#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Biden Commutes 2500, TSU Band Director Investigated, DOJ Finds LA State Police Violates Civil Rights

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

1.17.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Biden Commutes 2500, TSU Band Director Investigated, DOJ Finds LA State Police Violates Civil Rights In his final days in office, President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 2,500 individuals convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. Biden says the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered ratified but will not take any action on the matter in his final days in office. A civil rights investigation has found a pattern of excessive force by the Louisiana State Police. Instead of addressing these issues, the state's MAGA governor is defending the police agency involved in the death of Black motorist Ronald Greene. Tennessee State University's Grammy Award-winning band director is under investigation following a recent audit of the school's finances.  And the Federal Trade Commission is suing PepsiCo for allegedly giving an unnamed big box retailer more favorable prices than its competitors. #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Today is Friday, January 17th, 2025. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Monday's inauguration for the twice impeached criminally convicted fellow in chief Donald Trump has been moved indoors. That's because he's a wimp. It's too cold for him. Hell, it was freezing when Obama was inaugurated, but something tells me he's a little scared of some really, really small crowds. Probably match the size of his hands.

In the five days in office, President Joe Biden has set a record for commentations and pardons. We'll tell you all about the big decision he made today. He also says the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered ratified, but will not take any action on the matter in the foundation office. Okay, this makes really no sense. A civil rights investigation has found a pattern of excessive force by the Louisiana State Police. Instead of addressing these issues, the state's MAGA governor is defending the abusive police agency involved in the death of black motorist Ronald Green.

Tennessee State University's Grammy award-winning band director has been placed on leave. He's under investigation following a recent audit of the school's finances. And the Federal Trade Commission is suing Pepsi for allegedly giving an unnamed big box retailer more favorable prices than its competitors. That's called price fixing. And Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin touts his tenure over the last four years as Trump appoints an absolutely grossly unqualified, weak, pathetic Pete Hexaf. That and more. It's time to bring the funk.

I'm Roland McDonough-Gulchin. On the Black Stud Network, let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing.

Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling Martin. Rolling with rolling now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's yeah, yeah. Rolling with rolling now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best.

You know he's rolling, Martel. Now. Martel. All right, folks. During his final days in office, President Joe Biden has commuted the of nearly 2,500 individuals convicted of nonviolent drug offenders. The offenses, this recent round of clemency gives Biden the record for the most individual pardons and commentations issued by a president in history. Biden wanted to address the issue of disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current laws, policies, and practices.

In a statement, he said today's clemency action provides relief for individuals who receive lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes. This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars. Now, he also said that there'll be more forthcoming action before he leaves office on Monday. Again, his tenure ends at 11.59 a.m. on Monday, January 20th.

Joining me now is the president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, Dr. Shadeva McReynolds. Doc, glad to have you here. So, first and foremost, have they released the names of these 2,500 individuals? The reason I say that, when I was at one of the White House Christmas parties, there were a number of sisters who were protesting outside of the White House trying to bring attention to a number of women who were in, who had been incarcerated. And so do we know who these 2,500 folks are as of yet? First, let me thank you, Roland, for having me on tonight.

And absolutely, the White House did go live with that list. It's on WhiteHouse.gov. There are 2,490 names listed there. 2,490 names. Are there any names that have been, folks have really been waiting on, who've been in there for a very long time. Can you give us your shed light on who some of these folks are? Yeah, so, you know, FAM has been a thought partner in this work for a very long time. We've been advocating for, you know, President Biden to exercise his clemency powers for, you know, people sentenced under crack and powder cocaine disparity,

long under extreme sentences, mandatory minimums that no longer can be imposed today, and then the old law. So, of course, what we did when that list came out, and we're still doing, I mean, almost 2,500 people coming through that list to see the individuals that are on there. We're identifying several that have life sentences, that have, you know, again, lengthy sentences that have been imposed for a very long time that they likely wouldn't have received today.

And there are a lot of people who have really been putting in the work of pushing this president to take this action. We had Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on the show last night. We've had Kimba Smith on the show before. We had Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on the show last night. We've had Kimba Smith on the show before. We've had other members of Congress. And so for people who don't know, it's been a lot, a lot, a lot of hard work, phone calls, emails, text messaging, direct protests, trying to get President Biden to make this happen.

Yeah. I mean, thank you for reiterating that. It just, there's no way to capture, you know, the number of individuals, organizations, just allies alike, you know, alongside a fam that have been in the trenches, legislators, you know, organizations just like fam. We've done social media blitzes, Twitter days of action, clemency campaigns. We're reaching out to our, you know, over 40,000 member lists, asking them to tweet, post, contact your legislators, write, you know, to the president and the White House. There's so many people involved with this, you know, that should be, you know, celebrating today alongside the families and the individuals who received these clemencies. And as I said, Biden has said more will be forthcoming. So I take it y'all have not stopped that work.

That work is not going to stop, as you said, all the way up until 11.59 a.m., right? I mean, we're going to continue to urge President Biden to, you know, consider more commutations, you know, hopefully all the way up until the very last moment. There's still hope. And we're asking all those involved who have loved ones still incarcerated, who have been fighting for this for a long time, still continue to make your voices heard, still continue to make those requests. There's still so much work left to do. This year, I was talking about this year, was one of the protests as we were coming out of that White House Christmas party.

Those sisters were out there, brothers and sisters, holding those signs up. Guys, pull the audio up. They were out there chanting, had music, and they were trying to talk to as many people to impl many people to implore them to take up their cause. And you see some of the names

that were better. Roberta Bell, Laz, I said I see a Cheyenne. There's some other names as well. Want to run it back and so you see again those names and so they were talking about individuals that have been in prison who for self defense and victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and not just drug cases. Yeah, I mean, I think it goes without saying, right, second chances. Second chances without

kind of a focus on the offense category. And so, you know, thank you for sharing that and reiterating that. I think no matter the offense category, these are individuals, loved ones who have served long, unjust prison sentences. And, you know, everyone should be advocating to get their loved ones home. We want to amplify all of those names, all of the family members, and just hope that in his lasting moments that the president will continue to do exactly what he's been doing. I mean, today, 2,500, previously, 1,500. I mean, you know, regardless of the offense category, second chances. That's what we're asking for.

Absolutely. Well, we certainly appreciate the work that you and others are doing. So, like I say, the work continues up until the absolute last second. Yes, thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. I want to bring in my panel, Michael Imhotep, host, African History Network show out of Detroit, Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy for the American Economic Liberties Project, joining us from Columbus, Ohio, Matt Manning, civil rights attorney out of Corpus Christi.

And also Matt is in mourning after his, after that scoop and score last Friday in the Ohio State game. I'm sure Morgan, I don't know if you are, I don't know. I don't know if Morgan, if you're a house state fan or graduate, but let's try Morgan. You got to be a fan. Not a graduate, but we've got to be a fan. Say it again. Not a graduate, but we have to be a fan, yeah.

Well, let's just say Matt has had a rough week, and I'm sure he was not looking forward to this day. So, as a Texas A&M graduate, I am happy that Matt has been in pain and all of the Longhorns. Let's start right with it. So, Matt, I'll just go ahead and go to you first. When you look at the numbers, when you look at the numbers there, I mean, you know, you know, as we said, Biden has provided more pardons, commutations, and clemencies than any other president in history,

righting the wrongs, as he said in that statement, of the sentencing and how these things have changed since people were put in prison. Let me say first, you're the pettiest man in America because you texted me before that game was even over. So that really just. Oh, I'm King Petty. He is the pettiest, y'all, because the game wasn't even over. And then the brother was sending me memes after the game to rub it in. So his time will come.

And when it does, I will be right on this show telling you his time has come. In any event, as it relates to Biden's commutations, I think it's good that he has commuted the highest number of sentences and, I guess, pardons by a United States president. And I think what's really interesting about this is this is really a friction that always exists when it comes to the criminal justice system. People have a very difficult time figuring out what an appropriate length of sentence is. And that's important because, obviously, that can change over time. It can change with how society views sentencing. So this is important because it shows that the president recognizes there's a historical wrong as it relates to how the sentencing was done. And surely there are going to be a lot of people who say, yeah, but he contributed to it with his own policy years ago. And that's something for him to grapple with as it relates to his legacy. But I do think it's important because it puts at the forefront of the

conversation, how do we sentence and how do we, you know, put people in incarceration for appropriate times? Because as you can tell, especially with crack versus powder cocaine sentencing, a lot of it was driven by fear and by emotion and by mongrelization of people in urban communities as opposed to in white communities. So I'm glad there's some kind of historical response, but I think it puts at the forefront what we need to be doing on the front end, which is what is an appropriate way to sentence people, particularly for nonviolent crimes. And I think this puts that at the forefront of the conversation. I'll go to you, Morgan. And while you're talking, go to my iPad, Anthony. This here is the list of the commutations. And you can see that they list all of these individuals.

And there are some people, if I'm correct here, let's just say you click Nathaniel Carter, you see they have numbers here. Those might be folks who still are in prison. But Morgan, I mean, look, the Constitution affords the President of the United States this level of power. Only he, never a she, has this power, and he gets to use it any way he so chooses. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, for anyone questioning whether government can do anything, I think the clemency power is a really clear example of that. And kind of building off the prior comments, one of my questions is, what is going to be the legacy? And this is the most in one day and kind of talking to Biden's mixed legacy on the criminal justice issue. I'm curious from fans' perspective of what do you think the story that people are going to be telling about Biden, about Democrats on this issue, and the takeaways from here? Well, I'll be honest. I think that folks, unfortunately, when you talk about legacy, I think people will talk about the debate performance and how awful that was and how he dropped out and how that led to

Vice President Kamala Harris getting the nomination and them losing and Donald Trump getting another four years. We saw, I mean, how-we just simply saw how the American people refused to give this administration any credit when it comes to saving this economy. When you have the International Monetary Fund talking about the growth possibility of the American economy that's only happened because of the last four years, when you talk about these pardons and commutations,

not only that, if you talk about, you know, the confirming of the 235th federal judge. This right here, go to my iPad, Anthony. When you look at that, of course, you know, setting the most in one term. And so you talk about the first black woman on Supreme Court, 45 to the nation's court of appeals, the most black women appointed to the appeals court,

the most black judges appointed ever. appeals court the most black judges appointed ever I mean we can go on and on and on but unfortunately when you lose people sort of define your legacy in a different way we saw that with President Jimmy Carter but I think Michael there's no doubt if you're

one of those folks who's gotten a pardon who's gotten clemency who's gotten a sentence commuted you're one of those folks who's gotten a pardon, who's gotten clemency, who's gotten a sentence commuted, you're thankful for this president because he's done more in this category than Donald Trump ever did. Absolutely. Or if you received any, if you go to HBCU, we know about $17 billion allocated to HBCUs since 2021, or if you wanted approximately five million people. Oh, Mike, one second. Something's really bad with your audio, so we've got to get that fixed because it's sounding real muffled. So y'all work through that. I'm going to go back to Matt Morgan while that gets fixed. Matt, this is, as our guest said, this is life-changing for those people and those families who have been individuals who have been in prison some very long time because of drug offenses.

