nonpartisan. Black Lives Matter is about Black Lives Matter

regardless of whether it's Democrats or Republicans and all. So it doesn't matter all the signals that people send if the people in those communities feel that the moves that the leaders in charge are making are going to make their lives more dangerous and not uh uh more safe so i feel like whether it's chicago dc or any other place that derrick wants to talk about the idea of people that you don't know who are not from your local community that can round you up just to let you go or do any

other thing we don't know right it's really scary one, and no one should feel comfortable with that. Right. Now I want to bring in the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky. He's also the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Greg Fisher. Mayor Fisher, glad to have you back on Roller Mountain Unfiltered. So let me ask you this, Mayor. If Donald Trump decided to send federal agents into Louisville, not tell you, not tell the attorney general, not tell the governor, and they begin to arrest protesters and you had no idea.

How would that what would be your response? Much like the emotion you're showing, Roland, extraordinarily troubling. I mean, this is not the United States of America where you see that type of activity going on. I mean, if there's coordinated use of law enforcement, great. I mean, everybody can use some help at different points in time if it's done effectively. And it's led by the local officials that know what's going on on the ground. But for people just to come in and start doing their thing like we're seeing in Portland right now, you can see it just makes the problem

even bigger. And the thing that people really need to understand is that, for instance, there's a process even in states. If the governor, correct me if I'm wrong, the governor can't just decide I'm going to send in National Guard or do you have to request that? And if the governor does that. So, for instance, the president can't just decide sending federal troops. There's a process that has to be followed. It has to be requested. That's right. They have to be requested. Then when they come in, they're under the direction of the local police department so that there's coordinated response to deal with whatever the situation is. And so the citizens have some idea of what's going on as well. But you can't have different law enforcement agencies running around the city, each doing their own thing.

They'll end up having to face off with each other eventually. as I'm seeing what is going on here, it was the unilateral action of Donald Trump and William Barr to send in these federal agents. The Oregon attorney general had no idea. The governor had no idea. The mayor had no idea. And so you have police out there on the streets not knowing who these people are. And they're saying, oh, we're federal agents. But there's nothing on your card that says Department of Homeland Security. There's nothing you can't track that down. You can't run somebody's name. And so in essence, you want me to trust you?

And I'm using the example again. I've seen a lot of these militias out here look just like the picture we're showing, Mayor. So you don't know who the heck you're dealing with at night. No, it's a very dangerous situation that needs to be stopped immediately. Look, this is not the way that you run the show here in the United States of America. It's making us question so many different things as to what is going on in our country right now. We're going through a lot of challenges.

The protests for racial justice, they're about a good, noble cause. OK, we're going to be a better America when we realize the racial justice issues that are being fought for in our streets right now. That's what everybody should be behind. They shouldn't be trying to divide the country right now and ratchet up the emotions. Right now, we need to unify, come together and say, yeah, we've had a history of injustice in this country, okay? White America, be ashamed about that. But we can control today and control tomorrow about what's going to happen so we have a more equitable city. That's what we should be focused on. When we talk about these protests

and what's been happening for the last nine weeks, almost 10 weeks, has been in response to, of course, the murder of George Floyd. Prior to that was Breonna Taylor in your city. And prior to that, it was Ahmaud Arbery. We announced we were seeing NBA players and others, so many people, making a point about arrest the officers involved in the death of Breonna Taylor. Before I talk about that, let's talk about the report that came out that said Breonna Taylor had been shot and for 21 minutes, no aid had been given to her. First of all, is that report correct? And what is your response to that? Yeah, what happened? Let's just kind of recap. Remember what happened there? A search warrant was being executed on brianna's uh apartment uh the

police officers went in it was a no-knock warrant they said they announced kenneth walker brianna's a boyfriend said they heard somebody at the door they didn't hear him say it was the police so when the police went in and if walker shot at the police police officer was shot in the leg he went down returned fire and tragically brianna was dead at the end of the hallway the coroner said that brianna would have been dead within a minute the whole thing is a is a huge tragedy obviously the police officers retreated because they thought that they were being fired on from inside of the apartment so you know the whole thing roland is just a mess and what's at the root of the problem is is that even though our city has been a leader in releasing body camera evidence when there's been officer-involved shootings, which happens occasionally, unfortunately, in this case, it was undercover narcotics agents delivering the search warrant so they didn't have body cameras on.

So unlike George Floyd or what took place with Rayshard Brooks, where you had body camera, you knew exactly what happened. So, unfortunately, that's what we don't have in this case. Now, we've since changed that. We passed Breonna's law, which bans no knock warrants and requires the use of body cameras for anybody that's executing a search warrant. The other thing is that the officer who was fired, who fired 10 rounds, those those 10 rounds were fired from the outside. So he he had not even ascertained what was the conditions on the inside. He fired from the patio. So, you know, Roland, believe it or not, I am constricted by Kentucky law. I have a gag order on me on what I can say about this by law. But what I can tell you is that his termination letter summarizes what

you just said. And of course, it's a termination letter because of his activity firing blindly, which, of course, police officers are not allowed to do. Recognizing that gag order there, how do you respond to the continual calls for other officers to be fired. Only one has been fired thus far. He's appealing his firing. I even, I mean, today, even when you talk about just shocked some people, I was looking at the Twitter feed that Tampa Bay raised. And I mean, you have so many people, again, who are responding to all of this. And I'm trying to pull the tweet up. You know, they sent a tweet out saying, if I can find it, that it's, I think it says something along the lines of,

here's right here, today is opening day, which means it's a great day to arrest the killers of Breonna Taylor. You have so many people who still think justice has not been fully served in Louisville, Kentucky. That's right. And so that's why when this case took place, I asked the FBI, the attorney general and the U.S. attorney to look at it as well. So it just wasn't our own police department investigating. So the cases with our attorney general right now, Daniel Cameron, he's going to be making any type of decisions moving forward in terms of criminal charges or not. The officers, what they had in common was they were all at the scene. OK, that was it.

The individual activities that took place then are what will be analyzed. And obviously, the one officer that we could take action on, we did that. Now, the crux of this whole problem, and what I'm calling for for reform here in our city and our state, are to change these laws, Roland, like the gag order I just mentioned, KRS-67C, stronger civilian police oversight, so that group has subpoena power. Because the balance between our citizens' right to know what's taking place versus officers' due process rights is out of balance. Citizens, when they don't hear what's going on in a case, they automatically think secrecy, they automatically think cover-up. Cover-ups never

work. The truth always comes out. But we don't have a process that allows that to take place. And when I talk to police officers about this, good police officers want more transparency and accountability as well, because it puts a cloud on the entire police force. So I am hopeful that we will be able to get those laws changed, because it's overdue. And if you don't have police community legitimacy, which is the result of these situations when you don't understand what's going on, that leads to distrust and obviously breakdown in the community. So these changes have got to come and I'm fighting for these changes. You fired the police chief after there was a shooting where a popular barbecue owner was shot and killed, tied around the curfew.

The officers involved in that were not wearing their body cameras. The same thing in the case of Breonna Taylor. Are you looking to change the procedures there in Louisville? And I've always advocated this, that if a police officer does not turn their body camera on, that's automatic expulsion. Yeah. No, that incident you're talking about, they had body cameras. They were not on. Some other officers that were around the scene did have those on as well. These were doing a top to bottom review of all of LMPD right now, Louisville Metro Police Department. So we can have that complete when we have a new police chief come in as well. So each and every

one of these things are going to be looked at because people have got to know. We were a leader in body cameras and putting them on because we wanted to have this exact history of what takes place when citizens and police interact with each other. And frankly, I want to change the whole situation. So when police and citizens interacting, citizens say our guardians are here. That is not the case with American policing today. So we need massive police reform. This is one of our work groups with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Police reform and racial justice, dismantling systemic racism is another one of these things. to make fundamental systemic change with policing so it enhances legitimacy in our community. So where the community actually says, OK, our police are here. It's a good thing. We've got a long way to go, but we've got to get started. I've got to ask you this here. Obviously, cities are now dealing with these calls to defund the police.

