#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Drastic HUD cuts, DOE closings/firings, NOAA mass firings, Trump's economic policies spark chaos

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

3.12.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Drastic HUD cuts, DOE closings/firings, NOAA mass firings, Trump's economic policies spark chaos The housing crisis will get grimmer with federal cuts to fair housing programs, and to preserve affordable housing.  We'll talk to the president of  Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America about how the consequences could be devastating. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rejects Hurricane Helene repair efforts in Asheville, North Carolina, because the city's proposed recovery plan features a DEI program. The Department of Education is the latest federal agency facing massive layoffs.  The National Parents Union president will explain what will happen with the imminent dismantling of the department. Economic expert Steve Liesman calls the twice-impeached criminally convicted felon-in-chief Donald "The Con" Trump's economic policy "insane." The Alabama Freedom Riders Museum is no longer listed for sale by the U.S. General Services Administration. A Federal jury awards two black Chicago men $120 million for spending decades in prison for a murder they did not commit.  ✨Get your "Don't Blame Me ... I Voted for the Black Woman" tee and #FAFO 2025 tee TODAY #RMU Merch 👉🏾 https://rolandmartin.creator-spring.com/ #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 platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement 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 them. Let's put ourselves in the right position, pregame to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Folks, today is Wednesday, March 12, 2025, coming up on Roland Mark Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. The housing crisis will get grimmer with federal cuts to fair housing programs and to preserve affordable housing.

Also, programs to end discrimination in housing. We'll talk to the president of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America about the devastating consequences. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rejects Hurricane Helene repair efforts in Asheville, North Carolina because the city's proposed recovery plan features a DEI program. The Department of Education is the latest federal agency facing massive layoffs. city's proposed recovery plan features a DEI program. Department of Education is the latest federal agency facing massive layoffs.

The National Parents Union president will join us to talk about the imminent dismantling of the department. Also, Democrats are opposed. They are unified in opposing the House Republicans' continuing resolution. Republicans don't have the votes to make it happen. We'll show you what Senator Chuck Schumer had to say. Plus, economic expert Steve Leisman calls the twice-impeached, criminally convicted felon and chief Donald Trump

economic policy insane. Plus, the Alabama Freedom Writers Museum no longer listed for sale by the U.S. General Services Administration. Also, a federal jury awards two black Chicago men $120 million for spending decades in prison for a murder they did not commit. It's time to bring the funk.

I'm Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine And when it breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling, best believe he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics

With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling, yeah It's Uncle Roro, yo Yeah, yeah It's rolling, Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best

You know he's Rollin' Martin Now Martin massive changes are happening in the area of housing due to the crazy Donald Trump, Elon Musk administration. Folks, they're slashing budgets, eliminating jobs. Also, there are any discrimination programs. This comes as millions of Americans struggle with skyrocketing housing costs. So folks, let's break this down for you. HUD funds key programs that help keep families in their homes, provide rental assistance, and support the construction of affordable housing. But now, with an estimated 84 percent of HUD's community planning and development

staff on the chopping block. Critical services could be delayed or even shut down for black families who are already disproportionately impacted by rising rent and low home ownership rates. These cuts could mean fewer housing vouchers, stall affordable housing projects, and more people at risk of being homeless. HUD Secretary Scott Turner is defending the move, saying it aligns with the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the federal government. Hmm. Joining us now is Bruce Marks,

CEO of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, better known as NACA. The organization has been at the forefront of fighting for fair and affordable home ownership for decades. Bruce, glad to have you here. At the end of the day, when we talk about what's going on here, this is going to have a massive, massive impact

on regular and ordinary people who don't have the means. And what we're seeing is folks who ran a campaign talking about skyrocketing home prices. This ain't a plan. This is just whack away. Well, you know, it is that. But I think we also have to look at, Roland, is that this is also a problem out there that has been, as we know, it's been out there for so long. So let's take a step back

and see why the government was so important. Because of the government was so important. Because of the government, the VA no down payment mortgage, it built the white suburbs after World War II, because, as we know, people of color could not get a mortgage. So, the no down payment was fundamental in reshaping this country. And this administration wants to destroy the housing programs across the board, whether you talk about affordable homeownership, the development of that housing, Section 8, which is crucial for a cross-section of people, particularly in the black community, and, you know, all the other programs we talk about. But I also want to say, you know, these programs have not worked the way they should have been working over the long term. So I hope we have an opportunity to talk about that, because politically, politically, this is the one issue,

probably the only issue that brings across the board people of all political stripes, Republicans, Democrats, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, everybody. The number one issue for working people in this country is the lack of affordable housing. And when people talk about it... Well, Bruce, we thought that was the issue that would bring folks together. What you have, though, you have Republicans who are just frankly doing whatever Donald Trump wants.

He's not facing any resistance in the House, in the Senate, these Republican governors. And so the problem is you don't have folks on the other side of the aisle standing up for people who are being impacted. And yes, it impacts African-Americans, but it's a whole bunch of white folks in America who also participate in HUD programs. But when you look at those programs,

whether it's the building of affordable housing, whether it's the Section 8, whether it's the housing activists, we've got to reset. And part of the problem is us, because we haven't done the grassroots organizing so that we can really get people involved, whether in the rural communities, in the Black communities, in the urban centers. We haven't done that work. We've been sort of—we've been lackadaisical and almost arrogant from a housing advocate in the housing industry, affordable housing industry, and really making people aware of what we're doing out there and making it effective. So I think it's an opportunity, as bad as it is with what Trump's doing, it's an opportunity for us as housing advocates, as us as affordable housing industry, to reset and to reengage in the communities where we should be,

because we haven't been doing that grassroots work. Okay, so if that's the case, then how do you do that when they now are trying to do the massive cuts? Because at the end of the day, these jobs are going away. The programs are going away. They claim they're going to send the money to the states. I'm not buying that one bit. I believe they're going to whack these programs to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy. So let's talk about one of the biggest issues that no one's talking about yet. And that is these massive Wall Street corporations who are buying up residential homes, often in the Black community, because of the racist appraisals, those properties are undervalued. And so—and that's in the urban areas,

in the rural communities as well. So NACA, what we're doing is we're reaching out to over 800,000 tenants who are owned, whose properties are owned by Blackstone, Invitation Homes, these huge Wall Street investors as landlords. So people don't even realize they're being subjected to these corporations who are stealing the dream of affordable homeownership from them because they use the management companies and they hide behind the management companies. And so that's what us as housing advocates, as housing activists need to do, to go into the neighborhoods, to talk to the tenants, and to organize them in saying, this is a concentrated effort to steal the dream, to steal your wealth.

And so, yes, we could talk about these programs, which are important programs. I mean, but we also have to do more in terms of the outreach and getting into the neighborhoods. So one of the programs that we're focused on is what we call the HOT PHA, is home ownership through public housing assistance. So what we're saying is someone with a Section 8 voucher, that they can use that voucher for the mortgage payment. That's a crucial program. And we're going to fight to make sure that that stays, because that's taking someone off of the dependency of Section 8 and putting them into affordable homeownership when in less than 20 years,

they're going to be able to own that home outright. But again, Rowan, I think we've got to understand that it's an opportunity to reset what we have been doing, because those programs are good, but they're not good enough. Okay, so all right, so here's the deal, though. You're saying a reset. Okay, fine. Show me how that happens, because that's not what I'm hearing from MAGA.

That's not what I'm hearing from Trump. That's not what I'm hearing from Doge. That's not what I'm hearing from House Republicans and Senate Republicans. They have no problem if these programs totally go away. Okay, so what's the plan? What do you do? Because

they're on the chopping block. They're about to go, and we know it's harder to get something back than it is to cut. So you're exactly right. They have no intention of making these programs work. Their agenda is to undermine those programs and to eliminate them. So that's the problem with their

agenda. But our agenda has to be what NAC is doing and other groups are doing, and that is starting to re-engage in the neighborhood. So we do these big events with the HBCUs. So we're going to do one starting next Friday at Virginia Union. Then we're doing other events in Tulsa, around the country, where we get thousands and thousands of home buyers coming in to access affordable home ownership. Because people can get a mortgage payment often less than that what they're paying in rent so it's really getting the word out. But Bruce, here's what I'm still not hearing though, but here's what I'm still not hearing though. What I need to know is okay how are you then getting these folks who are African American, Latino and white, these areas. How are you mobilizing and organizing them

to put pressure on Republicans in Congress not to whack the programs? I get how it needs to be reshaped and fixed, but again, in the absence of massive public pressure, these programs are going to disappear. So how are you organizing and mobilizing the people right now to do that? Because when they come to our events, what we call the NACA Achieve the Dream events, people, they have to be registered voters. So we got to make

sure that their voice is heard. We got to make sure that they vote. And then we got to make sure that they interact with their members of Congress and their senators. And this is across the board in all the communities, the rural, the white, the black, across the board, because that is an issue that will mobilize people. And that's what we have to do. So it's not good enough that the activists are just calling their members of Congress. We need the people who are impacted by this to do that. And that's what we have to do going back to the grassroots. And that's what NACA is doing. Okay, all right.

So I do that as well. Okay, you said that's what NACA is doing, what you have to do. Okay, right now, how many people do you already have signed up who you can, whether you have their names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails, social media, how many people do you right now have organized to do what you just talked about? 3.7 billion members. NACA has 3.7 million members who have been going through the program during the mortgage crisis. As you know, Rowan, we helped over 500,000 people save their homes. We've put over 100,000 people into homes. So when we do this event, for example, at Virginia Union University, over three days, we'll have over 7,000 people come.

And we've been doing these events. Right, right. Here's what I'm asking, though. Here's what I'm asking. You've had 3.7 million come through. You've had 500,000 you put in homes. What I'm saying is, can you touch all 3.7 million right now? Do you have it broken down by congressional district?

And so can you sit here and say, okay, in this congressional district, let's take the 30th congressional district in Texas. That's Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Do you have it broken down how many people you've assisted in that congressional district? Can you then reach out to those folks right now and say, hey, we need you to call Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett? And then we have extrovert people who is in this district of this Republican and this Republican. Is your data broken down and aggregated that way?

Yes. And even more than that is that we map it out. So you map it out so people can see in their neighborhoods who has come through NACA so they can work together as a neighborhood committee to do that. Also, we bought, we have the consumer data on every American adult, 300 million Americans. So when we did an Achieve the Dream event, working with the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas, we did a mailing to over 200,000 consumer adults, households who are renting. And we get a massive turnout from that. So, yes, that outreach is there both from our own data, their emails, phone numbers, addresses, their circumstances,

what their housing situation is, as well as the overall consumer data. So, yes, you're exactly right. You have to do that outreach, and we have to focus on the individuals across the board in the households. And to show the concentration. And so to see the concentration that people have so they realize that they're in it together. So people should go to NACA.com, N-A-C-A.com, and join these campaigns. And then we've got to get the housing activists out there to say, yes, let's get back on the grassroots and reconnect with the people in the neighborhoods. Because that's one of the reasons that people didn't vote.