And this is also, frankly, Joe Biden trying to make amends for his work when it came to the 1994 crime bill that he was the author of that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Granted, that same law had the Violence Against Women Act in it. It had other things that have been beneficial, but the reality is that's also part of his legacy. And so this is a way of trying to repair that. Yeah. And part of legacy is reflection, looking back, you know, if you have that opportunity, looking back on ways you should have approached things differently. And I want to be very clear, we're talking about people's lives, right? So when we're talking about policy, I mean, this is a really bad thing to get wrong, but I don't think you can have that conversation genuinely unless you discuss what the surrounding circumstances were like at the

time that that bill was passed and in terms of what the positions were on sentencing. So I'm glad that this has happened. But the tragedy with this is that people sat in prison for decades on nonviolent crimes and are now getting commutations. But it's too little, too late. But it's also something that we can't eschew as not being important. Because to your earlier point, the Constitution, you know, imbues the president with this authority, and we should want him or her to be energized to use this in the way that we think is in the society's best benefit, which is commuting sentences, particularly when we recognize, hey, we got it wrong in the past.

The thing that's difficult to know is kind of what the enduring legacy will be and in terms of how you should have gotten it right at the time. And that's going to be, you know, Biden's question. But frankly, even if he hadn't pardoned and commuted these people, that would have been a question about Mr. Biden and his tenure throughout the time he's been in government.

So it's kind of, you know, part and parcel with what he would have been dealing with anyway in terms of reflection on his legacy. Michael, we got your audio fix. Go ahead. Yeah, what I was going to say is, absolutely, record number of commutations. This is fantastic. I knew this was coming. But also, when it comes to legacy, if you attend the HBCU and you benefited from the $17 billion in funding that HBCUs received from the Biden-Harris administration since 2021, or if you were—we have stimulus checks, we have the American Rescue Plan, we have the infrastructure bill,

we have transformational policies coming from this administration, We have African-American children lifted out of poverty. So, in addition, at the tail end, you have this happening as well, another round of commutations. And I know he said more is to come. I'm hoping there is a presidential pardon for Marcus Garvey. I'm hoping there's one for Assata Shakur, because there was a RICO case against Assata Shakur, a federal RICO case against her. I'm hoping there's one for Marilyn Mosby, a pardon for Marilyn Mosby, as well as some of the members of the Black Panther Party who were still in prison. I'm hoping there's some other pardons for them as well. So, you know, this is fantastic. But once again, this is an example of how elections have consequences, OK?

And when you look at what the Biden-Harris administration has done, how their policies have benefited African Americans, we've seen the fastest growth of African American-owned businesses in 30 years. We saw 2.4 million jobs for African Americans, approximately, under the Biden-Harris administration, lowest unemployment rate going back to about 1970. four million jobs for African-Americans, approximately, under the Biden-Harris administration, lowest unemployment rate going back to about 1970. It was in August of 2023 at about 4.7 percent. So, this is—now, you compare this to the shit show that's going to happen over the

next four years with Donald Trump. That's all I have to say. Well, those are things that we certainly are going to be paying attention to. Let me quickly go to a break. We come back. More to talk about, including the insurrectionist gathering on Monday. That is going to be

moved indoors because it's too cold. It's too cold. I guess Trump doesn't want him and his body parts shriveling up. You're watching World of Art and Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. What's up, y'all? Look, Fanbase is more than a platform.

It's a movement to empower creators, offering a unique opportunity for everyday people to invest in Black-owned tech, infrastructure, and help shape the future of social media. Investing in technology is essential for creating long-term wealth and influence in the digital age. The Black community must not only consume tech, we must own it. Discover how equity crowdfunding can serve as a powerful tool

for funding Black businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to raise capital directly through their community, through the jobs ad. Now streaming on the Blackstar Network. I was challenged by my uncle early on before I even had a career. Like I was maybe eight years old and my uncle said, what do you want to do? And I told him I wanted to be a rapper. And he said, okay, well I don't know anything

about the music business, so what you should do is learn everything there is to know about the music business, and I'll make sure that you have the resources to push you through. And so I went and bought books, all you need to know about the music business, hit me in, I just went and bought a bunch of books, just started reading as a 10 year old, just reading, reading.

And so I learned, you know, all things, licensing, mechanical rights, I learned about publishing, learned about how composition is broke up into two pieces, the writer's portion and the producer's portion. But by the time I actually learned I came back I was ready to like, okay, I got it. He was going to prison.

So I had all this information What's up, y'all? This is Wendell Haskins, a.k.a. Winn Hogan, at the original Chief Golf Classic. And you know I watch Roland Martin unfiltered. Well, folks, the insurrection gathering taking place on Monday is not going to be held on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, nor is it going to be held on the National Mall. That's because temperatures are predicted to be in the 20s, and Donald Trump doesn't want to be shriveled up on that day. I guess he can't afford a coat and gloves and a hat. I remember vividly being out there when Obama was inaugurated,

and it was cold as hell in 2009. It's just called layer up. So all the events are happening indoors, and, ooh, Magga World, man, they're not happy. Listen to this wine fest at capital one arena for folks but nobody's gonna be out outside now what's your reaction to that uh so we're not gonna get to see it in person then is that correct that's right well i don't like it i mean we came all the way to worsen from oklahoma and you know now we're not gonna get to see it we're like we might as well stay at home

and watch it on TV it sucks let me rephrase that it's not good yeah it's actually something that we've been looking forward to uh for historical purposes and being a part of it that's once in a lifetime absolutely we made all the plans all the arrangements to come up and be a part of this event and all of a sudden to hear that it's being moved indoors, that's kind of like a bummer. It is, yeah. The building will hurt nobody. We have farms and we don't get to... Mmm, that's a bummer.

They're not going to be able to stand out there with a couple other thousand people and watch the orange one being sworn in. I feel so bad for them. Hell no. Absolutely not. Yes, I'm being absolutely petty and will always be that way. Here's the deal. Michael, he knows full well this will be one of the smallest crowds ever.

And we know how he lost his mind last time and sent Sean Spicer out there to lie about how this was the largest crowd ever. Dude, go sit your little monkey ass down. My line is, and listen, dude, listen, I can tell you right now, previous inaugurations, the Friday and the weekend of, the city is bustling. D.C. is not bustling right now. It's not. D.C. is probably trembling because this's afraid of what's about to happen. You know, now, what's interesting, Roland, is Trump said there's an arctic blast sweeping

the country. I don't want to see people hurt or injured in any way. Well, you ain't say that on January 6th when the domestic terrorist stormed the U.S. Capitol and assaulted 140 police officers, and you sat there for 187 minutes and watched it and didn't do anything, you ain't say you didn't want the police injured. You didn't say you didn't want members of Congress and the U.S. Senate injured. So, you know, there's a joke in there somewhere about hell freezing over or something like that. I'm not a comedian, so I'll leave it up to the comedians.

They'll probably talk about it tonight on the nightly shows. But what's interesting is this Arctic blast is also tied to climate change. Donald Trump is a climate change denier, okay? So maybe this is Mother Nature having revenge on Donald Trump some way, and maybe he'll have a frozen moment like Mitch McConnell did also. Well, Morgan, you're the economist. I'm going to go to my iPad. You know, hotels are 70% book for the duration.

That doesn't sound like a big of a deal. And all of these poor people, Morgan, some who paid $1,500 a night, $900 a night, they're upset because they're not going to have to watch it on television. Boo hoo. Well, one of my first reactions to this news was that it could be the tech CEOs who are really in Trump's ear. I mean, the fact that Mark Zuckerberg was planning to attend, Jeff Bezos, like these guys don't do cold anymore.

They're rising above all the elements with all of their money and private jets. And if they had announced they're going to be at the inauguration, I don't know if they wanted to deal with 20 degree weather. And as we know, this is turning into the billionaire administration for Donald Trump based on some of the early moves.

So I think we all need to pay attention to that. Why are the big tech CEOs so invested in the future of Donald Trump? It has a lot to do with the fact that they're all facing lawsuits from the federal government that they want to go away. And they're hoping that through their presence, through their money, they've all donated money to the inauguration in the millions of dollars, that they will escape any sort of accountability based on how they violated the law through their companies over the last several years. So to be determined what this administration ends up doing, but for sure, that's why these big tech guys are so attached to Trump at the moment. Oh, absolutely. And I was texting her earlier, Matt, my buddy Dr. Ebony

Hilton. She's not as petty as I am, but she's close. She tweeted this. Ooh, the hotel airline data must have alerted that the inauguration was going to be teeny tiny. Couldn't be me. Yeah. You know, I think Michael and Morgan brought up some things I hadn't even considered about the lawsuits and about climate change. And, you know, what I thought, what jumped out to me about this is there could just be some people

who are concerned about what could happen and said, otherwise I would normally go to the inauguration. But, obviously, we know what happened on January 6 and just are leery about being president in D.C., even some Trump supporters who just may not want to be caught up in the fracas. But I will tell you, I was in college when Mr. Obama was inaugurated, and I stood out on that National Mall. And it was one of the coldest nights I remember. So I think this is a blessing in disguise for those people from Florida and Oklahoma

because it was going to be brutal out there. But I'm sure there are some reasons that the Trump administration decided not to do this, chief among which they didn't think there'd be enough people out there to be able to say they had a huge crowd. So I'm sure it's hard to parcel with that. Because you were speaking of 2009,

and y'all, this right here is an image of the 2009 inauguration. Oh, let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Trust me, I don't have to swipe down that much for 2017, Michael. Oh, absolutely. Once again, Donald Trump is small in comparison to President Barack Obama.

Barack Obama, on the campaign trail, he made a hand gesture. Actually, he's at the Democratic National Convention. Oh, and by the way, it was 28 degrees on that cold day in January of 2009. Well, I live in Detroit, so that's a heat wave. Well, it was 28 degrees and sunny. I remember being near the steps when I

was with CNN, and we were there, and the bleachers were right next to us. The bleachers blocked the sun. Yo, it was a hell of a lot colder than 28 degrees. It felt more like minus five sitting there. Michael, go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, 28 degrees is a heat wave for us in January here in Detroit. But, yeah, you know, Donald Trump's going to be petty, and he'll probably send somebody out once again to lie about the size. I remember he sent Sean Spicer out. I remember he and Sean Spicer said this is the largest crowd in history. Hold up, hold up. Hold up, Michael.

You know I got to be real petty. And so, if y'all want to see small, teeny, tiny, petulant Sean Spicer made to look like an absolute dumbass when Trump ordered him to go out and, damn it, set the record straight. So here's our Comedy Central moment for the day.

Photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall. This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass in the mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past, the grass eliminated this visual. This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the wall,

preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past. Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted. No one had numbers because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out. By the way, this applies to any attempts to try to count the number of protesters today in the same fashion. We do know a few things, so let's go through the facts. We know that from the platform where the president was sworn into 4th Street holds about 250,000 people. From 4th Street to the media tent is about another 220,000. And from the media tent to the Washington Monument, another 250,000

people. All of this space was full when the president took the oath of office. We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama's last inaugural. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe. Even The New York Times printed a photograph showing a misrepresentation of the crowd in the original tweet in their paper, which showed the full extent of the support, depth, and crowd, and intensity that existed. Oh, I had to go ahead and play that because he looked like a damn fool, Michael.

And the presidency, Trump's administration went downhill from there. It was one chaos after another. It was the most chaotic thing that we had ever seen. And he had the highest turnover rate when it came to staffers, when it came to members of his cabinet, all of this, because Donald Trump cannot govern. And as I said last week, the sequel to the horror movie is usually worse than the first installment. And we're about to see the horror movie start on January 20th at noon. Morgan, listen, it gets a little chilly there in Ohio as well. But Trump says

it's going to be a little too cold, so we've got to go indoors. It's just going to be too chilly. My little hands won't be warm, my little gloves. Yeah, we definitely know how to deal with cold. And I, too, was out there during the Obama inauguration,

so knew what it was to face the elements. But, yeah, I mean, I'll also be watching just the content. You know, I mean, I know there's a lot of chaos going on, but I do think these early hours even of this administration are going to be interesting in just what types of things he's signaling, what types of policies that he's putting forth. I agree with Michael. There's always a lot of chaos in that first administration. But it does also seem like there's a different set of players in the mix this time and certainly other new folks who are advising him in the White House. And so it'll be interesting to see. Again, I Here is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz commenting, quote tweeting,

the Associated Press story about everything that moved indoors. He goes, there's no such thing as bad weather. He said, just bad clothing. Well, I'll tell you, one of the bad things they had at that Obama inauguration was only like four porta potties. That's what I remember. Like, man, you got all these people out here. But in any event, you know, as Kev on stage would say, Trump and his people are an unserious people. And it's really kind of sad if you think about it, that you would have the press secretary out there talking about the size of an inauguration. Like this is a new administration.

There are far more pressing matters. There are global matters that need to be handled and economic matters. And you're out here talking about the National Park Service and whether they keep data so you can substantiate what number of people came or didn't come. I mean, that is a very unserious thing to be worried about. And I think that's something that's permeated our politics these days, where we've allowed our politicians to start focusing on things that don't matter. But I'm hoping that Morgan is right, and we'll start to see very early, you know, starting with the inauguration, how this administration is going to handle things. But I'm concerned, to Michael's earlier point, that it is going to start being chaos. And frankly,

I think it's going to be more than chaos. First of all, that start has already started. Of course, but I think it's going to be purposeful, you know, not only chaotic, but purposeful just brutality. I think he's already signaled that, talking about being a dictator on day one, and that's what I'm battening down the hatches for, that they're going to come in and just start doing crazy stuff out the gate. I'm also going to give you, this was Amy Klobuchar,

when she announced she was running for president in this snowstorm in Minnesota. So they're like, yeah, whatever. This is not that big of a deal. So there you go. Hey, folks, let me give you all a programming reminder on Monday. We won't be covering that bullshit. Just letting you all know, Monday is Morgan's like, did he just go there? Yes, Morgan, absolutely. We will not be covering. Come on, Anthony Switch. We will not be covering that bullshit.

No, we're not be covering that bullshit on Monday. This is the only thing we're going to be covering. MLK Day. MLK Day on Monday. We're going to be covering. MLK Day. MLK Day on Monday. We're going to be in Memphis with Reverend Dr. William J. Barber. And so we're going to be live streaming the service out of Atlanta

from the King Center. Also, we'll be taking a ceremony from the National Civil Rights Museum in formerly Lorraine Motel in Memphis as well. And then we're going to, of course, be broadcasting that night. So will there be any streams

on the Black Star Network with regards to the Insurrection Fest happening? Nope. Will there be any discussion? Nope. In fact, I'm going to show you all this here. Did I delete it? So Piers, Piers Morgan, uh, Piers Morgan, uh, me up, his streaming show.

I'm gonna show y'all what they sent me. Cause I just need y'all to understand, I keep the same energy no matter what. And so I don't sit here and say one thing here and do another thing here. That's just not how I roll. I'm 100% as Mac calls me, King Petty. And I really don't care. And I'm always, I'm always stand behind

what I say, what I mean. I don't care. I'm not trying to sit here and impress some people. I don't care. I'm not trying to sit here and impress some people. I don't care about any of that stuff. That means nothing to me. So let me go ahead and pull this up so y'all can just show y'all. So I get this email

from this producer of a Piers Morgan show. Y'all go, he says, Hey, brother, hope you're available. Are you available to join Piers Morgan Uncensored on Monday for our inauguration special? It will be filmed between 1 p.m. Eastern and 3 p.m. Eastern. It'll be great to have you back on again if you're if you're able. If you could let me know, it'd be greatly appreciated.

So that was what the what Lorna sent me. And y'all know me. I'm real clear. So this is my response. On Monday, I'm only focused on MLK Day. I don't give a damn about Trump's inauguration. Just let y'all know where Uncle Roro stands. All right.

Got to go to break. We'll be right back. I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Be sure to support the work that we do by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. The goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks each a day. $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. Sorry, $50 a year. $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day.

If you want to support the work that we do, again, contribute via Cash App, via the app Stripe. Remember Cash App closed down our accounts because they changed all the different rules. And so this is the QR code that you can use right here for Cash App. If you're listening, go to BlackstarNetwork.com to use that QR code. PayPal is RMartinUnfiltered. Venmo is RMUnfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

And send your check and money over to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Back in a moment. Hello, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. And right now we're accepting investors in our $17 million round to revolutionize the future of social media. Today, for just $399, you can own 60 shares of stock in Fanbase at $6.65 a share. Go to startengine.com slash fanbase and invest today. While the big platforms have grown too massive and disconnected from their users,

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and own the future of social media. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. There's a lot of talk about the inevitability of another civil war in this country. But on our next show, we'll talk to a noted author and scholar who says we're actually in the middle of one right now. In fact, Steve Phillips says the first one that started back in 1861, well, it never ended. People carrying the Confederate flag, wearing sweatshirts saying MAGA Civil War, January 6, 2021, stormed U.S. Capitol, hunted down the country's elected officials, built the gallows for the vice president of the United States, and to block the peaceful transfer of power within this country.

On the next Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. This is Tamela Mayne. And this is David Mann. And you're watching Roland Martin. I'm Phil Turt. All right, folks. President Joe Biden says that the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered a ratified addition to the U.S. Constitution.

The Equal Rights Amendment, which would prohibit discrimination based on gender, was sent to the states for ratification in 1972. Congress set a deadline in 1979 for three quarters of state legislatures to ratify the amendment, then extending it to 1982. Biden says it's time to ensure equal rights for all. Just over 100 years ago, a pioneering group of women proposed the Equal Rights Amendment to enshrine the principles of gender equality in our Constitution. Throughout my career, I've been clear. No one, no one, no one should be discriminated against based on their sex.

And in order for the amendment to be ratified, it requires three-fourths of the states to ratify it. That benchmark was passed when Virginia ratified the ERA a few years ago. Today, I affirm the Equal Rights Amendment to have cleared all the necessary hurdles to be added to the U.S. Constitution now. The Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land now. It's the 28th Amendment to the Constitution now. I consulted dozens of constitutional scholars to make sure that it was all within the power to do this. And the fact is, we did. Okay, people are trying to figure out what sense does this make.

Reuters has this story here that says, it was unclear what practical impact Biden's comments might have. The White House issued his statement just three days before he leaves office, handing off to President-elect Donald Trump on Monday. In December, the National Archivist, which is tasked with certifying and publishing new amendments, said it could not add the ERA to the U.S. Constitution. The ERA declares that equality of rights under the law should not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. But other ERA supporters have been saying that, Morgan, and this is essentially

what President Adams did with the 11th Amendment. They said lawsuits can now be filed, which has got guys, which, thank you, which is, they said, which is where we would have been if he did not, she did not sign and publish. So where are we? What does this actually mean? Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure what kind of immediate practical effect this would have. I'm interested in some of Matt's thoughts because he's a better lawyer than I am at this point, I'm sure. But it does seem like more than anything, this is kind of like a messaging move and it helps to platform the ratification of the ERA as an issue. I'll be honest. I mean, you know, I'm 41. I think a lot of people my age, younger, it's a strong possibility they never even heard about the ERA.

It's not something that's at the top of anyone's priority list, or not a lot of people's priority list, I'll say. And so what this does do, at a minimum, is just get people talking about it, and then help to lay the groundwork for potentially getting in a position where it could actually be legally ratified in a sound way. But look, I mean, the problem, though, is, you know, we're about to enter this whole other administration. It's, you know, National Archives, which is a pretty neutral part of the federal government.

I don't think of it as a superpolitical part of the federal government that said, we can't ratify this. And I just cannot imagine this next administration is going to take any sort of civil rights issue as a big priority and really care. I mean, we can already look at even some of the teams are getting built out here within the White House. Take, for example, the vice president's team. There's not one woman on it among the senior staff that's been announced.

And so I'd be surprised if we see a lot of movement here. But we definitely weren't going to see any movement unless there had been some kind of move like this from the president to try to get it back in the public's attention. Matt, this is what American Progress says. They said, this constitutional amendment is a permanent foundation upon which we can build a gender equal future in this country. Primarily it will help in two areas, litigation and legislation. Currently, it is difficult for women to win in court if they experience gender discrimination because

it is not explicitly prohibited in the Constitution. Altering the text of the Constitution itself will improve outcomes when women seek legal redress for things like pay and employment discrimination. The second clause of the 28th Amendment states the Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article. This gives Congress a brand-new constitutional hook to pass laws that protect women, girls, and all marginalized genders in this country. It lays the groundwork for robust federal laws that will not be ruled unconstitutional, as was the case with the civil remedy victims could use to sue their perpetrators contained in the original version of the Violence Against Women Act, for example.

Do you want me to opine on that, Roland? Yeah. Okay. Well, first, I want to say I think Morgan is definitely the better lawyer, better thinker as between the two of us. But in any event, here's my thought on this. You're saying you're a bad thinker? Is that what you're saying?

No, that's not what I'm saying. Oh, I just want to clarify. I can be better and he can still be great. I don't know, brother. It sounds like you hear what you want to hear. No, no, no. I just want you to clarify clarify i just want to be clear because you know i mean i'm bad better does not mean i'm bad but okay all right just checking yeah you ain't getting me off my game i'm too tight but here's the point here's my thought okay so first i think a lot of this

is messaging i mean theoretically the 14th amendment should already cover this right but it doesn't and i think first the I mean, there's some pretty interesting constitutional questions about whether it can be ratified now after passing the deadline and essentially what kind of action Congress would have to take and what action Congress could take. But the first thing is, number one, I mean, you're going to have to change constitutional scrutiny in terms of how bills are looked at, because as you know—or rather, laws are looked at, because as you know, gender right now receives intermediate scrutiny, not strict scrutiny, right?

