#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Coronavirus closings; Biden/Sanders debate; Bernie Bros threaten 'exodus'; Will MD HBCUs get $$?

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

3.16.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Coronavirus closings; Biden/Sanders debate; Bernie Bros threaten 'massive exodus' if Biden is the Dem prez nominee; Legislation passes to send $580M more to Maryland's 4 HBCUs; Will COVID-19 impact your voting rights; Crazy a$$ woman tosses n-word on a plane #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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1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami We'll be right back. Today is Monday, March 16, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the latest dealing with coronavirus. Donald Trump tries to show some leadership after screwing it all up last week. Why are we shocked with what he's doing?

Still, now they've changed it. The CDC now says you can't group more than 10 people together. All the latest, folks, when it comes to the coronavirus right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Also, Maryland HBCU is about to get nearly $600 million. I'll explain why. And white women, don't call a black person the N-word on a plane. Seated next to a black person, you'll get your ass whooped. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Let's go. Now down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling With some go-go-royal It's rolling Martin Rolling with rolling now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's fresh, he's real, the best, you know he's rolling, Martin Martin

All right, folks, we get another week with more drama when it comes to the coronavirus. Of course, the Centers for Disease Control, they now are asking people to no longer congregate in more than groups of more than 10 to stop the spread of the virus. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic, a worldwide pandemic. We are now seeing, of course, cases supposedly going up. First of all, testing supposedly going across the country. We'll actually see if that's actually the case when it comes to this administration. They've given mixed signals. Donald Trump is not taking this seriously.

Today, all of a sudden, sounding a lot different than he did yesterday or the previous days. Not only that, we see more and more cities and states shutting down schools, businesses, restaurants, bars as well. You know it gets serious when MGM closes down all of their casinos in Las Vegas. You know that's when it's real. And so the CDC recommends that for the next eight weeks, folks, organizers cancel or postpone in-person events that consist of more than 10 people. Now, there are 323 confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, in 49 states,

with 69 deaths. The problem is we still don't know exactly how widespread any of this is. Today at the White House, they gave another update. And so here's Clueless Donald Trump. On the guidelines of the task force, the new modeling conducted by Dr. Birx and our consultation with governors, we've made the decision to further toughen the guidelines and blunt the infection now. We'd much rather be ahead of the curve than behind it. And that's what we are. Therefore, my administration is recommending that all Americans, including the young and healthy, work to engage in schooling from home when possible.

Avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people. Avoid discretionary travel and avoid eating and drinking will defeat the virus and we're going to have a big celebration all together. A big celebration. That's what Donald Trump is focused on. A big celebration. Of course, when he spoke on on Friday, he held his news conference and timed it so the stock market can go up. It went up 2,000 points, of course, at the end of the day. He thought that was going to do it. In fact, he was so arrogant about it, he literally signed a copy of the stock market increase and gave it to Lou Dobbs, who actually showed it and flashed it on Fox Business. Well, today, moments after the stock market opened, let's just say it went down

more than 2,000 points and they halted trading. That's what happens again when you only focus on the stock market, folks. 36 states have school closures, including Washington, D.C., California, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington have all closed bars and restaurants, only allowing for takeout delivery. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut will close all entertainment venues across the three states starting tonight. It is, of course, a lot of things that are happening all across the country, still trying to get a handle on what's going on and how do we deal with this issue. Not only that, you're seeing a lot of stoppages when it comes to entertainment shows, being the late

night shows. Tamron Hall announced she's suspending production of her daytime show on ABC. Hey, good morning. It's a Tam Cam. You may already have heard, but our show has temporarily stopped production out of abundance of caution for the staff and for everyone who works on the Tamron Hall show. I am out right now taping a story for ABC News on the impact that the virus has had. Within the last few hours, we learned that all the restaurants in New York will be closing, only takeout and delivery.

So I'm on assignment right now. We're being very, very safe, being very, very cautious and being mindful of the new world we're all living in. But thank you for the support. Please stay safe. And the entire Tamron Hall Show staff is looking forward to returning when it's appropriate. So thank you again, and please, everyone, stay safe. Of course, many people were shocked

when Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, were diagnosed with coronavirus. Well, today, Idris Elba announced that he has tested positive with coronavirus. Well, today, Idris Elba announced that he has tested positive for coronavirus. Hey, what's up, guys? So look, this morning, I got some test results back for coronavirus and it came back positive. Yeah, and it sucks. Listen, I'm doing okay. Sabrina hasn't been tested and she's doing okay. I wasn't, I didn't have any symptoms. I got tested because I realized I was exposed to someone who had also tested positive. I found out last Friday that they were tested positive. I quarantined myself and got a test immediately and got the results back today. Look, this is serious, you know. Now's the time to really think about social distancing, washing your hands. Beyond that,

there are people out there who aren't showing symptoms and that can easily spread it. OK, so now's a real time to be really vigilant about washing your hands and keeping your distance. OK, we've told our families they're very supportive we've told our colleagues um and you know transparency is probably the best thing for this right now if you're feeling ill or you feel like you should be tested or you've been exposed and do something about it all right it's really important look we live in a divided world right now we can can all feel it. It's been bullshit. But now's the time for solidarity. Now's the time for thinking about each other.

There are so many people whose lives have been affected, from those who have lost people that they love to people that don't even have it and have lost their livelihoods. This is real, all right? I just wanted to share my news with you guys, and I will keep you updated as how I'm doing. But so far, we're feeling okay. All right, man, stay positive and don't freak out. Again, folks, I told you how all of a sudden

Donald Trump is changing his tune when it comes to the issue of coronavirus. This is Donald Trump, January 22nd on CNBC. Listen to this. The CDC has identified a case of coronavirus in Washington state, the Wuhan strain of this. If you remember SARS, that affected GDP, travel-related effects. Have you been briefed by the CDC?

I have. Are there words about a pandemic at this point? No, not at all. And we have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine. Okay.

President Xi, there's just some talk in China. One person. We're going to be fine. Now we have discussions about shutting down restaurants and bars and venues and hotels and casinos and now telling people to self-quarantine and also start doing social distancing. Joining us right now is Dr. Alexia Gaffney, infectious disease specialist in Stony Brook, New York. Doc, glad to have you on the show. Thanks for having me on, Roland. It's part of the issue here, let's just be straight up honest,

that this is an administration that did not take this seriously. And the reasons we're now seeing the shutting down of schools and restaurants and bars is because they frankly failed this nation for a month, a month and a half, and did not really start taking this thing seriously until really a week or two ago. Right. Way behind the eight ball. And as we always say, hindsight is 20-20. You know, even though I'm an infectious disease specialist, we have folks with training above and beyond even that of a board-certified infectious disease specialist like myself, who are epidemiologists, who are prevention strategists, who probably had ideas like I had,

like we should suspend international travel. We should stop letting people board cruise ships and return home and learn from the example of what we saw in China and what we saw in Japan with the Diamond Princess cruise ship. When that cruise ship docked with 606 people on it, confirmed cases, why did we continue to let people board cruise ships and return home in the United States? It was only a matter of time before cases started popping up. And even when the first cases showed up in the Seattle, Washington area, there still was no urgent change in how we address the matter. Yeah. People right now who, I mean, it was amazing over the weekend. People were saying, look, I'm going, I'm going out. We're still going to hang out. We're going to restaurants.

You have the governor of Oklahoma talk about an idiot who posted a photo on Friday of him and his sons out getting hamburgers saying, oh, the place is really packed. He later deleted that photo, realizing probably didn't make much sense. But he's also an anti-vaxxer. And to see these people who act as if this is no big deal, what I keep saying is the problem here is we don't know how widespread this is. And so, you know, normally it is. Explain to people how folks like you track things like this and why we have to have widespread testing to understand how major of an issue this is. Right. So the type of tracking and testing that's going on right now is not new. We are constantly surveillancing infectious diseases, among other things. So think about viral hepatitis, right? You hear in the news sporadically that if you ate in such and such restaurant or buffet, a worker or someone who visited the place was diagnosed with viral hepatitis and they're tracking cases. We do the same thing with sexually transmitted infections like HIV and syphilis, because when you identify a single case of an infection, you already know that there's going

to be several other infections that are directly linked to that individual who has been diagnosed and identified as having this contagious illness. Now, with coronavirus, unlike a syphilis or an HIV that requires sexual transmission, we'll use that example, right? You can connect that person to a finite number of people. With coronavirus, it is so contagious, we don't have the ability to connect it to a finite number of people. With coronavirus, it is so contagious, we don't have the ability to connect it to a finite number of people. Now we're saying if you are in the room at the same time as this person,

if you visited the same convention as this person, if you flew on the same plane or the same flight number, if you were on the same cruise ship as this person, you're at risk. So we go from maybe an exposure of, you know, maybe two to four people, if we were talking about a sexually transmitted infection, to hundreds of people who are at risk from a single exposure. And then if we don't identify those people right away, then those people go out and engage with maybe the five people in their household and 10 people at work and 20 or 50 people in a restaurant or a bar. And you just see a growing, growing, growing, widening web of people who are at risk and likely to become infected with this

organism. So that is why we are being asked to practice social distancing and why we are being asked to kind of isolate. Well, not isolate, actually quarantine ourselves at home if we think we've been exposed or if we're returning from travel. And those who have been definitively diagnosed with the infection are being isolated because we cannot continue to widen this web of contacts and people at risk for getting and spreading the infection. And so let's just talk about that social distancing. What does that actually mean? So, Henry, give me a wide shot. So here's a perfect example, okay? So we talk all the time. We keep hearing, okay, six feet. Okay, so fine. We're the television show. And so is this not far enough? Are the folks supposed to be across the room?

And then how do we deal with it? And again, so, I mean, so we're probably dealing with, so on this show, so with me, and here we go back to the wide shot. So I got four people. I got four people in here. Then I've got one, two, I got five people who are in our control room. And where we do the show, we do, out of the office of 50 Can,

an IT reform group, they actually are working remotely. So for the most part, we're only coming in contact with a maximum of about 10 people on this show. So how are we to operate? And then how are we to operate with our families or where we work as well? So the social distancing considers a couple of different things. So for those of us who don't have the luxury or ability to work from home or work remotely or telecommunicate, then something

that might be helpful would be to have as little people in your immediate vicinity as possible. And when you're engaging with those folks, then yes, keep a distance of about six feet. And the six feet rule is considering when people cough or sneeze exactly how far infectious droplets travel. And then if we're far enough apart from one another doing things like grabbing each other's hands, handshaking, even fist bumping is out now. Yeah, we don't do none of that. No. Did nobody greet anybody on this show?

We saw each other. We waved. There were no hugs. There were no handshakes. Look, we didn't even do fist bump and elbow bump. We just like, yo, what up? We did the whole black, what up? That's all we did.

