#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Biden/Trump town halls; Blacks miss #45's economy; Black male teachers needed; Sen. Jones speaks

Episode Date: October 17, 2020

10.16.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Biden andTrump's dueling town halls; Blacks are missing out on the Trump economy's economic gains; Prince George's County Maryland State's Attorney Aisha Braveboy will join us to discuss her voter's initiative that includes those incarcerated; Education Matters: Black male teachers needed; Sen. Doug Jones speaksSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: Ceek Whether you’re a music enthusiast or an ultra-base lover. CEEK’s newly released headphones hear sound above, below and from multiple directions unlike traditional headphones where users only hear sound from left and right speakers. Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020 #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. you there? No, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Friday, October 16th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, more discussion. After my interview with Ice Cube on yesterday,

there has been a whole lot of chatter on social media, radio shows all across the country. We'll also talk about that. And the question is, what's next? Last night, Donald Trump and the former Vice President Joe Biden had separate town halls on different networks. We'll give you a recap of what took place. You know, Trump lied more, especially about HBCUs. Trump touted his economic gains, but what does that even mean to black people? We'll also discuss that. Prince George's County, Maryland State's Attorney,

Aisha Brave Boy will join us to discuss her voters initiative that includes those incarcerated. For our Education Matters series, brought to you by School Choice is a Black Choice, we'll talk about the importance of black male teachers. And Alabama Senator Doug Jones will join us to discuss his race. It's time to bring the funk.

Will Lamar unfiltered. 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 believe he's knowing.

Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. He's knowing All right, folks, last night here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, lots of discussion with regards to my interview with Ice Cube regarding his contract with Black America and the Trump campaign, taking credit for saying that he participated in some of that with him. Now, what's what's real interesting about that is that is that we had this conversation, the spirited conversation with him and really trying to get to understand what's going on. The folks at Politico dropped a story today laying out what they say is the back story where the Trump campaign reached out to him that he did not go to the White House to meet with folks there, but that they actually, that Q went to a Washington, D.C. hotel and actually met with Jared Kushner and others.

Bottom line, the Trump campaign got exactly what they wanted out of this. And and that's one of the things that is important that that that we talk about, that we talk about that we talk about here. OK. And that deals with, again, how the campaigns play, how people roll and how folks actually operate. And and what this story laid out is, look, what the Trump campaign wanted is exactly what they got. That is the PR hit of Ice Cube essentially endorsing Donald Trump's platinum plan. Now, I sent emails to the Trump campaign saying, okay, who do y'all have who can come on to talk about the platinum plan? I'm still waiting. And one of the things that we talked about last night in this plan, which. Cube felt was something that they took from his plan was this this right here where the Trump people say, go to my iPad. President Trump's promise to black America over four years increased access to capital in black communities by almost 500 billion.

All of the people who I have seen quoting this plan, they all been saying Trump promised black people $500 billion. That's what they said. Yet, like I walked y'all through last night, if you actually go through this plan, if you go through it. The only 500 billion number you see deals with the annual 500 billion dollars federal contracting opportunities. Please go to it. So, again, you see it right here under jobs, jobs, jobs. If I scroll through, they say invest $20 billion towards broadband Internet access. OK, but that doesn't say it's just a black people.

Then they say increase opportunities for small business lending and create generation with opportunities with over 400 billion in lending. Well, that's is that the actual program is what they already do. I mean, there you go. Okay, you go down here. Increase the number of black-owned contracting businesses, financial services entities, and private equity investment funds through regulatory reform and up to $40 billion in government funding

alongside traditional private investment. Okay, so are they trying to say that the federal government is going to give $40 billion in government funding to black businesses? Really? Where? Where? Advanced lending relationships with financial institutions. How? How are you going to do that? OK, let's go through here. Under education, no money, increase the amount of Pell grants that allow for vocational employment and second change home homecomers. First of all, they can't even spell in their own plan, their own plan. They can't even spell. I think they meant second chance homeowners. OK, so let's go over here.

All right. And I'm walking through this. I want you to walk. I'm walking through this. I want you to see this here. I want you to understand what I'm talking about. Right here. Affordable care. Money, no. Safe streets, money, no. Prosperous black communities champion federal policy reforms to advance home ownership initiatives. I'm sorry, where? What where? I'm going through here. Show me the $500 billion. I want to see it. Show me the proof behind that whole deal.

I don't see it. See, this is why y'all got to stop falling for the bumper sticker slogans. Donald Trump puts in big 500 million folks like who? It's a lie. It's a lie. They can't back it up. It's a lie. Now, I've had people I've had people tell me and I've had people already hit me up and go, well, like, I don't know that people who keep saying Joe Biden doesn't have a black plan. OK, so what is this? The Biden plan for black America. OK, so so since everybody since people want to say that, so, so let's, let's, let's go through here. So, uh, they talk about COVID, they talk about, uh, coronavirus, talk about all those different

things like that. Okay. So he invested African-American business and entrepreneurs. Um, they, they lay out in terms of the approximately 4% of small business owners are African-American, you know, they make up 13% of the approximately 4% of small business owners are African-American, even though they make up 13% of the population. Ensuring equal access to credit, so they lay those things out. Double the funding for state small business credit initiatives. Okay? That's double the funding.

That's what it says. Expand the new market tax credit, making the program permanent, and double the community development financial institutions funding. OK, so they said double the existing funding and it lays out in here. OK, the actual programs, they're naming the programs, improve and expand the small business administration programs that most effectively support African-American owned businesses. OK, they led right in here. SBA, Trump was going to cut it by 25%. He says it right here. Okay. It's right here. Make permanent the successful community advantage loan program originally created by the Obama Biden administration. That's it's right there. Increase opportunities for African-American owned businesses to obtain

or participate in federal contracts. This is what they say. In the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, well over $100 billion of federal prime contracting dollars were awarded to minority-owned businesses. Then they say it increased nearly 30% from $30.6 billion to $39.1 billion. They explain also what happened under Obama. Then they say increased funding for the minority business development agency, which actually Trump administration had pushed this as 75 percent cut in the MBDA budget.

Protect small disadvantaged businesses with state contract with from federal and state contract bundling, which often locks out African-American owned smaller firms from effectively bidding on procurement contracts. Now, let me unpack that. Okay. Allow me to unpack that. That is the exact, listen to me clearly y'all and see, cause this is what happens when you don't read and when you don't study and when you don't have any knowledge. And then when you come up with stuff and you haven't even understood what has actually happened so let me unpack that so so i want you to go back to this to ipad henry protect small and disadvantaged businesses from federal and state contract bundling

which often locks out af-American-owned smaller firms from effectively bidding on procurement contracts. Biden will build on the anti-bundling provisions of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 by having the Office of Management and Budget, SBA and MDBA, conduct a government-wide review of existing contract bundling to determine whether agencies are following existing rules and whether agencies have the ability to further ensure small business participation in federal and state procurement opportunities. Now allow me to unpack. In 1973 when Maynard Jackson was elected mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson realized that African Americans were getting 0.0012%

of all city contracts with the city of Atlanta. What Maynard Jackson realized when he became mayor is that one of the ways in which black businesses were frozen out of opportunities is that what they did is they said, and this is the rules that are written in order for you to be on a prime contract. You need to have been a prime contractor before. Let me repeat that for some of y'all who missed it in order for you to be become a prime contractor, you have to be a prime contractor before. Which means that if you are a black business and you do not have the capacity to actually bid on larger contracts,

you are always going to remain a small business. Which means that you will never have the capacity to be able to grow. So what did Maynard Jackson do? Maynard Jackson studied these rules. Maynard Jackson then said, what we're going to do is we're going to break up these large contracts into smaller contracts to allow for black owned businesses to compete for them as prime contracts. Okay. Which meant that if you were a black firm, once you were able to get one prime contract, then you now can bid on any prime contract. What Maynard Jackson also did was call the banks into his office and say, you're going to provide credit lines to the black businesses who have city contracts

because you know they're going to get paid. They simply can't float their businesses for 180 days. So why is this important? I talked to the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc. when Donald Trump became president. And one of their criticisms is that the Trump administration went back to bundling contracts, which meant that African-American and other small business owners would not be able to then compete because they can't compete for the big contracts. That folks is how we're frozen out. And so here we are having this

conversation talking about plans. Please show me where in Trump's plan there's anything that talks about that very issue. OK, go back to the Biden plan. Provide African-American entrepreneurs and other small business owners technical assistance. It lays it out. Reserve half. Now, see, here's a critical one here. Reserve half of all the new PPP funds for small businesses with 50 employees or less. Hmm. Got it. All right. Accessing loans. OK. They talk about supporting African-American churches. Expand African-American home ownership. Biden will invest six hundred and forty billion over 10 years.

So every American has access to housing that is affordable. You got that. Help families buy their first home and build wealth by creating a new refundable, advanceable tax credit of up to $15,000. Tackle racial bias that leads to homes and communities of color being assessed by appraisers

below fair value. Y'all, I'm just reading to y'all all the plans. Roll back Trump administration policies, gutting fair lending and fair housing protections, strongly enforce a fair credit reporting laws,

and create a new public credit reporting agency. That's all right here in the plan. Protect homeowners and renters from abusive lenders and landlords through a new home ownership and renter bill of rights. It's all right there. Roll back Trump administration policies gutting fair lending and fair housing protections for homeowners. Okay, it's right there. Hold financial institutions accountable for discriminatory practices in the

housing market. It's right there. Restore the federal government's power to enforce settlements against discriminatory lenders. It's all right there. Strength and expand the Community Reinvestment Act to ensure that our nation's banks and bank and non-bank financial services institutions are serving all communities. Eliminate local and state housing regulations that perpetuate discrimination. It's all right there. Increase access to affordable housing. Establish a $100 billion affordable housing fund to construct and upgrade affordable housing. Provide tax incentives for the construction of more affordable housing and communities that need it most.

Low income housing tax credit. OK, now. I haven't even read all the things under housing. Let me go back to the platinum plan. This is what the platinum plan says about housing. Go to my iPad. Champion federal policy reforms to advance home ownership initiatives. That's it. Maybe y'all missed that. Go back. Champion federal policy reforms to advance home ownership initiatives.

