#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Black votes under attack; Californians move to help Dems in GA runoff; Nielsen discrimination suit

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

11.18.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Wayne Co.Canvassers certify election results; Californians flock to Georgia to help Dems in runoff; Trump campaign spends #3M on partial recount in Wisconsin; COVID death spike: 1,707 new coronavirus deaths were reported yesterday; Nielsen sued for racial discrimination; Updates in the cases of George Floyd, Quawan Charles and Atatiana Jefferson; Support #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. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. 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. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war.

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Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Martin. Today is Wednesday, November 18, 2020, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Donald Trump and Republicans targeting black voters. They are trying to keep black votes from being counted. In Wayne County, Michigan, where Detroit is, the Board of Canvass is initially deadlocked,

then reversed their decision after they caught lots of hell. We will talk with a member of that board, as well as the head of the NAACP in Detroit, right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. In Wisconsin, Donald Trump, they filed for a partial recount. What are the counties they're targeting? Where black people live. We told you the man doesn't give a damn about black people.

In Georgia, Kelly Loeffler and her supporters are attacking Pastor Raphael Warnock over a sermon he gave nine years ago where he spoke of serving God or serving the military. Hmm. Are they trying to Jeremiah Wright, Pastor Warnock? You bet they are. Also, we want to talk about, of course, coronavirus, folks. What's happening here? Oh, the Trump folks acting like it's no big deal. Pfizer comes out and says they have a vaccine that is 95% effective.

We'll discuss all of that with one of our COVID experts. And Sheryl Grace, a top black executive at Nielsen, files a race discrimination lawsuit against them. We will talk with her attorney, plus updates on the cases of George Floyd, Kwan Charles, Atiana Jefferson, as well as another shooting of a black man in Florida.

Y'all, it's a jam-packed show. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin 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 Roland. Best belief he's knowing 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. Yeah.

With some go-go-royale. Yeah. Yeah. It's rolling, Martin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rolling with Roland now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best.

You know he's Roland Martin now. Martin. I have told y'all on numerous occasions, do not trust Donald Trump and the Republicans when it comes to black people. Guess what? They are showing their true colors everywhere. They are complaining about voting is where black people vote. They complain about Philadelphia. They complain about Atlanta. They've complained about Milwaukee and Wisconsin. They've been complaining about Detroit in Michigan. And what happened last night as we were signing off the show, two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, it's a four-member board, deadlocked saying they were not going to certify the results. In fact, the Republican on the board even said, oh, we'll

satisfy them except for Detroit. Sounds to me like they were talking about black people. Now, when the vote was taken, the deadlock vote 2-2, oh, Republicans were rejoicing. This was Sean Hannity in Fox News last night. Sean, I've just got to get to you with Michigan, which you mentioned there as you came to me. I held up these papers, these affidavits, 234 pages of sworn affidavits under penalty of perjury. These are from one county. What did CNN say about when you held them up on this program? Didn't they accuse you of holding up blank sheets? That's right.

They did about a 10-minute monologue saying these were blank. They're not blank. In fact, these pages of paper from one county were the reason that you had a county-level Wayne County canvasser say, we cannot certify this election because of these witnesses. They're real people. And one reporter tweeted out, this is the first time in my 20-year history I've ever seen something like this. A county commission refused to certify. It's because for the first time, you have a president fighting

for the forgotten men and women in Detroit and Philadelphia and Democrat cities across the nation. Well, guess what? After a huge outcry, I'm talking about massive. Wayne County came back and revoted. Unanimous decision to certify the results. All counties in Michigan have now done so. They stipulated, though, they wanted the secretary of state to actually do an audit to talk about these discrepancies in voting. Yeah, that was fine. But guess what, y'all? Last night, there was a public hearing and folks got to speak on this issue. And man, Ned Stabler went after, he's the first of all, the president and CEO of TechTown and vice president for economic

development at Wayne State University. He went off on the two Republicans, name checking them. All I'm saying is my man Ned, drop the mic, play it. We also know that the secretary of state and the attorney general have already tweeted out that your legal arguments are rubbish and you're going to lose when it comes to court. So we're not worried about that at all. I'm also not worried about any of your, oh, things are bad, so we can't certify arguments because that's just ridiculous. You certified in August when they were worse. Less than 50% of the ballots were recountable. Now over 72% are. 58% of them were even balanced when it was less than 30% last time. So it's doubled.

It's gotten way better because the Secretary of State actually jumped in and did her job, unlike you. But I know it's not going to change your opinion. You talked about not certifying Detroit, even though you acknowledge that Livonia, a city, by the way, I know you know is 95% white, had bigger variances than Detroit, which is 80% black. We understand. And you've now added your name. So I'm not going to try to change your mind. I just want to let you know that the Trump stick, the stain of racism that you, William Hartman and Monica Palmer, have just covered yourself in, is going to follow you throughout history.

Your grandchildren are going to think you throughout history. Your grandchildren are going to think of you like Bull Connor or George Wallace. Monica Palmer and William Hartman will forever be known in southeastern Michigan as two racists who did something so unprecedented that they disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of black voters in the city of Detroit because they were ordered to. Probably, I know, Monica, you think Q told you to do it or some other crazy stuff like that. But just know when you try to sleep tonight that millions of people around the world now on Twitter know the name Monica Palmer and William Hartman as two people completely racist and without an understanding of what integrity means or a shred of human decency.

The law isn't on your side. History won't be on your side. Your conscience will not be on your side. And Lord knows when you go to meet your maker, your soul is going to be very, very warm. Ooh. Y'all, Ned, you can come to the cookout. Joining me now is Jonathan Kinloch, his vice chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers and Reverend Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit NAACP. Glad to have both of you. First of all, Jonathan, this is utterly ridiculous. This is a clear targeting of black people. That's absolutely correct. It was astounding that someone who would even be able to curve their mouth to say, let's certify this election, excluding the votes

in the city of Detroit. Let me just say this. Under Michigan election law, an out-of-balance precinct is not reason enough not to certify an election. Our job is to certify what is in. If we find some precincts that are out of balance, we're able to put them in a report and along with the certification. There, it was just amazing to hear the public during the public comment portion of the meeting basically educate my fellow board members on the importance of voting and the impact of what they were doing. I clearly did not expect when we started the meeting that these board members would cave into the pressures that I know that they have been dealing with over the past week. You had lawsuits after lawsuits filed every morning in the city of Detroit since the election because Donald J. Trump cannot accept the fact that the people of America have put his brain of terror to an end. The thing here, again, the brazen attempt, the brazen attempt, Reverend Anthony, to discredit black voters.

This is not just in Detroit. Donald Trump and his minions and Rudy Giuliani and all his thugs and their imps talking about voter fraud in Philadelphia. What does that mean? Black people. Today, the Trump folks, they filed a partial recount in Wisconsin. One, they can't afford to pay for the full recount. It will cost nine to $10 million. So now they want to do a partial recount where Milwaukee and Dane County, where 75 percent of all black people in Wisconsin lived. This is a direct attack on blackness by Republicans. I couldn't agree with you more, Roland. It is a nefarious, treacherous, corrupt assault on the African-American vote. When you look at where they are trying to purge and squeeze the vote out, it is in black cities. You name them, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta.

All of these are areas where black people have flourished and are casting their backs to vote. An interesting thing about this is that they're not saying stop the vote, discredit the vote, where they are winning and have won. They're saying where they have not won and are losing. It is a solution in search of a problem. It is the worst example of gangsterism. And that's what I called it. It's a gangster move. It's a thug move. Donald Trump makes Al Capone look like a choir boy. When you look at the kind of strategic alliances that they have built, if we were in another country, Roland, we would call this a political coup. That's what it would be. You have the top

military people being discharged. You have the head of the elections cyber security commission being fired. You have the head of the national security team being fired. You have the head of the post office slowing down the mailing system. You have long lines of 13 hours in black precincts around the country being extended. You have gerrymandering going on in black communities. You have a president who is refusing to acknowledge the oncoming administration and saying, I will not leave unless I'm declared the winner. If it looks like a coup, smells like a coup, operates like a coup, then my guard must be a coup, a political one. And the reality is that black folk have fought too long, suffered too much to be turned back now.

What we saw in Wayne County last night, I want to thank Jonathan and his colleagues for standing strong. What we saw was the onslaught of the people who said, hell no, this won't go. The people stood up and articulated their concern. They did not charge the folk outside of Detroit who had more issues than the city of Detroit with needing a recount or needing an audit. They only wanted to deal with the city of Detroit. If that's not blatant racism, if that's not a nefarious attempt to disenfranchise a segment of the population. I don't know what it is. One of the members of the team of canvassers has on his Facebook page, William Hartman, pictures of former President Barack Obama. He is portrayed as a thief, as a Muslim,

and nothing is wrong with being Muslim, he is being portrayed as a pirate in a very dehumanizing and disrespectful manner. So if that's the way the guy thinks privately, you know what he's going to be doing publicly when it comes to giving and accounting the vote. But let me say this. No matter what they do or how they try to cheat on the gate of reduce to vote, on January the 20th, 2021, at around 12 o'clock noon, a man is going to take his left hand and put it on the Bible and take his right hand and put it in the air. And his name is Joseph R. Biden. He will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. And for the first time in our nation's history, a sister who was an A.K.A. who went to Howard University, will be sworn in as the first African-American woman

vice president of these United States of America. Not run and tell that somebody. Jonathan, I'm sitting here looking at, go to my iPad, folks. This is a thread by someone. They say, wait until you hear how William Hartman told the Zoom participants that he was picking white people to speak because he didn't know how to pronounce other people's names. Now that he got called out more than once for it, he keeps making people who aren't white

pronounce their names. He's just been told this is still being live streamed on Facebook. Now he's being told off for lowering people's hands on Zoom instead of letting them speak. And Monica left and isn't even listening to them more. They muted themselves. These people, Jonathan, have just no regard for the voters. They have complete disregard for black people and for this, for Monica to actually say, oh, yeah, we'll certify as long as we can keep Detroit out. There's nothing ambiguous about that comment.