We're seeing councils in Seattle vote over the objections of the mayor and the police chief. Folks are also talking about shifting resources. That doesn't mean getting rid of police departments, but it's rethinking. In San Francisco, they're talking about sending out mental health professionals. What are you looking at? What are you hearing from mayors in your position as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in terms of how they are dealing with this? Because if the protests have not been happening in their city, they're coming. Oh, that's right. There's been protests in over 2,000 cities and towns in America right now.

So hopefully America will wake up to this. What needs to happen with policing is called public safety, reimagining public safety. So the correct first responder goes up, or the correct first responders. It could be more than one. So if it's a homeless person, you're getting somebody there that can help with the services for the people that are suffering from homeless or domestic violence, mental illness, whatever it might be, housing affordability, education specialists, out of school time. What America has done, you know, and yes, we are the richest country on the face of the earth. But the way that we've allocated our money has resulted in the development of too many of our people living in poverty that then incentivizes people oftentimes to do illegal activity, which leads to interactions expect the police officers to clean all this up, as opposed to we as a society making sure everybody has stable housing, food, education, a pathway to college if they want to do that.

Invest in the front end, and then you'll have less need for police officers that we expect to be superheroes to clean all of our society's problems up. Changing our drug laws is part of this as well. So we just can't think about this moment of one case or another. We've got to think about changing a lot of our societal systems to go from a minimum wage to a living wage. I can tell you, Roland, that the majority of problems in a mayor's office are due to poverty. Imagine a country where we didn't have poverty. We have enough money as United States of America to do that because we're wealthier than companies in Scandinavia or than countries in Scandinavia or Northern Europe that have figured it out. We just have got to quit being so greedy as America and put some type of balance back to

capitalism to rework our whole system that downstream will lead to much more peaceful cities. Mayor Greg Fischer, Louisville, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you, Roland. Take care. All right. Back to our panel here with Dr. Carter. Bottom line is, is here cities, as the mayor said, their cities are going to have to confront this. And if they aren't coming up with plans right now, they better because the reality is we can't police our way out of everything. Absolutely. And I think what the mayor was hinting at is that this is going to be a holistic set of solutions to really complicated problems from housing to living wages to education, et cetera. All of those things are connected. And when you were thinking about sort of the environmental injustices that many of these same communities face, the over-policing, all of this

really creates an environment of distrust. It doesn't really allow for the kind of peaceful protests that I think many people would prefer to see. I mean, these things don't start in one moment. George Floyd may have been the match, but the fuse was already there, right? So this is, I think these protests have been going on for a lot longer than people thought they would. And they will continue to go on because I think we have an appetite for it. And currently with COVID-19 and everything else is going on, many of our lives are standing still. And we're inching closer to August where many of the safety nets for people because of COVID-19 are going to expire. So it's going to be a really brutal fall.

And so we should expect to see more of this. And if we don't do anything now, we will reap the whirlwind of that. Bottom line, Rob, pressure is what changes things in this country. Nothing changes in America voluntarily. And so these protests serve a useful purpose in getting politicians to understand they have to change the way we do business in this country. No question about that. I mean, nothing happens without protest. Nothing happens without direct action. And I'll say this in response to what the mayor said when he was talking about the culture of the police force. I think how you change the culture is actually focusing, your culture is determined, unfortunately, by your worst acting officer. So when I've seen this play out, I see is determined, unfortunately, by your worst acting

officer. So when I've seen this play out, I saw it play out at the University of Cincinnati. We had a couple of officers that were acting out of line, but that determined the whole culture, because it only takes one officer to do something to kill somebody. And so to the extent that they'll regulate those officers and make sure that they're held accountable, that's the only solution I see here. And I hate to say this, but the officer who is suing for his right to not be fired, unless we're able to actually prosecute him, he's probably going to win. Because that also happened after I left the board of the University of Cincinnati, this officer who should be in jail

sued and got back paid for all that time because of how our laws are set up. We have a really fundamentally broken system and we need a whole bunch of pushing, a whole bunch of pushback. And we need to make sure we sustain this because a lot has to happen. And it's not just enough just to remove some statues. I'm glad that's happening. We need a whole lot more than that. Bottom line is, Derek, again, people don't change unless they're forced to change. And so when you look at San Francisco, when the mayor of London breathed, they decided that as opposed to always sending cops out, they're going to send out mental health professionals. A lot of these situations that cops are going up against, they're dealing with people who have mental health issues. Cities and counties have drastically cut back on community health centers that dealt with this sort of stuff. And they pretty much just say, OK, fine, just leave it to the police.

Just call the police for everything. When the mayor in Seattle came out with her announcement, they went through and they said, okay, why is the police department handling traffic tickets? Get it to the Department of Transportation. They start going through really what police do to say, there are other agencies that can actually handle this stuff. The answer to everything in the mirror can't be call the cops. Agreed. I agree with you 100 percent, especially when it comes to mental health. And a lot of times when you come to these black communities, you don't need a police officer. You need a mental health expert. And I think if a lot of these policies are implemented around the country,

it could bring down some of these escalation, if you will, when it comes to the police. Because you're right, they should be handling every situation. But at the same time, man, I just think, you know, some of these models, you know, like we just talked about, the mental health, like I said, it definitely needs to be rolled out in different cities.

And like Rob said, everything that's going on in this country right now, it's been long overdue. These protests and everything is long overdue. However, I do feel like, you know, some of the protests, some of the meaning of the protests has been hijacked by some of these fake ass protesters. Hence us arguing 15 minutes before in the beginning of the show about who these people are and who's being arrested. And so that's the only problem I have with this whole movement, man. It was needed, needed, much, very much necessary. But when I see some of these folks out here tearing up and some of these white people who they don't seem like they're really out there for the cause.

That's where I have a problem with taking away from the move. But you know what? I get that point. But let's just go ahead and put it out here. Well, you look at every single major civil rights bill that came about in the 60s, it were all preceded by riots. They were preceded by folks being killed. Let's just be honest. America don't react to nothing until shit get torn up. See, let's just be let's just be real clear here. OK, people I love all the people who say,

we need to have peaceful protests. Well, guess what? We actually had. I remember all those years when Obama was at Black Lives Matter, you had peaceful protests. Look, I have never been an advocate for violence. What I am saying is, America, Dr. Carter,

America only seems to understand violence because America has used violence to get what it wants. Look, America has has used all kinds of means of graft, threat of war, war, murder to get what it wants. And I think it's interesting that we fetishize peace when the people who aren't being peaceful are not white, right? We don't have any problem with these white people showing up in Michigan and Minnesota and anywhere else with their long guns, screaming in the faces of law enforcement. And that's supposed to be peaceful. That's supposed to make us feel safe. But the moment somebody breaks a window, it's looting, and it's now the movement is for naught.

And so I think talking about sort of peace and not talking about these other things, because you're right, Roland, I mean, when we talk about the long, hot summer, when there was a spate of riots, right, that's when you start to see the needle move a little bit. When we talked about, you know, even peaceful protests, John Lewis got his head cracked open. He was talked about, you know, even peaceful protests, John Lewis got his head cracked open. He was being peaceful, right? But it was those images that really pushed the needle. So America does understand violence. That is a language that America is conversing in. I mean, we celebrate it. When we talk about the revolution, that wasn't peaceful, right? That was out and out war. So I

think it's interesting that when people of color or it's done in the name of black people in particular, then all we want to talk about is peace. Well, the time for peace has passed. People have been asking and asking and asking, right? But power concedes nothing. And sometimes it takes a little gasoline. Sometimes it takes a little fire to let people know you mean business. And I'm not suggesting that is the way you should go. I'm not suggesting any of that, but I'm not going to sit here and condemn people about the way they protest rather than listen to what they're talking about. Because talking about the violence, the looting, the rioting, or whatever we want to call it, is sidestepping the major issue is why do they have

to be out in the street in the first place? Why, as citizens, do these people feel that their needs aren't being met through all the other means, right, through politics, through voting, et cetera? That's the real question. So don't talk to me about whether people are being violent or nonviolent. Like, I feel like that's a distraction in a way of sort of trying to split the world into good protesters and bad protesters and saying that because there are a few bad protesters, all the protest is not worthwhile. But when it's the police shooting people, it's a few bad apples, but we should still trust the police. So take that same attitude and keep that same energy for protesters when you see a few people doing some things that you may not like. Rob? Yeah, well, you know, Dr. King said, when you have riots, the language of the unheard, as really Dr. Carter really just laid out,

