#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Deadly CA Wildfires, Jack Smith's Report, Monique Worrell Sworn In, Jimmy Carter's Presidency

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

1.8.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Deadly CA Wildfires, Jack Smith's Report, Monique Worrell Sworn In, Jimmy Carter's Presidency  Los Angeles wildfires are paralyzing the city.  Two people are dead while thousands seek safety from the inferno that has damaged thousands of acres, homes, and buildings.  Portions of special counsel Jack Smith's report on his charging decisions in the orange man's Jan. 6, 2021, election subversion case will be made public. After being removed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2023, Monique Worrell was sworn back in as the state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida. Honoring the life of Jimmy Carter, the 39th president continues.  We'll talk with author Craig Unger about Carter's presidency and what may have kept him as a one-term commander-in-chief.  The Democratic National Convention will select a new leader in February. Tonight, we'll talk to former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, one of the candidates vying to lead the party.  #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

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It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend.

At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Today is Wednesday, January 8, 2025. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Los Angeles wildfires are

paralyzing the city two people are dead thousands are seeking safety from the raging inferno it has damaged thousands of acres homes and buildings people have lost their dream homes and there's no end in sight portions of special counsel jack smith's report on his charging decisions in the orange man's january 6 2021 election subversion case are going to be made public. But some of the reports regarding the classified documents will not be made public and they may never become public. After being removed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2023, Monique Worrell was sworn back in as a state attorney for the 9th Judicial Circuit of Florida. On the Life of Jimmy Carter, the 39th president continues. We'll talk with author Craig Unger about Carter's presidency

and what may have kept him as a one-term commander-in-chief and how Ronald Reagan and Republicans played a role in that. Democratic National Committee seeking a new leader in February. Tonight, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley says

he wants to lead the party. We'll find out why. It's time to bring the funk and Roland Martin on filter on the Blackstone Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the biz, he's on it.

Whatever it is, he's got the soup, the fat, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best believe he's knowin' Puttin' it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin'

It's rumble, roll, roll, y'all It's rollin', Martin, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real, the best, you know he's Rollin' Martin Martin Folks, the scene looks something out of an apocalyptic movie. All across Los Angeles, especially Pacific Palisades, raging fires are burning up ground, destroying homes, businesses. It is absolutely shocking and stunning to see the images of these fires that are taking place. Strong winds in Los Angeles are not helping the cause. It is causing a significant, significant problem

in Los Angeles. And so folks are trying to figure out when it is all going to end. They have gone through more than a million gallons of water trying to put the fires out. And again, when you look at a lot of these stories people are trapped in their homes you're talking about people who are who are seeing their dream homes go up in flames many of these multi-million dollar homes in Malibu all have been burned to the ground. People have lost nearly all of their belongings as a result of these fires. Just absolutely shocking, absolutely shocking. President Joe Biden held a news conference with Governor Gavin Newsom

where they talked about what all is being done to assist the people, assist the folks there in Los Angeles as a result. And again, just absolute, total and complete devastation. The news conference took place earlier with President Joe Biden. And again, folks there, folks there, they keep talking about containment. What do they do? What happens next when it comes to this fire? What do they do? That's the question that so many people are raising because, again, as these fires continue to burn, as they continue to rage, they don't know what is going to be next.

They don't know what is going to happen next. And so it is just shocking and stunning to see this. And I mean, fire after fire. Just I mean, I was looking at one video and, you know, you swore it was a movie set, but it is not a movie set. What we are seeing, folks, is a complete and total devastation. Imagine you've worked your life and you're living in your dream home and everything you have is now burned to pieces, to ruins. And so there's been a lot of talk in terms of what is going to happen next. How do they come back from this? One of the other issues that is not being talked about is that a lot of insurance companies stop insuring homes in California as a result of this and so again just just just stunning stunning stunning I want

to bring in my panel now Scott Bolton attorney.C., he joins us on the show. Also, Rebecca Brothers, Fair Election Center vice president, joins us as well. Glad to have both of you here. First and foremost, let's let's let's do this here. What is what is crazy and on this day here, you have people who are losing every who lost everything and as usual you got a dumbass an Orange dumbass who is insulting the governor blaming him for these actions Governor Gavin Newsom said President Biden was so quick to approve federal disaster aid that he did it in a text

message quickly and easily. That's what real leaders do, Rebecca. And the last thing I would think folks in California want to hear is somebody making jokes and trying to place blame when people are trying to, frankly, stay alive. Rebecca, you're on mute. Go ahead. It's not just multimillion dollar areas in Southern California that's also impacted. Over towards Eden Canyon where Altadena, Pasadena is. My uncle lives in Altadena, had to evacuate earlier today.

He's lived there since the 70s, and this is the first time he's ever had to evacuate his home because of a fire. Altadena is a largely black area. So I just want to say that for the viewers, this isn't just alone PCH, just north of Santa Monica, just south of Malibu, of movie stars and extremely well-heeled people. But this is actually impacting more communities across Los Angeles County, because there's multiple fires now. And with the Santa Ana winds, the fires are moving so quickly, they're going in multiple directions. And just a couple of days ago, no one predicted that Altadena and Pasadena right now would be under evacuation. But to the incoming orange man that's going to be taking over on the White House is very unfortunate that as disasters happen in this country, that we're going to have someone

who's completely feckless, who doesn't have the ability to be mature enough to have true leadership, but instead is making jokes about renaming parts of North America. So, you know, I am glad that President Biden is in the White House right now because there are certain federal resources that can start to move before January 20th. You know, Scott, I've seen some folks talk about the need to call in firefighters from around the country, and that's actually happening. Different locales are sending firefighters to help there. But one of the issues they have there is water. I mean, the winds are blowing so hard, they simply cannot combat these winds, and's what's uh driving these fires

uh we still have scott there did we lose scott guys let me know if we still have scott there okay we lost lost Scott. Okay. So we lost Scott's message. So, uh, so we're going to try, we're trying to get, uh, Scott, uh, back, uh, on the show. Um, as I said, uh, uh, president Biden, uh, has promised a significant, uh, relief, uh, as a result. And just, if you want to talk about folks again, the devastation, I want to pull this up here. Give me a second. I just want to show you, uh, this was one of the devastation I want to pull this up here. Give me a second I want to show you This was one of the videos that I came across and man, you know when you see this Apparently, there's only this one person says

In one second as I pull this up apparently they said what you're gonna see this video Because our house appears to be one of the three left standing on our street although active fires are still burning doors away the person that said our cat Leroy's inside if anyone can get to him I beg you to rescue him please message me if so you know again just so people understand Just you know what this looks like Let me go. Let me just look at look at this here. Look at this. This is Like literally they're on this street only three houses

only three I mean that that's That is just on believable I mean, that that's that is just unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable to see this destruction. And we're talking about businesses. I mean, you name it. People are trying to escape as best as they can. And all I keep hearing people say is apocalyptic, Rebecca, apocalyptic, apocalyptic. Just how how crazy this this scene looks. And to reemphasize your point earlier with the Santa Ana winds, the fire is moving so fast. Because like I mentioned earlier, a couple of days ago, no one knew that certain areas of Los Angeles County was going to be in the direct path of the fire. I think about my cousin, Stacy, who's a hairstylist. Her salon

is directly in the line of fire right now. I think about one of my college friends who is a doctor, lives in Pasadena. He and his family are scrambling and trying to find some place to stay while he's still having to provide medical care for folks. So this fire is very consequential because I know we hear about fires in California over the years and it's something that happens often. However, when you are in one of the most populous counties in the country and now there's a fire that's not predictable, that there is out of control winds, which means that the fire is jumping. It's not just staying in a specific path. That leads to a lot of potential chaos. And we know it's going to be unprecedented property damage. And hopefully the authorities there will be able to mitigate the potential loss of life.

And it's very unfortunate. And it's also early January. We tend to think about these fires happening as it gets slightly warmer than in January. But it's, you know, it's California. It's dry. And unfortunately, we're in a weather pattern that's allowing for this for these fires. And it's once again, multiple fires to run out of control. And again, for people who don't quite understand, who don't understand what's going on here, who don't understand, you know, how significant this is. And then you have people who act as if climate change isn't real.

You see people all of a sudden, you got these partisan folks, Scott. Looks like we got Scott back trying to blame all Democrats. It's all on them. All on them when you have Republicans who have been constantly denying that climate change is real.

You're going to believe those Republicans or your lying eyes is my. All over the world, literally, and yet continue to deny it. Watch us get. Get out of the dip before. And so it's really, really makes no sense whatsoever because you can't deny the evidence of what's going on. And just very sad. It's, it's, you just, we keep suffering from it, but we won't do anything about it, especially on the Republican leadership. Absolutely. So we will continue to monitor what happens there in Los Angeles. Also, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is racing back to Los Angeles.