That is an absolute racist comment from the head of the Board of Canvassers. For the people out there, are these appointed positions? Are they elected positions? These are appointed positions. We're nominated by our respective parties to the Wayne County Commission, and the commission appoint us only from the names that are submitted from the party. These individuals, it just, like I said,

it was astounding to see them in action, but you gotta understand, and you know this as a black man, that white folks don't understand the journey that we have taken in this country to be able to obtain the right to vote. And so I had to call her away from the meeting to basically explain to her what you did. We got to correct this. We have to correct this. It is our duty to not put out into the public, put out into the world that we in this county and this board are comfortable with just have a total disregard for 800 and some odd thousand

votes. I mean, it made no sense for them to have vote initially to not certify this election. But let me tell you this. The people stood up. The people showed, brought shame on the actions of the board. And from what I understand, they are continuing, even to this day, contacting these board members, showing their outrage. No, let me just tell you, they are still going to have to respond to

a number of stakeholders in our community. So yes, the action was corrected on yesterday. Yes, I got to, you know, recognize them for even listening to the comments and changing that vote. Because I'm going to tell you something. It would have been a horrible page in history for us to go on record as to have a total disregard and disenfranchisement of 800 and some odd thousand folks. But more specifically, we know Donald Trump is targeting Black communities, but more especially Black Detroit. That was what that was about. But Roland, that is why it is so important for us to stay on the case. This is not over until the 23rd of next month, of this month, next week, when it's certified by the full state.

That's why people must remain vigilant. That's why we got to stay on the case. That's why it has to be monitored. You mentioned the name calling. Wendell Anthony is a very simple name for people to call and pronounce. Ain't nothing difficult about that. No. I'm going to make it real simple. And you can see me very clearly. I know I'm a dark chocolate, but you can say I sit under a light. But had not I been called out, then they would not have recognized me. But I had to be called out. Wendell Anthony is on the line. He has to speak. And I was determined to speak as well as many other people. So I'm simply saying it shows the power of the people. It showed the power of those who are determined to stand up in the likes of a Fannie

Lou and a John Lewis who said that the vote is the most precious thing that we have as a nonviolent weapon. It's almost sacred. It says that we did not come this far for history to be turned back. It says that we must continue not only to stand in line, but to be in line, to make sure that once we exercise the franchise, we must guard it and monitor it. That's why the Voting Rights Act has to be fully implemented. That's why we need a new administration. That's why the voting and the necessity for programs such as yours to get out the information to the people is critical for such a time as this. We ain't going back. I say it all the time. I ain't going back to the plantation. I've come off. I ain't going back. Before I'd be a slave again, I'd be dead and be buried in my grave and going home to my God and be free. I ain't ready to go home yet. So therefore, I'm going to keep fighting the good fight.

And I encourage everybody else to do the same thing. Well, we certainly thank the y'all on the front lines. Jonathan, certainly let us know if there are going to be people moving against moving against these two, trying to get them removed from this board of canvassers because their actions here are truly despicable and they need to be replaced. And the Republicans in Wayne County definitely should be put on blast and called out for standing with these two at all times. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks. Again, I told you what's happening there in Detroit. I'm going to bring up my panel right now. A. Scott Bolden, former chair, National Bar Association, Political Action Committee, Robert Petillo, executive director,

Rainbow Push Coalition, Peachtree Street Project, Lon Victoria Burke, NNPA, writing for NNPA. You know, Scott, we told you about that was Wayne County. But again, the Trump campaign, they have now filed this partial recount in Wisconsin, specifically targeting two counties where black people make up 75 percent of all the people in the state. This is this is not even, you know, an accident. This is them saying, let we we believe that black people are involved in voter fraud and we want to stop this. That's what this is. These are white racists in the Republican

Party who are targeting black people, period. Well, you're absolutely right. There's only one way to look at it. And even if the Republicans say this is race neutral, this is where the Democratic votes are, it's got nothing to do with black people, the disparate impact is on black people, which is just as bad under the courts and other court cases. But there's something else. Even after the election, the Republicans are engaged in voter suppression. Think about it. Not that the votes have been counted. You know, you can only look at votes cast, votes counted, and whether they were registered. Unless you have widespread fraud in one of those three areas, you're not going to win in court. And remember, the fourth component of that is, is it going to make a difference in the outcome. Wisconsin is really interesting because under Wisconsin law,

Wisconsin, if it's on the outside of the envelope of the mailman and their discrepancies or their mistakes, or you can't read it, that if you use reliable government information, that you can count that,

you could open it up and count that vote, right? The Republicans have paid $3 million to challenge that process and say it's illegal and corrupt, even though it's the law of the state of Wisconsin. And so, again, that challenge and that $3 million is a complete waste. But these enablers are not prepared to walk away yet because of those two Senate seats in Georgia. I'm sure we're going to talk about that a little later.

These folks are beyond despicable, Robert. They are showing their true colors. because of those two Senate seats in Georgia. I'm sure we're going to talk about that a little later. These folks are beyond despicable, Robert. They're showing their true colors. And you know who's real quiet, Robert? All them black MAGA people. I ain't heard Jack from Angie Stanton. I ain't heard Jack from Paris Denard. Nothing from Bruce Lavelle.

Nothing from Lil Wayne. Candace Owens. All the black people. Brandon Tatum. All you ain't heard of. Senator Tim Scott. Nothing. Burgess Owens.

Republican who just won out there in Utah. Not a damn word. Nothing. They told me they've been trying to reach you. Nothing, Robert. Well, Bruce sends his regards. I talked to him earlier, but... First of all, no, he don't. You know damn well Bruce don't send his regards to me

because he's scared to bring his ass to this show because he knows what's going to happen. But they're quiet. This is a direct attack on black voters, and they are quiet. Well, I think this is Republicans showing their true colors that when, uh, when it was time to do the dog and pony show, you know, do crowd surfing and the audience, uh, do the diamond and silk type show. They're fine. They'll

bring their black friends out. But when it's time to actually count the votes, when it gets down to the nitty gritty, they know where their bread is buttered. They know that suppressing the black vote is the best way to win. We don't have to guess about this. The Speaker of the House in Georgia, David Ralston, said that if Democrats, we do mail-in voting and allow people to vote, the Republicans will never win another election. Ted Cruz in Texas said that if you allow people to fully vote, they won't be able to win the state anymore.

Donald Trump said that if you have this level of voting, Republicans will never win another election again. They are losing the demographic battle in America. David Duke has been talking about this for 25 years. Beyond that, they're losing the ideological battle, because if you poll people, if you look at the public opinion polling, public opinion is firmly on the side of raising taxes on billionaires, on Medicare for all, for environmental policies that preserve our environment for future generations.

So we know what the American people care for. We know what the manifest weight of public opinion is. They are trying to win by working the rest. This is exactly what we see in failed dictatorships, where they try to hold onto power despite not having the mandate of the people or the consent of the governed, as de Tocqueville would say. So what we have to do is ensure that in all these states, we know they're not going to win. If Donald Trump found a magical causeway to win, then we need a convention of the states to redraw our constitution, because the system is too broken to go forward if that's possible. If you can win Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, then another state, all while losing 7 million in the popular vote, then I don't think we can go forward as a republic. But what we have to understand is this is the Cassia Bella. This is the raison d'etre that we need in order to have a new voting

rights act to empower Section 4 and Section 5, to have state-level voting protections put in place to modernize our voting system so that every single election we're not depending on recounts and recounts after the recounts and audits to know who the true winner is. This is that zeitgeist moment, that iconoclastic moment in American society and history, where we have an opportunity to really change the future for the remainder of this century, and we have to grab that bull by the horns and do it. Look, the reason I keep calling these folks out, Lauren, because they don't give a damn about black people. Donald Trump, their little fake platinum plan, that aluminum foil plan, don't give a damn about black people.

We're real clear. And this is evidence. This is a this is direct targeting of black people, black voters. Yeah, it's a joke. They're trying to win by just straight up brazen thuggery now, because that's all they've got. They've got to cheat to win. They keep losing the popular vote. The Republican Party just keeps losing the popular vote over and over again. There's a push on, of course, to decide the election, the national election by popular vote and not electoral college. That happens. It's really over. But watching them lose Georgia. And then, of course, they had to sit back and understand the fact that what what won it for Biden was black people. Everybody knows that. Right. It was Detroit. It was Milwaukee. It was Atlanta.