They didn't feel connected. All right. Bruce, we certainly appreciate appreciate it thank you so very much uh it's great to be on thank you for having me Roland thank you want to bring my panel Robert Portillo civil rights attorney uh coming to us out of DC Rebecca Carruthers vice president fair election center out of DC Dr. Zachary Kirk educator and content creator out of Atlanta. I want to start with you, Rebecca. The point that I was sitting here really locking on there with Bruce is, again, it's one thing to say we need the programs, how beneficial they are, but this is a moment where organizations have to be fixated and aggressive when it comes to organizing and mobilizing people to put pressure. We right now, NACA should be sending people

to every single one of these town halls these Republicans are having. And then if they're scared to show up to town halls, if they have teletown halls, get them on the lines as well. This is where public pressure must be brought to bear. Roland, you're right. What's scary right now is many people in this country don't understand what's going on,

and they don't understand how things work in this country. So to hear that there are cuts in housing, people really don't understand the impact. So it's very critical right now for organizations to really drive home the impact to ordinary, everyday people, so then those people can then mobilize and talk to their member of Congress. It's all hands on deck right now, but it first starts with people actually understanding what's going on. Absolutely. And again, I mean, we can go from issue to issue to issue, Robert. And this is a moment. Yes, you've got Republicans who are targeting activists on the ground. We see what's happening with at Columbia University. We see how they want to attack Black Lives Matter. But this is where organizations,

people that are facing massive cuts to grants and things along those lines, hey, they now got to recognize they're in the activist business. Robert? Yeah, well, yeah, Roland, I think the... 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 One, 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. 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. 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 big portion of this is just the problem that so many people are tuned out to American politics

right now. What Republicans have successfully been able to do is flood the zone. Every single day, there's a new crazy thing that's crazier than anything you've ever heard before. We're going to invade Greenland. We're going to turn Canada into a state. We're conquering the Panama Canal. We're making hotels in Gaza. And then these bread-and-butter issues that affect everyday Americans are slipping through

the cracks. I talked to a young lady today who was 23 years old. She was a mother and she had no concept what Congress did, who was the president, or what's going on currently. And when you have this information gap, where you have people who are truly tuned into politics, not being able to communicate with such a large portion of the population, unfortunately, there's going to be a lot of people who don't find out these issues until it is indeed too late. We are on the preface of being too late to be able to rescue many of these programs. It's going to take massive efforts, not just by the black community, because we did our job in November. We turned out in the numbers we were supposed to in November. We have to make sure that the rest of the quote

unquote alliance is working together hand in hand to push these issues forward, because these aren't going to be things that are going to just affect black folks. These are going to affect everyday working class people around the country. Right now, if you look at the continuing resolution and the cuts they have in it, you're talking about 32,000 households around the country that will immediately face eviction if these budget cuts go into place. We're talking about homelessness, hunger going through the roof in this country because of these budget cuts. And we have so many people who are still tuned in, worried about Stephen A. Smith

arguing with LeBron, worrying about Krishan and Blueface that aren't being penetrated by these messages. We have to make sure we're rallying the folks around us so they understand what the fight is and that they're in it. Zachary, that was a point that I was making there with Bruce. This ain't just black folks. This needs to be an organization, a mobilization of white people. I agree 110 percent. And so this is a story, unfortunately, that's a part of American history that is as old as time.

And I'm disappointed that we didn't have more advocacy in the election season to educate and inform people. I know that our special guest did a great job of explaining the situation, saying that Americans weren't invested or drawn in. But a big part of that, them not being drawn in, is because they were not aware. And I don't know if our legacy organizations did a good job of making them aware. Every time Black people build communities in this country and invest the work and they have the opportunity for generational wealth through home ownership, our government, particularly one party, finds a way to take it away. You have Rosewood, Oscarville, Greenwood, Slocum, Colfax, Louisiana, Wilmington, North Carolina,

over and over and over. This is now happening again where black people and home ownership are being that's being put in jeopardy. And I don't know if the word is out in our community. And there's definitely not the level of advocacy that we need to see to ensure that black people are informed and that we are able to keep our homes. Because now with what's happening with HUD, it is definitely something that puts our community in jeopardy. We need to see exactly as you said, this organization at the town halls raising awareness. We need to see more of our organizations that are similar and that are aligned to the same goals also being activated and fighting. We can't sit back and constantly wait for, as the statement goes, black faces in places to save us.

Minority leader Jeffries can't fix this. Former Vice President Kamala Harris can't fix this. They can't do this is the work of advocacy groups and grassroots efforts. We have a role to play in saving ourselves. And we've got to do that. But I'll be honest, Rebecca, there were a lot of people who were sitting here making these things known. But the reality is a bunch of people were checked out of the process, and then all of a sudden, election's over. Now there's inauguration. Co-president Elon Musk comes in, making massive cuts. People go, oh, my God, I can't believe what's going on.

Well, hell, we sat there and told you for three years, and so it's a lot of people right now who need to be looking at themselves going, you know what? I set my ass on the sideline and now it's too late because they're going to be there for the next four years. Absolutely. This is the part where we get into the F.A.F.O., where a lot of people, you know, they messed around and now they're finding out. But I'm also sympathetic because there's so many people who are hurting in this country. They're going to continue to hurt. They're going to be feeling a lot of economic pain. They're going to be feeling pain when it comes to their health care, accessing benefits, especially even when we think about what's happening with our veterans.

But what people have to understand, there are 46 states this year that have elections. Next year is midterms for everybody. There's also several governor's races that are on the ballot. There are U.S. Senate races. Ohio has the U.S. Senate race in 2026. There are plenty of opportunities for people to vote at the ballot box if they don't like what's going on. But to your point, people have to be engaged. It's not up to a political party to tell you, hey, it's time to be engaged. It's not to a political party to tell you, hey, it's time to be engaged. It's not up to a politician to tell you, hey, it's time to be engaged.

But in your everyday life, I am letting you know it is time to be engaged. Because if you blink, if you go to sleep, if you don't pay attention to what's happening, unfortunately, your current way of life is going to be severely impacted by this administration. And cruelty and pain is the point. Indeed. And Robert, I'm sorry. There are 90 million people who chose not to vote who now are going to be impacted. This is why we keep saying folk have got to be in the game. They've got to be involved. And I get it. People have lives and they have jobs and they have families and they have stresses. But when you start complaining after the fact, yo, we can't help you. We needed you engaged before these idiots got in.

Well, Roland, I think in large part, we're almost a victim of the success of the Obama years, victims of the success of the Biden years, where you have an entire generation that's grown up in what can be described as a Paz Americana, where we are in a period of time of economic growth, of American dominance. The dollar goes up in value every year. Home prices rise year over year. Since 9-11, we haven't faced terrorist attacks here on our homelands. And because of that, many people have simply forgotten what things were like beforehand. People have forgotten the recession, the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009. People forgot about the housing crisis that took place.

Somehow people forgot about the COVID pandemic from four years ago when it comes to what America looked like under Trump. And because of that, we've now turned our government in large part into a reality show where people have disconnected what's going on in Washington, D.C. from how it impacts and affects their daily life. So when President Trump and Emperor Elon are doing crazy things, they're like, oh, I wonder what's going to happen the next episode. And unfortunately, for a large portion of the American electorate, it's going to be when it finally hits home. Everything that people have said and that you said during the 2024 election cycle has come to pass.

President Trump was not joking about anything he said he was going to do. Project 2025 was literally a playbook. I think they're on Chapter 9 right now, and they're going to work their way through all 920 pages. I highly recommend everybody during your spring reading, read through the entirety of it so you can see exactly what they're going to do. When they said they were going to be purging the federal government of employees and replacing them with MAGA loyalists, they're doing that right now. When they said they were going to take a chainsaw and deleting entire agencies, they're doing that right now. And I fear that it will not be until people are being put out on the streets when the bread lines start forming,

when the social unrest rises in the next couple of months and next couple of years, then people will finally realize that maybe this isn't a game show and we really need to be involved in our political system. So we have to start organizing right now. Remember, Donald Trump started running for re-election at 1 a.m. on the night of the election in 2020. He did not wait.

He literally started clearing the field of primary opponents, and he started campaigning against President Biden the day that he lost that election. They filed over 60 lawsuits around the country. They changed voting laws in 26 states in order to ease the way. Elon Musk put in between $300 million and a billion dollars to tilt the election. They were not playing, and they planned for this moment. We cannot be sitting here in the spring dilly-dallying our fingers trying to figure out which way we're going to go. We're burning time, burning effort.

We need to put that energy in planning for the next election and the election after that. And again, we have been warning people what is going to go on. We've been warning them about what was going to take place. But a lot of folk are kind of like, yeah, well, I don't really think they're going to do it. Take, for instance, the people in North Carolina who were impacted by Hurricane Helene. What did HUD decide? decided they've rejected the city of Ashfield, North Carolina's $225 million disaster relief plan because it prioritizes minority and women-owned businesses. House Secretary Scott Turner said the city's draft plan included, quote,

DEI criteria or diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, which his department would no longer support. At the center of the controversy is a proposal to allocate $15 million to help small businesses recover, including those owned by black entrepreneurs and women. But now that funding is off the table. Turner made it clear, stating, quote, DEI is dead at HUD. Under Trump's latest executive order, federal agencies can no longer consider race, gender or diversity in funding decisions. That means cities like Asheville, where Hurricane Helene disproportionately impacted

Black and minority businesses, they will have to compete without any targeted support. Faced with losing critical relief funds, Asheville city leaders have already revised their plan removing all references to minority and women-owned businesses. Officials say they now expect HUD to approve the funding, which will be used to rebuild homes,

infrastructure, and economic recovery. So guess what, Black folks in North Carolina who did not vote, guess what? You helped Donald Trump win the state. You helped him retake the Oval Office. This is what we're talking about. Same thing goes for the Department of Education. Their notices went out, but they're slashing half of all of the jobs. More than 1,300 federal education employees were unexpectedly laid off, not unexpectedly, because Linda McMahon said,

hey, we're going to shut down the department. All department offices in D.C. and across the country were closed for security reasons. The dismantling of the Department of Education will have serious consequences, particularly for federal grants, student loan programs, and Title I funding that support schools in Black and low-income communities. The White House is preparing an executive order to dissolve the Department of Education fully. Even though you can't actually do that, Congress must do it. But if you get rid of all the employees, you've effectively killed the department. Kerry Rodriguez, president of the National Parents Union, joins us right now. Kerry, listen, it was all in Predict 2025. We knew this was happening.

