#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Fmr SG Dr. Regina Benjamin talks COVID-19; Dr. Oz slammed for virus comments; SBA out of rescue $

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

4.16 Fmr SG Dr. Regina Benjamin talks COVID-19; Dr. Oz slammed for comments about reopening the country amid pandemic; SBA out of rescue funds; Sen. Kamala Harris introduces the Safe Vote Act; Eyewitness comes forward to say Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax did not rape a classmate at Duke. Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Today is Thursday, April 16th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the latest with the coronavirus pandemic. Donald Trump actually says, states, hey, you can now open up after May 1st. They already knew that. They can make their own decisions.

We'll also be joined by former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, who says that how we think about the coronavirus should be how we deal with hurricanes. You don't want to miss my interview with her after anonymous tips. 17 bodies

found in a New Jersey nursing home. Stunning and shocking. What the hell was Dr. Oz thinking when he was on Sean Hannity? He talked about the reopening of schools and the 2-3% rate of deaths we can live with.

And then Laura Ingraham on Fox News show says, hey, there are people who have no problem getting the virus. Who? Remember the SBA program? We told you about $350 billion to help small businesses. Well, guess what?

They're out of money and the banks are stopping the acceptance of applications. That makes no sense. But also, what's up with these major restaurant chains like Potbelly and Ruth Chris Steakhouse getting $10 million loans? They're not small businesses. We'll talk with John Hope Bryant, founder of Operation Hope. Senator Kamala Harris has introduced the Safe Vote Act, which could make it safe for people to vote during the coronavirus pandemic. We'll break it down. Plus, Lieutenant Justin Fairfax tweets out the name of a person who he says was present when he was involved in a sexual encounter with a woman who accused him of rape, but she's never mentioned that there

was somebody else there. Wait until we break that thing down for you. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin Yeah, yeah

Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funk, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Right now, the White House is holding their daily news conference dealing with the coronavirus. Donald Trump is at the microphone. And as we tell you every day, we do not take him live because he lies far too much. We are not going to feed you fake information and lies. And so we will see what he says and then vet that after the fact. If any of the real experts like Dr. Fauci or Dr. Birx step to the microphone, then we will play that for you. Folks, as of today, there are 657,720 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States. 33,460 people have died from coronavirus.

53,322 are recovering. Now, that number dramatically increased in New York because of how they counted the folks who died. Now, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said that while there were 2,000 people diagnosed with the virus, the state also recorded the lowest amounts of deaths. He found hope in knowing that they can somewhat control the spread of the virus. The number of new people who are diagnosed with COVID, about 2,000 still yesterday. So when

you see the reduction in rates, remember what we're talking about. We're talking about a reduction in increases. You still have 2,000 people every day about who are walking into a hospital for the first time or who are being diagnosed with COVID for the first time. And 2,000 is still a lot of people. But the good news is it means we can control the virus, right? We can control the spread. And we did not know for sure that we could do that. We speculated that we could do it, but we didn't know. So now we know that we can control this disease. The bad news is 2,000 people walked into a hospital yesterday for the first time with the disease. And the worst news is 600 people died yesterday from the disease.

That is still continuing at a really tragic, tragic rate. Of those deaths, 577 in hospitals, 29 in nursing homes. We've been watching the nursing homes because nursing homes in many ways are ground zero for this situation. Last night, the number in nursing homes was relatively low. Now, folks, so many different things are happening when it comes to this coronavirus. How clueless is the Trump administration? Well, Donald Trump had a meeting today with the governors. We talked about giving them guidelines for reopening the country on May 1st. Then he creates this group, this working group of 36 members of Congress who are going to be on this committee.

How do you create a committee of 36 people? Not a single black member of be on this committee. How do you create a committee of 36 people and not a single black member of Congress on the committee? No, seriously, per Politico, the White House reached out to 36 members of Congress. There's not a single African-American in the group. Who's most impacted by this coronavirus? Black people. Joining me now, Dr. Greg Carr. He's the chair, Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University.

Recy Colbert, Black Women's Views and Brooke Thomas. She is the host of Controlling Our Narrative podcast. Glad to have all three of you on. I will start with you, Recy. Just saying 36 members of Congress, which represents a little less than 10 percent of all the members. And ain't nobody black, not even Republican Tim Scott. Well, you know, Tim Scott says that he's going to be on the council, but it's obvious that he is an afterthought if he is, in fact, going to be on the council, but it's obvious that he is an afterthought if he is in fact going to be on the council. But Tim Scott is the same person that said that the $600 extra a week that's included for unemployment on the federal level is going to incentivize people to stop working. And so he was opposed to that. So even, you know, I don't want to say all skinfolk and kinfolk, but if the shoe fits, hey, we need real representation. We need an actual seat at the table.

Regardless of how people feel about the Trump administration, the people who are a part of this task force are going to have some sort of influence on the policies. We have the largest congressional black caucus ever. So they had, you know, Congresswoman Maxine Waters is the chair of House Financial Services Committee. She's laid out an extensive economic plan for how to reopen the economy. That's a person that you would think he'd want to tap into and use as an ally. You also have on the Senate side, you have Senator Cory Booker and Senator Kamala Harris, who has put out plan after plan, bill after bill that addresses a wide variety of things. So why not tap into those people? It seems to me that, you know, with the disparate treatment that we're seeing and the outcomes we're seeing in Black communities, it's going to continue because our interests are not

going to be represented at the table. Greg. Yeah, no, I agree with Recy. I mean, you know, this is, I respect Donald Trump and his clavering. They are pulling out all the stops. They've dropped all pretenses. On a day when we can look in Newsweek, just reported that the governor of North Dakota is saying that, you know, they're going to try to reopen May 1st. And in South Dakota, neighboring South Dakota, the Smithfield Pork Factory in Sioux Falls

is now outpacing Cook County Jail in Illinois as the biggest coronavirus hotspot. What do we see? We see that, although in all fairness, the Smithfield Pork Factory in Sioux Falls, a lot of people who work there are immigrants, are non-white. But what we're basically seeing is white nationalism, as my friend and ancestor now, former colleague Ron Walters used to call it. They're circling the wagons.

In a moment, you know, when you see them trying to engage in voter suppression by doing everything from shortening the time that people can mail in votes to basically cratering the United States Postal Service, they realize they will never win another federal election. And so why keep up the pretense, whether it be the daily pep rally, press conference slash campaign stops that Trump is doing from the White House, or whether it be this instance of putting together a committee with people who shouldn't be anywhere near it and then reaching out to Congress for your allies and ignoring everyone else, they're sending a clear message. The idea that this is a nation, always a fantasy, has now been dropped, and they are willing to sacrifice everybody.

The only other thing I would say is that Donald Trump has realized he doesn't realize this, perhaps, and his supporters don't realize this, but everybody also means poor white people. Because as this disease, as this virus reaches those red states, those so-called flyover country, when you see death in those states, it won't be reported with the same type of ferocity and the same type of media attention that you're getting in New York or Los Angeles or Atlanta or New Orleans. And if that death, when that death reaches that level of crisis in those states, I wonder how those voters who are wearing those red MAGA hats will respond to this man who is clearly using them as a human shield to advance his political interests.

But, Brooke, here's the whole piece. I don't think they care about that. Do y'all have that soundbite from Laura Ingram last night on her show? If y'all have that soundbite, I want to play it right now. This is literally what she said last night in terms of, well, people don't mind getting coronavirus. I mean, it's crazy. And then you have Dr. Oz, who makes his comment. And so play either one of those where he's like, well, you know, we could reopen the schools and bring them back in as well. So let me know. Play either one of those. Y'all have it ready.

All right. So let me just go ahead and pull it up myself, because this to me is crazy. All these people are pining, Brooke, for business to open back up. And I get it. I mean, look, look, we we are impacted by what's happening economically. But but this is Dr. Oz last night. Dr. Oz, help us. Well, first, we need our mojo back. Let's start with things that are really critical to the nation where we think we might be able to open without getting into a lot of trouble.

I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us two to three percent in terms of total mortality. And, you know, that's any life is a life lost but to get every child back into a school where they're safely being educated being fed uh and making the most out of their lives with a theoretical risk in the back side it might be a trade-off some folks would consider we need to get industry back supply lines i mean things that we can do without putting the nation at risk dr Dr. Oz, help us. You just heard him talk about this idea of 2-3%. Now, first of all,

is he saying 2-3% of children? There are 57 million children who go to public schools. That's 1.2 to 1.6 million kids dying. Really, Brooke? It's absurd.

How do you say any life lost is a life lost but? How do you have a but to that? We're talking about lives. It's like, I think about it in a way of like the idea of choosing not to wear your seat belt because only some people die when they go

through the windshield. Even though we have a process in place, it's not the best right now. I know it's not great for the economy, but we have a process. We have mitigation tactics in place right now that if people follow them, they will save lives. And that's all we have right now. We don't even have testing capabilities. What's been so frustrating to me about all of this, not even watching people who have such privileged lives talk about how it's not a big deal that people are going to die, that thousands and thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, potentially

millions of people could possibly die, that it's not a big deal because of the economy, blah, blah, blah. What's so frustrating is that this was a layup for Donald Trump. He could have simply taken any of the professional information that he was getting from doctors, from scientists, from experts months ago. He could have pushed these mitigation tactics into place. And now he would be sitting back saying, I told you so. Look at all of these other countries. I told you so. See, I am a good president. And everybody who hates everything about that comes out of his mouth

would have had to been like, yeah, he's right about this one. And he didn't do that. And so now he's playing catch up, just trying to save face and not at all. It doesn't seem to be worried about saving lives. And that's so frustrating. We are not at a place right now where we should be talking about forcing people at risk, people back to work, back to schools. We're not at that point right now. And I just it's so frustrating that everybody involved is not pointing out how ridiculous that is when anybody brings it up.

And what we're also dealing with now, we're now dealing with our folks who are very good at lying, including his new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. Of course, you used to see her on CNN and this whole nonsense. She sent this tweet out here. As a result, the United States has now conducted more than 3.3 million tests, far more than any other country in the world. Okay, actually, if you look at per capita, South Korea has tested more. That's 3.3 million. Folks, that's literally 1% of America. Any scientist will tell you, any doctor will tell you any doctor will tell you you cannot get enough data to understand the impact of this virus with only one percent of testing and these folks are saying let's just go

back and again back to group settings putting people in environments at work. And you'll hear later in my interview with Dr. Regina Benjamin, they're still trying to figure this damn virus out. It's starting to listen to these people as if, hey, it's going to be all good. Because here's the other thing. What now happens, Greg, if you get sick? Who's paying those hospital costs? Well, Roland, I think it's difficult for all of us because we've been raised in a society to think of the United States as a single entity.

It's not true, not culturally, not socially. They're using what they have, which is the so-called bully pulpit, the propaganda element. So when you say accurately that one percent of the population of the country has been tested, we're thinking of the country as one place. But we've seen this week with the governors on the West Coast and the governors on the East Coast, they are in control. Someone has reminded or taught this fool in the next in the last several days that he has no control. So he can put a talking head out there to say what you want. But at the same time, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Washington state will determine how best to approach the execution of what is a simple fact. People must be tested. Now, he doesn't control that.

In Louisiana, there is a governor who will do that regardless of whether this corn-pwned senator who some claim had some kind of education at Oxford, John Kennedy, is running around saying, well, I got to open the economy. Okay, that's just talk. I guess what I'm saying finally, Roland, is that this type of campaign against public awareness will only be as effective as state and local leadership allows it to be, which means now, and you've been covering this, at the local level, when people go in the communities and say we have to be tested, we're going to have to meet them where people are, the garbage workers, the people working in the grocery stores. And when you come and say you must be tested, you've got to now also help them overcome suspicion of government from Tuskegee and Henrietta Lattes and others. And those are local conversations. Ain't nobody listening to that white girl.