we've been peacefully protesting for a long time. They got mad at Colin Kaepernick for We have riots, the language of the unheard, as really Dr. Carter really just laid out. We've been peacefully protesting for a long time. They got mad at Colin Kaepernick for peacefully protesting, standing on a knee, called him a son of a bitch, called him out of his name, said he's anti-American, said he's doing horrible things. He's standing against the flag. I mean, I just want people to stand on their convictions. If you believe in the power of protest and stand up for it, but don't act like you're this patriot, you're going to wrap yourself around the flag. When you said Colin Kaepernick was actually disrespecting the flag when he was doing what the flag is supposed to stand for, which is we are protesting for the rights that Americans are supposed to have. And when you don't listen to people, when people go unheard,

then things erupt. This is not a surprise. So what America should be doing is really solving the problem and really addressing it because they haven't been doing it. And I'll say this one final thing. When I hear people have this, I don't consider it pure violence when you just talk about destroying property. I don't like it. It's lawlessness. You shouldn't do it. But I don't equate that to killing some language, particularly from the right. It's they're committing violence. No, they tore up somebody's property. And I want you to get that upset when you see a black man die. That's what I want to see. When we arrive to that point, we've made it in America, but we're not even close. All right, folks, every day we plan to

show you, we have a new segment. We're talking about all these viral ads out here. And man, these viral ads, they get real brutal. Here is today's batch. Who is Donald Trump? He mocks the disabled. He praises racists. Very fine people. He attacks the military. I like people that weren't captured, okay?

This 53-year-old Navy veteran hit repeatedly. He protects criminals. He sympathizes with child sex traffickers. This Lane Maxwell is in prison. I just wish her well, frankly. And now he attacks mothers? Who is Donald Trump? Donald Trump is a disaster.

Midas Touch is responsible for the content of this advertising. All right, y'all, I gotta play this one here. The Tonight Show put this one together. I just couldn't resist. Can you help us? Yeah. Can you say person, woman, man, camera, TV? So it's person, woman, man, camera, TV.

Hooray! Person, woman, man, camera, TV. Again! Person, woman, man, camera, TV. One more time! Person, woman, man, camera, TV. We did it! We did it!

We did it! Yay! Because I'm cognitively there. Can you help us? Yeah. That was brutal, Derek. But why is this dude so stuck on this cognitive test? He is so desperate for people.

I'm smart. No, I'm really smart. No, I'm really, really smart. Man, I don't know where that commercial came from, but the media, you know, you drive home that, you know, the president is not smart. So I guess he's defending himself. But that's all I can say about that video and that commercial. I don't know where the hell that came from. Well, I told you the last the last one came from the Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show. Obviously, obviously, Rob, they're mocking Trump and he hates to be mocked. In fact, I'm reading Mary Trump's book and he's still to this day. She tells this story when they had at

the White House in 2017, it was a birthday party for his sister. And his sister stands up and tells a story about when his 14 year old brother, Fred, dumped a bowl of mashed potatoes on Donald's head and he said that his arms are crossed. The man is in his seventies and he still hates for that story being told. I'm like, dude, you're a seven. He hates being mocked. And that's what absolutely drives him crazy. He is a child that happens to be president of the United States. And, you know, it's not the media making fun of him. He is. It's easy to make fun of. The man is not that bright. And he's very good at marketing.

But in terms of having the cognitive ability to be president, I don't think so. And Joe Biden does. I would say this. Smart people don't have to defend themselves that they're smart all the time. They don't talk about how smart they are. You just know it. and you can just see. And that's not something I would describe Donald Trump as. I guess you're saying that's what he is, but I don't think that's what he is.

I don't know. Bob Lyon is one of the things that these viral ads are getting under his skin, Dr. Carter, because what's happening is groups like the Lincoln Project, as well as some of these other groups that group there, they're actually buying, they're only buying one network. They're buying ads on Fox News, knowing he watches so much television, he's going to see the ads. Yes. I mean, look, they know that they can do this and get to him. Right. I mean, people who have other things to do don't care about ads.

If you're a politician, you know people are going to say things about you. It comes with the territory. And the thing that he cannot get over is that anyone doesn't see him the way that he sees himself. And what the Lincoln Project has done very effectively and really Democrats need to take a page out of their book is pick at the things that he knows people say about him, that he's not smart,

that he's not thoughtful, that he is not worldly, that he may not really be as rich as he claims to be, those things. And they just keep picking at that thread and it bothers him. And if you had real job to do, like being the president of the United States, and you took that seriously, who cares about this attack ad? But they're clearly doing their job and they're doing it well. And they're plucking his nerve, which they quite frankly have set out to do. So the Lincoln Project is winning all day and Donald Trump stays losing because Donald Trump can't get over his own ego and let things go and say nothing. He keeps giving it more oxygen. And you know what? I was perusing the other night, and I

just had to have a few laughs. And so, we had to go back. Remember the White House Correspondents Dinner, Derek, when Trump was sitting in the audience and Obama was president? Oh, I remember that, yeah. Remember that, Derek? Can you play it? Oh, yes.

Please do. Yes. Please do. Yes. I'm sure you were. Oh, yes. I knew you were. It is wonderful to be here at the White House Correspondents Dinner. What a week. As some of you heard, the state of Hawaii released my official long-form birth certificate. Hopefully, this puts all doubts to rest. But just in case there are any lingering questions, Tonight, I'm prepared to go a step further. Tonight, for the first time, I am releasing, no one has seen this footage in 50 years. Not even me. But let's take a look. Thank you. Oh, well. Back to square one. I want to make clear to the Fox News table, that was a joke. That was not my real birth video. That was a children's cartoon. Call Disney if you don't believe me. They have

the original long-form version. There's a vicious rumor floating around that I think could really hurt Mitt Romney. I heard he passed universal health care when he was governor of Massachusetts. Someone should get to the bottom of that. And I know just the guy to do it. Donald Trump is here tonight. Now, I know that he's taken some flack lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like did we fake the moon landing?

What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac? All kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example, no seriously, just recently in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, at the steakhouse, the men's cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately you didn't blame Little John or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night.

Well handled, sir. Well handled, sir. Well handled. There you go, Derek. Just a little reminder. 2011, man. I tuned out after the first couple of minutes. I just could not take it anymore. But it is what it is, bro.

I was wondering why he spent so much time on Trump at this White House correspondent's dinner. Because actually he gave a probably about a 30 minute presentation. And so the whole point of the dinner is actually to mock people. I understand that. But he spent a whole lot of time on Trump at that dinner. It was just five minutes. It was just five minutes. And yeah, Rob. Yeah, Niyambi.

Trump spent a whole lot of time on that line about that damn birth certificate. He did. He did. I'll say this, too. I think where we have to be careful is that we sometimes give power more power than we should to Trump. And sometimes we do underestimate him. And I don't want to make the mistake because I know and I think if Obama could take it all back particularly in 2016 he definitely did a good job of mocking him and no one thought he would be president but the man is president and so what I want to make sure we do is we tell the audience that this man will do anything and everything he's you see and he's putting secret police on the street we have to do everything possible to get this man out of office and do not take anything for granted I don't care what the poll I don't care what the poll I just I don't care what the

polls say this man is unpollable. He could be... So I just make sure people need to get out there and vote and do not underestimate anything. Obama was hilarious, and if Obama was running against Trump right now, I wouldn't have any worries. But we don't have Obama running, so we

got to make sure people are inspired because they know, because we have to get out. We have to get Trump out, period. Well, here's the deal. First of all, that was in 2011. That was before the 2012 election. That's when Donald Trump was doing the whole birther deal. Also the nonsense. But if you really want to blame somebody, Donald Trump for winning, you talk about a

basically sorry ass Republican Party who had about 16 candidates and they were all wimps because they were afraid to go after him like he like he did and they were all with jeb bush uh christy they had so don't ask they attacked each other and didn't want to deal with this lying fool even though when you talk about uh you know who actually probably should have ran against him i don't know if y'all saw it we can't show it because obviously abc might put a strike on it. Go to YouTube, folks, and look at the 1990 interview, 18 minute interview that Barbara Walters did with Donald Trump. Y'all, I'm trying to tell you, everybody who's watching. When I say she laid him out and caught him in so many lies, it was a lie after lie.