So are a lot of the parents out there, are they now realizing this thing is for real? So many parents across the country are beside themselves, especially parents who have children with special needs, because we rely so heavily on the federal government to make sure that the IDEA Act is upheld. Frankly, you know, people don't remember what it was like 50, 60 years ago and why we created the U.S. Department of Education. It wasn't just about Brown v. Board of Education. It was about all of these subsequent lawsuits that we had to file, not just to desegregate, but to make sure

that children with special needs could have access to classrooms so they didn't get blocked by governors and states making stupid decisions that hurt our kids. But that's where we're back in facing right now. And yesterday, what we saw was Linda McMahon just didn't go after random employees. The majority of the employees, the number one target she went after were the attorneys. And you file, you fire those attorneys when you don't plan on upholding the law and defending our rights. So that was a strong signal to American families yesterday, I'll tell you that. Yeah, and I just want people to understand they have got to be engaged in this process.

This can't just be, you know, folks like you and other leaders. I keep saying you cannot win wars only having generals and colonels and sergeants. You need troops. We need everybody to get up right now. And if you find out that your member of Congress is hosting one of those town halls, one of those coffee hours, you bump into them at the grocery store, hey, remember congressional oversight. Do your job. Because it's not just up to those of us who are the generals and the people you see on TV all the time. We need everybody to get engaged right now and to make sure that Congress is doing their damn job. Absolutely.

And so I asked the question of Bruce with NACA. I'll ask for you. How are y'all mobilizing parents? What is happening? You know, are y'all sending out e-blasts? How big is your email list? Are you seeing people who now want to join your organization? Walk us through your organization and mobilization efforts right now.

Yeah, so we really have planned for this. And this is the infrastructure that we've been building over the last five years of the National Parents Union. So our motto is, you know, you don't need to get ready if you stay ready. So we're an affiliate network. We have 1,800 pockets of parent power in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. So anywhere you turn, if you're a parent who's listening right now or you care about public education and you're listening right now, you can get connected to the National Parents Union and we will hook you up. That's a network of almost 1.8 million activists across the country that are staying ready for this moment and are ready to mobilize, get in front of those members

of Congress in our home states, in our home districts, but also ready to take it to Washington, D.C. The other thing that we are ready to do and we need your help with is take it to the courts, because the unique thing about parents in the United States is we are the ones withstanding. And, you know, it was a couple of years ago where we had Miss Ruby Bridges come in and talk to our organization about the struggle her parents went through and the courage that it took for her parents to decide to get involved in a federal lawsuit, to put their young daughter in harm's way, in jeopardy, to actually push forward and get that federal court order that desegregated schools. It was parents who had the standing to take this stuff to court. So if you're a parent and you are maybe a low-income parent, maybe you are a parent who has a child with special needs. If you go to what's called a Title I school or your child has

an IEP or you're a parent of a child who speaks multiple languages, we want to hear from you because we're going to be watching like hawks. You were right when you said, Roland, you know, right now they're, they're kind of playing with smoke and mirrors here. They know they do not have the congressional votes to shut down the department of education. So what they're trying to do is make it completely dysfunctional and, and dismantle it to the point where it's just not executing on what it needs to do. And there are some things that the department needs to do that are congressionally mandated. There are statutory requirements. So we're going to be watching very closely to make sure they are

upholding federal law. The minute that they violate the rights of children on the grassroots level, we want to take them to court. So if you have that kind of spirit and you are ready to stand up and you are prepared for this moment to be courageous, and you don't want to look back in 25, 30 years at your grandchildren, when they ask you, what did you do in this moment to stand up and fight back? We want to hear from you. We need to hear from you because we want to file those lawsuits and we're ready to stand with you every step of the way. I have been saying this repeatedly, that if anything happens right now, this is where regular and ordinary people are going to have to rise up. This is where people are going to have to take to the streets. You've got veterans who

are angry about the cuts being made in the Department of Veteran Affairs, some 80,000 people. 30% of all federal workers are veterans being laid off left and right. There's going to be massive protests in Washington, D.C. on Friday and in 50 state capitals from veterans. Guess the only way these things change is if the people rise up. We love to talk about, oh, my goodness, look at this massive protest in Turkey, this massive protest in Egypt, this massive protest happening. Well, this is where people are going to have to actually take to the streets, use the First Amendment and let these folks know, because here's what you know and I know. Every single politician, they do not want to lose re-election. Every House member is up next year and there are

about 20 to 30 Republicans who are very vulnerable because they are in purple areas or they're in areas that Biden won. And so there is a moment here. But the people have got to come out of their homes. These parents of special needs children, they can't just expect somebody else to fight for them. They have to fight. I'm seeing what's happening right now in Texas. Last night, they had nearly, nearly 18 hours of testimony against the voucher scam happening in Texas. More than 308 people signed up to speak. That's what it is going to take to stop what is happening. And I'm so proud to see parents across the country doing that work, but we need more. I'll tell you, we had some of our parents from San Antonio, Texas.

They found Ted Cruz in an airport and boxed him into a conversation about that issue specifically, as well as the closure of the Department of Education, the federal funding freeze. They had him on the ropes. And that's the kind of spirit and energy we really need right now. Like this is not a time to sit on the sidelines. No one is going to do this for you. And I got to tell you what I hear from American families every single day. I hear from folks who are anxious about whether or not they're going to get their child's support for feeding tubes, whether or not their kid's going to be able to have access to insulin, whether or not they're going to be able to maintain their preschool placement,

whether or not they're going to have Head Start, and whether or not they're going to be able to hold on to their job. Because if they don't have a place for baby to go during the day, what are they going to do? How are they going to hold on to this job? What's what it's going to mean for their housing? So if this is impacting you directly, you have no excuse. You have no excuse but to join us and to get active.

Because, frankly, if you don't, you're going to end up as a victim of this mess because this man is coming for you. Absolutely. And so we know what you'all are doing as well. And so, again, we hope folks wake up and realize that we're just two months in. These things, 52 days, these things are very real and they're not going to change. Carrie, we really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. We're very grateful for you, Roland. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you so very much. Folks, Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, want to know how dumb she is? Y'all, she's a wrestling executive married to Vince McMahon. So she goes on Fox News to defend her department's massive staff cuts

of hundreds of employees, but she couldn't even answer a basic-ass question from the absolutely idiotic Laura Ingraham. Watch this. The criteria for keeping that 50% is related to expenditures and key programs? Correct. Congress appropriates the money that is going through Title I to IDEA programs. What's that stand for? Well, do you know what? I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what it stands for,

except that it's the programs for disabled and needs. Individuals with Disabilities Act, I think. I'm guessing. I don't know. I don't know all my acronyms. I've been here for 30 years. This is my fifth day on the job, and I'm really trying to learn them very quickly.

Right. Okay, first, oh, I'm trying to learn on the job. No, how about you go unprepared? Two, Laura, how dumb are you? You don't have a research team who knows how to explain these things? You just throw out, oh, Title I funding. Well, I don't really know what the hell Title I funding is. It's just something that I just heard just around the way,

so let me just go ahead and repeat it. This is how stupid these people are, Robert. Look, brother, this is the point in time where we have to start looking back in history at corollaries for how exactly we need to respond to this. This is not the I'm going to change my profile picture to a black square in order to protest this. This is not the indolent statements

or the performative justice that we have seen. We have to go back to our roots. You know, one of my relatives, Melba Petillo Beal, was one of the Little Rock Nine back in 1957 who helped to integrate schools. And what we took at that time was that we had to stand together in massive social justice movements. It was not simply black folks. It was the civil rights movement, intertwining with the women's rights movement, intertwining with the students movement, intertwining with the anti-war movement, and intertwining with the anti-communist movement, all coming together to push for massive social change in America. What we're seeing right now is a similar attack on the American

history and American values that we have all had, to the point where you can put someone in charge of school students whose husband, Vince McMahon, there's literally a Netflix documentary right now about him in the 1980s where they talk about the fact that they were trafficking young boys to wrestlers as part of the WWF at the time, that they were literally giving children to these older men in order to recruit them to wrestling. You guys who watched the documentary, it's out there right now. We are at an inflection point in America where we have the guy from Real World versus Road World's Challenge in charge of the FAA.

When we have some drunk guy from Fox in charge of the military. When we have the wrestling lady in charge of education. The American people have to come together and realize that we are all on the line. As Thomas Paine once said, these are the times which try men's souls. When the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot shrink, tyranny like hell is not easily conquered. We're not going to get this done simply by being outraged on social media or angry. As this nation is slowly decaying into a state of democracy that we've never seen on the international level, where our allies are abandoning us and sanctioning us, where we're

moving closer to Putin and to Kim Jong-un and to President Xi, where we're playing this game of strongman geopolitics, attempting to conquer other nations. The American people have to stand up and realize that we are not the subjects of Emperor Elon Musk. We simply have to come together and decide that we're going to push back in a real way. And that has to start immediately. When you, and I say it this, Zachary, and I still believe it a thousand percent, when people start to realize when things are going to be cut, all of a sudden they go, oh, damn, I kind of need to wake up. Yeah, you do. And this is where an uprising has to take place.

And again, I really do hope that after Friday's massive Veterans March that people begin to realize what's going on. And I hope you begin to see a ripple effect take place. That's the only way things change. There has to be an uprising of people. Otherwise, Republicans are like, yo, y'all ain't saying nothing. We good. We gonna keep cutting.

I agree 100%. I hope that we get that response. I hope that people are going to wake up and kind of see. But we've got to have more demonstrations like what we're going to see on Friday. That's a great step in the right direction, but we need more of it. We have to do our work of flooding the zone the same way that Trump and his administration is flooding the zone. And we have to do a better job of controlling the narrative and making sure that people who are carrying the narrative correctly, like Roland Martin right here, you know, Roland Martin, I feel that this information is being disseminated widely among our groups. We have to take the information like we now see the impact of what we assume we're going to see the impact of the cuts to the Department of Education.