Exactly. The rest of the world needs to learn that, but we can't have everybody using our signals. But yeah, so the six feet rule is to try to keep us from doing those things that we normally would do. Reach out and touch one another, hug one another, casually touch each other while we're having conversation. So we want to do that to minimize direct exposure and direct contact to one another.

I want to bring in Dr. George's, Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association in this conversation. First of all, and so, Doc, sort of the same thing. I mean, what was happening is we're now dealing with a new reality. And one of the things, Doc, sort of the same thing. I mean, what was happening is we're now dealing with a new reality. And one of the things, Doc, that's driving me crazy are these black people who are literally walking around saying we can't get this. OK, Idris Black. There was a black woman who was at the Black Enterprise Women of Power Conference who came down with it. It was at the MGM Mirage. She's from New York.

That was two weeks ago. There are 104 cases in the state of Louisiana, most of them in New Orleans. The first two folks to die from them, African Americans, 153, 158. And so it sort of drove me crazy dealing with, to hear people say that, oh, we can't get this. Somehow black people are exempt from this. Yeah.

Let's be real clear. We can get this. Okay. All the stuff you're seeing on social media, all the stuff you're hearing from your friends and neighbors and all those folks that saw those early maps around the world where there wasn't any in Africa, that was because of a delay in reporting

and in some cases delay of disease getting there. As you know, it moved around the world. Not only we can get it, but if you're over 60 and like many of us have lots of chronic diseases, you're disproportionately in that category of people that are going to get sicker and die sooner if you get something like this. So anybody out there that thinks that we're immune, they're just fooling themselves.

I absolutely can get it. I'm going to bring in the rest of my panel, Dr. Avis Jones-Weaver. She's a political analyst. Also to my right, Amisha Cross, political analyst, Democratic strategist, as well as Derek Hawley, president, Reaching America political analyst as well. So I'm bringing you all into the conversation. Derek, I want to start with you. I mean, what is really driving me crazy, and I think this is where leadership comes in,

and folks always say, you know, is there anything that Trump can do? Would you appraise him? I'm like, sure, when it actually happens. I look at a Republican who's actually leading on this is Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, who has been extremely proactive. They made it clear they shut down the casinos there. I mean, he is really been doing that. You look at Cuomo in New York. What has happened here is that mayors and governors have had to step up and truly lead because, frankly, you're not getting proper leadership out of the White House. I mean, you get a guy who Donald Trump literally stood

yesterday and said, we got this thing under control. Fauci comes up five minutes later and says, this is going to get worse. And I'm sitting there and I'm going, now all of a sudden, his tone today was totally different.

Probably because he saw last night's debate between Biden and Sanders. But it is stunning when you see people, evangelicals, a pastor in Arkansas said, oh, my people don't believe this. They don't lick the floor to prove coronavirus doesn't exist. No, seriously. And people are taking their cues from leadership. Agreed. Yeah, some of the things he said he shouldn't have said. And I think the leadership on a state level has to be where it is.

I think we have to identify these cases from the states. And in some way, the White House needs to take the direction from the states because they're the ones who are closest to what's really, really taking place with this virus right now. And so I do think the White House has been behind eight ball with this thing. But at the same time, you look at it, we've only had 69 deaths in our country out of 300-something million people. So when you make that comparison, as I said last week, that's a metric. That's a huge metric to compare everything on. And so when you look at it that way, compared to these other countries, I think we are doing OK.

No, I'm not going to minimize anybody's death. But, you know, only have 69 deaths out of 300 something million. I think we are ahead of the curve. But the issue with the issue that we have here, it was that we still do not know how significant this is. And to be frank, you have seen an administration that has spent far more time reacting quickly to stock market decreases, dropping 2,300 points S&P today, as opposed to what is happening when it comes to health. Absolutely. You cannot trust any of the numbers

that they've published right now about even the deaths or the number of people infected because he says such had a level of criminal negligence when it comes to the level of competence associated with distributing tests that we don't even know. We don't know how many people have it. It could be that someone has died, other people have died from it, that they were never able to get the proper test to be able to proper diagnose why that person died from it. Well, the fact that New York Times has one study, you can get on my iPad, please. It says headline, coronavirus is hiding in plain sight. For every

known case of coronavirus, another five to 10 cases are out there undetected. Absolutely. And then you have him today, once again, passing the buck. The other day he said, I know it's not my responsibility. Well, then today he's telling the governors, well, you need to go ahead and get the respirators. Exactly what is he supposed to do as president of the United States? The states themselves cannot run deficits. I know that he's already squandered our deficits by giving away this high, you know, this tax cut to the wealthiest of people that already gave us a record deficit. He squandered everything. The deficit now we have less money to deal with. The stock market in terms of the interest rates, he was putting that down months

ago to sort of unnecessarily inflate the stock market. And now that we have a crisis, we're at zero and there's nothing else he can do. Misha, I want to bring up the point that was just made about the governors. There was a call today he had with the governors where he talked about in terms of what they can do to also secure those ventilators. But he said, you know, direct point of sale, you know, do whatever you can do. But here's the problem with that. Only the federal government has the power to literally tell manufacturers do this but that's what he was saying no he was saying the supply chain was easier it's easier for you as a state entity to get access to this information

as opposed to dealing with the bureaucracy that comes along with dealing with the federal government but there's a point here to me the point. No, no, no, no, no, but Derek, the point here, and I want to speak to this here, federal government, unlike states, can cut through the bureaucracy. But here's the other problem, and I want you to speak to this, and I'm going to have both of our doctors respond to this as well. The problem is this here, and this is just sort of how my brain would think, and, Doc, y'all tell me if I'm right or wrong. If I have a sense of where the problem is the greatest need,

then I know where we must have more ventilators and respirators. So the problem is you take 49 states. That means there's only one state does not have a confirmed case of coronavirus, which is West Virginia. Now, I'm not saying there are no cases there. But what that says to me is if I'm West Virginia, my need for respirators and ventilators may be less than Louisiana or New York. Sure. So if you're on the federal level, you should be sending resources to where the greatest need is versus saying, yo, fend for yourself. You should go ahead and go to both. You should have that information. But beyond that, I think one of the other things that we have to look at is the fact that the states do not have the capacity to handle this.

Yes, we have some great governors. I'll shout out Governor DeWine in Ohio. But at the end of the day, there is a federal responsibility here. And if President Trump hadn't have started by saying this was a hoax, hadn't have started by saying that he could contain it and acting as though it was only China's problem, then we wouldn't be where we are today. Or one person from China. We have way too many state hospitals that are cash-strapped. We have way too many that don't have enough doctors, nurses, and other things.

We have communities that depend on community clinics and those resources, and those are steadily shutting down. We have states that refuse Medicaid expansion. What are these people going to do? The states cannot be all to end all because they're not going to be able to handle it. Dr. Gaffney, first, again, I would think you send your supply where there is a greatest need as opposed to stockpiling and you may not have the greatest need. Does it make that common sense?

That's common sense. but this is the issue. We don't know where our greatest need is because we don't yet have the ability to test as widely as we need to test. A lot of people are being treated based on clinical features and possible exposures, but we haven't even begun to identify every single case. If we don't identify every single case, then we don't know who's potentially carrying. And so without those more definitive numbers, we don't know what area has the greatest need. What we do know is if we continue to let this get out of control, we are going to completely overwhelm the hospital resources that we have. We will run out of ICU beds if we don't get a hold of this situation. We will run out of the ability to provide critical care for everyone who might

ultimately need it. And we will find ourselves in a situation that Italy is finding itself in right now. I mean, we need to look to the countries that have already been overwhelmed by this infection and we need to learn from their mistakes and we need to get ahead of it. But there does not seem to be a real push to do that. Dr. Benjamin, before you make your point, Dallas mayor announced shortly they have another case there and they're going to be shutting down gyms, taverns and clubs effective tonight at midnight in Dallas. Doc, go ahead. You know, one thing we can do, though, we can begin to look at the population centers and begin to pre-position materials,

supplies into those areas, ventilators into those areas, so we can rapidly move them. We can certainly begin. We have some national understanding what our inventory is, but we can certainly work collectively to figure out where we can move things quickly.

And we need to do it in such a way that not just we deal with urban centers, but obviously the rural communities need that support as well. We can begin mobilizing National Guard, reserves, particularly logistical aspects of those, because they move things. We can work with U-Haulers and get them positioned to help us be able to pick up a ventilator from point A to move it to point B if we need it. Lots of those plans are in place. They just need to be activated. We pull it off the shelf, dust it off, put it in place.

The military has lots of contingency plans that they've done for years for a variety of reasons. And we have an old pandemic flu plan that was actually put in place recognizing all this thing. The challenge we, of course, have is these supply line problems. Every hospital in the same community has great plans, but they're all going to the same supplier.

And that is one of the problems. And we identified that 20 years ago as being a problem. Dr. Gaffey, but it also doesn't help when again, when you're a month late. I mean, look, supply chains are supply chains. All right. Look, my grandmother was in the catering business. My brother now runs our business. This is real simple. OK, if you let me know a month ago how much food you need, then I can go get the food and prepare it. But you can't call me on Sunday night and say I need food for 400 on Monday and then

somehow think I can make that thing happen. That's part of the problem here. And so one of the reasons why you jump on this thing early is because that's one of the first things you identify. What's the available resources? What is the supply chain? What is the capacity for kicking things out? Trump holds a news conference, says, oh, we're going to have a million tests by Friday. And they're going, no, we're not, because the capacity wasn't there because you have to actually develop it.

Then they come out on Thursday. Yeah, we're not going to have a million. And then, of course, they say, oh, we're going to have $5 million next week. Fauci says, no, we're going to begin to roll this thing out. By the end of the week, we should have more than a million out there. This is why every day you delay creates the problem. And what they did was they simply did not want this to happen. When he stood there and said, I don't want the people from the cruise ship coming off because I don't want the numbers increasing. He was trying to keep the number low. Yes. And that was the problem. And by doing that, you basically stall every other thing in this whole process. So nobody was serious about mask, ventilators, beds, food, all those things that go with it.

And so now everything is crashing at one. We've gone from no more than, what, Friday, no more than 1,000 or 500 or 250 to 50 to 10 to six counties in San Francisco saying stay at home. Yeah. I mean, it's just, I don't even have words for how bad it is and how potentially, how much potentially worse it can get. So I'm honestly a bit scared of what's going to happen. I'm grateful that local governments have stepped in and that schools have been shut down. I'm a bit saddened that even in spite of local governments

not stepping in sooner and closing down restaurants and nightclubs and bars, that people continue to go out and party. I mean, I was yelling at my little brother. Oh, my God! Partying at a nightclub. What is wrong with you? If you bring this mother, this drug,

home to your grandmother, I'm going to have to come fight you now. You seriously go to the party in the club and bring this home to grandma. Dr. Benjamin, over the weekend, a Luther Campbell posted a video, and I had mistakenly said that was Atlanta. People all in line for strip clubs like they were not

in line at strip clubs in Atlanta. All the people in Atlanta got all indignant. That wasn't our city. Like your asses were not out in the public. In fact, there's a friend of my doc who's a nurse who said she went to a water park. And I'm like, y'all went to a water park? And there was some other people like,

well, you know, the chlorine can kill the coronavirus. And I'm sitting there going, but you're congregating with large groups of people and you're seeing this. And I mean, you're seeing it's crazy. It's crazy to me. Then, of course, last night, there was some big concert in Nashville, jam packed, thousands of people. Then, of course, you had the travel issue where you had people who were just in line six to eight hours in Chicago or here, jam packed, coughing, sneezing all around each other. And I'm going to Trump people. Y'all didn't plan for this as well. Then I'm going to pull up in a second. Rex Chapman, he is always posting these very interesting videos. A Florida a Florida station posted this video. Let me pull up here, which was just unbelievable.