Let me make it bigger. Y'all see that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine words. Nine words on housing. Come back. Nine words on housing. Let me scroll to the top here.

To just help y'all out. Let me scroll to the top here. Just help y'all out. Let me scroll to the top right here. So I'm trying to show you what I'm trying to do is the contrast. Now go back. I just read you nine words in the Trump platinum plan. I am on housing. I'm scrolling for you. The Biden Harris plan on I'm not done. Right there. Right there.

When we start to have conversations about what folks are doing and they're not doing, it's important for us to have real conversations. It's important for us not to get caught up by the okey-doke by what somebody throws out. Now, last night, I discussed this as well. A lot of people, and I hear it all the time, the CBC ain't done nothing. I read some of this last night.

I'm going to read all of it. Okay. Congressional Black Caucus sent me this and they said, here's what we've done. And what the Ice Cube's contract with Black America says and what Trump's platinum plan says. Go to my iPad. Okay. Ice Cube's CDWA calls for ending qualified immunity, banning chokeholds, and the elimination of no-knock warrants.

CBC Fact, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which passed the House in June, calls for all of this and more, including a national database to ensure repeat offenders are not hired. But Senator Mitch, Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to take it up for a vote. Which means that one of the things that Q has in a CW, CBWA, the CBC has already passed in the House. But the Republicans won't take it up in the Senate. Next item.

Trump's platinum plan makes Juneteenth a federal holiday. Fact, the bill would have passed, but Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson in July blocked it. Donald Trump didn't say a word. Ice Cube CBWA wants to make anti-lynching bill law. CBC fact. That was passed in the Emmett Till anti-lynching bill introduced by Representative Bobby Rush.

Republicans in the Senate refuse to take it up. Ice Cube's plan calls for baby bonds of $1,000 for all new babies. CBC fact. This is in the CBC's Jobs and Justice Act, which was passed. CBC, ISQ's plan proposes a plan for neo-reconstruction. CBC says we gave President Trump a 125-page detailed plan to do this in 2017. Four years later, we've seen nothing.

ISQ proposes a one time interest free home loan for qualified black Americans. CBC says this plan only addresses access to loan to a loan for certain black people it does not address necessary relief provisions to prevent foreclosures and expand for bans for homeowners but the CBC Jobs and Justice Act does.

ISQ's plan wants a jobs skill training program. The CBC Jobs and Justice Act of 2020 addresses this through businesses contracted to rebuild infrastructure to recruit, actively hire, and provide on-the-job training to African-American men ages 18 to 39 through existing jobs, apprenticeships, and earn-while-you-learn programs. ISQ's contract with Black America, according to the CBC, leaves out many critical issues areas impacting the Black community, including COVID-19 health care response, Black maternal health, environmental justice, all factors to the underlying health causes, support for

HBCUs, teaching Black history in schools, increased funding funding and eliminating barriers to access of funds for small businesses. The Comprehensive Jobs and Justice Act of 2020 does. And we invite him to learn more about our work and help us push this agenda forward. Now, let me explain to you, and this is critically important. What I'm laying out is not a criticism of Ice Cube's plan. What it is, is stating what actually has been done. That's what I'm laying out. What other entities are doing, speak to it as well. The real issue that we have here is not who's backing that plan or that plan. The real issue is, are we seeing forward progress on the issues

that black people care about? When you begin to break that thing down, now you begin to realize who's getting played and who isn't. Now you begin to realize who's serious and who isn't. Now, I could have gone through because remember, I told you the Biden plan is 22 pages long. I encourage you to go to Joe Biden dot com and look it up. But what I need black people to do is stop getting so caught up in, ooh, they beefing, and this is what they doing, as opposed to saying, how can Ice Cube with his celebrity be a modern day Harry Belafonte, a modern day Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Diane Carroll, Dick Gregory. Paul Robeson. And use celebrity.

And use his large following to bring attention to plans that don't necessarily get the same amount of attention. That's one. The second piece is Ice Cube is presenting his contract with Black America only in the last three months. But there are other initiatives that have been in the pipeline a lot longer. So what we as black folks should be doing is identifying what's further along. Give those things a push. Give them support for them to then become real. So if y'all are caught up. In the back and forth and the drama. As opposed to being laser like focus on how we can move things ahead for African-Americans. Because this thing is not about who met or didn't meet with Ice Cube.

It's not about who met or didn't meet with Ice Cube. It's not about who met or didn't meet with T.I. Is that and let me be real clear. I'll put it on the line. Celebrities are not going to lead black people to the promised land. The folk who will are the very people who do this day in and day out. So what we need is we need celebrities leveraging their celebrity to help those policymakers be able to advance the agenda. Should we listen to them? Absolutely. But what we cannot do is act as if folk ain't been

putting in the work all this time. Michael Imhotep, host of the African History Network. Mustafa Santayego Ali, PhD, former senior advisor for the Environmental Justice EPA. Rena Shaw, the Lincoln Project Women's Coalition.

Michael, I want to start, Mustafa, I want to start with you. Just your thoughts on all of this, all of this back and forth. To me, I think it's missing the most important element, and that is how do we move forward as a collective to achieve what we want to achieve? Yeah, no, you hit it on the head. I mean, we need our creators, but we got to make sure that it's anchored in the experiences and the knowledge that folks have been doing policy

work for a long time have, especially those trusted voices in the policy place. And we also got to use our common sense. I mean, it's not an accident that they call this the platinum plan. You know, they understand how our culture works and how we get excited about certain things. But we also got to, once again, use our common sense. If you look at Trump's 2017, 2018, 2019 presidential budgets, they were just talking about slashing all of the programs that are so critical to helping our communities just survive, in many instances, not thrive, but to survive. If you want to just pay attention to what's going on in the moment, as you pointed out around the PPP,

folks should also be asking the question, why is it that there weren't other directed programs from Trump or the Republicans saying, we know that there are these disproportionate impacts that are happening in this COVID-19 moment to African-Americans, the Latinx folks, the indigenous folks. And here are those additional resources and steps that we're going to put in place to actually help you to protect your lives and to also give you that economic backing that is so critical. When someone doesn't do that, that tells you that you are not a priority for them

in the past, in this moment, or in the future because of those resources, and that focus is not there. They also know that, disproportionately, a whole bunch of us are dying, so there'll be even less of us that are there. So folks just got to spend a little bit of time and actually just unpacking, as you said, the actions of folks. It's like that old saying, when someone shows you who they are,

believe them. Trump has shown you exactly who he is and who he cares about. Michael, again, the thing, what I don't do, I don't waste my time with gossip. You know, I saw that dumbass Boyce Watkins do it. Somebody sent me a video. He was like, oh, Roland Martin tried to pin Ice Cube down. No, I didn't. We actually were presenting facts. We were discussing the plans.

This wasn't, I'm trying to, I'm trying to pin Ice. No. My whole deal was, this is what they said. 500 billion for black people. I simply pointed out that was a lie. Right. Well, you know, first, a few things. One, and I have friends who are on different sides of this equation, you know, so I don't I do what I deal with. So let me put it like that.

One, I want to thank you for the interview you did yesterday with Ice Cube. OK, because you allowed Ice Cube to explain his side of what happened. Number one, two, I applaud Ice Cube for pulling together policy experts to put together this agenda. I applaud him for this because he didn't have to do this. And see, one of the things we have to understand is that the hell that he has gotten over the past 48 hours, that'll make the next celebrity who has resources, who really wants to do something to help our people, and they may want to do something even on a larger scale than Ice Cube. They may have all the wherewithal to pull it off, and they may say, well, wait, I saw how they treated Ice Cube, and he was trying to help black people, okay?

So I don't even want to have anything to do with this. Ice Cube is learning, and I think he really means well. But we also have to understand, as I told you last Friday on your show, Roland, Trump's plan is the fool's gold plan. OK, Trump, the Trump campaign is using Ice Cube. Ice Cube, I think, wants to help his people and he means well. I talked about this last night on my show. One, two, Biden's plan came out May 4th, 2020. People have to understand this.

OK, I spent six weeks on my Sunday night show breaking down. I took Biden's plan is broken into six parts. It's 22 pages, pages two through 11 deal with economic empowerment for African-Americans. I spent six weeks on my Sunday night show breaking down Biden's plan. And we're going back through doing it again now. This Sunday, we're doing it. We're doing part six again. So as I said last Friday on your show, Biden's plan is more comprehensive. It's not perfect, but it's more comprehensive. It's more specific. It's much more reasonable than Trump's plan. And what people have to understand also is this timeline. When Ice Cube's representatives, because I read the article from political.com that you posted also, and I knew about two weeks ago that Ice Cube had met, Ice Cube and or his representatives

had met with both camps because I think it was Billboard had an article about this, so I knew this like two weeks ago. When the Trump campaign met with Ice Cube's representatives, they had not released their quote-unquote black agenda yet, their platinum plan. They altered it to incorporate some of Ice Cube's contract with Black America. Then they released their two-page agenda that I call the fool's gold plan. Now, number one, I want to see what it looked like before they incorporated something from Ice Cube's contract with Black America, because it's horrible as it is now, Trump's plan, okay? So then also in the political article, and Ice Cube explaining what happened as well. He said that the Biden campaign, like they said, about 85 percent of what's in his contract with Black America, they said would do with that on the other side of the election. It's important for people to understand the Biden campaign had already released their lift every voice plan that came out May 4th, 2020, okay?

So it was already released when the contract with Black America came out. And some of the things that are in the contract with Black America were already in Biden's plan. But a lot of people don't know Biden has this plan. Even yesterday, reading some of the comments on your thread during the interview. A lot of people didn't know Biden had his plan. So the Biden campaign also has to do a better job of really explaining this and putting this out.

The graphics you talked about yesterday, things like this. Yeah, they have to do a better job of doing that also. And they also have on their website, last thing, they also have highlights of the black agenda and how the agenda empowers black men as well. Rena, this whole this whole back and forth. Look, you know how Republicans have done things in the past when it comes to black folks, how the Trump the Trump people, they they didn't want a serious discussion on this. All they wanted was to be able to say, Ice Cube stamped our plan with his approval. Well, yeah, I mean, that's, that's totally what happened here because let's not forget that whole big gaffe. I would say one of the biggest gaffes of this entire campaign that the Trump campaign has loved about Biden is when he went on Charlamagne, the God's, what was that? The Breakfast Club, right? And really, you know, those words weren't perfect, but Biden's not known for perfect words. The Trump campaign took that and ran with it.