That clip of the secretary of education not understanding what Title I is, not understanding that it's a provision of the ESEA of 1965 and how it's evolved and how it has provisions that protect students who have disabilities, but also students who are from poor and low-income families to ensure that they're given equal and equitable access to education. She didn't even know what that is. So they're sitting here taking away funds, cutting money, cutting resources that benefit. 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,

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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. heart radio 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 glad and this is season two of the war on drugs podcast sir we are back in a big way in a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

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The American people need to know that. This isn't just Black children and brown children. It's all children across the country, across the United States. You have more children in poor parts of Kentucky, poor parts of Idaho, poor parts of Nebraska who are benefiting from this than what you may have in a number of urban cities across America. So the people have to know about it. And the problem is the legacy media sources aren't getting the information out. And that's why we don't have the outrage because people don't know it. Once we started to get the information out, we start to have these town halls, Republicans started to get their asses kicked and handed to them by their constituents. And all of a sudden now they're not going to continue to

do that because it generated too much press. That was something the mainstream media was willing to look at. We've got to get the word out. We've got to encourage more marches, more protests, more demonstrations, because that's something that raises awareness, and we've got to get the word out. Well, Rebecca, as we always say, people have to lose stuff. I said that people are going to have to lose a hell of a whole lot for them to realize that MAGA doesn't give a damn about them. All they care about are oligarchs, corporate CEOs, rich folks.

The Republicans are real clear. They're whacking the IRS. They're whacking the people who were doing audits of major companies and millionaires and billionaires. They want to rush through this massive tax cut. They don't care how much it adds to the deficit because they're not fiscal hawks as well. You got the Secretary of Energy who's saying, oh, no, our job is to make cars

cheaper and utilities cheaper. Our job is not climate change. They don't give a damn about the climate. Okay? Donald Trump is not sitting here pushing by Teslas because of the importance of the environment. No, it's about how can I kiss Elon Musk's ass because his stock has lost more than 50% of its value. No, it's about how can I kiss Elon Musk's ass

because his stock has lost more than 50% of its value. That's all this is about. People need to understand, this is about a bunch of largely rich white boys trying to get richer. People have to understand, this is not normal. This is not how government should work. There are a lot of people

who are rightfully skeptical about government, and that's okay. There are people like my 75-year-old dad called me the other day, and he said, well, isn't there a waste in government? I was like, yes, there is waste in government, but I do not trust this regime to be the one to cut the waste in government. I'm not even sure that I would have trusted the Biden administration to go through, because when you are dealing with government, there's a lot of sacred cows in some of the bills. Back in the day when the bills used to have appropriations local to people's house districts, they put a lot of extra pieces of stuff in it for local people and local businesses. But what we're seeing is that system has run amok,

and now we're here. We're trillions of dollars in debt. There's many things that should be happening, but not through the use of Elon Musk, not through the use of Doge, because these are people who don't respect government, don't understand government. They're cutting for cutting's sake,

but they're also cutting to personally enrich themselves and their businesses. It's not like Elon Musk is being altruistic here and saying, hey, I want to reduce the American debt. I want to make sure that we're not running in constant deficits. No, he's making at least $8 million a day. That was before the last 52 days. My guess is by the time we get to day 100, he will be making well over $8 million a day of what he's getting from the U.S. government. But to your point, there are a lot of oligarchs in this country. They use the government to fund their private businesses, to make a lot of money. And that's not on the behalf of the American public.

So what people really have to understand, this is not normal times. This is not how government should function. And unfortunately, there are a lot of people who are going to be hurt. And when we think about the IDEA Act and Section 504, which protects students who require special education, because our country said in the 1970s that we have something called FAPE, which is Free Appropriate Public Education. At the point that we offer public education, if there's a student who has a disability, they still have the right to access

free appropriate public education. And low key, I think Laura's being a little shady at Linda with asking, what does ID Act mean? Kind of said a little gotcha. So there might be a little shady at Linda with Athens. What does IDAC mean? Kind of said a little gotcha. So there might be a little something there. Well, I just need people to understand that what's happening is real. It's no joke. And these people are not smart.

You take the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. They're facing a major reduction in its workforce as part of, again, the extensive overhaul of the federal government. Now, they play a major role to oversee the National Weather Service. Kind of important when you start talking about hurricanes, tornadoes. They monitor the ocean, atmosphere conditions, conduct deep-sea exploration, they employ 12,000 people worldwide. But guess what? Trump folks like, yeah, we don't need them.

According to an email obtained by USA Today, NOAA will begin laying off 1,029 employees as part of a broader strategy to streamline government operations. The recent notice sent to NOAA staff did not specify which positions would be eliminated, leaving many employees uncertain about their future. Currently, the cuts do not affect the National Weather Service's forecast operations and maintenance support. The Department of Commerce will make the final decisions regarding these layoffs. Now, they did put up, though, for sale some of their buildings. And so that's what people have to understand what's happening here. They're just selling off buildings. They're just getting rid of people.

There's literally no plan here. Even Donald Trump whined. This was so hilarious. He even whined. Yeah, you know what? Maybe we should have taken a scalpel as opposed to a hatchet to this. But not only that. When Rebecca was just talking about, Zachary, I'm going to go to you first.

When Rebecca was just talking about, you know, what her father said about wasting government, let's be clear. If you actually want to confront waste in government, you actually would go to the place that actually has the largest budget and the most waste. That's the Department of Defense. Zachary, can you please tell me why is it that we've heard about cuts

at O, HUD, Education, National Weather Service, all these other areas, but not the Department of Defense. Well, you're going to get me under surveillance. I'm going to tell it and tell it like it is. You haven't heard about it because if you were to go into cutting the Department of Defense, then how are you going to have the money paid back to Elon Musk that Donald Trump is trying to pay him back? Because when $400 billion of that is going to Elon Musk and his subsidiaries, then what else is there to cut? When you're trying to cut the fat, trying to cut the waste,

trying to drain the swamp, you're going to be draining Elon Musk, Starlink, Tesla, Cybertrucks, and all this nonsense they're buying that's keeping his pockets fat. Well, yeah, and in fact, we already see where he wants to get rid of folks at the FAA. And why don't y'all go ahead and hire MySpaceX people?

It's a grift. It's a massive grift, Rebecca. It's a grift with the Trump and Melania coins, whatever the hell they call it, meme coins, whatever the hell. I mean, they're ripping these idiots off. Okay, that's what they're doing. It's all a grift. I said it. These people, these rich billionaires,

these oligarchs, they said, oh, here's a perfect opportunity for us to come in and rape and pillage the federal budget. They're like, yay, we have the perfect idiot to allow us to do whatever. We just put money in his pockets and we can just go take whatever we want. That's what's happening in front of our eyes. Anytime that you see the stock market is going down, you're seeing indicators for inflation going up. You see indicators for recession that are now in play. And you have someone who simply doesn't care because that's not the point of this. Even one thing that we do understand is that when Donald Trump ran the first time, when he decided to run, I think back in what, 2012, when he decided to run, in part it was because he wanted to financially benefit. But he never thought he was actually going to become president.

He thought by raising his profile, by being a candidate, that was simply going to be enough. And then in his first administration, we see all of a sudden someone who was questionably on the Forbes billionaire list, but no one could actually really confirm that he was truly a billionaire. Now we see that he's firmly a billionaire.

And so now in the second term, it's not just Trump and family, but it's the Trump criminal enterprise family and friends and all these additional billionaires who are coming along. And it's simply, if you are an American, if you believe in democracy, then what you're seeing is outright corruption. And I understand in a lot of Western countries that there is pieces of corruption that's allowed or pieces of corruption that people kind of wink at or kind of look the other way. But what you see is a group of people who are willing to bankrupt this country, willing to harm people in this country, all because of their bottom line. They're not looking out for the American public. They're looking out for themselves and their friends.

And this is going to be very stark over the next couple years. So once again, Roland mentioned that there's opportunities to protest. As the good organizer as I am, if you're going to go out and protest, make sure you're protesting with a group. Because in the last few years, there has been criminalization in certain states of protesting, of gathering in public spaces. Make sure the group you're with have properly pulled permits because it's go time now. We need all Americans of good conscience to show up and let these people know we're not going to stand for it.

We actually still support democracy in this country. Indeed, and so I just keep telling folks, Robert, oh, guess what? The greatest hits, they're going to keep on coming until folk revolt against what they are seeing. Yeah, Robert, and I think it's important. Welcome to a segment I like to call Entirely Too Much Information with Robert. Let's talk about this bloated military budget for a second, because when we're slashing programs for disabled youth and special education,

there has to be a really good reason we're not slashing from the trillion dollar a year military budget. So just a few things for folks. Understand that America has over 750 military bases across the world. The reason I say around 750 is because no one knows the actual number of U.S. military bases because of the number of black sites and secret locations around the world. It's the largest military footprint that any nation in the history of Earth has ever had. It's larger than the military footprint of the British Empire when the sun never set on the British Empire. It's larger than the imprint of the Roman Empire or even of Genghis Khan when he conquered all of Eurasia. When we talk about this

military budget, I want people to remember, 40 years ago at this point, we wanted to replace the F-15, the air superiority fighter of the United States Air Force. We commissioned a trillion dollar program for the F-22. We only ended up building about 150 of them that are still operational today. We then introduced a new program, the Joint Strike Fighter program, which is we spent another trillion dollars to build the F-35.

Now we're spending another two trillion dollars to build the NGAD, the Next Generation Air Dominance Fighter. That is facing so many hurdles that now they're going back to that same F-15 from 40 years ago and putting those back into production today as the F-15EX, to be the new air dominance fourth generation or 4.5 generation fighter. The point is that if any other department of the U.S. government was blowing money that fast

with absolutely nothing to show for it, because remember, that trillion dollars we spent on the F-22, it has shot down a grand total of one balloon during the Biden administration for that trillion dollars that we put into it. If you want to talk about Ford-class carriers, we're talking about $13 billion for each aircraft carrier. We have more aircraft carriers in America than the entirety of the rest of the world combined. The rest of the world combined cannot match our aircraft carrier fleet nor match our aircraft footprint between the Navy and the Air Force.

You want to talk about space, as far as the U.S. Space Command that President Trump created in his last administration? Elon Musk has received $38 billion in contracts from the federal government over the course of the last 16 years. This includes the development of the Starship, the thing that keeps blowing up every few weeks. That's being paid for almost entirely by the United States government because it's part of the human landing system of the Artemis program that goes, that's supposed to be landing

on the moon four years ago. We ain't got close yet. In addition, the U.S. military wants to use it for point-to-point transportation on the global scale. We're not close to that yet. In addition, the U.S. military wants to use it for point-to-point transportation on the global scale. We're not close to that yet. So when we're talking about cutting programs and auditing the federal government, we have to dive into the bottomless pit of U.S. military and R&D spending, because if you spent even a quarter of that money each year on education, on housing, on homelessness programs, on social services, we would not be in the situation that we are today.

