#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Cobb Co. slashes early voting sites; Ossoff speaks; Biden COVID response; Amazon yanks racist doll

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

12.8.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Cobb County slashes early voting sites; Ossoff speaks; President-elect Joe Biden unveils his COVID response team; MSNBC has named Rashida Jones as the first Black leader of a news network; Brandon Jones is waiting to be executed for his role in a murder even though 5 jurors who sentenced him say his life should be spared; V-Day: COVID vaccines have begun in the UK; Amazon yanks racist doll; Celebrity Chef Huda talks Black biz and about her new spice line.Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Thank you. Today is Tuesday, December 8th, 2020, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Civil rights leaders reach out to Cobb County commissioners in Georgia to question the removal of polling places in advance of the January 5th runoff. We'll talk about that as well as talk with a spokesman from the Warnock campaign. Also, folks, today the Supreme Court has denied the latest legal challenge by Donald Trump to throw out the results in Pennsylvania. Loser.com, Donald Trump continues to lose in federal court. Joe Biden announces his COVID response team today, as well as his health team. We'll tell you about the African-American woman who has been chosen. Also on today's show, Politico is reporting that Congresswoman Marsha Fudge of Ohio has been chosen by Biden to be secretary for housing and urban development. We'll tell you what that means for African-Americans.

Also, a history is being made at MSNBC where Rashida Jones becomes the first African-American to lead a major news network. In Tennessee, Brandon Jones is waiting to be executed for his role in a murder, even though five of the jurors who sentenced him say his life should be spared. We'll have those details and talk about evil. Donald Trump is looking to execute five folks before he leaves the White House. Why are they in a rush to kill people? Also, COVID vaccines have begun

in the UK. Two black doctors who we often feature here at RollerMart Unfiltered announced they are going to actually take the vaccine and will provide updates to all of us about how that goes. Also, Amazon pulls a doll off their website that describes a black doll's

hair as colored, dirty braids. And celebrity chef Huda is joing us for our black business segment to introduce her new spice line. It is time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it.

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It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin. Yeah. Rolling with rolling now. It's Rollin' Martin Rollin' with Rollin' now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Rollin' Martin Martin In Georgia, all eyes on the nation are on that particular state, and folks, already Republicans are playing shenanigans when it comes to voting. Cobb County has announced that they will eliminate over half of the county's early voting locations.

Being that many of these locations are in black and Latino communities, the move will disproportionately affect people of color. Several groups, including the NAACP and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Voters Matter, and the ACLU of Georgia, sent a letter to the Cobb County Board of Commissioners and Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration to express their concerns. The letter stressed the importance of early voting accessibility, stating that advanced voting opportunities are vital to ensuring voters can safely,

securely, and freely participate in our democracy. The COVID-19 pandemic, which is ravaging the nation, has had extremely harsh effects in communities of color, especially African-Americans. And so what they said is that, again, they say it is an untenable option for many voters. Now, activists are hoping Cobb County election officials are going to reverse their decision. And Cobb made the decision, they said, because due to the drawn-out proceedings of the November 3rd election, because of also the holidays, they don't have the additional personnel needed to have those locations open. But there was a significant turnaround in Cobb County this year going for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Cobb County also is the third most populous county. Listen to me clearly. The third most populous county in the state.

And so voting rights advocates say this is an attempt to improve the chances of Kelly Loeffler, as well as David Perdue, in their battle against John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Hmm. Ain't that grand. Folks, do we have our guest ready? Let me know, please. To talk about this here. This is a huge deal. I do want to bring in my panel as well. Michael M. Hotep hosts the African History Network show. Candace Kelly, legal analyst. And Rena Shaw, the Lincoln Project Women's Coalition. We're going to talk to in a second to the spokesman for the Warnock campaign about this very issue. I want to go to you first, Michael, and that is this here.

Again, the reason we have problems is because of this goes back to Shelby v. Holder decision. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that it was unconstitutional, the whole issue of preclearance. All right. Gutting, gutting that particular section. Republicans have refused to fix that. As a result, since that decision, Republican-led states have been rushing to put in voter suppression. If Shelby v. Holder had not been ruled, if the Voting Rights Act was still intact, then they would have had to get permission from the Department of Justice to make one of these moves. This is one of those lasting impacts of that Supreme Court decision.

Absolutely, Roland. And thanks once again for having me on. So Shelby County v. Holder is extremely important. 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case. And when I speak across the country prior to COVID, I would ask many African-Americans about that court case, U.S. Supreme Court case, and they didn't know about it. You got to go back to 2012, 2012 presidential election. That preceded 2013, and there was a record number of African, the turnout percentage-wise of African-Americans voting in that 2012 presidential election that President Obama was on the ballot was a record number, 66.6 percent of African-Americans registered to vote voted.

And based upon my research, that was the first time the percentage of African-Americans voting was higher than the percentage of white people voting. Shelby County versus Holder was a backlash to that. And what happens is, Roland, is that because many of our people don't understand history, we don't understand these cycles of backlash that take place. OK, whether we talk about the end of Reconstruction, we talk about the end of the second Reconstruction and Richard Nixon being elected in 1968, running on the platform of law and order, which is a backlash to the Black Power Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, all of that. So right after Shelby County versus Holder, you had all these new states that started coming out with new voter ID laws. And then this impacted the 2016 presidential campaign where there were 868 fewer polling places.

We're not, a lot of people, you connected dots, but a lot of our people don't know that these dots exist to connect them. Because of Shelby County versus Holder, U.S. Supreme Court case 2013, and you had these Republican-led states that started shutting down these polling places because they didn't have to get clearance from a federal judge, Ari Berman, who wrote the article that you are going to talk about for Mother Jones. Ari Berman wrote a series of articles for The Nation during the 2016 presidential election dealing with this,

and he has one that talks about how there were 868 fewer polling places. Today is somewhere around 1,600, 1,700 fewer polling places. So we have to understand how all these dots are connected. And lastly, if the African-American vote did not matter, we have to ask ourselves, why do people work so hard to suppress our vote? Why are they going to the U.S. Supreme Court? Why are they shutting down all these polling places, many of them in African-American and Hispanic largely populated communities? So we have to understand this history and understand anytime you have periods of time of perceived advances by African Americans, there's always a white backlash. Yeah. You got to understand that history to be able to defend and block against that backlash. Candace, again, Cobb County says we simply don't

have the staff. Are you buying that? I am not buying that. And neither is Latasha Brown of Black Voters Matter. And I want to quote her by saying, there's one thing that you can counter Republicans for, and that is being racist and voter suppression. And they have stepped up and they have risen to the occasion. And so in this situation, we see that the machine continues to work to make sure that the numbers of Black folks cannot get to the polls. I mean, if we look at the overarching, just everything that's going on from what Donald Trump is doing on down, this is really kind of like an overthrowing of the government.

If we look at what that means, we're looking at people who don't want certain people to be in place. And that's exactly what Donald Trump is doing. And all the way down, all the Republicans in Georgia are working under the same kind of premise that Donald Trump is working on. And that's what we are seeing here. But as Latasha Brown said, and as everybody has said, who's been working on the ground in order to make sure that these places aren't closed, they are not having it. They are

going to work. They are in the trenches. They are working right now. This is something that wasn't a surprise. So they already have their plan B in action. Reena, the was interesting is that DeKalb County, they're actually expanding polling locations for the runoff election. Cobb County, also Republicans, that that is considered a Republican county. They had a four to one majority. That lead has shrunk. I think it's now down to three to two. And so there's no doubt in my mind you are seeing the impact. And for them to shut down one of the early voting locations in a black here, because we can wax on all day about what this really means for communities of color, and particularly Black Georgians, and how this is really disenfranchisement at its sickest, most really, really bottom-of-the-barrel type of actions from elected officials there. But we, again, talking about the facts, turnout is everything.

That's what this is all about, this runoff election. And we look at history and we see that black voters in Georgia haven't turned out in high rates, but this is the year that could be different because of the work of people like Stacey Abrams. She did the work in groups like Fair Fight, Black Voters Matter, New Georgia Project. Lots of African-Americans were fired up after Stacey Abrams lost and they've done the work. It shows in the, I mean, it showed in the general election. So this is going to make a dent again. This work is going to be impactful. It's going to be tough. This is an uphill battle, no doubt. But in the last four years, there's been a huge increase in Georgia registered voters in general. So when we look at the GOP,

I see one thing happening here. And I think the GOP, frankly, at the Georgia level right now is very much sabotaging itself as well. Trump is doing the Georgia GOP no favors. However, you look at Perdue and Loeffler, and they're calling on the Georgia secretary of state, Raffensperger, who wrote the op-ed saying that he went out and he supported Trump. He and his family, they voted for Trump. And after doing what he did, he suffered the repercussions that Republicans like me suffered long ago. When you fall out of line, it seems like the mob is coming for you. He's had death threats and the most vile things said about his wife. But again, Perdue and Loeffler are really talking about Raffensperger, and they're calling on him to resign.

I think that's a little bit of a sabotage technique. And then they're talking about Trump's lawyers hijacking their campaigns, essentially. So they're telling Republicans not to vote for them. This is this is, again, all goes back to the whole the election was rigged. There's a lot of confusion. So I think maybe that actually does help the case of Democrats in Georgia. And one final point, though, coalitions are important. What we see happening in Cobb County, really, is the coalition that's built by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, All Voting is Local, Georgia Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund. These groups are pivotal. So it's important for these groups to come together to fight voter suppression because it shows the unified coalition.

And that's honestly the first most important step. Let's go to Terrence Clark is a spokesman for the Warnock for Georgia campaign. Terrence, welcome to Roller Martin Unfiltered. Hey, how's y'all doing today? Doing great. This is the Washington Post story here. Janine Evler, who is the Cobb County elections director. She says she simply doesn't have enough trained staff in order to handle these number of polling locations. Quote, we lost several of our advanced voting managers and assistant managers due to the holidays, the workload and the pandemic.

She said the remaining team members who agreed to work would do so only if the hours were less onerous. We were at the end of the election cycle and many are tired or just unwilling to work so hard, especially during this time of year. Then she says that the workers are now, this was interesting here. She said that the workers are seasonal, uh, employees hired and trained for statewide elections. Many of them were not willing to work 14 hour days for six days a week for three weeks. Now he here's what I just would just sort of interesting about this. Terrence, my parents are 73 years old. They work the polls. These are paid jobs.