You know, the fact that Biden won by a margin 13 times greater in Michigan than Trump did against Hillary doesn't seem to faze anybody. The idea that they were going to somehow flip, you know, a million votes or 800,000 votes, that somehow was going to happen, it's just complete fantasy world. It's not surprising, given that Giuliani is behind this, the same Rudy Giuliani that racially profiled over a million black people in New York when he was mayor. And then Mike Bloomberg came in and did the same thing. This is what they do. They invalidate black people. They act as if black people don't matter. Somehow those votes are not valid or somehow those votes are not as important as everybody else's.

This is a game that they play. They'll continue to play it. They'll continue to lose it, which was proven, of course, by Georgia. And that's the thing that should really scare them. And, you know, I think they're going to be scared again in January, because that they can't, they've got to change what they're ideologically doing. And the Republican Party refuses to do that. They just keep doing the same thing. So they've dug their heels in now. And now it's just brazen, brazen thuggery, just cheating. That's what it is. And I guess they expected people to sit there.

I guess Bill Hartman and Monica Palmer expected everybody not to say anything. Are they kidding? But the Reverend was right. Until this is certified on the floor of the House, everybody's got to remain very vigilant because the Republican Party, as we know it right now, is getting increasingly desperate.

And really, they're just sort of not really a political party anymore. It's sort of just a group of people who just does whatever Donald Trump says. And that's it. Well, to get a sense of how desperate they are, look how desperate they are in Georgia. They've been attacking Pastor Raphael Warnock and they're trying to Jeremiah Wright him. They've been sending around and I've seen it from Dinesh D'Souza to Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, all these people here. So go to my iPad. This is the 26 second video that they have been sending around. So watch this.

America, nobody can serve God and the military. You can't serve God and money. You cannot serve God and Mormon at the same time. America, choose ye this day whom you will serve. Choose ye this day. Now that's it. That's the clip. No other context. Oh, they've been

trashing him, saying he's against the military and how dare he and Georgia voters. So Nikki Haley actually, so I'm gonna show you the attack ad they put out. Y'all play the video. This is what Nikki Haley and the Republicans

are now using to attack the faith of Pastor Raphael Warnock. Watch. How bad is Raphael Warnock for America? Let's count the ways. Raphael Warnock is a proud defender of anti-America pastor Jeremiah Wright. That's right, this guy. No, no, no, not God bless America. God damn America. Warnock's response. We celebrate

Reverend Wright. He is a preacher and a prophet. Warnock even called police gangsters and thugs. Police power showing up in a kind of gangster and thug mentality. Warnock's church hosted a love fest with communist dictator Fidel Castro. And Warnock signed an anti-Semitic letter accusing Israel of apartheid and supporting boycotting Israel. Warnock eulogized cop killer Troy Davis. Warnock supports socialized medicine that would end private insurance and put government in charge of healthcare decisions. And Raphael Warnock supports trillions in new tax increases, even on working families. So how bad is Raphael Warnock? Come on, come on, come on. Let's review. All right. I can build out of that crap. Now, I want you to show what they did there,

Robert. First of all, they put they put all the black stuff up front. And they put the taxes and the health care stuff at the back. They throw in there that he gave a eulogy to Troy Davis. I didn't realize it was against Christianity for pastors to give eulogies to folk who died. But I guess for them, it doesn't even matter. But there's a video that somebody sent me. First of all, I'm trying to get my hands on the full sermon so we can have a sermon in context.

I had to do the exact same thing when it went up to Reverend Jeremiah Wright. But y'all watch this. Republicans not going to show y'all this video. This here is a video of Raphael Warnock welcoming to his church a Republican named Johnny Isakson. Who is that? Oh, that's the Republican who was a U.S. senator from Georgia before Kelly Loeffler. This was at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Watch.

And he and I are friends. We've had a good relationship and good dialogue across the years. He's a father and a grandfather. He's here with his lovely wife, Diane. Stand up, Mrs. Isaacson. We're glad to see you, Mrs. Isaacson. She said yes. Yes. Mrs. Isakson. She said, yes.

Would you give a great big Ebenezer welcome to Senator Johnny Isakson? He just wants to say hello and goodbye. We're grateful for his service. Well, good morning. Raphael, thank you very much. Raphael and I are on a first-name basis. We are great friends, and I consider him one of the great friends I've gained over the years in being in public life. That's the one thing about public life. You make lots of friends. You want to make sure always sure they're not ones with their picture

in the post office, but there were others at Ebenezer church or some other good place to pray. But I'm glad to be here today to bring you a message. And I asked to become, I call Raphael and say, can I come? He said, well, you're leaving. I said, no, I'm not leaving. I'm just retiring. There's a difference. Leaving is the next step, and I ain't hurrying that one up at all. But I wanted to come and just say thank you for all the things you've done for me over the last 45 years. I've been in elected office 45 years in Georgia. I was born here in 1944, and I've been here ever since. And love this city and love this place and love all of you.

And as Raphael says, I started coming to the King's Salvation Service when I got elected Republican leader of the House, Georgia House, 28 years ago or whenever that was, a long time ago. And I came because I thought I should, and then I came because I wanted to. And I came because my bladder could handle it. It is a long time to sit through, that's sure. But I come to tell you three things. One, as chairman of the Veterans Committee in the Senate, as a veteran myself, how many veterans do we have in the congregation today? Raise your hand.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For all of you who noticed, that's more people proportionately that are in any other church that have served in the service. Less than 1% of the people who serve in our military today serve as protecting us. Less than 1%. And they're all volunteers. Think about that. The greatest of this country is in large measure because we can depend on them at any point, any time, any place, no matter what somebody does. And just yesterday, just yesterday in Pensacola, a terrorist killed an American airman there in his second year of training. Another wasteful shooting on an institutional campus somewhere in our state. We've got to make sure that stuff stops. As long as I have a breath in my body,

whether I'm in elected office or not, I'm going to do everything I can to see to it that we get end violence in our schools, end violence in our shopping centers and our Walmarts and our churches and everything else. Taking a life is taking a gift from God to us, and we should never, ever... So, Robert, here is a Republican U.S. senator standing with Raphael Warnock

talking about veterans and military service, but the Republicans want to say Warnock is against the military. Well, two things. Putting that sermon in context, I'm actually at both of those church services. I'm a member at Ebenezer. In the first video of Warnock, I'm in the second row

all the way to the, on the left, all the way to the right in the pews. I should probably go back to church more often. But what we're seeing now is that Republicans have found a candidate that they have nothing to attack them on. They found somebody who's nearly squeaky clean, who really lives the life that we want our pastors to live, and therefore they have to make up things to run against them on.

The same thing happened to President Obama, where he had to attack Jeremiah Wright's words, not his words, actually. And this goes towards a continuous battle and destruction that white evangelical Christians have launched against the black church. They only believe you should be Christian when you agree with them, when you're preaching the same word as them. You cannot share your own individual lived life experiences as Jeremiah Wright did or as other pastors have. And that's why they attack them. Meanwhile, Franklin Graham or Billy Graham or Pat Roberts can say whatever they feel like, and that's off limits. So let's understand what this is, this attack on the black church and the body of Christ

within the black community. And I think that that has to be remembered on January the 4th or more so on December 14th when early voting starts, or even right now where you can start requesting your absentee ballots, or all the way until December 7th when you can register to vote in Georgia, because we cannot stand to have Republicans attacking the body of Christ in the name of Christianity itself, a Christianity which is profligate, which believes in excessive spending, which believes in taking away social services from the poor,

that believes that universal health care is somehow a bad thing that pastors should be against. Let's understand what this battle is really about. You have somebody like Kelly Loeffler, who has the temerity, the audacity to make attacks against the character of Pastor Warnock, and nobody knows what she's done in her life besides marry a rich dude who bought her a Senate seat

as a president. She has no history of politics. We don't know what her career was before this. All we know is that she married into a family to own the New York Stock Exchange, and they bought her a Senate seat. And you're trying to impugn the character of Pastor Warnock in this way. Y'all are lucky that I don't work on the Warnock campaign team, because all these nice commercials of him walking through a grocery store talking about how much he loves

dogs and puppies and eats pizza with a fork, it would be scorched earth if I was on that campaign, because I do not believe it is appropriate and will allow people too long to get away with attacking the black church as a political punching bag, as if we mean nothing to our community. Those pastors preach the lived experiences of their communities and their congregations. And I don't see them showing the videos of Pastor Warnock with the Occupy Atlanta people ministering to the homeless, his drug treatment ministry. I had a client once whose mother was convicted of a crime she didn't commit and sentenced to 20 years. Pastor Warnock hopped on that immediately to help get that woman out of prison. That doesn't make the news. But when you want to make up these attacks on the

black church and they claim to be the party of Christianity, that is what the level of disgust that I think many of us have with the quote-unquote evangelical movement and why we have to work overtime to get an actual man of God into the Senate instead of these phony, fake, circumspect, only conveniently Christians, or only Christian when it lies in their pockets, they're ready to sell out stocks on coronavirus instead of dealing with the needs of the American people. The thing here, Lauren, again, their whole goal, you take a soundbite like that,

26 seconds, get circulated. I put Eric Erickson and Hugh Hewitt on blast by saying, is there anything else to it? Do y'all want to find that? But also find it interesting, Lauren, so let's attack Pastor Raphael Warnock's faith, but we can't say jack about Amy Coney Barrett's faith.