But because the billionaires at SpaceX, at Tesla, at the Boring Company, at Neuralink, at Raytheon, at Lockheed Martin, at Honeywell keep making money and keep making money in every jurisdiction, they will never cut that, but they will much rather throw poor people out on the street. That means lining up the pockets and increasing their stock prices,

and we have to see that directly in front of us. The numbers are there. We just refuse to look at them. And that, in a nutshell, is America. Gotta go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk about how this one CNBC reporter just got... He just like being... Let me just cut to the chase about the nonsense we're facing here. Y'all want to support the work we do here at the Rollerball Unfiltered? Join our Bring the Funk fan

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tackling everything at the intersection of politics, gender, and pop culture. And we don't just settle for commentary. This is about solution-driven dialogue to get us to the world as it could be and not just as it is. Watch us on the Black Star Network, so tune in to The other side of change.

Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. There's a lot of talk about the inevitability of another civil war in this country, but on our next show, we'll talk to a noted author and scholar who says we're actually in the middle of one right now. In fact, Steve Phillips says the first one that started back in 1861, well, stormed U.S. Capitol, hunted down the country's elected officials, built the gallows for the Vice President of the United States, and to block the peaceful transfer of power within this country. On the next Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. This is Doug E. Freshener watching my brother Roland Martin underpilted as we go a little something like this. Hit it. It's real. Oh, folks at CNBC are finally waking up. Jim Cramer told Trump, hey, man, your economy is not doing well and it's going to get worse.

Well, check this out. Another of their economics reporter, Steve Leisman, just said, you know what? I'm not going to lie about this. He blasted the twice impeached, criminally convicted, felin-chief Donald Trump's economic policy, which includes these stupid tariffs on Canada, which are causing electricity prices to surge in certain states. Liesman was just like, you know what? Let her rip. I'm going to say this at risk of my job, Kelly, but what President Trump is doing is insane. It is absolutely insane. It is about the eighth reason we've had for the tariffs.

And now he's saying he's putting 50 percent tariffs on Canada unless they agree to become the 51st state. That is insane. There is just no other way of describing it. And the trouble, Kelly, is that it shows there are no bounds around President Trump. This is very different from the first administration where there were people around him who seemed to, I don't know what the word is, but smooth over some of the edges now. And the other thing that's not talked about, Kelly, is what's going on within the administration in terms of how they're treating the Constitution and laws. I think all of that is bad for the attraction of capital. And the gentleman from Bridgewater is 100 percent right. We need massive amounts of capital if we want to have fund our deficits, pay for the things we want to pay

for, sell our bonds and have high stock prices. And it seems as if this administration is doing everything it can to chase foreign capital away. Well, and we could go into the strategy of the insanity as a strategy in terms of our trading. Ins not a strategy i'm sorry i i i'm with you kelly and trying to look for silver linings i'm a sunny person linings tactics some some with some explanation for this other than insanity i'm ready to accept it if you can come up with one and well i agree with that absolutely insanity re And, you know, these are the people who are always trumpeting the market, the market, the market. Even they realize, hmm, it's dumb. It was hilarious

watching Joe Kernan on CNN, CNN. 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, we'll 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 Glod. 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 thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. 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 2 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. See, retirement 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 thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. See, Squawk Box just criticized what's happening. Oh, but he was kissing lots of Trump ass and wanted him to win. And so don't you just love these people who were just like, yay, yay, Trump back, a businessman.

Oh, being back up back in. I guess they forgot those six bankruptcies. I guess it's not fun to short the market if you're not going to benefit from it. I bet you if he was benefiting from what's happening with the market, then maybe he would have a different perspective. So what's also interesting is watching some of these finance people, these money people, people who have access to great amounts of wealth, it's interesting kind of watching them fight with each other as well. Because not everybody who is a billionaire

is benefiting the same way a billionaire like Elon Musk is. And so, you know what? Go ahead, fight on. However, stop him. That's the big thing. For most of us who aren't in that top one-tenth or one percent tax bracket, where we have such global wealth that whatever the orange resident does, it doesn't impact us. But for most of us, it does. Most people around

the world are greatly impacted by this, and not just in this country. So I would say for people like him who have a platform, and it was also very telling that he said he might lose his job for speaking the truth. Like, since when do you lose your job on news to speak the truth? But I guess that's what's happening in this world because of who his parent company is and the amounts of money that his particular parent company is hoping to make from the government. Well, again, folk don't like the truth, Zachary. And so what they do is they hype all this nonsense up until all, until the building comes crashing down. They hype up the nonsense like taking over Greenland and turning it into red, white and

blue land, as opposed to looking at the fact that we left an administration and left a country in January where recession was 100 percent not going to happen, where Joseph Biden and his administration working with the Fed and working with interest rates and working with the economy ensured that America was going to be stable and America was going to continue to thrive economically. We went from a vice president who was running for president who had a plan to keep America thriving, to give potential homeowners $25,000 in terms of market viability to ensure that we continue to boom, to now having someone sitting in the Oval Office insuring, almost manufacturing, if not guaranteeing, that a recession, maybe even a depression, would happen so that his

rich buddies can capitalize on it. That's where we are. I think that's something that not enough people are talking about, the fact that this is a manufactured recession that we're seeing. We're seeing tariffs being implemented that's going to cause a recession. We're seeing a crisis in regards to bird flu and other health epidemics happening that's being completely ignored. We're seeing a lack of confidence in the FFA and the entire flight travel industry happening. All of these things, it seems to be extremely coincidental that all of this is happening, pushing our economy into a recession, never even talking about the increased number of Americans who are losing their jobs, who don't have to lose their jobs.

Well, look, it all is intertwined. And when you look at the polling data, the CNN polling guru, Robert, shows how Trump's approval ratings have just fell below the floor when it comes to his handling of the economy. And again, hashtag, we tried to tell you, but all these other people just thought he was just so amazing and so brilliant when it came to the economy, as if they totally forgot leading us into a recession

because of his horrible handling of COVID. But they didn't want to sell him with that. They didn't want to blame him for that. They wanted to say he was better than Vice President Kamala Harris. Well, now. Well, there's a quote from Voltaire where he says, he who can convince a man of absurdities can force him into atrocities. And that's very much where we are economically in America right now, because Donald Trump was able to convince millions of Americans of the absurdity that he could replace taxes with tariffs. And we've tried that before.

You can look at Smoot-Hawley in the 1920s that caused the Great Depression. You can look at the trust-busting under President McKinley that resulted from President Roosevelt when President McKinley decided to govern through tariffs. It has literally never worked. America has never been more prosperous than during this period of time of international free trade, going from NAFTA,

the North American Free Trade Agreement, to even Trump's U.S.-Canada-Mexico agreement, the U.S. NCA, which is suspended upon NAFTA. What we're seeing currently because of the Trump policies is a global realignment economically. And by that, I mean right now,

Canada is considering ascension into the EU to change their global trade strategy from trading across the border of the United States of America to more trade with the European Union so they can bypass the absurdity of the American sphere of influence. By a similar method, China is investing billions and billions of dollars in construction in Mexico. The only reason that it has not completely taken over is Mexico's largest trading partner, because of the good relationships between the United States and Mexico throughout the years. With these new tariffs, we are now ceding our hegemonic influence over Central and South

America, which has existence to Washington's farewell address 250 some odd years ago. We are now ceding that to global influence and global powers. We fought the entire guerrilla warfare throughout the Civil War to prevent the Soviet Union from dominating republics in Central and South America. Now we're simply ceding that to China. If we look at the power of the BRICS alliance, right now they are getting more applications for nations to join them because people fear the U.S. dollar maintaining

its position as the global reserve currency because they fear the political instability of the United States of America. This is the same alignment we saw during World War II when the British Empire, which at that time was the global superpower, had to cede over their position as world leadership to the United States of America because they were fighting for their own survival. So while we're fighting for our survival here in the United States of America, the rest of the world isn't just sitting around

twiddling their thumbs. They're realizing they have to start treating America the same way that they treat Russia. The German chancellor just last week said, we have to consider treating America as an adversary. President Macron in France already has said that they are going to work on opening new markets, including markets in China, as opposed to working here in America. China has been investing for the last 15 years in an international Belt and Road initiative,

investing $5 trillion to open up trade throughout the Eurasian continent into Africa. We no longer have allies around the world, and we become isolated. Ask Russia what their economy looks like. The entire nation of Russia has a GDP smaller than the state of New York because they are isolated, and that's where America is headed. Well, we're just going to sit here and watch these things happen, and again,

people have got to decide whether they want to wake up. Hey, white women, how about y'all? Imagine showing up to vote and being turned away all because your last name doesn't match your birth certificate. That could be the reality for millions of women under a new Republican-backed bill. The SAVE Act would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, forcing people to provide a passport, birth certificate, or other documents. And for women who are more likely to vote, forcing people to provide a passport, birth certificate, or other documents. And for women, who are more likely to have name changes due to marriage or other life events, this could create a major roadblock at the ballot box.

Let's be perfectly clear. Non-citizen voting is already illegal, and there's no real evidence of widespread fraud. But this bill would make it harder for black voters, low-income communities, and rural Americans to register and cast their ballots. It also eliminates online and mail-in registration, forces in-person verification, and threatens election workers with penalties if they don't enforce these new restrictions. But this is no shock, Rebecca, because white men in the Republican Party, they've never wanted anybody else to vote but him. Paul Weyrich literally was on video saying, we don't want everybody voting.

That's the point, because if they can shrink down the electorate, they think that that benefits them. So why should people care about this? How would this impact you? Well, say you decide to move. For whatever reason, you move, you have to update your voter registration. Do you know where

your birth certificate is? Like you, you who are watching this right now and those of you who are on YouTube, put in the chat if you could tell me within the next 10 seconds, do you actually know what your birth certificate is? Or let's say for people during Katrina who lost everything and then they had to flee to Atlanta, to Houston, to other places. Did you actually have your documents with you? So then what happens? Or if you are a young person who just finished college or you were in the military and now you're getting out and your parents no longer have all your personal items because it was in a box in the basement somewhere and then somehow someone accidentally threw it away and now it's in a landfill. So it's not to say, hey, well, everybody should have access to these documents.

It's not a big deal. It actually is, because most people in this country do not know where their birth certificate is. The other thing is a lot of third-party registration or online registration in this country, you prove who you are, you're able to register to vote. So now under the SAVE Act, if enacted, it means the first time you go vote, you now have to show this vote, it's because there is a lone con game that's going on. If this was such a problem, this issue would have been resolved before. It's not the problem that you're hearing from the other side. But what's happening here, this is not a common sense.