What people don't spend time investigating is the routine amount of misinformation that comes out of Trump's ethnic minority, black American arm of his campaign. It's all nonsense, Roland. I've looked at this stuff and I'm thinking to myself, these are flat out lies. And so when I look at what Ice Cube did, I think on the one hand, okay, fine. Yeah, here's a big name. They like that. And I think he did have probably the most noble intention going in there, but his contribution was a little too late. And I think he did have probably the most noble intention going in there, but his contribution was a little too late. And I think that's really what we ought to look at here more than anything else. And then we shift to the facts and we look at really what's at play here. It's really the

fact that Trump largely inherited this growing economy from the Obama-Biden administration. And so with COVID, though, the whole thing is turned on its head. And I think that's where we really see this whole situation for what it is, what's happening in Black America. And the reality is, is that Blacks still continue to be concentrated in low sector jobs, which just don't have adequate health care, paid sick leave. And frankly, they're disproportionately exposed to COVID-19. You think the president cares about any of that? Heck no. So those are just kind of the underlying facts there. The Trump campaign, again, I don't think speaks to those facts at all. They just push out a bunch of

nonsense, smoke and mirrors. And then when you shift to what's really happened in the era of COVID, when you talk about business, black businesses have really been left out to freeze in the fricking cold. It makes me so angry, Roland, because I know as a small business owner, the pay protection plan from the Small Business Administration did this. This is Trump's SBA that had the opportunity to do better and it didn't.

And I think when you look at the facts, we remain startled and I don't see how this administration can dig themselves out of this grave because over 90 percent of black owned small businesses that applied for PPP funding were denied. Well, because. But one of the reasons that's the case is, again, it's because it's also a function of the fact that you had two point six million black owned businesses and two point five million only had one employee. And then those who even use freelance contractors, you couldn't actually apply for loans because of that. that you had 2.6 million black-owned businesses and 2.5 million only had one employee. And then those who even used freelance contractors, you couldn't actually apply for loans because of that. And so it's a myriad of factors, but this thing even goes further than just even when we talk about economics

and African-Americans in this country. Folks, stocks are soaring and most black people are missing out on this. Now, when Donald Trump touts his economic gains, he usually refers to the stock market. The reality is only 33.5% of black households own stocks in 2019, according to the Federal Reserve. Among white households, the ownership rate is nearly 61%. Hispanics and other minorities, those numbers are even less. So stocks have nothing to do with the black economy. Joining me now is

America's Wealth Coach, Deborah Owens. Deborah, we're talking about, again, we're talking about ISQ's contract with Black America. We're talking about economics. We're talking about Trump's platinum plan. I call it the aluminum foil plan. We're talking about the Biden plan as well. The reality is this. When we are talking about African-Americans and economics and how we have been left out of so many different areas. To Rena's point, you have to look at the jobs that we're in.

You have to look at our disposable income. You have to look at do we have the ability to be able to take a thousand or five thousand dollars and put it in the stock market. Look, the folk out here who are getting rich are the individuals, frankly, who own homes, who likely have those homes paid off. Individuals with the amount of money they're making. The reality is you cannot have a discussion about black people in the stock market and completely ignore racism, redlining and discrimination in hiring, in housing, in corporate America, in government, all of that. It all is intertwined. It is. It's systemic. And the truth is, to your last guest's point, one of the things that COVID has made really clear is how many Black folks are considered essential workers. So essential workers typically are, you know, the people in the front lines, the people serving food,

the people making sure buildings are open. And so as a result of being concentrated in what are pretty much low-earner roles, you don't have those benefits. You don't have access to an employer sponsor 401k, let alone someone matching, right? So systemically, that's part of the issue. In order to invest, you have to feel like you have enough discretionary income so that you can afford to put your money at risk and see it go up and down. But I think what was really interesting in the article was talking about the fact that even high income earner African-Americans have a tendency to not, are risk averse, right? Don't

want to see their money go up and down, are more likely to be invested in real estate or insurance products. And so at the end of the day, you know these new heights has nothing to do with companies making a lot of earnings and more to do with monetary policy. And so what do I mean by that? I mean that basically the Fed is keeping rates, interest rates really, really low and there's nowhere for the money to go. Couple that with the fact of this most recent tax cut by this administration, which made basically if you own stocks or capital gains, you really benefited from it. So, and if you think about it, Roland, the last time I was on your show, we were discussing the fact that an NFL player who was a millionaire went into an investment firm and wanted to be considered a high net worth client and they denied him access.

Yeah, that was a case out of Arizona, J.P. Morgan out of Arizona. Right. And so you it is systemic. You know, what I know to be true is that every day a person of color, a black person reaches out to a financial services firm. And because we don't have perceived enough, what are perceived to be enough assets or don't know the right questions to ask, we're denied access. And so there's so many layers underneath here that I don't think were even covered in the article. And, you know, people wonder why black folks are skeptical of these institutions. Well, it only takes an example like that NFL player doing everything that he can, actually moving $800,000 in assets. And yet still he was denied.

Well, and last question here, the thing I need folk to understand, and I've got somebody here that folks are like, oh, it's easy to do stocks. You can buy a stock for as little as a dollar. And it's simple. No, it's not that simple. OK, it's just simply not that simple because you got to know what the hell you're buying. You got to know what you're investing in. You got all sort of stuff along those lines. But but but the thing that people don't want to deal with this is that if you and again, I go back to these competing plans with with Trump and Biden and ICE was absolutely right. No one plan goes far enough. But I can tell you which one goes a hell of a lot further than the other. I can tell you what's a B.S. plan, which is Trump's so-called platinum plan, which is embarrassing in itself by naming it platinum plan for black folks. Biden's plan

goes further. But the thing for us as African-Americans, we don't have to settle just for what Biden has put down on paper. I use Biden plan as a marker. That's like, oh, I want to say that's a marker. We have to save ourselves. I mean, if we if we know nothing else in the past four years, it is clear that even what we perceived as being allies or, you know, buying into the American dream and thinking that if we did all the right things, if we got a college education, a degree, if we had that six-figure career, that things will open up for us. And the truth is that so much of the lack of ownership of stocks and not participating in this most recent move in the stock market has a lot to do with the fact that most people have someone to show them how to invest. I am somewhat taken aback by the number of people who are using

apps and have absolutely no idea what they're investing in. And so my fear is thinking that things are simple, investing in the moment the market goes down, then you become afraid and you say, oh, well, that didn't work. Right. So, I mean, I guess the point that I want to make, Roland, and the reason that I started Wealthy You is because we need to have a fundamental understanding of how the financial markets work and how to use the same knowledge, insight, and intellect that we use as consumers. We really have to learn how to use that intel and begin to invest in those same companies. And what you have to do is have a basic knowledge of how to do so.

And we're simply not getting access to that through formal education because typically this is something that is taught from our family or someone in your family kind of says, OK, you know, I'm going to take you along. Let's start your first brokerage account. That is not happening. But, you know, the fact is that even when we do seek help, we're simply not being let in with open arms and showing the ropes. Absolutely. Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. How can folks reach you? Well, they can go to my website,

wealtheyou.com. And by the way, talking about learning how to invest, Roland, we've got a masterclass going on tomorrow all day so they can just hit our website if they want more information. All right. Sounds great. Folks, go check it out for some great information. We appreciate it, Deborah Owens.

Thanks a lot. All right. Thanks so much, Roland. Got to go to a break. We'll come back. We'll talk about the voting initiative coming out of Prince George's County. Also, folks who work for President George W. Bush, yeah, they're like the hell with Trump. Y'all should be supporting Joe Biden.

Why don't we show you that ad? And the folks with the Lincoln Project, who Rena's with, man, they took a Donald Trump Jr. ad, chopped it up. Brilliant! All of that next, Roland Martin, Unfiltered. I'ma create a better avenue.

It's like what I wanted in my neighborhood. You know, I grew up wanting a lot of activities in my neighborhood. You know, I grew up wanting a lot of activities in my neighborhood that was in close proximity. You know, my mom wasn't always there, so I didn't always have a ride to places. And you know, you want to be able to walk down the street

and get to something that's some food for your soul in your community you know you know i relished you know the days of being in clarksdale mississippi and when i had to go out there and live with my people they had actually black owned corner stores my uncle owned one my uncle donald owned the cleaners and uh um in a corner store and he um he a city councilman down there now it's like that was big for him. He was like, yo, man, you got to own something. Got to own something.

His wife was named Louise. It always killed me. I used to call him George Jefferson. His name was Donald. Because his wife was named Louise. And that was big to see my family own and stuff. You're up. All right, folks.

The folks with Vote to Live have dropped this video. Roll it, please. A voteless people is a hopeless people. That's it. That's all I got. Because it's true. A voteless people is a hopeless people. So I hope this speech will sow a seed that'll grow a tree full of ballots before bullets start to evoke the feeble. I mean, come on, don't you want to go toe-to-toe with evil and know it's legal?

Nope. Cool, I could just go to sleep too. Then I'm complicit letting the system in need of revision remain consistent, though I know it needs new. Everything. I'm talking about freedom. We need to let it ring. Let them see we ain't satisfied. That is why you vote. We need you. Because then there's voter suppression, which is so deceitful.

It's not only gross, it's lethal. It goes to show the links folks will go just to control the people. And I like Drake, but we can't go back to back. 2016 can't go back to that. 2016 can't go back to that. In other words, no to sequels. Now just think about all the great things voting leads to. Civil rights, health care, clean air, marriage equality. And now you can smoke some weed too.

Because voting is more or less forward steps for the ones who couldn't before us get what was constitutionally theirs, from formerly enslaved, suffrage parades, immigrants detained to the poorest vets. I mean, this could be America's best performance yet. But you're right. It's your right to abstain, but if you don't participate, then you can't complain.

If they counterclaim or deface a name or set a flame or start taking aim at your pursuit of happiness, your liberty, or your life. You only get one. So, I guess, vote to live. Yeah. Vote to live. All right, for more information, go to votetolive.org.