It is. It is. And not only that, so recently, just check this out. In New Jersey, they got anonymous tip and the police in Andover, New Jersey went to a nursing home, saw a body being stored in a shed outside one of the state's largest nursing homes.

When the cops showed up, they removed seven. They discovered 17 additional bodies piled inside the nursing home's small morgue intended to only hold no more than four people. 17 people they discovered. 68 deaths total linked to this long-term care facility. And then a number of people also sick. Here's the deal. Other people who died, including two nurses, also tested positive. Cause of death is unknown.

Of the patients who remain at the homes, which is housed in two buildings, 76 have tested positive for the virus, including 41 staff members, including an administrator. Let's go to Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis, he wants to give nursing

homes immunity from being sued. It's stunning, Recy, what is happening here. They are treating, like, oh, don't worry about it. We'll cover you from being sued. Don't worry about these deaths.

You know, it's absolutely stunning, the neglect, the cruelty, the apathy that this administration has towards people in nursing homes. Frankly, the Republican base is quite old. And I don't mean that in a pejorative way. Yeah. They have an older demographic. What message are they sending their demographic?

And for no other reason for electoral survivability, they want to get a lid on also goes to the point that Republicans have said it's okay if people in nursing homes die. It's okay if we bring the kids back to school and they die. But I can tell you, every single person that I've seen in the news, once they have been personally impacted by it, they change their tune. Right.

When you have the pastors, for instance, that said, I'm going to hold church or whatever else, or this is a hoax, and they die, their family says, take this shit seriously. And so it's not until it hits close to home for some of these folks that it's going to really, really drive home the point that this is a public, global, you know, with Donald Trump attacking the World Health Organization, with him attacking the blue states versus the red states. This is a global and national public health crisis where we have to be united. We have to actually address the problem.

Donald Trump cannot bluster and bullshit his way out of this coronavirus pandemic. We need a competent and empathetic and long-term and immediate action on this. Testing, PPE, all of these things. And the fact that they keep lying about it is really scary because that means that they're not taking action on it.

And that's what we need right now. We need action, not bullet points and not blesses. Here here is Laura Ingram last night talking about this. I'm trying to figure out, Brooke, why in the hell is she smiling? Watch this. OK, life is filled with risks, in other words, we should all be careful and we should all be responsible, but the government cannot, nor it really should try to eliminate all risks associated with COVID-19 any more than it could with the H1N1 or the swine flu. When we step out of the door, when we walk onto the streets, we enter a building, we get into a car, get on a bike. There are always relative risks. But the damage to millions and millions of lives, including children's lives,

and our basic freedoms during the shutdown, that's also very real. And for many, it has been absolutely devastating. Many are willing to take the risk of contracting the virus. We've seen that in the polling, frankly, what they rate as more worrisome to them. And they would risk this in order to preserve their way of life. Oh, OK. Life is filled with risk. OK, I'm trying to understand. Kill the audio, guys. So I'm trying to understand, Brooke, they're willing to risk that to preserve their way of life. Yeah, until they get sick sick until all of a sudden they begin to realize that oh i didn't even realize so i might have it and i don't know it and i might infect you but then you have a pre-existing

condition now all of a sudden you're worse off and i can also spread it and have no idea and that's really what the problem is. I mean, look, here's the whole deal. When somebody has the flu, we know they have the flu. When somebody has the flu, they are sniffling, coughing, wheezing. You can see throat. You can see it in their eyes. They're fat fatigued there are people with coronavirus who are asymptomatic you do not i have never met brooke somebody with the flu who said i didn't know i had that damn thing right i couldn't feel nothing no you know when you have the flu and and that's that's what the issue here and i think and telling you right now, all these people can say whatever they want to say.

I'm going to tell you right now, millions of Americans are going to be like, y'all go head on out there. Go on. Y'all go ahead. Go on, kill yourself. I'm going to keep my ass right here while y'all go kill y'allself. Brooke, go ahead. Yeah, absolutely.

And you know what else is different about this is that when people have a mild case of the flu, and I obviously think everyone should get flu shot, everyone should do what they can to protect themselves from the flu during flu season, because the worst case scenario about the flu is death. And nobody wants that. That's the worst case scenario. But a mild case of the flu feels like a bad cold, right? A couple body aches, you're sniffling. That's a mild case of flu. I've had a bad flu, not the worst flu. But there are mild cases of this where people are talking about lying in their beds for 10 days feeling like they can't breathe. This is terrifying. This is not something that people should be taking lightly. And I would rather be poor than dead. I would rather be poor than my mother be dead. I would rather be poor than my sisters or my brother be dead. I can't. This is not a choice. This is a simple choice to me.

Also, her argument that the government should not be protecting people from risk of a deadly virus, that is absurd. The government should absolutely be protecting the people that they are there to represent. This is simple. The government should not be bailing out big corporations that should be able to handle their bills and then just forcing people who can't pay their rent back into dangerous positions. And think about all of the essential workers right now who have never been paid enough. It is the responsibility of everyone who has the privilege to practice these mitigation tactics to protect them. So it's just, this is so frustrating for me, but she is spinning 30,000 deaths as some sort of a win. And now they're also trying to spin this whole deal. Trump at this little news conference, saying nationwide more than 850

counties, or nearly 30%, have reported no new cases in the last seven days. I don't trust their numbers at all. But here's the flip side. 70% are. Go ahead, Greg. Go ahead real quick. I'm going to say very quickly, echoing what Brooke is saying. The nation, the state should be taking

care of its citizens. But they're breaking it down by county because many of those counties got a handful of people in those red states. And as you said, you know who's listening to Laura Ingram? Those people in Nebraska, North and South Dakota, in those rural areas, and they're going to get sick. Now, they can listen. While we're looking at why she's smiling, she's smiling because she knows anything she's going to listen to. And they're going to listen to her, to their sickness and their death. Meanwhile, the rest of us, to your point, hey, stay yourself in place. It's going to be a very different country by the time we come out of this. Absolutely, folks. A little bit earlier today, I had a chance to talk to former

Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin about coronavirus, about what should be happening. We want to thank the people at YouTube for facilitating this. Here's my conversation with her. Dr. Benjamin, glad to have you in Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thanks for having me, Roland. Good to talk to you again. Indeed. Let's get right to it. The news of the day, Donald Trump has given, told the governors that it's up to them how they reopen their state. Duh, they already had those powers. But they're targeting May 1st. As someone who served as Surgeon General, you are a doctor,

you've got your clinic there in Alabama. Is it wise for people to try to rush to reopen businesses and try to go back to business as usual when we still don't really have a firm grip on coronavirus in the United States? Well, Roland, I kind of look at this whole thing. I have this analogy of hurricanes because I went through Hurricane Katrina. And people understand hurricanes. You follow the track. This hurricane got into the Gulf of Mexico. It was category four, now it's category five. It was starting to hit land. I think it's made landfall and it's starting to move by. And everybody knows that when you have a hurricane, the hurricane has an eye and you don't go out in the storm in the eye of the storm.

You may have good weather. You may even have sunshine, but you know you're in the eye of the storm, and the next phase is going to come through. So we wait until the storm passes by. Once the storm is over, you go out and you assess the damage. This virus, we have to assess the damage to see how much damage was done once that storm is over. And the way we do that, yeah, but the way we do that is we do that

by seeing how much immunity is in the community, how many people have had it and how much natural immunity. We need tests to do that. So we need to be testing and we need to be building those tests, which we're trying to come up with so that we can see and have something to base it on to know whether or not we're safe to go out or not. Well, and that to me, I keep going back to is still the craziest thing here. You have he's touting, oh, we've done more tests in any other country.

But if you look at it per capita, we have not. The fact that we represent 30 percent of all coronavirus cases in the world, and we still are, we're still having hot spots in South Dakota. You have the governor there who doesn't want to issue a shelter in place, but they're seeing more and more cases every single day. We're seeing how coronavirus is rampaging through nursing homes across this country. And when you keep asking the question, even Dr. Anthony Fauci makes the point that we have not reached critical mass

when it comes to testing. Roland, we can sit and we can argue the points about what should be done, shouldn't have been done, but I would like to try to save lives. And the way we save lives is that we need to take care of ourselves. What can we in our communities do to take care of ourselves? We have to start to do things. We're seeing that the number of cases, we've been talking about health disparities for the last 20 years. And so it's been known. What we didn't know was that people with these underlying conditions were going to get sicker, they're going to get sicker faster, and they were going to die more. And so we need to concentrate

on what can we do to be resilient, what can we do right now to take care of our families and each other? Well, and what is bothering me the most, again, look, I totally understand when we talk about the economic impact of coronavirus. Forget the stock market. I'm just talking about out there, just everyday people, Best Buy laying off, furloughing 51,000 people. Numerous companies, small businesses, midsize, large. So, Roland, if you think about that, and those are very tough things, and these are tough times. And what I hope that we can learn from all of this as a society, as we come out on the other end of this, is that it is tough, economic tough. It's hard when you don't know where your next paycheck is coming from. It's very difficult when you don't know

how you're going to put food on a table. And if you do have a job and your kids are not in school now, what are you going to do for daycare? Those are very real things that we're dealing with. But you know what? Poor people have been dealing with this all along. Right. And I hope that people will have more empathy and understand what these single moms are going through every day and the challenges they have,

the stresses they have in their lives. And we'll stop blaming the victims and we will start putting in more public policies and things on the other end that will be a much better for our society than than what we've done in the past well the point that i've also been stating that death is real uh i mean uh there's a video uh dr oz was on fox news and and he was talking about uh the potential possibility of you know reopening schools

and he makes this comment about you 2% to 3% mortality rate. And then you hear people say, well, we lose X number of people when it comes to the flu, so we haven't lost that many people here. We're still talking about death. The other thing is that the problem— Well, it depends on whether it's your death or my death, is how important it is. But yes, it is real.

Right. I mean, I literally was just watching this clip of Laura Ingraham saying, you know, some people are fine with catching the virus. And I'm sitting here going, oh, and I literally tweeted back. I said, well, you let me know that people at Fox News and Fox Business are cool with catching the virus. And the thing is that we still don't even know how this thing is moving and acting and responding. And so I've had numerous scientists and medical professionals on here. It's just like a hurricane. We don't know what it's going to do. We don't know how it's going to change.

We have to be prepared for whichever way it changes. It's new. And you're right. We don't know how they're going to change. And we have to change with it. And the more information, the more data we get, the more we can put in, and our predictions can be much better. It's just like that hurricane tracker. When they go and fly into that storm, they get better data, and we know better once we get that.

We're collecting data. We're constantly changing it. And as we get more information, we can make our plans and adjustments more reliably than just guessing. Well, to that point right there, when you talk about the data piece, and I think that's critically important, you have the people now who are critical. Oh, the initial model said we were going to lose 100,000 or 240,000 people. Well, first of all, the initial model was also based upon if we didn't do mitigation. And so...

And also those models is just like a hurricane model. The initial model when it's way out there in the Atlantic somewhere is totally different when it gets into the Gulf and you've got more data to make your model on. It's much more precise. Yeah. So it changes.

Look, I'm from Houston, and so I can tell you, okay, the hurricane is projected to veer towards New Orleans, and then all of a sudden, oh, it's coming to Houston. That's right. Because you got more information now. And what you did, what you based it on two weeks before was not the same. So that's what we're

constantly going through these changes. The other thing is, we, as I said, we don't go outside in the eye of the storm. We know the weather is good. We know it may even be sunshine, but you don't go out during the eye of a storm. You wait until it passes by.