This is not a common sense solution to this widespread problem. But instead, they want to make it harder for people to be able to vote. People in this country do not have readily accessible access to their documents. So now to make people want to even go down to their local vital statistics office. Do you even know what a vital statistics office is? In some states and some counties, those offices aren't even open every single day. So doing these additional things

to make it harder for people to vote is because they want a wider white, white people, older, Christian, heterosexual electorate, because they believe those are the people who will keep handing them power and keep them in power for many years to come. Zachary, people better wake up and realize that this is the Republicans' wet dream.

This is what they want. They know. Look, Trump won because the electorate shrank. You had 6 million plus people of color Biden voters who didn't turn out. So they know if you have an expanded electorate, they are going

to lose. They openly admit that. They know they're going to lose. They have implemented strategy after strategy, attempt after attempt to continuously keep people from voting. They had a state by state strategy. They made small inroads in progress in Georgia. They made big leaps and bounds in Texas. They made big leaps and bounds. And now this is the ultimate win if this is allowed to pass. And, you know, I can't say that it won't pass. It shouldn't pass.

It should be the John Lewis Voting Rights Act should have passed. That should have been that should have become the law of the land. But we could not find a way to get Republicans to support and do what was right for the American people. And we, the American people, could not apply the appropriate amount of pressure to get them to do the right thing, the moral thing, the ethical thing, the American thing. But now, all of a sudden, and I would not have, I literally stood before my knowing leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and said, we must find a way to pressure the Republicans in swing states to switch over and vote with the Democrats. I literally said it almost a week ago, eight days ago, eight days ago to then turn my ass around and watch 10 Democrats do what we needed 10 Republicans to do. 10 Democrats to vote against the party and vote to censor one of their own and sell literally a black man down the river when they censor Representative Al Green of Texas. So I'm still baffled at how we have gotten, how they found a way to get Democrats to do the wrong thing, but we

can't get Republicans to do the right thing for the American people. So while I'm sitting here thinking to myself, there's no way this will pass. There's no way women in Congress, white women in Congress are going to vote for this. I know if they're Republican, they will. And I'm thinking there's no way Democrats in Congress are going to vote for this to get enough approval for it to go.

But after what I've seen this week and then seeing Ted Golden of Maine turn around and vote to the stopgap spending bill to let it now pass to the Senate, where we have people like John Fetterman sitting there and other, you know, traitorous turncoats thinking about voting for it, I don't know where we are. I don't know what's going to happen. I can't predict it, but I'm afraid. I'm very afraid of it. Well, this is why I'm always saying, Robert, that we do white conservatives a huge favor when we do not vote our numbers. 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 Business Week. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will 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 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 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 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. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. up see retirement is the long game we gotta 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 thisispretirement.org.

Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Donald Trump literally faint. I mean, how embarrassing is it for Donald Trump to troll black people by saying, thank you, thank you for not voting. Thank you for not showing up. I appreciate that. Y'all made it possible for me to win. Well, Helen, welcome to a new segment called Deeper with Robert.

Let's dive into those numbers you were talking about from the 2020 election. In 2020, President Biden got 81 million votes during a pandemic. Donald Trump got 25 million votes. In 2024, Vice President Harris got 75 million votes. Donald Trump got 25 million votes. In 2024, Vice President Harris got 75 million votes. Donald Trump got 77 million votes. So while he's claiming this massive landslide and this mandate, in reality, it's not that he got more votes. He got, you know, about the margin of population

growth and more votes. It's that Kamala Harris got 6 million fewer votes than President Biden. Now, why did that happen? Was it simply just a lack of enthusiasm? Was it simply people thought she was Indian American as opposed to African American? No. It's that Republicans spent that entire four years changing election laws nationwide. Absentee drop boxes disappeared. The number of early voting days in states around the country disappeared. The ability for individuals to be able to have that franchise disappeared. Voter registration became more difficult around the country. It's not as if it was a mistake or an accident. Reverend Jackson has said every time I've heard him speak for 20 years,

voter suppression isn't about Bull Connor standing outside with hoses and dogs. It's about skimming. It's about skimming one out of every 100 votes from being able to turn out. Because on a state-by-state level, if you skim one out of every 100 votes, that's how Georgia goes from Biden winning by 12,000 votes in 2020 to Donald Trump winning by 100,000 votes in 2024.

And let's remember that starting from the time President Obama was elected in 2008, Republicans invested billions of dollars into winning state and local elections around the country. While Democrats were concentrating that wealth on national races, they were running county board of election races. They were running state superintendent and secretary of state elections. You saw 1,044 seats switch from Democrat to Republican during that period of time from the time President Obama was elected to the time he left office. As a result of that, they were able to control these state election boards.

They were able to control the way and how that you vote. President Trump didn't even hide the ball. He said it's not important who is voting, it's who is counting the vote. And we create that apparatus and that rubric. We move into a system where, simply put, Republicans are able to pick their votes and pick their voters and decide who is voting. So, yes, we have to mobilize. We have to encourage our people. But we also have to start running for state and local boards of elections.

We have to start putting money into winning state secretary of state races. We are dealing with states like Florida, Georgia, Texas. You can have a fully progressive slate of statewide candidates that can win, but it's going to take the money put inside of it. And as Gil Scott-Heron said in Almost Lost Detroit, when it comes to people's safety, money wins out every time. And we're expecting Republicans to cross party lines. Elon Musk was calling senators to tell them, if you voted against any of Trump's nominees,

he will personally finance your primary challenger. We need to do that on our side of the aisle and let people know that we are putting the money, we're putting the force, we're putting the power behind those things to ensure that we're changing politics from a local level so we can actually have it franchised nationally. Well, again, my biggest issue for us is we're not using our power. We're not maximizing our power. And what we are doing is we're allowing these folks to run game. Got to go to break. We're not maximizing our power. And what we are doing is we're allowing these folks to run game.

Gotta go to break. We come back. We'll have our black and missing for the day. Plus, we'll talk about the Freedom Rider Museum in Alabama now no longer being sold. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Support the work

that we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. Goals to get 20,000 fans contributing on average 50 bucks each a year. It comes out at $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. You want to support the work that we do, please use Cash App. The QR code is right here for Cash App. You can

use the Stripe QR code. If you are listening, go to BlackstarNetwork.com. See your check and money. Order at PO Box 576, Washington, D.C., 2003-7-0196. PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo, RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

Be sure to get your Roland Martin Unfiltered Blackstar Network swag. Get our new shirts. Go to RolandMartin.Creator-Spring.com. Go to rolandmartin.creator-spring.com, rolandmartin.creator-spring.com, or go to the Blackstar Network. And be sure to download the Blackstar Network app, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV,

Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. I'll be right back. We begin tonight with the people who are really running the country right now. Trump is often wrong and misleading about a lot of things, but especially about history. Donald Trump falling in line with President Elon Musk. In the wake of the unsettling news that MSNBC has canceled Joy Ann Reeve's primetime show, The Readout, Roland Martin and the Black Star Network would like to extend an invitation to all of the fans of Joy and Reeve MSNBC show to join us every night to watch Roland Martin unfiltered streaming on the Black Star Network for news discussion of the issues that matter to you.

And the latest updates on the twice impeached criminally convicted felon in chief Donald and his unprecedented assault on democracy, as well as co-president Elon Musk's takeover of the federal government. The Black Star Network stands with Joy Ann Reid and all folks who understand the power of Black voices in media. We must come together and never forget that information is power. Be sure to watch Roland Martin Unfiltered weeknights, 6 p.m. Eastern at youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin or download the Black Star Network app. On the next A Balanced Life with me. Next on the Black Table with me, Greg Carr. There's a lot of talk about the inevitability of another civil war in this country,

but on our next show, we'll talk to a noted author and scholar who says we're actually in the middle of one right now. In fact, Steve Phillips says the first one that started back in 1861, well, it never ended. People carrying the Confederate flag, wearing sweatshirts, saying MAGA Civil War, January 6, 2021, stormed U.S. Capitol, hunted down the country's elected officials, built the gallows for the vice president of the United States, and to block the peaceful transfer of power within this country. On the next Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. This is Tamela Mann. And this is David Mann. And you're watching Roland Martin.

On filter. All right, folks. Today's black and missing is Janiyah Davis. She's been missing from her Houma, Louisiana home since February 12th. The 16-year-old has black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Janiyah Davis should call the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's Office at 985-876-2500, 985-876-2500. Folks, some good news. The historic Montgomery bus station, the home to the Freedom Rides Museum, is no longer for sale. The U.S. General Services Administration

removed the iconic bus station from its core list. The bus station is an icon of our nation's civil rights history. In 1961, Freedom Riders were violently attacked there by white supremacists as they challenged segregation in interstate travel. The bus station is an official destination on the U.S. civil rights trail. Of course, lawmakers like Terry Sewell or Shamari Figures were highly critical of this move, and they moved very quickly and mobilized people to save it from being sold. Let's talk about Illinois, where a federal jury has ordered the city of Chicago to pay $120 million

to two men who were wrongfully convicted of murder in 2003, setting a new city record for wrongful conviction cases. John Fulton was 18 years old. Anthony Mitchell was 17, but they were arrested in connection with the murder of 18-year-old Christopher Collazo on March 10, 2003. Collazo's body was found bound with duct tape and partially burned in an alley in the back of the yard's neighborhood. In 2006, Fulton and Mitchell were convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping, resulting in a 31-year prison sentence. They were released in 2019 after a Cook County judge overturned their convictions and ordered a new trial, leading prosecutors to drop all charges against them. Both Fulton and Mitchell were awarded $60 million each.

A senior Chicago plans to appeal this decision. You know, we've seen a lot of cases like this, Robert, over the years. And listen, even for that amount of money, you don't get back 30 years of your life spit in prison and not being free. Absolutely. And when I was on the board of directors for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, we worked closely with Barry Sheck of the Innocence Project. And one of the things that I learned was that these cases are not isolated and that it really takes a group that has the ability to dive down, open up these old files, open up these old cases and bring justice for these individuals.