So maybe the application of the ERA allows the Supreme Court to then promulgate a new test where it says, look, anything that is violative of gender equality is now going to be subject to strict scrutiny. But I don't know that I trust the current Supreme Court as constituted to do that, number one. Number two, I have concerns about, you know, the 14th Amendment is supposed to essentially govern this already. And I try to prosecute the 14th Amendment, among others, all the time. And it's still an extremely hard road to hoe. So I wonder if this is more political messaging than it will be substantive benefit in the court, with the caveat that once you have an express, you know, amendment, for instance, like the suits I bring, a 1983 action, you would be able to bring a 1983 action claiming the

violation of the 28th Amendment in the way you can't now. So I think there's some benefit to it. But I think the president here is more signaling that, you know, he stands behind the premise of this amendment. But I don't know that he can unilaterally say it is in effect, nor do I think that there is a clear path for Congress to ratify it, because there's already a question about whether states can rescind their support of the amendment, number one, and number two, whether Congress can even recognize the amendment this far past the deadline. But I hope that that permeates, you know, the scrutiny of the laws in terms of if this is promulgated, increasing gender, or rather heightening gender to strict scrutiny,

and making it such that when people do bring claims showing that they've been discriminated because of their gender, that they actually receive the highest level of scrutiny like race does. Michael, this is the CNN headline. Biden says equal rights amendment is ratified, kicking off expected legal battle as he pushes through final executive actions. And so I think ERA supporters were saying, listen, we need this pronouncement so we can file these lawsuits and take it to court. Otherwise, it's just left in limbo. Yeah, and there was an issue with the National Archives not certifying it or something to that effect.

And in 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, and you need three-quarters for it to become—to ratify the U.S. Constitution. So, what Biden is saying is that he is publicly announcing that it is—the Constitution is ratified. Now, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, she's been at the forefront of pushing for this. And she was saying the archivist analysis is wrong and that the archivist is wrongly inserting herself into a clear constitutional process, despite the fact that her role is purely ministerial. So this is going to end up in court. This is going to play out in court.

We'll see how this turns out. But if this holds up, and this is going to go to the U.S. Supreme Court most likely, if this holds up, that's another win for Biden. Well, again, that's why you have lawyers and you have lawsuits, and so we'll certainly see what happens. Speaking of lawyers, the Department of Justice and the Civil Rights Division, they are working up until the last minute. They dropped a report, a major report, that finds that the Louisiana State Police has

a pattern of violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the use of excessive force, often unjustifiably using tasers and escalating minor incidents with people who do not pose a threat. The 2019 death of black motorist Ronald Green sparked the DOJ's 2022 investigation of the Louisiana State Police. While the report found fault with the agency over uses of force, including training that it found to escalate encounters and weak use of force reviews, it offered no opinion on the other area of inquiry,

allegations of racial discriminatory policing. The report's release comes after federal criminal prosecutors decided not to bring charges against the state troopers who were captured on video beating Green to death. Attorney General Liz Morrell and Governor Jeff Langer of Louisiana released their statements criticizing the report and defending the thugs in Louisiana. This report conducted under the previous administration

no, let's be real clear conducted under the current administration. They may be speaking the previous gubernatorial administration. This report conducted under the previous administration seeks to diminish the service and exceptionality of LSP, and we will not let it happen. The reputation of our men and women in blue is one of respect, admiration, and appreciation, and we will always have their back. Now, y'all, that's the governor.

Now, mind you, this is the governor of Louisiana refusing to acknowledge the brutality of this in agency. The same agency that lied to Ronald Green's family saying he was killed in a car accident when he was beaten. So, Jeff Landry, you can kiss our collective ass. Now, this is the state attorney general, Liz Morrell. This report follows months of USDOJ inactivity and virtually no engagement with the state. It is unfortunate that political appointees of of USDOJ inactivity and virtually no engagement with the state. It is unfortunate that political appointees of the USDOJ are continuing to use the agency to advance a political agenda. We will continue to ensure that LSP is the finest law enforcement organization in the country

and have a deep respect and appreciation for all of Louisiana's law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line for the citizens of our great state each and every day, and they have our steadfast support. Now, y'all notice what they also left out. The own head of the state police talked about the corruption that he's had to deal with in repairing that state agency. This is a perfect example of when white conservatives, Morgan, will stand with the blue, except if they were January 6th cops, and ignore the will of the people. But this is also, Morgan, why Gary Chambers was saying this.

We've been saying it. Black folks in Louisiana, you got to get off your ass and vote because these are the people who were elected when black people stayed at home. These people, what they said here is just shameful as relates to what Louisiana State Police, how they have treated people. It's crazy. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, here in Columbus, I mean, we've dealt with the actually the benefit that can come from having the federal government step up, do an investigation and put some pressure even on Democratic elected officials, by the way, who did not want to move necessarily on addressing some of the problems within law enforcement departments. And I think we need to get rid of this idea. And it's not an original thought, but it's one that continues to be repeated is, you know, that it is not anti-law enforcement to get rid of bad activity within law enforcement departments. I mean, I've talked to a lot of cops that are 100 percent supportive of, look, there are sometimes bad

apples, like in almost every organization, and they should be addressed. And if a department's not doing that, then somebody's got to intervene. And that's exactly why we have multiple levels of government and what the DOJ is doing here. The other point I would make on this, because I think in some of those quotes that you posted, you know, there was this implication that because this is coming at the end of an administration, it's therefore inherently political. And that suggests to me someone who has no idea how government works, right, and bureaucracies work. And by the way, a lot of people that are in this DOJ, in this administration, thought that they were going to have more time. So I think especially since November of last year, up until this inauguration that's coming, this transition,

there's been a lot of scurrying of making sure they're fulfilling all the priorities that they had within these institutions, that even on the best day, it's always complicated to decide on what your priorities are going to be. But especially when your time's been cut by about four years, well, yeah, of course there's going to be a scramble to make sure that you're getting everything done that you set out to try to accomplish. So I don't think we should, you know, give in to this idea that somehow

because it's coming at the last minute, it's entirely politically motivated. And I've got to clarify that. For the folks who are at home, look, we have been covering this for quite some time. I mean, remember we even had a brother who was a state trooper who, you know, left the force because he was actually out there speaking truth. This is a Associated Press did a massive story.

Go to my iPad. It's called Louisiana State Police, a culture of impunity, nepotism, and abuse. These were the reporters here. Jim Mustian and Jake Blyberg, federal law enforcement reporters in New York and Dallas, deconstructed how the Louisiana State Police scandal of beatings and cover-ups could have gone on for so long, digging into the institutional thinking of the agency, its history, and the background of key figures. They interviewed dozens of current and former troopers

and uncovered thousands of pages of documents that describe an entrenched culture of impunity, nepotism, and in some cases, outright racism. This was all stemming from the beating death of Ronald Green. And so, Matt, this is a perfect example where Jeff Landry and Liz Morrell are completely and totally full of shit. Yeah, they're completely disingenuous because Jeff Landry was one of the most political attorney generals before he became the governor.

He was attorney general while this was happening and did not prosecute any of these corrupt cops. And took every opportunity to make political any issue en route to the governor's mansion where he is now. So that's just wholly disingenuous. I don't know Liz Morrell, but it's also disingenuous just to act as though politicians, and especially politicians in the specific role of attorney general, like our politician here, Ken Paxton, who finds a way to politicize everything and bring everything to be a lawsuit about whatever their ideological position is and not work for the people. But you said a couple of things in here that I thought were super important that I wanted to point out. The first is, I really like that DOJ honed in on

the fact that the LSP has a tendency to make minor interactions escalated. That's a huge issue that we don't always talk about. But a lot of these uses of force emanate from very, very minor things. I have a case right now where my client got tased by a police officer because the police officer thought he was supposed to leave an apartment pool by a certain time. That should never happen. You should just be leaving the pool, right? You shouldn't be tased because of an issue like that. That kind of thing happens all the time. So for DOJ to enshrine that in a report is very important because they're recognizing the on-the-ground phenomena that apply. But moreover, the thing that's very problematic with this is they know that these

cops lied about what happened to Ronald Green and they did not prosecute. And then they issued this report. And what I'd like to know is why DOJ did not issue indictments for criminal civil rights violations if they have incontrovertible evidence that these police officers lied about what happened to Ronald Green for multiple years. And then when it was uncovered, you had this whole issue of corruption, issue of corruption in the department. Like that's when the head should roll. When you know that people lied, you can prove that they lied. And that the consequence of that is a family who has no idea that he was buried in an unmarked grave, if I remember correctly, and who had the tragedy of learning that their loved one was beaten and dehumanized in this way. So I don't know why DOJ didn't bring an indictment here. Not having all the evidence, I'll give them some benefit

of the doubt, but that to me is very problematic, knowing the evidence, at least that's been publicly reported in this case. Here's another one of those AP stories, Michael. Beatings, buried videos, a pattern at Louisiana State Police. No mention of that by Jeff

Landry or Liz Morrell. And this, again, this is a failure. And the black people who live in Louisiana who are qualified to vote, this is what happens when you keep your ass at home and you don't vote. You elect these liars who do not want to fix the problem. Absolutely. You've had Gary Chambers on the show a number of times talking about this. I think in the gubernatorial race, I think voter turnout for African-Americans was somewhere

around 30 percent or less than 30 percent, something like that. It was a low, embarrassing number. And this is an example of what happens when you don't vote. You get a governor who doesn't care. You get a governor that doesn't even say that we're going to fix the problems that have been exposed by the Department of Justice. They just try to sweep it under the rug and focus on supporting police officers, but not those who are the victims of police beatings, not those who are the victims of police misconduct, who

are also your constituents, who are also citizens there in the state of Louisiana, most likely taxpayers in the state of Louisiana. But this came from a patterns or practice investigation from the Department of Justice. You're not going to see any more investigations like this in the Trump administration. Trump has already said on the campaign trail, he said he would give police 100 percent immunity against criminal prosecution for doing their jobs. So this is one of the last reports we're going to see. And incidentally, for those that don't know, the ability for the Department of Justice to do patterns of practice investigations was given to them by Congress in the 1994 crime bill, for those that don't—haven't really investigated what was in the crime bill. All right, then, folks, let's talk about the Federal Trade Commission.