Of course not. Of course not. It all sort of throws back to the trying to radicalize black candidates. I mean, this has been going on forever, really before the Southern strategy. It's the same old thing of trying to portray black candidates, particularly black male candidates, as somehow radical. And really, the whole goal here is, ooh, we're scaring white people. And we've seen it a million times. It was done to Reverend Jesse Jackson when he ran, obviously Obama. It's the same thing, the same playbook. And what the Republican Party seems to never figure out is that these are the types of ads that only appeal to the people who would vote against Warnock anyway. So it's all a big waste of time. Who are they going for? Are they going for swing voters? Well, if they're going for swing voters, that's not going to work. Everybody knows that Pastor

Warnock pastors in the same church that Martin Luther King pastored in. That's not going to work with progressives, white progressives in Atlanta. So these things are just thrown out there, 26 seconds. And at some point, and I will help you find it, Roland, the entire sermon will be found. Because, of course, you can play this game all day, not only with the entire sermon, but of course with a million other sermons that Pastor Warnock has made, you can run 26 seconds of other things that are going to, of course, counter whatever that was. And frankly, I didn't think that was a particularly jarring passage at all. But I'm sure that when we find what he said around it, it's going to put it in a certain context and blow that all away.

But this is desperation because they cannot have the Senate be 50-50. See, the bigger issue here is that the House is looking like the Democrats are barely over the majority at 221. They're barely at 218. And then if you have the Senate, of course, tied and Kamala having to sit up in the, you know, as the presiding officer, obviously it's the president of the Senate to break that tie, this gets real. So these two Senate seats, this thing is obviously huge. So now they're going to go scorched earth. They're going to go desperate. And they're dealing with Raphael Warnock, who there's nothing on.

So we're going to reach the desperate hours pretty quickly here. The thing here that I find to be hilarious is that you got folk like Marco Rubio, Scott, who loves to tweet out Bible verses. I mean, he and, he sent this tweet. Go to my iPad. Not shocked Georgia Democrat Senate candidate Raphael Warnock said you cannot serve God and the military at the same time. These and even crazier things is what the radicals who control the Democratic Party,

activists, and small donor base believe. Now, here's how Mark Lamont Hill responded to him. Christians believe in the Bible. Matthew 624 says no one can serve two masters. Warnock is a minister who was pointing out that God must come first. Do you disagree with the Bible or the words of Jesus or just when Warnock says it? Exactly. I am so tired of politics of fear and that ad, I mean, I agree with my colleagues, but I'll be honest with you, we'd go get the full text of his speech or his presentation. But it feels like it feels defensive

if you do that. You know, Raphael is a man of God. Jeremiah Wright is a man of God. They're servant leaders. And when you attack them, you know, because of something they've said or because the love of their people, you know, it just rings hollow with those Democrats, those independents, black or white, as well as the black community in regard to how important this election is. And the Republicans, you know, Lauren, you're right. They just operate in fear. They don't have anything else to operate in because the numbers are against them. And so I think Raphael Warnock has got to stand on his own. He can defend himself, no doubt about it. But remember, while it was close, Georgia is a purple state. It's turned slightly blue, but it's going to turn

all the way blue if we can mobilize these Democrats who are running for Senate. It's all about the ground game now. I mean, they can run the ads and try to scare people, but whoever has the strongest ground game, they'll both have money, and mobilizing and getting people to the polls is going to make the difference. And right now, in my opinion, that's really all that matters. What is your ground game, Raphael and Ossoff,

and can you motivate and can you get them to the polls? You just count them. Well, bottom line is this here, all I'm saying, Robert, I want to see black folks maximize the hell out of our numbers. I'm talking about Stacey Abrams has already said some 600,000 Georgians have already requested their ballot by mail. I'm talking about black Georgia. Black Georgia, Black Georgia. I'm talking about if you want to send a signal, if you want to tell them how y'all what y'all trying to play this game with Reverend Jeremiah Wright and these sermons, you hit them with so many votes.

They go look up and say, oh, my Lord, has there been an exodus? What's going on? That's how you respond to white Republican hate, Robert. Well, on that point, remember, I was at that sermon. What Pastor Warnock was saying, it replaced the word military with militarism, that you cannot serve both God and the God of militarism, that you cannot both serve God and a profligate economy that does not care for the least of these. He was making very clear biblical points, and that's why they took it out of context. Even on the conversation about police officers officers where they say he called police thugs. No, he calls the police officers who beat and kill people thugs. Not every police officer, the one bad apple.

Now, we all know that. But again, there's their goal. They know they dumb followers can't read. But to that point, I think it's important to understand, look, normally voter turnout for runoff elections in Georgia is 10 percent. So in this general election, there were right around five million votes cast split right down the middle. So if 500,000 people turn out for the runoff, that will be the that will be right at average. With that, you only need 50 percent plus one to win. So we're talking about 250,000 plus one votes. We'll decide the layout of the Senate. We'll decide the balance of power.

We'll decide Medicare for all. We'll decide student loan reform. We'll decide defense spending and tax cuts and entitlement programs and Social Security and Medicare. All that will come down to 250,000 plus one people in Georgia. And then whenever someone tells you that they don't think their vote matters, understand how small of a number that is. And that's why it's important to support groups like NAACP under James Woodall in Georgia, who are working, they're sending out absentee ballot request forms to every single person who voted in the general election. People like Dee Dawkins Hagler in the Deltas down there who knocked on 200,000 doors headed into the general election, people like Dean Dawkins-Hagler and the Deltas down there who knocked on 200,000 doors headed into the general election will do the same going into the runoff.

People like NSEI and the New Georgia Project, LaTosha Brown and Black Voters Matter, Rainbow Push Coalition, who's working with the incarcerated populations to do in-custody voting. We have so many people working this. And understand, that's why they are running these desperate ads. That's why they're taking things out of context and running. How many, if you're 18 years old voting in this election, you don't know who the hell Jeremiah Wright is. They are only playing to a certain subset of very old, elderly, conservative white voters and hoping that they will turn out. So all that black voices for Trump stuff that they were talking about six weeks ago, that's all gone. They're going directly back to attacking the body of Christ and the black church,

attacking the black community, and making sure that they push this messaging to scare old white people into believing that Pastor Warnock is some kind of black radical who hangs out with Fidel Castro. This is the desperate play that they do to try to radicalize black men. We've seen this, everything from Dr. King,

where they called him a communist, to Run Jesse Run in 84 and 88, to Brock in 08, and now Warnock in 2020. Listen up, all my black—look, I—y'all, let me just try to be as clear as possible. Last comment on this story. I want to whoop their ass. I'm talking about I want to whoop the ass of Lefler or Perdue. I want them to feel the pain and the agony of losing to Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff. I want them to have to sit there

and watch them votes come in from Gwinnett County and come in from Fulton County and just hit their ass like a hurricane has hit Georgia. And I want them to have to sit there and go, damn, how many black people did we piss off? That's the only way. Everybody who's listening to my voice, you should be telling every friend, frat brother, sorority sister, church member, nephew, niece, cousin, mama, daddy, aunt, friend, you name it, living in Georgia. I'm talking about when they had get your booties to the pole,

when they had the folks, I don't give a damn if you love Magic City. I don't care if you love them hot wings. I'm talking about you send a message to racists by throwing their ass out. And there's nothing better than those racists. They have to stand there and watch a black man sworn in as the next United States senator. That's the only way you defeat them and you make them pay the price at the ballot box. That's how you do it. Folks, got to go to break. We come back. We're going to talk coronavirus. One drug maker says they have a vaccine. Ninety 95% success rate. We'll see. Also, New York, the governor, the mayor, back and forth over closing it for schools.

COVID-19 is still a huge issue facing all of us. We'll discuss that next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You know, it's a lot of people did a lot of things to vote. It wasn't just something that was handed over. You know how many of your ancestors... So when people talk to me about how black they are in their heart, I'm like, but you don't do nothing to honor the ancestors for the things that they put in front of you.

It's blood on those votes. You had... These people died and did all type of things in order for you and future generations to be able to vote and you take it for granted as it don't mean nothing. I think that most people just not informed enough on what to vote about and who to vote for. It's like you look on a ballot,

you'll see propositionosition 1 through 10. You don't know what any of the propositions are. Nobody educated you on Prop 1. How is it gonna directly affect your community? How is it gonna directly affect elderly? How is it gonna directly affect the future? How do you not know and you vote for something blind? Or you don't vote for something blind?

Or you see a name, you have no clue who this person is. And you just, all right, it's all Democrat, I'm gonna vote for everybody on the Democratic. Like, sometimes we be voting for people who ain't got no backbone. I still think in my mind, who are the people that we voted for that we put in office that chose to accept that they couldn't nominate a Supreme Court justice? They accepted that. The Republicans told them they couldn't do it because it's a lame duck president.

What you mean? Right. What do you mean? Right. What do you mean? One senator in particular irks me. A Senator Kelly Loeffler, not elected, but appointed just a couple months ago. Records show Loeffler and her husband, whose company owns the U.S. Stock Exchange, sold stock valued between $1.3 and 3.1 million dollars. Kelly Loeffler bought and sold stock shortly after a classified briefing on the virus. They knew the market was going to tank, and they sold based on that inside information. Some of the holdings she shed were in energy, automotive, retail, and airlines.