And see, that's how you have to deal with Donald Trump. Chris Wallace just did it. See, you know Trump is going to lie. Chris Wallace sat there and had charts. This says right here. No, that's fake. That's fake. No, this came

from your people. See, you can't. Here's the deal with Trump. Hillary Clinton's problem and Democrats in 2016 and those Republicans is they operated by conventional politics. You're dealing with a thug. Thugs

don't play by rules. That's why I said I don't want to hear that Michelle Obama stuff when they go low, we go high. No. When they go low, bust his ass in his ankles. And if he go lower than that, hit him at the bottom of his feet. You have to sit here and you have to mock him. You have to you have to say, I'm telling you, the first debate when he starts lying, this is what Joe Biden should say.

That's a lie. He keeps going. That's a lie. Here you go again. That's another lie. That's a lie. That's a lie. That's a lie. Because both of them be standing up there. No, no, no.

Well, actually, if I got those two, I can guarantee you, I can go ahead and just put this sucker in stone who going to be the biggest liar on stage. And that's going to be Donald Trump. Oh, please. Oh, Derek, come on. Derek, come on. You can't. Derek, Derek, come on. Derek, come on. You can't. Derek, seriously. Donald Trump will lie about a lie.

Joe Biden will lie about a lie. What are you talking about? Are you literally trying to compare? Wait a minute. Are you literally trying to compare? Are you actually trying to compare? No, I didn't say best thing since sliced bread. No, I didn't say best thing since sliced bread.

I can guarantee you this. Why you think that? Joe Biden better than this lying fool. Y'all better get out and vote or Trump going to be in office. Oh, no, trust me. We going to do our part. No, I agree with that. No, we going to do our part because I already made it perfectly clear.

And we going to say it over and over and over again. And it's real simple. Mobilize, organize, register, get your mail-in vote if you want to vote early and hashtag fire Trump in November. When we come back from this break, we'll talk about a young black lawyers group that's organizing to mobilize a thousand black lawyers and law students to protect the right to vote, because you know damn well Trump and his Department of Justice sure as hell won't do it. That's 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, you're looking to check out virtual reality.

What you can do is you get this Seek VR headset right right here which allows you to actually place your phone right in here you can look at VR videos on the seats website seek calm or you can also look at any other virtual reality video 360 degree videos as well so I got this VR headset plus you have these 360 degree 4d headphones amazing sound gamers love these as well so you got Bluetooth you Gamers love these as well. So you got Bluetooth, you can use the phone calls as well, watch videos, listen to music, you name it. All you got to do is go to Seek.com, black owned company. Mary Spio is the creator and inventor of these. Seek.com, use the promo code right there, RMVIP2020, RMVIP2020. All right, folks, we told you about this group, the Young Black Lawyers Organizing

Coalition. Their focus is to protect the rights of 500,000 African-Americans. They're going to focus on six key states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina. Their work will center around nonpartisan voter education, legal mobilization, and local advocacy. Joining me right now is Abdu Dosunmu, founder and chief strategist for the organization. So glad to have you here, Abdul. First and foremost, I'm looking at those states. I get South Carolina. Why not North Carolina?

That's going to be a major battleground state. Obama won by 14,000 votes in 2008. Republicans have been, that's probably the greatest place where Republicans have been instituting voter suppression. Why not there? It actually is one of our states. Okay. All right. Cool. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. So name the states again. The states are South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Got it. Okay, cool. Go ahead. And so we're a black lawyers group,

the young black lawyers organizing coalition. And we came together earlier this year on the conviction that ultimately the new, more just America that we all want to see will have to be legislated. Gil Scott-Heron said the revolution will not be televised, but it will have to be legislated, we believe. And that's a direct function of the inclusivity of our democracy. And so we decided to get off of the sidelines and get into the action of working to ensure that Black voters are able to participate freely and fully in this year's elections. So we started organizing earlier this year in South Carolina. In South Carolina, Roland, there are about 100,000 Black voters on the inactive rolls, which puts them at risk of voter suppression when

they go to vote. And so we mobilized a campaign during the presidential primary there to reach as many of those voters as possible with one simple message, double, triple check your voter registration and know your rights. And now we're preparing to scale that effort across our target states with this Black Ballots, Black Futures campaign to mobilize 1,000 young black lawyers and law students to help protect and empower five hundred thousand black voters in November. And look, when we talk about voter suppression, the reality is Republicans have been engaged in this for a very long time. That thing was put on steroids at the 2010 midterm elections when Republican legislatures begin to pass these laws. But it really took off after the Shelby v. Holder decision.

I was just talking about this whole point here. And that is, first and foremost, you see how they've been dropping folks from the rolls. It was a white guy in Ohio who sued. They went all the way to the Supreme Court. Republicans, conservatives on the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. So they've been just dropping people off the rolls. I keep telling people, don't assume that you're registered. If you did not vote in the primaries, just fill the application out again just to be safe.

Make no assumptions. Absolutely. And in fact, if I had one message for your viewers today, it would be precisely that. Go online today and double, triple check your voter registration. Make sure you are registered to vote. If you find out you're not, we still have time to remedy the situation. But if you wait until late and discover it, we don't have a lot of time. Our strategy, Roland, is going to be focused on three big areas. Number one, voter empowerment, getting actionable and timely

information directly to voters, using data and analytics to engage voters with precision, getting critical information, precisely like double checking your voter registration form. The second piece is going to be legal mobilization. We believe that one of the big drivers of some of the long lines of dysfunction that we've seen at the polls is understaffing. And so what we're doing is making sure that we're plugging young lawyers in with opportunities to serve as election workers in November so that they can come alongside the traditional workforce and supplement it. And then the second part of that legal mobilization piece is going to be a hyper-local organizing model. We want to embed young lawyers in church conventions, in civic organizations, in community and activist groups to make sure that we're not just showing up on election day

in November, but that we're actually working with these communities starting now and heading into November so that we can make sure that we're providing support in the voter protection arena. And then the third component of what we're doing is local advocacy. Roland, as you know, local county elections officials are setting, making decisions right now. They're setting poll site locations right now. Often they're doing it in the cover of darkness without any accountability. We want to make sure that we're amplifying the voices of young lawyers and law students in the communities where they live to hold these elections officials accountable to ensure equitable administration of our elections. We got about 6,000 people who are watching live right now. Here we go to my iPad. I want you to see this here. Vote.org. Vote.org. This is real simple. They are 101 days

until election day. You can go on this website right now. You can check your registration. You can register to vote. You can vote by mail, get election reminders, polling place locator, also the 2020 census. Now, I did this last night, Abdul, and it was great because basically I went on. I knew I was already registered again. I filled out every year. So I was good. My parents worked the polls in Texas. So my entire family is registered. But I went on. Double check. Yes, I'm registered. I then went on and then filled out. So what happens, folks, go back to the Web site hearing what happened when you vote by mail, you feel it, fill it out. You put all your information in. Then whatever the address is where you are registered, some right here.

What happens is you put that information in. Once you put it in, it takes you to your state's Web site. But you have to understand all the rules are different. So, for instance, there are some states that you can't request an absentee ballot online. You actually have to download a form, fill it out, and mail it in. I'm registered in Texas. Texas allows for me to request an absentee ballot right there online. And so if you go to vote.org, folks, all you got to do is just go there, check this process, first check to see if you're registered. If you are to do is just go there, check this process. First, check to see if you're registered. If you are absentee ballot, what I'm encouraging folks to do is don't, I know how emotional it is for black people to stand in line. I'm saying don't trust it or get that, get that

mail-in ballot immediately. Be able to cast that back when it's ready. Once we're finished with voter registration, then you're able to cast that ballot by mail. You're good. Or first day of early voting, be in line to vote and cast it then. Not wait until, because I'm telling you, there are going to be shenanigans all across America on election day. Absolutely. And we're trying to mobilize to prepare for that. And I would just add one more thing to what you said. If your state is one of those states that has a mail-in ballot alternative and you're eligible for that, I would encourage you to request it day one.