We need to be pushing this nationwide because for every person that actually is released and actually finds justice, there are thousands whose stories will never be told. Any lawyer who practices criminal defense and walks into jails knows that as you are walking through to try to talk to your client, every single person is reaching their hand out. They're calling

your name, trying to get someone to just hear their case. Now, of course, most of them probably aren't being completely truthful. But for every one of those, there's someone who is, who doesn't have an opportunity. We have to start investing in these nonprofit organizations that are moving in and they're able to represent these individuals and bring them to court, bring these cases back to life, introduce new evidence of DNA, of science that didn't exist when they were convicted, to try to overturn these things. But also, cities have to invest in the types of units that investigate old cases and find

out whether or not they actually were brought justice. It's not just about numbers and locking people up and throwing away the key. It's about actually living up to the creed that lawyers place themselves to. And I'm glad this happened. I hope that they get their full justice. But we have to work on expanding this nationwide to truly overturn three decades of mass incarceration and criminalization of African Americans nationwide

and also stop the current attacks on the Justice Department consent decrees and other efforts by this extreme MAGA administration to make it more difficult to bring justice to the innocent African Americans who have been incarcerated for decades. You know, Zachary, they got 31-year prison sentence, only served 13 of those years, but that is still a hell of a long time.

And I just can't imagine knowing you did not convict a crime and you're sitting there in prison every single day. The time is gone and you can't get it back and you can't get it back. And what really worries me the most is that all of the different mechanisms to possibly garner even a shred of justice, because we know the American government has never been done right by black people accused of crime. There's never been a fair standard in this country since Black people were allowed to have citizenship rights in this country after being forcibly brought here and enslaved.

So we know that it's never been a fair system for Black people. But now under the Trump administration, the reality that all of the mechanisms that are put in place to offer even a semblance of justice that they have been dismantled or they are being dismantled makes me even more fearful and concerned about any Black person's opportunity to garner any level of justice. Because again, like you said, Roland, once the time is gone, it's not coming back. Rebecca? I was very critical of President Joe Biden for not properly atoning, in my opinion, for his role in the 1993 crime bill.

That said, as long as there are for-profit prisons in this country, we will continually see that people who should not be in prison are in prison. Anytime that you have a corporation who reports to its shareholders, its mission is to make money to increase the bottom line. The only way you make more money in a for-profit prison corporation is if you have more convictions, you have more people in that prison for longer, that there's more contracts, whether it's people who are in this country undocumented and they're being detained in these prisons, or it is additional Black men who are rounded up on the street, chased by law enforcement, and in some cases, unlawfully and unrightfully convicted of felonies, even with some of the other schemes across the country, with three strikes and you're out, and with those types of things to prolong people's time within incarceration.

You know, what's really interesting about a $120 million settlement is that it still doesn't speak to that personal harm, still doesn't speak to the mental anguish, the mental health that that particular person will need in order to be rehabilitated back into society,

to have their humanness stripped away from them. $120 million is great, but that still doesn't actually do the restorative work of getting that person back into society and fully recognized as a human again. Indeed. And so it's, I mean, the the fight continues the fight continues for so many uh innocent innocent brothers and sisters folks george clinton the creator of parliament funkadelic is suing his former business partner partner armin beladian and his bridgeport music company standing next to civil rights attorney ben Crump in front of the Apollo Theater, Clinton announced the $100 million lawsuit against Bladien, claiming he fraudulently acquired

copyrights and obtained 90% of the artist's catalog. Along with Bladien, Clinton is also suing Westbound Records, Nine Records, Southfield Music, and Eastbound Records. The lawsuit alleges fraud, copyright infringement, and breach of fiduciary duty, among many other accusations. Clinton also claims that Bladien allegedly fabricated several versions of agreements designating additional rights to his catalog and created

fake names and pseudonyms in copyright registrations to dilute Clinton's royalty shares. Clinton explains why this lawsuit is important to his family and legacy. These songs that we're talking about is my history. I mean, it's what I've been about all my life, inspired by the days when I used to come here to watch Frankie Lyman, Jackie Wilson, and Heartbeats, to watch all of those acts that I used to come and see at the Apollo Theater. These songs were inspired by those trips here.

And it's been my life. I mean, they're my babies. So I have to fight for them. I have to make sure that I did not do all of this my whole life and have my family here not get what's due to them what what they inherit we don't have a chance to pass down 40 acres and mules to our families we don't have rights to the copyrights from the songs so i'm'm going to be here along with Ben and his partners

to make sure that Armand do not get all that we worked so hard for and the historical moment that the funk has brought. Yes. The mothership in the Smithsonian, all of that. He can't have that. Yeah. They can't rewrite history and take that from us. So along with that, and the fact that I do have my family here,

that I can pass it down to, we all together, you're going to see that happen. And I will continue to speak truth to power and to fight against the forces that have separated so many songwriters from their music. I encourage all my fellow artists to investigate, interrogate, litigate, unseal, reveal. If we don't get this right, then they win. And I refuse to let them win. This is about my family and the family of the other legacy artists and us being able to give generational wealth to our family from our intellectual property.

We will fight this. This is not Clinton's first lawsuit. He lost a copyright lawsuit against Belladian in 1991. The judge ruled that music written from 1976 to 1983 belonged to Belladian's Bridgeport Music. He then lost a defamation suit against Clinton in 2021.

You know, we see this a lot, Robert. We see this today where artists really are fighting a lot of these draconian contracts that have existed. I was watching a video earlier. It was a couple of videos I was watching. One of them was involving Bun B, where he was saying that even all these years later,

that UGK still owes Jive Records $2 million for their record deal, even with all the hits they supplied them. And I was also watching another video of a brother. He's a show creative director, and he was talking about the checks that he was one of the creators of the Jamie Foxx have not received any syndication money from that show because the studio is claiming that they still owe them for various expenses. Hollywood is known for this

and the music business where oh, we've never recouped all of the expenses for something and it's been 20, 25 years later. Well, Roland, a couple things. One, if George Clinton needs co-counsel in this case, feel free to call me. I'll be glad. The first time I ever smoked a blunt, George Clinton handed it to me at the House of Blues in Chicago in 2009.

When you think about Southern hip-hop and West Coast hip-hop, they are directly derivative. Hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. So if George Clinton needs a co-counsel, please call you because he's passed you a blunt. Not because

of legal... Because he passed you a blunt. I have special affinity for George Clinton because he has been a transformative force in many people's lives. Is that same beats that made West Coast rap in the late 80s were the same beats that made Southern rap in the 1990s. You can listen to Dr. Dre, you can look at Organized Noise and Outkast and realize that's

how deep it goes when you're talking about the influence he has had on music over the course of the last 40 years. And when we're entering this new era, the reason this is significant today is we look at these social media stars who are suddenly blowing up in fame, blowing up in notoriety, and who have no idea of the legal system and how exactly licensing and those sorts of things.

They just happen to be on TV and having some fame. When you look at these artists who are breaking on SoundCloud and other platforms where they're going from, as Sexy Red said, they took a girl from the hood and gave her a bunch of money. They have no idea what they're signing off on. So for these artists from previous generations,

they have to set down the legal precedent necessary so that these current and future artists will have the backbone to stand up to and before the court system, letting everyone know that we have the control of artistic properties and the people who actually made and produced the music, not the lawyers in the back room or the people who had the contracts or the people who actually made and produced the music, not the lawyers in the back room or the people who had the contracts,

or the people who will be benefiting from this. Part of the reason that we're seeing this dearth of creativity in music today, where we're not seeing new sounds and new creativity, is because the folks who actually have that ability are not pursuing those musical careers because they understand the dangers that happen when that is being stolen and taken away from you

on the long term. We've been going through this for 75 years in black music and we have to stop it going forward. I hope this lawsuit succeeds and we need to be educating this next generation on exactly the legal steps they need to make on the front end to protect themselves from this happening again.

You know, it is so many artists that have just signed awful deals, Zachary. I remember seeing this video. Chameleonair talked about how he was suing a record company. He hired Jay-Z's auditor, and he discovered they owed him $600,000, and they were not trying to give him the money. And he said, okay, here's the deal. I'm going to go to every other artist on your label and tell them to hire the same forensic auditor

if you don't give me my money. Bruh, they gave him his money with the quickness. This, it is so sad. The amount of black wealth that has frankly been stolen legally, a lot of times illegally as well because folk don't read contracts because they don't get somebody else uh to uh to sign the deal the number of artists who say that basically it's like record labels like going to a bank and you could actually get cheaper interest rates by

going to an actual bank and borrowing the money uh i mean so many black artists have been ripped off to the tune of billions and billions of dollars because of these awful contracts every every day roland you you you bring the funk, but George Clinton probably created the funk that we bring. I didn't know this. This is kind of mind-blowing to me. A hundred million dollars is insane. And this has been an ongoing battle that this man has had to fight at a time when he should be enjoying the entirety of the fruits of his labor, doing exactly what he wants, however he wants to benefit from a legacy that he's built, he's having to fight these battles just to get his due reward.

And it speaks to a much bigger problem in our society and how our society treats our Black artists and even what Black artists accept and what we are selling for and what society is selling for. Because when a story like this comes out and a black artist has been done wrong, the first thing that we, the black community, wants to say is that this is the result of them taking a bad deal, not realizing that many times they're pushing these deals and things shift and they're being taken advantage of. And that's exactly what it appears has happened to George Clinton. So I'm really thankful to see this man standing up and hopefully it's going to pave the way for other people in the industry, especially when you look at the time

frame in which he entered into the game. So I'm thankful and I'm hopeful now that this isn't happening when you have Black people at the forefront of these industries and at the forefront of management where they're hopefully doing a much better job of giving Black artists their fair share and their fair due. Now that's my

hope. Well, the reality, Rebecca, you also got some janky, shiesty Black. Yeah, go ahead. I wanted to add in, you know, and you, when I was hearing this story, it made me think of and say to myself, well, thank God for Roland Martin and the Black Star Network because that's the real answer that black people have to look at. And how do we avoid this from happening in the future is we have to build and we have to create our own. We can't sit here and let these established organizations that have for decades stolen from us continue to profit from our work and continue to profit from our labor.

We have to build our own in the exact same way that you have laid out a model of building your own. We have to build our own, and then we have to support our own. That's the only piece I wanted to add in, because that's what I was thinking in my head as I'm hearing this for the first time. Well, the deal with Rebecca is this here. You also got some janky, shy, black folks who will screw you over. I mean,

we're preparing a lawsuit against somebody right now, and I will announce that once the lawsuit is filed, that person has been served, and I'll make it real public and will show you their face. And we've seen where you've had, you know, black business managers, you've had folks saying, what I say is always protect your business. Always protect your business. Handshake deals, word of mouth, nah. You document everything because I cannot stand watching a TV one unsung of an amazing artist, a great band, and then they go broke. And it's always a bad deal.