We certainly thank them for the work they're doing to ensure people are going to get registered. All right, folks, not many days left until Election Day. We'll pull that graphic up. We'll show you. We've been covering this 17 days, 17 days until Election Day. We are encouraging you to get yourself registered. We have a number of, of course, we've been encouraging you to go to vote.org, go to Iwillvote.com to be able to get registered.

Just 17 days left. Check your registration. Now, here are the voter registration deadlines. A lot of your states have already passed. These are the voter registration deadlines. A lot of your states have already passed. These are the voter registration deadlines. What's today? Today is October 16th. So we can ignore most of these.

Nebraska, today is your deadline. Alabama, your deadline is on Monday. California, Maine, I need everybody in Michigan and Pennsylvania to understand your deadline to register is Monday. South Dakota and Wyoming as well. Ain't that many of us in South Dakota and Wyoming. Utah's October 23rd.

Iowa and Massachusetts, you are October 24th. Colorado, Montana, Washington State, you are October 26th, Connecticut, you are October 27th. Now, one of the things that we're also going to do folks, and so to my team, I need us to get, have the graphic ready for Monday. We're going to show you the states where they have, first of all, we're going to start showing you where early voting is taking place. We're going to also start showing you where there's early voting registration. We're going to also start showing you where there's early voting registration. Then we're going to show you the states where there is same day voter registration on election day. So you need all that information. So you're going out there. Now,

folks in Prince George's County, the state's attorney, Aisha Brave Boy, has launched Operation Protect the Vote for All. She wants to ensure that voter intimidation doesn't take place in the majority black jurisdiction during this general election. The initiative focuses on making sure vulnerable populations such as immigrants, senior citizens and those in the LGBTQ community are not intimidated and can vote. Another part of the plan will also determine which of the estimated 500 people currently housed in the county jail are eligible to vote. She joins us right now. Glad to have you back, Aisha. Thank you so much for having me, Rowan. So Donald Trump literally, literally called for his people to intimidate folks in the polls. I mean, he literally said it. Republicans say they want to draft 50,000 volunteers to literally go to the polls to watch others as poll watchers. There's no longer a consent decree in place that keeps them from doing it the first time in 20 years as well. Well, let me say if they come to Prince George's County and try to intimidate voters here, I want them to know that voter intimidation is a crime, and my office will prosecute anyone

who offends voters at the poll. You know, this is a very important, critical election, and we understand that the president does not want people to vote because his concern is that voters will actually show up and vote their conscience, and he won't be where he is now. So, first of all, so explain to people, so if they can have poll monitors, what are the rules? How far away do they have to be? Because if folks are being, if somebody at Costco is getting out of their cars or whatever. And so explain to folks watching what they should be looking out for to protect themselves as well. Yeah, so every state is a little different in terms of how far away from the precinct

or the doors to the precinct that the volunteers or poll watchers have to be. And so that will depend on what state you're at. But what we're talking about are people who are there to intimidate, to ask you questions like, are you illegally here in this country? Or trying to aggressively convince you not to vote, or lie to you and say that you need to leave because there's no more ballots here or whatever it is to prevent you from voting. Those are the kind of actions that are illegal and that we will prosecute. And just so we can be clear, you're a voter.

You don't owe anybody a damn thing. You don't have to answer anybody unless they are poll workers and are asking you about here's a sample ballot or to get your ID ready. If anybody asks you any questions about your status or are you a resident of this neighborhood, all you can say is talk to the hand. Yes. In fact, you don't even have to say that. You can ignore them and keep on moving. Well, that's that. Well, that's important because I think for a lot, I think some people, they they figure, oh, somebody might be wearing, you know, poll watcher tags or something. And so they have to answer to them. No, you don't owe them any explanation whatsoever. No one outside of the building generally are people who you need to give any information to. Really, the only people who you need to talk to are the election judges who will typically ask you who you are and what is your address. And once you get those two things correct, they will give you a

ballot and you will be on your way. You typically don't have to actually show IDs. Sometimes in certain states, if you're a new voter, you're voting for the first time at a particular precinct, they might ask you for your ID. But for the most part, you're not even asked for your ID. You should not be asked in most states for your ID. Last point here, talk about the folks who are in jail. How are you working to make sure that they are who can vote, who can't vote? Absolutely. Well, they are residents and citizens and they have rights. And so for those who are being held pre-trial in our detention center, we have given every single person access to the ballot. We work with our board of elections and our correctional officers association. So I want to give out, give a shout out to our unions. They have been really, really helpful, as well as the local NAACP

and other organizations. But essentially, every single person in the jail, we provided their names to the Board of Elections, and they determined who was eligible to vote. And so once they determined that, they prepared packages for every single person who was eligible to register to vote or who was a registered voter and wanted to receive an absentee ballot. So that was delivered to the jail. We did a voter registration drive right at the jail. And those applications were sent to the Board of Elections. And those individuals will be receiving their ballots in the next week. And we look forward to them voting because every single person should exercise their right, whether you are a pretrial detainee or in our state, you're allowed to vote if you are serving time for a misdemeanor. And if you have been released from jail, even if you still have time on parole or probation for a felony,

but you've been released from jail, you are eligible to register to vote. So we're sending that message out to every single person in our community. Please vote. Vote early if you can, because it's the safest way to vote at this point, either by mail or drop your ballot off at a drop box

or an election day, you can take the ballot and drop it off at your precinct. But we want everyone to vote and we want to protect everybody, even those behind the wall. All right, then Aisha Brayboy, we surely appreciate it. Thank you so very much for joining us.

Thank you so much. I like your shirt. I appreciate it. Yeah, well, actually, so when Regina Bale was on the show, she actually had this shirt on and folks have been asking me about it. So let me find the brother. I think it's knowledge designs.net. They he actually sent me sent me the shirt.

I wore one last night as well. And so he has them on. I'm going to double checking right now. So, yeah, the website is knowledge designs.net. Uh, and so, uh, we certainly appreciate them for shooting this to me for me to rock on the show. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Keep giving them hell. Thank you. All right. Thanks a bunch. Uh, folks, again, we're talking about, uh, again, the election, what, what is going on and what we're seeing last night. Uh, of, there were competing town halls on NBC and ABC. Joe Biden was on ABC. Donald Trump was on NBC. Here's a recap of what took place last night.

Do you have any remaining symptoms from COVID? Nothing whatsoever. I'm great. I feel good. How severe were your symptoms? In particular, did you have pneumonia? Well, I'll tell you what happened. I didn't feel good. I didn't feel strong. I had a little bit of a temperature. The doctors at the White House are fantastic, as you can imagine. And they really didn't want to take a chance. And they said, let's go to the hospital.

I said, that's OK. I'm going to respond to what you say. And we went over to Walter Reed, where you have tremendous professionals. They gave me Regeneron and Remdesivir, both. And I just, all I know is I felt good the following day. I felt really good. Did the doctors ever tell you that they saw pneumonia on your lung scans? No, but they said the lungs are, you know, a little bit different, a little bit, perhaps, infected.

You were asked point blank to denounce white supremacy. In the moment, you didn't. You asked some follow-up questions. Who specifically? A couple of days later on a different show, you denounced white supremacy. My question to you is, why does it seem like— I denounced white supremacy, okay? You did two days later. I've denounced white supremacy for years. But you always do it. You always start off with a question. You didn't ask Joe Biden whether or not he denounces Antifa.

While we're denouncing, let me ask you about QAnon. It is this theory that Democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and that you are the savior of that. Now, can you just once and for all state that that is completely not true and disavow QAnon in its entirety? I know nothing about QAnon. I just told you. I know very little. You told me, but what you tell me doesn't necessarily make it fact. I hate to say that.

I know nothing about it. I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard. But I know nothing about it. They believe it is a satanic cult I know nothing about it. If you'd like me to study the subject, I'll tell you what I do know about. I know about Antifa, and I know about the radical left, and I know how violent they are and how vicious they are. And I know how they're burning down cities run by Democrats, not run by Republicans. Republican Senator, will you accept a peaceful transfer of power? You have said repeatedly,

the only way we lose this election is if it is rigged. Now, that is simply not true. The fact is, either candidate can lose fair and square without ballot fraud. So will you accept the results of the election? That's the way I want it to be. But when I see thousands of ballots, right, unsolicited ballots being given out by the millions.

And thousands of them are dumped in dumpsters. And when you see ballots with the name Trump, military ballots from our great military, and they're dumped in garbage cans. That is a handful. We could go all night, which we won't. No, no, it's happening every day. We could go all night, one by one, a single case a single day. You're talking about 150 million votes.

Your own FBI director says there is no evidence of widespread fraud. Well, then he's not doing a very good job. And the answer is yes, I will. But I want it to be an honest election. And so does everybody else. On behalf of voters, who do you owe $421 million to? First of all, let me ask you, what they did is illegal, number one. Also, the numbers are all wrong with the numbers they released. And just so you understand, when you have a lot of real estate, I have real estate, you know a lot of it, okay? Right down the road, Doral, big stuff, great stuff. I'm very under, when I decided to run, I'm very under levered, fortunately, but I'm very under levered.

I have a very, very small percentage of debt compared. In fact, some of it I did as favors to institutions that wanted to loan me money. $400 million compared to the assets that I have, all of these great properties all over the world. And frankly, the Bank of America building in San Francisco. I don't love what's happening to San Francisco. Do I hear you right? It sounds like you're saying $400 million isn't that much. One of the biggest office buildings. But are you confirming that, yes, you do owe some $400 million? What I'm saying is that it's a tiny percentage of my net worth.

Many people believe that the true swing demographic in this election will be black voters under the age of 30, not because they'll be voting for Trump, but because they won't vote at all. I myself have had this exact same conflict. So my question for you then is, besides you ain't black, what do you have to say to young black voters who see voting for you as further participation in a system that continually fails to protect them? Well I say first of all as my buddy John Lewis said, it's a sacred opportunity and right to vote. You can make a difference.