This is from a local station. This is Clearwater Beach, Florida. Y'all, Clearwater Beach, Florida. Watch this. A lot of people. So if you think that the beaches are being impacted here by coronavirus, by COVID-19, and by the new cases that are emerging here in Florida. This is Clearwater Beach here, everybody.

I say that. It looks like Clearwater. And one of the questions that we were asked here earlier was whether or not the beaches were going to be impacted. Dr. Benjamin, that ain't social distancing. That is not social distancing. We need to do spring break, but we need to do spring break at home. Look, I had, I mean, look, another friend said

her son talked her into going to New Orleans for spring break and I'm like, uh, sit your ass at home? I was like, are you serious? I mean, and then because a bunch of people I've seen in Texas too, me and my mom was like, hey, how y'all doing in your shelter? No, no, my son talked me into going to spring break. I went, and then, so, because a bunch of people I sent texts to, me and my mom were like,

hey, how y'all doing in your shelter? No, no, I'm going to go on a spring break. I went, do you know there are 104 cases in Louisiana and most of them are in New Orleans? But the issue you run into. Y'all on Bourbon Street. The issue you run into is when you keep saying or we keep hearing it in the media that it's only affecting older people or the older people are the only ones who are dying. Younger people don't care. They're like, oh, this is spring break time. These tickets are extra cheap. You could fly to New Orleans for 65 bucks. So

folks are gone. They're partying. St. Paddy's daying it up. Drinks are cheap. They're living their best lives and gathering and congregating because the way they see it is it is not affecting this age group. You might get the sniffles, but that's what you would get with a regular cold. So they're not seeing it as this extraordinary thing that's really going to hurt them. When it comes to protecting older people or protecting your fellow man, I don't think that thought process is there. So for states and localities that are initiating these bans, it's largely because younger people don't care. They're not paying attention to the warnings. They're seeing people die, but the people who are dying are their grandparents' age, and they're not taking

them on their spring break trips. So they're still going to go get the cheap tickets, have as much fun as they want and call it a day. Dr. Gaffney, what's crazy is there are people who are deathly ill who are in their thirties. In fact, to that point, go to my iPad. This is some video. I'm trying to find a video of, this is from Bourbon Street over the weekend. Actually, there was one video somebody posted where the streets were jam-packed. And when they put that video out there, the New York, excuse me, New Orleans cops responded, then this happened. And they literally came through, cleared folks out on their speakers. You could turn the volume up. You hear them saying, clear the streets. I mean, and it's happening.

And I and I and I here's what I think that the government's been happening. I think the CDC did not want to order a people to be to self quarantine. And I think that governors were saying, OK, look, don't congregate. People's hard headed. They finally was kind of like, OK, all right. That number went from 1,000 to 500 to 250 to 50. Now it's 10. Let me be real clear. You had a bunch of arrogant-ass preachers who had church service on this weekend, and they shouldn't have, and same thing. You can't say we washed down the church,

which means nothing if somebody walks in with coronavirus. Exactly. Exactly. We're being so pigheaded about this. It's unreal. And even though the majority or the larger percentages of people who died from the infection in China and other areas that were hit early with this infection, they did have young adults who died from this infection. We do have young adults here in the United States who are critically ill from this infection. There was a 30- or 34-year-old healthy physician in China who died from the infection,

and they made it clear very early that this young doctor was critically ill and ultimately succumbed to the infection. I've been in touch with emergency medicine doctors and hospitalist physicians in the Seattle and Washington area who are taking care of 30-something-year-olds who have no risk factors that they can identify who are going into respiratory failure. And by the way, they're already running out of vents there. So it's not like this can't happen in the United States. It's already happening. I'm 38 years old. I'm a breast cancer survivor. I've had chemo. I've had radiation. Even though I don't have cancer at the moment and I'm not currently taking chemotherapy,

just my history alone puts me at increased risk. And I can tell you that I've been in a room with a thousand other young women just like me who carry similar risks or that I belong to social networks of hundreds of thousands of young cancer patients. I have patients of my own who have autoimmune diseases, who take steroids for various medical conditions, who are just simply diabetic or have kidney disease or liver disease. And all of these people of all ages are at risk. It's not just 60 and above. So we're kidding ourselves by just hanging out, partying, flocking to the beaches, hopping on planes, going wherever, thinking it can't happen to me.

Let me tell you, it could happen. Derek, you're a conservative. This is what also drives me crazy. This guy is a talk show host out of Alabama. And again, this is what's killing me about a lot of these MAGA-loving, nutcase conservatives. Jefferson County, Alabama, made the decision in terms of what can stay open and what can close.

It is completely ridiculous Jefferson County would shut down restaurants. Go to my iPad. Shut down restaurants and arbitrarily leave grocery or clothing stores open. Advise, yes. Shame public into staying home, sure, informed. But a government that can unilaterally do this is too powerful.

Just telling you all. This is about 10 minutes ago. And this is also, I think, a problem, Derek. When you have people out here who are saying, we're free. This is America. This is the land of free, home of the brave. Government shouldn't be doing this. And home of the stupid. This is an land of free, home of the brave. Government shouldn't be doing this. And home of the stupid.

This is an international pandemic. Okay, there are decisions you have to make that if people don't have enough damn common sense, like the folks at the beach or the strip clubs or the clubs, this is why government has to unilaterally make a decision because the phrase public health is public. Why are you turning to me with that? With his comment? Why are you turning to me? Why are you turning to me?

I ain't got nothing to do with stupidity. Okay? That has nothing to do with stupidity. What a fellow conservative had to say. I ain't got nothing to say with stupidity. That's my thing. Look, I can't identify with what that man said. You know what I'm saying?

My wife mad at me for being down in this joint today. You know what I'm saying? So you can't put me in that box. But it is important, Avis, that we have to deal with these people who have this view that, oh, government is too powerful. That idiot Sheriff Clark said the same thing. Ignore all these people and go to restaurants and bars and go out in the streets. It's freedom.

Yo, like, are you paying attention? This is when those talking points turn deadly. Because just think about it. This is after several years where we have now normalized someone in the Oval Office saying every two seconds, fake news. Don't believe anything that you hear on the news. This is a hoax. Everything's a hoax. Oh, Mueller, that was a hoax. Oh, the impeachment, that was a hoax. Oh,

coronavirus, that's a hoax. Then you have the woman on Fox News who was basically repeating the same lie, right? And so now they're caught into the situation where their talking points have got them boxed in. This is something they cannot lie their way out of. But they continue to want to pull that sort of political card to say you can't trust them, right? But at the same time, eventually, that's the attitude that puts all of us in danger. Also, Dr. Benjamin, I'm sitting here, I'm looking at notes here. My niece was supposed to graduate from Baylor in May. They postponed graduation. They may be able to walk in August.

She talked about how her college career is ending. I know some other people who are lamenting who are like, who are lamenting, you know, prom being canceled. They're lamenting that. Others, people who play sports, many of these states, they stopped championship games. My high school, they were playing for another state title in the semifinals game. They postponed that. March Madness has ended. And I get people's disappointment because those are things that, look, if you can't go back and replace, you also can't replace life.

And you get to do March Madness next year, but you're alive doing it. You get to do the movies later in the year, but you're alive doing it. And in fact, if you have a college graduation, they can reschedule that. I mean, you could literally march in another class. So I know it may not be the perfect scenario.

You can do it later. But I'm just saying, for me, it was like this weekend. I mean, people, like, I get it, but I'm sorry. I mean, what? I get the part. Yeah, you can march later. But for some of these seniors, I can hear what they're saying. I mean, as an athlete, a student athlete,

I can understand just how they feel right now not being able to play as a senior, ever being able to put on that uniform again. I got it. I know it's not as big as death. But Rudy Gobert, okay, did not think that he was going to get coronavirus. And all of a sudden, he infected this entire team. And all 58 people in the Utah Jazz had to get tested. And their whole families were then put.

There was a player who played against him. He played with the Detroit Pistons who played against him the week earlier who got infected. See, here's what I think here, Dr. Gaffney, happens. People express anger or sadness or bitterness about these things happening until somebody close to them gets it.

Yep. And then all of a sudden it's, damn, this shit is real. There are some black people out there right now. Tom Hanks, Rudy Wilson, they're like, oh my God, Idris got it? Idris? I'm serious. And I think we react differently.

It's no different than how people looked at HIV and AIDS until Magic Johnson made the announcement. And I just think for a lot of people, because they haven't actually experienced somebody close to them who's tested positive coronavirus, they're saying these things. I think attitudes change real fast when you're personally impacted. Your thoughts? Absolutely.

I had a lot of physician friends saying, is it really that bad? Because some people are in more rural areas, so they don't work in the big city hospitals. You said physician friends. Private practice. And they're like, well, have you seen any cases? Anybody out there seen any cases? Because I haven't seen any, and I don't know anybody else who has. So is it

really as bad as they said it is? And I don't know where we got this universal, well, I know where we got this universal distrust from, but it is this universal distrust from, but it is this universal distrust that doesn't allow us to get ahead of situations like this and how we can end in epidemic and pandemic situations because of the magnitude of distrust or disbelief out there. But I don't need to see a patient face-to or watch them circle the drain on event to know that this is real.

I believe my physician colleagues who I've talked to who've described their cases and who they've gone over list and list and list of patients. I believe my friend who happens to be an emergency room physician whose cousin definitely has covid and is on in an ICU in a New York City hospital. I don't need to see it with my own eyes to know that it's real, you know? And how many times are we going to play hindsight is 2020? How many times are we going to keep learning from our mistakes before we just believe, before we just accept the truth and just get out of it and deal with it? Dr. Gaffney, I had a question for you. You know, the White House had a press conference today, and they talked about trying to do things to minimize the spread.

So they put out some information, and they're saying 15 days to slow the spread. And they've—a lot of the things that Roland mentioned that we should do. Do you think 15 days is enough time to slow the spread? No. I think that it's going to take more than the four or eight weeks that they're predicting that it's going to take to, quote unquote, flatten the curve. And remember, the flatten the curve is not an idea that is going to bring the number of infections to zero. It's just going to slow down the rapidity of the spread and the number of cases that we see all at once. Flatten the curve is about that this infection, this pandemic is going to spread because that is just the natural progression of a disease like this.