And once it passes by... Because actually, the eye ain't the problem. The tail is the problem. It's worse. And I think, using that comparison, I think when we were talking about what's happening right here with coronavirus, if there is this rush to

reopen, now all of a sudden, so just a perfect example, so where I do my show here, we do it at with the Office of 50K, an education reform group, and I sit on the board of directors, and so we're still here. Okay? I've got two people

who work in this office, but actually they're working separately. Then I'll have, when we do the show, max five in the control room. Really, really about four people. Okay? I'm out here alone. My panelists are via Skype. So the people who,

at 50 Camp, they're not here. But if all of a sudden you bring 8 to 10 people back, some of the offices, 20, 30, 50, 100, all of a sudden, you don't have the same containment that you had when you had shelter in place.

And yes, I get the economic loss and people being furloughed and not working. But the flip side is, which I got to think about, what happens if somebody contracts it? Now, what happens to them economically in their family? Hospitals stay, things along those lines. And so all the people- What happens when people die? Yes. Because we're seeing deaths and they are dying. And so that's the other, the main concern.

And nobody wants to be the cause of deaths. And as a knowing someone or having a loved one to die when it was preventable. Absolutely. What would you advise in terms of messaging that should be specifically for African-Americans?

When the White House last week, when they came out and they talked about, like, all of a sudden they were surprised by this disproportionate number of African-Americans dying. And then Dr. Anthony Fauci stood up there and said that they didn't realize that asthma was an underlying condition. I had a doctor from Maharian who was like, any black medical person could have told you that. So we've been talking about health disparities again for about 20 years. We even

have a National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities at NIH that's doing that research because we know that these disparities exist. And what I have been saying and want to emphasize even more now is that when we first started talking about the coronavirus, we were talking about elderly and people with underlying health conditions. What people didn't realize, they thought cancer, they thought HIV, some of those type conditions, but what they didn't think about was diabetes and high blood pressure,

strokes, cardiovascular disease, somebody with a cardiac arrhythmia who may be working and doing very fine all day, but have arrhythmia. I'm on the board of the American Heart Association, and we're putting $2.6 million into research around cardiovascular disease and health disparities. And so these things are there. We knew that these underlying conditions are more prevalent in our community. What we didn't know was that the coronavirus was going to be affecting us much faster, much more, and more people were going to die from it. And that's where the big questions come in, is that how do we prevent people from getting it? And the first thing we can do is socially distance ourselves. And most of us are,

but some are not. And so if I were going to give you any, any advice, the first thing is to wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands. And then the social distancing really does protect you and your loved ones. And just stay as six feet apart from each other. Just don't spread it. Don't give it to someone else when you may not even know you had it yourself. And then you may not want to contract it. We have to protect each other. Well, on that particular point there, what I keep saying,

I literally told the White House this. I said, look, you need to have black folks, black and brown people out there as well, talking about this, because the reality is African-Americans, look, when it comes to who do we trust more? Do we trust an African-American doctor? Do we trust a white doctor?

Same thing in media. Where am I getting my information from? And I said, guys, look, I said, Birx is fine, Fauci is fine, but to your point, you have a whole apparatus at NIH. You need to have, versus Trump running his mouth in these news conferences, put the experts up there

to share the information so people can actually learn about what's going on with this. And we have an opportunity here through you and others like you to give the good basic information to people and hopefully they'll listen to you and look at you and watch your leadership

and follow your leadership in doing these things. And, you know, we'll see, I'll see on social media where some group has had a party and they're talking about how great a time they're having. I heard it put best by a guy from New Orleans who had overcome the virus. He'd come off the ventilator. He says, you guys, you can either be socially distanced or you can be socially dead. Your choice. It's just that simple.

Right, right. It is just that simple. Final question for you. And we talk about models and things along those lines. I've been saying to friends of mine, I've been saying to folks who work for me, look, I don't think for a second this goes away in three months. To me, I said we should be preparing ourselves mentally

that this is going to be from now until the end of the year. When you look at what is happening in New Orleans, where the mayor said, look, no major events for 2020. The folks at Essence really wanted to have Essence Festival. She wouldn't budge. They announced they'd cancel it. We'll be back in 2021. I just think that this thing is so uncertain.

I think it makes sense to prepare yourself for the long haul. And then if it's shortened, great, but just to your point... We got common sense. Use the common sense. Well, everybody ain't got common sense. Yeah, but more

of us have it than don't, I hope. Right. Well, again, that's just sort of what I'm sort of... Again, using your point about the hurricane, hey, that's just sort of what I'm sort of using your point about about the hurricane. Hey, even when a hurricane is gone, you might have flooding. You may have other things that actually happen. You just have to prepare yourself for that because it's there. And I just think this is something we've never seen before, never experienced before. Prepare yourself mentally for it. After Katrina, we had never seen before, never experienced before. Prepare yourself mentally for it.

After Katrina, we had never seen anything that big. We are still overcoming Katrina to this day. Wow, that's a decade later. It takes years to overcome. So to think that we'd be ready to be completely back to normal in two weeks is not common sense. Absolutely. Dr. Regina Benjamin, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. If folks want to get more information on your public policy institute, where can they get information from? Basically, it's gulfstateshealthpolicycenter.org or bayouclinic.org, well, we certainly appreciate that. And

hopefully those governors in those Gulf States are paying attention to what you and others are saying there, uh, as opposed to, uh, some of the decisions that we're actually, I've been working with our governor to put together information hub and working with a tech company called EX and they've done a wonderful job of pulling all the information together so that people can go and get good, solid health information. Everything that the health department has, statistics is on a dashboard at that site. We call it COVID19.Alabama.gov. And basically, you can go there and get it yourself. Look for it yourself.

You don't have to listen to anybody else give you their opinions of the statistics. They're there. There's also places to find jobs. In Alabama, we have 11,000 jobs that are available. You can apply online. We also have how to track your illness if you think you're sick, where you can get your test sites. All of that's there so that people can take control of their own destiny, their own health by having information because information is power. All right.

Dr. Benjamin, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right. I certainly want to thank Dr. Benjamin for that. And just so you understand why we don't take these news conferences live, we just missed Dr. Fauci. We'll try to pull his clips up. Go to my iPad. Sam Stein just tweeted this. He's with the Daily Beast. He said, Trump just now touting 3.5 million tests

completed is a weird boast because on March 4th, Mike Pence pledged 4 million tests by the end of that week. In fact, if you see the bottom of this, the White House promised 27 million coronavirus tests by the end of March, but just hit one million. So here we are in the middle of April, and they're saying, hey, 3.5 million tests. When y'all say we're gonna have four at the end of one week. Let's talk about what's happening on the business side.

Facebook is offering $100 million in cash grants and ad credits to help during the coronavirus pandemic. Up to 30,000 eligible small businesses in more than 30 countries where they operate will be able to receive the grant. Now, to be eligible to apply, you must be a for-profit company, have between two and 50 employees, have been in business for over a year, have experienced challenges from COVID-19, be in or near a location where Facebook operates. Now, if you go to facebook.com forward slash business forward slash boost forward slash grants, you can see the information. And they have it based upon also cities. And I think it's like April 18th. If you're New York City in Seattle,

then there's another date for San Francisco. And then there's another date, April 22nd, for the rest of the cities. And so again, if you're a small business, put it back up. You can apply for these grants. The folks at Facebook sent this to me, facebook.com forward slash business forward slash boost forward slash grants.

Now, we've been talking about the PPP program, which Congress passed that $350 billion to help small businesses. The SBA, the Small Business Administration, announced today it is out of money for firms seeking loans. They said in a statement, quote, the SBA is currently unable to accept new applications for the Paycheck Protection Program based on available appropriations funding. Similarly, we're unable to enroll new PPD lenders at this time. The statement comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill are wrangling over replenishing the program. Now, here's the other issue that we're dealing with. I'm going to talk about this with my next guest, John Hope Bryan, the CEO of Operation Hope.

This was set up for small businesses. Politico, we talked about it yesterday, reported that Potbelly and Ruth Chris Steakhouse have received the maximum remember for this program of $10 million. At Potbelly and Ruth Chris Steakhouse, two chain restaurants were able to qualify under this program. Does that sound like a small business to you? Let's bring in John Hope Bryan, the CEO of Operation Hope. John, you came on the show, you talked about what was important for African Americans. Obviously, this was a huge program, $350 billion. Congress is now realizing that that wasn't enough money.

Correct. Yeah. So first of all, Roland, thanks for continuing to be a voice for all of us. Which topic, and by the way, Dr. Regina Benjamin, who is a dear friend of mine, served on the operational board for years and is doing incredible work in the South, is just a beacon and a light for our community, former Surgeon General.

So obviously you're showing enormous great taste in having her on. Which thing do you want to cover first, Roland? First and foremost, the fact that they announced today that the program has run out of money, they're not processing applications, they're not

even pulling in more banks. I'll just give you an example. Northern Trust is my bank. I don't have a loan with any bank. That's who I bank with. They've applied for the program, haven't even heard back whether they got accepted. So we can't even file because with this program, you got to have a bank to actually go through to file for it. Go ahead. Yeah, I just don't know. I don't know in which direction we should go first. I'm very rarely at a loss for words. But I both am sharing in your frustration about all that we're not getting.

And I'm also frustrated that we didn't go get the thing that was right in front of us. That's the biggest giveaway program of the federal government ever. It was free money, effectively. I know because I helped design part of the program, as you know. And we just weren't ready. Now, you know, I guess I can say this on your show. I'll frame it because it's who could be watching. Was it a crap show?

You don't want to say something else. Of course it was a crap show. The federal government stood up the 10th largest bank in America in 30 days, 20 days. Of course it's a mess. Ready, fire, aim, programs changing every 28 seconds. Nobody's happy. But, you know, they did throw out, push out one point, whatever, million loans. The two thirds of the loans are $150,000 or less. I know I checked myself. I couldn't find out what the ethnic race was because they didn't put that on the form.

I'm sure that was not an accident, but you can't figure out what race it is. But at least two-thirds of the loans are below $150,000. And, you know, the folks who work for Ruth Chris Steakhouse are going to be mostly working-class people who you and I know. So I don't have a problem with that, actually.

The problem I have is I'm convinced that we did not get a lion's share of these loans for a range of reasons that frustrate me. I'm not sure if it's even helpful to... Well, I think... Well, here's the deal. First of all, my brother,

he works with the Houston Restaurant Association, the Texas Restaurant Association. He was sending me text messages because he was hearing from a number of their clients. And there were a number of people who did apply. I remember reading a story, and there was a guy, and I think it was out of Wisconsin, and he was on the phone line trying to get information.

