#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Hegseth Confirmation Hearing, DNC Chair race, Jack Smith report,  'My 1st Ankle Monitor' Outrage

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

1.14.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Hegseth Confirmation Hearing, DNC Chair race, Jack Smith report,  'My 1st Ankle Monitor' Outrage Senators fired questions at Pete Hegseth, the nominee for Defense Secretary, about his management experience, sexual misconduct allegations, and views on women at today's confirmation hearing.   Portions of Jack Smith's report detail why the incoming convict-in-chief would have been convicted had the DOJ had the guts to prosecute.  We'll show you the video of a black 11-year-old girl who was detained because some New York Sheriff's deputies misidentified her as a car thief.  Roland talks to Ken Martin, another candidate who wants to lead the democratic national convention.  #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. All right, folks, today is Tuesday, January 14th, 2025, coming up on Roller Mark Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. The grossly unqualified Fox News anchor Pete Hexeth, who Trump has nominated for defense secretary, was grilled by Democratic senators about his management experience,

sexual misconduct allegation, and views on women and DEI in his confirmation hearings. Republicans, what do they do? Made excuses for truly one of the most unqualified nominees ever to be Secretary of Defense. Portions of Jack Smith's report detail why the twice-impeached, criminally convicted felon, in chief, would have been convicted

had the DOJ had the guts to prosecute Donald Trump. We'll also show you the video of a black 11 year old girl who was detained because some New York sheriff's deputies misidentified her as a car thief. Also, Ken Martin, another candidate who wants to leave the Democratic National Convention, will join us. And no, there's no relation to Roland Martin. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, there's no relation to Roland Martin. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Let's go. He's knowing, putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling, yeah

It's Uncle Gro-Gro-Yell Yeah, yeah It's Rolling Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah Rolling with rolling now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know he's rolling, Martel. Martel. Jamie Harris, your decision to step down, not to run for reelection as chair of the Democratic National Committee,

has set off a number of people seeking that position. Democrats will vote in a few weeks for that. One of the folks who wants to be the chair of the National Party is Ken Martin of Minnesota. He joins us right now on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Glad to have you on the show. First off, obviously, you have Democrats who are upset, some who are depressed, angry as a result of Vice President Kamala Harris not winning against Donald Trump. Frankly, I think it's the problem that I have for so many Democrats is they're showing how weak they are.

Look, you retain a number of Senate positions. You did not win a couple of races, of course, in Pennsylvania and Ohio. You also could almost took control of the House were it not for gerrymandering in North Carolina. So let's start off here. It's not like this party has to completely be up in it. And so what do you see as necessary to win back the White House and win back Congress? Well, first off, Roland, thank you so much for having me. And boy, I love your intro. And, you know, I know you said we're not related, but you never know.

I mean, there's a lot of Martins out there. But let me just say this. Let me get back to business here. You're not wrong, right? This was a close election, 114,000 votes in three battleground states that swung our way, and we'd be celebrating President Harris right now, right? 7,000 votes in three battleground congressional districts, and we'd be with Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. So this was a very close election. It doesn't change the fact that to so many, this election was a big punch in the gut, right? Because we all believe in that improbable 107-day campaign that Vice President Harris

led. We all believe that there was a chance to win this thing and that she was putting us in the best position to do that We asked her to do, as I said, the improbable during that campaign We asked her to infuse our party with energy and excitement, and she did that We asked her to raise the money to help us compete everywhere, and she did that But there's still questions left, of course, for all of us after this election loss As to how we lost ground with so many people throughout this country, that we know that we lost ground,

for instance, with Latino voters, with women, with young voters, with working-class households. You can go across the board. We lost ground. And it wasn't a singular occurrence of just this election, of course, Roland. We know we've been losing ground for some time with many parts of our Democratic coalition. And we've got to figure out a path to get them back. Look, I think after every election, we should have a post-election review, right? One of my critiques was in 2020, after Joe Biden won, we didn't do a post-election review.

And you know this better than anyone, Roland. You know, when you win elections, people think you're a genius and you did nothing wrong. And when you lose elections, people think you're an idiot and everything you did was wrong. It needs to be thrown out with the bathwater. Neither are true. It's somewhere in the middle. And so we need to really dig deep, be very introspective about what worked, what didn't work, and make sure we fix what we need to to win elections again. And the last thing I'll say is I'm not here to win arguments. I'm here to win elections again. And what we've done in Minnesota is unmatch any of my competitors in this race.

I'm 25-0 in a purple state of winning statewide elections. I haven't lost since I've been the chair of the Minnesota DFL. And I think what we've done there could be scaled up to the DNC to help us win again and to make sure in this year, by the way, in 2025, when we have critical elections in Virginia, in New Jersey, in Mississippi, in Louisiana, that we're ready to not only win again, but to springboard in those critical 2026 elections. There was analysis that showed some 19 million Joe Biden voters in 2020 stayed home. I see it consistently on this show for a year and a half and definitely last year said directly to the Harris, to the Biden Harris campaign, then the Harris walls campaign,

that your biggest enemy was not Donald Trump. It was the couch. Why do you think people chose the couch as opposed to the Democratic nominee? What was it? What were the issues? Well, let me tell you something. And you saw this research last year, Roland, which really should have been the canary in the coal mine for all of us, right? It showed that for the first time in modern history, the perceptions of the two political parties have changed. And why is this important? I'll get to that in a moment. Now, the majority of Americans believe that the Republican Party best represents the interests of the working class and the poor, and the Democratic Party is the party of the wealthy and the elites. Now, just to prove the point, the only two groups that we actually overperformed with in this last election cycle

were wealthy households and college-educated voters. Now, this is a damning indictment on our party. That's not who we are. We are the party that's out. But is it the indictment because they were not properly messaging, or was it that they were not supporting the right policies? Well, let me say this, because I think you've hit on something, a really important distinction, because I don't think it's a wholesale rejection of our policies. And let me tell you why. In the state of Missouri, voters showed up and passed a minimum wage increase, paid family leave, abortion protections, all by wide margins. Then they went down the ballot and voted for Donald Trump and the Republicans.