But we can't have everybody sick all at once because our health care system can't stand that. So if we flatten or bring down that curve, what we're really doing is spreading out the number of cases so we don't see them all at once. Dr. Benjamin, here's what I think is at play with the 15 days. I think what's at play is Americans cannot handle. A month or two months. Precisely. Yeah. I think psychologically.

I agree with that. If you told Americans, if you told Americans, like perfect example, I'm going to pull this up in a second, Henry. The National Security Council had to go to Twitter to tell people, stop this whole spread that this national shutdown was going down. This came out literally almost midnight last night go to my ipad text message rumors of a national quarantine are fake there's no national lockdown uh cdc gov has and will continue to post the latest guidance uh on uh covet 19 dr fachi actually has talked he's actually floated this idea of a 14 shutdown. I don't think Americans can handle psychologically two or three months.

So I think what is really at play here, by them saying 15 days, and then with the shutting down of restaurants and gyms and everything, I think this is their way of trying to achieve this without actually saying it. And so, because here's what I think, just tell me if I'm crazy. I think what they're saying is like, yo, 15 days, we need to get these tests out, ramp up testing. And then I think after 15 days, you're going to hear another 15 days. Because I just think Americans, oh, my God, they just said three months. What are we going to do?

Honestly, I've been telling people we need to do this for two weeks and then reboot. We look at what's happening and then reconsider on what we're going to do. I understand that if I told my kids they had to sit at home for a month, ain't going to happen. Probably can get away with two weeks because that's what we do when we go on vacation. You know? Right. They can probably live with two weeks because that's what we do when we go on vacation. You know? Right. They can probably live with two weeks. But also all the events.

Because, see, if you throw out two or three months, now you've got these churches. Well, hold up. That's tithes and offerings for three months. You've got events. No, no, seriously. Seriously. No, no, no, absolutely.

You've got events. It gives you time to adjust. You've got nonprofits. You've got galas. Look, the folks at Essence Festival announced that, look, we're monitoring this whole deal. We're looking to alternative dates. But as of right now, we're going to move forward within July. I'm vice president for digital, National Association of Black Journalists.

We postpone our regional conferences. Our national conference is July 8th through 12th in D.C. The national conference for us supplies our revenue to run the organization. If all of a sudden they go, yo, we're going to be locked down for three, four months, people are about to totally freak out. That's why I think the dance is here

at play. Well, I can tell you, we've counseled it from my association. All of our face-to-face member engagements, these are not meetings, they're member meetings through the end of June. Our big meeting with 13,000 of our closest friends is in November, end of October, beginning of November, right before the election. Obviously, we're hoping that this is over by then. But we've been around since 1872, and we've had to move our meeting we had to move our meeting for the great pandemic from

September through December um in order to do this social distancing thing back then um we had to move our meeting um for Katrina we're supposed to be in New Orleans that year and we had to move we stopped our meeting during World War II once so we've had some experience in doing this and you're exactly right we're all going to have to be on pins and needles, and every two weeks, we're going to have to figure out what we're going to do. This just in, Dr., this just in, McDonald's is closing seating areas in all of its company-owned restaurants in the U.S., but just understand, people, that's McDonald's company-owned restaurants. Most McDonald's restaurants are not company-owned.

They're franchisees, and those are individual small businesses, and that's what a lot of people don't realize. That's also why people are saying that McDonald's wasn't included in that house bill when it came to covering those workers. They don't realize that, again, a McDonald's franchisee is not actually a part of McDonald's corporate. And that's just one of those distinctions. I do, Dr. Gaffney, I do want to go back to when I have you and Dr. Benjamin speak specifically to African-Americans. We have folks out there.

Look, my parents are 72. We have other people who are living with us, grandparents and parents as well. And so what are you specifically telling black folks? How should we be operating in terms of what happens? My wife and niece, they went shopping. My niece came in. I said, did you wash your hands when you came in? She's like, why?

I said, because your ass went outside. I'm like, did you touch something at the the store and she said, yeah, the basket. Take your ass and go wash your hands. And so let's talk about, again, what kind of protocol we should be instituting as African-Americans with our family, with our nieces. Knowing full well, we come into contact with folks who are in that really that endangered age bracket? Right. So we tend to live in multigenerational households, right? So, you know, children, mom, dad, uncle, auntie, cousins, grandparents, all in the same household. So everybody who is going out is potentially bringing this infection into the vulnerable folks in the household. Also think about health care disparities amongst African-Americans and the things that run rampant in our communities.

High blood pressure ought to be a risk factor. Other cardiovascular disease, diabetes, immunocompromised state, chronic kidney disease, which we have because we're hypertensive and diabetic, chronic liver disease. If you're a drinker, lung disease, if you're a smoker, hello to all of us living in the inner city, they love to call it, right? Your children and you are more likely to be asthmatic living in certain areas. And so all of those things are risk factors.

So we have to take it seriously that we have more than just age going for or against us in this circumstance. So that's one thing to consider. So if we don't have to leave our homes, we shouldn't be leaving our homes. We shouldn't be heading out. The whole family does not need to go grocery shopping. One person can go get the things that they need and come back.

That minimizes the number of people who are touching things out in public and exposed. And when you come back in the home, immediately wash your hands, change your clothes, consider showering, especially if you came into contact with other people. You were around folks who were coughing, sneezing or sick in any other way because we don't know yet what people are out there sick with. And consider that there's more than just the coronavirus that you can bring in. We still are dealing with the peak of flu season. So it's flu A and B that's out there. There's other respiratory viruses that also peak this time of the year that we don't always put a name to,

but that put the same people at risk for hospitalization, asthma exacerbations, pneumonia, and even respiratory failure or needing a breathing tube put down or ICU-level care. So the other thing we have to remind ourselves is it's not just coronavirus that we're up against. We're up against all these other things competing for a hospital space that our most vulnerable folks will need if it gets to that. So we also need to consider there's other things that we're potentially bringing home to our loved ones. And we want to stop all of that at the door, literally. So this is not a snow day. This is not spring break, even if it did line up or coincide with spring break. This is, you know, what we need to just go ahead and consider and call it

a national quarantine. We need to take seriously the social distancing, and we just need to sit down, play a board game, play some spades, play some dominoes. We got things to do. Read a damn book! Read a book. Dr. Benjamin, to that particular point in terms of how

we are now, how we are to operate, you heard what Doc said there. Anything else to add to that in terms of how we are to operate. You heard what Doc said there. Anything else to add to that in terms of how we should be going about our daily lives? Yeah, we need to do some planning. We need to make sure that we've checked in with all of our loved ones and make sure they have the medications that they need, find out what other kinds of supports they need to live in their homes for the next two weeks,

and then come up with a plan to assist them. Make sure you have emergency phone them. Make sure you have emergency phone numbers. Make sure you know what their doctor's name and number is, so if you have to contact their physician. Check in them twice a day. And, you know, have a thermometer around so you can take temperature if someone gets a fever. Pretty practical things. Make sure you have enough fluids in case people get any kind of symptoms. Remember, we don't have any medical treatment other than supportive care for this. So fluids, orange juice, you know, something to bring your temperature down and lots of movies.

Dr. Gaff, is the temperature the main thing we should be looking out for? Because also, look, we're also operating in an allergy season uh i mean mine flared up in in mid-february uh and then as this thing looked up and i was like well you know cough i got a friend of mine who has bronchitis uh and then i'm looking at that and so i'm sitting there going like okay like what the hell okay you talked about coughing so i'm texting my doctor and she was like okay you got got any aches and pains? I was like, nope. She's like, you got a fever?

Nope. How extensive is the cough? I'm like, well, it's occasional. You know, every few hours. She's like, do straight. But again, it's the thing that we look at. You see the graphic we have right here uh allergies sneezing cough red watery or itchy eyes running your stuffy nose flu sudden fever cough headache muscle and joint pain sore throat running

your stuffy nose and what we know from covet 19 fever dry cough difficulty breathing fatigue and let me add is it if it's different for you true right that's the big thing. If it's different for you. Right. Okay, explain that. Well, you've got allergies, you cough. Actually, this is seasonal allergies for me. I'm snorting and coughing every now and then. But it's not different for me.

Gotcha. Alright? So if I had more coughing or if I started having shortness of breath or if I got a temperature, then I would be more concerned. Doc, go ahead. Exactly. I agree in terms of it being different. There's people with chronic lung disease who cough all the time. So the question is, is the cough new?

Is it bringing up more phlegm for someone with COPD, for example? But for the general population, it's not normal or typical for anybody to be walking around with fever. But to distinguish how you might pursue health care, did the symptoms come on very suddenly and associated with chills and aches and pains? Clue seems to be a more sudden onset. COVID seems to be more gradual onset. And it starts off with a dry cough and then the cough becomes progressively worse. People become progressively more short of breath, harder to control fever or higher fevers as the infection goes on. And then later in the infection, my understanding around day eight or nine, those who are going to come on, go on to become critically ill, kind of what we call crash and burn, where they really just get really terrible with respiratory symptoms and often need to be hospitalized by that point. So a lot of day-to-day monitoring is going to be

required as well. So if people don't have thermometers, just go out and get a digital thermometer so that temperatures can be monitored in the setting of dry cough or, you know, progressive shortness of breath. What's that temperature number before I go there? What's the temperature number? Well, I think they said 99.6 for people who are 65 years of age or older. But temperature is legal. It's normally like 98 something. 96.8 is 98 point something is what most people are.

But 100.5 is technically a fever. Fever. Okay. Greater than that is technically a fever. But the federal guidance was to start looking at, I believe, at 99 point. It was six or eight or somewhere in there. Like 0.4, 0.5. Because they were just trying to make sure that you didn't miss it because there are a lot of people that are older that have lower set points

for their temperature. Alright, so people out there who are watching, again, you're checking your temperature. If it hits 99, start paying attention and monitoring that. And how often should they be taking their temperature? Every hour? No, no, no, no. I just, you know, once a day,

a couple times a day. Or if you suddenly don't feel well. People do, you know. My ass hit 99, Doc. I'm trying to tell you right now, Doc., once a day, a couple times a day. Or if you suddenly don't feel well. People do, you know. My ass hit 99, Doc. I'm trying to tell you right now, Doc. We hit 99, that temperature getting checked every 30 minutes. I don't know about y'all. Look, okay, y'all. Look, I'm telling you right now.

I'll be like, click, beep, beep. Okay, cool. We checked. It went down 0.2. That's it. I have a question for the doctor. Unfortunately, about a month ago, I came in contact with somebody from Italy. Got really, really sick.

Oh, my goodness. Get your ass. Get your ass. You know I told you about this. No, you didn't. Anyway, long story short. Wipe your ass down. When I got tested, they said it was influenza B.