She was actually in Ghana for the inauguration of their president when these fires broke out. She's been criticized by Democrats and Republicans for not being there, but she has been, of course, in constant communication with her staff and she is actually on her way back and should be arriving in Los Angeles shortly. Folks, let's talk about what's happening here in DC. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to publicly release the portion of special counsel Jack Smith's charging decisions in the January 6, 2021 Trump's classified documents case on Tuesday to really

block the release of Smith's final report to prevent quote irreparable harm while the matter is considered by the 11th Circuit Court Appeals. Reality is she had no jurisdiction. What the hell? Defense attorneys sought to block the release of volume two of the report related to the classified document case, not volume one, which covers Trump's election interference case. So how do you make a sweeping decision covering both when you were only presiding over one of the cases? Judge Cannon's order referred only to the final report, not the two volumes within, suggesting that the entire report was blocked from release. Now, here's the deal. There are two other defendants in the classified documents case. Garland, because those cases are still pending, Garland may not release the report. And guess what happens? That report may be completely buried and destroyed when Trump Trump folks take over.

One of the things floated, Scott, that I thought was pretty interesting. I saw this one post where somebody said, hey, the DOJ should drop the charges against the other two individuals and then completely release the report. Yeah, that's a good that's a great idea. But the other part that's a problematic is just canons are ruling, but that the case isn't what we call right for review. The DOJ, at the time these lawsuits were filed or these motions were filed, DOJ hadn't said whether they were going to release them or not or how they were going to release them whatsoever. It's solely within the discretion of Merrick Garland, the AG. Now, Cannon's right to try to protect the co-defendants' rights, if you will, and her order to stay was very deferential to the 11th Circuit because she knows they're going to probably reverse her. So it was a very temporary order that was going to be last three days, no more than three days after whatever the 11th Circuit said, but she's got to still protect her

record on those cases pending. A DOJ could dismiss those cases, but they may believe that they can make some hay out of it until the new administration takes over. I doubt it. And so when the new administration takes over, they're going to dismiss those cases against those two defendants, Nopp and the other person. And so I think it's a good strategy. Dism dismiss the case against them there's nothing pending and then release the reports no i think what you see here i think you have judge eileen cannon who's trying to angle force who's trying to angle for a spot on supreme court rebecca uh and and and this is just a further example of how slow as molasses Merrick Garland has been and how awful he has been in terms of how he's led the Department of Justice and taken so long in prosecuting Donald Trump.

Well, Scott, you're not to correct me if I'm wrong here, but release the report. What's going to happen if Merrick Garland decides to release the report without dropping the charges against the two other folks? Once he releases the report, it's out there. I really don't see what the negative consequences or even what the formal consequences would be if he released the report. But just like what you're alluding to, Roland, is that Merrick Garland doesn't have the stomach to do things like that, to be bold. And this is the time to be bold, especially as we're watching someone going into the White House who has proven to be anti-democratic. At this point, if there's no rules and there's no rules, release the report. And look, here's the deal, Scott. I mean, the Supreme Court said, hey,

president's got total immunity. Biden should say, hey, what the hell? I'm going to drop it. Yeah, and certainly within his duties and responsibilities to do so. So that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And so whether he dismisses them or not, DOJ is not going to release the report. While an Article 3 judge in court has issued an inappropriate ruling, even if we disagree with it, they're going to wait on the 11th Circuit. But I just read a report where Mayor Garland said, I'm going to release the January 6th portion of the report. We'll hold off on the document side

of the report, simply because we disagree with Cannon's ruling. And so I think he's cut the middle ground. And so, but there's not, here's the thing about the January 6th case. There's nothing new in that report, strategy or otherwise. We know all those facts. You got a whole congressional hearing and investigation. So it's almost a moot issue. So I don't really know what they're fighting about, to be honest with you. The Cannon case, the documents case, I'd be concerned if I was DOJ about releasing it. Because if the 11th Circuit supports her and the Supreme Court is going to support not releasing it, I'd hate to be a DOJ and the AG violating any of those orders. At least plant it safe as usual. As usual.

Well, I hope somebody has both volumes on the flash drive. It just happens to come out publicly once all of this legal BS is behind. Sorry, y'all.

I'm just saying. Going to go to a break. We come back. President Jimmy Carter continues to lie in the state at the U.S. Capitol. People have been going to visiting around the clock. We come back. We're going to talk to an author who detailed in a book how how it was the enemies of President Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and his team did very well, thwarted the release of the Iranian hostages to hurt Jimmy Carter and to help Reagan get elected. We'll talk to Craig Unger next right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Now streaming on the Black Star Network.

I was challenged by my uncle early on before i even had a career like i was maybe eight years old and my uncle said what do you want to do and i told him i wanted to be a rapper he said okay well i don't know anything about the music business so what you should do is learn everything there is to know about the music business and i'll make sure that you have the resources to push you through. And so I went and bought books. All you need to know about the music business hit me and I just went and bought a bunch of books to start reading as a 10 year old. And so I learned, you know, all things licensing.

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and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

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And then use Fanbase to connect with friends, grow your audience, and be you without limits. Hey, this is Motown recording artist Kim. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Boy, he always unfiltered, though. I ain't never known him to be filtered.

Is there another way to experience Roland Martin than to be unfiltered? Of course he's unfiltered. Boy, he always unfiltered, though. I ain't never known him to be filtered. Is there another way to experience Roland Martin than to be unfiltered? Of course he's unfiltered. Would you expect anything less? Watch what happens next. this week the nations continue to say farewell to the 39th president of the united states jimmy carter carter who served one term has some of course has continued a lot in state at the u.s capital folks have been um paying their respects around the clock uh at the u.s capital uh as a result uh of course lying in state and it has been uh quite moving to actually see uh folks here d.C. was, you know, it's, you know, in the single digits, four o'clock in the morning, people standing in line waiting to pay their respects to President Jimmy Carter. uh of uh jimmy carter's presidency uh was a 1979 iran hostage situation where 50 americans were held captive in tehran by reigning revolutionary forces uh that played a huge role that people people also forget that was attempted rescue that also failed uh and for so long many people

speculated uh that uh ronald reagan's folks played a a role in this, and a lot of people denied it. But Craig Unger has a book called Den of Spies, Reagan, Carter, and the Secret History of the Treason that Stole the White House. He details in that book exactly what took place. He, this was a lot of years of reporting on this particular book. And it lays out very clearly how the Reagan team did all they could to stop those hostages from coming home. And if you remember, moments after Reagan was sworn in as president, the hostages were released. Craig Unger Jones is right now.

Craig, glad to have you here on the show. First and foremost, Craig, you've been very critical on social media on how so many of these mainstream media folks who have been doing these retrospectives on the Carter presidency just refuse to talk about this reality of what Reagan and his people did? Well, first, thanks for having me, Roland. But yes, you're absolutely right. I think it's a terrible disservice to Jimmy Carter's legacy not to recognize what really happened to most Americans he went out, not having brought home the hostages. And his presidency was seen, he was seen as sort of a weakling who allowed America to be humiliated by Iran. In fact, something very, very different was taking place. And in a lot of ways, I see it as a prequel to the Trump era. And what the Republicans were really doing was they were sabotaged. They were

involved in a treasonous covert operation with Iran. They were not. Ronald Reagan was not in the government. He was running for the president. And his campaign manager, Bill Casey, was running a very elaborate covert operation. This is a real spy thriller stuff, and it took me more than three decades to unravel it. But he had a secret intelligence network. He was making a secret deal with Iran in which, as unelected private citizens, they were sending weapons to Iran, then a hostile foreign power. That's why it's treason. You're not supposed to give aid and comfort to the enemy. And in return for that, what they wanted and got, they wanted Iran not to return the hostages, to keep them there until after the election,

because that way Jimmy Carter would win the election. Last year, the New York Times did a story about Peter Baker that said this here, a four decade secret one man story of sabotaging Carter's reelection. He's talking about Ben Barnes, who was the youngest speaker of the House in Texas. Story comes out and you were like uh hello uh we detailed this uh and he admits the role that he played traveling with john connolly uh to the middle east uh where this was the issue and uh and he said the public needed to know but you but your book really goes into all the minutiae and the details uh. And for folks who just have no clue, and I mean, look, I was 79, I was 11 years old. I remember that hostage crisis, I mean, 400 plus

days. That's what led to the creation of Nightline on ABC. But people really don't understand how crippling this was. We're talking about more than a year. The Carter presidency, here you are in your last year, you're running for re-election, and they were paralyzed by what was happening in Iran. Right. This was by far the biggest issue of the campaign. There was very high inflation at the time, but that paled in comparison because there was a countdown on all these news shows like Nightline. America held hostage day 101, day 102, day after day,