If young black women and men vote, you can determine the outcome of this election. Not a joke. You can do that. And the next question is, am I worthy of your vote? Can I earn your vote? And the answer is, there's two things I think that I care and I've demonstrated I care about my whole career. One is, in addition to dealing with a criminal justice system to make it fair and make it more decent,

we have to be able to put black Americans in a position to be able to gain wealth, generate wealth. And so you look at what that entails. It entails everything from early education. That's why I'm supporting making sure that we entitle one schools, as you know, schools with the least tax base to be able to support their schools. I increased the funding for them from 15 to $45 billion. In addition to that, I provide for $70 billion for HBCUs for them to be able to have the wherewithal to do what other universities can do because they

don't have the kind of foundational support they need. In addition to that, if you're a young man about to graduate or you graduated from school and you want to own your first home, well, it's awful hard to get the money, depending on the background, or what your economic background is, to get a down payment. So we're going to guarantee first-term homebuyers a $15,000 down payment for first-term homebuyers. I believe it's inconsistent when millions of people already voted to put someone on the court. I think it should have been held until the next, this election is over, see what the makeup of the Senate is going to be. If the president wins this election, he should be able to vote.

How about that question of expanding the court? Here's what you said exactly one year ago tonight at a Democratic debate. You said, I would not get into court packing. I would not pack the court. That's not what you're saying now. Is the nomination of Judge Barrett reason enough to rethink your position? What is the nomination? What I wanted to do, George, you know, if I had answered the question I THINK IT'S A GREAT QUESTION. I THINK IT'S A GREAT QUESTION. I THINK IT'S A GREAT QUESTION. DO YOU HAVE REASON ENOUGH TO RETHINK YOUR POSITION? WHAT I WANTED TO DO, GEORGE,

YOU KNOW IF I HAD ANSWERED THE QUESTION DIRECTLY, THEN ALL THE FOCUS WOULD BE ON WHAT'S BIDEN GOING TO DO IF HE WINS INSTEAD OF ON IS IT APPROPRIATE WHAT IS GOING ON NOW? AND IT SHOULD STAY, THIS IS THE THING THAT THE PRESIDENT LOVES TO DO. ALWAYS TAKE OUR EYE OFF THE BALL. WHAT'S AT STAKE? loves to do, always take our eye off the ball, what's at stake. One of the things Pete has suggested is, and there's a number of constitutional scholars have suggested as well,

that there are at least four or five options that are available to determine whether or not you can change the way in which the court lifetime appointment takes place, consistent arguably, with the Constitution. I have not been a fan of court packing because I think it just generates what will happen. Whoever wins, it just keeps moving in a way that is inconsistent with what is going to be manageable. So you're still not a fan? Well, I'm not a fan. I didn't say it depends on how this turns out, not how he wins, but how it's handled, how it's handled. Your view on the crime bill. I want to ask you about your

view on the crime bill that you wrote in 1994 which showed prejudice against minorities. Where do you stand today on that? Well, first of all, things have changed drastically. That crime bill, when it voted,

the black caucus voted for it, every black mayor supported it across the board. And the crime bill itself did not have mandatory sentences except for two things. It had three strikes and you're out, which I voted against in the crime bill, but it had a lot of other things in it that turned out to be both bad and good. I wrote the Violence Against Women Act. That was part of it, the assault weapons ban and other things that

were good. What I was against was giving states more money for prison systems that they could bill, state prison systems. In the meantime, an awful lot of people were jailed for minor drug crimes after the time. Exactly right. Was it a mistake to support it? Yes, it was. But here's where the mistake came. The mistake came in terms of what the states did locally. Now, there was a moment during the Trump town hall

where this sister, you know, asked him this question that was quite interesting, if you will. And what he had to say, of course, it dealt with this topic. Go to it. The Democrat. Hi, Cindy. What's your question? Good evening, Savannah.

Good evening, Mr. President. Thank you very much. As the mother of a young male of color, I have raised him to respect authority, not only because it's the right thing to do, but also out of fear that he may face profiling or be considered a criminal. As an educator, I've also had similar conversations with my high school students. Mr. President, what will you and your administration do to better prepare our law enforcement officers to work in collaboration with the communities that they serve and also to protect the lives of innocent black and

Latinos from police brutality and injustice? Right. I fully understand the question. And I saw everything that you saw over the summer. And it was a terrible thing, a terrible thing to watch. We were very strongly—we have a senator named Tim Scott from South Carolina. He came up with a bill that should have been approved. It was great. It was a bill that was strong in terms of law enforcement and strong in terms of enforcing the proper thing and

doing the proper thing by law enforcement. And the Democrats just wouldn't go for it. They wouldn't go for it at all. And I don't know why, because it was a really great bill. But I do have to say this, and some people don't like it when I say it, but a lot of people agree. I have done more for the African-American community than any president with the exception of Abraham Lincoln. Criminal justice reform, prison reform, historically black colleges and universities. I got them funded. They were on a year-to-year basis. They could have been put out of business. As soon as our country had a little bad year, they would have said, I'm sorry, we're not going to fund you. I got them 10-year funding and financing, and more than they even

asked for. I became very friendly with a lot of the heads. But we've done more, and of course, opportunity zones. But criminal justice reform, everybody said it could it could not be done. President Obama and Biden never even tried to do it. They never even tried. But I say that and I say it often. I'll say it loud and I'm very proud of it. And I have a great relationship because of what I've done with the African-American community. I'm very proud of it. Let's go to our next question. We have Paulette Dale. She leans slightly to Biden.

She voted for Clinton in 2016. She's registered as a Republican. Michael, that's a flat-out lie. That man lied so often that, first of all, he did... The HBCU thing is a lie. Biden and Obama didn't try to do criminal justice reform. It was one of the first bills Obama signed which lowered the crack cocaine, the powder cocaine disparity. That's a lie.

They tried to actually get a broader criminal justice reform bill, but the Republicans would not participate. He's, again, lying about HBCUs. And then, look, the reality is the last Republican who actually had a real plan for black America economically was Richard Nixon. That man just lied his ass off again. And I'm sitting

and I'm like, hey, Guthrie, you want to say something? Oh, well, look, Roland, here's the thing. Yeah, he lied. He's behind all. I didn't watch it on MSNBC or NBC, but I've got the recap from NBC News. I've got the fact checking from The Washington Post.

I watched it on ABC News. OK, I watched Biden on ABC News. Here's the thing, very quickly. Number one, when you talked about 2015, there was bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate for a earlier version of the First Step Act. It was blocked by Jefferson Borgar Sessions III, U.S. Senator from Alabama, and Senator Tom Cotton, U.S. Senator from Arkansas. They blocked it under President Obama in 2015. They tried to block the first step act this time. Go ahead. They tried to block the first step act this time. But here's the thing. How can Trump claim to be the champion of criminal

justice reform and you nominate two attorney generals who are against criminal justice reform? You nominate Attorney General Jefferson Borgargard Sessions III of Alabama, who reversed the Smart on Crime initiative from Attorney General Eric Holden in 2013 that backed off of charging low-level nonviolent drug offenders with the longest, harshest sentences. Okay? Well, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III tried to back out of the consent degrees with the Baltimore Police Department and the Chicago Police Department that were negotiated by the Obama administration. There were about 24, 25 investigations into the patterns and practices of police departments

under the Obama administration, more than any other previous administration, which led to about 14 to 15 consent decrees. Okay, now this, now under Jeff Sessions and Attorney General William Barr, they have taken a hands-off approach to policing. This is what people have to understand. They've taken a hands-off approach to policing and basically stopped doing the investigations into the police departments.

So when you go across the board, you see them reversing the policies from the Obama administration. OK, but a lot of people don't know that these policies were in place under the Obama administration. And then the other thing is, is when we look at Donald Trump saying that he's done more for African-Americans since Lincoln, look at the fact checking from the Washington Post. Once again, that's a lie. Okay?

Washington Post has fact checking on this, fact checking the dueling town halls of Trump and Biden. So this is an example of how elections have consequences. And when he talked about HBCUs, not only was that Representative Alma Adams' bill, but as Dr. William Kimbrough explained when you interviewed... There's only one program that was put in place by George W. Bush, expanded by Obama.

So, he... But there was a veto-proof majority to override a veto. So, even if he vetoed a bill, it was still going to become law. But the bottom line is, it wasn't his bill. Mustafa, he's a liar. He's a liar, pure and simple.

He's a liar. Yeah, it's the difference between, you know, watching the two town halls. It's the difference between slogans and actually somebody who has a conversation around policy so that you can evaluate if you want to get behind it or not. You know, when Trump talks about, you know, how he's gotten so many people out of jail,

we got 2.2 million people in our country who are incarcerated, whether they're in prison or jail or in other forms of incarceration. So if you actually were focused on that issue over the last four years, you would have made a significant dent in that. And then, of course, you would have made sure also that the programs that are necessary for those who have been incarcerated to get the skills to make sure that they, you know, are not reincarcerated, then you would have something to actually talk about. You know, so, of course, none of us want to see any brothers, sisters, anybody who's in jail, but let's have an honest conversation

about what the numbers actually look like. And all this other stuff he keeps talking about, HBCUs, yes, we need to make sure there's better funding for our HBCUs. But the reality of the situation is that our HBCUs have been able to navigate a number of very difficult situations, and we should be focused on making sure that we are strengthening, you know, the foundations that are there.

But don't act like you're some savior, and all of a sudden now the endowments at our colleges and our universities are now so much stronger because it's just not true. But don't act like you're some savior, and all of a sudden now the endowments at our colleges and our universities are now so much stronger because it's just not true. Others have already done most of the work that you continue to take credit for. And when you call out Tim Scott

as the person that you want to highlight, I mean, come on, man, be serious. You talk about him in relationship to the Opportunity Zones, Cory Booker is the one who actually began the development and moved the opportunity zones forward. So that's why we have to do our research, because, again, you know, it's window dressing when it comes to Trump at best. And if you don't really understand these policies, then you don't understand why so many folks in our communities are dying and getting sick. And wealth has literally been extracted from our communities. Absolutely. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back.