But the question I have is because they didn't have tests back then, it could have been possible that it was COVID-19. It depends on how long ago. The fact that you had some other identifiable cause of your symptoms makes it unlikely, but that is not to say that there have been zero co-infections. They did see some co-infections, meaning people had two viral infections at one time. But if you had influenza B, then that's most likely what you had,

and that's the end of it. But a small, very, very small portion of patients may experience co-infections, depending on what their exposures have been. So if someone is not following the normal clinical course. Never, ever. But let me ask another question. We about to stop playing. Did you get your flu shot? We about to stop playing Boozy's Wipe Me Down.

Did you get your flu shot this year? I've never gotten a flu shot. Over 20 years, I've never gotten a flu shot. Get your flu shot. Get your flu shot. Why? You said get a flu shot. Why? Because he wasn't the guy influenza B. I've never gotten a flu shot. Never, ever. Okay, hold on. Is it too late to get a flu shot. Why? Because he wasn't the guy in Flu is a B. No, no. I've never gotten a flu shot. Never, ever.

Okay, hold up. Is it too late to get a flu shot? It's not too late to get a flu shot, although we're on the tail end of the flu epidemic. Okay. The annual flu season. Any more questions? No, mine was going to be about, we talked about the school closures earlier.

A lot of folks still have to work. So when these kids come home, a lot of them are going to be watched by grandparents or somebody else who might be in that elder generation. So as long as these schools are closed, it seems like those folks would be at a higher risk because they're automatically the people who are the caregivers for these young children. So what is the advice given to those parents who can't take off work, somebody's got to watch their kids, and they may not be able to afford to get a sitter or something like that. I would say if the children are well, just keep them at home or in the backyard or in the proximity of home. This is not the time to begin to schedule a bunch of play dates.

At this point, I would cancel birthday parties. Oh, hell no. Ain't nobody coming to visit. And then bring stuff home. No. Ain't nobody coming to visit. And then bring stuff home. No, ain't nobody coming to visit. Hey, look. Even Auntie Sue with a cake. Hell no. She gonna leave that damn cake on the

porch. She gonna leave it on the porch. And I'll be like, go get in your car. Then we gonna open that door and then bring it in. Look, I really did not understand. First of all, for all three of y'all, no, look, I really did not understand. First of all, for all three of y'all, so this weekend, okay, what about all the panelists? How did you deal?

Did you self-quarantine this weekend? Did you, like, not go anywhere? What did you do? I was in Atlanta this weekend, so. Okay, what the hell did you do in Atlanta this weekend? I had fun. See, right there. See? See?

Dr. Gaffney, she part of the damn problem. So did you go out with every groups? It was small groups. How many people? It was about seven. It was less than ten. It wasn't a massive group. I don't like massive group activities anyway. It was small groups. Y'all do fever check for y'all? No, I tried to do it.

That's y'all problem right there. Cheryl got out and got me a 30 mile bike ride in. That's what I did. 30 miles? 30 miles. And I ran six yesterday. So I'm there. There, what you... Chill, got out and got me a 30-mile bike ride in. That's what I did. 30 miles? 30 miles. And I ran six yesterday. So I'm fine.

You lost your... Okay, all right. I'm good. All right, Amos. I was at the computer. For the most part, had a quiet working weekend. I ain't do a damn thing. I stay at the crib. First of all, I didn't understand all these people who were freaking out,

talking about they were all cooped up in the house. First of all, I'm normally not at home on weekends, on the road somewhere, event, speaking. So my routine, when I got one of those weekends, I ain't doing a damn thing. That's exactly what I did. I binge-watched shows. I watched movies. I did some work. Look, I ain't want to talk to nobody, see nobody.

I text and FaceTime. That's it. I ain't, look, I ain't got no problem with the whole shutdown, everything. I didn't do it. I ain't saying that. Look, y'all need to understand something. We already working on how I can do the show, this show from the crib with everybody via Skype. Oh, we already working on the plan B.

I'm just saying. And that's the thing, Dr. Gaffney. First of all, I really do believe the point that you just made. We got to encourage people to do that. They have to understand that the road that we're on, we're going, look, we're moving towards

it's going to be a lot more self-sheltering. And people are going to have to learn how to sit their ass down, stop always wanting to be busy, busy bodies. And yes, you can. I'm telling you. This is a moment where I think for a lot of people

it's exposing the busy bodies and the folks who... That's why Amisha over here laughing, her and Derek, they like, they over here like cracking, like I gotta do something, I gotta do something, I gotta do something. They over here like scratching,

I don't know, I can't sit in the house looking like Ray Charles or Jamie Foxx in the movie Ray. Again, we are gonna have to get used to this because I'm telling you, we have to get a handle on this. Final comments from you, final comments from Doc, go ahead. So final comments from me.

Sit down. If it's not absolutely necessary or vital for you to be out and about, barring a quick trip to the grocery store to get some necessities and come back in, stay put. Work remotely if you can. Take it seriously. This infection is real. It is going to cause major problems. We have not seen the worst of it yet, and we don't want it to be as bad as it could potentially get. So we don't want to overwhelm our healthcare systems. We don't want to bring home unnecessary disease and infection to our family and our loved ones. So just take it seriously. Heed the warning. And if you don't see common leadership being exercised, then you yourself use common sense. Dr. Benjamin? You know, I just want to make sure that we understand we're all at risk

and we ought to pay attention to this guidance that we have out there. Social distancing works. We absolutely know it works. We did it in 1918. And, you know, we can all be part of the great pandemic flu. The last time we had a massive outbreak of an influenza at that time.

Different bug with no testing, no treatment. Social distancing worked. And eventually we were able to bring this thing under control. With no testing, no treatment, social distancing worked. And eventually we were able to bring this thing under control. But it took a lot of work. We can do it. But all of us have to contribute to this if we're going to have a healthy community and survive to get through the rest of the year.

All right. Dr. Gaffney, Dr. Benjamin, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We'll be back. More Roland Martin Unfiltered back in a moment. You want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? Roland

Martin Unfiltered. Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. All right, so a lot of y'all are always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I wear. Now, I don't know. Robby don't have one on. Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones. And so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here and it looks like a flower. This is called a

shibori pocket square. This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool. And so I tracked down. It took me a year to find a company that did it. And so they're basically about 47 different colors. And so I love them because, again, as men, we don't have many accessories to wear, so we don't have many options.

And so this is really a pretty cool pocket screen. And what I love about this here is you saw when it's in the pocket, you know, it gives you that flower effect like that. But if I wanted to also, unlike other, because if I flip it and turn it over, it actually gives me a different type of texture. And so therefore it gives me a different look. So there you go. So if you actually want to get one of these shibori pocket squares, we have them in 47 different colors. All you got to do is go to rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So it's rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares.

All you got to do is go to my website, and you can actually get this. Now, for those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our Bring the Funk fan club. And so that's what we want you to do. And so it's pretty cool. So if you want to jazz your look up, you can do that. In addition, y'all see me with some of the feather pocket squares. My sister was a designer. She actually makes these. They're all custom made. So when you also go to the website, you can also order one of the customized feather pocket squares right there at RolandSMartin.com forward slash pocket squares.

So please do so. And of course, that goes to support the show. And again, if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club. Tess? It's an oral nasal swab. That's funny.

All right, y'all. Donald Trump is trying to gain exclusive rights to a potential vaccine. Okay, this is an interesting story here. And so there's a German company that has developed this, possibly developed this vaccine. They have offices in the United States. Well, the German folks are reporting that Donald Trump actually wanted to get exclusive rights for the United States,

paid them a billion dollars, and Germany said, hell no. America first. We're not... America first, man. What are you talking about? America first.

For him to have said time and time again that the problem wasn't here, acting like he had it under control, it was a hoax. Now he wants to poach what could be something that could reduce this from every other country. What?

I bet your Italian friend disagrees with that. Hey, I ain't got to do what that dude. I just met him one time. What's wrong with him going out and trying to purchase it for the United States? That's ridiculous. It's a global pandemic. Why? What's wrong with that going out and trying to purchase it for the United States? That's ridiculous. It's a global pandemic. Why? What's wrong with that? Because people are dying.

How about you be a leader? How about you be a leader? That is your leadership, trying to take it for the country. How about you be a leader and you say, you know what? Why don't we actually, if this thing works, develop it for everybody? America first. If they can if this thing works, develop it for everybody?

America first. If he can get it for us, I'm for it. Avis, go ahead. Here's the thing. This is a prime example of who he is. This is someone who is literally incapable of feeling empathy.

As I've said plenty of times, he seems to be a psychopath. He does not have any way of understanding other people's suffering, other people feeling tragedy, other people literally dying. That's why he went for so long and lied to Americans about this being a hoax and letting this spread to the point where we can't even catch up with it now. And countless people are going to die because he lied. And this particular issue right here is another example of that, because he has the most important thing to him is money. The most important thing. And because the most important thing to him is money, he naturally assumes that's the most important thing to everyone else.

You have Italy and Spain on lockdown. You have this president who has now decided that he is going to, as of a couple of days ago, also include the UK in his ban. People are stuck in airports because he announced that without thinking about how those here could get back out. It's a problem because for somebody to act like it was contained and nothing really was going to affect the American public, now he wants to poach a potential vaccine just for Americans. This is problematic because the president of the United States, this is not his role. It is not his role to ensure that he is hoarding things for Americans that everybody else cannot get. That's

a problem. And even unless someone, if it exists everywhere, we're all under threat because all you have to do is have someone to take a plane and they're back in America. But Trump is an isolationist. He doesn't believe in that. He only believes in globalism when it has to do with our economy. It looks like they don't believe in it either. America first, man. What you talking about? Get the files first. I have a problem

with the fact that in Italy, I have a problem, honestly. To me, it's just not funny. Because here we are, we're in a fact that in Italy, I have a problem, honestly, and to me, it's just not funny because here we are where we're in a place where in Italy, individuals who are over 80, they just tell them, we're not even going to try to treat you. You're just going to die a very painful death because we do not have the facilities to be able to meet the demand that we have right now in terms of all the people that have been infected by this disease and our limited capability in terms of beds if the jury are having we're gonna have the same thing happen here this shit is not funny because people are rating who

needs to be taken care of and who doesn't the corona virus was attacking at the levels when it comes to deaths younger people as it is older people we would see responses very different if the Germans developed a vaccine, the United States should work with the Germans and it should be open sourced and make it available to the world. Absolutely. This is not a moment where one company

should be able to say, oh, we're about to make billions from this. This is about saving lives. Which is what we've literally done with every other vaccine known to man. And that's what should be taking place there. All right, folks, we are impacted. Coronavirus is impacting our elections here in the United States.