And I think the story said there were 17,500 people who were ahead of him. Here's what I think the folks in Congress should have learned from this. It's a whole lot of damn small businesses in the United States. 30 million. And a third of them are minority small business. Go ahead. And I think what they also should have learned is that, look, you can't be talking about open back up, get back going, this whole deal like that,

and not realizing that those small businesses, they are the economic engine of this country. And I think what happens a lot, John, is that when we talk about business in America, it's sort of like when we talk about megachurches. People love to go, oh, the megachurches, they cause all the problems, when megachurches represent only 4% of all churches in America. Because we think big means everybody works there, when in fact, that's just really not it. It's the aggregate of the small businesses that you got to pay attention to. Yeah. And we now know that 40% of people who work on hourly wage, who look like us mostly,

are now the secondary responders who are allowing for everybody else to stay at home. They're delivering packages. They are stocking shelves. They are working in hospitals. They are they are the backbone of this nation right now. And they look like us, and they're at higher risk of infections because they're not socially distancing at home or at work. But that's another topic. Back to your topic. I think that there's going to be a lot more respect, regard, and I'm going to go on the limb here and say resources that are going to be coming the way of black and brown-owned businesses in coming weeks, months, and I'm going to argue years. I think COVID-19 has changed America, Roland. It may be the most transformational event, certainly since the Civil Rights Movement, for sure, or the Great Depression, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, Great Depression economically. It might be the most defining event since the Civil War. Never has the world ever seen, forget America, never has the world ever seen this kind of a stimulus package. The Great Recession of the mortgage crisis was a $187 billion bailout. People lost their mind over that amount of money. This, this, this is $2.5 trillion in one package, a trillion that went through the Fed window,

and another trillion that went through various orifices. I mean, it's $4.5 trillion. It's 40 times larger than anything the world's ever seen before because we're the largest economy in the world, and it ain't over. There's going to be a need for another trillion, in my opinion, and I believe that there'll be another shot for businesses to get access to this capital. I think you need at least $500 billion, maybe more like $800 billion, to plug this hole. It's coming, Roland, because one thing's not going to happen is the government's not going to let America run

out of money. America's not going to let American business fail. And it's not black. Black folks get the benefit because we're going to connect with all other businesses. If this is a black crisis, it'd be a problem. If this is a low wage crisis, this would be a problem. The fact is, this is everybody's crisis. And so it's going to get fixed.

So what is your advice? What is your advice to lawmakers to ensure those who apps who absolutely need are not, frankly, at the back of the line, at the front of the line? We talk about scriptures. We say when you say, frankly, the last will be first and the first will be last. Unfortunately, when you talk about money in America, the first is first, second and third. Agreed. By the way, showing that this is class and not race, Roland, I got money. I intentionally did not have my for profit applied because I was involved in some of the structural stuff. So I didn't want anybody to say I benefited. So my for profit didn't apply.

My nonprofit applied. My nonprofit got approved instantly because we had the back-end finance department, accounting department, our records that were straight. And we were able to rifle shoot, just like everybody else, our records in and get in line and bug everybody to death until it got done. But I have a whole division that does that. I have 10 friends who've called me, black and white, all educated, have accounting departments. All of them frustrated. All of them got their money. It was a, it was a crap show. They were frustrated. They had a call eight times. They all got their money. A lot of folks that you and I care about did not get their money in part because maybe they didn't try. They went late. They went last. The records weren't straight, whatever. You're going to get another shot at that, at that,

at that Apple here soon. Here's what I say to lawmakers. Two things. One, this could have been avoided if we had had the National Urban League, Church of God in Christ, First AME Church, the National Baptist Convention, Operation Hope. I'm probably missing a couple groups. Let's throw the NAACP in there, their offices, deputize them as federal community trust officers, federal community trust officers, and give them the right and the authority to take the folks in their pews and their client stables, client account lists, and counsel them and coach them, because we already have trust, in the requirements for these loans, and gateway them right into

a priority list, to your point, with a predefined group of banks or fintech firms or other firms approved CDFIs who put us at, to you say, the front of the line for, and I'm going to say the second thing is, there should be a bucketed amount of money that's set aside in the next tranche, call it, I'm going to pick a number, $50 million that is prioritized for African American small businesses. We're dying at the highest rate in this crisis, and my guess is we're getting the lowest level of access to capital. And so those two things, if you did those two things, I think you'd see a transformational

ramping up of liquidity and access to capital for our people. Just do those things. Pay the nonprofit groups to be the distribution channel, right? Don't ask them to do it for free. Deputize them so they have the authority to do it. Give them the training they need so that we're not giving people bad information. And give them the on-ramp to a defined group of lenders that put us at the front of the line for the application. That can be done in this next tranche. And I'm talking to

folks at the White House that are open to that idea. I'm talking to, I'm not talking to legislators, but you can certainly do that. Our friends in Congress on both sides of the aisle. And so I think that's possible. I'm going to go one step further, Roland. I'm actually pushing for a new Marshall Plan. I think this is the time to shove everything that we thought was important down a chute called Reboot. Okay? And I'm talking about internships for all, apprenticeships for all, as much education as you can shove down people's throat. Black folks will never get reparations. It's just a hard fight.

But this could be reparations. Education for everybody K through college. As long as you get a job or you do something gainful or do something productive at the end of that degree, you don't have to pay it back just like the PPP loan. It's an investment in America. It's not a handout. You're investing in America's people to reinvest in our society. It's not a handout. I've got some other things.

Access to capital using venture capital, publicly funded venture capital, heavily incentivized private capital for this purpose as well, to back a whole network of local enterprises that can become employers in our neighborhood that aren't rap stars. We've got to be experts in something other than the arts, entertainment, and professional sports. That's not enough bandwidth to employ 40 million black people. I love it. It's fantastic. Chris Tucker and Tip and all my friends,

I love their doing it. Oprah, I love you. But they can't employ tens of thousands of people. We need to back businesses. And I think call centers in our... But, Roland, I think... So, I've given you... I've answered your question. I over-answered your question. I got you.

But I also think there's an opportunity for black folks, if you can get beyond the surviving mentality and get to a thriving mentality and a winning mentality and stop being angry because anger doesn't pay a bill and think like you think, which is to be risk to respond, not react on it. We're going to get through this because if God wanted to kill us,

we'd be dead. This is a reset, not a reboot societally. We will get on the other side of this, even with all the pain, what are you going to do in four months on the other side of this six months, whatever the number is, it will be this year. What are you going to do? Cause the world's going to be different. And opportunities, Roland, please, your people need to hear me, will be everywhere. While I'm sitting here, I just got an email from somebody trying to sell me something that I've always wanted at half price. If I wanted to buy this two months ago, it'd have been full value. They're not trying to give it

away to me. There's going to be a discount on stocks, a discount on real estate. I mean, I'm going to tell you a real quick story. I was at Baxter Young's house during the last crisis. And he sends his love to you, by the way, Roland. And his gardener, black guy,

I said, man, how you doing in this subprime crisis? You a lot of pain? He owned a little business. He said, no, I'm good. I was poor before this crisis. So he said, I'm broke before this crisis. I'll be broke after this crisis. It's my rich white friends that want to kill themselves because they lost all their money. And what he was saying was that there's been a recalibration and the wealthy folks were brought down to his level.

Well, shoot, he's used to hustle. So now he's got an opportunity because there was a bifurcation on class. They were getting opportunities he wasn't. Now he's like, look, we all can hustle leads to recession, and this one, the soft U that leads to recovery. I want us riding on this railroad, not on this railroad. They're going to both happen at the same time. I got my panelists. I'm going to each one of them for one question. I will start with Greg Carr. I think you've answered everything that I would have asked. Roland, you asked about what policymakers can do. I am concerned about one of the kind of soft underbellies in our community,

particularly these very small businesses. You know, folks who, how can folks move very quickly to get, as you say, their paperwork in order so that they can go through that very clean shoot. I'm sure people are scrambling now, Brother John. Yeah. Call me. I mean, this is what frustrates me. Like, I've been saying this to my people for rolling notes.

Six weeks now. Call Operation Hope. Services are free. We'll help walk you through this. We've gotten some calls, but when did my website crash? When Gail King put me on CBS's Morning, mainstream audience, and made the same offer, my website crashed. My phones exploded. People saying, sign me up. I need folks who look like me to use our services. Call me, and I will, not me personally, but call Operation Hope. We will walk you through this process. I'm in 22 states. Services are free.

So yeah, I'm with you 100%. But there's a lot of historic reasons why we don't trust government. We don't trust banks. I get it. Freedmen's Bank, I get it. We got to get over all that stuff because the money will run out

while we're sitting here contemplating. Right. It did run out, actually. Recy. So we've, I've seen reports about how this administration has given out no-bid contracts into one specific company, hundreds, over a hundred million dollar contract for N95 masks, and it's bankrupt. There's a huge opportunity, as you said here, outside of even the loan aspects and the grants and stuff that were available, in terms of government contracting. Are you involved, or do you know of any resources that can help minority Black-owned businesses, Black woman-owned businesses get in on this federal contracting, you know, contracts that are being put out there, because it does seem like we do get left behind, even though there are supposedly all these, you know, these set-asides for us and all these quotas, which the administration is trying to

do away with in the meantime. How can we be a part of that or make sure that we're not left a part of that? The lady's question is dead on right. And I'm not going to give you an answer you like. I think that all the structure and the programs and those are great and people mean well. But in a crisis like this, the urgent crowds out the important, and people rely on their relationships. So somebody in the government, not meaning to discriminate against you and me at all, trying to solve a problem, is going to reach out to whom? Their friends. Their, whoever called, somebody they know, somebody they've known for 10 years, went to school with, I don't know, but somebody who

they hooked up with or somebody knows somebody, hey, I can get you these meds. Oh, really? Tell me about that. That's who's going to get this deal. So you're right. And you will find out about this when the dust settles. I want you to be part of the dust settler. Okay. So you've got to get a hold of Nicole Frazier at the White House, who is special assistant to the president for African American Affairs. She's actually a nice person. You've got to get a hold of Jerron Smith. Roland knows all these people. In fact, Jerron's going to come on Roland's show.

He's actually a good brother. I found him to be an honest broker. We don't talk politics. We only talk about these issues. And he respects the fact that I don't want to talk politics about that situation. And he's an expert in QLFI Opportunity Zones. He's an expert in CRA, Community Investment Act. And he wants to give you opportunity.

You've got to get to know these people. You've got to get to know Chris Pinkerton at the White House. You've got to get to know the people running the SBA, the people running the different agencies, because life's about relationships. And so, OK, you don't have time to get to know him right now? Fine. Send him a soft letter. Send him an email. Let him know who you are. let them know you're not selling them something right now use here's what your company does here's what you're offering you'd like to have 10 minutes on the phone with them also have time right now for an hour conversation five ten minutes just

to orient them to what you're doing so that when the opportunity comes around that you're available and let them know you're a minority-owned business. Play that card and copy me, copy Roland. When you send these notes, Roland will give you my information. Roland, you can probably get them on this next call with the White House for black leadership. The first call we did was 4,000 people. They've never done it in the history of this White House. And they were nervous a few weeks ago when they did this, but it worked out really well. And no one got political on either side,

and we dealt with the business. You need to be on that call or have somebody on that call that you deputize from your community who raises intelligently, thoughtfully, non-emotionally, the issue you just raised, and let them respond to it. So I think that this is my suggestion, is you've got to insert yourself in the process in a way in which that's effective, which means I want you to respond to issues, not

react to them. If we react to this and get emotional, we're done. If we get angry, start cursing people out, nobody's got time for that right now. Nobody cares, actually. You've got to insert yourself into the flow of literally billions and arguably hundreds of billions of dollars in the next 90 to 120 days. It'll probably last all of this year, but most of this money will flow in the next four months. Roland, you agree or disagree? No, I agree. Absolutely. I think especially, I've been telling people, prepare yourself mentally that we're going to be dealing with this to the end of the year. It's not going to just go away in 60 or 90 days, even though some people want to wish it to go away.

Brooke Thomas, final question from you for John Hope. By the way, go to your member of Congress. Get them to write you a letter as well. Congress has a lot of sway right now. Sorry about that, Roland. Go ahead. Brooke? Yeah, I just have a question.

It may be a little bit of a reiteration, but I'm curious as to what is the concern or question that you're getting the most. You mentioned your website crashing after the CTM appearance. What is something that is representing itself as like the biggest concern or something that you're getting so often? Because often other people have that same question or concern.