So it's not that as if Americans are not supporting the policies that we champion. It's the fact that they're not connecting those policies, which they believe will improve their lives, back to our party and candidates. So it's a messaging problem first, and it's a brand problem. And I'll come back to that in a second, which is, for me, the majority of people in our coalition who've left us feel that we're not fighting for them anymore, right? They feel that we are only showing up to their doors, having conversations with them four months before an election. And the only thing we're asking them to do, of course, is to vote for our candidates and our party, which is why I support what we do in Minnesota. We have a permanent campaign where we are communicating with voters all the time. So the first conversation we

have with them is not a conversation where we're asking them to do something for our party and candidates. That should be the last conversation we have with any voter. The first conversation we have with the voter has to be listening to them about their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations for their community, eventually building a relationship with them around shared values. And then, like I said, the last conversation should be asking them to help our candidates and our party. We have to get away from the transactional organizing model we have and start earning the trust and building relationships built around shared values with voters again. And so that means we're organizing in those communities every single day. We're present,

we're having conversations, and we're earning their trust. Second is we have to rev up our communications infrastructure. Think about this, Roland. The Republicans did a masterful job, starting in 2020, right after Joe Biden was elected, of going into these new information spaces and essentially beating the hell out of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. And they did that for years in an unimpeded manner, right, on podcasts and gaming services and streaming services and all these new information spaces where Democrats were not competing. They were using micro-influencers, paying people who were already

on these platforms to essentially spew their misinformation and disinformation. And by the time we actually started to engage in those same platforms, the die was already cast. They had already defined us before we had defined ourselves. And so that's why I say we asked Kamala Harris to do the improbable, which was to change people's minds and perceptions just a couple months before the election. You see, I believe, and I could be wrong, but I believe we lost this election before we ever got to the election year because we weren't consistently messaging about Joe Biden, the Democratic Party. We waited until an election year to start revving up our communications infrastructure and our organizing infrastructure. Well, I mean, I can tell you the reason that

is true, because I said directly in November of 2023 that I said it everywhere, and I said directly to principals, campaign leaders as well, that January to July should have been the education informative stage. There should have been these town halls all across the country. They should have had mayors and city councilmen, state reps, state senate, and others holding these different events. And now, because I have to inform you before I can get you to register, and then I can't get you to vote unless I get you registered, those things didn't happen. The other thing is this here. You talk about the absolute failure to spend money with platforms like this.

I got no problem saying this. One of the reasons why the right is able to have that ecosystem, because they fund the ecosystem. They actually spend the resources. I can tell you, we had a meeting last year. The Senate Democrats had their black media roundtable. This is a perfect example of how just dumb they were thinking. The rules that were set was that the discussion was on the record, but audio only. Now, when we were talking to us, they said, hey, we can record it, as we kept asking.

So I show up, camera, we're in the live streaming. They go, hey, are you recording this in live streaming? Yes, we are. Oh, it's not allowed. And I literally said, literally, I text Senator Cory Booker and Senator Warnock saying, these rules are stupid. And so when they came to me for a question, I said, here's the first thing, guys. Y'all are complaining about all these great things y'all have done and no one knows.

I said, because your rules are analog. I said, you have an on-the-record conversation that's audio only? I said, this is dumb. I said, whereas one post of a video statement can go viral on Instagram or on TikTok or on Facebook or on Twitter or on Fanbase. I said, so this is dumb. And so those things happen. And so there were 20-plus senators there. In the year since we had that,

Senator Klobuchar has been on. Senator Casey came on. We did not get Senator Sherrod Brown to come on. Even though he was in the competitive race, couldn't do it. I can go down the line. The Senators, Schumer couldn't get him on. I

specifically called out, was blasting Nancy Pelosi when she was Speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi wouldn't do black media. Nancy Pelosi wouldn't do it. April Ryan spent two years trying to get her to interview with her, and when I called her out, they finally did their interview with April. April called to thank me, saying, I wouldn't have got it without you.

Joe Madison, God rest his soul, had been trying to get her on for several years, and when Joe went on the air and said, I'm standing with Roland Martin, Pelosi's people were listening, and then they had her on the show the next day. And so part of this thing, and so even on this show, today, we called most of the senators on the Armed Services Committee, and not available, not available, not available. But I guarantee you they're going to run to MSNBC. So part of this deal is the people who are in power in your party, there's only one daily black news show. This one. This is the only one.