and everything Carter did didn't seem to work. There was an attempt to rescue the hostages in April that failed. Eight Americans were killed. And that was effectively seemed to be the end of Carter's presidency unless he could bring the hostages home. And when Carter, there were all these secret back channel negotiations with Iran going on. And suddenly they came to a halt for Carter and no one could tell why. And it was because Iran had secretly made a deal with Carter and Jimmy Carter's, rather Ronald Reagan's campaign manager, Bill Casey, one of the great, great spies in American history. I think he's a wonderful, wonderful character. I describe him as a cross between James Bond and Mr. Magoo. He was the kind of guy who chewed on his necktie. His table manners were horrible. He spat over everyone when

he talked. There'd be food all over him. But he was dazzlingly brilliant. And while he was running a winning presidential campaign with one hand, he would be secretly dashing off to secret meetings in Madrid with the Iranians and making a deal and making sure weapon shipments were forwarded to Iran in return for which they decided not to return the hostages until after the election. The. As I said earlier, we talk about being paralyzed. This was every single day. And for people who are not alive. I mean a man This was essentially a real-life Movie this was this I guess that the movie would is there Washington the siege. This was a real-life movie that was playing out every

single day for 444 days. Then, of course, you have the attempted hostage rescue effort that totally imploded when the helicopters got destroyed. And all of that played into this narrative of a Jimmy Carter who was a bumbling, stumbling president. And then it was, he couldn't even get the hostages home. And then as your book lays out, he did everything he could, but Reagan and his team, they use that against this man. And there's no doubt, many people believe that if he was able to bring those

hostages home, he could have survived that and gotten reelected. Right. Some of the polls showed them neck and neck in the middle of October. And it certainly was the one issue that seemed to unite the country. There were pop songs like Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree. There were ticker tape parades when they finally returned. And in fact, the whole conspiracy should have been obvious to all Americans on the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration, because Carter had made the deal with Iran to return them during his own administration. And they kept waiting, waiting, waiting as the days ticked by towards Reagan's inauguration. Finally, it came to inauguration day. It looked

like they were going to be released before noon when Reagan was inaugurated. Carter was waiting anxiously towards noon. And it was not until Reagan stepped up to the podium and took the oath of office that the planes in Iran actually took off from the one way to return towards the United States. I don't know if you're familiar with the satirical magazine, The Onion, but they did a book looking back on the 20th century. And for this day, they put together a mock-up of a New York Times headline saying, Ronald Reagan inaugurated, urges America not to put two and two together. Just unbelievable. And again, very few of these these these stories want to talk about it. What what what started you on this road? Well, what started me? There was an op ed piece in The New York Times by Gary Sick, who had been on Jimmy Carter's National Security Council. And he was an Iran

specialist. He's been a scholar at Columbia University since the Carter administration. And he started putting things together and he wrote an enormously compelling op-ed piece. And that's what got me started on it. What I found, and I started off doing a big 10,000-word piece for Esquire magazine. What I found, though, was, you know, I've been a journalist for more than 50 years, and when I started out, there were big stories that really shaped me as a journalist. Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, the My Lai Massacre. Those were stories through which one journalist could change the national conversation and even the course of history. And we remember them 50 years later. And it seemed to me the

October surprise was a story like that. But when I was hired by Newsweek to investigate, I saw things did an abrupt U-turn and suddenly gathering news was not all about getting the truth. And it was the first time, you know, we're in the Trump era when there's a war on truth. What for me, this is when it started in 1991 when I was investigating for the October Surprise. And suddenly you started to see all sorts of stories unreporting it, saying, well, all your sources are arms dealers, so you can't trust them. And there was all sorts of disinformation spread, and the entire story was killed, essentially. And congressional investigation was essentially a whitewash. I was sued by Reagan's national security advisor, Bud McFarland.

So I was tied up in court for five years. But I had amassed enough information that I knew it had happened. And I went back to it again and again, over 33 years. I went to Israel to investigate it. I finally got into Iran. I finally got an interview with President Abul Hasan Bani Sadr, who had been president of Iran during the hostage crisis. And I started putting it together bit by bit by bit. And I think in this story, you have definitive case that it actually happened. And I think all Americans should know this. Carter was not the weakling he was portrayed to be. He was really sabotaged by treasonous Republicans. How frustrating is it for people to go, okay, Craig, whatever, this is no big deal.

I mean, it's like, okay, fine. It happened. Move on. That's exactly the world we're in today. President Trump was a rapist, so what? He is convicted of 34 felonies, eh. He stole classified documents, on and on and on like that. I wrote two books on Trump, House of Trump, House of Putin and American Compromise. In one, I show him laundering money through helping the Russian mafia launder money through Trump real estate. In another, I show how the KGB recruited him as an intelligence asset.

But it doesn't land with any force anymore. Americans don't have shared set of facts anymore. And that is a product of deliberate disinformation. It's happening. You know, the Washington Post, the old Washington Post documented over 30,000 lies Trump told during his first term. Now it seems like they're cozying up to him and they're going to be help spreading the lies in the second term. I think that point is critically important. And one of the things, and this is where, this is also where, and I'm just going to say this here, Even before, when I say mainstream media has to accept culpability, there are editors, reporters, producers, reporters, anchors, and executives who need to be flogged as a result of this. I remember when I was at CNN

and they kept, they were booking, you know, John King or Will Blitzer would go interview Trump. And I remember there was a booker, Stephanie Katubi. And I was like, why in the hell do y'all keep talking to Trump? I said, there are actually real CEOs we can talk to.

Oh, he's, you know, he's great for ratings. I said, but do y'all listen to what he says? And they were all enamored with the airplane, with, oh, his great quotes, whatever. And I'll never forget this here.

We were discussing something. It was some nonsense he was saying. And I remember I was on the air. Heidi Phillips was the anchor. I forgot the other person. And I remember I was on the air. Heidi Phillips was the anchor. I forgot the other person. And I said, whenever Trump's comes on this network, we should have a crawl back at the bottom and says for entertainment purposes only. This is no lie, Craig. Ken Jouts, who was executive vice president for CNN, literally sent me an email saying, do not criticize Trump when he's coming on our network. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. And so, so as a result, what we've seen now

are Republicans who kept, you know, fake news, fake news. And so what it did was for his people, it became anything else that's reported, not real, it's fake, don't believe it. And so even in the case of what you laid out here, in many ways, it was the same thing with Reagan. I mean, when Iran-Contra came on, it was sort of the same thing. And they turn this thug into a hero. And the conservatives, all of a sudden, all of a north, talk show host speeches. They hail him as some patriot. And this is a fundamental problem in this country.

When if you're a good guy, a moral upstanding leader, America says, nah, let's go for the crook. Right. Well, the phrase for what you're talking about is access journalism. And I detest it more than anything else in the world. I was schooled by one of my mentors was the great radical journalist, I.F. Stone. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing.

So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, and it's bad.

It's really, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives.

Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Back 50 years ago when I was just starting out, I remember I telling him I was going to have dinner with the United States Senator, and he said,

no, you're not. You start hanging out with those people, you're going to be carrying water for them. You've got to develop sources who are mid-level, who know what's going on. You have to read the documents. And what happened with the October surprise is I saw Access Journalism rear its ugly head for the first time. I was at Newsweek, you understand, which was owned at the time by the Washington Post, which had a glorious reputation thanks to Watergate and was still owned by Catherine Graham and so forth. But by the time of 1990, the time I got on it, they had started cozying up. They had been cozying up to the Reagan

administration. Catherine Graham had become close to Bill Casey, who was Reagan's campaign manager, and later became head of the CIA. And that was exactly the problem. One of my editors had been vetted for his job at Newsweek. He owed his job to Bill Casey, who had been head of the CIA, who ran the Reagan administration, and most importantly, was the target of this investigation. So no one dared write stuff that was critical of them. And I think a lot of journalists, sadly, valued rubbing shoulders with the most powerful people in the world and getting access to them much more

than getting the truth. Rebecca, question for Craig Unger. Thank you. Thank you so much, Craig. As I was listening to you talk about what happened towards the end of the Carter administration and thinking along the lines of the continuing conversation that both you and Roland had about the role that the mainstream media plays and how treasonous acts are viewed, how they're recorded, even how history largely looks upon it. So as we're preparing for a second Trump administration, I suspect that there could be some acts that happen that could or could not be along the lines of treason. So as an American public, as we're watching these things happen, how do we prepare? How do we make sure that this is

properly documented? How do we make sure that when history looks back on this, it accurately reflects the potential damage that's going to happen in the new administration? Well, I think it's very, very difficult. And what scares me enormously is Trump's alliance with Elon Musk. And Musk now owns the most powerful media platform in the world and can spread disinformation at just an enormous rate. I mean, think about it. He's got nearly $500 billion. So that means he's about 100 times more powerful than Rupert Murdoch. And when you look at what the damage Rupert Murdoch with Fox News did to the truth in this country, what Elon Musk can do petrifies me. And it's not just in America, it's all over Europe and the rest of the world as well. And I think people have to learn to see where is this

news coming from? Is it coming from legitimate sources? I mean, you just can't believe anything that comes over the internet. And this week we have again, Mark Zuckerberg saying, oh, in the interest of free speech, we're eliminating fact-checking. Excuse me, I hire, you know, at my own expense, I hire fact-checkers for all my books because I care about the truth. The reason to get rid of fact checkers is because you want to put propaganda out there. And that's what we're going to be seeing more and more of. And it's really important for people not to believe things instantly. I mean, in my book, you know what?