Look, it's not just what she sold, but it's actually what she bought. She bought things like Amazon, Citrix Systems, a company that obviously was going to do well during a shutdown, while still reassuring citizens that the U.S. was prepared. We have Americans across the country who have seen their 401ks plummet. Were you trading on inside information about what was coming? Folks, this woman is knee-deep in the swamp, and she just got there. Don't y'all know how I love how they only use Fox News clips in that whole commercial there.

Way to go, Midas Touch. All right, y'all, as of today, there are at least 11.5 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States. At least 249,000 people have died as a result of the virus. 1,707 new COVID-19 deaths were reported yesterday. That's the highest daily death toll since May. Medical leaders are urging Trump to share data with President-elect Joe Biden, but that hasn't happened yet. In fact, they're not going to do it. That's

how callous and despicable they are. Now, Pfizer and Moderna both have vaccines that they say have reached highly effective levels, and Johnson & Johnson expects to have one soon. The Secretary of Health said today he expects a COVID vaccine will be available by the end of December. By the end of December, we expect to have about 40 million doses of these two vaccines available for distribution, pending FDA authorization, enough to vaccinate about

20 million of our most vulnerable Americans, and production, of course, would continue to ramp up after that. We've paid for the vaccines. We've worked to ensure that administration costs will be covered by private insurers and the federal government through Medicare, Medicaid, and our program to cover COVID-19 costs for the uninsured, so no American will face an out-of-pocket cost for getting a COVID-19 vaccine. Now, until then, states across the country are doing what they can to crack down on the spread of the virus. Today, New York City, which has the nation's largest public school system, announced it will close schools starting tomorrow. Take a look at what Mayor Bill de Blasio said about that.

No one is happy about this decision. We all, in fact, are feeling very sad about this decision because so much good work has been put into keeping the schools open, opening them up to begin with. Let's start there, opening the schools when almost no other major school system in America opened, making them so safe. But we set a very clear standard, and we need to stick to that standard. And I want to emphasize to parents, to educators, to staff, to kids, that we intend to come back and come back as quickly as possible. Things got a little feisty at the news conference with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo when a reporter specifically asked him about those school closings.

A red zone in Brooklyn and Queens, and we close the schools? Don't you remember that? Okay, so what are you talking about? What are you talking about? You're now going to override. We did it already. That's the law. An orange zone and a red zone.

Follow the facts. Well, then you're confused. Then I'll tell you what you mean. No, they're not confused. You're confused. Read the law. Read the law, and you won't be confused. But, Governor, follow Jim's question. But Governor, follow up Jimmy's question.

Are the schools going to be open tomorrow? The schools are open by state law. But will they be open tomorrow? That's the question. I think Jimmy's correct in asking that question. I don't think it's obnoxious at all. Well, I don't really care what you think. Of course, you agree with him because you're in the same business with him.

The schools, by state law, well, what is the answer to your question? Well, joining me now is Dr. Tyson Bale, critical care and infectious disease specialist at the University of Virginia. Dr. Bell, Lord, this is, look, it's frustrating. It's frustrating for so many different people. Parents are going, look, our school's going to be open. They're going to be closed. Like, we have to do distance learning. It's all kind of stuff.

But the thing here that I keep looking at, that I keep trying to explain to people as well, is we're talking about folks who are still dying. And we're talking about, I mean, look, I've been reading some of these threads and listening to these nurses and doctors who are quitting the business because they said, I've never seen this much death in a short period of time in my career. You're exactly right. We have over 1,500 people who died recently from COVID-19 in one day. And at the rate that we're seeing now with over 150,000 cases per day, we can expect that number to go up to over 3,000 per day. It's an absolutely monumental amount of people that are suffering. And to be honest, I did not think that we would see numbers like this.

It reflects the approach that the administration has taken to the vaccine or the COVID-19 virus, coronavirus, that there's going to be hands-off and focusing on developing and therapeutics, but ignoring the public health measures that keep people safe in the meantime. So there is good news on the vaccine front, but we're in the midst of a crisis right now that's really exploding out of control. And that's really, you know, again, the deal here. I saw this tweet earlier where the governor of Alabama,

she goes, I'm not shutting everything down. We're not going on lockdown. And you know what? Here's the thing. The reality is we don't have to go on lockdown if people take the appropriate steps. If you wash your hands, have your hand sanitizer, wear your mask, do social distancing. Then we can actually have businesses that are open. We can still go about. But you simply cannot. You can't say I want to do whatever the hell I want to do, but also stay open. Right. What's interesting is that the people and the leaders that have been resistant to these measures approach it as if it's one or nothing or all or nothing, that you either have to lock the entire economy down or you have to be completely restrictive and no mask wearing, no social distancing or whatsoever.

The real strategy to keeping the economy open, to keeping kids in school, which you see is so contentious right now, is to marry these with the public health measures, like you just said. And if we can do that, then we can actually avoid these prescriptive lockdowns that we're seeing. But if cases are going to keep going up like this, we have no choice but to do a strict lockdown. The fight between public health and the economy doesn't have to be in opposition to each other as long as you understand that, you know, with one, you have the other. And it's really frustrating to see that our leaders are really falling on one side or the other here. So we look at these numbers. Now we have the Biden team complaining that the Trump folks are not offering them any support at all and making it much more

difficult. We now also have the latest when it comes to these companies with regards to a vaccine. One says 95 percent effective, very little side effects as well. So so again, they're saying fine, they'll be ready by December. But the bigger problem is then going to be how do we get folk to actually take it? Speak to that. What do you think has to happen in order for us to say, yes, it's safe, it's real? I think people in the community that folks trust need to get out in front and advocate for vaccinating our community. I can speak personally for myself and seeing the process and the science that's gone into the vaccine development, I've not personally seen anything that makes me hesitant to take the vaccine. I do take direct care of COVID-19 patients and I will be in kind of that first

priority for getting the vaccine. Based on what I've seen so far, I have no reservation being first in the line. But, you know But the point here is that the administration has lost complete credibility when it comes to communicating information about what people should do around the vaccine, particularly when it comes to the black community, because we've seen how they've acted around this. But I wanna separate that out

from the actual approval process, which involves the FDA, the Vaccine and Biological Related Products Advisory Committee, which are made of career scientists and respected authorities that are outside of the government and respected medical schools and health care institutions across America. They're the ones who ultimately make the recommendation for an EUA approval or not for the vaccine. So provided they see the data, they think it checks out, it's safe, it's effective, then they make that recommendation and it's outside of the political pressure that the

administration is putting on to speed this up. So if we can get that message out and get trusted people in the community to disseminate it, then I think we have a little way of getting penetration the way that we need to in a community. All right then. Well, and also, one of the things that we'll be watching out for, the federal government is going to be spending a lot of money on messaging as well. We want to make sure that money goes to black media and they don't bypass as well. So Dr. Tyson Bell, we really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me, Roland. All right. On that particular point there, Scott, I mean, this is going to be

a significant issue. When I talked about coronavirus, we got to make sure that our people are indeed being a part of that. We know the games they're going to play when it comes to freezing us out. And the bottom line is there's going to be a major, I mean, millions, millions of dollars spent on messaging when it comes to this vaccine. And then last thing I want to see is frankly, black media being ignored. But we also have to this is also black health experts are going to be so important in communicating to our people about this vaccine. It's going to be a massive effort, given our cultural history with vaccines and the tests that have been done on black people historically at Tuskegee and otherwise. It's going to be a massive effort. We are a frontline group that needs it the most, along with the police and health care workers, no doubt about it.

But we've got two challenges. One, getting into our community, building trust in that community to take it, and then being able to administer a number of that 40 million doses we're supposed to have at the end of the year, getting it to people so that we can define some type of new normalcy. That's going to take a lot of communication, a lot of marketing, and Black leadership in those communities, not only taking it, but showing that it's safe and showing that it's necessary to move our community forward. And so it's a lot of work. Getting the vaccine approved is one thing.

Distributing is another. And it's vitally important to beating this pathogen. We simply look at the end of the day, no one trusts this administration, Robert. Don't care. They don't trust them. And frankly, thank goodness, as these companies are talking about the vaccine, that we are moving away from these nuts in the White

House. Because frankly, if Trump had won again, I don't know who in the hell would have taken that vaccine. I think you're right, because there has been no trust built with the American people. You have to listen to some of the black health experts, people like Dr. Leon McDougall, National Medical Association, Dr. Deborah Verholden, chief epidemiologist at Michigan State University, and other individuals who are part of the community. We also have to demand from the Biden administration that they put these individuals on that coronavirus task force. It's one thing to simply farm out these things to Black

institutions and Black universities and Black health care experts. It's another thing to have them at the table. We know for a fact that our communities have been struck hardest by this virus. So we need to make sure that the people who are conducting these tests and these studies, the people who are delivering the messaging, the people writing the policy, the folks distributing these dollars, that if you're going to be investing billions of dollars into virus, not just the vaccine, but also the treatments, the therapeutics and the development of PPE and so on and so forth, make sure that money is going to HBCUs and to Black contractors and Black businesses. There's no reason for us to just simply accept this as being an emergency and

be happy for the emergency to be over. We need to be put in the exact same position as everyone else if we're going to be expected to take the vaccine. And the best way to do that is have black people and black institutions as part of developing and creating these vaccines and therapeutics. Lauren, this is going to be, I think, is going to be a clear battle. I think what the Biden people had better get used to, they better get used to the fact that they're not going to have any cooperation whatsoever. I think what they're going to do is they're going to wait to the military, they said the Trump folks want to start as many skirmishes as possible to make it harder for the Biden people to do their job. I mean, these people, I mean, just let's be real clear, Trump and his people, they will try to set everything on fire and then

say, there you go, you put the fires out. That's what they're going to do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, we of course out. That's what they're going to do. Yeah, yeah. Well, we, of course, knew that some version of this was going to happen. I'm not too sure that we thought it was going to be this dangerous where he was going to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and literally, you know, deliberately try to undermine Joe Biden in that way using our military. But I guess, you know, we know Donald Trump is crazy.