Yeah, great question. So just so happens I have the results here in my call center of the call in. So this was before Gayle King's show. This is our people in one month. Typically what people would happen is people would call in, they had one request. They went, I want to be part of your 700 credit score program, get my credit score up. I want to become your home-owned program. I want to be part of your small business program. It wasn't two or three services. They just went one.

Here's what we got. So think about a hundred, a ranking of a hundred now. You'll think my math is screwy, but what this means is that the same person was asking for five things. 59% wanted assistance with the SBA process. They were confused. 47% was one of the systems with federal programs, like the accelerated unemployment insurance, like the earned income tax credit, which you can still get,

and you need to apply for today as another $3,000 to $10,000 in your pocket that, again, we don't apply for. Go get your money. It has nothing to do with COVID. Go get your $3,000 to $10,000. Like the check that should be hitting your mailbox this week or next uh and and i can tell you about that define pretty much tell you how much money you get but you even if you didn't file a tax return you get that money but you've got to go into the irs website and let them know where to send your money otherwise you won't get it. So 47% of that. 33% wanted

help restructuring a home mortgage. 33% wanted help with financial recovery planning. This is really smart. 38% wanted help with negotiating with the creditors. And 23% wanted help with student loan deferrals. And then 26% wanted help with credit counseling so the the lowest the lowest number here it was my highest number a month ago uh credit counseling credit score assistance that was my highest ask it was singular now i've got one two three four five six seven asks by the same person who had members of their family with multiple needs. Mainstream America, Gayle King's show, they wanted help with the federal loan program and mostly restructuring their finances. So the problem has now become mainstream. I'm predicting that what I was doing for minority America now is going to apply to 80% of America in the next two or three months.

John Hope Bryant. Always a pleasure. Tell folks where the website, where they can get more information to log on right now. Yeah, operationhope.org hopeinsidedisastercovid19.org all services are free. Or you can call 888

uh-oh, I forget my toll-free number. Take your time. 919.org. All services are free. Or you can call 888. Uh-oh. I forget my toll-free number. Take your time. Take your time to find it. It's on my, well, okay, I'll find it for you. It is 888-388-HOPE. 888-388-HOPE. And we have an app coming out next week that will be on all your platforms.

It's called Hope in Hand, Hope Mobile. You'll be able to do all this stuff right from your app as of next week. Go get your money. It's still there on the individual assistance program. Make sure the IRS knows where to give you your money. If you're a senior citizen, you still get the money. If you're a documented alien, you get the money. There's a lot of categories. And if you have children, you get the money. You know, there's a lot of categories.

And if you have children, you get another check. If you have a spouse working in the house, you get another check. Make sure they give you all of your money from that program and go get your EITC, earned income tax credit. Anybody making less than $54,000 a year, most of us, that's another check. And it's three years retroactive. And that's why Roland Barthes Unfiltered Matters is giving you this information directly because, frankly, it's not. John don't get this much time on the major networks, but that's why we've got to walk ourselves through information is indeed power.

John Hope Bryant, we appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Love you, man. Peace and light. I appreciate it, sir. Thank you so very much. A lot of you saw this clip that was being spread around the Internet. Check this out. All right, guys. Y'all should have been ready in the control room. Come on.

Come on. Come on. Y'all should have been ready. Okay, let me be real clear. Y'all were in there talking, and now focus don't work. Come on. Play the clip. Well, when we came up with our valuation, we did last month's sales, and we both plated by 12.

Like, if we didn't grow at all, we would make $115,000 for the next 12 months. Kim? So we actually ended up with a $6.9 million valuation, but we brought it down to $4 million. Because we really want a shark. Oh, hey, I can work a spreadsheet, too. We'll need a lot of money, so we'll probably have to raise again.

Yes, which is why I need 20% today. And you're getting a shark. $400,000 for 20%. I'm not going to change that. What are you going to do? Sorry, Robert. Oh! You can't take that.

No! Yes, you cannot take that. I respect that. Good for you. I have to say. I didn't see that coming. I'm out. Thank you.

Congratulations, guys. We appreciate it. Thank you. Congratulations. You guys are amazing. Wow, how about that? I can't believe I didn't see that coming. Thank you. Congratulations, guys. Well, how about that? I can't believe they didn't take it. I can't believe that. Well, Kim and Tim Lewis, they were like, nah, we'll pass. So how are they doing right now? They join us right now. How y'all doing?

All right. We're doing great. Thank you so much for having us, Mr. Myers. One of the reasons I wanted to have y'all on, not only because I saw that clip, but because also while we're in the middle of this whole coronavirus issue, it's impacting businesses, people's ability to raise money, to be able to make money. But what really stood out there is that, and I think they were shocked, that y'all wouldn't just give up 20% of equity.

I mean, that's real. I mean, that's real. I mean, that's for $400,000. How did that decision turn out? That was the best decision we could have made. We wanted to be honest and true. We know some people go on the show and they say they'll take a deal, and then on the back end they don't. But that's just not who we are.

We like to be really transparent and honest. And so we didn't take the deal. And now today we ended up doing a deal with the CEO of LinkedIn for $1.2 million shortly after the show aired for a valuation of about $12 million. And so that was based on our sales last year but since, I'm sorry, our sales up until maybe March of last year

but we did about $5.5 million in revenue last year. So I think we're far above the $12 million valuation. Wow. So they were offering $400,000 for 20% equity, and you later did a deal for $1.2 million for the same 20%?

For less, for 10%. Wow. So three times more money for half of the equity you were going to give up. Yeah. And they've actually even we've we've grown so much since then. We 5X since we even made that valuation when it comes to revenue. So they've already made their investment back and we're still growing. So it was really one of the best decisions we made in our life.

Props to my wife. We did all the homework, all the background. We knew what our value was going in. And we stood to that. You know, we stuck by what we knew was true about us and our company and what we believed in. And it was us at the end of the day. We believed in ourselves to grow our company and be successful. And they didn't see that as much as they should have on Shark Tank. But luckily, we're going to keep going.

I love some sharks, though. Well, I think, but here's the deal, though. I mean, look, the way a lot of these folks work is to give less money to get more equity because they hope that the company is, frankly, desperate for the cash and then, oh, you're getting one of the sharks. That's if you don't also don't believe in yourself

and your plan. Yeah. Yeah, so we actually, the year prior to the episode airing, That's if you don't also don't believe in yourself and your plan. Yeah. Yeah. So we actually, the year prior to the episode airing, we went from about zero to a million in sales. And then we 5X that in the next year. And we're going to do more than that this year. So we knew that we were growing. We knew that we had that upwards trajectory.

What we really needed was advice and support and education and knowledge about how to navigate a rapidly scaling startup. And that's why we really wanted a shark on our team. But we knew that we could figure it out if we're going to have to give up 20% of our business. And we had... It wasn't in the plan. For us, we had a better, a BATNA, a walkaway number, essentially. And it was 15% of the business. Because we knew at some point we may have to raise again. And we just didn't want to, that time that we raised, where we have a minority stake in the company. And so we negotiated with Robert, but he wouldn't negotiate. He also said he didn't know anything about the market.

And so we were like, okay, well, then maybe this just isn't the ideal partnership. One of the things that, and I've interviewed a number of entrepreneurs, and when people go out in the space to raise money, it's for some people, it's a crapshoot. So some people, it turns out well, others not. I remember talking to one brother who had had a hair care company and he actually got lots of attention, lots of attention as well as a well-known company. But he said he actually regretted raising the amount of money because when it came down to control and then when it came down to equity. again, might see $400,000 or half a million dollars and a million and say, that means that I don't have to sit here and just starve myself and pay my employees versus paying myself. But on the back end, they may be really screwing themselves out of millions, to be honest. So I think there are two sides to every coin.

I think as long as you have a good strategy and you are deep into the data that, and you feel like this is a good, you know, you usually have a gut feeling like this is a good or bad decision. Without that million dollars, we wouldn't have been able to transition all of our staff from contractors to full-time employees. Because it's not just, if someone makes $60,000 a year as an employer, I'm paying an additional, like $5,000 a month for their salary, but then an additional $1,000 in expenses when it comes to employment insurance, payroll taxes, health insurance, dental, all of that, right? And so we would have been able to have that plus invest in inventory before all this madness with the virus happened, plus just have like an established business that has more security if we hadn't raised that money. Now, I will say you have more control over your company and the direction of it when you don't have investors.

And that's great. But if you're just starting out, there's a lot you don't know. And you may not even make it to that point. You know, you may not make it past a couple years without that kind of investment. I think it's just really a right. It's different for everyone. For us, we've taken an investment for one point two million. I thought I wanted to raise again. And so I even kind of had conversations with investors because we did five X our revenue.

And so if you are raising venture capital, you want to raise it on the yield of five hundred percent return on investment. And we were having conversations and some people didn't see the vision, you know? And so for me, I'm just like, well, I'm not gonna devalue my company just so I can get a check, right? We have, we're stable enough to continue to grow and grow profitably.

And people, I know that black women, well, minorities get less than a couple percent of venture capital period and black women get like less than point zero two percent or something crazy. So for me, I'd recommend for us that we just build bomb companies making cash hand over fist, because when we do that, then people look at that. Right. They don't understand our products because they're not black people with money and I've left. But when they see dollar signs, then they start writing checks. Yeah, that's the real key right there is we found that investors really want to talk to you when you actually don't need them. When you're being successful

and you're growing and you're scaling, that's when they really want you to want to get on your side, right? So the best thing you can do is, you know, take care of yourself and build your company in the best way you can. And then hopefully someone will share that vision and want to help out along the way. And bootstrap yourself the way. We got an investor from Arlen from Backstitch Capital. She's a Black woman running a fund that invests in underrepresented founders. And we love her for it.

She was our first check. First money in. We love Arlen. $25,000. And it came after we had bootstrapped so much and failed for a few years in a row. And her check came right when we knew exactly what to do with it. And it helped us move into our first manufacturing facility.

And, like, you know, buy new labels and pivot the business. And that was the year that we made a million dollars. But effectively, we bootstrapped most of the way because, you know, $25,000 is, you know, at the time, meant so much. But we had spent a lot of our own money getting to that point. All right. Got questions from our panel. Recy, you're first. Yeah, I think that

first of all, I love your guys' story because I think that just in general, black entrepreneurs are undervalued, and knowing when to walk away is a huge takeaway. How is this environment affecting or impacting your business? I know it sounded like you said that you have extra inventory or you sealed up in your inventory prior to coronavirus.

Have you started to or have you both started to think about how your business model is going to change in light of coronavirus? Absolutely. So there are a few different ways coronavirus has had an effect on our business, some of them positive and some of them negative. So to start out, when it comes to taking care of our people, you know, we already made sure that, like Kim said, we were able to transition all of our staff from contractors to full time last year with our first investment. And right away, we offered everyone full benefits and we do double minimum wage for just our starting employees. And almost everyone makes above inventory average at every level. I'm sorry, industry average at every level of the business. So $17 an hour is where we start

with full benefits. And so we wanted to make sure that first and foremost, we took care of our people. So we decided to make sure that everyone gets paid if we have to shut down. We have a program where if you have to go out for two weeks or if you're sick or if you're with someone who's sick or you have to take care of people who are stuck at home, we allow for you to take that time off. We're running a very limited crew just to make sure that we're able to kind of keep basic functioning

of the business. So we put those things in place. But prior to COVID becoming a huge issue, we were already on the path towards profitability. And so what happened was we were in a great position to kind of take advantage of some of the other benefits that have happened. With people being at home right now, a lot more people are shopping online that have never shopped online before e-commerce is um really growing for us with a lot of new customers a lot of new access to people who are on home on social media things like that so there's some negative things for sure um especially when it comes to our supply chain as well but we we feel like we're prepared

because we've been working on the problems in our business for months now. In the supply chain, what's going on there? So we don't necessarily, we make our products on the west side of Chicago. So it's not like we're ordering material that things that have been made in China and then selling them here in the United States.