Fact check me. I have nearly a thousand footnotes in my book, you know what? Fact check me. I have nearly a thousand footnotes in every book I've written. And you can go to the original sources and check it for yourself. But, you know, what we're going to get during the next Trump administration is an awful lot of lies, and it's going to require real diligence on the part of the American people. And I hope they're not too lazy, but I think they're going to have to sort through the wheat, separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of what's true and what's not. But here's the thing, Craig, I think that, and the reason I'm going to compare the two, Reagan as well as Trump.

Listen, I wasn't I wasn't a reporter then, but the sense that I got and I and I think this sense is still there. OK, you know what? Carter's boring. Oh, you know, he carries his own bag. He's boring. Reagan comes in own bag. He's boring. Reagan comes in and it's glitz. His happy days are here again. And that was sort of the same attitude that they had about Biden. Oh, man.

It was always, okay, what was the one tweet? It was always something that was crazy. People would be live on the air. Trump just tweeted this. And so what has happened, I believe, and again, I'm looking at what you reported on and going from Carter to Reagan, those eight years and now, is that we have created this notion of a celebrity president. Now we've taken this thing even more so to where it's just a daily television show. It's a game. And yeah, folks don't care about the truth. They don't care. Oh,

this person could just lie with reckless abandon. And you got Democrats who are trying to be truth tellers. You got Democrats who released their taxes and released their medical reports. And he's like, I'm not going to do it. Sorry. Or, yeah, I'll think about it. And I just fully accept it. And the problem, I think, on the tech side, you know, there used to be a time when you were so rich you had FU money. The reality is Jeff Bezos has FU money. But he's literally scared to death of Trump.

Mark Zuckerberg has FU money. But he is scared to death of Trump. Mark Zuckerberg has F you money, but he is scared to death. And so, damn, how bad is it when you got a hundred billion and you still act like a whiny bitch? Well, absolutely. I mean, I, you know, I'm reading about Nazi Germany in the thirties and how the rise of Hitler and you saw the association as Hitler, as Nazism grew, a lot of the big corporations sided with them and they thought, oh, he'll never go that far. And that's happening again with Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and Amazon. I mean, it's very, very scary. I thought, you know, the Washington Post did an excellent job during Carter's first term on them.

Their motto was democracy dies in darkness. They documented lie after lie. And I stopped paying attention after it got over 30,000. But now they should change their motto to democracy dies in darkness. And we're turning off the lights. You know, they just let go a cartoonist who tried to do a very good editorial cartoon, but they refused to run it again. She had been working for them for many, many years and quit.

And I think this is a very scary time for the press. I also think the old legacy media is dying. And you have people like Joe Rogan who can get 40 million viewers for one YouTube show if he's got Trump on it. And that dwarfs the old legacy media, which is fading, fading, fading. So, you know, it's very, very hard to make sure that people get the truth. And I wish I knew, had a magic sauce for penetrating that, but I don't. Well, I think what has to happen is there has has to be uh an absolute um focus on truth uh and it's called not giving a damn who you piss off um that's that's the bottom line and guess what there are

a lot of other rich folks in this country uh and uh hopefully uh you've got folks who care enough about media who understand the importance of of legacy media because here's the thing that is that that i i keep trying to explain to people all of these all of these folks who talk about uh oh new media new media guess what they all are built on reading the stories of old media if you you can complain all you want to. The reality is right now folks are the resources of a CNN or NBC whatever. That's how they're able to cover

the fires. All these major stories. When legacy media goes away and I'm saying this from a black perspective, I have been saying that we have seen the death of black-owned media, black newspapers, Ebony Magazine, Jet Magazine.

Essence is not what it used to be. Black Enterprise is not what it used to be. And so what we're now seeing is we're now seeing so much entertainment, so much gossip that's now considered black media that those institutions no longer are covering the kind of stories that got us to where we are now. And people are going to look up and they're going to be like, oh, my God, what the hell happened? Why didn't we know those things?

Easy, because you were being consumed by crazy hacks like Joe Rogan, who will just lie on their show. They go, oh, I didn't know that. But they just say stupid stuff and it goes out of their mouth into the into the ether. And so I think that's what we're dealing with. But as I look at this right now, I really hope people I really hope people would read your book, understand what you lay out, because what you talked about in this book, Trump has been talking to Putin the last four years. Elon Musk is talking directly to Chinese and Russian leaders. And so if we are not careful, you're going to, yes, have non-governmental people deciding governmental policies.

And that's exactly what happened with Ronald Reagan and his team and what they did to Jimmy Carter in 1979. Absolutely. 1980. Craig Unger, folks, pull the book up again. So the book is called The Den of Spies, Reagan, Carter, and the Secret History of the Treason that Stole the White House by Craig Unger. Craig, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Roland.

Folks, going to go to a break. We come back. Martin O'Malley wants to be the next head of the DNC. I've got a few questions for him right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Support the work that we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. club you heard we just talked about there folks i can't reiterate this enough listen to me clearly i cannot reiterate this enough when you've got technology companies running scared when you've got legacy media not doing their job when you've got black-owned media that has disintegrated, now is more than ever for us to

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You know, in six years of doing this show, Group M hasn't done a damn thing with us. Publicist hasn't done anything with us. You've got Horizon. You've got all of these folks. They haven't done Jack. And so we are calling it like we see it. And we're speaking truth. And unlike some of these other so-called progressives and people who believe in truth, I'm not running around trying to kiss MAGA ass and kiss Trump's ass. I won't be going to Mar-a-Lago, not for a damn thing. And so this is about us being able to speak truth. So when you support this show and this network with your resources, that is exactly what is happening because we are trying to build something that is bigger and broader. And actually it has the courage to say what needs

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Well, y'all, when you're on that stage and you're seeing two and three, four generations in the audience, that's got to speak to you about the power of what y'all have become. Oh, most definitely. I think we were doing our show before our break

and remember I was watching this kid. I could not take my eyes off him because he was about nine or so. He was sitting in the front row. Over on the right-hand side. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was amazed that this kid knew everything. And I was like tripping to see how many songs this kid actually knew.

And he knew them all. And he knew them all. We had to go over there and bring him on stage and take a picture with him, you know, at the end of the show and stuff. Because it was just that amazing. It was like, this is crazy. You know, the music travels everywhere. You know, like what Phillip was saying, seeing his young kid. Then you see, hear our songs on commercials, cold commercials.

Then you have the younger ones that sing out, hear our music and animation. Hi, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. Fanbase is a free-to-download, free-to-use, next-generation social media platform that allows anyone to have followers and subscribers on the same page. Fanbase was built through investment dollars from equity crowdfunding from the JOBS Act. People just like you help build Fanbase. And we're looking for more people to help build fan base. We are currently raising $17 million at a Regulation 8 crowdfund on StartEngine. We've already crossed $2.1 million, but we're looking to raise more capital from people just

like you that deserve the opportunity to invest in early stage startups without having to be accredited investors. So right now, I'd like you to go to startengine.com slash fanbase and invest. The minimum to invest is $399. That gets you 60 shares of stock in Fanbase right now, today. And then use Fanbase to connect with friends, grow your audience, and be you without limits. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up,

so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that

they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up.

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Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. All right, folks. all right folks came you came to me too fast i was trying to get my protein shake in bro go ahead i'll let you know i'll let you know when i'm ready my goodness all right all right let's get this thing started after devastating losses uh in november democrats lose the house the senate of course the white house they've been calling for massive change in the party. Now, you look at the numbers, Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump by less than 2%. A new report out shows some 19 million Biden voters stayed at home. So what must the party do? Jamie Harrison has already announced that he is not running for reelection. So he stepped down in March.