Request it as early as you can, because we've seen what Trump is doing with the United Postal Service, and we've seen the impact that that could potentially have on the ability of, on the efficacy of our vote by mail program. So I'm encouraging people to make sure you're keeping track of the dates and deadlines for mail-in ballot requests, absentee ballot requests, and the beginning of early voting, and go participate early. Request your ballots early so that you can make sure that you don't have to get caught up in any of Trump's shenanigans with USPS. And folks, we're already seeing why they're slowing down the mail delivery. And to that particular point, the first thing is this. Before you even get to the issue of voting, you have to be registered. And don't I'm telling you, I'm gonna keep saying this, you cannot depend on, I know I'm registered, because part of the problem is,

if you go to the polls, oh, you're not registered, oh, there's an issue, fill out this provisional ballot, and we know that they basically mistreat provisional ballots. Absolutely. That's one of the big animating thrusts behind our effort in South Carolina. What we discovered is there are 100,000 black voters on the inactive voter rolls. They can still vote, but they might not be prepared to vote provisionally. And if they do vote provisionally, we know, as you said, that there are any number of issues with that. And so what we wanted to encourage people to do, and what I would reiterate here today, is that it does not matter if you've been voting for the last 35 years, please double,

triple check your voter registration today and make sure you are registered to vote. And then the other thing I would encourage people to do is check out our website at yblock.org, Y-B-L-O-C.org. Drive any young black lawyers, you know, or law students that you know to that website to encourage them to sign up, because now is the time for us to get off of the sideline and into the action. The battle is happening right now. All right, then. We certainly appreciate it. Abdul Dosanmu, thank you so very much. Thank you so much, folks. Let's talk about LeBron James. More than a vote, a group he founded, along with other black athletes and entertainers, Thank you so much. They're working with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which in 2018 successfully pushed a constitutional amendment that lifted Florida's lifetime voting ban on people with felony convictions.

That's the work that Shannon and Desmond Meade are involved in. That to me, Rob, and I've been making this point, that to me is how celebrities, how you use your power. Look, because here's the whole deal. You can come up with this agenda, you can come up with this, that, and the other, but the bottom line is this here. If they're able to wipe these fines away, that's up to 1.4 million people who can now vote. Florida can be flipped by that voting block alone. Absolutely. And they shouldn't have to do this, but they do. And this is how you do use your power. You know, my mom says, look, when you get the microphone in front of you, you use it. And LeBron James is more than an athlete. It's why I consider him more of a GOAT, by the way, than Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan took the opposite stance. He tried to figure out do with his power. And not only that, you know, he's making sure that his cohort, people around him are gaining wealth and getting rich and it's not just him. And so I really applaud LeBron James that he's doing,

he's doing the right thing socially with social justice. He's also changing the narrative and changing the construct when it comes to economic empowerment and what an agent can look like and everything else. So I'm very proud of LeBron James. Of course, he's from Ohio, so I have to give more of a shout-out from him from there, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Dr. Carter, by all matters, it's here when we talk about, again, how you move votes. I mean, the reality is it's here. Republicans in Florida, if you're a formerly incarcerated person,

they're the ones who did not want you to get your right to vote. They're the ones who, after this amendment passed, changed the law to make it harder to do constitutional amendments. Then they're the ones who pushed through the measure to say, no, you got to pay all your fines and fees before you can get your right to vote. And they're the ones who have been suing. So the Republican Party in Florida is not a friend of the formerly incarcerated. And they knew exactly what they were doing because part of what was happening is that

those returning citizens didn't actually know how much they owed, who they owed it to, how to pay it. And so a lot of people were confused. And what they did was they didn't register to vote because they were afraid that if they did register to vote, they might actually be committing a federal crime and nobody wants to go back to prison. And so that the chilling effect of that is the part that's really insidious about these fines. And so for LeBron James and others to step up to do this work is really important because I think oftentimes people think that voter suppression works by literally keeping people from the ballot. No, most of the time, it just makes people too afraid to even approach the polling place. And we know that voting is contagious. Voting is social so that if you vote, your children are more likely to vote.

Your neighbors are more likely to vote. Your aunties, your cousins, your grandmoms. And so this is how whole communities become demobilized because you have this kind of activity. So a lot of people in Florida now don't necessarily have to carry that weight of being afraid that by simply declaring themselves eligible to vote through registration that they're in fact violating federal law and may incur other kinds of felony charges. And so I think this, I mean, you know, $100,000 is just the beginning. And if he can get others to participate in this activity with him, I have no doubt that this is a game changer for Florida. And this will change what we have said about Democrats activity in the South and how important the South is to a Democratic coalition in a place like Florida that has had, you know, a Republican legislature for four decades now. And again, Derek, if you're

one of those folks and the GOP making it hard for you, I'm just saying you might be fearful that these folks are going to throw your butts out of office. It's 1.4, this could impact 1.4 million people in Florida alone. Derrick there? Can Derrick hear? We're little Derrick. All right.

All right, y'all let me know, let me know about Derrick's audio. Now we got, we got y'all too, who have an issue with Derrick's audio. So y'all let me know. Let me know about Derek's audio. No, we got y'all two who have an issue with Derek's audio. So y'all let me know when we got Derek's audio back. All right, folks. The U.S. Senate has passed a $740 billion defense bill. It includes a provision to remove the names of Confederate soldiers from military bases. In the past, Trump has said he will veto the defense bill if the bases are renamed. Despite this threat, the bill passed with strong bipartisan support with enough votes to override Trump veto.

Kayla McEnany was asked today about this at the press briefing. And the boy is amazing. Trump is still defending Confederates. Senate defense authorization bill, which passed by a veto-proof majority yesterday in the House. Earlier this week also passed their version of the defense bill, also by a veto-proof majority. And both of those bills contain mandates that the Pentagon renamed these military bases, which are named in honor of Confederate generals. I want to ask you, does the President believe that his position, which we're all familiar with, it's helpful in terms of recruitment, specifically for African-Americans? Explain how that position will help recruit African-Americans in an all-volunteer military force.

The president stands with the American people. Fifty-six percent don't want to see the bases' names changed. Where he stands is in a place where many soldiers who have lost their lives overseas, the last ground that they saw were these bases. And by changing their names, he believes that it is not appropriate that those soldiers who lost their lives to be told that the ground that they left. I'm familiar with his position, and you just restated it very well. But I'm asking you specifically, how is this helpful for an African American who wants to volunteer for our all-volunteer military forces

to go to a base that's named for a Confederate general that worked to still put and keep in place slavery, which impacted their ancestors? Because the bases are not known for the generals they're named after. The bases are known for the heroes within it. The great Americans, black, white, Hispanic of every race who have died on behalf of this great country. And 56 percent of the nation agrees with the president. Must be a hell of a campaign strategy, Niamh, to run. Hey, Confederates, keep going. Yeah, I mean, you want to name your bases

after a bunch of Confederate losers. That's the way to keep up morale in the military. I mean, we know this is a crock of bull. I mean, talking about the soldiers won't recognize the space. Why? Because it's not named after a Confederate general. None of the buildings have changed. We just changed the name. And we change names of things all the time without consulting the American people, just like we deploy federal troops to cities where they weren't asked for. So this idea that now all of a sudden we care about what the American people say is bull. I don't think a veto is smart at this point. One, because in this bill, this is the military salaries and benefits and other kinds of things. So if you're going to veto this whole

bill over naming, I think this is a really terrible way to show yourself as being pro-military. Rob, even Republicans in the Senate and the House know this is stuck on stupid. This bill passed huge, huge numbers. Donald Trump does not want to have his first veto overwritten by defending Confederates. Or maybe he does. Look, this is what I appreciate about Donald Trump. I appreciate that he's making the choice very clear. When people tell me that they're undecided, like, what are you undecided about?