We're making everything. But raw materials do still come from throughout the world. And so, or like some packaging pieces, right? and say, we're making everything, but raw materials do still come from throughout the world. And so, or like some packaging pieces, right? And if those people are not at their jobs working, then it's harder for us to get the materials to make the shampoo, to make, you know, a body butter. Or a hand sanitizer, things like that. The whole kind of supply chain is strained right now.

So we've made sure to be as transparent as we can with our customers that things might take longer, but you're still going to get quality products and services that we continue to offer. And we have 20 employees and 10 of them are already working remotely. So our online team was already all over the country working. Already at home. Yes, sorry. So they didn't affect us in that way. And then we have about 10 people who operate a manufacturing facility. And six of them have been coming in and four are at home with their kids. They just have babies.

And the other two are at home because of the virus. But they don't have it. They're just kind of like a little more nervous about coming in. And the people who are coming in were offered a $50 a day bonus for employees for the 30-day period. So they're getting a bonus of $1,000 for coming in. A month as, like, hazard pay. Yeah. All right.

Brooke, your question. Brooke? Yeah, I want to take it back to Shark Tank just really quickly because I do love that you came in. You were not going to give up more than 15%. Very strong and stuck to that. But we're human, you know? And oftentimes, like, when you make a big decision

and a hard decision like that, it's almost impossible not to waver a little bit. So I'm wondering what your thought process was, your feelings, right after you made that decision and you bet on yourself, and obviously you were right. But were you worried a little bit? Oh, absolutely. I mean, first of all, that's the scariest thing

I've ever done in my life is be on Shark Tank. Because you're in the room with a couple billion dollars of net worth, right? And you have been practicing. And all of America is watching, right? There's some, like, 20 million people watch that show. In the first 30 seconds, they don't edit. So if you flub it, you just, you know, you're messed up, right?

And so, and then all the pics on you, there's 30 cameras. And so I was like sweating bullets like down my back and like i was just so nervous and then the decision right i um i when i got after we made the decision it was like should we have said yes and then never crossed our we talked about it but we never was like oh yeah we should have we know we made the right decision like you know whether or not this airs because you don't know if it's going to air when you film it was just like this was the best thing for us we still have to we know we made the right decision. Like, you know, whether or not this airs, because you don't know if it's going to air when you film.

It was just like, this is the best thing for us. We still have to go home and run a real business. This is not a TV business. This is not for fun. This is how we eat. And so after I realized that, I was just like, you know what? That was the best thing we could have done. I love that.

Hey, Carl. Final question. Oh, very quickly, shout out to Chicago. Y'all up there with Mr. Johnson and them used to have their products and Johnson Corporation. So we know black people know how to make money, particularly around here. Oh, and parenthetically, since Negroes is stuck at home with no clippers, y'all might want to expand to the male.

Some dudes might be looking how to get them curls in the next six months. I use curl mix. I use it on both of my boys. We have a huge contingent of men who love our products. This is what I'm talking about, brother. Here's another one. I'm looking at our website right now, brother. Y'all might not know, today is Emancipation

Day in D.C. 1862, compensated emancipation. But I guess my question, kind of in line with what Brooke just asked in terms of that moment at Shark Tank, you know, what message do you have to folks in our community who want to bet on themselves, who have a sense of their abilities? I love what you said, Tim. I mean, you know, we're looking for some advice, some guidance, but if you don't give it to us, we'll figure it out. You know, what message do you have for these folks out here who want to get into business, but who may be wavering in terms of

their ability or to see themselves as the expert in the room, as somebody who's willing to do that work so that they can become masters of their future? Yeah. So the biggest thing is like, we found that the internet is the great equalizer when it comes to business. Like you could start a business tomorrow online with little to no input. All you really need to do is find a market to serve and then find out their pain points and then try to solve those problems. At the end of the day, an entrepreneur is a problem solver. But if you need resources like us, we needed resources. We needed knowledge about how to get these things done. We sought out a network of already successful

Black entrepreneurs. So I've got to give a huge shout out to Traffic Sales and Profit, the community, and Lamar Tyler, who has been one of our mentors. And we're part of their mastermind group as well. So I think it's the largest black i think it's the largest mastermind black mastermind in the world when it comes to um small businesses and so with founders who are making five million or more like that's the other thing you know it's like we can find a bunch of like small black businesses but how many of us are making millions and it's at least five to ten people in the group making millions of dollars so that was something else that helped us but also we read right like if you feel like i don't know anybody

who's an entrepreneur i didn't go to college i don't that's okay that's fine you don't have to read a few books you got kindle you got amazon you know pay for a couple hundred dollar course on insta on facebook or whatever or something see the ads, you know, you can teach yourself. That's what we've done. Yeah. Thank you. All right, folks. Look, we certainly appreciate y'all being on the show. Thank you so very much.

Great information there. Hopefully people will be inspired and learn from that. We appreciate it. Thank you so much for having us. All right. Y'all take care. Folks, got to go to a break. We come back. Last couple of much for having us. All right. Y'all take care. Folks, got to go to a break. We come back. Last couple of stories at the end. Don't forget,

in about seven minutes, we go live. Live concert with Gerald Albright. Jam at G's place. All right. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there?

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I don't like even the silk ones. And so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago, and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here, and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square. This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool. And so I tracked down.

It took me a year to find a company that did it. And so they're basically about 47 different colors. And so I love them because, again, as men, we don't have many accessories to wear, so we don't have many options. And so this is really a pretty cool pocket screen. And what I love about this here is you saw when it's in in the pocket you know it gives you that flower effect like that but if I wanted to also unlike other because if I flip it and turn it over it actually gives me a

different type of texture so therefore it gives me a different look so there you go so if you actually want to get one of these shibori pocket squares we have them in 47 different colors. All you got to do is go to rollingthismartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So it's rollingthismartin.com forward slash pocket squares. All you got to do is go to my website, and you can actually get this. Now, for those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a

part of our Bring the Funk fan club. And so that's what we want you to do. And so it's pretty cool. So if you want to jazz your look up, you can do that. In addition, y'all see me with some of the feather pocket squares. My sister was a designer. She actually makes these. They're all custom made. So when you also go to the website, you can also order one of the customized Feather Pocket Squares right there at RolandSMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So please do so. And of course, it goes to support the show. And again,

if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club. All right, folks. First of all, great conversation there with the folks at Curl Mix. Certainly made a heck of a lot of sense right there. Final comments here with our panel.

We were going to talk about the proposal put forth by Senator Kamala Harris, but I've got to ask you all about this here. Today, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax is calling on the district attorney to investigate the claims by a woman named Meredith Watson, who says Fairfax raped her in a frat house when they were in college. Now, he has repeatedly denied the claim and the claims of a sexual assault from another woman named Vanessa Tyson. He says both were consensual. Now, he sent out a series of tweets today.

He said, quote, to publicly accuse someone of a crime and then not want an investigation shows that the people involved are engaging in a political hit job. Gayle King and Nancy Erica Smith have known since at least July 9th, 2019, that Meredith Watson fabricated her allegation of rape and sexual assault at Duke University in 2000. An eyewitness, Damian Blue, was there and has told many people, including a CBS attorney, she lied. Gayle King, CBS This Morning and CBS News have never done a follow-up story on these false allegations in over a year because they know they aired vicious lies

to millions of people. Now, he sent out several other tweets, but to name, this is the first time that name has come out. And the Washington Post did a story where Fairfax supplied them his phone records where he showed calls. The moment these allegations dropped, a series of calls back and forth to Damian Blue.

Recy, I'm going to first start with you. What do you make of Fairfax putting this out there and the fact that Meredith Watson, or attorney, they've never said, in fact, he's challenged them to comment on this, and they've never even said, yay or nay, whether another person was present. Well, I mean, I think that there's a big difference

between calling for a criminal investigation, which is, I believe what you said, he's referring this to a district attorney. So here's the deal. The attorneys for both women, they have said they'll testify in an impeachment hearing. The DAs

in both cities, and they are both black women, where these alleged incidents took place, both have said if a complaint is filed, they will investigate Watson and the other woman. I'm sorry. Vanessa Tyson. Neither of them have actually filed the complaint.

So he's saying, wait a minute, if you've got two black female DAs who say that they will investigate, why won't you file a complaint? But you'll testify openly in an impeachment hearing. Go ahead. Well, you know, I personally will not impugn these women for not filing a criminal complaint, which the burden of proof is much higher. It's going to be, you know, when these investigations happen, oh, it's an ongoing investigation. It's not a transparent thing. So I won't impugn them because, you know,

Justin Fairfax doesn't want to be impugned for not wanting to submit to an impeachment hearing or any kind of hearings. As far as I know, I could be wrong. You can correct me on that. So I think that moving it into a criminal matter where it's much harder to prove, it's at this point, I hate to put it as a he say, she say. This person that he presents as a witness is one person who would testify, and I'm sure these women would testify to the people that they told about contemporaneously about these experiences as they allegedly have occurred. So I don't look at it as anything sinister because a lot of women don't want to go through the trauma of a rape complaint, of a criminal complaint. And Justin Fairfax, to my knowledge, doesn't want to go through any kind of impeachment hearings or ethics hearings that would be public and transparent. But here's the question, Brooke. Here's the question. You have allegations being made. You have innocent until proven guilty.

And then you have a situation here where he says, this wasn't a case where he says, this is somebody who I told afterwards. He says this person was actually there. Now, the question now is, if you're Watson or her attorney, do you address this or not? Well, it looks like, I mean, not is what they're going with. But I do want to double back on what Rees just said. I'm with that. We have to stop using the idea that a woman with an allegation not wanting to go through the process of filing an actual allegation in criminal court, knowing what happens to

a lot of actual victims of sexual assault and rape when they file reports. It's no surprise that not all women want to go through that process. So that's got to stop being used as an excuse as to why they must be lying. And it almost seems like that's what's being implied in his kind of like, you know, push to them to do that. I can't say what happened. I wasn't there, but I guess I don't... It seems like neither of them want to go through with the

process that the other one is comfortable with, but it's not owed to him outside of what our criminal courtroom say that it has to be handled his way. Right. Well, so Greg, here's what we're dealing with here on on their end.

Their attorneys have said they will participate in an impeachment hearing. He's saying, wait a minute, if you're willing to openly testify in an impeachment hearing, why not file a complaint where D.A.'s actually because they are, the statute of limitations hasn't expired. So the DAs can actually still pursue it. Even if you look at the case of Bill Cosby, there was no physical evidence in the case of Bill Cosby. Cosby was convicted based upon testimony. Yeah, black people in this country have consistently demonstrated, at least in the modern era, a collective immaturity when it comes to discussing these kind of issues. I'm thinking about Ida Wells writing in the 1890s, in 1900 and 1910, a red record, mob rule in New Orleans, lynch law in all its phases.

And Ida Wells talks about the electric mix of violence that comes around allegations of rape, and that it was the rape of white women, in fact, that animated much of the racial terrorism loosed against Black women and men in the South during the time that she pioneered really anti-lynching movement. Fast forward to now. I think it's pretty clear that Justin Fairfax was a victim of a political hit job by Ralph Northen and his lieutenants, separate of any whatever happened in, you know, as I said, Massachusetts and North Carolina, not

with a respectively. And so that's one set of issues. It's a political issue. Justin Fairfax is fighting for his political life because there is no court that is equitable in the court of public opinion. That's why when you tag Gayle King and CBS and all these other folks, you are calling them out because they are not fact-fires. They are not triers of fact.