Our Education Weekly segment, that's next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Also, Senator Doug Jones of Alabama will be joining us in this second hour as well. Don't touch that iPad or phone. We'll be right back. You have to have something that has taken place that you care about to be able to stand for. Because like you said, those renters, they don't know. So really, they're walking around oblivious. Because their focus ain't that. Their focus is where's the next place

that they can be transferred at? Where's the next place that I can rent at? They're not even thinking about owning. Until and when they do, then things change. And those are the people that we need to go, hey, we're trying to talk to you. We got to talk to those people. We have to sit down and have conversations like this

so when they see somebody that they can relate to, and it's like, oh, let me see what Lisa Rae is talking about. Let me see what Tiny's talking about. Let me see what Roland is saying. Why don't we hit them in ways in which that we know it will affect them? Hey, it's Kerry Washington. Listen, I know that there's a lot that has got

to change in our communities. And sometimes it's hard to imagine things getting better. And no, voting will not solve everything, but it is a step forward. So remember, in Ohio, you can vote early in person between October 6th and November 2nd. Plus, if you need a free ride to vote, use the code VOTETOLIVEOH in your Lyft app. Visit VOTETOLIVE.org for more info. Paid for by Collective Future.

All right, folks, our Education Matters segment is powered by School Choice is the Black Choice. All right, folks, black men make up only two percent of the nation's teaching force, but their presence in the classroom is shown to improve outcomes for students, especially young black boys. A study by the Institute of Labor Economics found that low income black students who have a black teacher, man or woman, for at least one year in elementary school are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to consider college. Still, only 7% of teachers nationwide are black. Joining us right now is Terrence Martin. He is Terrence Martin, Senior Executive Vice President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. Terrence, the thing here is it's interesting when we talk about this whole issue. I've had Sean Hartnett. He has a charter school here in Washington, D.C., and he specifically picked this, did this school for black boys.

And what he said was he said he was working in traditional public schools. He said, you know what? We got a laser-like focus. He said it was amazing because he controlled who he hired. He said he literally saw the transformation of these black boys who were excited about science, excited about math. And even Senator Kamala Harris had a debate at Texas Southern University. She talked about what it means when a black child has a black teacher, but especially a black male teacher. And so what's really being done to get more black men in the profession and what more needs to be done? Well, it's not enough done at the present moment. I think that one of the things that we have to certainly consider is that the importance of having a black male teacher in many of my students' lives. I came to work

every day. They can count on me. They knew what to expect. There were rules in place that I expected children to follow, and they followed it. And as you mentioned before, when you talk about the impact of black male teachers to black boys, it really gives them a sense of confidence, the same sort of confidence that you get from your father. Knowing that you can do it, I'm here to catch you if you fail, but I'm also going to give you the tools to be successful in this life.

And that's certainly something that's missing in our schools. Interesting. As I sit here and I think about elementary school, middle school, high school, I certainly can name a large number of black female teachers. But when you start to talk about black male teachers, I mean, absolutely. I had Mr. Woods at elementary school, a brother. I had Mr. Brewer in middle school who was a brother. There were a number of brothers who were in high school, including Mr. Carey, a fellow alpha brother of mine, Coach Mumphrey, who was my government teacher, another alpha brother of mine, and so many others.

And you're absolutely right. It's a different reaction when you are a black boy in school. Also, when you choose to act a fool and then you have a black male teacher who checks you as opposed to a black female teacher or a white male teacher or a white female teacher. Yeah, it's certainly a different connotation. And one of the reasons why I became a teacher is because of the great male teachers that I had at a very young age. I think I had my first black male teacher in sixth grade, and he was just outstanding. And just the way that he was able to relate to us in the classroom was just astounding. He looked like me. He came from the same neighborhood that I came from. As a matter of fact, he lived several blocks over from where I live. And so a totally different reaction.

It was almost as if someone from your neighborhood that you respected, that you looked up to, was now going to teach you. One of the other things that we have to certainly consider when we talk about black male teachers, typically you see them in phys ed or as administrators in some form or fashion. But it's increasingly important that we make sure that we see our black male teachers in academic subjects, such as social studies, math, science, because that is what will spark a young black boy to want to explore those particular subjects even further. So we know the problem. We know the value. How do we fix it? Who's doing it? What are the programs? What is the issue? Is it an issue of money? Is it an issue of recruitment? Is it an issue that districts should be partnering with HBCUs? How do we fix this problem? Yeah, I don't think that there's any silver bullet

in this. And when we talk about this issue of not having enough black males in schools, we got to look at the teaching profession as a whole. When you talk about teaching and you talk about nursing, those were traditionally subjects that were classifications, job classifications that were dominated by women. Yeah, yeah, but remember, we also gotta explain why. Because women were not allowed to work in the traditional workforce. When Title IX was passed in 1972, which opened professional schools up for women,

where they could become doctors, lawyers, dentists, they were like, now I can be more than a teacher. Right, and we still fight for women, where they can become doctors, lawyers, dentists, they were like, now I can be more than a teacher. Right, and we still fight for equality, for equal pay in those professions. And so when you talk about a black man who may be the head of his household, it's important that they make enough money to take care of their family.

And because there's a disproportionate in pay in the profession of teaching and professions of nursing, we still struggle with that. And a lot of black men don't choose education to go into because they know that it's not going to be a fruit for them financially. However, I will offer this. If it's money, then how do we change the structure? Because, look, I can tell you, my brother, when he chose to teach at a culinary, uh, program in Houston, they came to him. He led them to a state championship, a national championship. And then they said, Hey, we want you to run the program. Oh, well, because of seniority, we can't pay you more. And he said, wait a minute. Why in the hell am I going

to go from being the teacher to the person running the program? And I'm not going to get paid more money to do it. He said in the real world, if you promote somebody, you get more money. So they ended up actually promoting a white female who didn't know jack about culinary, but she had more seniority than he did. So how do we then change? And then what happened? He eventually left. So here they had a black male teacher who's an executive chef who leads them to a state and national championship in culinary arts. But because of how they how the pay structure is, it was based upon seniority and not based upon talent and skill set. He booked. Right. And it happens all over over this country and particularly in urban settings.

But I think what we have to do is make sure that we, school districts, actually target Black males to come in to teach, be it going to HBCUs and actually recruiting teachers. But it's also the freedom to teach and the freedom to explore, the freedom to go about it in a way that you know you can reach children. Many of us are hand-strung by the requirements from states or requirements from school districts that don't allow us to really explore and to teach children in a way that we know will be fruitful for them.

Obviously, pay and the pay structures are an issue, and we really have to work to try to try to get those up to speed to really make sure that we're going after those targeted areas that are of importance to our black children. But at the same time, we have to make sure that when we recruit them, that we give them the support that they need so that they can continue and not want to leave the profession. But see, on the point you made there, and look, man, look, I've made it clear to people very simply. That is, I support every means of education. Traditional school, public school, charter school, magnet school, online school, home school, technical school. For me, it's just

got to work. And what you just described there, again, is the struggle that a lot of people have with traditional school system because of how, because that lack of freedom. And I think also the lack, and I think, again, one of the things, and I'm telling you, look, my sister's a teacher. My younger sister's a teacher. My middle sister was a teacher's aide.

My brother also taught. I'm the only one who didn't go into the classroom because I probably would choke a kid to death because I ain't got that much patience. I'm going to let you know. I ain't got that much. So God bless y'all for having the level of patience to teach. I'm just saying I appreciate it. But this is the deal that I have said this for years. The teaching profession, they're not going to get an increase unless they confront the financial restrictions. If you are a person who can go into an other area and you can make coming out, you can make 60, 65, 70, 75 or whatever. We can throw all kinds of different numbers. They have to adjust that because people are not just going to say, I'm going to like the old way, I'll teach 30 years and get my payoff when I get my pension.

This generation is simply not doing that. That's a true statement, and I don't disagree with you that the pay structure has to change. And it's more than just what happens at the local school level. It's also what happens at the state level. Look, these school districts, and particularly those in urban areas such as Detroit, have to be funded in a way that we're able to raise salaries for workers, for workers all across our state, all across our school districts. And when you talk about the fact that you were really battling with other industries to really pay people and pay people well and get the quality people that we need,

pay is always going to be an issue. Here in Detroit, we've been able to do some things to attract teachers that have been pretty groundbreaking. We were able to raise salaries for beginning teachers. We're able to really move our teachers on the salary schedule who have been here. But, you know, obviously we're going to value the folks who have done the job and have paid their dues and the folks that have proven to be quality workers. And so certainly we have to make the steps and the strides to take care of folks who are existing.

But you're absolutely right. It's going to be an issue for folks until our school districts, particularly those in urban areas, are funded the way that they should. All right. Terrence Martin Sr., we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you. All right. Mustafa, on this point, first of all, look, I got three brothers here, you as well as Michael. Rena had to go, so I certainly appreciate her joining us on the show today. Mustafa, again, when you start breaking this thing down, when you start looking at, to me, when people say we got a problem with lack of black male teachers, then you have to zero in on exactly what the problem is. And I'm telling you,

my brother went through it. He was like, y'all, I am not about to sit here and give my all and do all these things if you're not going to pay competitive salaries. And that is a fundamental issue that districts, that unions, that politicians, everybody is going to have to deal with because the marketplace, the marketplace is about you better than them. Yo, you get more. And that's going to have to be dealt with because I'm telling you,

you got, I hear from brothers, man, I would love to teach, but I'm not about to teach for no thirty two thousand dollars. Or twenty eight thousand dollars. Go ahead. Yeah, I've heard the exact same thing time and time again. I mean, we're blessed that a couple of my line brothers are actually teachers, but they even talked about in the early days of their teaching careers, really not being able to they were having a hard time just surviving, especially when they lived in certain areas where, you know, if you weren't making $60,000, $70,000 a year, you almost live in, you know, paycheck to paycheck without a doubt.

I mean, it comes down to this. We have to prioritize the things that we find value in. And if education is one of those, then, you know, we got to make sure that the money is coming with that. And the other part too is, is the pipeline. So, you know, we got to make sure that the money is coming with that. And the other part, too, is the pipeline. So, you know, for certain skills, we will create this pipeline early on so that folks get all these various skills that they need so that by the time they get to college, they're well prepared and then they're actually ready, you know, to move out into the real world. So, you know, in our STEM programs, lots of times the folks who go through STEM are not thinking about being teachers. They're thinking about being scientists or engineers

or some of the other things, sometimes math maybe, but they're usually thinking about it at a much higher level, you know, teaching in college or something like that. So we just have to prioritize, especially in our communities. And then if we actually do that, you can get more brothers who actually will say, you know what, I can take care of my family. And I can do more than just taking care of my family.