And I don't understand why they're not realizing what's going on, but they want to kill themselves to go to CNN or go to MSNBC. But when you ignore platforms like this and others, yeah, you're going to keep getting your asses kicked. Well, this is the problem, Roland, right? I mean, we celebrated last year. Many people looked at that media spend and the fact that Harris campaign,

Harris-Wallace campaign was outspending Trump four to one on broadcast TV. Well, to your point, you know where they were putting their money? They were putting it into podcasts and gaming services and other spaces, right? The reality is, is that we've got to understand that we are operating on an outdated media environment. Well, where they've understood and are much more sophisticated is that we have transitioned to a space right now, the American public, 40% of the American public say they avoid the news at

all costs, right? Yet they're getting information on a pretty regular basis, on a constant basis. 24-7, 365, people are getting barraged with information, yet we're not on those platforms. We're not visiting with you. We're not on these other platforms. We're not engaging in these new information environments the way we need to. And that's going to change. As I said, when I get to the DNC, and I will likely be the next DNC chair, when I get to the DNC, the first thing we're going to do is look at all those damn contracts down there. And if you're a media consultant or you're a consultant for the DNC and you're trading in outdated practices and tactics because it helps line your pocket, you're not going to get a contract with the DNC. What's important for me is for us to win

elections, right? And that means we can't trade in outdated practices, including basically taking our ad spend and putting it on broadcast TV, right? Broadcast TV. I'm 51 years old. I don't watch broadcast TV anymore. I don't know anyone my age that does. And I say this to you because of this. We have an opportunity right now, in this moment, and whenever there's a crisis like this, there's an opportunity. And the opportunity is to shake things up and not do business as usual. Start to realize that we have to reimagine the DNC. And for me, that's what I'm going to do when I'm the next DNC chair. One of the things that my book is, the book came out, and it's called White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. A lot of Democrats have been doing all they can running from the reality of race and how people vote and how a lot of white voters vote based upon culture and not based upon their economic needs. Biden-Harris administration, bent over backwards,

did more for unions than any president since FDR, but you had a lot of these union people who still stood up and was backing Trump. And what I've said is when I see these Democrats keep running around, Bernie Sanders keep doing it and so many others, they keep talking about, oh, the Democrats have lost the working class. No. The Democrats have lost the white working

class. The black working class voter still is voting Democratic. Are you willing to have direct, real conversations with white voters about them voting based upon whiteness, about their perceptions

of black people getting things, of their fear of a changing demographic. Because I just think that Democrats have been absolutely afraid. I've said this to Obama, to Biden. Look, they taught the Affordable Care Act.

The people who have benefited the most from the Affordable Care Act are the sickest, whitest, poorest people living in the reddest states. And so are you willing to literally go to those places and say, hey, look at somebody in the eye and say, you're losing. You may lose the Affordable Care Act because your Republican senator and your Republican governor don't want to expand Medicaid expansion. And that's why your rural hospitals are shutting down. And so, you know, what kind of fight are you willing to have to battle with people and to be ruthless about it and to challenge them on those points? Because I just think too many Democratic leaders have been afraid to look broke, poor, in many cases, uneducated, white, conservative voters and challenge them on those points.

Well, first off, absolutely. I agree with you spot on. There's a great book, I don't know if you've read it, called The Politics of Resentment, which is- I haven't. Yep. Dr. Katherine Kramer out of the University of Wisconsin studied the rural Trump voter after the 2016 election. And I think what you're hitting on is absolutely right. And, you know, for me, I'll just share a couple personal anecdotes. My brother, who's a union carpenter—I also come out of the labor movement, out of

the building trades—my brother voted for Obama in 8 and 12, and Democrats well before that. He voted for Trump in 16 and 12, and Democrats well before that. He voted for Trump in 16, 20, and 24. My father-in-law, who's a beef cattle farmer in southern Minnesota, the same thing, right, voted Democrat his whole life and found some appeal with Donald Trump. And so when I talk about the— What was the appeal? I'm just curious.

What was the appeal? I mean, I think for my father-in-law, and it's different than my brother, right? My father-in-law, I'll just share a story. As I asked him, well, why did you vote for Donald Trump? And thought I would get something around egg policy or farming. He's 85 years old. His family's farmed that land for 135 years. And he starts telling me a story. He says, look, none of my kids, your wife included, want to come home and farm the land. My high school that your wife went to, that I went to, has consolidated now. And I don't have a Friday night football game to go to. The clinic that's in our town that I take my wife to for her health care, I now have to drive 50 miles away to get health

care for my wife. Right. You know, you go down the list and you start realizing, by the way, as he's saying this, he's feeling like his identity is being taken away from him, that his community is drying up underneath of him. And he feels like no one gives a damn about that. And and so along comes a snake oil salesman named Donald Trump saying, well, let's make America great again, right? I believe for him, he had a knot of anxiety. He's 85 years old. He had a knot of anxiety about his future. He should be living carefree, not worried about his future, living out the last days of his life. But this man felt like his identity, his community were changing around him, and no one gave a damn about it.

Not just the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party. And again, along comes a snake oil salesman telling him we're going to make America great again. You and I both know what that was called for. Of course. But for Dave O'Rourke, he felt like, you know what? Maybe someone actually sees and hears me, right? Which is crazy because more manufacturing was brought back to places like that by Joe Biden than Donald Trump. Donald Trump killed farms with his tariffs. And the thing that Springfield, Ohio, that was a dying city.

And here's the thing with immigration. All these people say how they hate immigration, but a lot of these Midwestern towns that have seen population decreases, massive decreases, which means that you don't have home buying, sales tax drop, no property taxes. So then these immigrants come on, come in. It's like, oh my God, our community is changing. Yeah, but you were also dying. So it's as if what they're saying is, hey, we don't want our towns to die. We don't want those black people coming in

or those Mexican people coming in or those Venezuelans or those Colombians. We don't want them coming in. So really what they're saying, Ken, is if we had 20,000 white immigrants come in, we're good. I know, it's ridiculous. And I'll tell you, in Minnesota, you look around our state, what's given rebirth and a renaissance to so many small communities, of course, is immigrants. And to your point, you know, the way that I think, you know, look, let me just say this, because I think