Are you undecided about white supremacy? Are you undecided about keeping Confederates who are betrayers of the nation? Like, these are not people that you honor. So he's making it really clear. Are you for secret police coming out on the street? Are you for or against that? What are you undecided about? So he's making the lines really, really clear. You're either for white supremacy or racism or you're not. And he's not allowing any room for anything else except that. So I appreciate I appreciate him being so clear. And we need to make sure that American people reject that message and come out and say,

we heard you and we have a response for you. All right, then got to go to a break. We'll be back on Roland Martin Unfiltered in just a moment. Give you an update on what's happening with 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.

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RolandMartinUnfiltered.com Alright folks, going to bring you up to date on a couple of other stories, but first I want to implore all of you to please join our Bring the Funk fan club. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans to contribute at least 50 bucks each over the course

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You definitely do not want to miss me talking live with Jane Elliott. I can't wait to hear what she has to say about what has been happening in this country. And so there are a number of ways that you can support what we do. I got an opportunity to do this here. Let's see here. I got some folks who let's see you got support what we do. Let me just do this here. Let's see here. I got some folks who, let's see, you got any notes in here. I've got some folks who sent in their envelopes and I read some of these on the air. And so this is from Judy Oliver, Judy Oliver, who joins our fan club. And so, Judy, I certainly appreciate that. Let me see here.

Don't forget, more than 5,000 of y'all are watching right now on YouTube. You can give right there on YouTube. So just right there, or you can go, of course, to our other opportunities to give. And so, why people are calling me when they know I'm on the show? I don't understand that. Let's see here. Bonnie Hampton and Tony Hampton. It was a it was a surprise and pleasure to meet you and take a selfie here in St. Thomas on the Tom Joyner Cruise last year, 2019. I really enjoyed listening to your show every day.

I'm sending 50 bucks to support the show and join Bring the Funk fan club. I'll be sending another 50 bucks for my son, Tony, when he moves back from Atlanta, Georgia. And so, Bonnie Hampton, I certainly appreciate that note, Bonnie Hampton. And then let's see here. Let's see here. I got let's see here. One more. One more. OK, no note in here, but Janine Tyree, I certainly thank you for joining our fan club as well. Folks, if you want to join, let's do this here. You can go to Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered, paypal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered, venmo.com forward slash rmunfiltered. You can also send a money order. Check right there.

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payment methods who have joined our Brain Defunct fan club. And so we want to hit 20,000. And so we've got 9,700 to go. Let's do that over the next five months. And again, folks, last year we did about 350 hours of content. This year, the second year, we'll do more than 800 hours of content. And just to give you all a sense of where we are, we crossed the 500,000 subscriber threshold right there on YouTube on June 4th. Right now we have I'm double checking right now of five hundred and eighty eight thousand five hundred ninety nine subscribers. And so we're about to hit the six hundred thousand mark. And so, man, that has been great for us in terms of being able to grow this show, being able to get folks to watch it. And so it's been phenomenal. Thank a lot of you also for spreading the word as well.

Also, I just want to show you some other information just to understand, because I love haters. I love haters because all the haters do. It's like the Bible says, when God will prepare a table in the presence of your enemies, say all these haters out here who say we were going to fail all the haters who said, oh, this was not going to work. You can't do black news. Let me help you all out. This is a good, my iPad, Henry.

This is a snapshot of what we have been able to do, uh, in 2020. You see right here, January 2020 to July 2020, we have done in Facebook 5.1 million video views in January, 4.8 in February, 7.6 million in March, 8.3 million in April, 8.6 million in May, 9.2 million in June. And 16 months, 16 days of July, 7.6 million. We're going to exceed that mark in June. Let's go to YouTube, 5.1 million video views in January, 4.8 million video views in February, 7.6 million in March, 6.3 million in April, 14.5 million in May, 17.3 million in June, and 10.2 million in July. Y'all calm down. We got to take some time to get the whispers on our Skype machine, so chill out. Periscope, we did, now him and I explained y'all, we've been shifting a lot of our people away from Periscope to our YouTube channel. But 271,000 in January,

477,000 in February, 679,000 in March, 484,000 in April, 248,000 in May, 594,000 in June, and 399,000 video views in July. And so that's how we do it. We'll be doing overall. So folks, overall, overall in 2020 year to date, 51.6 million video views on Facebook, 66.1 million on YouTube, 3.1 million on Periscope. You know, we just did the deal with iHeartRadio with the distributing our podcast. We now have four, we've done 417,000 plays. We're averaging about 60,000 plays a month on our podcast as well. That's all because of you and what we do. And so we certainly appreciate that. And so please, this is your support makes all of this possible.

And we certainly appreciate it. All right, folks, let's go out in the store. The owner of Ebony Magazine is being forced into bankruptcy by creditors. Well, they're actually applying for bankruptcy as a result of the problems that they have been having. Now, remember, Parkview Capital was a company that loaned the money to CVG Group that bought Ebony. Well, Parkview Capital had their debt taken over by the new company called Blueprint. And so what happened is Blueprint, recognizing the fundamental problems that they're being they're having there with Ebony magazine. They said, hey, we've got to in order to get this stuff straight, we've got to actually file for bankruptcy.

And that's exactly what they have done in terms of filing for that particular bankruptcy. They say they have no choice but to do it. And so they say the three companies leading the charge for the bankruptcy filing again, Houston-based Parkview Capital claims to be owed $11.9 million. California-based David Appman Associates claim a debt of $9,400 and New York-based Plum Studio. And the creditors are pushing for a Texas federal court to force the brand into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Now, everybody's had some significant issues. They no longer publish the print edition. They've shut down on the digital side. They're doing all they can to try to. And their name's Jacob Walthour, who runs Blueprint, to really reconstitute the Ebony brand and get it straight. Real quick to go to my panel here. Bottom lines is here, Neomby and Rob.

We do not have enough. Folks, we've had some technical issues with Derek's feed. Nyambi, historic brand. But the reality is this is what happens. This is what happens when you are not prepared for the changing world. The advertising bottom dropped out of the magazine industry. It forced people to go digital. Ebony was not prepared to do any of that. They didn't have the live events set up to also compete the way Essence has. Essence makes more money off the Essence Festival. They do the magazine as well. And so that's really when you talk about the problems with Ebony and what I've been saying to so many black instant black media institutions, we're now operating in a digital world. Guess what? You're not going to be having live events. So you've got to figure out how in this new world to survive in a with a digital footprint, because coronavirus is keeping folks from being able to gather.

Yeah. And it's also the way that people consume media now. I mean, I can't tell you the last time I've gotten a physical copy of something because I'm on the go or I'm doing something or it's just my preferred method. Somebody usually has a hand, a phone attached to their hand at all times. And I think, you know, what's really unfortunate about Ebony is that they were at one point in time on the cutting edge. But when that digital market hit, I remember they had that Obama cover story and they sat on it and ended up getting scooped. And it was really a sad moment, right? Because Ebony used to be the place that you would go to, but now they have to compete in this environment with all kinds of news outlets. And unfortunately, you know, being left

behind on the front end doesn't really bode well for being able to catch up. And now with sort of the money woes that they've had with the freelancers and now this, I mean, it's just a really sad ending to such a legacy brand in the black community. And given what Ebony has meant to so many black homes and black households, I mean, the kinds of stories that they brought to us, you just wouldn't find anywhere else. And I think it's it's unfortunate. And I think it's, you know, just sort of emblematic of how important it is to always be thinking about what comes next. Because sitting where you are right now will leave you outmoded, quite frankly. Well, bottom line is this here. They don't want to. I mean, the folks who hold the debt, they say they want to continue, but they have to completely gut the company, reconstitute everything and, frankly, build from scratch. Rob. Yeah, look, you said it best. I've also tried to get black media. And this is not just Ebony. Ebony is such a strong brand. And this is tragic what's happening.