So these are not these are not non-paid jobs. These are actually paid jobs. My experience with people who work elections is that they are seasonal. And so they work those jobs. Are y'all buying this? You know, thank you for having me on here again, Roland. I definitely appreciate it. And I can't speak to what the county official was talking about. But I know that with the interest that's in this race, there's so many people out there ready and willing to help work and secure our elections. You have folks like Fair Fight, ACLU, NAACP, the party doing all types of amazing work. You can find some people to work these polls. And Reverend Warnock and John Ossoff not only put out a statement yesterday highlighting,

you know, why we need to expand access to the ballot, how important this election is, and how we quite frankly just believe and are that there are enough people out there willing and ready to do the work. And we'll continue raising that flag. I think that, you know, they need the help. There's a number of people out there willing to do it. And we've been fighting for voting rights. Reverend Warnock has been fighting for voting rights for years. And I think that a number of people are a little bit suspicious about the intentions behind this.

So we're going to continue to try to encourage people to go out there, early vote, absentee ballot vote, do what you can, because we see that there are clearly intentions by people on the other side, potentially to limit who has access and where they can vote. 537,000 people voted early for the November 3rd race there in Cobb County. What's interesting is that Cobb County experience, some people had wait times of five to 10 hours. So now by shrinking in half, you are about to exacerbate those wait times. Right, right. And I mean, I'll tell you from my own personal experience. So I live on the south side. I'm in a place called Henry County, another suburban area that's gone from Republican to Democrat. Because you have precisely candidates like Reverend Warnock, John Ossoff, Stacey Abrams, who are clearly appealing to growing the electorate. It took me five and a half hours to vote, and they had all types of machines in that place.

So I think that, you know, again, we are trying to expand access wherever we can. That's why we're encouraging people to let them know that it is safe to get your absentee ballot, drop it in the drop box. You don't want to have to wait in those long wait times if you don't want to have to be in those lines, potentially risking your safety, you know, during COVID. It makes no sense to limit access in the middle of a pandemic. Right. And so you have to ask yourself, what is the intention behind it? And I think we'll continue to do what we can, like I said, to make sure people recognize that early vote starts on the 14th. Try to get your vote out there. We have so much on the ballot right now from expanding healthcare to climate change to voting rights in and of themselves. It just seems illogical. You wouldn't do this in a regular year, but we want to do it in the middle of a pandemic.

It's a lot of questions, I think, left to be answered there. And again, so we'll certainly see that folks are still waiting on that. Terrence Clark, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Appreciate you. For the really thing in the moment, we're going to talk with Cliff Albright.

He is, of course, he is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter. I'm going to go back to my panel here. And Candace, again, I'm always talking about on this show how you have to connect the dots, how you have to understand that decision by the Supreme Court opened the door for massive voter suppression. Thousands of polling locations in the South have closed since the Shelby v. Holder decision. Most of your voter ID laws put in place after the Shelby v. Holder decision. All of these voter suppression tactics all came after the Shelby v. Holder decision.

By also connecting the dots, of course, massive turnout for Obama in 2008. Then folks don't come back. Listen to me clearly, people who are listening. People don't come back and vote in the 2010 midterms. Republicans flip 16 state legislatures. That's why today they control 30 or they control 30 or more. I think it's 31 governors, mansions and legislatures in the United States.

And so they then were able to put these laws into place because and that's how political gerrymandering, John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock can this, if they beat Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, Democrats will have a 50-50 tie. Kamala Harris can break the tie and they can actually pass a bill to restore what was taken, what was what was denied in that Shelby v. Holder decision. That's why so much is on the line here if Ossoff and Warnock are able to win. Absolutely. And you've connected the dots so well. And I think that one important thing that really kind of was the tipping point was what happened with Stacey Abrams. This really woke people up. And that's a big dot in the whole trajectory that you're talking about. People really had

their eyes open. And then she put work in, got a million people registered, right? We had a lot of people that were surrounded, that got around and made that happen. Also connecting the dots, we have to look at what could potentially happen in the future in terms of what the Supreme Court looks like now, because we know that it's not going to happen there. So we definitely need to look at Congress. As you said, if it's a 50-50 tie, then we've got Kamala Harris to break that tie. So there is a little bit of hope there, but people have become more awakened. We were asleep. A lot of folks were asleep over the years. As you said, these midterm elections, people generally don't think about them. Now, seven o'clock on CNN, we're sitting at home on a Sunday night

watching people down in Georgia because it's just that important and all eyes are on Georgia. I think that people have gotten the message not only for this election, but for more midterm elections to come. And in the future, I think people have finally become awakened. And the reason I keep going, I keep using that phrase, Michael, connecting the dots is because our people need to understand. Look, you say, look at what happened in North Carolina when Democrats were able to gain control of the North Carolina Supreme Court. That's why voting also matters, because guess what? You've got the sister there, Sherry Beasley, who is down 400 votes from the chief justice, which means that Democrats could have had a much larger lead. Now that's going to

shrink. That is important because she then determines what is called up. That matters also because, again, for the folks, when they say voting doesn't matter, if 500 people, more people, voted in North Carolina, she is chief justice. That's how they were able to strike down a voter ID there in North Carolina. That's how they were able to strike down racial gerrymandering. And so we have to understand all of these, all of these things are interlocking and how not voting can determine who does win and then who wins, then determines who controls the legislature, who control the legislature, then determines what laws are passed. and then who is on the county level determines who controls the elections board, which then controls polling sites.

All of these things go together. Absolutely, Roland. Not only does it all go together, but my degree is in business administration. So when we talk about economic empowerment and building black businesses, in 2016, you had people saying, we don't need to vote. We just need to do economic empowerment and build businesses, things like that. I said, that's good. I'm all for that. I've done that. But you also need to elect a president whose economic policies are going to protect the economy that your black-owned business depends upon to survive. You also need to elect a House of Representatives and a U.S. Senate that are going to pass laws that protect the economy and are beneficial to your Black-owned business, to your families, to your communities,

et cetera. So this is all connected, everything from criminal justice reform to relieving student loan debt to the education department, Environmental Protection Agency. So this is all connected. Then when we look at federal judges, because see, in 2016, one of the ways that the Republicans were able to get people to come out and vote against their own interests and vote for Trump was they said, this is about the courts, the federal court and the Supreme Court. So Trump has gotten, I think it's 225 federal judges now confirmed, okay? And it pushed through the Senate. And a lot of these nominations are coming from the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society and the

Heritage Foundation. The year 2043 is what has a lot of these white people scared. Not all of them, but a lot of them. And they know that by 2043, they will no longer be the majority population in this country. So they want to control the federal court for the next 25, 50, 35, 40 years, okay? So this is why even after they didn't pass a coronavirus bill in the Senate,

they're still ramming through these unqualified federal judges. This is one of the biggest white affirmative action programs I've ever seen. Go ahead, brother. These are unqualified people. Go ahead. And, Reen, I'm going to bring in Cliff Albright just one second here, but again, when we talk about how it's all interrelated, this is why we often on this

show constantly say you cannot ignore city elections, school board elections, county elections, state elections, federal elections, because what happens in this state election could impact what happens in this county election. What happens in this county election now impacts early voting locations. And so everything is not about the president orienced. And by that, by virtue of being people who do not want to be inconvenienced, we have fractured ourselves as a society. And that has led to us caring less and less about what happens to our neighbors. So the neighbors that don't look like us, don't think like us, ideologically, ethnically, racially, we are so divided because we have figured out that to be less inconvenienced, we can just shut off Karen. We don't have to show up to certain things. We have to care about certain things. So our value system is where all this really

comes down to. What is in our value system? I think about myself, for example, often when I compare myself to, say, cousins of Indian ancestry and who are the daughter or sons of immigrants like my parents. And so I think about that. And I think that it actually started at home for me. My dad got me really civically involved, got me caring about what happened in our government, not just because of my family's origin story, but literally because it was something that he weaved into our nightly dinner conversations. And he made time on the weekends to take me to an NPR event, for example. I learned what national public radio was at a very young age. And so it became ingrained in my

family's value system. And therefore it became something that was just natural to me when I was 18. Now, registering as a Republican was not something I don't think my father was very proud of, but he was glad that I cared so much. And I think that is the thing we do and we have to talk about as a nation moving forward, particularly this next year after this new administration comes into power. We really have got to figure out how do we get people to care? How do we get people to care? How do we get people to show up? How do we make it a part of our family value system that voting, civic engagement, these things are paramount to having the society, however you see it, having the American society that we all want, that we all can thrive in. Until then, it's just

going to be an every four years game. One thing, though, I want to share with our audience a stat that actually did help me feel more encouraged about the situation in Georgia. For example, this one stat really stuck out to me, and it was the number of eligible but unregistered Georgians. In 2016, it was 22%. Guess what? It fell. And in 2020, it was 2%. That's encouraging. That number is encouraging. That tells you people are showing up. They're figuring out something matters. I should show up.

I should care. I should be a part of a change because this is something that has had to take a multi-profit effort from outside forces, but we can do it right by making it right in our families first. Cliff Albright is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter. Cliff joins us right now. Cliff, look, elections are not federal elections. They are actually state elections. And they're not really state elections. They're also local elections. And so the reason I'm constantly walking through this process

is for people to understand that, yes, you have the secretary of state. Yes, you have the governor. But the decisions to exactly what early voting locations, those are county decisions. And so counties make those choices. That's also based upon budgeting. And so we have to understand that. And so we're seeing this now, again, with what Cobb County is doing. And look, it is fundamentally the Republican Party's strategy to lead voter suppression, pure and simple. That is their strategy.

Yeah, definitely. And for all the reasons that we've already talked about on this show, they recognize that their numbers are decreasing. They're recognizing that the demographics are on our side. They're recognizing that we're increasing turnout, that we're increasing registrations, right? And so it's at the local level. You've made the point very well about connecting the dots. The reality is, you know, we talk about Trump, right, and what this Trump era has meant. Trump didn't just happen overnight, and Republicans didn't get control of stuff overnight.