In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine wants to suspend tomorrow's election, saying that it violates the CDC protocol for groups gathering 10 or more. In Texas, they are losing people in Florida as well to work the polls. In Illinois, same thing. Normally, they have something around 8,000 people who work the polls. They've got about 5,800. Part of the issue here is that people who work the polls are like my parents, older citizens, and they're canceling left and right. In Georgia, the governor there is trying to cancel the election, and that he wants to appoint somebody to the Supreme Court. Joining us right now is Kristen Clark. Of course,

she leads a large committee for civil rights under law. We're going to be talking to her about a couple of different stories. But first, Kristen, let's deal with this voting issue first. You even have Senator Bernie Sanders is now calling for a delay of all these primaries as well. Joe Biden is saying, no, move forward with them. How do we now deal with and what are y'all doing to fight this whole issue of some people saying, let's just do, you know, ballot ballot by mail? I saw one of your tweets where y'all said that greatly impacts whites and it hurts African-Americans. So unpack all of this, this whole issue of voting and coronavirus for us. Yeah, we are working around the clock and fighting to ensure voter access.

I mean, we're in uncharted territory. We haven't faced a public health crisis like this in modern time, but we have been through some events like 9-11, which impacted New York City's election, and Hurricane Katrina, which impacted Louisiana's election. So you would think in 2020 that states would be better prepared, that they'd have contingency plans in place, a plan B, but they don't. And so they are all scrambling. And so we have a state-by by state strategy approach in place right now where we're looking very carefully at the laws in every state. We're looking at the powers that governors have, and we are pressing and pushing them to do more than allow vote by

mail. We're pushing them to make absentee balloting as easy as possible. We're focused on voter registration, right? I mean, right now with people quarantined and the cut down on social activity, this has a chilling effect on our ability to register people who are not yet on the registration roll. So we're fighting state by state. It's a comprehensive strategy. The laws look different in every single state. Right now, we have elections canceled in Georgia, or postponed in Georgia, Louisiana. Ohio has asked the court for an extension. Kentucky has moved to postpone its election. And New York and Puerto Rico are rumored to be thinking very seriously about delays. But that should be a last resort. We have been pushing officials in Ohio. We said,

look, make it easier for people to get absentee ballots, loosen up the deadline, let people have until election day for those ballots to be postmarked. Count them if they're postmarked by election day. Allow people to go and retrieve an absentee ballot for someone who may be elderly or sick or quarantined. And it's been an uphill battle. I think that when the dust settles, we have a lot of work to do, because in a modern-day democracy like ours, we should have a stronger plan B in place. The final point I'll make is what you said, Roland, that vote by mail is not the kind of magic fix for all of this.

We know that African-Americans historically have placed great value in going in to cast that ballot, whether it's in person on election day or during early voting. We also know that there are people who have language needs that may not be met by simply mailing a ballot to them at home. So this isn't the kind of best fix for voters of color, which is why we're pushing for states to open up multiple avenues, open up as many avenues as possible that will allow people to participate in 2020. Obviously, this is a huge issue that we're paying attention to. And part of the problem is that you take the case of Mike DeWine. He wants to suspend the election. Ohio votes tomorrow. He doesn't have the power.

Yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens with the court. I'll tell you that my team has been on the ground in Ohio with our partners. We have people whose health is compromised. We have people who have been quarantined. We have low-income people in public housing complexes where polling sites have been moved away from those complexes and placed far away. The barriers that voters were up against were tremendous. We sent a demand letter to officials in Ohio yesterday urging them to do more, and we were bracing for the possibility of litigation today when the state made this decision to postpone. You know, we're happy that people will not be disenfranchised, but it's still a very dire situation. We have to make sure that

the state educates every single voter about the new election date. We have to make sure that people are informed about polling sites that may switch back and forth. There is a lot of work to do to make sure that all of these 11th hour changes do not cause utter chaos in the 2020 cycle. Our job at the Lawyers Committee is making sure that African-American voters and people of color who have been historically locked out are able to exercise their voice. We are running our election protection program. This is the nation's largest nonpartisan voter protection program. It's anchored by the 866 Our Vote hotline. And I can tell you, my team has been working around the clock all weekend and will be there tomorrow, you know, from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m., working hand-in-hand with voters to make

sure that they can cast their ballots. 866-OUR-VOTE. Let's talk about a second story, and that is the Maryland State Senate voted unanimously to pass House Speaker Adrienne Jones' legislation that would send $580 million to the state's four historically Black colleges and universities over the next 10 years. Now, the bill had passed the House of Delegates by 129 to 2 vote. It now goes to Republican Governor Larry Hogan's desk for him to sign. Now, the money will help the schools create academic programs, expand scholarships, recruit faculty and market the schools. It is designed to force the state to settle a long running lawsuit that alleges Maryland's government made decisions that harmed the viability of HBCUs in that state.

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was leading that lawsuit. This has been going on for more than a decade. Larry Hogan gave a take-it-or-leave-it offer of $200 million to the Black Caucus and to the lawyers involved. Of course, those of us thought that was paltry, held a protest there in Maryland a few months ago. This is obviously huge, huge news and a major victory for support of HBCUs. It is. It is the most important higher education desegregation case to be heard in decades. And most importantly, we are on a pathway to providing long overdue relief for the four HBCUs here in Maryland that suffered a grave injustice.

The state of Maryland poorly funded those HBCUs over time, advantaging traditionally white institutions. And, you know, this caused the HBCUs in Maryland to suffer as a result. A court back in 2013 found that the state's conduct violated the Constitution. In 2017, the court issued a very complex and thoughtful remedial plan for putting this matter to rest. But the state of Maryland has continued to fight. We're up at the Fourth

Circuit, and the court literally ordered the parties to go and work this out. And we're really grateful for the leadership that we've seen in the Maryland General Assembly. A bill passed by a margin of 45 to 0 in the Senate yesterday. Unanimous bipartisan support for bringing closure to this long protracted battle. And this is veto proof. This is veto proof. All that's left now is for us to put ink on a final settlement agreement. And then finally, we'll see long overdue relief pour to the four HBCUs in the state of Maryland.

And hopefully the victory that we secured in this case opens up a pathway for figuring out how we can remedy some of the harm and injustice done to other HBCUs in other parts of the country. I want to thank you, Roland, because you have been one person who shined a light on this case at every step of the way. This is a battle that has gone on for over a decade. You were out there in Annapolis this fall with the students who converged on the Capitol to march to bring closure to this fight. So thank you very much for doing that. But, you know, at the end of the day, this is about righting a wrong, about bringing closure to a grave injustice. Our HBCUs are an important part of our educational landscape in this country, and they were wronged by the state of Maryland.

And again, we were there for that rally there, and this is the point that I made. This is the point that I made to a number of people then. I made people then, I said that you have to put pressure on legislatures to do the right thing. Maryland has the largest black caucus of any state in the country. This was critically important for folks to do that. And I think for a lot of times, again, we don't fully understand our power. And you have what I call the inside-outside game. And that is there are those of you who were fighting in the courts, but you needed backing from the people outside. And we made it perfectly clear to the legislature. And I said to the I said that day we were in Annapolis.

Let the Democratic Party know not a single bill is going to move unless these schools get funded. Use your power the best way you can. That's what matters. Right. Amen. It is a perfect example of the power of bringing together civil rights lawyers with the power of Maryland heard the legislature loud and clear in bipartisan fashion saying enough is enough. Let's bring long overdue relief to the four HBCUs in this state. So thank you, Roland. Well, certainly congratulations to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and keep fighting the fight when it comes to these elections. How can people support y'all work? Please visit www.lawyerscommittee.gov. Lawyers with an S, committee.gov. We are literally working seven days a week. Our work was already intense before the coronavirus hit the country. But in every respect for African-American people, this is a public health crisis that makes our situation all the more dire.

We will be on the front lines every step of the way, making sure that we have access to the ballot box, making sure that our students don't lose out with the school closures that we are up against, making sure that we are fighting tooth and nail to help restore our country. All right, then. Kristen Clark, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Avis, I want to go to you on this whole issue of this postponing of these elections.

It is, look, I get it. I totally understand in terms of what is happening with coronavirus. But these legislatures are going to have to move a lot quicker to realize that you have to figure something out. Because here's the piece. The election is in November. All the people say, oh, Trump could cancel the election. Trump can't cancel the November election. That's enshrined in law by Congress.

Congress has to actually change that. And so you got to have a nominee. So there's got to be some kind of process, but it's not just even on the national level. These elections are also local races. Yeah, absolutely. So it is a very, it's unfortunate that people aren't beginning to think more creatively and haven't thought before now about a contingency, as Kristen mentioned. But the challenge here with the election is, as you mentioned, we have a very small window here where people have the opportunity

to make their voices heard. And you have to figure out how can we balance that civic responsibility and the reality of the deadlines that we have around that with public health. You know I kind of liked how Washington was very creative in town and how they implemented their primary. They literally had like a drive-through system put together where people had their ballots, they came and

they were had like a little drop box and there was someone there working the box and people would drive up and drop off their ballots. Now, obviously, Washington was one of the first places, the first place that this really hit. So they were probably thinking about this ahead of time. But I'm hoping that some of these governors will start to think a little bit more creatively. Can they do something like that? Can they really extend, as you mentioned, absentee voting, other ways that they can think about making sure that people are able to make their voices heard? Because we have to have a nominee to be able to have an effective election come November 3rd. And that has to happen no matter what.

But it also requires a culture shift. I think it was spoken of earlier. Black people, particularly older black voters who are the base of the black vote for the Democratic Party, typically go in and they vote on election day or they vote early. They go to that polling place. Right. Many, whether it takes, you know, minivans and all types of things to get them there. This is something that they do. It is something that is ingrained. It's something that they take very seriously. To move those people on a whim to an absentee ballot is going to take a lot. The majority of how absentee ballots have been or vote by mail has been marketed for years has been if you are sick, if you are shut in, like they made it an emergency type situation, even in states where it has been open for a long time. I'm from Illinois.

I could vote by mail any given time in any election. But again, it's not something that is marketed that way. And for the particular groups that are probably going to be the most affected in terms of quarantining around coronavirus, these are individuals who are very used to voting in another way. And for states to now decide, like Ohio, well, we may or may not have this thing tomorrow, that's a big problem. In addition to the fact that that is very much a swing state, and this really takes into consideration what it means for the black vote specifically. I'm more worried about its impact on black voters just because, historically speaking, the droves of the black vote comes out on election day.

It does not come out through mail-in ballots. The issue I have here, again, Derek, is that this is not just about Biden or Sanders. This is about people who are running for attorney general, secretary of state, DA, judges. I mean, this impacts up and down the ballot. Sure. And I go back to what we said

in the first hour. America's behind the eight ball right now. Period. So are these states right now. And unfortunately, trying to be creative, as you said, with it's going to be a cultural change for a lot of people. But at the same time, I think it's going to be difficult for the Democratic Party to handle a change like this right now for a lot of reasons. Yeah. We just saw what happened in Iowa. Change does not work well for the Democratic Party. But maybe it's a little bit of timing, too, because I know, for example, I voted in Virginia. We had the highest turnout that we've had in the history in this recent primary.