it's really important. I think we've got to get back to a working class agenda. And it's important to realize, as you know, Roland, that the working class is a multiracial, multigenerational group of black, brown and white people who are fighting hard, who were working harder than they ever have before and feeling left behind. That's true of rural white voters. That's true of rural white voters. That's true of working class voters in the inner city. That's true of working people throughout this country. And I will just say this. I don't disagree that we have to find a way to connect again with people who live in rural parts of this country. You cannot write off an area that might seem red or write off people who may have voted for Donald Trump. There's no such thing as a perpetual red area or perpetual blue area, right? We have to be willing to talk with voters throughout this

country again, which is why I support in my plan and every county strategy and making sure that we are competing in all 3,244 counties and every zip code and that we're contesting races up and down the ballot. We can't just be the party that's focused on federal races, right? But most importantly, that we're connecting with voters and we're not writing voters off, whether they're white, whether they're black, whether they're brown, right, whether they're Asian, whether they're Latino, you know, you name it. The reality is, is our party's got to get back to being the champion for everyone. And that's the thing. I've got two minutes left. I have to ask you this here, and it drives me crazy. Why are Democrats so damn afraid to use the phrase the poor and the

working class? I listen to these candidates and I listen to President Biden a lot, even Vice President Kamala Harris. The middle class, the middle class, the middle class, the middle class. The reality is the working poor. Reverend William Barber talked about this all the time, that if Democrats pick up two to three points among the working poor, they win in every place. But the working poor gets ignored because your Democratic candidates don't even want to mention that.

It's always the middle class. And so, again, that has to be a part of this messaging that you can't just keep talking about the middle class and leaving out the 100 million plus people who are the working poor. Well, you heard me say it earlier. We have to focus on a working class agenda and an agenda who are the working poor. Well, you heard me say it earlier. We have to focus on a working class agenda and an agenda that lifts up the poor. That's who we are as a party, a Democratic Party. Yet we've walked away from that. And I really think, you know, what connects a corn farmer in southern Minnesota with an iron miner on the Iron Range with, you know,

a new refugee in the Twin Cities. It's economics, right? It's people are working their asses off to get ahead in this country. They believe in the American dream that if they work hard and play by the rules, they can climb the economic ladder. Yet so many people have so many barriers in their way to achieve that dream. They don't see our party fighting hard enough to remove those barriers and, frankly, to champion the policies that will actually allow them to achieve that American dream and climb the economic ladder. The reality is to you, what you just said is absolutely right. There are so many people in this country who are the working poor, who can't get ahead, and they see—they voted with Democrats for years years and they never see us standing up and

actually delivering on the promises that we made to them. That's the other piece of it. You can't my old boss, Paul Wellstone, used to say, never separate the life you lead from the words you speak. The other problem we have is disillusionment amongst people who voted for us for years, who kept voting for us, hoping that their lives would be different. Yet we didn't deliver on those promises when we got to office. So we not only have to get out and campaign permanently, build in relationships with voters again throughout this country, in rural communities, suburban communities, urban communities, but we also have to deliver when we get in power on the promises we made

to actually make a difference in their lives. All right. Ken Martin, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. We'll see what happens with the elections. February 1st, correct? That's correct. Okay. Thanks a lot. All right, folks. Going to go to break. We come back. I'll talk to my panel about what we just heard

from Ken Martin. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Blackstar Network. Hello. I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. And right now we're accepting investors in our $17 million round to revolutionize the future of social media. Today, for just $399, you can own 60 shares of stock in Fanbase at $6.65 a share. Go to startengine.com slash fanbase and invest today.

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Go to startengine.com slash fanbase and own the future of social media. Coming soon to the Blackstar Network. Well, y'all, when you're on that stage and you're seeing two and three, four generations in the audience, that's got to speak to you about the power of what y'all have become.

Oh, most definitely. I think we were doing our show before our break, and remember, I was watching this kid. I could not take my eyes off him because he was about nine or so. He was sitting in the front row. Over on the right-hand side, yes. I was amazed that this kid knew

everything. I was tripping to see how many songs this kid actually knew. And he knew them all. We had to go over there and bring him on stage and take a picture with him, you know, at the end of the show and stuff,

because it was just that amazing. It was like, this is crazy. You know, the music travels everywhere. You know, like what Phillip was saying, seeing his young kid. Then you see, hear our songs on commercials, cold commercials. Then you have the younger ones that sing out, hear our music and animation. On a next A Balanced Life, we talk about how to get in touch with your feelings,

emotions, how to find your North Star, and how to move your life along. Because oftentimes what we'll do is we'll accept what the world says about us as the truth and how we see ourselves, which that can be completely contrary to what the Word of God says about who you are. That's on the next A Balanced Life here on Blackstar Network. Next on Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. Women of color are starting 90% of the businesses in this country. That's the good news. The bad news, as a rule, we're not making nearly as much as everyone else. But joining us on the next Get Wealthy episode is Betty Hines. She's a business strategist, and she's showing women how to elevate other women. I don't like to say this openly,

but we're getting better at it. Women struggle with collaborating with each other. And for that reason, one of the things that I demonstrate in the sessions that I have is that you can go further together if you collaborate. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. This is Tamela Mayne. And this is David Mann. And you're watching Roland Martin. We'll be right back. All right. All right, folks, my panel, Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali, former senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA, joining us out of Washington, D.C., Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeaver,

author of How Exceptional Black Women Lead, Unlocking the Secrets to Creating Phenomenal Success in Career and in Life. It's a long-ass title, Avis. Also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Max Black's Media from National Harbor, Maryland. Ben Dixon, a pastor, political commentator, author of God is Not a Republican. Joining us out of Atlanta.