You talked about, you know, 2010. Even before 2010, they had a strategy which targeted the local level. As you said, county commissions, election boards, state legislatures. That's how they got to the situation where they were then able to gerrymander. After gerrymandering, they were then able to deepen their positions in Congress, et cetera, et cetera. If we're going to undo this, we've got to do it using the reverse strategy. We've got to do the same strategy, but to our favor. We've got to take over the same things, county level, local level, DAs, sheriff, school board, board of elections,

all of that in order to reverse this tide that we face. And we're doing it. And that's what's taking place in Georgia. That's part of the reason that we've had the success. And that's what has them on the run. You don't cheat when you feel like you're winning, right? You cheat when you know that you're behind and you're losing and you're scared and you're desperate. Now, you have the folks there in Cobb County saying, hey, sorry, we simply just don't have the people. Again, are you buying that answer? Because, again, these are paid positions.

People are like, oh, no, they're just so tired. Again, as somebody whose parents worked the polls, they ain't got no problem making more money. No, I mean, if you look at those reasons that were in that letter, it makes absolutely no sense from a couple of different perspectives. Right. They talk about, oh, it's the pandemic. It's you know, it's in the middle of the holiday season. Right. It's a runoff election. Guess what? None of that was surprising. We've been in a pandemic now for nine months. Right. We knew that there was going to be a runoff, even if you didn't notice there were going to be two runoffs. You knew that the other race, that the that the Warnock race was going to go into a runoff

because it was a jungle primary, right? So we knew all these things were going to be the situation. So to use that as an excuse, as like, these are things that just came out of the sky, makes absolutely no sense. Nor does it make sense, as you pointed out, that you can't find workers, right? Because again, one, you knew that you were going to be in this situation. But two, it's the holiday season.

You mean to tell me that you can't find some folks, and the truth is, you don't even have to have the poll workers that are just from that county. They could actually be from outside the county. You trying to tell me that you can't find 30, 40 workers to cover these six, five, whatever polling places? Wait a minute, hold on one second. Hold on one second. So you're saying that to work the polls there in Cobb County, you don't have to live in

that county? They could actually, if there are workers who are in DeKalb or if there are workers who are in Fulton County, they can actually hire them? That's my understanding. We can double check that, you know, certainly some on your team could double check that and we can get back to you. But that is my understanding from what I read earlier today. But even if it just has to be somebody in Cobb County, you can't tell me. I know Cobb County. There are communities all over Cobb County where you can find folks that are looking for holiday money, who have skills or

who can be trained, right, which is part of the issues that we've been raising all year long in terms of the training for these situations. So you can't tell me that they couldn't, knowing that we're in this situation, knowing that we're in a pandemic, knowing that there are some older voters that maybe would normally volunteer, or not volunteer, but would normally work the polls that weren't available. There is no way you can convince me that they didn't know that they would be in this situation. At the end of the day, this is not a situation that they were trying to fix. They know what the turnout looked like, not just in the metro counties, but all over the state

and black and brown communities. And they don't want to see that kind of turnout repeat itself in this runoff election. All right, then Cliff Albright, of course, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. Cliff, what are your upcoming events there in Georgia our folks need to be aware of? I mean, the main thing is, you know, it's this ongoing voter suppression, right? And not even at just the county level, the secretary of state continues to launch investigations that are targeting voter registration organizations like the New Georgia Project. You know, it's really ironic when you talk about the hate and the threat that this secretary of state and even the government to

a certain extent. I mean, it's literally like in 63, Malcolm talked about the chickens coming home to roost. That's literally what this is. They have created an environment of hate, an environment of false narratives around voter fraud. Right. An environment that has attacked voting rights organizations. And now it's backfiring on them and the suppression is backfiring on them. Because the truth is, the more they do these suppression tactics, they're actually helping our cause. Because people who may not have even been fully aware of the runoff race, right, who may have maybe got a little disengaged, the more we hear about these stories, whether it's Cobb County or whether it's Trump and all his fake litigation trying to steal the election, the more we hear about all this, the more that folks that otherwise may not have been engaged

are actually starting to take notice. And so it makes our job actually a little bit easier putting aside the suppression itself. But the narrative that it creates raises the awareness of folks that then lets us say, look, y'all, this is why we got to get out in these streets and we got to get to the polling place. Cliff Albright, I certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks, breaking news. Joe Biden has picked Congressman Marsha Fudge of Ohio to be secretary of housing and urban development. She is going to, of course, be leading that department.

Now, this is quite interesting because Fudge really was going after the agricultural secretary job. She was pushed vigorously by Congressman Jim Clyburn. But Joe Biden has decided to name her as secretary of HUD. And so that the Washington Politico, the Wall Street Journal, they are both reporting that that particular news as well. We certainly will wait for further announcement. This follows, of course, a decision by Joe Biden to pick retired four star General Lloyd Austin to be his secretary of defense in the Pentagon. Speaking of that, today, a group of civil rights leaders met with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to discuss his picks for his cabinet. In that particular meeting there, they talked about a variety of things. In fact, the Biden campaign released a readout of that meeting. I'm going to pull it up in a second.

The NAACP, National Urban League, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Laws Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, National Coalition of Black Civil Participation, Melanie Campbell, they were all in that particular meeting. And the idea, again, was all about the issue of the various appointees. And so, again, this is the this is the email here that I received from the Biden Harris team. We can go ahead and go to my iPad. The readout says today the president elect hosted a virtual meeting with civil rights leaders joined by Vice President-elect Harris and Congressman Cedric Richmond. President-elect Biden thanked the leaders for meeting with him for their support and counsel over the years and expressed the desire that this was the first of an ongoing relationship with this administration. They discussed their joint priorities, including advancing racial equity across the board, enforcing civil rights, and assembling a diverse White House and Cabinet that represents America.

They expressed the need to make sure the public knows the historic nature of many of the president-elect's diverse nominees and the need to galvanize the community around making sure that the Senate confirms them. The president-elect was joined by Melanie Campbell, president and CEO, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and Convener, Black Women's Roundtable, Kristen Clark, president and executive director for the Lawless Community for Civil Rights Under Law,

Sherilyn Ifill, President and Director of Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Vernita Gupta, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Derek Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP, Mark Morial, CEO of the National Urban League, and Reverend Al Sharpton, President and Founder of the National Action Network.

That was that particular meeting. Now, earlier in the day, Joe Biden also unveiled his health team. And one of the folks who he named to the health team there, of course, he picked, you see Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is returning as a Surgeon General. You also have, of course, one of the leaders in California is going to become Secretary of HHS. And so that's the team right there. But you see his COVID task force chair, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who was picked. This is what she had to say today. Mr. President-elect, Madam Vice President-elect, thank you so much for this opportunity to serve the American people.

I'm proud to go to work with leaders who are deeply committed to science and to centering equity in our response to this pandemic. And not as a secondary concern, not as a box to check, but as a shared value, woven into all of the work that we do and prioritized by every member of the Biden-Harris team. I'm enormously thankful to my research team and to my colleagues, to President Salovey and the other leadership here at Yale for supporting me in this work. And I'm grateful to all of the researchers and advocates who've blazed the trail,

whose work on health equity and racial justice too often went unbelieved or overlooked across the generations. Most of all, I'm thankful to my family. To Jesse and our three children for their unwavering support and humor, and to my mother and her mother for modeling kindness, generosity, and courageous leadership through service. I have wanted to be a doctor since I was six years old, and I'm a proud general internal medicine physician today. But as I grew up, I came to understand

that there were deeper dimensions to health beyond what I saw in the human biology textbooks that I borrowed from my mother's bookshelf. I grew up on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a place where people too often died too young from preventable conditions. My own father had his first stroke in his 40s and was left paralyzed. I learned there was a term for what we were, an underserved community, marginalized by

place and by race. In my medical training, I saw countless patients whose conditions were shaped by factors having nothing to do with science and everything to do with broader social inequity. And now the COVID-19 crisis has laid those inequities bare. It is not a coincidence, and it is not a matter of genetics, that more than 70 percent of African Americans and more than 60 percent of Latinx Americans personally know someone who has been hospitalized or died from COVID-19. The same disparities ingrained in our economy, our housing system, our food system, our justice system, and so many other areas of our society have conspired in this moment

to create a grief gap that we cannot ignore. It is our societal obligation to ensure equitable access to testing, treatments, and vaccines, equitable support for those who are hurting, and equitable pathways to opportunity as we emerge from this crisis and rebuild, including for those most marginalized communities, the undocumented, the incarcerated, the homeless.

I'm grateful for this chance to continue this work, to earn trust and to find success through genuine partnerships with the people and communities who've been hit the hardest during and before the crisis. On this team, you will be heard, you will be counted, and you will be valued. Thank you. Samantha is a professor at the Yale School of Medicine and the founding director of Yale's Equity Research and Innovation Center, and she will serve as the COVID-19 Equity Task Force Chair. I want to go back to my panel.

I want to talk about these various appointments and also the meeting with civil rights leaders there. One of the things, Candace, that if you look at the group there, I mean, those are the traditional civil rights groups. I have made the point that we should, there should be more groups there as well. I think there should be an additional meeting, a meeting between Black Voters Matter, with Until Freedom, with other upstart organizations, not just the traditional civil rights organizations, to present a much broader black agenda. Your thoughts? Absolutely. You know, first of all, I want to say that I just loved everything that Marcella said. And I think that that opens some doors for people to really

understand and see black women in a new light, because many times they're just underexposed. But certainly we need more meetings so that people can understand what we are talking about, what is important in the black community. One way that you find that out is you bring them to the table. You don't bring them to the table just once for some type of media event. You make them part of things that are going on.

They have to be integral. So as things change, as things grow, as subjects come about, there can be people there who can guide them on what's really going on at, you know, at the at the bottom and, you know, what they need to know. They certainly know what people are thinking about at the top, but it's the people at the bottom in the middle before you get to the top that really want their voices to be heard. So it's not just enough to to to stop at this one meeting

or to have two or three meetings. And as we know, Biden, when he made his acceptance speech or when he declared and said, OK, yes, when it became about that he was declared president, he said, hey, African-Americans have always shown up. And that is the truth. And now he has to show up, make some types of rules and make some type of agenda to make sure that we're at the table because we showed up for him and now people are waiting for him to show up for us. Also, just before we continue the conversation, a bit of breaking news is here. The U.S. House just passed the defense authorization bill. Donald Trump has threatened to veto that particular bill because it renames Confederate bases, as well as he wants to go after tech companies. It passed

with a wide, wide margin, meaning that that if he does indeed veto it, they could actually override his vote. We'll of course, we'll see what happens with the Senate. And then if he does indeed go through with this threat to veto that bill. So just letting you know that, Michael, I'll go to you again. This, you know, look, I get the civil rights groups wanting to meet with him about appointments. That is critical. There are other positions, you know, there are other positions that come up that as he begins to feel it out. You know, I've seen that the two people leading contenders for attorney general are federal judge Merrick Garland and then Alabama former Alabama Senator Doug Jones. I argue, frankly, that if it's down to Merrick Garland and Doug Jones, he should pick Doug Jones.