We understand that. We know that in 63 days, everything is going to head in another direction. But, of course, we have to wait for him to get out of there. I mean, the man is dangerous. He's crazy. And, you know, you would think that some of these Republicans sitting in there, particularly the ones who say they care so much about the military, would have said something already with regard to the troop withdrawal in Afghanistan. But this is like such a dangerous, dangerous person. And we're sitting here at an extremely

dangerous time that nobody says anything on the right, just nobody. So it's just left up to the loyal opposition of the Democratic Party fighting and, you know, basically trying to message against Donald Trump. But it is really scary to sort of contemplate how many people say absolutely nothing, you know, just nothing, about the fact that, you know, he's dangerous. And you're right, Roland, I can't, you know, it's nothing, there's really not much more we can say. We have to wait it out, unfortunately, until uh 63 days from now the fact that we've sat here for eight months and watched 250 000 people die and he's done absolutely nothing except go back and forth to the golf

course that right there has been crazy but it continues and i guess we shouldn't be surprised at this point well so i think we i think we I think what we also have to do is, and Reverend William Barber spoke about this in his sermon on Sunday. And I get, I get the Biden people. I get them talking about not wanting to pursue investigations of Trump. I get them talking about unity. I get them talking about turning the page, but I think what Reverend Barber said here is exactly what we should be saying and articulating. Press play, folks. There were some people praying for a political change in the presidency, and now that there is a change, have y'all heard them on the news?

They are saying, we just need peace. We just need healing. We need to get back to normal. Really? We need to get back to when we all were just getting along. Now, when was that? When? When really now?

Really? Come on. When was it that we were all just getting along? When did that ever happen in America? Then they say, well, we just need to get back to compromise and have peace. That's the conversation now. Compromise. And this is why we can't heal.

Because some want a false healing. That is the perception of peace. They want folk to get in the back rooms and slap backs and shake hands and agree to things that make them feel good but never addresses the needs of the people. And some things you can't compromise on. That's what got us in trouble in this country in the first place.

We compromised with slavery. We compromised with the humanity of black people. And the church said it was okay. We cut too much of the church. We compromised saying women didn't have a right to vote. Y'all hear the number this week? They said the number now of the Mexican children that have been lost and can't be found is 666.

666 children lost, stolen from their parents. How do you compromise with that? How do you compromise with people who are more interested in putting one woman on the Supreme Court rather than keeping thousands out of caskets? If Democrats who now have the presidency and the House of Representatives, if they reveal that their primary goal is going to be compromise,

they're going to lose the people that voted for them, and they will never get them back. Fifty-five percent of the people that voted for Democrats at this time were poor and low wealth because they voted believing that somebody was going to fight for their lives. Robert, is he right? Correct.

What this usually ends up being is we saw this in Obama's first term where he came in with a clear mandate from the people's hope and change. The fierce urgency of now of going to heal this planet. And then he ran smack dab into Claire McCaskill and Joe Manchin and other, uh, Tester and other centrist Democrats. And that's how we ended up a watered down affordable care act that was doomed from the beginning because there was never a public option included. There was never a single payer option, uh, as part of it. And we ended up with watered down democratic legislation, which was meant to keep seats like Arlen Specter, uh, in their hands to make sure that you still had that majority in the Senate and to maintain the House, which they still ended up losing during the Tea Party revolution in 2012 and 2014. So what you have to do, if there's anything that you learn from Trump and from Trumpism, it is that you dance with the one that brought you.

You make sure that your base stays with you and you make sure you satisfy them and don't mollify the other side, but rather you put forth a bold agenda. I think there are a lot of black folks who voted for the first time in this election that we're not having a conversation about reparations this time in the spring. They're going to be very disaffected that we're still not talking about real and true police reform, not simply, oh, the cops can only beat you on Monday and Wednesday. We still not talking about real and true police reform, not simply, oh, the cops are going to beat you on Monday and Wednesday. We're not talking about wholesale changing qualified immunity, changing the ability to prosecute cops for the actions they take. They're going to have people that you're going to lose for a generation. If you look at that black voices for Trump generation, those people who are out there with the MAGA hats on, if you talk to them, to a person, those were Obama supporters in 2008, if they were old enough to be so.

So the same people who voted for Obama, who volunteered, who knocked on doors in their first elections in college, were so disaffected by the lack of what they saw as being big systemic changes taking place that they abandoned the party completely and start running around with MAGA hats on. That is what you risk doing if you don't put forward a progressive and strong agenda for the people who brought you here and people aren't going to stand for it this time. Lauren, they cannot, they cannot play the go along and get along game. They can't, I mean, to watch, to watch what's happening right here, to watch the absolute silence by Republicans, to watch them abdicate responsibility and let Trump do what he's doing right now and they say nothing. No, hell no. I can't play with any of them.

Right. That's right. And not only that, that was the same thing that happened. Robert, I thought you were going to say this. this, you know, when Obama got in there, you know, there was a push to sort of go after Dick Cheney and Halliburton and all the contracts involving the war. And then, you know, Barack Obama decides to be a nice guy and not pursue any of that. That's nonsense. That is nonsense. I mean, the first order of business should be to go after anybody who was ripping off tax money during this administration,

which is almost everybody in the Trump family. And if the Southern District of New York doesn't try to do it, DOJ sure as hell should try to do it. But the Democratic Party has a systemic problem, which I cannot figure out, of always wanting to be, you know, nice and, ooh, let's just get over it. That's all nonsense. These people need to get, they need to get some very negative reinforcement after this four years we just had. Because, quite frankly, Trump snuck in as it was, all right? He lost by three million votes against Hillary. He had no mandate. Then he gets in here. He breaks every law in the world. Nobody does anything about it.

And then when the Democrats do get control and power, they decide, oh, you know what? No big deal. They cannot do that. They absolutely cannot do that. I know they will do it, whether the Senate is whatever the Senate is going to be. They're going to play this game of kumbaya. It is a huge mistake when you do not give negative reinforcement to your political enemies, quite frankly, and what is enemy of Donald Trump. You cannot compromise or cut deals with political gangsters until you fix the damage.

Yes. Right. Until you fix the damage done by the enablers for Donald Trump. Let me say it again. You cannot cut deals with political gangsterism. Democrats always want to win the argument, but not the vote, right? Now, the damage done to this country, we can compromise after you fix the Supreme Court and those three seats you stole. We can compromise after you fix this economy and stop people dying from COVID. And remember,

I'm talking about the enablers, because we knew what Donald Trump was going to be, but the enablers allowed him and empowered him to do the damage. We can't compromise until you find the parents of those 666 kids who came across the southern border. You can't compromise until you fix the damage done in our foreign policy positions and give confidence to those at NATO and our allies. There is no compromise until you fix that damage. And then lastly, remember Bush II? He handed Barack Obama a mess of an economy, and the Republicans criticized him for not fixing it fast enough. And now Trump is going to give Biden and Harris the worst economy, COVID,

loss of jobs, no schools. We can't compromise until we fix that, and they'll criticize us for not cleaning up their mess. So Reverend Barber is completely right. And black people, lastly, when they go to inauguration, they better leave inauguration and keep Biden-Harris accountable and demand that they keep the Republicans accountable.

There's no choice in it, Rowan. There's no choice. Well, bottom line is you got to be willing to fight. All right, folks, speaking of fighting, the House Republican Black Executive at Nielsen is actually suing them right now for race discrimination. That is, Nielsen Holdings over the years has reported on the spending power of African Americans.

This week, a lawsuit was filed by Cheryl Grace, Nielsen's Senior Vice President of U.S. Strategic Community Alliances and Consumer Engagement. The lawsuit was filed against the 97-year-old global ratings firm in an Illinois federal courtroom. Grace, who has been with Nielsen for 16 years and is one of its few black executives,

or executives of color, said internal conversations and written correspondences about race and career advancement with several of the company's top executives, including a CEO, have led to her being marginalized and subjected to a hostile work environment. Joining me now is her attorney, Linda Friedman. Linda, welcome to Roller Mountain Unfiltered. Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right. So first and foremost, the basis of her lawsuit, that is, were disparaging comments made about her or did CEO and other executives simply say she couldn't cut it as an exec?