A lot of conversation was taking place during the election because you had some Democrats who wanted the head of the FTC to be replaced if Vice President Kamala Harris won. But the reality is this FTC has been strong and going after companies for wrongdoing. Linda Khan has been doing a great job. The Federal Trade Commission, folks, they are suing PepsiCo, alleging that the company disadvantaged other retailers, including large grocery chains and independent local convenience stores by failing to offer the same deals to all those selling its products. It's called price fixing. The FTC alleges Pepsi violated the Robinson-Patman Act, which bars sellers from giving competing buyers different prices for the same commodity or selectively providing allowances like advertising compensation. The agency argues Pepsi gave Walmart promotional payments and allowances,

as well as advertising and promotional tools that it did not offer to the retail giant's rivals. Pepsi calls a lawsuit wrong on the facts and the law. This case is part of the FTC's recent revival of a long-dormant law addressing high grocery prices, which have become a top concern for Americans. Now, here's the deal. I'm going to start with you, Michael, on this one, because here's, and I'm going to pull up, when I go to more, I'm going to pull up something else.

Again, they work until the last second. This week, the FTC has been on that ass, and for all these people out here who've been whining and complaining about prices, this is an example. The lawsuit against the egg price fixing, which they actually found guilty as well.

We go on and on and on how these companies were fixing prices, how these companies were jacking up prices and screwing over the American customer. And this is where the FTC is hitting hard at PepsiCo. Absolutely. The Biden-Harris administration is working to the last minute. You just had the, in the last couple of days, you just had the ceasefire in Israel and Hamas

announced this week. You have the commutations that were announced today. And then you have this lawsuit against Pepsi. And we know that approximately 53 percent of inflationary costs were because of corporate greed. You had shrinkflation, where they would charge the same amount but give you less ounces. So you go from 12 ounces to 10 ounces, but they would charge you the same amount. Then you had greedflation, where they would just jack up prices however much they wanted to above the inflationary rate. And the case about the eggs that you mentioned, that was the—doing with CalMaine, the price-fixing with CalMaine. U.S. egg producers forced to pay $53 million in price-fixing case. So, you're not going to see things like this under the Trump-Vance administration, OK?

Because he's in the pocket of big business. And we know that Donald Trump, in that Time magazine interview, backed away from one of the campaign promises of bringing down the price of groceries. He said it's very hard to bring down the price of groceries once they're up. He has no clue how to do this. So, but yeah, this is what happens when you vote strategically and you put responsible people in office. Morgan, I'm going to show you this here.

So Matthew Stoller, don't show it just yet. Matthew Stoller was a researcher at... My colleague. There you go. There, you guys about to say that. He put this thread together on Twitter that I thought was amazing. And he said, want some fun news before Monday inauguration that you won't have heard anywhere else? The antitrust enforcers, Lena Kahn, went full Tony Montana on big business this week before Trump people took over.

Here's just part of what they did. The FTC filed a monopolization claim against agricultural machine maker John Deere for generating six billion dollars by prohibiting farmers from being able to repair their own equipment, a suit which Wired magazine calls a tipping point for the right toair movement. They also released another report on pharmacy benefit managers, including that of UnitedHealthcare Group, showing that these companies inflated prices for specialty pharmaceuticals by more than $7 billion.

The FTC, along with Colorado AG, sued corporate landlord Graystar, which owns 800,000 apartments for misleading renters on junk fees. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One for cheating consumers out of $2 billion by misleading consumers over savings accounts. The CFPB forced cash app purveyor Block with his weirdo owner, Jack Dorsey, to give $120 million in funds for fostering fraud on its platform and then refusing to offer customer support to affected consumers. The antitrust division filed a complaint against seven giant corporate landlords for rent fixing using the software and consulting firm RioPo. Honorary mention goes to Pete Buttigieg of the Department of Transportation for suing Southwest and finding Frontier for chronically delayed flights. The FTC forced healthcare private equity powerhouse Welsh Carson to stop monopolization of the

anesthesia market. The CFPB sued Experian for refusing to give consumers a way to correct errors in credit reports. The antitrust division sued 600 billion private equity titan KKR for systematically misleading the government on more than a dozen acquisitions. Then he says here more stuff keeps dropping. then left the roadmap for parties who are worried about consolidation in AI by big tech by revealing a host of interlinked relationships among Google, Amazon, and Microsoft in Anthropik and OpenAI. Not just Experian, but Equifax got nailed for screwing people in their consumer credit report.

And this goes on and on and on. The CFPB proposed a rule to prohibit take-it-or-leave-it contracts from financial institutions that allow firms to debank users over how they express themselves or whether they seek redress for fraud. Antitrust division and FTC filed two amicus briefs with the FTC, one supporting Epic Games in its remedy against Google over app monopolization. And it goes on and on and on. This is what I don't understand, Morgan. This is where I am absolutely clueless, okay? And I will say this here to Jen O'Malley Dillon, to David Plouffe, to Stephanie Cutter, to Quinton Folks. What the hell were you doing during the campaign not mentioning any of this?

You know what you were doing? You were running away from this because there were people like Mark Cuban who did not want Lena Khan reappointed to head the FTC. This is called fighting on behalf of the working people. This shit is what's so maddening, Morgan, that you had a FTC that stopped mergers, that stopped monopolies, and literally during the campaign, they didn't say shit about it. Well, we have not talked, I don't think, since the campaign, but I agree. And I could go on and on and on about this. I mean, I think it's actually, it's beyond political malpractice, because the reality is we're all going to be living with the consequences of that bad decision making. And it's going to play out in a number of different areas,

as we've already been discussing today, that have nothing to do with antitrust or economics. It's much bigger than that. And yeah, I don't have an answer for that. But when we get to the question, which is one of the questions that was posed earlier in our discussion about why are people not voting? Well, I don't know. If you're not even hearing about the impacts of what some of these people are doing, then why do you think it matters? And it's just crazy because, yeah, you just ran through a list. And that was just a subset of what's happened over the last 48 to 72 hours. You know what I'm saying? So this is crazy. I really don't have a good answer for that. I do think you're right that we have just been, well, and putting on my political hat here, I think we've been a little bit too beholden on what donors seem to care about. I mean,

it wasn't just Mark Cuban. It was also Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, who really got the ball rolling in these requests to get rid of Lena Kahn. By the way, I think we just need to spend a minute for everybody to understand who Lena Kahn is. Thirty-four years old, appointed to lead the Federal Trade Commission, an agency that had been disregarded by a lot of people as a place that big things could happen. And she totally resuscitated that place. And we're seeing all the results of that. Again, what you just ran through was just in the last couple of days.

So, yeah, I don't even know where to begin on the answer to the political question. But I have plenty to add to the policy. You want to keep with the political or you want to go into some of the policy stuff? No, you can do both. Up to you. OK, so, I mean, you know, just focusing on and I'll say, too, I learned about some new ones even in what you ran through. I mean, that private that Welsh Carson, that private equity and health care. I mean, why are health care costs so expensive? It's because private equity, partly because private equity firms are buying up physician practices across the country, rolling them up just like they would roll up a sporting goods store

and limiting our choice and then charging us a bunch of money. That is something that was not even getting talked about by the Federal Trade Commission before this administration. And they now have a private equity firm that instead of going through a whole litigation process was like, you know what? We're good. Federal Trade Commission's got a solid case here. We're going to start just paring back some of the market power that we have. That is huge. That is huge. The other thing I would say on the Pepsi case specifically, which is a really big deal, like you were saying, Roland, because, you know, that kind of price discrimination where the big, big players in the market like a Walmart are getting a better deal from Pepsi than not just a little guy like an independent grocer, but also even, you know, where I usually am critical of Kroger when I've been on the show. But even Kroger in some cases is maybe not able to get as good of a deal from Pepsi as a Walmart might. That is illegal. That has been

illegal in this country for about 100 years. And again, it was just people in office that were choosing not to use those laws and enforce them and sue companies that were blatantly disregarding them. And Pepsi is an example of that. And what's the other, the deeper issue there too? Because I think a lot of times we can think, you know, as our, especially in the black community, as our neighborhoods have changed, as businesses have closed, there can be a tendency to kind of like blame ourselves. And especially when, you know, I know a lot of us have had experience with a black owned grocery store in Columbus. There was the Carl Brown IGA. It was a longstanding Black-owned grocery store.

Actually, Carl Brown Sr. used to work for A&P, if that name means anything to people. It was like the original supermarket in the United States. He was getting discriminated against there, decided to start his own grocery store. And it lasted for decades and decades, all the way up until the early 2000s in Columbus. Why did it end up closing? It ended up closing because his son, who took over the business in the early 2000s, when Walmart super stores entered the market, realized he could get

goods cheaper paying retail prices at Walmart than he could through his distributor trying to buy wholesale. That's exactly what this Pepsi case is about. That's why the National Grocers Association came out in support of the FTC's lawsuit here. And who is questioning that lawsuit? Because that was a three to two vote from the Federal Trade Commission on this to vote to move that enforcement action forward. But both Republican commissioners voted against this. So, Lena Kahn is about to be out of a job, unfortunately, on Monday. Who's taking over? It's Andrew Ferguson. He's going to be the chair. And he dissented in this case. And he said,

you know, the FTC is moving too quickly here. We don't have all the facts. And so, you know, that's just another example where votes do matter, who are in these offices. You know, I's just that's just another example where votes do matter. The who are in these offices. You know, I think we spent a lot of time focused on the the people who run for office. But the people who run for office also end up choosing the people who get to run these agencies. And these agencies have a lot of power to decide the future of our liberty and then also our economic lives all the way down to how much we end up paying for things how likely it is that that black owned business in our community is going to be even able to have a chance to be successful and really to be able to maintain

the strength and integrity of our communities it all is connected um i i just want to play this because i think i think it's so important here when we talk about it. Actually, before I do that, I'm going to go to Matt. Matt hasn't spoken on this topic here. And, Matt, the thing here, again, that is just so maddening to me, again, we talked about legacy earlier. This has been one of the most aggressive administrations against monopolies since President Teddy Roosevelt going after the big trust. And again, they were and Morgan is absolutely right that they were so afraid because you had some big Democratic donors who did not like how aggressive Lena Kahn was. Don't talk about it. Don't mention it. But that's the shit.

That's directly impacting consumers and that's what you should have been talking about and they could have contrasted what she was doing with Trump was going to let big business just rape America. And so this is somebody who is a patriot

because she was truly fighting for regular ordinary people against these multibillion dollar conglomerates. So, you know, I think you're 100 percent right about the messaging and to use Morgan's term, you know, that it's political malpractice for them to not have kind of beat the drum on this. But I will tell you, when you're talking about monopolization and things related to antitrust, it's not easy information to understand. I took the class in law school. It's among the most arcane laws when you're looking at the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act and all the stuff that applies to antitrust. So perhaps some of it was a reticence to try to figure out how to package it. Although- It ain't that hard. I was going to say the messaging is- No, it ain't.

His why not that hard. Okay, go ahead. I'm gonna give you a quick, I'm gonna give you a quick lessaging. I'm gonna give you a quick lesson in messaging. Happy you didn't, it was horrible. No, I'm gonna help you out, Matt, cause Ag is gonna help you out.