Why? Don't take Merrick Garland off the federal bench, the D.C. Circuit, knowing full well when you don't know if you're going to have a 50-50 tie in the United States Senate. Don't let Mitch McConnell control the process as to who actually gets picked to fill that particular seat. That's just my view there. Your thought. Go ahead. Well, no, I agree with that. And when I heard Doug Jones was in the running, I remembered when you had him on the show

a few weeks ago and we talked to him. And it was right before the election and he ended up losing the election, but he could end up becoming attorney general. So the meeting that the civil rights leaders had today, I think, was crucial. And I think some of our people don't understand the long game that they're playing. What they're saying is we're not going to wait until all the decisions have been made and then complain about the decisions. We're going to use the leverage we have now while the planning process is taking place to push our agenda, which is absolutely correct. The other thing is, I think it would

be good also for the newer organizations and things like that to have a meeting also. So I think the way that people are approaching this and the way a lot of the civil rights organizations are approaching this, I think is different. And you may correct me if I'm wrong on this, Roland. I think it's different than how they did with President Obama. But I think they learned a lot from President Obama. Because I remember you and I talked about this before. It wasn't until August 2013 that they presented President Obama with an agenda, a black agenda, quote unquote, black agenda, about a 33 page black agenda. I have a copy of it. OK, that was in the second term. OK.

But but but you talk about how the LGBT community presented him with a with about a 54 page agenda within the first 60 days of his first term. So I think many of us are learning from past mistakes and things like that, whether it's intentional or just something new. He was the first Black president, but he was the 44th president in general. So I think this is good so far, but I think it's important to keep pushing. I want to see who's going to end up attorney general, but also who's going to end up as secretary of agriculture. Secretary of agriculture is extremely important. The second largest budget in the federal government, again, always follow the money. That's what you always have to do there. One of the things that also that I hope after he makes his DOJ pick,

I really hope, Rena, that when it comes to running the civil rights division, that Christian Clark, someone like her, the lawyers committee, has chosen to run that. No woman has ever been confirmed for the position. Vanita Gupta was the acting leader of that division, but was never confirmed. That's a confirmed position. So no woman in history has ever been confirmed by the Senate to lead the civil rights division. To me, that would be a great pick to have someone like Kristen Clark restoring the integrity of that division, which has been completely decimated under Donald Trump. Yes, it has. And I think that is the hardest part to have watched,

to see Vinita Gupta do such an outstanding job there. I think people across the political spectrum could agree. We need to be having these conversations about what civil rights is in the year 2020, 2021. I mean, with Kamala Harris coming in to the VP position, this presents a really robust opportunity for the administration to not just say, hey, we're going to do things differently than the previous administration. These are the wrongs we're going to fix. This presents an opportunity to bring so many new people, so many new groups to the table.

And that was to your point earlier, Roland. It has to be done. That is the way I think this administration can win. When a lot of truly folks that feel confused right now about what's going on in the country, the fact that the phrase the election was rigged is still a phrase that still is out there every day in mainstream media. Now, obviously, it is one that's propped up by some far-right voices. But I think the unification that the Biden-Harris campaign talked about can really happen in the place of truly criminal justice as well. And Kristen, having been on the show numerous times, talking about a variety of issues in which she and her colleagues have done the work to stand up for black communities that have truly borne the brunt of our federal government's inadequacy, its incompetence in creating a judiciary that serves all Americans. It's much like medicine. And on this show, I've talked about often how I'm married to a physician. I'm the daughter of a physician.

I'm the sister of a physician. So I've learned certain things. And one thing that stuck out to me at a very young age as a brown girl growing up in Appalachia is when my mother, a lawyer, who actually explained to me why I was taking a different dose of Tylenol, because my body metabolizes it differently than a white person's body. When you look at clinical trials, who are largely the participants? Who are these drugs usually formulated for? White people. So communities of color,

we've been left out for a long time, whether you look at healthcare or legal, a number of sectors are going to be, I frankly feel unified by this administration. They're going to address some of the systemic racism that is apparent and obvious in so much of American life. So I'm definitely encouraged. I'm hopeful. That's my tone all the time these days, because we have a president-elect Biden. We have a VP-elect Kamala Harris that have both their transition team, both a largely female staff and 40 percent of people of color on this transition team. That is really huge. We should feel good about it because,

as you've always said, Ron, I really love this about you because we need to continue to awaken our fellow Americans to the very facts. And the fact is, if we don't have more people of color in mid-level roles, in sort of senior roles, how do we ever get them to the top? There is no pipeline. So it's good to name people to the top. We need to do that. But we need to create the pipeline

for people of color as well. And I think this administration is well-suited to do so. They're already laying the foundation for such. Folks, of course, other news. The Supreme Court weighs in on the campaign. We might as well play this. We only have 40-some-odd days left to play this, so go right ahead. Trump has been constantly lying about the election.

Did y'all hear the fool the other day in the Oval Office when he gave out another Congressional Medal, excuse me, Presidential Medal of Freedom to a sports dude where he says he won? Dude, no, no, no, no, no, you didn't. You lost. You lost. You lost.

And he's lost so much in the course, Candace. It's embarrassing. He was begging, oh, my God, Supreme Court, please, please intervene, please. It's got to be real painful when they issued a one-sentence rejection of this Pennsylvania lawsuit. Go to my iPad. The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the court is denied. That's it. It's one line. I mean, they have lost in state after state after state. It is embarrassing to watch these fools. And again, he he's been begging. He's been calling Republican leaders in Pennsylvania, please, please, begging them to overturn the election.

For somebody who talks about stealing the election, they literally are trying to steal it. They are begging people to overturn the will of the voter. You got this dumbass Ted Cruz who's saying that oh, no, I'll argue the case. I'll argue the case before the Supreme Court. See, the only way you kind of get to argue the case before the Supreme Court is if there's actually

a case. A case. That there is no case. And you know what? Just for the sake, just for the sake of it, just for the hell of it myself, Candace. Uh-oh. Let's just go ahead and just listen to the whining of the right.

Just listen. ...now with more surrounding the legal battle out of Pennsylvania, Senator Ted Cruz. Senator, let me applaud you, because you have offered to step up. I have said from the beginning, if you're looking at the constitutionality of what the state legislature in Pennsylvania did, it directly contradicts the language in Pennsylvania state constitution. Now, that to me is a slam dunk case the Supreme Court should take. You're now willing to argue that, which, by the way, let the record note, you have won cases in the Supreme Court.

Well, that's right, Sean, and it's good to be with you this evening. You know, we're seeing across the country lawsuits that are challenging voter fraud, that are challenging irregularities in the election. And in Pennsylvania, this appeal to the Supreme Court raises very serious issues. It raises pure issues of law. And I believe the Supreme Court should choose to take the case. I think they should hear the appeal. And as you noted, the legal team reached out and asked if I would be willing to present the oral argument if the court took the case. And I told them I'd be happy to because particularly at a time when this country

is so divided. Candace. Yeah, they got crushed. They got crushed in one sentence. And when you look at all of the facts, what we're looking at basically is a frivolous lawsuit. I mean, if you're going to go to court, you have to have something that you are arguing with facts that make sense, that could be decided one way or the other. Here's the thing. The decision has already been made. When the Constitution says we the people, guess what? We the people. And we have voted and we have already spoken. So we have about 250 lawsuits across the country and they keep being defeated. None of them have won. He's trying to create this narrative because he just doesn't know what to do. Frankly, we know that he's

probably very scared because once he is out of office, he's going to be facing more lawsuits of his own that do have standing and that are not frivolous. At the end of the office, he's going to be facing more lawsuits of his own that do have standing and that are not frivolous. At the end of the day, he probably owes the court some money because he's wasting people's time supporting this type of evidence or non-evidence to go through the court system and

it doesn't make any sense. They're just frivolous. There's nothing behind it. Nothing evidentiary to support. I am loving the complete just how the right is unhinged on this arena. I am. In fact, Lou Dobbs has completely escaped any reality. OK, this is this fool last night, y'all, with Stephen Miller on his show. I just want to show you know what? I really should play the crazy as white people stinger right here.

I really should, because this just if y'all want to see Looney Tunes, watch this. Republicans do nothing, Stephen. Nothing. It's it's it's an outrage. What the hell is wrong? Watch this. you're right tens of millions of ballots nationwide no signature checks no citizenship checks no residency checks no age checks no criminal record checks not even checking if you're alive or dead are we a third world country are we a banana republic what has it come to if you count only legal ballots from u.s citizens let me tell you what this president gets four more years. Let me and, you know, from your lips to God's ears. The reality is that this president right now is fighting. And let's be straightforward about it. He's fighting all along. And Ted Cruz

has stepped up to say he'll argue before the Supreme Court. Why in God's green earth wouldn't the White House jump on it? Why shouldn't they accept that right now? And I'll just say this one other thing, though. If three state legislatures, I just outlined, one correction in Wisconsin. No, no, Stephen, I won't let you say it. I'm not going to let you do this. I'm not going to let you do that. I'm not going to let you do that.

I ask a question. You and I, we're reasonably smart and decent fellows. Why don't you answer me? That's all I'm asking here, Stephen. Why don't you guys jump and salute Ted Cruz and say, yes, we want you on the team now? My God, this is not a time for internecine nonsense on the part of the Republican Party, which is watching its blood drain into the streets because they're gutless. I just got to play one more, y'all. He literally. So Mark Elias is one of the attorneys who's been whooping their ass in court. I mean, first of all, numerous people have been kicking their asses in court, okay?

Lawyers, community, civil rights, under the law, many others. Listen to Lou float this one, y'all. I just got to show y'all crazy. I just got to show y'all. Watch this. Why don't you guys put together a half billion dollars and go hire him and get him out of your way? Mark Elias, why don't you guys put together?

Wait a minute. He literally said, why don't y'all go raise a half a billion dollars to go pay off Mark Elias to stop kicking your ass in court? That's basically what he said. He said, Mark Elias is whooping y'all ass, and I'm laughing because this is Mark Elias' Twitter feed.

He's showing you all of the times, go to my iPad, look at this, he goes, victory, victory, victory, victory, victory. He's showing all of the, he goes, what was filed.