I mean, before she died, Angie Stone in December was talking about how she wasn't getting her royalty checks from the record label. And so she was like, hey, we about to speak some truth to power in 2025. And so it's so many artists. I mean, this goes back to the beginning of music, of artists being screwed over constantly by various a system that's designed to strip, to steal, to dehumanize, to take the intellectual property from Black folks in this country and enter them into like a servitude if they want to do their craft in the entertainment and the music industry. One of the things that I'm paying attention to is how this is going to play out in college sports with name, image,

and likeness. As I've been monitoring what's happening across different collectives, I can also see where there's going to be different college athletes, especially some of our Black college athletes, who are going to be exploited by the system, who are giving up too much of themselves into perpetuity and not fully understanding the breadth of the intellectual property and the value of their intellectual property that they're giving up. Yeah, it's just so unfortunate. So I'm certainly glad. 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 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add 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 ban. 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. 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.

I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes, rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at tayetherpapersceiling.org.

Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. See, this is a, we'll see what happens with this lawsuit. Got to go to break. We come back a quick break. More outpouring of love and affection for Junior Bridgman, the former NBA player who collapsed yesterday while speaking in Louisville, Kentucky and died. We'll share with you what Doc Rivers had to say about the passing of this giant. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

Hey, y'all. Welcome to the other side of change, only on the Black Star Network and hosted by myself, Rhea Baker, and my good sis, Jameerah Burley. We are just two millennial women tackling everything at the intersection of politics, gender, and pop culture. And we don't just settle for commentary. This is about solution-driven dialogue to get us to the world as it could be and not just as it is. Watch us on the Black Star Network, so tune in to the other side of change. This is Reggie Rock-Byker with you watching... ...Rowling Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamned believable.

You hear me? Him? ¶¶ Folks, after Tuesday's night NBA game, Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers took time to reflect on Bucks legend Junior Bridgman. He, of course, played 12 years in the NBA. He also, though, was a minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. Rivers said he's a model we should have. Here is what Doc had to say. It's really a dark day, a tough day.

Yeah, it was a junior. I've known Junior for about my 60s. I've known him since I was in college. He was one of the guys, him and Quentin Buckner, that would call me at Marquette to get me to go play with the Bucks, of all places. When you think about Junior's life, I keep thinking about LeBron and Magic and how influential they are to our league, and they are, and what they've done off the court is amazing. But the role model we should have is Junior Bridgman. When you think about it, here's a guy that I think the most he made was $300,000 in his career. And he's an owner. So think about that kid growing up wanting to be an NBA player. It was probably his dream. And he turned that dream into being an NBA owner. If that's not what every kid should aspire to do. You know, I was even reflected on my career, you know, as a coach and, you know,

on titles I've topped and all that stuff. You should really want to be like Junior. I mean, when you think about it, he is the exact model that the league should use every day when they're talking to our young players so tough thing just really a tough thing I guess when you kind of think through your time with the Knicks you kind of get this last chapter again, right? Yeah. Where it comes back. Yeah. What was that kind of like? Yeah. You were so young and then also...

Yeah, it's so different. You know, on a day like this, I just reflect on me a lot, too. I'm really blessed. There's a lot of benefits for me coming back to Milwaukee that I didn't like anticipate. I had no idea that Junior was going to get back into the Bucks and be an owner. And then we restarted a relationship. We stayed in contact still throughout the years, you know, flew me down to go to Kentucky Derby with him.

So we had a relationship, but I didn't talk to him a lot. And then all of a sudden he's back in. And, you know, when you tell people, you know, people say seize the day and all this stuff, I'm really like, you know, the last conversation I had with Jimmy was about using him to mentor the young players and trying to figure out a way of doing that. And we never got to it You know because you thought there were time so

Yeah, that's The the second side of junior was the first side though Like when he was an NBA player if you had just met him on the street you wouldn't have known he wouldn't have told you He didn't act like it When he became a billionaire you wouldn't have known And he would not have told you and he didn't act like it. When he became a billionaire, you wouldn't have known, and he would not have told you, and he didn't act like it. You know, the word gentleman is like gentle man. That is as good as you can get with Junior.

Folks, a couple of years ago, Junior Bridgman talked about his business success after a 12-year playing career, went on to own a number of Wendy's and other fast food franchises, owning more than 450, later became a Coca-Cola bottler, also owning an aluminum company. As we said, buying 10% equity stake in the Milwaukee Bucks, being one of the folks who bought the Valhalla Country Club there in Kentucky as well, buying Ebony and Jet out of bankruptcy. But he said how you treat people and how you connect with the community is most important. Here's some of that InvestFest conversation from 2023. We started off like most companies at that time. If you're black and you're going to get involved, they're going to put you in the black area town.

And so it was no different. We started in Milwaukee because I spent all those years there with five stores in the inner city of Milwaukee. And they were not very good restaurants. Hey, Steve, the audio. I figured if we worked at it, you could turn things around. And I'll tell you, the average volume of those five restaurants is only $600,000 a year. And you're not making any money at that volume. Today, those restaurants, and my son runs them, so we still have a lot of them, but they do over $2 million in sales. And how do you do that? By getting involved with the people and letting

people know that you care about them. Now, how do you do that? Back at that time in Milwaukee, if you got stopped for any traffic violation, they took you to jail. It was a crazy law that I'm glad they've changed, but where was all of our people at? They were in jail. So we were bailing people out every day. And I could take you through other things that we did to help show people that we cared about them. And once they realized that we cared about them, then they cared about the business and they cared about us. And we grew. And as we grew and added more stores, we were able to promote people from a general manager to a district manager to an area operations person. And after a while, we had a whole lot of people

making over $100,000 a year. And you would say, you know, how did that happen? And it was in what I would call a real American dream. You could come go to work. If you had just natural common sense and you were willing to work hard, you could make a good living for yourself. And we had people that went on from there and became franchisees on their own. So I turned around, and it was a matter of helping people. And then one day I looked up, we had 275 wendy's restaurants folks uh and it was it was a great conversation there this is a photo that i shot actually before he went on stage junior bridgman i went backstage to chat with him uh he's uh he's also an alpha brother uh and so we had the opportunity uh to chat i hadn't seen him since 2010 when i moderated

the conversation the nba all-star game in houston where he was one of the panelists and so certainly uh condolences go out to his family the loss of uh of a giant and you know um we go final comments from zachary zachary robert and rebecca you know Rebecca, I've had some people, they've hit me and they've said, man, my goodness, 71 is young. And Sylvester Turner, you know, Congressman Sylvester Turner, former mayor of Houston, died last week at the age of 70. His funeral was going to be on Saturday in Houston. Events are happening this week. Angie Stone, of course, passed away in the tragic car accident at 63. And one of the things that I said to people is that no one knows a day or the time. So what you must do is you've got to maximize every single day, every single hour, minute, and second

you have to live the best life that you can and help others. May these legends rest in paradise. May they rest in paradise may they rest in paradise and garner eternal peace and let them leave behind for us the those who are left to continue this work to continue to strive our eternal promise so we're here to stand on the promise but to also fulfill the promise and hopefully you can clearly see from what this entrepreneur has been able to do in the course of his life and what he's been able to achieve. And the same thing goes for Angie Stone. The same thing goes for Representative Turner. They leave behind a roadmap for us to

follow for things to learn to do, things to learn what not to do, so that we can keep pushing forward. Rebecca? You know, 71, 70 years old, those are young ages, but I want to point out that for Black men in this country, that the average age is 68 years old. So these people actually exceeded what the life expectancy is for the average Black man in this country. So as these folks transition and become ancestors, you know, it's definitely imperative for all of us, especially black people in this country during this troubling time, take care of yourself. Eat good food. Get plenty of rest. Be healthy. Be active. Move your body. And most importantly, but most importantly, go to the doctor, get those tests run. It's OK to get those tests run. Take take somebody else with you.

But we all got to do community care and take care of ourselves in this moment. Robert, I think every single week when I come on with you, Roland, it seems that we are mourning someone who has passed away. And this is why it's so important for us to live every single day and ask ourselves this question. If today was the last, am I satisfied with what I've done? And if you're not satisfied with what you have done and achieved on this day, figure out how to do it differently tomorrow. To Rebecca's point, look, in my book bag, every day I carry around a blood pressure monitor, an EKG machine, medicine, and everything else just in case. When your wife tells you to go to the doctor, don't fight her. Don't say, I'm okay, which is what black men do far too often and try to gut our way through it. Go to the doctor.

When we're talking about diet and exercise, the black community is one of the most obese communities globally other than South Pacific Islanders. So we have to work on that as a community. And when it comes to stress in the workplace and the family we have to figure out how to prioritize mental health so we are coping with these issues and finding ways to go through it. But most importantly, we have to ensure that we are putting ourself first.

That doesn't make you a narcissist, it doesn't make you a bad person. You can't help anybody else if you're not here. You have to take care of yourself and live your life in such a way that you're fulfilling your true purpose. Indeed, indeed. Zachary, Robert, Rebecca, I certainly appreciate y'all joining us on today's show. And Rebecca, folks have been asking in the group chat, they were like, hey, what the hell's the, Rebecca, she at the beach?

What's up? I can't say, but what I will say, there is strategy happening and there are solutions that are coming. Shout out to Rebecca for working on vacation. I say that every single time. I'm not on vacation. I'm actually not on vacation. I say that every single time. Yeah, I say that every single time. I'm not on vacation. I am not. I'm actually not on vacation. I'm actually

working. Developing some strategy. Coming up with some solutions. Developing some margaritas. I feel you on that one. Wrong direction. Not margarita area yeah yeah we could tell that we could tell that beach rap you got on right now all right again robert rebecca uh and zacher i appreciate

it thank you so very much hey folks don't forget if y'all want to support the work that we do join our bring the funk fan club uh your donations are critical to our success uh we don't have millionaires and billionaires cutting checks to us and so it is important uh for you to support the work that we do uh our goal is to get 20,000 people annually contributing on contributing on average 50 bucks each has come out to be four dollars and 19 cents a month 13 cents a day if you want to join our bring the funk fan club uh use cash app use the strike qr code here you go right here our Bring the Funk fan club, use Cash App. Use the strike QR code. Here you go right here. This is the QR code.

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If y'all missed any of our content, go to our Black Star Network app. Go to our YouTube channel as well. Be sure to share the content. Be sure to pass it on to others because, again, we want more people to be aware of what we're doing here because this is about informing our audience and giving them the best news and information they're not going to get anywhere else that speaks to our community y'all thanks a bunch i'll see y'all tomorrow how black star network a real um revolutionary right now thank you for being the voice of black america all the 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 scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? you 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 two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir.

Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast

season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.