They are public figures who are masquerading as news anchors and news corporations. So if they are indeed about the truth, then he's offering them to continue to pursue this story. That's one set of – that's two sets. Now you've got public figures. Now, let's get to the point. I agree wholeheartedly with my, you know, my fellow panelists. No person, certainly no woman, certainly no black woman should be accused of lying if she or he or whoever they are reticent to testify in public about a case of violence, particularly sexual violence. That having been said, for the accusants to say that they are willing to subject themselves to that type of scrutiny and public scrutiny for the purposes of an impeachment trial seems

to me to indicate that there may be other motives other than finding the truth, because there will be no diminished level of scrutiny in a public impeachment trial than there would be in a criminal or civil account. So finally, I'll just say this. You know, when you live in a country where race is always at the center of everything, including how gender is lived and class is lived, then you got to ask yourself a question. What do you do in a situation

where you have, as far as we're concerned in our journey in this place, as perfect a set of conditions for finding the truth as possible. You've got two black women in charge of the fact-finding inquiry who have said, we are here. And if the answer to that is, there is no perfect truth, then I would have to say in the case of Justin Fairfax,

he should continue to demand that the truth come out. And those of us who are a little bit more mature about trying to think our way through this should be able to listen to them. Any go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm not passing judgment on whether or not these allegations are true. I don't have enough information to that to know whether that's the truth or not. But what I will say in defense of rape victims, rape victims get to allow what are allowed to determine what restorative justice looks like for them. For some rape victims, restorative justice is not a criminal complaint. Certainly would not be a criminal acquittal. So I do not pass judgment on these women

if for them, if their allegations are true and what their restorative justice looks like is a public hearing, is a transparent hearing, then I do not pass judgment on them. I think that... Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, so that's just my whole point.

I don't think that it's appropriate to dictate to a rape victim what their restorative justice looks like. I don't think it's appropriate to dictate that they receive justice strictly through the criminal justice system. So I ask this question then to all three of you. Is it appropriate for them to dictate to him. Because what they've said is we will only participate in an impeachment inquiry. Right. It is appropriate for them to dictate how they want to handle this. Absolutely. Nothing has happened to him besides what is being said. He has the right to defend himself. And none of us can sit here and say who's telling the truth or who's lying, but I

do know that nothing in that tweet is proof that these women are lying. So, here's the question. So, here's the question. First of all, you said nothing has happened to him. Yeah, he's still lieutenant governor. He has lost...

No, no, no, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. I'm walking through. He's yes. Yes. First of all, there has been no outcome because there's been no impeachment hearing and there's been no criminal investigation. So all you have right now are allegations made by these two women, denials by him. They're saying we want a hearing to be able to we want a hearing to take place for us to be able to air our grievances. They're saying we will participate in an impeachment inquiry. He's saying, wait a minute.

If you say this happened and you have two, you got two DAs who said we will investigate, file a complaint. And he said, I got no problem participating in any criminal inquiry. Now, so we step back and say, okay, two complaints by them, complaint by him. So then the question is, do they get the benefit of the doubt? Does he get the benefit of the doubt? Or is it just them?

Well, at the end of the day, it's like you said, Merlin, it's innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately for both parties, there will be no final judgment on it, whether it's the jury of public opinion in which these women haven't fared that much better than Justin Fairfax and they don't have the benefit

of being an elected official in the state of Virginia. They have been, you know, dragged through the mud. He's been dragged through the mud as well. And so at the end of the day, it's going to just be an impasse. To me, it seems like he's picking the story back up. I don't know if there's something else that precipitated

his tweet or this story, but... Oh, no. No, the reason his whole deal is, first of all, here's the piece. There are people who are announcing their... This is, first of all, understand. There piece. There are people who are announcing their, this is, first of all, understand. There are people who are announcing they want to run for governor. In Virginia, the governor can only serve for one term. The moment he was elected lieutenant governor, he was the prohibited favorite to run for governor.

So his deal is, wait a minute. And here's a piece. I've said it before. Do I know Justin? Yeah. Is he an alpha? Yes. Is he in the boule?

Yes. I've actually had him on the show. What he said was his deal is, wait a minute. What am I supposed to do if I've been accused and I say it's not true? How do I defend myself? And I think this is where the same thing is playing out right now when it comes to the allegations

against Joe Biden. So the New York Times had a big deal where they're like, well, this is why we took so long investigating the allegations against Biden compared to the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. What happened here was, in the case of Vanessa Tyson, she went to the Washington Post.

The Washington Post interviewed her, went through the whole deal, and then decided not to do a story. A year goes by. When the Northam blackface photo comes out, that weekend, it was as if by that Monday Northern was going to resign that Sunday night Tyson post a comment to a friend and the friend leaks the comment and that's how her allegation became public and so that's what happened there and so what you have here is you have a conundrum where you have two women who say this happened. He says it was consensual. It did not happen. He now comes in and says, wait a minute. I know that was a person who was in the room. And he's saying, why, why did Watson never bring that person up? Why did her attorney never bring that person up? So the question then becomes, how do you even have it investigated if all they want is an impeachment hearing

and he's saying, wait a minute, you can actually still file a criminal complaint that's within the statute of limitations where they can actually investigate him and potentially file charges. Yeah, I have the feeling that nothing was actually done. Definitely not. Hold on, hold on.

So Brooke first, Reesey, then Greg. Brooke, Brooke. And shockingly, I never got the vibe that Northam was gonna resign. Definitely not when it looked like he was about to- It was close. Show off the moonwalk during a press conference. No, no, it was good. But I also think that- It was close. I get what you're saying. But what we have right now is two people who are telling different versions of a story.

There's an allegation of three people. But there were women on one side. There was allegations that were made. He's saying they're not true. Both of them want to handle this in different ways. None of that is proof of either person's story. And I can't sit here and say that, like, pretend as if the world is unfair to men when it comes to rape allegations. No, no, no, no.

The way he wants it to be handled is it's not happening that way. What do I know? Like pretend as if the world is unfair to men when it comes to rape allegations. No, no, no, no. The way he wants it to be handled, it's not happening that way. No, no, no. Actually, the way all three want to handle it is not happening. Right. Recy, go ahead. Yeah, but again, I have to just bring it back to the point that a criminal investigation has a higher standard of proof, a higher burden of proof. It's far more likely to result in no charges being brought whatsoever.

And so he in that case, would he get to say I've been exonerated? Of course. That's that's the person that he's going to say. Well, how about this here? So, OK, how about this here? So what if that was an impeachment hearing and he doesn't get impeached? Does he still say, I get exonerated? He could just as easily say he's exonerated in that instance as well. But, again, it's, like I said, it's a matter of restorative justice.

I don't think that any person gets to demand what restorative justice looks like for a woman. I don't think that a woman not wanting to subject herself to a criminal complaint that's likely to end in no charges whatsoever is somehow lying or is sinister. It's an impasse. So let me ask you this, Recy. He has this stain on his reputation.

If he's not innocent, then he doesn't suffer any kind of criminal charges or anything like that. But it damages his political career. You do have to wonder about the timing with the whole Blackface scandal. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to politicize two rape victims. But here's the problem, though.

Here's the deal, though. It is politicized because here's the piece. You get Republicans who are saying, yeah, we're open for an impeachment inquiry. Want to take out, obviously, a Democrat lieutenant governor. When we say no person gets to decide what restorative justice is. OK, so the issue that you're now dealing with, though, is that, so let's just say, let's say Justin Fairfax wasn't lieutenant governor and there was no access

to an impeachment inquiry. Well, then, what other process do you have other than a criminal? You could say, well, that's a civil one. Huh? Maybe the women would have kept quiet at that point. I think what happens when somebody has, if he wasn't lieutenant governor, maybe,

I mean, there's other reasons why women don't come forward other than the idea that, so like, you can look at it two ways. You can look at it like, possibly these women were like, absolutely not. He cannot govern a state. Absolutely not. That crosses the line. I have to say something. I'm willing to put my story out there and all of my personal business out there because this is just too far. Or you can say, oh, it's a political hit job because his opponents don't want him to be governor. It just seems like it's weighing real heavy on the second one. And I that's that's not a joke.

Well, it's not. Here's the deal, Greg. What is before us again? And this is where I think if you're a man or you're a woman and you're looking at this, the question then comes out. What's fair and just? And do you even arrive at a point where you reach a conclusion?

If you're these two women and they say, we want justice, but we only want to do it this way. Got it. Fairfax over here is saying, wait a minute, I ain't do this. So, what's justice for him?

Does he get the opinion or the doubt? And that's really sort of where this thing now sits, which is why I think, unlike other people, they would just be just not even bringing it up. His whole deal is like, no, I'm going to keep talking about this. And that actually was the headline thing in the Washington Post, why Justin Fairfax continues to talk about this.

Yeah, no question. I mean, clearly he's talking about it. Hold on, Greg Van Rese. Greg, go ahead. Clearly he's talking about it because, among other things, his political future is at stake. Let's be very clear. Black people don't get the benefit of the doubt. There is no, I mean, I think I learned that probably my first week of law school. There is no such thing as innocent until proven guilty. You've got a serial sexual abuser, self-celebrating sexual abuser, who's the president of the United States. And those hillbillies in the legislature in Richmond have no investment in the women or men involved in this.

And whether it be the rape of Recy Taylor in Alabama, whether it be Joanne Little killing her captor and then being persecuted during the 1970s, whether it be, you read the book, The Dark End of the Street, Rosa Parks, her initial forays into politics were taking the testimony of rape victims in Alabama. These are black women. You know, you don't accuse white people of anything. And in this set of circumstances, there is black people on black people crying. And so when you start talking about the idea of innocence until proven guilty, it's a myth.

And when we disaggregate a story like this and normalize gender as if somehow it operates outside of the field of race, we are left with the idea that these black women will be treated like white women. There is no common standard. So yes, I think we should believe people. We should believe women. And yes, I think Justin Fairfax should continue to pursue the strategy that will unearth what he sees to be the truth. And as we say, there are conflicting stories, but I guess my final, finally, my question is this. If you're in, as I said before, if you are in a system where we know that it is a human system and it's not perfect and it's not math and there's no innocent

until proven guilty, what are the best possible circumstances for trying to discover the truth if we assume that if the notion of woman, the social construct of woman, somehow converges with biology, then you've got a woman who is in charge of investigation in one state and a woman who is in charge of investigation in the other state who have said we will pursue this, would we then say that they might have a level of sensitivity to the concerns of other black women who might be reticent in a criminal process? I don't have an answer. I'm just saying we should think a little bit more systematically about this nature of this and take away this idea that any of these things operate in this ideal world. We're living in a world, and that world is a human world, and race away this idea that any of these things operate in this ideal world. We're living in a world, and that world is a human world, and race in this society is the centerpiece of how we should be examining any of this.