But it's not they're not alone. I mean, there's a lot of black brands, a lot of black radio that are not adjusting to the moment right now. They're not going digital. They're not using podcasts. They're not embracing the change. The change happened years ago. Right now, you know, you know, COVID-19 just accelerated things. The change has been happening. And as you said, you've already you've already you've already adjusted. But imagine, Roland, if you had the brand of Ebony behind you already, what you could have done with that? I tried. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, let's be clear. Let's be clear. I know you didn't want everybody to understand. I went to all of the major black brands and let me tell you something right now, to your point, COVID didn't accelerate COVID exposed COVID-19 did was it exposed the folks who were living on the old model.

And the old model was, hey, events money, which I totally get. But then what happened when the people don't show up? And so you've got to keep adjusting. How are you delivering content? Look, I ran the Chicago Defender. The reason I totally understand what's happening with Ebony, because the Chicago Defender was an example of what happened with Ebony. Same thing. And I'm talking about the exact same. We lost money for 20 straight years at Chicago Defender. We got to hear it everywhere. What you're saying is

happening all across America. And I've tried to have the same conversation in my local communities. No one listens. And so, look, I'm having a conference, Disruption Now Summit. We're doing the same thing. We're making, we're using this moment to expand even more. We have a lot of sponsors for it, but I tried to get some others to do it. No one, people are saying, well, are people going to listen on virtual content? Is it the same as being in person? You don't have any choice. You either have to innovate or you die. Those are your choices. That's it. And we really need more black media to move with the moment. I know you tried.

I've been trying. Usually people tell me that, well, you know, people are always going to do it this way. And you can ask, I'm going to end on this. Kodak actually created the technology that is Instagram. Kodak is bankrupt right now. And you know why they didn't embrace digital technology? They said, because people, if we do that, we might not make money off of our print. They were right. Somebody else did and ended them. It's the same thing going on

everywhere else. We have to, we got to innovate or die, period. And the crazy thing is, I remember when I ran the Dallas Weekly, Kodak, and I don't even know what the hell I did with that camera. It was a Kodak DC-210. It was one of the first digital cameras. And you're absolutely right. Kodak was making so much money off of film. They were not prepared for digital. They fought against it. They fought against it.

The company inside fought against it. And just like Blockbuster fought against it. they thought, oh, we're good. And the guy who owns Netflix, Reed Hastings, went to Blockbuster. Went to Blockbuster to do a deal. They laughed him out of the room. Blockbuster no longer exists. Because we've always done it this way is a terrible reason to keep doing anything. And I think that's often what happens is people are like, this is what we've always done. This way. It's a terrible reason to keep doing anything. And I think that's often what happens is people like this is what we've always done.

This is what our consumer wants. But your consumer wants what you give them. And to a certain extent, if you're not keeping up with their consumer, then you'll be left behind and they'll move on. Well, I look, I've made it clear. So hopefully we'll see what happens with Ebony. If the judge approves this involuntary bankruptcy. We'll certainly keep all of you guys up on the details. All right, Rob, Niambe, thank you so very much. Derek, thanks a bunch as well. Derek, get that crooked Wi-Fi fixed.

I sent him that text. Y'all, coming up next on Roller Martin Unfiltered, The Whispers. They got a new song out. We'll talk about it next right here. You want to support Roller Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club. We'll talk about it next right here. 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, we're trying to get the whispers on the line right now. We're going to do that. But we show a little bit the other day, that conversation between Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.

Here's some of it right here. Can you imagine standing up when you're a president and saying, it's not my responsibility? I take no responsibility. I mean, literally. Those words didn't come out of our mouths while we were in office. I don't understand his inability to get a sense of what people are going through.

He just can't, he can't relate in any way. Well, and one of the things that I have always known about you, Joe, it's the reason why I wanted you to be my vice president and the reason why you were so effective. It all starts with being able to relate. If you can sit down with a family and see your own family in them and the struggles that you've gone through or your parents went through or your kids are going through, if you can connect those struggles to somebody else's struggles, then you're going to work hard for them. And that's always what's motivated you to get into public service. When we came into office, even before... All right, folks, this weekend, we're actually going to just restream that whole conversation

for you this weekend. But right now, I want to go to our next story. The legendary group The Whispers are back with a new single that addresses racial injustice and tension. The song is called How Long? Listen. The Recovery Act passed. Grandpa, what's happening? What's happening to me is what's happening? What's happening, Neil, is what's been happening for years and years and years. It's time for change. Yeah.

How long will we argue? How long will we fight? When will we have the unity to change the wrong to right? Don't you know love is the answer to all our misery? Won't you take my hand today? Tomorrow we'll be free. Will we take to find ourselves again? Won't you tell me? I'm going to be strong for the master plan.

For the master plan. Because there's light on the other side of your reality. Thank you. How long before freedom? Tell me how long before the light? How long will the wars go on? We're all losing the fight And don't you know love is the answer To all our miseries Love is the essence to all the misery. Won't you take my hand today? Tomorrow we'll be free. Will it take to find ourselves again This room for the master plan

Because there's light on the other side of your reality Where the winds that blow are with me And then you'll be the first Is not a guilty Oh, yeah Watch this. Thank you. Before it's too late All right, folks. Joining me now is Walter Scott, Wallace Scotty Scott, and LaVell Degree. Hey, what's up, folks? Hey, what's up, Roland? Hey, what's up, Roland?

How you doing, brother? Glad to have y'all on the show. I sent a tweet out. I said to all the aunties and uncles, y'all better be tuning in right now. How did this song come about? Man, we like everybody else, Roland, man. We saw George Floyd with that knee on his neck. And we were in the process of doing a new song, kind of like Whispers. We saw that. We said, Floyd with that knee on his neck. And we were in the process of

doing a new song, kind of like Whispers. We saw that. We said, no, we got to change it. We got to go back to what we did almost 50 years ago when we had Seems Like I Gotta Do Wrong before they noticed me. We said, we got to get in on this and sing about what's happening in our country right now. And so you put this together and then, of course, you shot your socially distanced video. Absolutely. How about that? I mean, the thing is, we've had we've had B.B. Winers on that.

We've had Terry Ellis and a lot of artists, Trey Songz up in the video, a lot of artists have really been moved to speak to these issues. And really, it's a throwback to when Marvin Gaye put out his album, when Curtis Mayfield, where you have a history of artists who use music to speak to social issues. That's exactly right. We first did it in 19, you remember 1965 and the Watch Rides. We were from South Central, Watch, California. Right after that, we were brought the song Seems Like I Gotta Do Wrong, and we spoke about it then. But here we are 50 years later, and you know, they say history repeats itself.

We see the same thing, and it angers us, you know, because maybe this time, Roland, they'll get the idea of what we've been trying to say. But this is not, you and I know that this is not, you know, this didn't just start yesterday. It's been here for a long time. Go ahead, someone else, go ahead. No, you're right.

I mean, it has been here for a long time. Like Waldo said, back in 65, we've had this. And this is nothing new. It's just now we have those beautiful things called cameras and, you know, iPhones and Androids that are basically now in everybody's hands. And what's happening now is people are getting to see it for what it really is. Before, you know, when I was growing up and I get pulled over by a police officer, you didn't have the advantage of taping these kind of things or them seeing how they actually act when they're around you.

But now today, you can pull out your camera. People will just stop on the street and pull out their camera just to make sure that everybody is being honest. And this is the end result of it. People are—the wool is being pulled off of a lot of the things that we've been going through. And I think not only blacks are tired of it, but every race, every color in the spectrum of us in this world has been there. And they, you know, like when we were out doing the riots in 65, there was nothing but blacks on the street, complete. But now you see every race on the planet out there protesting. So for me, and I think the Whispers too,

this is a time where we really feel that, you know, and I've been hearing it from everybody, that we really feel like this is a chance that there's a change about to happen because when you have that many people out there protesting in harmony, this is just unbelievable. This is a movement that's not going to go away. And I think we're about to see real change in this world.

Wallace? Well, the song is simply called How Long. And Roland, what we're asking is very simple. How long do we have to go through this crap that we've been going through for 50 years? We have been being treated badly back in 65. 50 years later here, we're all seeing the same thing. Today is George Floyd. I mean, hey, we didn't rain out of names for black people who have died, given their life because we simply have not been treated right. And we have the answer to it. Now, for some people, it might seem like it's too simple. When we say love is the answer, we really believe that. You know, that might be too corny for some people, but we feel like love always trumps hate. And so that's what this song is all about. How long do we have to go through this crap before you realize, hey, just treat a man the way you want to be treated, and you'll be fine. Well, you talk about naming it how long.