Really, what's the basis of this suit? There's never been any allegation that Cheryl Grace has done anything other than an extraordinary job for Nielsen. The lawsuit involves allegations of a glass ceiling and a pattern and practice of looking to the outside to bring in talent rather than promoting from inside the corporation to the position of executive vice president. And so these correspondences, was it her stating that she wanted further advancement, wanted higher job titles and responsibilities, and were simply rebuffed? Yes. In the course of employment, there's often opportunities for employees to express interest in advancement through their performance reviews and through conversations with management. Cheryl also took it a step further by putting together a written proposal for a job opportunity and eventually even wrote to the CEO of Nielsen expressing her interest in advancement and inclusion in the executive rank. Talk about that even further, because, again, when you talk about the you talk about Nielsen,

Cheryl, first of all, was the one who was over and really was a public face and can, to my understanding, conceive this black consumer report, which actually has now opened the door for Nielsen doing reports on other individuals. I'm sorry, other groups. That's correct. Cheryl has been a vocal supporter of Nielsen and done extraordinary work in repairing Nielsen's reputation and contributing to public affairs, consumer outreach campaigns, and has been a celebrated member of the team, just not sufficient to be awarded and recognized for her talent and promoted to executive vice president, unfortunately. The video that we're showing right here is actually a video two years ago when Cheryl was on my show talking about that Nielsen report of black consumers from consumers to creators. What are y'all seeking in this lawsuit? Cheryl filed the lawsuit, you know, really on behalf of people who can't file the lawsuit.

And she's taken the extraordinarily courageous step of bringing the lawsuit as a current employee. And what she hopes for is reform and change. She started the process by writing a letter to the CEO and asking to open up a dialogue. During this time in our history, many of the CEOs in corporate America have been reaching out to employees and holding town halls or inviting people to walk through what they refer to as an open door. In Cheryl's case, she accepted the invitation and she hoped to begin a dialogue about how Nielsen could be more inclusive at the top ranks and how other people could be given opportunity. Instead of inviting her to have this discussion, the CEO actually did what many companies do, which is to flip the letter to the human resources and legal department. And then from that point on, Cheryl has never had another conversation with the CEO. But what she really sought to do was to

provide for advancement opportunities for others who didn't have the ability and the opportunity to speak out. And it's been an extraordinarily, extraordinarily courageous act in the middle of a pandemic for a person who has been highly successful to put it all on the line in the hope that we could have reform and change. All right. Linda Friedman, the attorney for Cheryl Grace. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm going to go to my panel here. Scott Bolden. Actually, I'll go to Robert. Robert, we've seen more and more of these lawsuits. That was an executive who worked for a Wall Street firm, a black woman,

Marilyn Booker, who filed her lawsuit as well. What we are seeing are black executives who before would be scared to death. The fact that, as Linda said, as Sheryl Grace has filed this lawsuit while still working at Nielsen, says a whole lot, Robert Petillo. Well, you're absolutely correct. One of my certification in law school was in the labor and employment law. And part of what employers attempt to do in situations like this, it make you make employees feel as if they should be happy to have the job they have in the first place, particularly in executive leadership, as if you are blessed and they'll use the coronavirus

or use unemployment or use whatever it takes to dampen that. I think it's very courageous to launch this sort of suit. I hope that it gives other people the energy and the belief that they can do the same. And let's understand, we do need to start looking into the patterns and practices at many of these media organizations because what you see on television

is directly attributable to those ratings. So the reasons you see very little black news on television is because the Nielsen ratings say that that's not what sells, and therefore no advertising dollars go into that, and therefore the networks do not put that on television. If we want to change the depiction of African Americans on television,

it will come directly through the ratings, and having an African American in a position of power to make those decisions, to fact check and to ensure that we're being properly represented has a direct impact on the images that go into our television screen. So we all need to make sure that within our own corporations and jobs that we are doing our best to also root out systemic racism and oppression and glass ceilings as they exist, and to root out and make sure we're creating a system by which everyone feels that they have an equal opportunity to prosper and to create the American meritocracy that we're all led to believe exists.

This is, again, Lauren, this is the story I was referencing. This is the other story. Go to my iPad, folks. Marilyn Booker, this is from the New York Times. She spent 16 years as Morgan Stanley's diversity chief. Now she's suing. Marilyn Booker says she was fired in December after she tried to persuade executives to eliminate barriers to success for black financial advisors. I mean, I mean, this is the thing that again, we are, we're seeing and, and frankly, more black executives at the end of the day, you know what? If folks like that, like Cheryl Grace, don't hold these companies accountable, if you're an African American who's in a lower position,

they're not going to listen to you. Yeah, that's true. I'd imagine that you could probably file this type of lawsuit at almost any media company, any place, not just financial companies or Nielsen, I mean, just any media company. And because all just financial companies or Nielsen, I mean just any media company. And because all anyone would of course have to do is go through the hiring numbers for the last 10 to 15 years, and what they're likely to find is not too many African-Americans

at the top ranks of the company. There are certain media companies, many media companies that still have never had an African-American person in charge in a position where they are deciding the content of what ends up on the air, which is the real power at these companies. There's a lot of games that get played in terms of hires to make it look as if there's diversity. And what you find that is that the lower ranks, particularly media companies, you will see African-Americans get hired. So, frankly, I think they do it so that they can stave off a lawsuit. But what you don't find is that the upper ranks of the decision-making process is always the same, you know, all the time. And there's certain companies, certainly several I've worked at, that were, they were actually getting, in two cases, there were lawsuits when I was there.

And, you know, what they'll do is they'll hire a few people and then they'll just go back to what they were doing. But, you know, public embarrassment and lawsuits is really, to me, the only way to go because it never seems to happen with any internal discussion. A lot of these media companies, particularly right now, because we talk about race all the time. I mean, race is in the media all the time. And it's always amazing to me, given the history of this country, given the 400-year history of this country, given what we discuss all the time, that media companies never seem to think that it might be a good idea to have some African-Americans around at the editorial board meeting and making some of the decisions with regard to what ends up, you know, as content for that media organization. But it happens all the time, all the time.

All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back. We're going to give you an update on cases dealing with Derek Chauvin out of Minneapolis, as well as Artiella Jefferson out of Fort Worth in the case of the young black man who was found murdered in Louisiana. All that is next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Well, you know, it's very difficult to really educate the public on, you know, how Congress really works and how legislation is developed. You will see a piece of legislation with a couple of names on it as co-authors, but that legislation has gone through a process where there may be 50 or 60 amendments on it. And when it comes across you and your committee, and you have some ideas about how you can make that legislation better,

how you can keep it from being harmful to the people you represent. You put together that amendment and you fight hard to get that amendment inside that bill and oftentimes you do. Raphael Warnock grew up in a house full of brothers and sisters. His parents taught him the value of hard work, like me. Like me. He was first in his family to graduate from college and went on to earn a PhD. He thinks insurance companies should not be allowed to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, like me. Like me, Reverend Warnock knows that both parties in Washington could use some moral leadership. I'm Raphael Warnock,

and I approve this message because it's time we had a senator who put Georgians first, like me. I'm John Ossoff, and too many are struggling to afford prescriptions. One change in the law would make a huge difference. See, Medicare is America's biggest buyer of prescriptions. But the drug companies bought off Congress, and they made it illegal for Medicare to negotiate lower prices. It's straight-up corruption. Fighting corruption is my job. I approve this message because I'm not taking donations from corporate PACs, and I won't let the drug companies rip us off anymore.

When you have the platform in entertainment, I do believe it's important to use it because the same people that will buy the movie ticket or stream the album or go and support the book, they're the same people. They're voting for what they want to see in entertainment. And now, to me, it's about using the platform to say, hey, it's not just about an entertainment vote.

It's about a vote that actually is going to affect the very trajectory of your life. All right, the folks at Seek.com, founded by Mary Spio, a sister, have these amazing VR headsets. Allow us for you to watch their content, the reality content right here on the headset you simply pop your phone right into here close it up and then you can put yourself in the room watching their VR content on seek.com or of course content that is on other platforms and so you can check that out they also have these are 4d 360 degree headphones right here with tremendous bass that really distributes the sound all across your head. It's great.

You can attach a headset to it so you can actually use it for gaming and playing with free hands. There's Bluetooth as well. of these get one of these items or you can subscribe to the content at seek.com by going to seek.com using this promo code is rmvip2020 rmvip2020 these of course can be some great headphones coming up for birthdays christmas uh you name it and so if you want to do that just go use the promo code right here rmvip2020 rmvip2020 by going to seek.com and we certainly appreciate them being a partner here with Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who is charged with second-degree murder in the case of George Floyd, requested on Money that a judge block prosecutors from introducing evidence of alleged past incidents where he used similar methods of restraint on other suspects.

Prosecutors want to cite eight incidents from Chauvin's 19-year career as a Minneapolis police officer to show a pattern of excessive force and behavior similar to the encounter that left George Floyd dead. Now, an update on the case of Quawan Bobby Charles. The ACLU is demanding a full independent investigation into the death of the 15-year-old Charles. His body was found dead in a sugar cane field days after going missing from his father's house last month. The ACLU is criticizing law enforcement and state officials, citing there's a lack of transparency, and Bobby's family deserves to know exactly what happened. Bobby was last seen with 37-year-old Janet Irvin, a white woman and her 17-year-old son

on October 30th. Irvin has a history of arrest for drugs and burglary, and she lost temporary custody of her children after being accused of neglect and domestic violence. Bobby's mother reported him missing around 8 p.m. that night. However, instead of putting out an Amber Alert, the Baldwin Police Department informed her that Bobby was probably at a football game, but no evidence whatsoever. A fast forward to November 3rd, and Bobby was found dead in a sugar cane field. Official calls say the death was by way of drowning, but if you look at the photo, his face was beaten, he was mutilated, and a number of lacerations were found on his body. His death is now being investigated as a homicide.