So imagine this is a bottle of Pepsi. This is a bottle of Pepsi. You go out and you say, ladies and gentlemen, we have filed a lawsuit against Pepsi-Go for giving favorable prices to Walmart. At Walmart, this bottle of Pepsi costs $1.79. At the convenience store, one mile from a Walmart, this bottle of Pepsi costs $1.79. At the convenience store, one mile from a Walmart, this same bottle of Pepsi costs you $2.79.

That's why we're suing them. And then you sit here and you have a John Deere tractor. And you sit here and you say, ladies and gentlemen, see this John Deere tractor? If a farmer wanted to make a basic repair on this tractor, they could call someone and it's going to cost them $179 to fix it. But no, John Deere says that farmer must have John Deere repair it and John Deere repairs this tractor for $879. That's what we are suing. So it's just basic show and tell.

That's all they got to do. The problem was, and Morgan's right, the problem was, you had, again, Mark Cuban is on the record, he was adamant about Vice President Kamala Harris not reappointing Lena Kahn. Reid Hoffman, same way. This is where if you are a Democratic nominee, you've got to be able to say, no, she's kicking ass and taking names on behalf of regular, ordinary people. Just like Jeff Bezos is trying to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board.

Who also wants to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board. Who also wants to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board? Elon Musk. So these billionaires don't like it, and they always say, well, this is government interference. This is overregulation. No, this is where the FTC is protecting regular, ordinary people. So to me, you've got to learn how to message the regular, ordinary people. But the reality is, and I'll say it,

the Biden White House ran from this, and you never saw Karine Jean-Pierre touting the FTC and their actions from the podium, just like you never saw them touting Kristen Clark and her work at the DOJ Civil Rights Division, and their silence is what caused people to say, oh, y'all don't care about regular, ordinary people. We're going to go with Republicans,

where Donald Trump now has the richest cabinet, and they don't give a shit about regular, ordinary consumers. Go ahead, Matt. Well, that's ultimately where I was actually about to try to go, but since you broke it down, I won't waste the time in terms of how they should have broken down the basic messaging. But I actually have a couple of questions for Morgan, if you'll indulge me, because there's two things I don't understand about this lawsuit. Well, since Ohio State beat your Longhorns, I will allow you to ask multiple questions. I'm trying to learn like all of your. No, no, no. Go ahead.

I mean, I will allow the Ohio expert to educate the Austin Negro. Go ahead. Something ain't right with your soul, brother. Here's the question I have, Morgan. So the first is, how do you account for the economies of scale that like a big, you know, a retailer like a Walmart would have, right?

Because part of the argument presumably is Walmart can buy so many more units anyway, therefore their price could just not artificially be lower if Pepsi wasn't providing some kind of benefit. So when you look at this economically, how does that factor in, in terms of what the law prescribes, in terms of what two retailers cannot do in terms of conspiring to fix this in this way, if you'd kind of elucidate that for me, because I'm missing that part of it. Yeah. So under the Robinson-Patman Act, and like I said, I didn't take empty trust in law school,

but I've learned a lot just informally over the last few years. But the Robinson-Patman Act does allow for volume discounts. So it does allow that if you're buying a lot, then Pepsi is allowed to charge you a lower price. But you do have to make that price available to everyone in the market who is buying at that volume. There has to be some consistency to how much that price is available. So that's why when you're not doing that, that's price discrimination. That's illegal. And this actually gets into the other point that you were making, Matt, about, oh my God, I just lost my train of thought. Oh,

I did just lose my train of thought. I'm getting old. Oh no. Wait, what was the first thing you said when you first started? You were saying about, or what's your second question? Then I'll come back to me. So my second question is, I mean, just what your thought is going to be the impact of Chevron on this, right? Because this is a bona fide lawsuit. It's not an administrative decision, but I am interested in what's going to happen if the FTC is making administrative decisions now with the Supreme Court kind of stepping away from Chevron. So I'd like your thoughts on that as well, if you don't mind. Okay. And I remember what I was going to say. So thank you. Okay. So let me get back to what I was

originally going to say, and then I'll answer that question. Because, you know, you had talked about how antitrust is complicated, and that's part of what makes this hard to talk about. I mean, antitrust has been complicated by design. A lot of these large corporations then hire the fleet of lawyers that then convince these judges to make it that there's all these balancing tests about, you know, did you do this enough? Is there efficiency? Is there not? That is not an antitrust law. The antitrust laws don't talk about efficiency. The antitrust laws are actually pretty concise and pretty clear and provide a lot of bright line rules about what you are and are not allowed to do. So the more that we get back to the spirit of the law, which I believe is something that even a lot

of conservatives believe in, follow the letter of the law, then the less we even need agencies to be involved in drafting rules, for example, that start to become more complicated. And this is in what Lena Kahn has done, what Jonathan Cantor, the Department of Justice, and now Doha Meki. In the final days of the Biden administration, the head of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division is a Black woman, Doha Meki. Everybody look her up. She's another great leader in this space, too. And they are just enforcing the law. And so actually, Chevron, for example, for this Pepsi case, is not even relevant. Chevron, which says you have, you to know whether or not there's going to be deference to the administrative rulemaking that an agency might do, that's not relevant. This is law enforcement. Law enforcement reigns

supreme in the United States of America, right? And so I think that we will continue to see. And this could I mean, we got to watch it in this next administration. But this could be an area where we continue to see enforcement activity. Now, as I noted, both of the Republican commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission, they voted against this Pepsi decision. But the pharmacy benefit manager report that was released, that also Roland referenced in just the litany of things that have happened the last couple of days, that did get unanimous support, that we saw that the AI move that they made and statement about

the big tech firms colluding to come up with these deals, that also had unanimous support. And the other Republican commissioners, a commissioner that has been nominated by President-elect Trump and also to lead the DOJ antitrust division in this next administration, both have a track record of supporting strong antitrust enforcement. So we'll just kind of have to see. But the main point is, this all comes down to freedom. And another example that I will give on that front, that's why it's such a simple message. Do we want to be in the United States of America, where big corporations get to play or set all the rules and the rest of us just have to comply? Or do we want to be free? I mean, this is something that Martin Luther King talked about,

not just freedom in the sense of civil rights, but also economic rights, economic freedom. That is essential to what we should be conceptualizing as freedom in the United States. And so, you know, looking ahead, I think it's important that we continue to stay focused on the fact that these laws have been around for a very long time. This is a longstanding tradition in the United States that we should have markets that are free and available to all sorts of businesses of all sorts of sizes. And ultimately, this is a political win for anyone who cares about appealing to regular people in the United States of America and trying to lower costs for all of us. Are you now sufficiently educated, Matt? Yes, I am.

Thank you, my brother. I needed that opportunity to learn from someone as preeminent as Morgan. And you should encourage all of your viewers to take that opportunity to learn where they've got that hole in their knowledge. So thank you, Morgan. Yes, which is why she's on the show. Exactly, which is why I asked her the question, because i needed to elucidate you know at least to learn a little bit so i appreciate that and we appreciate your attempt uh at using that uh eight letter plus word all right y'all

here was a uh here's a video uh that uh the folks at More Perfect Union put together talking about how critical Alina Khan has been. I just want to play some of this. Check this out. In the world of big business, there is one woman who inspires great fear and awe. I wanted to have you on a podcast, and Apple asked us not to do it. The FTC is back in that role of torturing all the companies that America likes. The business community feels that the FTC is waging a war against us and it's time to fight back. That woman is 34-year-old chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan.

As FTC chair, Lina Khan has become public enemy number one for the corporate establishment. But here's an interesting twist. She's also simultaneously managing to bring together an unlikely political alliance from both sides of the aisle. You are a brilliant woman with a tremendous ability to impact how consumers are going to interface with the digital world. One of the outstanding members of the Biden administration, that is Lena Khan. I look at Lena Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I actually think is doing a pretty good job. So who is Lena Kahn and what is it about this young FTC chair that makes corporate America shake in their boots all while uniting politicians like Matt Gaetz and Bernie Sanders?

Many political bureaucrats who enter government service do so with the framework of wanting to be seen as fighting on partisan terms for their respective parties. They're often looking ahead to their next cushy job rather than worrying about being strong public advocates in their current roles. Unlike public servants of the past four decades, Khan enters with a very different framework. She's more interested in analyzing who has too much power and who doesn't have enough. She's not fighting a partisan game. Instead, she's focused on something that she's had her eyes on since she was a teenager, waging battles against powerful, predatory, multinational corporations that are exploiting

working people. I was thinking back to 2004, young Lena Kahn writes about Starbucks. You can actually go to their Twitter feed. I'm going to post them on social media as well, the whole interview there. But Morgan, the key here is that, and Dr. Julianne Malveaux, also an economist, always talks about predatory capitalism. And what you have here is someone who was fighting against that. And the fact that she was being praised by the left and the right, again, this to me was a huge miss that Biden was not promoting what they were doing and that the advisers for Vice President Harris were not leaning in on what she was doing. And I dare say that if that language was being used and holding up. These people were holding accountable for it. You know what? That's populism. You know what?

That's the stuff that causes somebody to say, man, thank you. Somebody's fighting for me. That's what they should have been leaning more into as opposed to, and I get reproductive rights and saving democracy, but the public was saying this is what we care about right now. And unfortunately, that's why they voted for the idiot. Yeah, I mean, and we don't have to speculate on this. I mean, look at some of the people who outperformed the Democratic presidential candidate, right? Who outperformed Kamala Harris.

If you look at Chris Deluzio in Western Pennsylvania, he was in a competitive district. That's a frontline district, one. Josh Riley, Upstate New York, Pat Ryan, they all were running on these types of issues. They all were running and leading with economic issues, taking on big corporations in different sectors. I mean, you got to choose what's relevant for your constituents, of course. But at this stage of the United States economy, pretty much every market is monopolized by some giant that's making a ton of money off of us. And so this is something we need to take really seriously. It needs to be incorporated into the main platform of both parties, because that's

the other thing I would note. I mean, this is the same battle that's happening on the Democratic side that you're referencing, Roland. I do think there are people within the White House, certainly folks on the National Economic Council that were advancing these issues, trying to push them forward. But there's a couple of factions within that White House, a couple of factions within the party. And you're seeing the same thing on the Republican side. There's a push to try to get against business. Josh Hawley, for example, is a guy that I'm sure many of us don't agree on everything at all. But in even hearings over or since the election over the last couple of months, he's been calling out Visa for jacking up prices on small businesses to process credit card transactions. Gone after UnitedHealthcare for jacking up prices on prescription drugs through owning

a pharmacy benefit manager. So we got to start looking beyond just some of the labels that people have regarding the parties. And also, what do they actually stand for? I would love to see this be a higher priority for the Congressional Black Caucus. Summer Lee is a member of that, also from Western Pennsylvania. She actually hosted a session about some of these issues at the most recent legislative conference, and she's really leading on this. And so we need to see more of that. The other thing I would note, and this is getting back to one of the points that Matt asked about in terms of, like, rulemaking versus enforcement actions, the non-compete rule, that was also probably one of the most important achievements from Lena Kahn's Federal Trade Commission, which they issued a rule that would ban non-competes across the economy.