Glad to have all three of y'all here. Let's get right into it. I'll start with you, Ben. So this is the second candidate we've had on. We had Martin O'Malley on, Ken Martin. We are working on Ben Wickler, some of the others. I'm sorry. I'm not wasting my time with Marianne Williamson because she's not a real candidate for DNC chair.

Let's just be clear. I just think, I just fundamentally believe in that for a DNC chair, they need a fighter. They need a fighter who understands that if you are not

mobilizing and organizing boots on the ground, you're not going to be able to win. Everything can't just be about the national elections. If you're not hitting those local races, those state races, building a bench, raising money in those different cities and states, you can't be successful. Without a doubt, they need a transformation at the DNC. There's no question about that at this point.

The question is whether or not they're going to be willing to take that transformation or make that transformation. I really appreciated the questions that you were asking, Helm. I wanted to know, what are they going to do specifically for the black community to reach out to the black community if they're not doing black media? What are they going to do for the black male voter population that is severely underrepresented in the Democratic Party? What are they going to do about the consultant problem?

They have too many Democratic consultants that run the same playbook. Now, I heard them mention it slightly, but I think that's one of the most prevailing sicknesses in the Democratic Party. They have a set of consultants who get rich no matter what happens in the outcome of the elections. And they continue to fail upwards, continue to get these contracts, continue to hoard over email databases. They charge our black politicians an obscene amount of money and exploit them and end up giving them no type of success. There are levels to changes that have to take place at the DNC, and we need a fighter to make it happen. Also, I think we have to recognize that, um, recognize here...

that, um, that... it's not just a DNC issue. And what I mean by, it's not just a DNC issue, Avis. It used to be that the apparatus that was the chief fundraiser and the chief messenger driver was the party.

But for the Democrats and the Republicans, that's not the case. PACs have completely changed the game. So you can have an individual decide to give $5,200 million to a PAC, and all of a sudden they then are able to do things campaigns and parties cannot do. Now, with the party, they have state parties. They have county parties. It's a whole different deal here. So I think part of the issue here is also how dollars are being allocated, how they're being spent, and then all the entities. has to have a come-to-Jesus meeting with the DNC, Democratic Governors Association, the DCCC, the DSCC, all those other different groups,

because that speaks to party-wide messaging than just the DNC. And I don't think people understand that when they think the DNC chair is over everything, he or she is not. You're exactly right. And this whole issue of it's important, absolutely everything that you just said is absolutely true. It's powerful and important not just because you want continuity with regards to party-wide messaging. We need a better focus on making sure that we don't just put all our eggs in the presidential basket or in federal

election baskets. We need to make sure that we are winning everything from school boards all the way up to state legislatures, all the way up to Congress and the presidency, all of the things. And that has a lot to do with why there has been this disconnect between the messaging of the Democratic Party and what actually gets down to people on the ground. If you have a president, say, for example, maybe pass something that would give people access to health insurance, but then you have state legislators that say, no, not in our state, in states that, honestly, let's just be real, a disproportionate number of Black people live, if we're talking about Southern states, Republican-controlled states, then the full

impact of that legislation doesn't hit the people that need it most. And that's just one example. That happens over and over and over again. And it's because the Democrats have not invested enough in making sure that we are really having not only a 50-state strategy, but a down-up strategy with regards to how we really look to run and win elections. And let's not even get on what's going on with school boards and the attacks against our history and all of that. I mean, that's been very well coordinated. Where is the pushback? Where is our way? Where is our strategy to making sure that our children get the education that they need? It's non-existent. There's a lot of work that the party

needs to do. And I hope that they really have some leadership that's going to look at this from every different perspective that needs some deep, deep changes. You know, Mustafa, when we talk about when Ken Martin talked about

the issues for regular and ordinary people, I mean, if we start going down the line, Democrats have actually passed those issues. But I think what they seem to not understand is that campaigns are not about issues. Campaigns now are about culture. And by trying to deny whiteness is a part of this, trying to deny that wanting the way things used to be is not a part of this, which is also tied into whiteness, then they're going to keep losing. The Republican appeal is based upon that.

But it's also understanding. So, for instance, environmental justice is your lane. To me, they've allowed Republicans to create the idea that climate change issues, bills, proposals, anything dealing with the environment, is a bunch of crazy, out-of-touch, rich people from California and Oregon. I think they have to approach this in, as Joe Madison would say, you got to put it where the goats can get it. They got to look all these, again, broke-ass white conservatives and say, hey, the tornadoes, a lot more frequent now, huh? Guess what? That ain't no Democrat tornado. That ain't no Republican tornado. Oh, guess what? Oh,

y'all want conditions on aid going out to California, huh? Because they're Democrats? How about North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama? When a natural disaster hit, do y'all want conditions put on that based upon your governor's policies? Oh, if y'all want to talk about, let's talk about the air, let's talk about the climate. Go to a place where white people are impacted by polluted rivers and lakes,

and then begin to stand and say, tell me that this is not the environment. I just think that what they're doing is Democrats are playing a PhD level, present a thesis in talking to people on issues as opposed to talking to them on that fourth grade level by which every American newspaper is based on. You just got to, we're everyday people. You got to have everyday conversations. Now, we need to have, we need to be honest that there are many white folks who have difficulty

in having that conversation with folks. They have difficulty in saying that conversation with folks. They have difficulty in saying that the reasons that you have been voting the way that you have is because of whiteness and not because of the needs that you have inside of your respective communities. There are ways of making sure that you can wrap that message in and at the same time helping people to understand these impacts that are happening inside their communities, the dirty water that you're drinking and how that limits your ability to be able to go to work. It limits the ability of your children to be able to learn, so forth and so on, and that you have

had some privilege. Even when you are lower wealth community, sometimes you still have a bit of privilege, but not enough to actually protect you. So, you know, you've got to have that individual. And again, it's about ambassadors, right? Certain people can have conversations with certain folks and it's received where others, it is automatically, you know, it's just not as easy to be able to get that message across. So if, you know, if Mr. Martin is serious about wanting to lead the DNC, then he has to be comfortable in being able to have those conversations in West Virginia and Kentucky and Western Pennsylvania and Ohio and down in Alabama and Mississippi and so forth and so on.