And he goes, victory, victory, victory. Oops, another victory. And he's just going on and on. And this is what he tweeted to what he said. He said, I've decided to turn down the money and keep my soul, but find out what Lou Dobbs thinks is worth $500 million and sign up for my free email newsletter. Rita, go ahead.

Oh, man. I mean, I think that's a lesson in grade A classy trolling. I mean, Mark Elias really taught us how to do it right. This is, man, Roland, how much time we got tonight? Because there's a lot to peel it right. This is, man, Roland, how much time we got tonight? Because there's a lot to peel off here for someone like me who made her entire career on the right and now has to deal with seeing

these same people be triggered, lose their darn minds about what's happening to their frivolous lawsuits. And Ted Cruz, for a minute, can we just back up and remember this is the guy who Trump insulted by saying something about his wife? And his daddy.

And his dad. That's right. And his dad. Calling his dad what? The guy who assassinated- Who killed Lee Harvey Oswald. This is a new territory. I want nothing to do with this.

I don't align with the party in its current form. I did not sign up for any of this because, I mean, it is just obvious. If you listen to Miller for a second there, you hear him talking out of both sides of his mouth. He's talking about just a banana republic. Buddy, what's your guy been doing for four and a half years now? He's been the one laying the groundwork for a banana republic in which he can come back again and again. So so we we get it. These Trump minions are they've lost their minds. They really have. They are unable to. I mean, they're divorced from reality.

They're unable to accept facts. And this is let me just shed some insight here to the audience. I mean, any anybody with a brain can really see this for what this is, but I'd like to just put emphasis on the point that as somebody coming up in the Republican party, um, over these past 15 years in particular, what I saw was the Democrats are the devil narrative that really has won out. Now, this is what's happening here is that Republicans have such a problem with Democrats. They've painted Democrats out to be anti-American. Got it. That Democrats will kill your children. Democrats essentially are talking about depopulation stuff.

I mean, this is the stuff that is winning with the base and making the party more and more right wing. Bring a whole tight one second. I got to bring in Melanie Campbell right now. She, of course, Black Women's Roundtable. She was one of the participants in that call today with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris. Melody, how did that meeting go? And what came out of the meeting? We earlier read the readout from the White House.

Thank you, Roland. Apologize. I can't stay on as long as I can. It's all good. Go ahead. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, we got you. We got you.

Go ahead. Okay. Okay. Sorry. I'm having some audio technical things on my we got we got you go ahead okay uh well i thought it was very good a very good uh meeting uh we it was close of course uh president-elect biden and president vice president-elect harris um and so i think one of the key things was that there was definitely a strong commitment, consistent commitment on dealing with issues of racial justice. When it comes to what I focused in on was the conversation around black women, the role of black women. You know, definitely thank them for selecting Harris and also Harris.

All right. Having some issues with Melanie's Skype right there. Let's see if we can get Melanie back back back with that. So I know she has another interview to do. So let me know if we have if we have Melanie back there real quick. Michael, I want to go to you when When you see these Republicans losing in the courts, but you also have the Republican Party, who's absolutely nuts, because today a very basic function where Congress votes on a resolution

telling American people they're planning for an inauguration. The Republicans wouldn't even vote for that. So the message to Joe Biden should be, dude, stop saying they're going to work with you. Okay. They, this is this Joe Biden had better understand something right now. They are not going to work with him. They are, they, the Republican party today, they are the party of trump trump is going to announce on inauguration day that he's running in 2024 he wants to freeze everybody out he is going

the only way you are going to get rid of trump you have to have perform an exorcist in the republican party and what he is doing all these lawsuits and the money he is raising, he has these idiots, idiots like Sean Handy, idiots like Lou Dobbs, idiots like Mark Levin, all of these idiots out here at conservative radio, on television, the idiots at OWN, O-A-N, the idiots over at Newsmax as well. These people, oh, my God, it was all stolen. And they are so dumb. They've given this man $200 million to fight legal challenges. When you get in your ass whooped, when you're one for 51, you got to be stupid to keep giving somebody that money, but they're not going to work with

Joe Biden. The fact that they are unwilling to say Donald Trump Trump, shut the hell up. Because here's why. Because what Trump is doing, those voters, they ain't voting Democrat ever. When I say this is Trump's base, no, it's the Republican Party's base. And that's what they're doing. The Republican Party of old ain't coming back. Rena ain't coming back. So bottom line is, so matter of fact,

y'all might want to stop calling yourselves Republicans because it ain't coming back. Michael, what they are showing, when you can't even vote on a simple resolution, that's all you need to know. Well, these are a bunch of cowards, but see, on my show Roland I talk about

how these Trump supporters who keep donating money to so they can file these frivolous lawsuits these are people who have not realized that wrestling is not real this is who they are appealing to and when you look at

wrestling everybody's in on it except the audience not real. This is who they are appealing to. And when you look at wrestling, everybody's in on it except the audience. See, the announcers, the managers, the people in the ring, everybody knows it's fake except the audience. Now, one person who donated $2.5 million to these frivolous lawsuits

has realized that wrestling is not real. His name is Frederick Eshelman. He donated 2.5 million, theguardian.com and Business Insider. I got an article on this. We talked about this on my show. Trump supporter who gave $2.5 million to fight election fraud wants money back.

He's suing them to get his money back because he realized wrestling is not real. So they have to keep going with the bit. They got to keep going with the bit. They got to keep going with the bit. That's what Stephen Miller was doing. He knows it's time to call the Jim James, Paul and Tyrone moving company. He knows he got to leave January 20th, 2021. But he has to go with the bit.

So personally, I got no sympathy for them. They're suppressing their own votes in Georgia. They can't figure out whether they're going to turn out or not turn out or whatever. They can't figure out which line person, which line Republican to listen to. So personally, you know, this is the chickens coming home to roost. Okay, what we got to focus on January 5th, 2021,

we got to focus on voting for Raphael Warnock and Ossoff. So that Democrats, and I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, but I sure as hell ain't stupid. I see whose policies are most beneficial for us and who's blocking those. So Democrats control the Senate and we can push these bills through and push these Republicans out. It's just it's again, again, I need I need everybody who is watching right now, all of you who are watching on YouTube and Facebook and Periscope, I need you to understand what we are about to go through. I have been warning you about this.

2009, I said, we're living in the age of white minority resistance with the election of Obama. The election of Obama led to the election of Trump white minority resistance It is happening y'all. These people are unhinged These are the same people who surrounded the home of the Secretary of State of Michigan the other day Saying the election was stolen and they were armed Understand what is going on here and Donald Trump is going to continue to whip these people up and whip them up and whip them up

and unless a Republican with guts, unless a Republican with guts stand up and says stop it. Enough. Like Senator Pat Toomey,

who said what you're saying about Pennsylvania is a lie. They're now attacking Brian Kemp. Mm-hmm. Trump called Brian... They're now calling... Sir, Kayleigh McEnany was just, I got Brian Kemp.

He's awful. He says, y'all, they are completely... I'm just telling y'all right now, just be prepared. I need to bring in Melanie Campbell back. I'm just telling you right now, just be prepared. I need to bring in Melanie Campbell back. I think we got our signal straight. And so we got Melanie back. Melanie, I was talking about just how unhinged these Republicans are and they're going to continue to be that way. Again, just give us the readout real quick of the meeting with the Biden-Harris. I'm not sure where it cut off, but the key was that we talked about really being committed to dealing with the issues of racial injustice in this country, things like voting rights and the like.

But I also focused in on black women being on the statutory positions on the cabinet. He also said in that conversation that he was definitely looking to have at least a couple of black women. I think since even while we were on the call with them, I think Marsha Fudge came out that she would be HUD secretary. It didn't come out in him saying that. Yeah, yeah, it's been announced, yes. But it came out on the media. But listing that we expect as for black women who gave 90 percent of our vote to see ourselves represented. Many of my other colleagues also talked about other African-Americans, men as well, and the need for them to make sure that whoever is selected for attorney general, how critical that position needs to be, that would have the kinds of experience to be able to address some of these critical concerns

in our community. Folks mentioned folks like, a couple folks did mention folks like Tony West and Deval Patrick, for example, would be some of the folks that would be definitely excellent for those positions. We talked about- You mean for Attorney General? Tony West or Deval Patrick? Attorney General, sorry. Right, because what I've been hearing is that Doug Jones and Merrick Garland

are at the top of that list. That didn't, well, I did not know that specifically, but what we talked about was the need for African-Americans and that we expect African-Americans to be represented well in those statutory cabinet positions. That was our focus. All right, then. Well, we certainly appreciate it, Melanie,

for giving us that update, and then we'll see what happens. Thank you. All right, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Folks, I wanted to talk about this here. This is something that is crazy. And so to understand how evil

and despicable these people are, 40-year-old Brandon Bernard, he is slated to become the ninth person executed since the Trump administration recommended capital punishment in July. Last week, a federal judge denied Bernard's lawyer's motion to stay the execution, despite the fact that several of the original jurors who initially sentenced Bernard to death row now oppose his forthcoming execution. He was just 18 years old in 1999 when he was arrested for his involvement in the slaying of a couple in Central Texas. The incident began as a foiled carjacking,

but ended with the husband and wife being shot in the head. Bernard was an accomplice in the act and allegedly believed the couple was already dead when he was then told by the government to set the car on fire. The case has received widespread attention with the clemency petition that has reached Donald Trump. Now, Bernard is currently scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection in the US penitentiary in Terri Hart, Indiana on Thursday. Now, his was interesting. This actually marked the 13th execution. I'm sorry, y'all, not 9th, the 13th execution since July. There was a 17-year hiatus when it came to the death penalty on the federal level. But this is a line, Rena, out of this AP story. It says this will cement Trump's legacy as the most prolific execution president in over 130 years. He'll leave

office having executed about a quarter of all federal death row prisoners despite waning support for capital punishment among both Democrats and Republicans. Rena, what's crazy here is what are you in a rush for?

They are literally rushing to put five people to death between now and Inauguration Day. It's a sick move. It's really, I think, counts to him. It's doing something. So he can say he did something. I want to tell the audience I've been affiliated loosely and a supporter of conservatives concerned about the death penalty for a number of years now. I think that the Republican Party, what I've seen as I've made my career in it, has railed against abortion, anti-abortion. Everything is about, you know, life, life, life. Well, if you care about life so much, what's with executions? What's with playing God, essentially? And so I really believe that we've

learned a lot about the death penalty in the last 40 years in particular. And for three decades, what we've seen is our elected officials tinkering with the death penalty in an effort to essentially make it more accurate and effective. But the system continues to fail. And that's the problem I have with the death penalty. A number of Republicans in Congress do not have this issue. Like I said, again, these are the same people that speak at the March for Life rally every year. So if you're a conservative out there listening, I mean, this is a great group. Go check it out.