Non-competes are agreements that dictate how employers will allow us to move as employees. That'll say, hey, okay, you, fast food worker, or even doctor in some cases, you want to leave this job, cool, but you can't work anywhere near where you currently are employed, let's say anywhere in this region, or you can't work at a similar business for five years, three years, whatever. Restricting freedom, again, really strong message. And so we've seen actually that on that, that rule's being challenged. It was challenged immediately. They were sued for implementing, trying to implement that rule by big business. And we saw today, actually, that a veteran who is under or subject to a non-compete agreement has sued to intervene in the case so that even if somehow the FTC is found, that they're not able to do a rule on that

because it's an administrative action. Right now, administrative actions are very delicate based on some of the rulings we've seen from the Supreme Court, that that case will proceed as just having an average citizen veteran that's saying, hell no, I don't want to be subject to this non-compete agreement, just in their own standing, bringing that, that that case would survive with them. So, and I think he's paired actually with a doctor who's also joining him and trying to intervene and be a party to that case so that we will try to continue to ban non-compete agreements in the United States. Huge, huge deal, something for us to continue to watch. But again, I mean, talking about non-competes, NLRB, they also were moving on this issue during the Biden administration. We didn't hear about it. This is easy, easy stuff to message to anybody. Do you want to be free to do what you want with

your working hours? Yes or no? Most of us are going to say yes, and they want people who are going to want elected officials, want government officials who are going to stand up and fight for that right. All right, then. Hold that one second. I've got to go to a quick break. We'll be right back. Roland Martin, Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. What's up, y'all?

Look, Fanbase is more than a platform. It's a movement to empower creators, offering a unique opportunity for everyday people to invest in Black-owned tech, infrastructure, and help shape the future of social media. Investing in technology is essential for creating long-term wealth and influence in the digital age. The Black community must not only consume tech, we must own it. Discover how equity crowdfunding can serve as a powerful tool for funding Black businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to raise capital directly through their community, through the jobs ad. This is Motown recording artist Kim. You are watching Roland Martin unfiltered. Boy, he always unfiltered, though.

I never known him to be filtered. Is there another way to experience Roland Martin than to be unfiltered? Of course he's unfiltered. Would you expect anything less? Watch what happens next. The band director of the Grammy Award winning Tennessee State University, the aristocrat of bands, has been removed from his position. Dr. Reginald McDonald has been removed, in fact, to be immediately placed on paid administrative leave

while school leaders investigate his role after an internal audit uncovered a lack of compliance with TSU policy and procedures. Interim President Dwayne Tucker issued this statement. When I took on the interim president role in December, I immediately began working with the Board of Trustees audit committee to ensure the sustainable future that our alma mater and the broader TSU community expect and deserve. As a result of this internal audit, I have had to remove Dr. Reginald McDonald from the

position of band director of the Tennessee State University Aristocrat of Bands, effective immediately. This decision concerns outstanding travel requisitions and advances in related lack of compliance with TSU policies and procedures. Dr. McDonald will be on administrative leave with full pay while we continue this investigation. As this is an ongoing personnel matter, I will not be able to comment further about it at this time. What I can say is that this difficult decision and any that come here forward have at their core a shared commitment to ensuring a bright and stable future for Tennessee State University. Folks, today the Supreme Court voted unanimously to uphold

a federal law that effectively bans TikTok in the United States if they are not sold to Americans. No U.S. law has ever shut down a popular social media platform, let alone one with more than 170 million users. The ban is now poised to take effect on January 19th. It prohibits U.S. app stores and online hosting services from transacting with TikTok, other platforms owned by its Beijing-based parent firm ByteDance, and any other platform under the control of a foreign adversary and deemed harmful to national security by the U.S. president.

Attorney General Merrick Garland released a statement after the ruling stating the court's decision enables the Justice Department to prevent the Chinese government from weaponizing TikTok to undermine America's national security. Authoritarian regimes should not have unfettered access to millions of American-sensitive data. The court's decision affirms that this act protects the national security of the United States in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution. Now, President Biden has announced he's really kicking it forward to Trump for us to take over when it's supposed to be banned on the 19th.

He's still president. So then, of course, you've got the TikTok CEO. He's going to be sitting on the stage, Michael, for the inauguration. TikTok is sponsoring one of the inauguration balls. You've got others who are suggesting that they should sell it to Americans. You've got Kevin O'Leary announcing that he's put together a team that will buy TikTok for $20 billion in cash. The Chinese government has said, no, we ain't selling. Sorry, ByteDance has said they're not selling TikTok.

We would rather shut it down than sell it. So there's all kind of drama going on. And you've got all these different stories where people are now racing to, what's it called, Red Zone or whatever, another Chinese app. And I'm like, what do you think about the last one? And what I've been saying to people, damn that, go to fan base. We should be downloading fan base to utilize black folks to build that thing up as opposed to building up another Chinese app. Your thoughts about this whole TikTok mess? Some of us still would not learn. Number one, this is, I think this is going to be a mess for the Trump administration to handle. Remember back in 2020, Donald Trump was for banning TikTok. Now he's against it.

He says that, you know, he has about 14 million followers on TikTok. He's a TikTok star now. No, he has to change his mind when David Yass, a billionaire, starts giving money to his campaign. That's when he changed his tune. I'm coming to that also. Well, he did talk about he's a TikTok star, 14 million followers. Okay, first of all, he's not a TikTok star.

That's what he said. Okay, but we speak factually. He ain't a TikTok star. Go ahead. Right. OK. Yeah. But then the money started coming in from one of the major shareholders of TikTok. And then he changed his tune just like he changed his tune on electric vehicles when Elon Musk started investing money in his campaign, things of this nature. So, now, there is a clause in this law. So, also, this law passed Congress.

It was bipartisan support, because you do have some Republicans who are concerned about national security threats. And dealing with the national security threat is dealing with the communist government of China being able to manipulate algorithms and flood the feeds of TikTok with various stories, various videos that may be sympathetic to one adversary of the U.S. or something like that, and be able to shape the way people think. You have 170 million—over 170 million Americans on TikTok, a lot of youth, a lot of Gen Z, et cetera. So, there is, in the deal, there is a 90-day clause that states that if there is a buyer

for TikTok and there is a written, signed agreement, then there's a 90-day pause on actually implementing the ban. But the problem is, is that the owners of TikTok are saying they're not selling. So, you know, how is this really going to work and how are you really going to enforce it under a Trump administration? And then Trump, at the same time, is saying, you know, he really wants time to try to figure this out, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. So it's going to be interesting how this works out, but I'm shutting down.

I don't use—I have a TikTok account. I don't use it. I'm switching over to Fanbase. I'm not using this. And all the people saying they make money on TikTok and this is your livelihood, switch over to fan base. It's one of the fastest growing apps and it's black owned. Switch over to fan base. Morgan, your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, this is really interesting, one, on the political front, because like y'all are

saying, we've seen Trump flip-flop on this, and he's flip-flopping between these couple of factions within the party that we've talked about on the side of big business, big tech, and those that want to really take it down and are interested in things like strong antitrust enforcement. And so, yeah, how this all plays out would be interesting. But just, you know, I think the main takeaway for people, though, like you were like you were saying, Michael, it's better if there's more competition. So right now, you know, TikTok kind of is dominating this one little slice of the social media market. Obviously, meta, you know, is a Facebook's a huge player here. But if we have more choices, then we can get better terms from the content.

You know, people who are making money off of these platforms, then they can get better terms, more money. But if there's only one game in town, well, they're going to try to give you as little value and make as much for themselves in addition to all the data concerns and, you know, the Chinese government having access to the data. So I think this is good if it happens and more platforms, the better for us to choose from. And yeah, let's support Black-owned platforms in particular. Matt? I don't know yet. I mean, I think there are some pretty major First Amendment implications behind this. I get that when you talk about national security, that's what generally gets the highest level of concern from the Supreme Court, as it should. But when you have 170 million people

using it, many of whom have monetized it, it does concern me because it gives the government a level of regulation they've never before had. And I wonder what that means going forward, particularly because some of the reasons regarding, you know, the concern about a communist government fomenting dissension among the ranks of Americans. There are a lot of Americans on YouTube who have videos that are just as prone to foment dissent, if you will. And to me, it just seems like a very large overreach now. I haven't seen all the evidence. I haven't seen every argument. But it seems to me there has to be a more narrowly tailored way to do this than either

forcing the app be sold to Americans or, you know, allowing it to continue with certain stipulations. But it seems to me to be very questionable from a First Amendment standpoint. And I know that's what the people who have brought the lawsuit have argued. But that's what I thought when I first saw this. I mean, I don't know. It seems like there needs to be some more tailoring done to make sure that this doesn't infringe upon the rights of 170 million Americans. I mean, that's half of the American populace, essentially, right? What is it, 330 million Americans, a little less than that, who are on this app. So for the government to say that this app has to be sold for national security concerns,

especially when data is so pervasive in everything, I'm not sure what the long-term implications of this are yet, but it does concern me. I'm sorry, TikTok got to go. I don't give a damn because of 170 million people. Here's the reality. The same folk who on TikTok can go somewhere else. The reality is there are apps who can do it. You can go somewhere else. And so I got no problem with it. And the reality is Americans had better get concerned

about the role that Chinese plays when it comes to data and information. I mean, we played the video the other day from Christopher Wray in his interview with 60 Minutes where he talked about how the Chinese cyber folks have how they have gotten

into so many different systems. They've got malware and with the press of a button, it can impact our water infrastructure, so much telecommunications infrastructure. So I totally understand that. And the reality is, America, you waited too damn long to move. You waited too long to move.

And so that's what we're dealing with right now. So you want to make a final comment, Morgan? I was just going to say, I mean, I, yeah, I don't think we want to think of this as a First Amendment issue. Right, now it's a security. Yeah, that's a longer conversation. But I completely agree with Matthew that we do need to be addressing all of the big tech problems. And hopefully this can help to set the stage for some rethinking of how those markets are structured and the risks that they're presenting to us, both economically, national security,

psychologically, and that we can see Congress introduce laws to address that as well. It was ByteDance making it a First Amendment issue. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course, ByteDance is making the First Amendment issue. Go ahead, Matt. Let me push back because Morgan just talked in the previous segment about freedom. And I understand national security versus freedom is a balancing question that we have to have. But my concern is, I think the slippery slope with this is if the government then thinks that Roland Martin unfiltered is a part of something that should be cordoned off and no longer on the airwaves, then we're basically feeding into the idea that the government can

wade into a space to an extent that it never has. And I understand the implications about the national security risk. But the problem with that is that can be attenuated out to the furthest ends. And then you can have not only the First Amendment being infringed upon, but you can have the government now saying that content or certain things that it doesn't like can be regulated. And I don't think that that is necessarily like a conspiratorial approach to looking at this lawsuit in terms of what is being implicated here. The government passed the law to make a business shut down, a business that people were involved in because of concerns about what could happen. That, to me, seems to be pretty— No, but it's not a law to make it shut down. It's a law to change the ownership structure.