And I know he's from the Midwest, and maybe he doesn't know as much about the South or Appalachia, but you've got to get in there and you've got to have the conversations with folks, because once people have an understanding—and, and East Palestine folks, you know, there were folks who rushed in there and tried to tell them this is not an environmental injustice issue, even though those folks were being exposed to very similar chemicals that folks that were in Cancer Alley down between New Orleans and Baton Rouge have been dealing with for decades upon decades. You know, so you've got these dynamics where you can help people to understand that there are connections, that we're in this together, and that if we come together,

we can actually win. But we've got to have some truth telling and we've got to be able to understand that there's some healing that needs to happen. And you've got to understand you might have a little bit of hurt feelings for a second. But the ultimate goal is to be able to improve your life and your children's and your children's futures. Well, absolutely. And I just think that again, um, when I watch, you know, um, uh, the issues that are advocated and it's just, just some basic stuff. Uh, and, and to me, this thing ain't deep. It ain't complicated. And that was a point there. I remember having a conversation with somebody on the Harris-Walls team. And I said, you know what?

And I had watched. We had live streamed. I had attended these rallies. And finally I said, y'all going to change this damn speech? And what I meant by that was, I said, y'all going to take credit for some shit? Y'all going to help me do that? I said, if I'm giving a speech, I'm going to stand there and say, now I know all these folks talk about how bad the economy is and how rough things are,

but let me tell you what we did. That road, that bridge, that building, that was built because we did that. We did that. We did that. We did that. Plyce did We did that. We did that. Plies did a video saying, damn, Joe, learn to take credit for some stuff. See, this is what I'm talking about. You are going up against somebody, this idiot, this idiot,

who takes credit for stuff that happened that he wasn't even around. And they're just playing a political game, Ben, that no longer exists. That's right. That's because they are being guided by consultants who are running the same playbook that they ran back in 1992 when Bill Clinton ran, right? They have the same mindset, the same mentality. They have not evolved. And the problem is, is because they keep getting the paychecks, Roland, they keep thinking that they can get away with it. And if campaigns don't understand that the consultants that are coming in, predominantly white Democratic consultants that are coming in, they're coming in with old playbooks. The only difference is they have email lists now, and they're not giving the right information.

It's almost so negligent. This is just me. This is just my thinking. You have to forgive me. But it was so negligent that I felt like some of these consultants were just setting up Kamala Harris. They were setting it up for failure from the beginning because of just the number of misses that happened. Change the speech. Go to a different location.

Go to new media. Talk to black media. Talk to black—they were missing all of the key points that would have been necessary to win this election. It is so negligent, but it happens every single election cycle. And if the DNC does not clear house with those people who just made tens of millions of dollars, even though the nation lost, then we're going to see the same problem in 2026 and 2028. And to his point, Avis, I mean,

I'm sitting here looking at these folks on a campaign and I'm like, I don't know what world General Malley Dillon, Stephanie Cutter, David Plouffe, and Quentin Foulkes were in by not recognizing that people were picking the couch. And you're sitting there going, oh y'all gonna put money on the ground? I'm sorry, you don't need entertainers doing mini concerts at rallies. You need boots on the ground.

You need to be saturating every neighborhood, every block, every street, every house, touching them multiple times and having the real conversations. And it was to me, it was just crazy. I didn't like I didn't understand when it was Biden Harris. I was going, why are you assuming people know what your policies are? You had better be having town hall like conversations. And I said every single week. There should have been multiple ones

every single week. Again, that councilman, that state rep, that state senator, that county commissioner, and they were just oh, now we good. Now we good. We all right. we got this whole thing. When people on the ground were going, what the hell

is wrong with you? They were once again distracted by the allure of finally winning white women. They bet the cow, they bet the country on pulling the white woman's vote. They bet the cow. They bet the country on pulling the white woman's vote.

They bet the cow. They bet the country on trying to pull enough Republicans over to vote Democratic that they didn't really prioritize or even respect those longstanding constituents who have typically supported the Democratic Party and who likely would have showed out and showed up more this time had they been respected and courted and spoken to in the way that you've mentioned. It is amazing to me. It's almost like a siren's call. The Democrats continuously, year after year after year, are thinking that they're going to pull a rabbit out of the hat and win the overwhelming majority of white women somehow. They give them a different name every presidential election,

but they always think they're going to do it. And guess what? They still haven't. In fact, they haven't won the white vote since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So I wish they would just pull their heads out of you know where and get back to reality. And it is insulting and it is negligence. And it is as if they set her up because what really pissed me off, honestly, what really pissed me off besides the fact that we didn't need to win this election, we didn't need to lose this election if they would have acted right, was the fact that they're going to sit here and lose the election based on their incompetence

and then turn around and blame wokeness and then turn around and blame Kamala and then turn around and point the finger at everybody else instead of their own stupidity. And they don't need to receive any other dimes of Democratic money when it comes to consulting in the future, because as has been evidenced by this election, they don't know what the hell they're doing. And the thing here, again, I just believe that this really ain't that hard. And all of this soul searching Mustafa trying to figure it out. And I totally get you trying to appeal to everybody. But let's be very clear.