Conservatives concerned about the death penalty. Here in Virginia, I'm a supporter of an affiliate with the Virginians against the death penalty. There's a lot we can do to talk about this. I mean, Trump is, yeah, there's a number of words we could use. I mean, he's talked about bringing back the firing squad, poison. I don't think that's going to happen. But this, the rate, the pace at which they want to kill people, the federal government to kill people, that should disturb every American. And about Brendan's case, wow, rife with inaccuracies. And I think what we know now,

what courts use now, the forensic work that's been done by professionals to modernize that science, that did not benefit him. Well, it's just evil. It's just evil.

And in fact, Candace, I want to read this here. Go back to my iPad, please. This is from the Associated Press story. Not since the waning days of Grover Cleveland's presidency in the late 1800s has the U.S. executed U.S. government executed federal inmates during a presidential transition. Cleveland was also the last presidency during which the number of civilians executed federally was in the double digits in a year with 14 executed in 1896. But I want you to look at this chart here. It says death penalty in the United States. And it goes back to when the death penalty was restored, Candace.

You see there the orange represents the states. The blue represents the federal government. There was an execution there in 2001. There was an execution in 2003. And then, I believe that was, was that McVeigh? I can't remember when he got executed.

But, look at all those years of the states, and all of a sudden this huge block right there in 2020. that is Donald Trump. He wants, as a part of his legacy to be, he killed more people than anybody else. He wants that as his legacy. He does. And we can also blame Attorney General Bill Barr because he supported this and said that, yes, this can

happen. It can happen quickly. There's a show that I watch called Botched. It's about plastic surgery, but it could be about the criminal justice system, because there are so many botchings as a part of this case. I mean, there were parts of this case on appeal where there was not even an opening statement that the attorney gave. And then, as we've talked about before, we had some junk forensics, junk science here. You have poor counsel. You also have someone who wasn't given the benefit of the doubt that their age actually played a part in this. This is a guy who just turned 18 at the time. I think he's 40 years old now. Everybody, think about your 18 year old self. This is why we have age limits. Let's say you have to be 35 to be president of

the United States. This is why we don't have juveniles that will suffer and go through the death penalty process. This is someone who just turned 18. There are so many studies that have showed how the development of an 18-year-old male's brain kind of happens. And it doesn't happen as quickly as it does for somebody else, obviously, who might be older or a different sex. So this case has just been botched from the beginning, let alone the fact that you have former jurors who have spoken out and said, my goodness, I am so glad that these days have come where I can finally speak and say my truth, that I don't believe that this man should have been put on death row. I think that one thing that is working in his favor, and we're talking about the clock ticking, and the clock ticking mean that when President-elect Joe Biden comes into office, he doesn't believe in the death penalty. So there might be some time that could be bought. On his side, though, if he gets the celebrities, if he gets people working for him on the ground.

I mean, listen, look at Kim Kardashian, whether you like her or not. She was in the president's office and she did get somebody pardoned. And she has spoken out about this case, too. So there is some groundswell of events that is going on right now. And it will be very interesting to see what happens in this case. But meanwhile, here's Donald Trump saying it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Basically, just kill them all. Kill them all. Because that's going to be a feather in my cap.

Yep, absolutely. Folks, got to go to a break. We come back. We'll talk about Amazon removing a racist doll from their listing. Uh, yeah, uh, it's kind of basic, really. Um, it's kind of basic. Also, Chef Huda joins us for our Black Business segment,

talking about her new spice line. All right, y'all, more on Roland Martin Unfiltered after this break. This generation, which gets so much inspiration from entertainment, you know, this generation is influenced. I mean, every generation has their influence. But I

would argue by and large, when you talk about Harry Belafonte or you talk about how it was in the 60s, 70s, and even 80s, there was you had the entertainers, you had the church, you had the activists. In our day and time, you know, the church is somewhat losing its influence. Entertainment influence is growing. The activists are losing their influence.

So where do most, you know, this younger generation go? They go to entertainment, you know. And so the influencers, entertainment can actually move the needle. And when you see people become active, I love how this younger group of people are saying, wait a minute. We don't like what just happened with Kavanaugh. We're going to do something about it. We don't like the fact that there's no gun control. We're going to do something about it.

And I do think that as tragic as these events are, they are becoming more galvanizing to get this younger group of voters, which is so influential, to get out and do what we know they can do, which is to help move the needle in a massive way. Neighbor as yourself. It's a value we all try to live by, but in Washington, it's been forgotten. It's clear. Our politics are broken, overcome by a selfishness that rewards money and power, leaving far too many of us out of the conversation. I'm Raphael Warnock, and I see you. I see too many communities left behind,

too many hardworking people ignored. I'm running for Senate to be your voice. That's why I approve this message. We're at Mom's Kitchen in Preston, Georgia. It's a family business. I enjoy making people happy, giving them a good meal. But since COVID, we had to close our main dining room. We lost all of that business, and we used to do a lot of caterings.

We can't do any of that anymore. David Perdue knew what was about to happen. He was getting classified briefings about the pandemic. But instead of him being concerned about us, he off selling stock. We had no idea we'd have to close our businesses off. We'd lose caterings and so many people died. And then when we needed help the most,

he fought against the stimulus checks and to cut unemployment insurance. Perdue needs to come out and Ossoff in. Early voting starts December 14th. You've got to make a plan to vote. I'm John Ossoff, and I approve this message. Who stood behind this pulpit was opposed by the powerful and wealthy. He was called a communist.

That he hated the police and his movement would destroy America. They attacked his personal life and distorted his policies. Sound familiar? It should. The hateful voices of old Georgia are back. They attacked Reverend King. Now they're attacking Reverend Warnock. It's disgusting. It's wrong. But with Mitch McConnell and Kelly Leffler,

it's no surprise. The Lincoln Project is responsible for the content of this advertising. Well, when you start thinking about the history in this country of voting rights, one of the things that people don't like to talk about was when you had Susan B. Anthony, who was battling Frederick Douglass. When you talk about the women's suffrage movement, there were some races in the women's suffrage movement. Yeah, that was real. And these races did not like the fact that black men got the right to vote through one of those Reconstruction amendments.

I thought about that when I saw this story, where this was in Politico. And go to my iPad, please. Biden's Pentagon pick frustrates women who sought a different history maker. The story talks about all these women who felt that Michelle Flournoy should have been named as the secretary of defense. She served in a key role in the Pentagon under President Barack Obama. They keep saying this is the second time because they said she was passed over, had Hillary won. Well, she wasn't passed over.

Hillary Clinton didn't win. So she wasn't passed over. But the thing here is, and you got folks in here who are quoted as saying that, yeah, you know, look, we know General Lloyd Austin was picked, but, you know, and yes, he's the first African-American as historic. But they really wanted a woman to be picked for for this job. And so so this is one of those things that, OK, fine, Michael, let's just break this thing down. If we will talk about politics about the spoils go to those who win. Fifty five percent of white women voted for Donald Trump.

Ninety plus percent of black women voted for Joe Biden. Eighty percent of black men voted for Joe Biden. More black black women and black men, black women and black men voted at a higher rate for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris than white people, than Latino people, than Asian people, Asian American people in this country. Numbers don't lie. So, you know, this whole deal of like it. So I just thought it was interesting reading this story. And the story says, but Florida backers, while stressing they have no personal beef with Austin, nonetheless said the former undersecretary of defense was the better choice, not merely because of her gender,

but because she was the most qualified candidate. I mean, Lord Austin's a four-star retired general. Granted, he has to get a waiver from the House. He's got to get a waiver because, again, the Pentagon is supposed to be covered by civilian, and he has not been retired for seven years, which is part of the law there. But, again, it's interesting, again, this dynamic. And the article, here's the other deal. The article says Biden's pick frustrates women. White women? Yeah. Which women are you referring to?

I'm just saying white women, because I mean, I mean, I go ahead. I was, you know. Well, you know, so once again, when you deal with the first of all, when you deal with the Democratic Party, you're dealing with a big tent, number one. But you're right. African-Americans overwhelmingly supported Joe Biden. Lloyd Austin is is more than qualified. Now, that you have in this as well. And you're right. It does remind you of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass because the white suffragists, the white feminists who were fighting for the right to vote for women, they took offense to the fact that African-American men in 1870, because of the 15th Amendment, got the right to vote before they did. And they were saying, wait a second,

these are former slaves. Many of them are former slaves. How did they get the right to vote before we do? Okay. And this caused some tension because because you know you're going to have some of them that were abolitionists, but they're like, hold on, wait a second. We want you to be free, but how are you going to vote before we do, okay? So, yeah, this kind of reminds you of something like that also, you know, with this conflict

here, but, you know, hey, it's... We'll see what happens. Candace, again, when I see headlines like that, you know, women, I mean, my first instinct that y'all ask any black women. Right. I think that you're right. Did you ask any black women? I think the answer is no. And that's how they came up with the headline. But it also reminds me of the fact that when we're in the workplace, and I mean black women and white women, we do understand the hierarchy of how it goes when it comes to moving up the job ladder and when it comes to getting what you want at work. It goes,

and correct me if I'm wrong, and this is how I see it and the people in my circle see it, you've got white men and then you've got black men. If they happen to be there, there might be the O and O, the one and only, but if they're there, they're going to get more respect. And then next you have the white woman and then you have the black woman. So I think that just is an example of what you're saying in that there is a hierarchy and white women are mad about it and they're still mad about it. And they they we see this coming out in headlines like this. It makes sense. I see it in the workspace. And I think that this is what we're seeing. Reina. Well, that waiver you talked about, Roland, Matt has had to have that same waiver as well. But I woke up this morning and I saw a tweet from Congresswoman Elisa Slotkin talking about being critical of the

Trump of General Lloyd Austin. And I should read it. She said, I have deep respect for General Lloyd Austin. We worked together when he commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, when he was vice chief of the army and when he was the CENTCOM commander. But choosing another recently retired general to serve in a role designed for a civilian just feels off. And I, you know, my first instinct really was, really, is this what you're going to come with after everything we've been through as a country these past four years? Not just unconventional picks across the board. Well, Madison and McMaster certainly were not the were the types of picks that that Republicans by and large applauded for the Trump administration. But what I didn't love about the congresswoman's tweet is that I just felt in my gut that would

this tweet have come if it was anybody else? And we know that Jay Johnson has also been somebody who was sort of in contention as well. Michelle Flournoy, yes, she's beloved. But I think the Congresswoman, Elisa Slotkin's tweet, indicated exactly what we know is at play here, is that if it's a Black person ahead of a white woman, what are we talking about here? It's a discomfort.