I mean, that's actually, that was one of the exhortations of Dr. King in his speech after the Selma to Montgomery march, when he was like, he was saying how long people will say, well, not long. And if you go back to that, we just lost Congressman John Lewis. And when he gave that speech in 63, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, he talked about police brutality. I mean, this is it. Well, I keep telling everybody, if you look at nearly every riot that preceded a civil rights legislation, every riot was sparked by an act of police brutality. Right. Absolutely. Yeah, no question. Yeah, it's amazing. Well, it was about 14 years ago since we last had a record. And like Walt was saying, it didn't start out this way. We were basically getting ready to come with what we call our

standard love record that we've been putting out for years. But when we saw what happened with George Floyd, it changed everything and i mean as far as we're concerned if you give it a shot we think it'll work but you know this is not the first time we've seen ourselves being treated like you know what and we're tired of it so this is our way of saying hey it's time to make that change now also i think what is what it says is that this moment that we're operating in um uh artists cannot avoid what's happening out in the streets again i go back to that album marvin gaye put out barry gordon didn't want to do it and marvin gaye and other artists said barry

man something is happening out there you can't you can't keep ignoring what's happening out there. That's right. That's right. That's right. Barry Gordy didn't understand. When he heard it, he said, what's going on? And Barry said, what are you talking about? He didn't really understand.

But after it came out, if you remember, Roland, everybody understood what Marvin was saying because it made so much sense. I remember I was in Vietnam the whole whole year of 1966 and I watched, I was drafted in April of 65, so I watched the riots from Vietnam. But it was nothing new to me. I was telling my friends in Vietnam, they thought it was crazy to see these people burning and carrying our furniture. I said, you just don't understand. You don't really know what it's like to be poor. You don't know what it's like to be black. And you don't know what it's like to be a posse by a policeman who tells you to get on the ground. Here we are 50 years later,

and we see George Floyd going through the same thing. And it makes you angry, you know, but I'm like, I'm hopeful because we are seeing a change. We're seeing black, brown, yellow. Everybody's in the streets. So I just pray that this change is coming. And the bill talks about. And we talk and we are and what we're seeing right now, we're seeing right now all across the country, we're seeing folks talk about defund the police. You see what's happening in Portland where, you know, in response to these federal agents, I mean, you got thousands of white moms out there. And, you know, what I keep saying was different about this is that in the past, what you saw

black folks out there, but what you but but because of that video and the reason I think I tell people the reason I think the George Floyd murder was different because we've seen videos where somebody got shot. We've seen the aftermath. But you had to watch for nearly 10 minutes the the life snuffed out of a person's body. All of these all of these different deaths became compounded and a generation of white folks said we cannot ignore what is now happening. And I think having as many white folks and black folks and Latino folks out there has created this reckoning that we're now dealing with in America. Absolutely right. It was amazing. You know what? I don't know about you, Roland. I've watched it once, but I can't watch it again.

It makes me so angry to see that. And then when you talk about what Trump is doing now, I can't understand. The Department of Defense, they're asking questions about these federal officers who are going out pushing protesters back. I don't understand it. Can you explain that to me? Yeah.

Well, you know, they want they want to control them. Lavelle, go ahead. Well, we got this little moment. He just mentioned the word Trump. I used to say scum. But now you can't say that. Let me say that. No, the show is called called Rolling Mountain Unfiltered.

You can say it. But let me say this to our people, because, you know, we play a little role, too. If there ever was a time, don't let the rain stop you. Don't let whatever might stop you in the past. You need to go to the polls, ladies and gentlemen, this time, because we got a man in here now that if we don't, he's going to kill us all. LaVell? Yeah, no, Scotty's absolutely

right. I mean, you know, we got a guy that's just totally, totally out of control. It was amazing the day I went out and I was actually out and I met this young lady and she said something to me that kind of like hit me. She's like, you know, we're talking about a bunch of things about, you know, the coronavirus and all of the stuff and what's going on in the world.

And she went into her thing. She was a white woman and she went into her thing about, well, you know, all lives matter. All lives matter. And I said, OK, you're right. All lives do matter. And I said, okay, you're right. All lives do matter. I said, but what you don't understand why black lives matter is that because we are the ones that are being choked out. We are the ones that are being shot. We are the ones that have knees on our neck. We're the ones that get pulled out of our cars and placed on the ground and on our belly you don't you can never experience that

in your entire life we are the black men that drive our cars and we're in total fear i've you know i've been an entertainer for 47 years and for me to still be in fear of going to the grocery store and back i mean it's unbelievable and i had to explain to her that she didn't even get it. I mean, she got it after I told her. I said, you know, we have been, we were snatched out of our home country. We were kings and queens out of our home country and made to be slaves. We have always been suppressed and beat and whipped and our women have been raped. And, I mean, so what you're seeing is not just, you know, something that just happened in the last six months or the last four months.

You're looking at 400 years of all of this pent-up anxiety, and now people are tired of it. You know, it's only that, you know, right, they're putting the Latinos in concentration camps and looking like they're rapists and they're killers. That's who you think is going to be next. Right in line. There are these matches for our country. So they'll have some concentration camps if we keep this guy in office.

There's no telling what we can expect in the future. And like Scott said, I just implore everybody, millennials, blacks, whites, if you have to wear a double mask, come go out there and vote. Please vote. We need to get this man out of office. Well, gentlemen, we certainly appreciate it. Absolutely love the song as well. And somebody got a question. And the question last question is for you, Walter and Wallace. Somebody said, did y'all ever think about shaving your mustache off?

Boy, you know what? If we did that, we'd lose a lot of equity, bro. Let me tell you. Hey, real love. Mustache tell you. Hey, bro. And Mustache is going to be here forever. And let me say this, bro. As long as they keep selling dye, we're going to keep on having these mustaches, my brother. You know?

And the thing that we need to say to you, though, before you let us out of here, thank you, my brother. Yeah. I know all about you. And you talk about representing and somebody to be proud of. I've been following you from CNN all the way to the other end. Hey, you are the man, my brother. Thank you for this opportunity. We really appreciate it.

General, I appreciate it. I have always enjoyed your music. I can thank my mother and father for that. And so I'm not one who only listens to the music of my generation. I always have an appreciation of other generations as well. And so I thank you so much. And again, good luck in all that y'all do.

And hopefully once we, once these damn folks learn to wear their mask, we're able to get rid of this coronavirus stuff. Look forward to seeing y'all in concert live. Thank you, Roland. We appreciate you, man.

Thank you so much. Thanks a bunch. Y'all take care. The Thank you, Roland. We appreciate you, man. God bless you, man. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. Y'all take care. The Whispers, folks, check out their new song, How Long. All right, folks, that is it for us. Don't forget, Monday, Jane Elliott is going to be in the house. Y'all know

that's going to be a wild conversation. She is straight up unfiltered. I can't wait to chat with her again. She is straight up unfiltered. I can't wait to chat with her again. Also, folks, don't forget to support our Bring the Funk fan club. That is, you can support us. Cash out. Dollar sign RM unfiltered.

PayPal.me forward slash R Martin unfiltered. Venmo.com forward slash RM unfiltered. You can send a money order. Cash is checked. New Vision Media. NU Vision Media, Inc. 1625 K Street, Northwest. slash 4 slash rm unfiltered you can send a money order cashier's check new vision media nu vision media inc 1625 k street northwest suite 400 washington dc 2006 thank you so very much folks it has been a fantastic week uh we're going to keep doing our thing we'll be restreaming of course all weekend as well we always close the show on fr with our fan club members. I'll see y'all on Monday. And also don't forget, we begin the coverage on Sunday of Congressman John Lewis's

funeral. They're going to be from Selma to Montgomery on Sunday. And then of course, there's a vigil Sunday night at 7 p.m. Then it's by Liza and State on Monday. And so we'll be providing coverage as well. All right. Take care. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org.

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