When you are building anything, whether it's a campaign, whether it's a show like this or whatever, you start with your base first. If your base ain't showing up, let's be real clear. So I'm going to make two points here because I think also some black people also missed this point here as well. The base of the Democratic Party is black depending upon where you live.

Let me say it again. The base of the Democratic Party is black depending on where you live. And see, some black folk ain't going to be a little mad right now, Mustafa, because here's the reality. The percentage of black people in California is actually small. So black people are not going to be deciding elections in California. It might be local elections, but we're talking statewide. If we go to Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, same thing.

So a strategy for those states is going to look different than it is in Georgia, in Illinois, in other states. So the reality is, folks need to understand that part of the Democrats' issue is that their tent is so big, you're trying to appeal to all kind of different groups. Here's the reality. There are Democrats who run in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, who are going to have to appeal to independent or conservative voters

because outside of the big cities, those states are really Alabama. And so people have to also understand candidates have to be given the leeway when it comes to issues because at the end of the day, like I love all people who shouted tangibles. I keep saying you don't get no tangibles when your ass don't win. The point is, you got to win. And a lot of folk want to make demands of folk before they win and not realize that, guess what? If they don't win, you're screwed.

And so people have to realize that there are some Democrats who come from, frankly, conservative districts. Sanford Bishop is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. His district is actually a conservative district. Sanford Bishop can't vote like Maxine Waters. He can't. And if y'all want to be honest, Lucy McBath can't

vote like Nakima Williams. And both of them are right there in the Atlanta area because their districts are different. So it's a whole lot that goes into this. But I think the most basic thing, Mustafa, is for the Democrats is how do you have a consistent, clear and concise message to target your base? And then you build from there. So my grandfather was a coal miner and an organizer. And, you know, I take a lot of his lessons. So I've worked in over a thousand communities now all across our country, a few of them outside of this country. And he used to talk about, you know, if you're going to build

coalitions, you've got to figure out what is those three, five things that everybody can understand, can articulate, and can agree upon. And when you got that formula, then you got something to build from. He also said you got to take care of home. What he meant by that is that the folks who have been riding with you, you got to make sure that they are taken care of and that they know that they're being honored. And that means, and here's the big problem that I've seen for decades now when it comes to not just the DNC, but to Democrats, is that they don't know how to come home. They don't know how to go and spend time with folks on the back porch, in folks' kitchen, and in those local areas where folks gather. And until they do that, it doesn't feel authentic. Now,

I know in their minds, they feel that they're doing authentic work. Here's the other thing. Stop hiring these people. Ben talked a little bit about it. Stop hiring these people that have no connection to community. Because if you don't have connection to community, all you are doing is just spouting talking points or the bumper sticker that you heard. And people, real folks, they're going to see right through that every time. And they're going to be like, they're just some folks from Washington. They got no idea what's going on in my life. They don't understand about trying to pay the light bill, keep the water on, or trying to figure out how I'm going to be able to go to the grocery store and make, you know,

three weeks of need met with, you know, a week's worth of pay. So we just got to stop going out and getting these folks who have no idea about what's really going on. But, you know, it is a big business. And since it is a big business, those contracts are going to continue, unfortunately, unless somebody makes a serious change to go to folks to make them richer. Now, I will say, in closing, I was happy to hear that he at least said contracting and subcontracting. So if he becomes the DNC chair, then that means that we have a leverage point to hold him accountable because he said that he understands that there needs to be a change in that space.

So let's see if that becomes reality. Folks, hold tight one second. When we come back, fireworks in the confirmation hearing for the grossly unqualified white man, Pete Hegseth. We'll show you some of that. And ooh, damn, it did get a little funky between Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and Nancy Mace. Mace literally said, yo, Jasmine, you want to swing, let's swing.

Oh, I would love to see Jasmine Crockett whoop her ass. Y'all, we going to show y'all the whole video. Support the work that we do right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. The goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks each a year that's four hours and 19 cents a month 13 cents a day uh if you want to give us via cash app use the stripe app cash app canceled all of our accounts

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Now streaming on the Blackstar Network. I was challenged by my uncle early on before I even had a career. Like I was maybe eight years old and my uncle said, what do you want to do? And I told him I wanted to be a rapper. And he said, okay, well, I don't know anything about the music business. So what you should do is learn everything there is to know about the music business and I'll make sure that you have the resources to push you through. And so I went and bought books, All You Need to Know About the Music Business, hit me in.

I just went and bought a bunch of books to start reading as a 10-year-old, just reading, reading. And so I learned, you know, all things, licensing, mechanical rights. I learned about publishing, learned about how composition is broke up into two pieces, the writer's portion and the producer's portion. So by the time I actually learned I came back

I was ready to like, okay, I got it. He was going to prison. So I had got it. He would go into prison. So I had all this information. All this knowledge. All this knowledge. You like what I'm gonna do with it now. How you doing? My name is Mark Curry, and you're watching Roland Martin. Unfiltered, deep into it, like pasteurized milk.

Without the 2%, we getting deep. You want to turn that shit off? We're doing an interview, motherfucker. Ooh, talking about bring the funk on Capitol Hill. Y'all, they had a hearing, and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett of Texas and that trifling, big bird-looking Nancy Mace in South Carolina. Man, did they get into it

where Mace literally was like, yo, I will fight you. Roll it! Chair. Chair, yo, I will fight you. Roll it! Chair. Chair, recognize Ms. Crockett. I have an amendment at the desk. With a clerk. Everyone has the amendment.