As we were talking about wealth earlier, hopefully we can get to a point where if you are a teacher, you can actually build real wealth. Beyond the cultural wealth, of course, that comes from being able to do this, but also the financial wealth. Michael, I've got a lot of brothers, a lot of people who are sitting here commenting on Facebook and YouTube about this very issue. And I've had a lot of black people get mad at me, man, I don't know why you're supporting charter schools. And because you heard Terrence also say, when he talked about having the freedom to teach

the way they know how to teach, that's one of the reasons why I support charter schools. The other reason why I support charter schools is this, if I believe that a traditional school system, which is a delivery system, is not the only way to educate a kid. If I believe that that is preventing us from being able to reach them, like I say, what Sean has done here in Washington, D.C., he took the same black boys who were going to the school down the street and who couldn't actually do science and math. And now he has him loving science and math. You got to ask, well, what is it that they're doing differently?

And for me, if having the ability to actually control the pay structure, if I think you were 75 and that person is worth 50,000, that's that's what happens in the marketplace. It doesn't matter if that person has five years and you got three years. If you kicking that behind and outperforming, yo, I can have the flexibility to pay in that way. That's how you keep good, talented people. The teaching profession has to stop operating in the 1970s when it comes to how they pay people and deal with where we are in the 21st century. Yeah, I agree with that. And I'm someone, I'm the product of Detroit public schools. I live here in Detroit, McFarland Elementary School, Drew Middle School, Cass Technical High School, and also went on to Wayne State University and graduated from Wayne State University. And my mother was a teacher in Detroit public schools as well. I come from a long line of teachers. So there's some advantages with charter schools, all of them. You have good charter schools, bad charter schools, good public schools, bad public schools. We need quality

education in all facets. And I'm also an advocate for homeschooling as well for those who want to do it. I speak at the Liberate the Minds Black Homeschool and Educational Expo usually each year in Atlanta. OK, but when we when we look at African-American teachers, I just want to give a quick shout out to three African-American teachers. I had Mr. James in elementary school, McFarland Elementary School. And even though he wasn't one of my teachers, he had an after-school program called the African History Club. So the African History Club helped to lay a foundation for me who knew I would become a historian years later. Then in Cass Technical High School, you had Mr. Washington, who taught psychology. Mr. Washington introduced me to Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated, who knew I would be an athlete.

Well, that's a huge mistake because you got two alphas sitting right here. But go ahead. Go ahead with your little youth group. So then I would go on to Wayne State University and pledge Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated. So I've been at Sigma for 30 years. And then also at Drew Middle School, I had a teacher and his name escapes me right now, but he taught journalism. I took a journalism class. So who knew I would report on news and be a radio talk show host? And then in college, James Robinson. James Robinson taught business ethics in the business school, and then I would go help manage two of his companies. After that, we helped employ African Americans.

Things like this had contracts with the city of Detroit, County of Wayne, state of Michigan. So having African American teachers is extremely important, and this also ties to city budgets as well. Well, city, state budgets, and also federal spending. About 20 seconds left. Go ahead. City of Chicago, when they had the teacher strike, and Mayor Lightfoot said,

we don't have the money to pay you what you want, but 2005 to 2015, they paid out $512 million to settle 100 to 506 police misconduct lawsuits. That's where your money went. That's where your money went. That's where your money went. Absolutely. Yep. When you control the police and policing, that frees up money to help pay teachers and for education. Absolutely. All right, folks, let's talk about politics. And that is Senator Doug Jones, the only Democratic senator from the Deep South, is running for a full term against a former football coach, Tommy Tubberville,

who frankly is when I, when I say stuck on stupid, I'm just going to say stuck on stupid. I got no problem saying it. This man has, I ain't got, I don't care what none of y'all say. I ain't about to be impartial objective at all.

This man has no business being in the United States Senate. Do y'all have the, Do y'all have the, do y'all have the, the, the audio of when they were discussing the voting rights act? Do y'all have that? Okay. To, to everybody listening, I want you to undergird yourself to one of the dumbest answers you have ever heard in somebody discussing the Voting Rights Act, which was born out of the black belt in Alabama that this fool Tommy Tubbeville wants to represent. Play this. The thing about the Voting Rights Act is,

it's, you know, there's a lot of different things you can look at it as, you know, who's going to help? You know, what direction do we need to go with it? I think it's important that with everything we do, we keep secure. We keep an eye on it. It's run by our government and it's run to the point that it's got structure to it. It's like education. I mean, it's got to have structure. Now, for some reason, we look at things to change, to think we're going to make it better, but we'd better do a lot of work on it

before we make that change. What the hell was he talking about, Senator Jones? You got me rolling. I mean, I just got to be honest with you. I have yet to figure it out. And I guess the reason I can't figure it out is because he can't figure it out. He has no idea. He has no clue of what he was talking about. And that's that, quite frankly, I think that that once that become public, that is why he is completely underground. He is not talking to the media. He's not talking to the people of Alabama. He is not doing anything but 30-second TV ads.

The thing here is the man wants to be the United States center from Alabama. What the hell has he done other than coach football? Well, he's actually done a few things that are not so good. He coached football, but he quit those last four jobs. He tried to run a hedge fund for a year between his Auburn job and Texas Tech. Got money, millions of dollars with him and a partner for people investing, telling those folks that he was going to watch over their money, review their investments and all. Then he quit on them, went to Texas. And guess what happened?

His partner embezzled all the money and he ended up getting sued. He had to settle with the investors. He quit on everybody. That's the main thing. He's even, you know, he's got a charity fund out there that he raises money for supposedly for veterans. But the records show that out of every dollar he's raised, he only 18 cents go to veterans. So that's the record that he's got to deal with. And he's not really, he's not engaged. He's not trying to be a U.S. Senator. And I think the very fact that that non-answer on the voting rights should just disqualify him from being a U.S. senator from Alabama, even being a U.S. Senate candidate from

Alabama. And what I need people to understand, and is it resonating there? Because we're talking about Alabama. We're talking about Birmingham. We're talking about Montgomery, Montgomery bus boycott. We're talking about Selma. We're talking about Bloody Sunday. We're talking about, again, folk who put it on the line, the foot soldiers. And it has to be shocking, stunning and embarrassing to them to have somebody who clearly has no damn clue what the Voting Rights Act is. And he is going to be their representative in the U.S. Senate? One of the two? I tell you, it's energizing a lot of people to get out to vote.

You know, we've got some early voting going on now in Alabama. It's an absentee ballot process. But we got folks engaged in getting out to vote in record numbers. There are some things going on even on a Saturday tomorrow here in Birmingham, Jefferson County. So it's energized a lot of people. And for a lot of other folks, it's just got folks scratching their head about

why does he really want to do this? He hadn't even lived in Alabama, and he's just moved to Alabama 18 months ago as an ego trip to run for the United States Senate. So there's a lot of things out there, Roland. People are beginning as- Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, from like 1999 to 2008. He was not born here, never lived in Alabama until he started coaching at Auburn. As soon as he left and quit coaching at Auburn, he stayed around for another year running that hedge fund,

then moved to Texas, then moved to Cincinnati, and then after that, he's got a big old house down on Santa Rosa Beach. He's had a lake house, a vacation property that he sold a couple years in Alabama, but he's not lived in Alabama and moved to Alabama literally to run for the United States Senate just about, I guess it's about two years ago now. He didn't even vote in Alabama in 2018. When the election was held in

2018, he was not a registered voter in the state of Alabama. And that's a fact. He just moved to run for the Senate. This is a kind of an ego trip. And, you know, you know me, you and I have talked about this a long time. I'm born and bred here, lived here all my life. And Alabama runs deep in my blood. And it's really kind of shocking that he would come and try to do this.

But the fact is, we're okay. We're moving in the right direction. This race feels so much like it did in 2017 when we ultimately won that race. This is, again, as Mustafa and Michael prepared your questions for Senator Doug Jones, the thing that I still grapple with, and I get it, I get Alabama is deep red.

But at some point, at some point, common sense has to set in. Y'all haven't had any debates, right? No, no, no, no. He will not. He didn't even debate Jeff Sessions. And if he's not going to debate Sessions, he sure as hell not going to debate me. He's not only not debating now. I'm telling you, this guy's staying underground.

They've got him. You remember the old Get Smart show? Yeah. And the cone of silence? Yeah. They have him in a cone of silence because he is not talking to the media. Even when he goes to some of his own Republican clubs, they don't let him speak to the group.

He just kind of works the crowd a little bit and shakes hands. And it's because of that Voting Rights Act and because that's going to be his non-answer to just about any substantive question that he gets. His only message is, I support Donald Trump. That's just it. And we're out there every day. We're out there doing shows like yours. I've been all day today on the phone with media interviews all day long today because people ask me about the media. The question that media phrases, what do you make of him not talking to the media? And I said, well, wait a minute. It's not that he's not talking to the media. You guys are the microphones to the public.

He's not talking to the people of Alabama when he's not talking to the media. And I think that that's really important. And people are beginning to take notice. They're wondering, why is he even here? Why is he running for this office? What's up with this guy? Mustafa, you got a question for Senator Doug Jones? Yes, Senator Jones, thank you for being a champion for civil rights, because I know your record over the years. My question for you is, what is your vision for Alabama? Oh, look, my vision for Alabama is one of an inclusive society. And I think we proved that.