Final comments before I go to Gerald Albright. Recy, go ahead. My final comment is that I agree with you, Dr. Carr. Race does play an issue on it. The fact that these are two black women who have accused Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax of it is why he is able to, you know, not have been subjected to more rigorous investigation in Virginia in terms of a political investigation. It is why it's so easy to be dismissive of these women. It's why it's so—and I'm not saying that that's what you gentlemen are doing,

but I'm saying in general, Black women as rape victims are not valued as much. Look at how many women had to be subjected to R. Kelly before anything was done. It took dozens of people to come forward. And I'm not putting Justin Fairfax on that level. But, yes, when we talk about race, we cannot just talk about the persecution of Black men. We also have to talk about the dismissal and the violence that Black women are subjected to. And so we do not know what happened,

and we might not get to an understanding of what happened in a transparent or public way, whether it's criminal investigation or a political investigation. But that's just the circumstances that we find ourselves. Well, actually, it's I think the reason you have not seen a political investigation in Virginia. First of all, let's fully explain that. One, what happened was in Virginia, you have the governor, lieutenant governor and then the attorney general. What happened was the allegation, the blackface comes out, it hits Northam.

And then when it looked as if Fairfax was going to ascend to the governor's mansion, what happened after that? The blackface picture came out of the attorney general. And so here you had two white men, blackface, blackface, in between a black man accused of sexual assault. And then you had Republicans who were saying, well, let's go after impeachment hearings for Fairfax. The people say, oh, hold up. So y'all Republicans ain't going to say jacked by two white men, but then you're going to target the black man. So in that case, it's not they weren't listening to two black women. What you had are the dynamics of Republicans, and now the Democrats, after the last election,

controlled both state houses. You had that political dynamic that was going on. Then it was like, oh, so y'all are going to take the brother out, but you're going to ignore the two white men who bracket him. All of that, and then what Greg is saying, then it was like, oh, wait a minute, there's a black female DA in Boston, there's a black female DA in Raleigh where Duke is.

And so you're right. You got a black man, two black women, two black DAs, and all of this mixed in. Go ahead. Final comment, Brooke. And I totally understand what you're saying, and I get what you're saying, but we can't dismiss these women's stories. No, no, no. I'm not dismissing.

I'm just laying out facts. Go ahead. No, but it's like what people do when they bring up Weinstein in defense of, like, R. Kelly. Just because there were two very clearly people who did something wrong doesn't mean that this story doesn't matter, too. It has nothing to do with each other for me. Oh, no, no, no, it matters.

What I'm saying is what happened in Virginia. So when Recy said that the political issue there, the dynamics were I was walking people through exactly what happened in Virginia. So when Reesey said that the political issue there, the dynamics were, I was walking people through exactly what happened and it was like, Northam, then it was like Fairfax, then the AG came in. And so now people in Virginia were like,

okay, so do we go after Fairfax and ignore Northam and Mark, I forgot his last name, the AG, do we go after? All of that was, it was happening all at the same time. That's what happened there. Go ahead.

Yeah, but none of the facts that we have that we've all thrown out, because we've all acknowledged that we don't know exactly what happened. But all of the facts that we've thrown out, all of the different processes and the timelines, none of that means that these two women are not telling the truth. Right. No, no. We haven't thrown out. Right.

But what is happening. Right. I'm simply, first of all, off... Right. But what is happening... Right. I'm simply... First of all, for people who don't even understand exactly what happened. So this is all things that have happened.

We're still at the point here of, okay, how do you move forward? There are people who are saying Fairfax should not run for governor. There are people who are saying, wait a minute, he hasn't been convicted.

There's been nothing. Why shouldn't he run? Then you have people who are saying, wait a minute, he hasn't been convicted. There's been nothing. Why shouldn't he run? Then you have people who are saying, well, they should be believed. Others who are saying, he should believe. And what you're dealing with here, again, is a situation where you have allegations, a denial, and you really have no path to even have any sort of conclusion, if you will. That's the conundrum all of this is in. Now that he throws out, which is why we're doing the story, now that he throws out that there was another

person present, now the question comes in, okay, does Meredith Watson and her attorney respond to that? Was somebody else there? Yes or no? That's what we'll have to see. Finish, Brooke, and then I gotta go to Gerald. No, no, and I respect that. It's just they don't have to. And that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't give us a new set of facts on which person is telling the truth. Right, but no,

it's tough to have a story like this, and there is nothing. But yeah, it's not going the way that he would like it. It looks like they're saying life hasn't gone the way they would like it. And if he wants to run for governor, he will run for governor. And the people on the side that are saying he should still run for governor, they'll vote for him. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's and this is this is the deal. No one is saying you do not have a process where did have a process, but they want it one way.

He said there's another way. So the question is, what happens? And we'll see what now happens, if there's any response from Meredith Watson or her attorney after the rash of tweets took place today. Just really quick, one more thing. Also, because the way this is being discussed as far as like, a criminal investigation does not have to be initiated by the alleged victim so it doesn't i guess that's part of this as well it does not have to be an issue they don't have

to go and say he's saying go to them and get this initiated they'll do it they could be investigating this good point so that's well that's up to those da's it has nothing to do with the victim exactly that's up to those that's up that's up to those that's up to those da's they might actually as black women they might be being sensitive to those black women and the thing that always bothers me is you know rape is not a woman's issue if our community understands that every woman's got a father, brothers, friends. I mean, the same way that every man has. I mean, we think about this thing as if these are individual, these constructs are not living people. And it may very well be

that these two women who are district attorneys are saying, we're not going to put those sisters through that. That's a very good point, though. They don't have to. Yeah though they don't have to yeah they don't have to have their permission yeah so where are the da's good question they can investigate and so far they haven't so we'll actually see what happened next brooke reese greg i certainly appreciate it thanks a bunch folks we told you thanks a lot gerald albright was me raising money for musician reliefs fund uh he's actually uh live streaming that as we speak uh there was some issue we're supposed to go to it at 7 45, but there were some issues. They had to shut the live stream down and came back. So let's go to it right now. Lovely day, lovely day, lovely day Ooh, ooh

Every time I look at you, baby I know it's gonna be I know it's gonna be Lovely, lovely Lovely day It's gonna be Lovely Lovely Lovely day Lovely day Lovely day Lovely day

Lovely day Lovely day Lovely day Lovely day Lonely days Woo, lovely days Whoo! Lovely day. Whoo! Rest in peace. Rest in heaven, Bill. God bless his family.

Sending condolences to them. All right, y'all. We're going to keep it moving. Let's see. Let's see. So this song has been with me for a number of years. A little quick story. I was in Nairobi, Kenya some years ago And I'll paint the picture for you, I was in my hotel room, it was about 6, 6.30am

And I just woke up off the pillow, like I always do, thank God And I was singing this song, I couldn't get this song out of my head And I'm like, wow, why am I singing this song, I couldn't get this song out of my head. And I'm like, wow, why am I singing this song? And it was interesting because being a jazz guy, I'm normally listening to all the jazz greats, you know, George Duke, Herbie, Stanley Clark, all the wonderful jazz greats. But this song came out of the pop world, and it came from a wonderful group called the Carpenters and I'm a big fan of the Carpenters but I just don't wake up especially at 6 a.m. singing Carpenter songs you know so but it felt good and I'm now walking around the room

and I'm singing this song and it feels so good and I promised made a promise to myself that when I got back to the States, I would go in the studio and record an instrumental version of this song. So we did. And I know you know this song. I'm sure it's been with you for decades, as it's been with me. It's a song called Close to You. And you remember the sweet version that the Carpenters did, nice and light and airy. Well, we decided to, you know, I'm that contemporary jazz R&B guy.

I had to mix some funk in there. So our version sounds a little bit different. But we hope you enjoy our version of Close to You. Check it out. Субтитры подогнал «Симон» Close to you ¶¶ I'm so close to you. ¶¶ Close to you ¶¶ It's to you It's to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you

I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you

I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you

I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you I'm so close to you ¶¶? ? ? All right, y'all, close to you. A little bit different version than the original, right? And I got to say that those background vocals were shared by myself and my lovely daughter, Selena Albright. And she and her great husband, Josh Morey, brought us a wonderful grandson, Gavin Eli, about three weeks ago. So out of all the bad news in 2020, the creator will bless you with some good news.

Me and my wife, Lennis, are grandparents for the first time. So you know this kid is going to be spoiled rotten. Selena and Josh, it's coming. But we're just so happy and elated. All right. Just another memo, another commercial. One of the main reasons why we're doing this broadcast is because we want to acquire donations for musicians around the world who are in dire need of some funding. You know, they're having glitches with the stimulus packages.

And then you have over 22 million people filing for unemployment. of some funding. You know, they're having glitches with the stimulus packages and then you have over 22 million people filing for unemployment and you know the system's crippled now so we have to find creative ways and more direct ways to get funding to people who really really need it. That's what we're all about and music always seems to be both in good situations and bad situations the anchor, you know, the foundation to make people feel better. And so that's why we're here. We're messengers of the music and I speak on behalf of all my colleagues who are doing the same thing. I've been on the internet pretty fluently watching

other musicians do live broadcasts. I just saw the great Marcus Anderson earlier today. He had a great show. You know, just a lot of folks that are just reinventing the wheel right now. So I'm on that mission too. Alright, so we want you to donate once again at Cash App. We don't have PayPal. Just the only option today is Cash App. If you don't have the app, just quickly download it. It's easy to set up. And all over the world, we want you to donate because this is truly a worthy cause. My username is GeraldAA, G-E-R-A-L-D-A-A, with the dollar sign in front. And if you forget that, once you get your cash app set up,

just put in my name, Gerald Albright, and then my icon will come up and you'll see, you know, the true Gerald Albright account there. Okay. So thank you in advance for your donations. We appreciate you. We know that our wonderful nation always comes through when it's time. And it's the people of the world who are going to solve this problem. You know, the leadership, good or bad, the people have to come together and make this happen. So let's do all of our social distancing. Let's wear our masks. Let's do everything that they're telling us to do. Let's stay indoors if we can. I know that's hard. It's even hard for me. I'm a golfer, so I'm pouting over here. I need to play some

golf, but it's all good. All right, no more of the commercial. We're going to go back to the music. Most people who have come to my shows know that I'm a huge James Brown fan, big James Brown fan. I was that little guy at seven or eight years old on a hardwood floor with a broomstick trying to do the mashed potatoes into James Brown. You won't see any of that on this live stream but that's how it was back in the day. But James is a big part of my production, my songwriting, my approach to music because James brought funk like nobody else. But we're gonna do a flip, we're gonna do a 180

actually. It's not gonna be a funky song, it's gonna be one of his famous ballads and I recorded it some years ago and I pretty much do it in all of my shows. This is called It's a Man's Man's Man's World. We hope you enjoy our rendition. Check it out. Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo Hey guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo ¶¶ guitar solo Thank you. guitar solo ¶¶ Yes, indeed. Man's world. All right, y'all. I need about a 10-second pause here.

Saxophone players know this. Every now and then, you will have a pad that sticks and won't open properly when it's time. So let me just fix this real quick because we want everything to be on the money for you. All right. Hopefully that fixes it. All right, y'all. Are you having a good time?

I know I am. You having a great time, too? All right. My wife's having a good time, so happy wife, happy life. You know what I'm saying? Yes, Lord. Okay, so, yes, we live in Colorado now. We've been here since 2005, so we're celebrating 15-plus years of being here. We love Colorado. I'm originally from Los Angeles, but in 2005, we decided that we needed a life change, you know, just kind of slow the roll a little bit and so we moved and out of that move came a wonderful

project called New Beginnings and it's a tune that I had the pleasure of writing and producing and so we'd like to do that for you right now this happens to be the title track New Beginnings this is the current version of it which shows up on my 30 project which I'm celebrating 30 years. Actually, it's probably 33, 34 years now of being in the music business as a recording artist. It came out a couple of few years ago. Pick that up, by the way. You can find it up on Amazon or iTunes or we'll ship it to you directly.

We can make it happen, Captain. So this is New Beginnings. We hope you enjoy our version of, the current version of New Beginnings. Check it out. Thank you. Thank you. this is an iHeart podcast