And so I don't really have so much of a problem with General Austin. I mean, I haven't really, I don't know that much about his background, except for that, what I have read of it and what I know of it. And the congresswoman had a thread for anybody that's interested. She goes on and on about, you know, his experience. But, oh, he hasn't been in private life long enough, and we really need a civilian over there.

I just don't get it. Why are you picking these fights at this point in time? We are at a crossroads in the country. The current occupant of the Oval Office has not conceded. And look, he's not legally required to do so. But he continues to go out there and say that this election is rigged. I mean, our democracy is on the line more so than it has been in my lifetime ever before. So these are the battles they choose to pick. Shows us exactly what's going on inside their heads. And again, look, I'm just saying, look, numbers don't lie.

55% of white women voted for Donald Trump. Five, five. An increase of 2% over 2016. Right. An increase of 2% in 2016. So, but part of my deal here also deals with how media frames these things when they say women take exception to this. When, again, my mind goes, are we talking about black women? Speaking of black women, news was made yesterday when MSNBC announced that Rashida Jones is going to be the new president of MSNBC. She is going to be replacing Phil Griffin, who has spent 25 years at the network. The decision to name her president means that she becomes the first African-American, the first African-American to run a major news. I didn't say first black female executive in the history of news.

No African-American has ever run a network news division. Not one. Okay. Not one. And so what's important here, what are we showing here? I don't think you, what was that? All right. So just keep it on Rashida.

So here's the deal with this right here, with what's happening here. If you look at the numbers, look at the numbers at CBS News right now, Kim Godwin is the number two at CBS News. Mark Whitaker, who was awful at CNN, I was there. He was a number two at CNN as the managing editor. He was awful. Okay. And I got no problem saying it. So when you look at these networks, you have never had an African-American who has ascended, uh, to run a news network. Now, um, let me unpack this, me unpack this Candace. Um, it is absolutely, you know, I'm a huge believer. It's important that we, uh, we are in all of these places,

but what we're talking about here, and this is why this is important. This is important, Candace, because this is an operational role. This is an operational role, okay? And the reason that it's important is because for long, if you go back to the Kerner Commission report in 1968

where they examined the race riots in 67, they said there were two nations, one black and one white, and they called on the media to diversify. So for the longest, African-Americans have talked about all the excitement of seeing faces on the air. And so recently they announced that Jonathan Capehart, Tiffany Cross is going to be hosting weekend shows, one on Saturday, one on Sunday on MSNBC. As the vice president digital for the National Association of Black Journalists, I have been making the point that it's the operational roles important. Because why is that? Because Rashida Jones as president becomes the person who picks who goes on the air. Right.

That's what the power is. She will be controlling the daily news meeting in terms of what the direction is for the network, digital and linear all day. And so and that's the thing that we're where every day when I'm when I'm looking at deadline dot com, I'm looking at Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and I'm looking at The Wrap, and I'm looking at all of these different positions. They're being hired at Netflix and WarnerMedia and Disney. I'm looking at the faces, and the reality is this here. There are very few black faces who are hired in these operational roles. Oh, no, no, no, I get, oh, so-and-so got a development deal over here at this network, and so-and-so got this deal over here.

And let me tell you something right now, and I get it. I think people understand that people say, oh yeah, but Stephen A making $8 million a year at ESPN, and Robin Roberts is making 15 million at Good Morning America. Guess what the executives are making? And they don't have to worry about hair and makeup and how their nails look or what people are saying about them.

And they can do those jobs, man, until they're 70, 75, 80, and they can go on and on. They are operating in the millions. That's where we begin to understand the power dynamic. And so I think for a lot of us, it's great to see the faces being hired on air, which is important, but we had better focus on also challenging these companies

to make sure we're getting hired for the power positions. And that's the operational jobs. Candace, go ahead. Absolutely. Roland, I teach TV, and I put a lot of African-American men and women out in the field to be reporters and to be in newsrooms. They tell me the same thing all the time. I am the oh-and-oh in my newsroom, or I'm one of two.

By oh-and-oh, I mean one and only. And generally, along my career, that has been the case that you look up, you're the only one kind of really having opportunity to advocate, to say what goes in the news, because once something goes in the news, then it becomes part of people's conversation. Then they see it as important. This is a connecting the dots, just like you were saying, if they see it as important, then they're going to, you know, put it on the top of their agenda in terms of what we need to vote upon or what makes, you know, what's right, what's wrong. If people are talking about it, then it's going to be on somebody's agenda. So we need people

at the table. And you're right. This is very important because she is going to be making decisions about who goes on air. I think that we've started to see the changes already, as you've seen, because not only are they on air, but as you know, as being the host of a show, you also make decisions. You're at the table. You're coming up with the rundown to say, this stays, this goes.

This goes at the top of the show. What type of guests do I want? I'd like to have more diversity. We need somebody who's Latino. We need somebody who's Native American. We need all of these things. So this is a big deal and a long time coming. And just like any other position that somebody gets that's big, who's African-American, we're going to start seeing people change their views about how they

see people in the newsroom in roles of power because they are just not there. This is the thing, frankly, Michael, when we talk about, again, I'm going back to black power. Yes. Black power. It's understanding how it's being used in leverage. The point that Candace just made, I am not just the host of the show. I'm the managing editor of the show. That was the case when I was at TV One as well, which meant I had final say-so on the editorial content of the show.

That is the key. Who controls the narrative? What stories are now being emphasized over other stories? What now becomes the messaging? Where we begin to shift resources? What parts of the country do we go to? All of those things matter, and it matters who is sitting in the position because historically in media, the reality is like in corporate America, white men are in control of media in America.

Well, this is extremely important, brother. And, you know, I talk about how power is the ability to define and shape reality and have other people accept your definition of reality as if we're their own, as Dr. Wade Nobles teaches us. So when we deal with media and have a background in media, this influences the conversation. This influences what people are talking about, what they're reading. When you have control over content like this at MSNBC, this influences the snippets, the video clips that show up on Facebook and YouTube and Twitter, things like this. Articles are then written about this as well. This is an opportunity for us to get more of our issues pushed out nationally that influence legislation, that influence policies, et cetera. But it's also important for us to understand we African-Americans

pay for these positions because these positions are because advertisers, corporations advertise with MSNBC. They take that money and then pay these people for these positions. Well, a lot of these corporations get money from African-Americans. So we also have to understand this on this other side is leveraging our economics to push harder for these various positions, not just at MSNBC, but at CNN and things like that as well, because we pay for them also. And this helps us in addition to African-American owned media. We need that. So I'm not knocking African-American owned media. I want people to understand me on this. We need both. We need both.

We need both because we pay for them. We pay for those positions also understand on this is looking for them to understand how you must see this whole deal. Understand, and again, I go back to power. Who is in power? How power is being controlled? How power is being controlled, how power is being defined. Because now having Rashida Jones sitting in the position of president, now it's who are the contributors?

That's right. Who are the correspondents? Who are the executive producers? Who are the senior producers? Who are the line producers? Who are the associate producers? Who are the line producers? Who are the associate producers? Who are the interns? And again, all those things matter. And now, again, now you're able to now bring that. And this is where also with a Rashida Jones being in as president, and this is the key,

and see, this is why I need people to understand everybody out there. When y'all go back to 2009, when I criticized the Obama White House for the lack of black people in the press office, because I say it is who's a junior now because a senior in the next administration. And so what then happens is when Rashida Jones comes in now as president, she can now install her own team. And so guess what? What if all of a sudden, what if all of a sudden Rashida Jones goes, well, you know what? My vice presidents and my EVPs and my SVPs, I want more black people. I want more Latino people. I want more Latino people.

Now I'm assembling my own team. Now, folks, listen, what that now does is Rashida now is positioning the next wave of senior black and Latino executives

where other companies then begin to hire. So if all of a sudden, if her team of 20 execs are mostly white, she comes in and all of a sudden it's now 50, 60% or more people of color when, cause Jeff Zucker's out at CNN, when Warner media gives him the boot, they're going to be looking to play. Who do we hire? The reason we are never in position for the power positions is because we never ascend to a senior level. And so that's why you got to have black people who, when they do get power, they are committed to saying, I'm not going to be the only one. And they're going to say, I'm a hold that door open. Damn, hold it open.

I'm a go blow the hinges off. And so now all of a sudden you're able to build capacity because you now have the power position. That's right. Media has such an impact on our lives as we've seen over the years. I mean, it's just grown and grown. And how we see the world is shaped by major networks like MSNBC. So I just want to take a pause here and say that when I saw this news about Rashida, I just actually ended up shedding a couple of tears. And I really get goosebumps because it's just so big. It's so, so big. I was celebrating this whole time, the Biden-Harris transition as it goes along, and they're naming women and people of color, and they're really changing what the executive branch looks like because there's been such

little diversity. And then I look at news and I see this beautiful Black woman who seriously is going to be a power player that is setting the narrative for years to come. It just makes me so happy having become a part of all this, not as a journalist in any way, but as an opinion contributor, as an expert guest. I have to say, number one, my hat's off to you, Roland. I met you in 2017. I started coming here on your show. And in 2018, I was invited on MSNBC, and I've been going there since June of 2018. You create a pipeline. Media needs a pipeline, and we can't do it unless it's all done this way. So, yes, there needs to be black media.

As equally as important as Rashida being named president over at MSNBC, this is all of an above effort because what it does really at the end of the day, it lifts others as we rise. And because I started coming on this show, I've met so many incredible people that have lifted me in my rise. And I'm trying to look back and do the same because this is the thing. If we don't tell our stories,

there's somebody out there telling them for us and they're not being told authentically. And frankly, then the nation is being done a disservice because we don't have the nation's diversity, the growing diversity of the American electorate reflected in how our news is given to us. Because people often think that, look, the news is spoon fed to us through a variety of outlets these days. Some of that's true. Actually, a large bit of that is true. But there remains these fundamental shifts in news. And one of the greatest ones is in how opinion contributors and expert guests like myself routinely join broadcast journalists on air to augment conversation. Right.