Over a million people voted. Was it before everything went crazy with the virus? Yeah, but let me say, I went in the middle of the day. I stood in zero line. I went up, voted, left. There were not 10 people in that room when I voted. So, you know, maybe part of this is also educating people around not avoiding peak times and staggering the time that you actually do come in to vote.

Well, they got to figure it out. And again, you got to figure it out real quick. Governments can't make unilateral decisions to cancel elections, so that's what they got to do. Last night, of course, there was a debate taking place between Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders. Here's some of what they had to say. First of all, I have to take care of those who, in fact,

are exposed or likely to be exposed to the virus. And that means we have to do testing. We have to get the testing kits up and ready. I would have the World Health Organization. I take advantage of the test kits they have available to us, even though the president says a million or more are coming. Let's just get all the tests we can done as quickly as we can. Secondly, I would make sure that every state in the union had at least 10 places where they had drive-through testing arrangements. I would also, at this point, deal with the need to begin to plan for the need for additional hospital beds. We have that capacity in the Department of Defense, as well as with the

FEMA. And they can set up 100-bed, 500-bed hospitals in tents quickly. We have to lay all that out. But we have to deal with the economic fallout quickly. And that means making sure that people who in fact lose their job, don't get a paycheck, can't pay their mortgage, are able to pay it and pay them now and do it now. Small businesses be able to borrow interest-free loans. The first thing we have got to do, whether or not I'm president, is to shut this president up right now because he is undermining the doctors and the scientists who are trying to help the American people. It is unacceptable for him to be blabbering with unfactual information, which is confusing

the general public. Second of all, what we need to do, and I'm glad that he has called a state of national emergency, what we have got to do is move aggressively to make sure that every person in this country finally understands that when they get sick with the coronavirus, that they will, that all payments will be made, that they don't have to worry about coming up with money for testing. They don't have to worry about coming up with money for treatment. This is an unprecedented moment in American history. Now, I obviously believe in Medicare for all. I will fight for that as president. But right now in this emergency, I want every

person in this country to understand that when you get sick, you go to the doctor. When you get sick, if you have the virus, that will be paid for. Do not worry about the cost right now because we're in the middle of a national emergency. Second of all, we have to make sure that our hospitals have the ventilators that they need, have the ICU units that they need. Right now, we have a lack of medical personnel. And I worry very much that if there is a peak, whether we have the capability of dealing with hundreds of thousands of people who may be in hospitals. So we need unprecedented action right now to deal with the

unprecedented crisis. And bottom line, from an economic point of view, what we have got to say to the American people, if you lose your job, you will be made whole. You're not going to lose income. If Trump can put or the Fed can put a trillion and a half into the banking system, we can protect the wages of every worker in America. Did anybody care last night? Anybody care? About 10.8 million people watched the debate.

Did anybody literally care? I did. I watched it last night. But on the crux of everything shutting down. I ain't watching. No, first of all... Oh, that's why you asked me. Look, I can't stand hearing Jake Tapper's voice.

That whole sourpuss, you know, look, I can't even stand it. But seriously... You wouldn't have heard much of it because they kind of just went at it. Yeah, they did. You almost forgot moderators were there. Well, first of all, I think it was great that you didn't have an audience there. You could actually listen to the candidates. I just think right now, I think it was great that you didn't have an audience there. You could actually listen to the candidates. I just think right now, I just think right now in terms of you could talk about any other issue.

There's only one issue. That's right. That's the number one issue. And they talked about it for the first 40 minutes of the. Well, I'm not saying I think there's only one issue. And I think, frankly, the only thing that we have to judge really is looking at these two, how would they respond if they were behind that lectern? Right. To me, that's it. Yeah. And that's exactly how it started. And, you know, it really did paint a stark contrast between the two because you could really tell that Vice President Biden came to this as someone who, frankly, this is not his first rodeo.

He's seen crises before. He understands all the various different functions of government that need to be put in place in order to address that. He could talk very extensively about the economic implications and what needs to happen in order to help to correct that. And Bernie, I think he really went back to his broader theoretical underpinnings of this sort of highlights how important it is that everyone has access to Medicare. But he wasn't quite, to me, as specific about what to do in this moment, in a moment of crisis, either in terms of dealing with this health threat or dealing with the economic threat that we're facing as a result of the recession that's coming. I agree with David on a lot of those points, but I think that they were speaking to two different audiences. For Bernie, he was speaking to the people who aren't going to have any coverage, who now are going to be out of work for the next two weeks. The folks who are working gig economy jobs who don't have health insurance already. The folks who don't know what's going to

happen with their child care. He was speaking to an audience of people who could care less, to be honest, about how Biden helped us wade through a lot of pandemics before or how he helped us in the previous years under the Obama administration, he was speaking to people who are worried about whether or not they can keep a roof over their heads during this crisis. Well, Biden spoke to that, too. And offering them a plan immediately. And he didn't fall back on the structural argument.

I think that sometimes, and I'm not a Bernie supporter by any means, but I think that sometimes the structural argument that Biden was making wasn't one that sails as high for those people who are worried about over the next two or three weeks, my small business is gone. What am I going to do to survive? That was something that Bernie touched on over and over and over again. I don't know, maybe, well, I heard Biden also touching on that in terms of specific relief to individuals now. It's not having to pay for anything now. Being able to give, you know, fund money checks specifically to people who need it

now. Zero interest loans to business owners now, you know. So I did hear that and I didn't hear that level of specificity personally from Bernie. You know, I think that both of them, it was an interesting way to be able to contrast these two very different perspectives. And if I was to sort of give a sort of an overview, to me, it seemed like Biden's focus was what we need to do immediately to overcome the crisis that we face. And I think Bernie's focus was what we need to do structurally to make sure that in the future we can create we can create a better way of handling crises that might be down the line. Derek?

I watched it last night because I knew I was coming on here. Good. Way to go. Right. I was trying to do my homework, my due diligence. But as I was in there like, trying not to, I was literally trying to stay woke. But at the end of the day, in the overview, I thought it was very boring. Because as you said, there's nothing more important right now than the coronavirus.

So anything that they said, it just kind of went out the window. But at the same time, I thought the debate on a whole was very equal. I don't think anyone shined more than the other did. And I just think the Democratic Party is still... And the other thing I felt, just watching them two, I said,

we got three white men right now. Old white men. Old white men that represent this country. That's what happens when we elect a black president. White folks respond. Look, 71% of the total electorate in 2016 was white. 71%. This election will be the first time in likely under 70%. White

folks are choosing. That's what you have here. It's an absolute look. I've always said this here, and the reality is this here, in the history of America, you've always, in the history of America, you've always had white backlash to black success. That's what you have

here, without a doubt. All right, y'all, also last night Joe Biden made some news when he talked about who would be his VP nominee and who he put on the Supreme Court you have the video right there Joe Biden on the VP of Supreme Court pick so go ahead and play it if I'm that if I'm elected president, have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, I'll appoint the first black woman to the courts. It's required that they have representation now. It's long overdue.

Secondly, if I'm elected president, my cabinet, my administration will look like the country. And I commit that I will, in fact, appoint a, I'll pick a woman to be vice president. There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be my vice president. Just to be clear, you just committed here tonight that your running mate, if you get the nomination, will be a woman? Yes. Alicia, big deal? Absolutely. I think that Joe Biden knows that women are the key to unlocking the Democratic nomination. He knows that it mattered really, really strongly in Michigan. He watched what happened in South Carolina as well.

Not only a woman, but a black woman. I think that that is the key for him. Derek? Yeah, I think he got some points last night with that move right there. When I watched that right there, I forgot one thing that he did say that I thought was kind of off what Biden said. And she went and she asked him about it was on immigration. And he said that anybody that was arrested, and as long as it wasn't a felony offense, they would not be deported out of here. And I thought, and she doubled down on it. And he doubled down on it. The reason he got asked that question, because the Obama administration

deported a whole bunch of folks. And that has been a very sore point when it comes to, and he's also down, Sanders, when it comes to Latino vote. Avis, the VP pick and also Supreme Court nominee. Well, obviously, I was excited back in South Carolina when he committed to having a black woman as his nominee to the Supreme Court. Good to see him reiterate it there. And I thought it was actually great strategy by his team in terms of prepping for this debate to announce this idea about having a woman as his running mate at the debate.

He knew when that left his mouth that this was the clip that would be run on every news station between then and the next primaries on Tuesday. Just in terms of political strategy, it was excellent. All right. He also knew that Bernie wasn't gonna match it. Exactly.

And Bernie danced around on the question. Bernie danced away from that. He did. He's like, mark the high commitment, high commitment. She had to ask him like two times before he answered that question. And that's why you stayed in. All right, y'all, you know what time it is. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, gee. I'm white. I got you, girl. Yeah, and, um, illegally selling water without a permit. On my property. Whoa! Hey! Give me your number.

Give me your number. Give me your number.. Illegally selling water without a permit. On my property. Whoa! Hey! I remember. Give me your ID. You don't remember? Yeah.

I'm uncomfortable. Oh, y'all. I keep telling y'all. There's some crazy ass white women out here. Well, on an American Airlines flight, one of them actually called a male flight attendant the n-word She realized the who was sitting like right next to her I don't have to try. I don't have to try.

You are so fucking fucked up and you don't realize it. You don't realize it. I thought you was cool. And you're going to sit here and call him a fucking nigga while you send aside an African-American woman? You are fucking stupid. You need to be locked the fuck up. I hope they lock your motherfucking ass up, because you a dumb ass bitch. You a dumb ass bitch.

Who the fuck is a nigga? You done lost the motherfucking mind. You done lost the motherfucking mind. You understand me? You are stupid. You can stop laughing. Why are you fucking stupid cunt? I'm a cunt. Yeah, you're a cunt.

I'm a cunt. You're a fucking cunt. You're a fucking cunt. You're a fucking cunt. The best you can do, you gonna sit beside me and call him a fucking cunt. You're out of the superior hall. You're a fucking cunt. You're a fucking cunt. The best you can do, you gonna sit beside me and call him a motherfucking dickhead. I'm driving a three-yard highway, man.

You're gonna turn off. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. The white tears. The white tears. All right, Heffa. You don't want to sit here and buckle up? Fine.

Hope you bounce your damn head off the goddamn ceiling. Oh, my God. That's the best one, Rola. Duh. That was great. I already know what to say. That was so much. Where do you start with that right there?

How did she get on the plane that drunk? That's the first thing. Oh, I've seen that. Drunk people get on planes. I have all the time. But why did they not? They took the black lady off and left her. No, no, no, no, no. First thing they didn't take her off. They were in air. Oh, my God. They were in the time. They took the black lady off. No, no, no. First thing they took out, they were in air.

Oh my God, they were in the air? That was in flight? Okay, I'm sorry. Can y'all play it again? Y'all obviously were not paying attention. Can y'all hear? Can y'all hear the engine? I didn't know they were in flight. Say that shit. Say that shit.