So on February 1st, Democrats will choose their new leader at their winter meeting. Several people have already announced that they want the job. One of them is the former governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley. Also, you have Rahm Emanuel, Jane Cleve, Ben Wickler, Ken Martin as well. And so Martin O'Malley joins us right now. Glad to have you on the show. First and foremost, why do you want this job? I want this job because I love my country and the speed with which the Democratic Party makes yourself battle ready again to win the next elections, Roland, is going to determine, going to very well determine whether or not we even have a republic at the end of these Trump years. So this is going to require a collaborative

servant leader with proven chops to turn things around and the ability to go head to head on against Donald Trump from day one. I have those abilities and that's why I'm offering my candidacy. You previously ran for president. That didn't end well. I'm sorry about that. I remember these things. It wasn't for lack of trying. You say you have the abilities, but what the party requires are a number of things. You have people who are disgruntled, people who are angry, who are frustrated. Folks have given up. They are despondent.

And so how do you how do you fire them up? How do you get their attention? How do you how do you say that there are greener pastures on the other side of this darkness we now are going to be dealing with come January 20th? Yeah, I don't know any way to sidestep around it. There is no magic wand. The only thing I do know is this. I've talked to about 200 or more members of the DNC, Almost each conversation has been a little bit like grief counseling. However, one of the themes that continues to emerge is that we need to make changes in order to win. We need a greater amount of openness, transparency. We need greater participation. We need people to be asked for their ideas instead of just to be a rubber stamp.

And so, I mean, it's a hundred different ways. You know, recently, President Biden asked me to go to Social Security, the most demoralized, overworked agency and the largest domestic program in America, and to turn it around. I had no magic wand, but I went out and I listened, barnstormed every regional headquarters, brought in ideas from the people that are on the front lines actually doing the work. If you wanna know how to turn around a big organization and its mission, you listen to the people

that have already been there doing the work. Put out a platform. The first thing we put out was about diversity and inclusion, setting goals so that we can diversify our vendor and consultant pools, who most people believe greatly let us down and let down the vice president in this last election. So there's a hundred different things we need to do, but all of those things require new leadership, somebody that's willing to do the dispassionate

deep dive. I'm not going to call it an autopsy. Nobody's died here. It's an after action so that we can learn about the things we did well, the places we fell short, and why. We also have to get back in the business of directly registering voters. You know, Roland, you hear people offering themselves in this race saying, we need to re-engage, we need to rebuild or reconnect. Well, what is the yard marker that tells us whether we're actually doing those things in a hundred different ways? I believe it's voter registration, and it's also defending voting rights in all 50 states. This is the way, along with returning to that economic security message message that we bring back our party's ability to win and to have a brand that people want to run on and not one that they want to run from.

One of the things that I'm going to get back to what you lay out in terms of your diversity focus, but I'm looking at this memo here that you put out and you talked about hosting regularly in-person and online training sessions, build and invest in mentorship programs, learn from grassroots organizations, invest in youth, investing in organizing community partners and meeting voters where they are. One of the things that I have consistently said on this show, on the Tom Jordan Morning Show, my TV One show, all the shows, is that one of the most fundamental problems for Democrats is that they, when it comes to African Americans in particular, that, all right, you know what we know what we got locked up and so what then happens is the assumption is then made okay we got them so let's now go chase that uh mythical unreachable white conservative uh suburban woman as opposed to how do we cultivate people who are more than likely going to vote for us, but who feel as if we are ignoring them?

We talk about resources. I can tell you, I specifically said to Quentin folks, said to General Malley Dillon, said to Cedric Richmond. And I said to Vice President Kamala Harris, said to all of these folks, I'm like, do y'all understand? People don't know what y'all accomplished. And I said, so January to August has to be you controlling your narrative, telling

your story. And folks didn't do that. And then what then happens is, you get to September, and well, not really September, October, all of a sudden. Oh, let's now send the money out. And I'm like, yo, it's too late. And so voters immediately in off-election years and not wait three months before the election. We have to get into the mode of running a perpetual campaign, a continuous coordinated campaign, continuous communication. I do believe that the through line is always about the harm that Donald Trump's about to do to the hardest working people in America.

If you want to look at the numbers of people that left the party or stayed home, the ones that were feeling the biggest pinch of inflation, the ones that were just struggling to get by, the ones whose paychecks weren't keeping up with inflation and the high costs of things. They were the people we lost. Now, I was reelected myself after a recession, but I spent two years connecting the dots back to the things we were doing in office and governing so that people understood come election time, you know, there was a pulling of that narrative, to use your word, together, that story for people so that they said, okay, we might not be better off than we were four years ago, but we're doing better than we otherwise would be. And I see how this leadership is taking us forward. We were not able to do that for whatever reason in this last election leading up to it. And we certainly didn't have enough time to all of a sudden cram

it into the last month. So we're going to have to now, as the party in opposition, have to connect those dots back from every harmful decision Donald Trump makes, needs to come back to the kitchen table. This is how it hurts you. But we, the Democratic Party, are going to fight against it because we have your back. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And do that in so-called non-traditional media. Though I have adult children, they keep saying, why do people call it non-traditional media? This is how everybody gets their news now. Well, we were putting way too much, it would seem to me, from talking to people that were engaged in the campaign. And again, I was turning around Social Security. I was hatched.

I wasn't involved in the campaign. But it seems like, man, we spent a lot of money on cable TV. And we were not. And not as a campaign. You had you had future forward packs. 70 percent of their money was spent on broadcast ads, which was stupid. And I can tell you. And part of the thing for me that for me, what the next DNC leader has to do is that, first of all, the average person out there doesn't even remotely understand all of these different entities.

You've got you got the Democratic National Committee. You've got Senate majority pack, House majority pack. You had Future Forward pack. You had America's Century 21st Bridge, whatever the hell that pack. Then you've got DCCC, DSCC, DCCC, Democrat

Go Association. And one of the things that I fundamentally believe has to happen is there has to be a come to Jesus meeting with all of these entities where one says, when are you going to get your heads out of your asses? What I mean by that is, and I can tell you as a Black-owned media company, the leaders of Future Forward, I emailed them directly multiple times, never even got a response, not even a courtesy response. When I look at $600 million from the Harris campaign that went through four agencies, some of them that were started in

2021 and 2023. And when folks like Cliff Franklin would fuse out of St. Louis or Terrell Whitley out of Liquid Soul or Carol H. Williams out of Oakland, these firms that have done this business could not even get into the door who understand not only how to talk to black folk, but how to talk to everybody. And and to me that that the Democratic Party is going to have to have to confront. When you have mostly white folks in the party making money and black people and Latinos operating as the sharecroppers up there tilling the soil and trying to save the party. And that is a major issue because that speaks to who you hire, who you're polling, who you're talking to. And how do you reach those folks on the ground as opposed to having the same losers giving the same advice that hasn't worked. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. One of the people that's come on to help my campaign and will be chairing my transition

is Marsha Fudge, and also helping me is Benny Thompson and also Emanuel Cleaver. And one of the things that former Secretary Fudge said to me, be careful because when you're talking about the things that we didn't do well in the campaign, you know, a lot of that was not on the DNC. A lot of that were decisions that were made by the campaign. Yeah. And we tend to conflate both of those. And honestly, the Democratic Party brand and the DNC ultimately has to own our successes and our failures. But we have to meet people where they are and we have to do it through trusted voices and people that understand and have the competencies to meet people where they're at and to tell the stories in ways that are compelling and that move voters, whether to vote or whether to change their vote

from the last time or whether to just get up and then go out and vote. I was mayor of Baltimore. I was governor of Maryland. And we always acted according to the truth that our diversity is our strength. We accomplished some pretty important things for all of the people of our diverse state. And we did it by working together. We had one of the largest minority business development goals of any city in America, and I was the first mayor to exceed it. And we did better. All of us did better when we had a more inclusive ecosystem, more inclusive economy. Same with our state. So I have seen firsthand how our diversity makes us stronger.

And that's what I'm going to do as chair of this party. We have to empower the people that want to help instead of treating them as if they're a rubber stamp or somebody that's just supposed to say, yeah, way to go in the last three weeks of the election. Are you? Go ahead. No, go ahead. I talked to one senior Democrat and she said, you know, we had a- Are you- Go ahead. No, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. I talked to one senior Democrat, and she said, you know, we had a great ground game, if you want to call it ground game, talking to millions of people knocking on their doors for the last four weeks, but we were knocking on doors with stone tablets. The other guys were

already inside those doors, communicating with people over the internet, on podcasts, on the other stations that they choose to listen to, to get their news. Some of our campaigns did better than others on that, though, Roland. I mean, look at the success of Hakeem Jeffries and many in his caucus. Look at those four senators winning in states that Donald Trump won, and yet they won. So we have a broad sense of what needs to be done, but we need to create a center of excellence in digital communications at the DNC, put together with more diverse voices and more diverse perspectives, and start communicating every day in every way off of the bad things that Donald Trump is doing to the interests of hardworking people that are going to be harmed by his decisions.