And that's really important for average Americans to know is that I'm not out there giving you a factual take. I'm giving you an opinion take. And so we realize how media works for us. Then we became a more engaged, informed citizenry and the country is better off for it. And just one last thing about lifting others as you rise, because I see what Cesar Conde, who was named the chairman of NBC Universal Group back in May of this year. I see that he's he's really doing good on his promise and his commitment. He set a goal of having a 50 percent diverse workforce across his division back in July. And I think this is this is really monumental with Rashida at the helm there.

We're going to see some shifts. It's not just about who's appearing on air. It's about when they're appearing on air as well. So allow me to make this final point to pick up on what Rita said when she talked about pipeline. When you are intentional with it. And go back to the panel. I'm doing this for a reason. OK, so you see the announcement. Tiffany Cross getting the show on MSNBC. Here's how she got on TV One. Jamal Simmons hits me up and says, hey, Tiffany Cross has this newsletter called The Beat.

He said, man, she'd be great for your show. I was like, all right, cool. So then we booked it. Then we started booking her more and more and more. To Rena's point, all of a sudden, all the networks started calling. The exact

same thing happened when I put Angela Rye on my show. I just sat there. I got the television on right here. I keep it on. I just saw Paul Butler, legal analyst on MSNBC. Y'all, go to

YouTube. You can see Paul Butler, Georgetown professor, when he was on my TV one show, Washington Watch, back in 2009, before MSNBC called. I can go down the list. The number of people, Sure, Michael Singleton.

Paris Denard. I can go David Swertlich. I mean, we can go. Everybody's talking about Lauren Coates. Man, people are like, oh, my gosh, Lauren Coates. Feeling on CNN. Guess where the first show she filled in? My TV One show.

What I'm trying to get everybody to understand is the issue is not, yay, a black executive. in a position of power, create the opportunity for others who would ordinarily be ignored to be able to come into the door. I spent six years, I need y'all watching to understand, I spent six years at CNN and I watched how contributors got blocked. I watched how great voices

never got a shot. And I said, no, I'm going to do that. So when I hosted, when I filled in, when I did specials for CNN, no, no, we're going to put that person on. Y'all, I'm cracking up laughing

watching Steve Kornacki getting all his love. I can show y'all when he was on pilots I did at CNN. Guess who was a guest on a pilot I did at CNN? Rachel Maddow. Guess who was on pilots that I did at CNN? Melissa Harris Perry. So what I'm trying to say is this is where when we get in positions of power, we must use the power.

That's right. That's what they've done. Use the power. And when you use the power and then all of a sudden you begin to infield, that's why I can sit back. You ain't got to shout my name. But when I turn that TV on and I see a black person, Gianno Caldwell is on Fox News right now. Where did he get his start?

On TV one. Y'all, that was deliberate. It was deliberate. It was deliberate. But the only way that happened is because I had the power to make it happen. And so that's what's key for our audience to understand. We must, when we get the power, we must celebrate it, and then we must use it. Pal, I appreciate it. Thank you so very much.

Candace, Michael, and Irina, I appreciate it. Coming up next, our Black Business Summit. We'll talk with Chef Huda about her line of spices next to Roller Martin Unfiltered. You cannot fulfill your life. If you're not willing to engage. In the tactics and strategies that makes your own life grow and helps you to build the community in which you want to live. Voting is a singular method for a people locally and regionally to govern themselves.

When the going got tough in business, to govern themselves. When the going got tough in business, David Perdue outsourced American jobs overseas. In a deposition, Perdue testified he spent most of his career outsourcing. You made a career out of outsourcing. How do you defend me, though? Well, defend it. I'm proud of it. When the going got tough in the Senate, Perdue hid in the airport bathroom and even stole someone's cell phone who asked him a

tough question. When the going got tough with COVID, Perdue hid critical information while selling his own stocks. Records show that Senator David Perdue bought and sold stocks shortly after a private Senate briefing on the virus. It's not just that you're a crook, Senator. You're attacking the health of the people that you represent. Now, Perdue won't even face his constituents backing out of debate after debate. Enough incompetence, deceit, corruption, division. Change has come to Georgia. Change is coming to America.

Georgia needs a real senator, not a chicken Perdue. Midas Touch is responsible for the content of this advertisement. All right, folks, real quick here. Amazon, I got to tell you about this story here. Amazon has removed a particular doll from their store shelves. Let's just say it had a little problem on the race side here. The doll was described as a dolly, yearning, 14-inch adorable black doll with casual red skirt and colored dirty braid fashion, gorgeous doll for $83 plus. A Chinese company who has been working with Amazon for less than a year posted the doll for sale on Amazon.

Many find it interesting that when the Chinese company posts white dolls for sale, it doesn't place race or the word dirty in the description. Although Amazon has recently removed the doll, many people aren't letting Amazon off the hook. Earlier this year, Amazon had to remove another product from its site. This time it was a pair of shoes described as nigger brown. Some people have us ahead enough and some are saying to boycott Amazon as a result. But again, that doll has been yanked. All right, folks, every Tuesday we talk about we talk to a black business owner about their company and their wares. And so joining us right now is Chef Huda.

She has a new line of spices coming out. So Huda, what's up with these spices? What's up with this line of spices you got coming out? Roland, how are you? Great. Good, good, good. So I started Just Savor Spices because I wanted

to put salt-free options into the universe that were bold in flavor and healthy. Since then, we started the company and we've been doing wonderful. Everyone's cooking at home right now. We've extended the line to offer traditional salted flavors as well. We also have gourmet salts and gourmet sugars. All right. So, okay. So, okay. Hold on.

So I need you to explain what the hell are gourmet salts. I mean, where I come from, salt is salt. Okay. It's some white damn salt. It come in a bottle. Like now we got gourmet salts. Listen, I knew you were going to ask. So we have our, they're basically flavored salts.

So we have our Merlot salt, which is flavored with Merlot wine. We have our applewood smoke, which is one of my favorites. It has a smoky flavor to it. It's beautiful on a lot of different things. And we have ghost pepper salt. So when you say gourmet, it just means that you're working with the highest quality of ingredients, but you're also adding flavors as well.

Okay, so you also got gourmet sugar? Yes, so we have a maple sugar, which is reduced down basically maple syrup, and it's beautiful for baking, especially during the holiday season. All right, so with these spices, first of all, where can people go to actually get them? holiday season. All right so so so with so with the with the spices first of all where can people go to actually get them.

So just savor dot com is where we're selling them and currently we have extended our Black Friday. Sales so right now their items on the website that are 40% off we ever spice box which is perfect for holiday season includes 3 spices a cooking class for me, and recipes for me. So it's a wonderful thing, especially because everyone's cooking this holiday season. So JustSavor.com, y'all. This is the website.

Go to my iPad, please, and so you'll see the website here. And once you go on here, you'll see all the stuff on here. So when you were putting this together, why? Why? Were you not satisfied? Like, I'm sitting here. So explain this. Jam and jerk, spicy garlic madness, ghost pepper, sea salt. What the hell?

We got international flavors, holiday gift box. Then we got the fire and smoked holiday gift, Cajun kick, southern sweet, heat barbecue, applewood smoked, sea salt. Yes. So for me, just like a lot of business owners, we had a catering company and I also was doing private chef gigs for some of my clients before COVID. And, of course, we had to pivot. I started the Spice Line a couple years ago, but kind of put it on the back burner because we were doing so well with the catering and appearances and things like that. And COVID kind of came in and just said, hey, we have to pivot.

And I thought it was a perfect time to bring these options to people and hopefully inspire people to share recipes and share moments with people over food. All right then. And so also let people know you're giving, so you're giving 10% to charity? Yes, absolutely. So part of my brand has always been to give back to our communities. So every purchase we give back about 10% to different charities that we work with. I'm an ambassador for American Heart Association. That's one of the reasons that we started with the Solve Free line because I think it's really important that we all do something

that's near and dear to our heart, especially in this trying time. All right, then. Chef Hood, we certainly appreciate it. Congratulations on this line. You're right. Everybody has to pivot. And, yes, a whole bunch of people who ain't got no clue when it comes to cooking. And they are they need as much help as they can.

Praise the Lord. I've been cooking since I was eight, baking since I was seven. So I'm good. Mom and daddy handle their business. So we straight. But you're absolutely right. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. Happy holidays. All right. Thank you very much. Hey, y'all. When I was talking about, of course, Rashida Jones, I had it up. I did not go to my iPad. Go to my iPad now, please. Shout out to Monica Richardson.

She also, on the same day Rashida Jones was named as the president of MSNBC, Monica Richardson was named as the first black African-American to lead the Miami Herald newspaper. So I want to be sure to shout out Monica there as well. All right, folks, that is it for us. If you want to support what we do here at Roland Martin Unfiltered, the segment we just did there with Chef Huda is a perfect example of what I'm talking about, a pipeline in power, and that is the ability to be able to. So we created that segment specifically to allow black businesses to be able to come on and talk about their particular products.

And so people send me emails. And so we take a look at those and we see who we have on. Last week we had the folks, of course, with the face shields. And so I got an email from the CEO who said that, man, they got a number of orders came in as well. Folks are gifting these things. And so this is why we do what we do. We are independent. No corporation owns us. I don't have Comcast's money. I don't have, I ain't got Byron Allen's

money. I don't have Robert Smith's money. I don't have Viacom, you know, AT&T, Verizon money. We are building something here that we are able to control the narrative and actually build capacity. OK, our goal is real simple. Our goal is we want to be able to build this, not just one show, but multiple shows have much larger staff, be able to cover more things across the country. So your support is vital. If you want to join our Bring the Funk fan club, you can do so by going to Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered, PayPal.me forward slash R Martininunfiltered, venmo.com forward slash rmunfiltered. You can also send us a money order to New Vision Media, Inc., 1625 K Street, Northwest, Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 2006.

And so we ask that you do that because, again, we want to build a strong black-owned platform where we are in control of the narrative and control our destiny. Tomorrow's on the show. Check out my John Ossoff interview that I did when I was in Georgia over the weekend. Looking forward to that. Y'all folks have an absolutely great day. Talk to you later.

Ha! Talk to you later. Howl! I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. 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. This is an iHeart Podcast.