Right. Because of who it's owned by. Because it's owned by an adversary of the U.S. government. That's why. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're not saying they're not saying they're not saying you have to completely shut down TikTok. They're saying, listen, in the United States, there are rules right now preventing foreign ownership of airlines. Richard Branson could not be the majority owner of Virgin Atlantic because he was not a United States citizen. The exact same thing. You've had federal laws preventing foreign entities owning TV stations and things along those lines. So this idea is not new that prevents foreign government. This is not even not in the case of Richard Branson.

That's a foreigner who could not be allowed to own Virgin Atlantic. The United States here is saying this is a foreign government that has a massive ownership stake in ByteDance. You know, that's actually a very compelling point. And I did not realize that we had those regulations regarding common carriers, for instance, like in air. So that makes sense. That's actually a very compelling point. And that puts it into a context I hadn't considered.

And obviously not knowing every aspect of the lawsuit, I can't necessarily opine with the full benefit of that. But that makes sense to an extent. But I also think that we have foreigners who have obviously prominent business roles in the country, and we have a visa that allows people to come over that we've talked about on the show ad nauseum. So I think that is an interesting question, but I get it. It's an adversary of the United States. And I understand it from a national security standpoint, but it still concerns me about what kind of government regulation this allows for. And I think that's

going to yet to, you know, remain to be seen what that's going to turn into down the road. And for folks who don't realize, when it comes to airlines, foreigners cannot own more than 25% of the stock in an airline. Foreign owners cannot hold more than 25% of a broadcast license in the country. And again, but in this case, this is where they target a foreign government, which is different from a Chinese national or a Japanese national or a Korean national. This is the Chinese government. But this is also something that, frankly, as far as I'm concerned, they should have been addressed before it got 170 million users. But that's just my thoughts there. Matt, Morgan, and Michael, I appreciate you all joining us.

Thank you so very much on today's show. I appreciate it. And good luck with Ohio State. First of all, it don't even matter. I don't even care who wins the national championship game as long as Texas is at home. So I'm cool with that. You know, Ohio State's on both sides of the game.

So no matter. We're on both sides of the game. The coach of Notre Dame, Ohio State. We've got Ohio State's on both sides of the game, so no matter. We're on both sides of the game. The coach of Notre Dame, Ohio State. We've got Ohio State as a team. It's all winning. I don't care. I don't care. All I care about are my Texans and the Chiefs tomorrow at 4.30 p.m. Eastern.

Was Texas A&M in the SEC championship game in its first year in that conference? I don't recall that happening. And you lost. Way to go. All right, then. And you lost. Way to go. All right, then. And you still lost. So here's the deal, Matt. Matt, don't bring up when you lose. I'm just saying, Matt, Matt, don't bring up when you lose because it doesn't make you look better.

All right, Matt, Morgan, and Michael, I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Folks, we're going to close the show out with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin posted this video talking about the accomplishments over the last four years. Take a look. On February 24, 2022, Russian President Putin jolted the world with his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, his peaceful and democratic neighbor. America and the world were shocked by Putin's war of choice. And countries from around the world came together to help Ukraine fight for its freedom.

About mid-April, he was in one of those daily meetings assessing what was going on, and he kind of said, we're losing track of everything that's going on. It's all good. Countries are donating so much that the Ukrainians need, but we can't even keep track of it all. And it was at that point he developed the idea of convening his counterparts to come together so we could have a full picture of what was being donated, assess what the Ukrainians actually needed, and identify gaps, and work together to be able to meet those needs that weren't being met.

From the very night, which was actually February 23rd in Washington, when the first Russian missiles were striking Kyiv, he was intensively bringing together the team to understand what was emerging and what was evolving. In that first week after the invasion he quickly pivoted to not just understanding what was going on but figuring out what we were going to do about it. He traveled also to meet with colleagues and counterparts and I particularly remember in March he visited Slovakia and met with the minister in Slovakia.

And Slovakia was one of the few countries that still had a Soviet legacy system, an S-300 system, which the Ukrainians knew how to operate. And it was in the visit in March that Secretary Austin persuaded the government of Slovakia to donate its only air defense system, only strategic air defense system, to Ukraine. In return, he promised that he would send a U.S. air defense system on a rotational basis to help to create the reassurance and security that the leadership sought. Now, as NATO allies, we stand united in support of Ukraine and its right to defend its sovereign territory.

We're committed to helping the brave Ukrainian people as they protect themselves and their freedom from Russia's unjust and unprovoked invasion. As we discussed yesterday in Brussels at this week's NATO summit, we take our obligations to NATO and to our allies very seriously. And our commitment to Article 5 is ironclad. We've sent additional U.S. forces to reinforce our NATO allies. And we have more on call, ready to go if NATO activates its response forces. And I commend Slovakia for its contributions to NATO, for the humanitarian and military assistance

that you provided to Ukraine, and for the generosity that you've shown to the innocent refugees fleeing Putin's war of choice. Your actions speak volumes. And it was at that moment that I really understood that his power, his powers of persuasion, his expertise, his professionalism, but also the very deep trust that his counterparts in Europe, ministers of defense in Europe, had for him was a key to unlocking support for Ukraine.

And that's really what led to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. Ever since April 2022, I have been convening the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, and that's the coalition of some 50 countries from around the world determined to help Ukraine defend itself against Putin's aggression. The contact group has met 24 times. And we're meeting for a 25th time right here at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. And the contact group has delivered. Since the initiation of hostilities in late February, the global community has responded

in an unprecedented manner. The Ukrainian Security Assistance Program has been calculated, responsive, and relevant to Ukrainian defense requirements. At the onset of the Russian invasion, the global community took action in the form of security assistance to help Ukraine defend itself. This immediate assistance had exceptional impact on the battlefield. Russia halted and turned back their initial advances in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance.

I look forward to meeting with NATO defence ministers and ministers from partner countries at the Ukraine contact group led by the United States. Vi er en ukrainsk kontaktgruppe ledd av USA, og vi skal diskutere hvordan vi kan støtte og støtte vår støtte for Ukraina. Jeg kom tilbake fra Kiev i natt, og jeg møtte president Zelensky, og hans messager var at han virkelig oppfattet og velkomst message was that he really appreciates and welcomes the strong support the NATO allies and partners have provided for Ukraine, but it also counts on us to continue to support Ukraine in the future. You know, I'm very proud that the United States has committed more than $66 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. And America's allies and partners have also stepped up to share the responsibility.

Other members of the contact group have committed more than $60 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. And together, we have helped Ukraine survive an all-out assault by the largest military in Europe for almost three years. Contact group members have delivered critical weapons. They've trained Ukrainian pilots and soldiers. And through the contact group's nimble capability coalitions, Ukraine's friends are helping meet its urgent battlefield needs and to forge the future force to deter future Russian aggression. Thank you, American people, President Biden, and bipartisan support. We are very thankful for all those supports from the United States that have been done for Ukraine from the very beginning of this war. Never has a country raised so much support for a partner in need. Even in World War II, the United States created the Lend-Lease Program.

The Lend-Lease Program was incredibly important, but the Lend-Lease Program. The Lend-Lease Program was incredibly important, but the Lend-Lease Program was about lending resources, finances, to European countries fighting off Nazi invasion. With the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, we've not only raised money, we've actually raised real equipment. We've delivered it sometimes in the space of a week

from decision across the border into Ukraine. The Secretary has organized training for Ukrainian troops, basic training, unit training, specialized training, training on advanced Western capabilities as the needs of Ukraine transitioned from old Soviet equipment to new NATO interoperable equipment. They had to be trained on Western-style artillery systems, new kinds of tanks, F-16s, F-16 pilot training. We study a lot. We fly a lot. We prep for the missions. Royal Danish Air Force has taken

a huge responsibility on their shoulders for carrying out this mission. And we can only imagine how hard it is for them to train us for day-to-day operation. But they are being nothing but supportive. This has never been done in history. And never in history has it been done by a coalition of 50 countries. Assisting Ukraine in the defense of its sovereignty and territorial integrity is something that my entire team, it's what gets us up in the morning, very early in the morning.

It's what gets us staying late in the office very late and coming in on the weekends. And that excitement and that sense of purpose as we get on that rather old, creaky airplane again to Ramstein Air Base is something that everyone is eager to participate in because we know we are making history, and we know we are making history by supporting Secretary Austin. Ukraine faces complex challenges in the days to come. And we must continue to stand up for what's right.

You see, Putin's assault on Ukraine is a warning about what might lie ahead. We are all seeing a sneak preview of a world built by tyrants and thugs, a chaotic, violent world where bullies trample their smaller neighbors, and a world where aggressors force free people to live in fear. That's what's at stake. This isn't just about Ukraine's survival, it's about America's security. And it's about the kind of world we leave for our children and grandchildren. Thanks for watching. All right, folks, some breaking news out of New York State where the U.S. Attorney has dropped charges against the former Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin.

If you go to my iPad, this is the New York Times headline, U.S. drops corruption case against New York's former Lieutenant Governor. He had been accused of funneling state money to a real estate developer in exchange for campaign contributions of a guy who ran a nonprofit in Harlem. But that witness died in February. That's totally changed this case.

Benjamin has always maintained his innocence. And so now these charges against him have been dropped. Folks, just a reminder, Monday we'll be broadcasting live from Memphis with Reverend Dr. William J. Barber and Repairs of the Breach of the Poor People's Campaign for such a time as this, Justice Rising, a moral call to action in America's defining moment. There are going to be events, things happening from noon all the way through 9 p.m. We'll be live at 6 p.m. Eastern there in Memphis. And, of course, we'll be broadcasting other MLK Day events throughout the day as well. The only thing that matters to us on January 20th on Monday is MLK Day.

So if you're looking for MLK Central, the coverage right here. Plus, we'll be airing a number of different interviews that I've done with MLK lieutenants. Lots of coverage that we've done. And so you do not want to miss our coverage of the Black Star Network come Monday. Folks, support the work that we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. The goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks a year. That's $4.19 a month cents a month 13 cents a day if you want to contribute via cash app use the stripe app stripe.com or you can use

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I voted for the black woman shirt. RolandMartin. creator-spring.com Also go to BlackstarNetwork.com Download the Blackstar Network app. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. And so do that as well. And of course, shout out to my Houston Texans. TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV.

And so do that as well. And of course, shout out to my Houston Texans. Good luck tomorrow against the Kansas City Chiefs. Y'all know we're looking for a win. Folks, I will see y'all on Monday from Memphis, right here on the Black Star Network. Ah! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm out. Thank you. Thank you. This is an iHeart Podcast.