How honest and how willing are you and how prepared are you to have what I call the difficult conversations with white voters? Let me explain why I'm saying that very specifically. My new book is called White Fear, How the Browning of America is White Folks Losing Their Minds. And the reason I lay that, because when I look at what's been happening, I look at the anger coming after Obama, when I look at this fear of a nation becoming a majority of people of color. When I look at the anger on immigration, and one of the things, and I've been very critical, and I sat down

with Senator Bernie Sanders directly, when he kept complaining about identity politics, and I said, first of all, dude, all politics is identity politics. What are you talking about? Talk to any campaign manager, and they parse the election based upon different demographics, race, age, gender, economics, all those different things.

But the thing to me that we're dealing with that Democrats just refuse to confront is that there is a belief among the white voters, a lot of white voters, that we're losing out. We're losing. We're losing out to these other people. But then when you look at the numbers, kind of like now that that's not happening. the whitest, reddest, brokest, sickest places and look these white voters in the eye and say, I'm going to need you to explain to me why in the hell you keep voting for that Republican, but your education sucks and your health care sucks and your wages sucks and your job sucks, all those different things. And I think Democrats like to play on nice, wonderful ground. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. You got to be able to go

look them in the eye and challenge them and also challenge their view of white culture. Because I think in many cases cases they're voting for culture. They're voting for, hey, we're losing out. And I just think that Democrats have danced around this for way too long. And there needs to be some honest truth telling. I don't need white Democrats come and talk to black folks about diversity. I need white Democrats go and talk to white folks and try to explain to them that if you don't have diversity, America's gross domestic product ain't going to be worth crap in the next 20, 30 years. Yeah, I mean, there's so much going through my head. The one caveat I put on that, I mean, the what we have to do is recruit people from the neighborhoods that you described, very poor, white areas all across the country.

And we need to recruit those candidates. We had a lot of success recruiting candidates in 2016. Maybe I should say they recruited themselves by running for office to make a difference. But I could not agree with you more about the tough conversations. But those tough conversations need to be had among and with people, you know, with people that are like them, that understand the place that they call home and where they grew up. And I think we have the opportunity to recruit those candidates.

You know, I have frequently found myself talking to Democratic groups about the politics of fear. And this was true in Trump's first election. True story, Roland, I used to go out, I campaigned in 30 states for Hillary Clinton as a surrogate and then continued to go out there for the next two years with my own leadership pack called Win Back Your State. And I found at first that 90% of my remarks were all about Donald Trump and his scary brand of politics. By the end, it was only 10% about Trump that was 90% about us. There is a terrible fear gripping this country. I mean, when you can have record low unemployment and all-time high levels of white male suicide. There's clearly something going on in the psyche

of a lot of people in America. I was on a trip. But that has to be said. It has to be literally said. White men are killing themselves and we must confront it. I just think a lot of times we love saying black. We love saying Latino, we love saying that, but we don't actually want to single it out. White men, let's talk about y'all. Oh, that's the despondency. One way to talk about the despondency was the way Donald Trump's latest vice president talked about it with hillbilly elegy, that they were all victims. Now, white people can act very strangely whenever they think they're about to become...

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action,

and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick.

Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-stud on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget

yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. A minority in their neighborhood, in their kid' school, in their city. That's a fact, Jack. That's a legacy from a cruel and brutal history of hundreds of years of slavery.

I would have thought we would have been further through this by now, but this Donald Trump experience with our democracy has been a big gut check, a big portion of humble pie. And so we do need to confront it. I mean, we have become a country that is so afraid of tomorrow that we'd even vote for a horrible person like Donald Trump if we thought we'd slow it down. And here's the reality, Martin. This is the reality and this is history. Every juncture in American history

when Black people fought for civil and economic rights, the quality of life of poor white people went up. Yeah. One of my favorite, one of my favorite- From in the slavery to present day. One of my favorite Americans is a Maryland's own Frederick Douglas.

And up at social security, we have his fierce face and the fierce quote that greeted all of us as we went forth. And it said, we are one, our cause is one, and we must help each other if we are to succeed. The truth of the matter is that all of the great thrusts, all of the great movements in American history that lifted up the whole population, the whole economy, were driven by a cry for justice, a cry for

America to make real the promise of liberty and justice for all. I'm going to go. Rebecca Carruthers has a question before the other quote that I think that has to be a resounding part. If you are elected, what Frederick Douglass also said, when he said, agitate, agitate, agitate, power concedes nothing without a demand, never have and never will. Rebecca. Thank you so much for being here tonight, Governor. This race is definitely going to be a tough race. I know some of the other folks who are in the race. I worked in over 30 states doing political work, did a lot of stuff within the party. So I don't envy what you have ahead. And if you were to win, I don't envy that either.

I'm going to be quite frank. I kind of have a complex question for you, in part because I've been a campaign manager and I've done work in every corner of this country. So we've always, we've talked about the 50-state strategy. Howard Dean wasn't the first to talk about it, but I also hear, you know, I've heard some clips of you talking about a 50 state strategy. I want to hear you talk about that more, what it actually means to you, but before you get to what you would do. Another question that I have for you is, you know, I understand the Democratic Party donors and having run campaigns, I understand the need to tell some of them no,

because unfortunately they prop up some of the members of the consulting class that would undermine a 50-state strategy. So the first part of the question is, how would you tell certain donors no when you need to tell them no? And then I want you to talk more about your 50-state strategy. Sure. You know what? I'm the only one of the candidates in this race that's actually been an elected executive. I was mayor of Baltimore. I was governor of Maryland through a recession. And when you're an executive, you learn how to say no. And you learn how to say it very often and over and over again to people who sometimes are, notwithstanding how wealthy they are, asking you for crazy things that you just can't do

because it's not for the good of the mission, not for the good of the state, and doesn't serve the best interests of the city. So I'm the only one that has served again and again and been elected to be able to say no. Let me talk about the 50, what we now call the 57 state and territory strategy. Many people have said to me on the phone that this is a time for rebuilding. This is a time for new leadership from outside of the DNC, as it was when Howard Dean was there, maybe before with Ron Brown. So this is a time to, what that means to me is that we have to build up the capacity of our state parties. We have to get our state parties, where allowable, back into the business of directly registering voters. We have

to also provide them with the enterprise, you know,, you know, from the DNC, with the enterprise advice and services necessary to communicate and compete in digital communications. So I would like to create not only a center of excellence at the DNC for digital communications. I also want to create a position in every state that we fund with someone who is an expert in digital communications, not someone that is your brother-in-law who can place Facebook ads. I'm talking about upping our game and the connectivity with the digital, with the best. And there are a lot of smart people in our party. They just haven't wanted to be heard at the table. We need to lift them up, create that center of excellence and create in the 57 states and territories, those experts that can run with

the ball and help our candidates more effectively communicate all the way through the year and help our parties do that. We also need to get hard money to our parties so that they can register people to vote. And we need to defend voting rights in all states, not just a few states. So that's what I see in the party. And that'll be the measure. You know, I was talking to a party chair in Ohio, and she said they have totally reshaped our electorate. We keep falling back further and further within the blue perimeter and hoping against hope that some nonprofit will register more Democratic voters, but they don't. They register independents,

and we don't even stay in touch with them for about seven months after they're registered. So these are some of the tactical changes we need to make. I don't think we're wrong on the issues. I don't think we're wrong on our values, certainly, especially contrasted to the darkness we're about to experience in the White House for the next four years. But we have not kept pace with modern communications and meeting people where they're at. I also think that they also are not Democrats are not fully understanding how the world has changed. What I mean by that is so I'm 56. I'm what I what I call post civil rights movement, baby. And I'm Gen X. If you look at the numbers, the numbers do not lie. Black people who are 65 and older will mostly lot will self-identify as Democrats. The further you

go down, they less self-identify. And so as a result, you got folks like me who are business owner. There are African-Americans out there who aspire to be entrepreneurs. And so Democrats have historically looked at us through this social program lens as opposed as opposed to a capitalistic economic lens and also has to now understand that that black voter that's 18 to 45, 18 to 49. You now are going to have to spend a lot of energy, time and money recruiting them and convincing them. And that's one of the reasons why the voting numbers keep going down. Also, so that the worldview, again, has changed. And unfortunately, too many white, and I'm very specific, white strategists, white campaign managers, white pollsters, and I'm very specific, white strategists, white campaign managers, white pollsters, folks who control the money, don't want to confront that. The last thing I

got to ask you this year, this will be 2020, you want to be the chair, but you also got to think in the future. Your blue wall is changing. The census in 2030, you're going to lose electoral votes in California, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin. The reality is you may have to replace some 12 electoral votes. You're probably going to lose that one blue electoral college vote in Nebraska because Republicans because that Republican who stopped it, he's retiring. So North Carolina is going to have, is going to be central. Georgia is going to be central. Do you have a specific Southern strategy to really build the democratic party in Southern States? Because if you lose 12 electoral college vote in these blue states right now, you're going to have to pick up the 16 in North Carolina in order to win the White House. So I'm curious about a specific Southern Democratic strategy. Well, every region