To date, no arrests have been made. Also, an update on a case out of Fort Worth with the family of Antiana Jefferson. They sued the city of Fort Worth and the former police officer who was charged with killing the 28-year-old black woman. The lawsuit is accusing former officer Aaron Dean of violating Jefferson's constitutional protected civil rights. It is also alleged that the police department failed to properly train and supervise Dean. On October 12th, 2019, Jefferson was babysitting her eight-year-old nephew

at her mother's home when a neighbor called a non-emergency police line to report that a door was open. Dean was the responding officer. When he arrived on the scene, he then opened fire outside of the house through a window because he says he perceived a threat. Dean was then charged with murder due to COVID. His trial has been set for August 2021. Also with this case out of Florida, where a police officer shot and killed two black men and folks are demanding answers to what took

place. This is an unbelievable story here. This is the video here. Uh, roll the video, please. Uh, of the shooting, stop the vehicle, stop the vehicle, stop 10 33, stop the vehicle, goddammit. Stop. Stop. Now, this particular police officer, okay, Jafet Santiago Miranda, he has felony gun charges, burglary and domestic violence charges that have been filed against him. Now, he says he was forced to shoot for his own life. This is more of the dash cam video we're showing you right here. And of course, in this video, 16-year-old A.J. Crooms was attempting to evade Miranda. He was ordering him to stop. He fired, and then he also, he killed Crooms and also 18-year-old Sincere Pierce. Both of them were in the car. Now, again, this deputy has a very awful history.

In 2008, he was found guilty of burglary to a dwelling as well as aggravated assault. This year, Miranda was charged with domestic violence with children on April 20th. Now, his wife is also a cop with the Titusville Police Department. Man, you talk about craziness. This took place in Brevard County there in Florida. Robert, when you see that video there, when you see again, when you hear, first of all, officers, they all know now, all I got to say is my life was in danger.

That's all I need to say. That's all I need to say. You're correct. I think we're going to have to see other angles that come out of the video. Hold tight one second, Robert. We're getting a lot of feedback from you. So let's fix that audio. Lauren, I want to go to you.

Your thoughts on this shooting. Yeah, I think what Robert was about to say is right. I mean, we do have to see, I think, a little bit more. You know, a lot of jurisdictions, the police are trained that if you do not, you know, explicitly obey the orders of the police, they have the right to, and they feel threatened, they have the right to use deadly force. And so I think that's probably what we saw there, but we're kind of seeing only one angle of it. But, you know, we see so many of these videos, you know, just as the weeks go by, I think we just, in general, there needs to be new thinking about policing generally in America. There's sort of a warrior cop mentality that has sort of taken over the profession. And frankly, I think it's a big mistake by the national FOP to not stand against the idea that it's OK to just give guns, you know, easily to everybody who wants a gun.

I think that's made the profession of policing much more dangerous. And it's always surprising to me that the police profession does not come out for more gun control, quite frankly, because they're the ones whose lives oftentimes are at risk because of that. But we live in a nation where, you know, you're violating my freedom if I can't have an AK-47. So anyway, yeah, I just think there's just a lot of fear out there in the heads of a lot of cops. Sometimes it's completely justified, and sometimes it isn't. But it unfortunately is a profession where you do go out and have to encounter negative activity by people a lot. And I think when that's in your mind a lot, it's going to impact you on the job. And until we try to confront and get some answers to those difficult questions, we're going to see these videos over and over again. Go right ahead, Robert.

Well, I think this is one of those times where you have to look at this question of police training, because we need to see more videos, more angles, and more witnesses, of course. But you have two officers responding to what turns out to be some high school kids, some teenagers on a joy ride making bad decisions. Why are they out of the car with weapons drawn instead of simply blocking the car in and waiting for backup to show up? Why are you trying to stop a car on your foot or on your feet instead of being in the car that you just got out of? This is where police training and the value of human life has to come in because they always talk about being in fear for their lives, but they never talk about what they did to put themselves in that situation while following improper protocols to do so. And this is the issue that we have with this idea

of not having federal standards for policing, having a sliding scale across the country where some places you have to have college credit and hours of certifications. Other places, anybody who is willing to take the badge is given the badge and given the gun. We have to have a wholesale conversation on how exactly we reform policing in this country so that we're not seeing these images on a daily basis. Because if you travel the world, you'll notice this doesn't happen in other countries. This doesn't even happen in what we call dictatorships or oppressive authoritarian regimes, where you're seeing people killed by the government on a regular basis, and that has to stop. It needs to stop now. That's the mandate of this election. That's the mandate of the racial reckoning of 2020. Again, look, when you see these stories,

it is shameful when you see them. And when you come back, when you come back to see, you know, again, you see how these cops react. We know the games that they actually play. But I'm trying to figure out if this guy has this kind of record in domestic disturbance,

Domestic Violence Act, April 20th, why in the hell is he still on the force? Why is he still on the street? Now he's administrative leave. Why was he on the street? Well, as I said, a wholesale across the country, we have very differing standards for police officers, depending on city, depending on jurisdiction, often depending on department.

So often when cities are going through a cop shortage where they can't find people to fill out the force, they will lower the standards necessary to become a police officer, lower testing requirements, lowering criminal records and backgrounds in order to simply fill out bodies. And it always ends up in having negative police encounter, police interactions, because they do not have the proper training, do not have the proper background. They do not have the proper vetting to carry such a heavy duty. And we always find out in the worst ways possible. All right, folks, I want to do this here. Yesterday, I talked about this here. Love to get your thoughts on this here. Joni Lamb, who is the co-founder of Daystar, put this video here on her page, promoting a stop the steal rally in is a major fraud in our nation.

We want Trump! We want Trump! We want Trump! We want an honest election. We want an honest count. We can't allow anybody to silence our voters. We can't let that happen to our country. What's interesting here is that Daystar carries a lot of black preachers on there. I said it yesterday. I said, if you out there, if you black, you need to tell your pastor, get the hell off Daystar. Our tithes and offerings should not be going to support a network, Lauren, that's pushing this crap right here.

I have personally contacted already three black preachers who have content on there. I'm reaching out to the other ones. Look, money, look, you can sit and support Trump all you want to, but pushing out a stop the steal rally? Nah, forget that. It's time for black people, black preachers and black viewers to boycott Daystar. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. We have a major, major problem right now with disinformation, obviously. And to me, it started with Breitbart and that whole crew once we had the first black president of the United States. They wanted to believe in an alternative reality. So they created an alternative reality through the media that they created. And now this has been brought to a new, higher level by Donald Trump, who of course was talking about when he thought he was going to

lose to Hillary Clinton, creating his own media organization. So what we're seeing is just people come up with fiction. It's just absolute fiction because they can't deal with the reality, the reality of a changing country, the reality of the first black president, now the reality of Joe Biden being elected. So they've invented their own reality, the reality of a changing country, the reality of the first black president, now the reality of Joe Biden being elected. So they've invented their own reality, and they've invented their own media. So it's a scary thing to watch. And people, you know, Facebook and these people need to wake the F up. They need to wake up to what is going on, because they're carrying a lot of this misinformation, deliberate misinformation.

And Twitter and all of these platforms that can't figure that out are doing a major disservice. And it just sort of, it goes on and on and on. But really, I'm not sure, you know, we do have to target the people who create the false information. Certainly we have to target the platforms as well. Robert? Well, I think we're almost dealing with a Schrodinger's election here, where to one observer that's over and done, we're transitioning into the new administration, to another observer, we're still fighting this stop the steal type battle, which is completely based on fantasies

and made up stories, to the point that it's laughable to anybody who doesn't believe it. But just that fact that we are dealing with a laughable situation, something that should, by all objective means, be believed by nobody, but yet still there's probably 60 to 70 million people who believe that this election was stolen, is why it's so important to control these media narratives. Because Trump said that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes. He was wrong. He could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and gain nearly 10 million votes from the last election. And as long as we're feeding into this narrative and this concept of alternative facts, alternative realities, there's going to be nearly impossible to unite

the nation, as President-elect Biden has said, and as many have argued, because they're not dealing in facts or reality or math or vegetables or vitamins or medicine or science or anything along those lines. They are dealing completely in this fantasy land where President Trump is, by all means, this Superman-type figure here to liberate them from the oppression, I guess, of universal health care and Michelle Obama wanting people to exercise. That's the oppression they're trying to escape. So I do think we have to be very careful of where we're accepting money from, as churches or organizations,

who we are having allyship to. Don't take that 30 pieces of silver if it means you've got to sell out everything that you've ever believed in. I absolutely agree. All right, folks, if y'all want to support what we do here at Roland Martin Unfiltered, we want you please to join our Bring the Funk fan club.

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needed it. It was getting a little unruly there. All right. I appreciate it. Y'all take care. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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