I think we proved in 2017 that Alabama has got a best foot forward that people a lot around the country hadn't always seen. They think about us sometimes in old days in black and white images. But there's so many incredible things going on in this state. It's a state of incredible diversity and natural resources. We've got a good business climate for folks, but we've got a good working climate for folks. And so my vision is to really represent that. That's why my campaign slogan is One Alabama,

so that folks know when they've got a United States senator, I'm not representing just a privileged few. I'm representing all Alabama. And it doesn't matter if I am going down in the Black Belt of Alabama, waiting around to try to make sure that the sewer sanitation and the septic tanks down there are working properly and putting money in the federal budget to do that, or I'm going up to Huntsville, Alabama,

at Redstone Arsenal to watch test fire for the next engines that's going to take a rocket and a man to the moon. That's Alabama. It's an amazing place, and my vision is to make sure that we put those divisions of the past behind us and that we unify together and we come out as one Alabama. I've said many times, and Roland has heard me say it,

so many of our divisions in the country started in the South, but we can be the place of healing and reconciliation and going forward, and that's what I've tried to do. Michael, your question for Senator Doug Jones. Hello, Senator Doug Jones. This is Michael in Motep. How are you doing? I'm doing great.. Michael, your question for Senator Doug Jones. Hello, Senator Doug Jones. This is Michael Imhotep. How you doing? I'm doing great.

Thank you, Michael. All right. Well, look, I covered your senatorial campaign in 2017 for 9-10 a.m. WFDF here in Detroit reported on it. Had a quick question for you. In 2017, it was African-Americans who mobilized, organized, registered to vote, and came out and supported you, men and women. How have your policies been able to help African-Americans, help their conditions, et cetera?

Can you talk a little bit about that? Great, great question. And thank you for asking about that. But I'm going to tell you, Michael, I got to say this before we start. I noticed when I was watching you guys talk before I came on. You had those two Muhammad Ali pictures right behind you, including the one where he's standing over Sonny Liston. I want you to know that just over here to my left, I've got that photograph in a big old, oh gosh, it's probably a 20 by 30 or maybe it's an 11,

something like that, but it's autographed. And it's an amazing signature. He autographed it, Muhammad Ali, after me, there will never be another. And then he did a little boxing ring. It is one of my prized memorabilia collections, so I just had to say that first. So what have we done? And, you know, look, we've been there a lot. I mean, you know, I'm not one of those guys that doesn't understand

and appreciate folks that supported you. One of the first things I did, and I alluded to it a minute ago, right after I took office, was taking a tour down in the Black Belt area to see some just unbelievable conditions where people are straight piping sewer into the woods, where septic tanks are so bad that it bubbles up where kids are playing. There's a hookworm problem down there. And so one of the things that we were able to do that year is get up several hundred million dollars in for grant monies that people can apply for. And they're doing that now to try to help those systems. The other thing that I've done, and I'm incredibly

proud of this, I've been a real champion for historically black colleges and universities. We have 14 in the state of Alabama. We've got more than any state in the country. And I have been a strong proponent. The first year in the Senate, Kamala Harris and I teamed up. We got a 14% increase in funding for HBCUs that year, another 14% the next year. And then in December of 2019, we were able to get the Futures Act across the finish line for permanent funding for HBCUs. So we're giving folks an opportunity. And part of it is, you know, I can't get everything accomplished like the voting rights extension that I want to do. I can't get so many bills done because McConnell won't bring them to the floor.

But I've got a number of bills where I've been an advocate for maternal health, infant mortality, because you all know that that affects the black community more than anybody else. So an advocate for rural hospitals, increased access to healthcare, expanding Medicaid. Part of my job is to have a bully pulpit to talk and

be an advocate. And those are the kind of things that we've been doing. And folks know it. They see it. They hear it. I think we're going to have a great turnout. We're having great turnouts already. But by the time the votes are all counted, we're going to have a great turnout for this election. Are you getting support from the Democratic Party? They've often written off the South. Reverend Barber and others have said you're guaranteed to lose if you never actually campaign there. What are polls looking like? Fundraising, those critical things? Well, fundraising has gone well. I wish I could say it's gone as well as Jamie Harrison in South Carolina, but that's just out in the stratosphere. But it's gone well. We've been up and doing a lot of things.

Let me talk about the party first. Tom Perez and I talk a lot, and he has been trying to do a lot of help. My colleagues in the Senate, individually, my colleagues have been awesome. They've been great. I've been disappointed in the DSCC and others because I think they're just looking at weird analytics that don't have any relevance to what's going on on the ground. And then I'm just, and I'm not going to tell you anything that I've said to them. It's been very, it's been disappointing because I'm going to tell you, Roland, our polling, our track and polling that we're showing is really strong. We are showing a tight race, which we always knew, and we're doing tracking every day. And we've got a poll that we just kind of put up today that showed that I had a one point lead in this. Now that, you know, things are fluid. We know that, but every demographic is moving our way. Everything

that we're seeing and when people are asked about who can do the best job on the pandemic, on health care, on different things like that, I am way ahead of him. I'm way ahead in independence, those that are voting early. And on the experience question, it's really lopsided when they said, who's got the experience to be a United States senator? So our polling has us right there ahead, all within the margin of error, of course. And that's why fundraising is so important for us in these final two weeks, so we can stay up. But we feel really good about where we are right now. And I'm excited about what we're seeing in our tracking polls every day, because we're going to, I've told folks, we're going to prove these damn pundits wrong again, and I'm going to let them argue that Doug Jones can't win a race again all the time

up until November 3rd when I give my victory speech once again. Well, I think it's pretty stupid that if Democrats actually think that they'll be able to win, you got to actually run. And whether we're talking about Alabama, same thing. Mike Espy is down one point to Cindy Hyde Smith. She won't even debate him. And the DSCC is doing the exact same thing. He just released some fundraising numbers, best ever as well, because other people out there are pushing it. I mean, he only lost about 68,000 votes in 2018. And I argued then that the Democrats should have been actually on the ground working it, finding 70,000, 80,000 people to pick up in 2020. But you got to put the work in. You

can't do it just doing a campaign. So you got to do it in the off season as well. That's exactly right. And we've been doing that. And so, you know, we're going at it hard and we've had the resources that we've been able to do it. We can always use more because right now in the last two weeks, it's going to be that ground game and get out the vote efforts. I will tell you the Alabama Democratic Party

has reached out to close to 2 million people right now. And they've touched hundreds of thousands of people. And we're feeling that energy. We see it. It's reflected in those pollings. And I think everything is moving in the direction that we want to see it moving. And because, you know, politics is a funny business. As folks focus in on the election, they focus in on who's going to best lead them,

who's going to best have their back, not the back of Donald Trump, not the back even of Joe Biden, but the backs of the people of Alabama. And that's where I've got the record that I'm really proud of, and I think people see that. All right. Well, for all the folks who watch our show, tell your family members there in Alabama, get registered, vote. It's important. Use the power of the ballot and don't assume. And I've seen this, Senator Doug Jones. I've had some black people say, well,

I live in Alabama. My vote doesn't count. Your vote definitely doesn't count if you never cast it. That's exactly right. And Roland, you're absolutely right about that. And all you got to do is look in the camera right now. I am exhibit A of what happens when you get out to vote. We, you know,

that's what happened. Good things happen when we can get out and vote in numbers. So you're absolutely right. Don't sit back, you know, get your friends, get your neighbors and everybody in your family. Let's get out to vote because we've got the numbers to do it for sure. All right. Sarah and Doug Jones of Alabama, we surely appreciate it. Good luck. Thank you. Take care, guys. Thank you very much. All right, y'all. I just got it for y'all. We'll just play one last time. Y'all, queue up.

I just got to play with y'all with this top fool, Tommy Tuberville. If y'all are stuck on the fence about voting, listen to this fool, Tommy Tuberville, discuss the voting rights act y'all go ahead and play it this is just this should make you want to go vote today the thing about the voting rights act is uh uh it's you know you you there's a lot of different things you can look at it as you know who's gonna help You know, what direction do we need to go with it?

I think it's important that with everything we do, we keep secure. We keep an eye on it. It's run by our government, and it's run to the point that we, it's got structure to it. It's like education. I mean, it's got structure to it. It's like education. I mean, it's got to have structure. Now, for some reason, we look at things to change, to think we're going to make it better, but we'd better do a lot of work on it before we make that change.

He's a Donald Trump supporter, Roland. He's a Donald Trump supporter, Roland. He's a Donald Trump supporter. They don't have to make sense. They just have to get elected. But the bad thing about it is, Roland, is that he doesn't know about the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III knew about it is, Roland, is that he doesn't know about the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III knew about it. That's why he cheered the U.S. Supreme Court case ruling Shelby County v. Holder gutting Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That's why he cheered that.

So we have to study history and law. All this is connected. Politics is the legal distribution that scares wealth, power, and resources, and the writing of laws, statutes, ordinances, amendments, and treaties, their adoption, interpretation, and enforcement. All this is connected, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act came out of a historical context, a historical fight. But it influenced the 2016 presidential election because there were 868 fewer polling places to vote at. And the majority of those were in communities that had high African-American, Hispanic population. Mustafa, you know what? I'm going to play that every day.

Exactly. every single day in order to get every black person in Alabama to vote for Doug Jones and not put that dumb ass Tommy Tuberville in the United States Senate. Every black person in Alabama should be mad as hell that there's somebody who's even has the audacity to run for the office and has no idea what he's talking about, about something that is so critical. You know, the roots of the civil rights movement run through Alabama. I mean, it's just amazing.

But it literally sounded like, it did sound like Trump speaking because there's no depth to anything that they focus on. It is all about slogans because they know slogans. And that was a unintelligent, I don't even have the words to describe how it was just illiterate. And I don't want to be disrespectful to anyone, but it was so illiterate in the way that he put words together that had no meaning and no connection to the question that was asked. Well, I think, you know, that thing is really interesting. I think that thing

has to be regulated. You know, it's sort of like education. It's got to have some structure. So the Voting Rights Act

is sort of like when you bake a cake, you got to make sure you use self-rising flour and you don't use all-purpose flour. And then if you do that cake and you put some vanilla extract in it, then I think if if you add some butter and some sugar, then, you know, we just got to regulate it. That's literally what the hell he just said about the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which is arguably one of the

most important bills ever passed in American history. And this fool, I'm playing it every day. So Control Room, y'all might want to put that on the list. I'm

playing that twice an hour. I'm going to play that in a 6 o'clock hour and a 7 o'clock hour. I'm going to play that every day because if somebody that stupid has no business being in the United States Senate.

I'm just, that's it. I'm done. All right. Michael, Mustafa, I appreciate it. Reena Shah, thank you for joining us on the panel today. Thank you so very much, folks. If y'all want to support what we do at Rolling Martin Unfiltered, you see the kind of conversations we have.

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