is going to have a specific strategy. Every state has a specific strategy. I mean, states are where they're at. And then we have to realize that there are strategic wins that we can we can make in terms of the South. I think that's our great opportunity. I mean, you look at the gains in North Carolina, you look at the gains in Georgia. But we have to get back in the business of registering people to vote. We have to have a brand that people want to run to. But I hate to interrupt you, but here's the fundamental issue. If the election is the end of a process, before I can get them to vote, I got to get them to register. Before I get them to register, I got to get them to understand why I need them to register. And I think one of the problems that Democrats have is they focus on the registration and the voting part, but they ignore that narrative setting. This is what we have done, what we will do to impact your life and why we are

a better choice than not just the other person. But the biggest issue that you're going to face, that Vice President Kamala Harris faced, was the couch. They stayed at home. And I so I think that right there is having discussions on why you can't check out of a process. And once I think a person gets that, then they register. And then there's a whole process to get them to vote. But it's a whole thing before the registration even happens. Yeah, I don't disagree with you, except I wouldn't give I wouldn't give our party credit for saying that we register people to vote. I don't I think we've gotten out of that. We kind of fell back into the notion of doing get out the vote. And get out the vote and persuading the voter are two different things.

And trying to do that in 107 days on cable television doesn't work. So we've got to find ways to be engaged all the way through the year. Republicans did this oftentimes in clever ways, oftentimes in performative ways, oftentimes in very real ways, like setting up help centers in Florida when people were relocating from Puerto Rico. And they would be helped in Republican centers and also helped to register to vote as Republicans. Everything you said is everything. I don't agree with anything that you've said, Roland. People, we think as Democrats sometimes that if we just say and, and, and, and, and, pound more facts, facts, facts, facts, facts into ears, that we're going to change hearts and minds. That's not how human beings work, think, live. messengers to tell our story consistently all through the year with the aid of better platforms so that we connect those dots for people. By the time you get to get out the vote, man, the campaign's been over. We need to reshape our maps. We need to grow our democratic base.

And we also need to think differently about how we also speak to independents. I mean, the availability, those guys are not the only ones that can segment the population. They're not the only ones that can micro target messages and a right messages to persuade people. They're not the only ones that can hire influencers and have people in the public square so that we don't have to assume that it's just Republicans or the Russians. We got up our game. We suffered a devastating loss. And I say it's devastating

because of the horrible human being we lost to. I mean, you can whistle past it and say it was just a couple points here, a couple points there. This is a huge, huge loss. We need to learn from it. We need to learn from it quickly. And we need to be ruthless about doing the tactics and strategies that work so we can grow our base, improve our brand, and connect with people to win the next elections. That's the urgent battle at hand. And that's what I'm giving myself a thousand percent to. Last question, Rebecca, I had a question. Rebecca, go ahead and ask real quick. Yep. So in 2025, at least 46 states have elections this year. There's going to be over 100,000 seats that are going to be elected. So what is your plan to make sure that the Democratic Party

is contesting every single seat all up and down the ballot across all 50 states plus the seven jurisdictions and territories. Yeah, it has to be a clarion call. I mean, we have to encourage people in all of our affiliate groups and allied groups. I was on a forum the other night with organized labor. I would hope that organized labor fuels more candidates to run and to do it all across the ballot. Rebecca, we Democrats have a term that we often use, we say down ballot. I prefer to think of it as all across the ballot, from the county courthouses to the school boards. These are for the most part, the entry level places

where people are also most connected to their community. We also have 36 governors races up in 2026. And those men and women can't run a campaign and can't get elected unless they're constantly bringing the national to the reality in states. Mayors, county executives, all of these are the people that we need. In 2016, I think I mentioned earlier, my leadership pack, which I continued to go out there to campaign for people, was called Win Back Your State. We need people to transform their grief over what we've done to ourselves as a country again by getting involved in their local races. We need to extend our battle lines. We need to become more connected

to places all across America. What Eleanor Roosevelt called in a different context, the small places close to home. What does the Democratic Party mean in those small places close to home? If we're doing our job, it means that we can be the party that actually stops the harm that Donald Trump is going to be doing to people over these next two years in a number of different ways. Hard for us to imagine all of them. And you could paralyze yourself if you spend time going down that rabbit hole,

but I guarantee you, he is going to drive up the cost of things. He is going to drive up the cost of healthcare, and he is going to shake and rattle what people thought could not be broken, perhaps even things like social security. And this is the backdrop against which I think we are going to be able to have an enormous amount of success recruiting candidates. Martin O'Malley, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much,

and we look forward to see what happens in this race. Yeah, thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a bunch. All right, folks, appreciate it. Thank you so very much. And we look forward to see what happens in this race. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a bunch. All right, folks, going to go to a quick break. We'll be right back on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Hi, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. Fanbase is a free-to-download, free-to-use, next-generation social media platform that allows anyone to have followers and subscribers on the same page. Fanbase was built through investment dollars from equity crowdfunding from the JOBS Act. People just like you help build Fanbase.

And we're looking for more people to help build fan base. We are currently raising $17 million in a Regulation 8 crowdfund on Start Engine. We've already crossed $2.1 million, but we're looking to raise more capital from people just like you that deserve the opportunity to invest in early stage startups without having to be accredited investors. So right now, I'd like you to go to startengine.com slash fanbase and invest. The minimum to invest is $399. That gets you 60 shares. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week,

I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business,

taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council.

The stock in Fanbase base right now, today. And then use fan base to connect with friends, grow your audience, and be you without limits. Now streaming on the Blackstar Network. I was challenged by my uncle early on, before I even had a career. I was maybe eight years old, and my uncle said, what do you want to do? And I told him I wanted to be a rapper. And he said, okay, well, I don't know anything about the music business,

so what you should do is learn everything there is to know about the music business, and I'll make sure that you have the resources to push you through and so I went and bought books all you need to know about the music business hit me and I just went and bought a bunch of books to start reading as a 10 year old just reading reading and so I learned you know all things licensing mechanical rights I learned about publishing learned about how composition is broke up into two pieces, the writer's portion and the producer's portion.

By the time I actually learned I can't bend, I was ready to like, okay, I got it. He was going to prison. So I had all this information. All this knowledge. All this knowledge. You're like, well, what am I supposed to do with it now? Now that Roland Martin is willing to give me the blueprint. Hey, Saras. I need to go to Tyler Perry and get another blueprint because I need some green money.

The only way I can do what I'm doing, I need to make some money. So you'll see me working with Roland. Matter of fact, it's the Roland Martin and Sheryl Underwood Show. Well, should it be the Sheryl Underwood Show and the Roland Martin Show? Well, whatever show it's going to be, it's going to be good. Man, I love me a good clap back. That's exactly what happened from Canada's Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, when she referenced the convicted felon's lack of political knowledge for suggesting that Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky run for the country's prime minister after Justin Trudeau announced his resignation and is stepping down once his successor has been chosen. May did not hold back in smacking Donald Trump's dumb ass. Also take offense, sorry, Mr. Trump,

took offense to your idea that Pierre Polyev wasn't good enough to leave the conservatives. Wayne Gretzky, I mean, he's great. He is the great one. He skates to where the puck is going. It's not going to MAGA. The puck is on a Canadian ice rink.

And by the way, Mr. Trump, please, before making public pronouncements that Wayne Gretzky should run for prime minister, give yourself or get yourself a briefing on the nature of parliamentary democracy, a Westminster parliamentary system, and a constitutional monarchy where no one runs for prime minister. We have elections for members of parliament.

We don't get to pick and choose among our billionaire friends for who gets a seat at the cabinet table. If they're not an elected member of Parliament, well, the Canadian system is different from that of the United States of America. I suggest that Mr. Trump find one of his grandchildren's school books and look at the year 1776, which may explain a few things to him about why our systems of government are different. I don't want to belittle Mr. Trump, but on the other hand, hey, Donald, have we got a deal for you? You think we want to be the 51st state? Yeah, but maybe California would like to be the 11th province. How about it? California,

Oregon, Washington, you've got geography in common with us. And not only that, we've already got a carbon trading system between California and Quebec. We've got some strong alliances on our west coast from British Columbia. There's been a lot of academic papers on the idea of Cascadia. So California, Governor Newsom and Washington State Jay Inslee and newly elected governor of Oregon, Tina Kotak, how about it? Want to put a referendum to your citizens? Because this is what you deal.