If you're trying to. But the thing is, I don't have to try. I don't have to try. You are so fucking fucked up and you don't realize it. You don't realize it. I thought you was cool. And you gonna sit here and call him a fucking nigga while you send aside an African American woman? You are fucking stupid. You need to be locked the fuck up.

I hope they lock your motherfucking ass up. Because you a dumb ass bitch. You a dumb ass bitch. Who the fuck is a nigga? You done lost the motherfucking mind. You done lost the motherfucking mind. You understand me? You are stupid. You are fucking stupid cunt. I'm a cunt? Yeah, you're a cunt. I'm a cunt.

You're a fucking cunt. You're a fucking cunt. You're a fucking cunt. The best you can do, you gonna sit beside me and call him a fucking cunt? I'm a cunt. You're out of your period. I'm out of your period. You're out of your period.

You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period.

You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're out of your period. You're a fucking cunt. The best you can do, you gonna sit beside me and call him a fucking cunt. I'm driving a three-yard highway, man. You're a fucking cunt. I'm driving a hill. Don't touch me. Don't touch me.

Y'all cut it off because the dude who was taping me started laughing. He's like, whoa. He started laughing. Look, I warned y'all. Get your ass whooped out there. Y'all keep messing with some of these black people. I didn't know it was in flight. Yeah, I'm like, what's wrong with you?

Yeah. He grabbed her quick, though. He's like, oh, put it in first class. Put it in first class. Put it in first class before she whooped that ass again. She had a bit over the neck over that skin. Hey, hey, I ain't mad at her. I ain't mad at her.

I would have choked the shit out of her, too. All right, y'all. I'm going to end this with a couple of things. Some people take the coronavirus seriously. So this is y'all today on The View. Normally, you know how they sit at that table. They brought in a bigger ass table. Watch this.

Austin and Meghan McCain. Now, let's get things started. Well, hello. Hello. Welcome to the view, y'all. And to our very big, big ass fans. Joining us as our guest co-hosts are the fabulous Sarah Haynes and the fabulous Dr. Jed Ashton. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Hello. the fabulous Sarah Haynes, and the fabulous Dr. Jed Ashton. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Joy made the decision to self-isolate

in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. And we also have no audience, and there are plenty of other disruptions in American life right now. And the CDC says to limit gatherings to less than 50 people. That is a big-ass table. That's a big-ass table. They can stretch their arms out and never touch each other.

They brought in a big-ass. That's a big ass table. They can stretch their arms out and never touch each other. That's, that's, they brought in a big ass table right there. Uh, yeah, I thought that was interesting. So let me, so y'all had a video of the white nurse going off. Y'all had that? I sent y'all a link.

Um, y'all, I saw this video. This is so, oh my God. So this actually happened. This happened. So this woman, uh, so video. This is so, oh, my God. So this actually happened. So this woman, let me see. So this woman here left the, she's a nurse in Tennessee. So she leaves the store, and she has to record this video. And I saw it, and I had to play it. I'm sorry.

I just had to play it. I'm sorry. I just had to play it. Okay, so she's describing somebody in front of her who showed her ass in the store. Oh, my Lord. Y'all want to see how some people stuck on stupid? Watch this. And up until today, I have managed to not ever have to do a rant video on Facebook, but apparently today is my day.

Just left the grocery store, and as we all know, the coronavirus, COVID-19, whatever we're calling it this week, has driven people completely insane. And the woman in line in front of me, just apropos of nothing, just starts shrieking at the poor little guy ringing her up that he has just touched his face and that he therefore must wash his hands just shrieking this to the top of her lungs so i'm assuming she surely to god must be the head of the cdc because she says it was such conviction and by the way lady it's you're not supposed to touch your face doesn't really matter as much if he touches his um i digress the little guy says i can't wash my hands right now

she says i'll wait great well i'll wait i guess lady he says i have hand sanitizer so he takes like a quarter of a little squirt does this little thing on his hands for about a quarter of a second which basically would have just served to incite a riot and maybe kill off two small weak germs to which the head of the cdc in her kitten covered lab coat nods and fervently agrees that he's you know saved the universe with that he kind of refrains from rolling his eyes which i think makes him a saint and then she goes on to whip out her credit card and use the debit pad that every finger-licking, booger-picking, double-digit IQ idiot has touched all day long after going to the bathroom and not washing their hands. And then she just walks on out with her groceries. Completely oblivious to the fact that everyone who handled those groceries prior to her

getting them has left their little touch and trace of germs all over them. That going down the conveyor belt, they probably picked up chicken juice and everything else. But thank God that kid used that quarter of a squirt of Purell. Oh, that was funny as hell. That was funny. Y'all, y'all, that was funny as hell. I had to go. Hold on. Matter of fact, actually, the iPad cut off.

So go back to it. Here's the rest of it. They probably picked up chicken juice and everything else. But thank God that kid used that quarter of a squirt of Purell. She has saved the day and kept us all safe from the coronavirus. Y'all, it doesn't matter what we do. There's so many stupid people in this world. We're never going to survive

anyway. So touch your face. Just touch it. Just touch it. It's all that's left. Ah! Stupid face. Ah! I told you when I saw that video, I said I had to play that one.

Just touch your face. Just touch your face. I will. Touch your face. Oh, man. Okay. All right, that's it for us. Certainly want to thank Mr. Influenza down there.

Touching people from Italy. I'm good. Derek, we appreciate that. Abisha, thanks a bunch. Abel, thanks a bunch as well. We certainly want to thank Dr. Benjamin, all of our doctors who are on the show today. And we want to give you information that you need.

And don't forget, y'all, do not, if any fool on your social media page puts on there black people can't catch coronavirus, smack the shit out of them. Just, I mean, just go ahead and smack their ass. Just smack them. Just smack ahead and smack their ass. Just smack them. Just smack them. Please do so. And also, we certainly appreciate the leadership

of various people out there who are doing what they're supposed to do. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, as a matter of fact, she had posted a tweet, and let me see if I can find it. Let's see if you see it. She, again, one of the things that she did

to try to get these people to act right was sign an executive order when it comes to limiting folks and their actions. And again, she tweeted that she had signed the executive order. It's right here. Eliminating, gathering 250 people on yesterday, reducing it to 50 because of the CDC. She said, but the reality is that we are one city in a big country.

This virus doesn't respect geographical lines. Stay home if you can. I agree, folks. Stay home if you can. Now, also, let me give some other news, any late news that was coming down. Of course, all these things keep changing. And the latest thing that we've been paying attention to watching this year. Oh, also, I did not mention this here.

Of course, we did this story last week about Andrew Gillum, of course, being found in a hotel in Miami with a man identified as a gay male escort who had methamphetamines. Now, remember, he released a statement stating that he was inebriated, he did not take any of those drugs. Yet on yesterday, he dropped this new statement. Go to my iPad, please. He says, quote, after conversation with my family and deep reflection,

I've made the decision to seek iPad, please. effects it can have when untreated. I also know that alcoholism is often a symptom of deeper struggles. I'm committed to doing the personal work to heal fully and show up in the world as a more complete person. I now need to firmly focus on myself and my family. I'll be stepping down from all public facing roles for the foreseeable future. I want to apologize to my family, friends and the people of Florida who've supported me and put their faith in me over the years. I ask that you respect my and my family's privacy during this time. Thank you. That's so unfortunate.

Crisis PR. Good statement. It doesn't answer several of the other questions that are still left, but... What you doing there with that gay boy? With his pants damn naked? What you doing, man? At the end of the day, it's nobody's business. I mean, I feel

like this is unfortunate. He also mentioned that... It's nobody's business? Except for his wife and his family. It's not your business. It ain't none of my business. I'm talking about all the people who supported this man. All the people who supported this man. And right now, he's a private citizen, and he's no longer

running for office. At this point, he is a private citizen and he's no longer running for office. At this point, he is a CNN commentator. He's also stepping back from that role or he was fired. We don't know. But the point is now he's a private citizen. And what he does in the privacy of his own room with someone else, I don't care who that person is. I don't care what gender that person is, is his business. It's unfortunate.

I hate to see this happen because you're right. I mean, his career is over. His career is over. I care about his... I would like, you know, any wife that has to go through that to find out the way she did. Oh, my God.

His kids, there's a lot more to unpack there. That ain't his first time doing it. He had great crisis communications team. That ain't his first time. Appreciate the statement, but there's a lot more to that. There's a lot more. That ain't his first time. That ain't his first time.

That ain't his first time. And she might have known. He was out like that, man. Come on. He was out. And so what I, me, as a black man, you know, I was like, damn. You know what I'm saying? That's what pissed me off because he was a black man.

He makes us all look bad. But from just standing up for this dude, like, yo, man. What? I'm just saying because. How does it make all of us look bad? I'm just saying that on a whole. He don't make me look bad. But from just standing up for this dude, like, yo, man. What? I'm just saying because it doesn't make me look bad. I'm just saying that on the whole. He don't make me look bad. No, I'm just saying.

On the whole, that shit don't look right for, it don't look good for black people in general. That's all I'm saying. But that happens. Hold up, but one person. All I'm saying is,

I ain't in that group. Let me put that out there first of all. No, but here's the whole deal. First of all. I ain't out there in that group. First of all. But that shit wasn't right

and it don't look right, period. That's all I'm saying. I mean, the reality is he has to, even with that statement, if he chooses to come back in public life, he is going to. He can't come back from that. Let me finish. If he chooses to come back in public life, he is going to have to explain what took place.

He is going to have to explain not only drinking, not only methamphetamines. He's going to have to explain not only drinking, not only methamphetamines. He's going to have to explain being in a room. Dream it. With... What next? Well, first of all,

according to the police report, one of the guys, the guy who gave the escort the card to book the room, he came in. The guy opened the door, he fell on the bed, discovered that he was also in trouble breathing. He said he saw the guy who was Alex.

I forgot. I can't pronounce his last name. 53 or 56, depending upon the story. He sees Andrew in the bathroom, drunk, vomiting in the toilet. And so that's what happened. But he's going to have to explain it. And the reality is, yo, if you choose to be back in public life, there are going to be questions. You're going to have to explain everything that happened that night.

And so the statement does not address that, but it certainly addresses what his initial statement, when we talked about him being inebriated and being drunk in the room. The main, the only person. No, I'm not saying it. At this point. I'm saying it. Timely and he had to say something. No, what I'm saying is, to be public light, he's going to have to actually address that.

That's the case there. So we'll be following that story as it develops. All right, y'all. I got to go. I'll see you guys tomorrow right here on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Don't forget, go to iPad. Please, y'all, pay attention to this right here. Right here.

Stop gathering in large crowds like nightclubs, bars, and events. Coronavirus can kill your parents and grandparents, or even you. You now have been warned, it can affect all of us. All right, I'll see y'all tomorrow. Holla! Martin! Thank you. This is an iHeart Podcast.