Have we got a deal for you? This is what you get. Free healthcare. Universal free healthcare. No more one-year-olds who suddenly fall off the Medicaid list and their parents are in the news because they're trying to do a GoFundMe so they can get their daughter to a doctor. Universal free health care. And guess what? Those gun laws that your Congress is too afraid to pass because of the national gun lobby, we already got our strict gun laws. That's why we have the safest streets around the world. Oh, I love that clap back, Rebecca.

You know, it was perfect. It could not have been said better. I also hope that we have leaders in our country who are willing to step up and to clap back over the next four years in this next Trump administration. I mean, everything she said was spot on. I don't think this is the game that Trump wants to play because if states now have an option between Canada and the United States. I think some of those states might consider whether or not they would rather cast their lots into Canada over the next four years. And here's the thing also that I think that has to happen, because, you know, Trump made the comment and I literally say I'm not playing his comment. See, the Democrats also are going to have to not fall for the banana in the tailpipe when he sits here and makes these like like right now. OK, if I'm Democrat, I'm not wasting any energy going on. If I am a listen, Elizabeth Warren or anybody else, if I'm on television, I'm not wasting any time discussing the Panama Canal or Greenland or Canada, the 51st state.

That's all. That's just all Trump bullshit. And what he does is he says crazy, stupid stuff. And then people get all hyped about it. And the media gets hype. This is exactly what if I'm a senator or a member of Congress, this is what I'm saying. That's stupid. What's your next question? Yeah, you can't give it any oxygen. He's going to say the most sophomoric, crazy things over the next four years. And we know each time he is doing that, it's because, like you said, it's like a pump fake. He's going to be doing a bunch of crazy stuff in the

background. As much as he said, okay, I'm going to do all these crazy tariffs, instead, what we're seeing is that he's picking and choosing which items and goods that he's going to place tariffs on. And that's the real story. But instead, people are going to be focused on the nonsense. I was talking to some college friends earlier today in our group chat, and one of my friends was like, you know what? Trump's entertaining. He's hilarious. And I'm just like, no, this is how we slide into fascism, because everyone's going to be focusing on the most stupid and outlandish BS that we're going to see coming out the White House. But in reality, there's going to be a lot of no-bid contracts. There're going to see coming out the White House. But in reality, there's going to be a lot of no-bid contracts. There's going to be a lot of transferring of wealth. There's going

to be a lot of other disparities that are happening in this country that's going to definitely impact Black folks in this country. And those are the things that we're going to have to pay attention to. So I hope Senator Warren and other folks like that, instead, they're going to put their heads down and they're going to focus on how to stop this agenda in this new Congress. That's what they need to focus on. They need to take a page out of Virginia State Senator Lucas's book, where she was able to stop the governor of Virginia. She was able to stop, she was able to stop, I think it was monumental sports from going into Northern Virginia. She was able to stop, I think it was Monumental Sports from going into Northern Virginia. She was able to stop it because she understood the rules. She knew not to, the rules of the Virginia Senate. She knew not to spend time focusing on the press conferences

and all the crazy stuff that the governor was doing. Instead, she got to work and she did the thing. And so we're going to need to see the opposition party, the opposition party to Donald Trump, doing that over the next four years. Absolutely. All right. You know, this is, again, I just keep telling people, don't fall for the okey-doke because he's going to just say ignorant, stupid stuff. Real quick, let's do our Black and Missing, y'all. All right, folks. Nakia Walker disappeared from her home in Charlotte on July 20th. The 16-year-old is 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 100 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes anyone with information about nakia walker should call the charlotte mecklenburg north carolina police department at 704-336-7600 704-336-7600 um and oh this i love this next door but first of all go to youtube people why y'all playing around hit the damn like button

why i got to ask y'all in 2025 to do that Y'all been just chirping and making on y'all comments But we should be easily over a thousand like so stop playing around I love this story here Rebecca out to Florida State Attorney on eat world gets one back into the office After mega governor Rhonda Sanders expelled her Royal stood on the same Orlando courthouse steps where she blasted theantis after he accused her of incompetence and neglect of duty. The voters disagreed and overwhelmingly voted her back in office, defeating DeSantis' plant, his black plant, Andrew Bain, winning back her job as Florida's ninth judicial circuit state attorney. After getting sworn in by Representative LaVon Bracey Davis, Worrell talked about why she did not give up her fight.

Today is a pivotal moment, not just for the state attorney's office, but for this entire community that I have the privilege of serving once again. 18 months ago, I stood on these very steps after being unjustly removed from office that you elected me to. I told you then that I didn't intend to give up and as a result of you standing with me over these last 18 months today I am honored to return to the seat of the people's State Attorney. The last four years have been challenging at best. I faced obstacles that appeared to be insurmountable. The political attacks against me were relentless and vicious. The media was weaponized against me, pushing the false narrative of my incompetence, reporting

on policies that didn't exist, focusing on crime committed by individuals with criminal histories that predated my time in office, creating the false impression that people could be prosecuted without sufficient evidence or that the state attorney alone is responsible for case outcomes. There were people who I was sure I could depend on, who disappeared name, discredit my character, and destroy my reputation and the reputation of those associated with me. These attacks continue to this day. But harder than any of that was the sudden death of my father. Those who know me know that I'm a daddy's girl and that he was every bit of a girl dad.

He was a pillar in my life, the fabric of my very being, much of the reason I am who I am today. We had an extremely close relationship and his loss was devastating for me. After everything I've been through, standing before you as your duly re-elected reminds us of why we fight for the things that matter. Oh, I just absolutely love it. And Rebecca, she whooped Andrew Baines' ass, getting 58% of the vote. He ran as an independent. All that dissent, his ass kissing didn't do any, didn't help him at all. You know, you love to see it.

And it's poetic justice. I'm glad that she was able to come back victorious. I will say just from like a human perspective, I hope she gets rest as well, because she's been through so much over the last few years. And while I understand over the next four years, many of us and many people like the state attorney who were unfairly targeted by these MAGA extremists and fighting back, I hope they also find time to get rest because we're going to have a long fight over the next four years. And so while I applaud her. I think it's fantastic. I also hope that she gets peace and rest as well. Well, I just love the fact that the voters put her in there.

They supported her policies. The Santas removes her in the voters like, nah, we want her back. And so congratulations to Monique Worrell. Glad to see you back where you are supposed to be. So, again, a great job. And so, you know, just important folks. Also, we had Don Scott on the show yesterday talking about what's the Monday? I can't remember. Talk about Virginia special elections. Well, guess what? Virginia Democrats retain their statehouse majority during Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin's last year in office. Tuesday's races were the first official elections in Virginia since November's presidential contest. Democrats have a twenty one nineteen age in the state Senate and a fifty one forty nine age in the House of Delegates,

preserving their majorities in both chambers. The results. Guess what? Yeah. Glenn Youngkin, he can't move his conservative agenda forward unless he goes through two black people, Louise Lucas in the Virginia Senate and Don Scott in the Virginia House. That's just one of the things that we have to understand why power absolutely matters. And so people overlook these state races, but controlling these state houses, controlling, you heard Martin O'Malley talk about 36 governor's races. People put fixate on the presidential race, Rebecca, but again, so much power at the state level and folk better pay attention to that too. Yes. In 2025, there's over a hundred thousand seats that are on the ballot across 46 states. And I don't know if people are paying attention to that. Almost every single state in this country will have elections this year. That's 100,000 seats where it's going to be mainly in the state and local level is going to have real world impact every single day. And if you want to make sure

that your particular communities are doing what it needs to do to make sure that your businesses, your children, your family, where you pray, worship, where you live and work, it's these local races. And so it was interesting listening to Governor O'Malley talk about his vision for the Democratic Party. And that's fine. We know there's two major parties in this country. But bottom line for our communities, our Black communities across the country, we have to figure out the systems that we work in and figure out ways to run for office. If you see something that you want done in your local community, you're going to have to learn what it takes to qualify for the ballot and work with people around you and figure out how to qualify for the ballot and how to successfully run for office. We have to be the ones who show up and we have to be our own heroes. We can't rely on the Democratic Party. That was very clear coming out of 2024,

and we most certainly can't rely on the Republican Party moving forward. Absolutely. All right, Rebecca, I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Scott had some technical issues, and so that's why we left him a little bit earlier. So again, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Folks, don't forget, support the work that we do join our bring the funk fan club your donations are critical to our support you can give multiple ways of course you can give me a cash out via the stripe app cash app close down our accounts that's why you can't give to us direct I know it's a lot easier but the stripe app still allows for you to give to us via cash app you see the QR code right there you simply point your camera to it or if you're listening to the podcast then what you can

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Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. I love y'all. All momentum we have now. we have to keep this going the video looks phenomenal see this difference between black star network and black owned media and something like cnn you can't be black on media and be skate it's time to be smart bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Folks, Blackstar Network We'll be right back. for being the voice of black America. I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going.

The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be black-owned media and be scape. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

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