Everyone has the Crockett amendment on the desk. With a clerk, please report the amendment. An amendment to the rules of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for the 119th Congress is offered by Ms. Crockett of Texas. Without objection, the amendment is considered as read. I reserve a point of order. The gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes to explain her amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

During the 118th Congress, Oversight Republicans disbanded one of the most important subcommittees in Congress, the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and civil liberties. And now in the 119th Congress, the chairman and House Republicans have decided to prioritize the demands of the real president, Elon Musk, and his billionaire friends over the needs of the American people. Now, we are about to approach the birthday of Martin Luther King. It's actually tomorrow. And on January 20th will be the inauguration of Donald Trump, but it will also be the observation of MLK Day. And the fact that we have decided that in this country

we are not going to honor civil rights should be something that we all take issue with. Considering the fact for some that don't know what civil rights are about, because some people only believe that it deals with black folk, let me explain. Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from the infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the state. Defined another way, the right to be free from discrimination, the freedom to worship as we choose, the right to vote for our elected

representatives, the protections of due process, the right to privacy. If any of that sounds familiar, it is because these are rights that are born out of our Constitution, something that we all supposedly have sworn an oath to, and we swear to not only—we don't just swear to it. We are supposed to protect those rights. Interestingly enough, we just had the funeral of one of our beloved presidents, and I caught a flight to Austin on the day of the funeral, and I had the honor of sitting next to someone who was a little familiar with the White House.

That person was Lucy Baines Johnson. And when I tell you that she is a wealth of information, I really mean that. And when we had an opportunity to talk about what she experienced as her father was president during a time in which, honestly, our country was on fire. And I would argue that, unfortunately, our country is on fire right now. When I first ran for office, I ran for the statehouse and said that we were in the midst of a modern-day civil rights movement. And I have not been convinced otherwise just yet.

But this is the daughter of the president that signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She was also there when he signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And to be perfectly honest, without that voting rights, I don't believe that I actually would have a seat in Congress. And so I do believe in preserving the fact that everyone should be entitled to real and true representation because I do have a Section 2 seat as our Voting Rights Act has been decimated. that her father asked her about coming over to the Congress for the signing of the bill as it relates to the Voting Rights Act. Now, for her, it was a bit inconvenient as an 18-year-old to have to leave the White House and go over to Congress. And she asked her father,

why should we go over to the Congress, Daddy, to sign this particular bill? And she said, we need to go over to the Congress, Daddy, to sign this particular bill? And she said, we need to go over to the Congress because we need to pay due respect to those members of Congress that knew that voting for this bill meant that they would not be returning to Congress, but they had the courage to do what was right for this country and make sure that everyone's voices were going to be heard. The one thing that we could do, the very small thing that we could do, is have a little bit of courage and decide that we are going to reinstitute this particular subcommittee because unfortunately I don't see the type of courage that the people that served back in the 60s had coming out of some of our colleagues. looking out for those protections of everyone in this country to make sure that we have real freedom, something that we all supposedly espouse to believe in.

And with that, I will yield. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, any members seek recognition? Ms. Stansbury. Ms. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the gentlelady across the aisle demonstrating why we need civil rights. We need civil rights to protect all people, especially trans Americans who are under attack right now.

I would like to yield the rest of my time to the gentle lady who is carrying the amendment. I don't even know how we got there because I tried to make it clear how many civil rights it doesn't just boil down to one conversation, but I can see that somebody's campaign coffers really are struggling right now, so she gonna keep saying trans, trans, trans so that people will feel threatened. And child, listen,

I want y'all to tell me whether or not... I am no child. Do not call me a child. I am no child. Don't even start. I want to find out which of those emails actually have... Chairman, I am reclaiming my time. You will not do that. I am not a child.

I am reclaiming my time. If you want to take it outside... Mr. Chairman, the committee is not in order. Order, order. Point of order. Point of order. Order, order, order. Chair recognizes Ms. Crockett.

No, point of order, Mr. Chairman. State your point. Is it allowed in the rules for a member to incite violence against another member? I mean, she wants to take it outside. Hey, I have the First Amendment right, too. And so I'd like those words to be taken down. I am moving to have those words taken down. I believe it's against the rules to incite violence against another member of Congress.

You have a conversation that isn't... The committee will suspend... The member will state the words he wishes taken down. Where she said that we can take it outside, which is direct violation against the rules and citing violence against another member. What rule? What rule?

Cite the rule. How does that incite violence? Mr. Chairman there are if if I might point out Mr. Chairman there are decorum rules in the House of Representatives. And the two Parliamentarians are discussing this right now. Suspend for a second. Child. I know. Nancy Mace's simple Simon, silly ass, no better. There is no greater attention grifter, lover than anybody, Nancy Mace. Lord, don't get between her and a camera.

But we can take it outside. Nancy Mace, hashtag team whip that ass will show up if you really try to swing on Jasmine Crockett. Ain't nothing, no, no. Stop. But if Jasmine Crockett wasn't lying,

Nancy Mace lost her mind. She was going trans, trans, trans because of an incoming Democratic member of Congress and she was right because she was just sitting there trying to raise some money. I mean, child, go sit your little ass down.

What nonsense from nancy mace avis oh i'm sorry well you know here she is gaslighting uh that's exactly what that was gas lighting 101 um you know it is the same playbook that the Republicans have leaned on for God knows how long, right? They sit here, they create a boogeyman, and they ride that boogeyman in a way that allows them to score political points in any way possible. In fact, that specific boogeyman that she was referring to in terms of trying to sort of insert the word trans again in this particular conversation was, in essence, a specific issue that they swift-voted the Harris campaign on. Let's just get real about that, because once again, her political operatives chose not to respond, but that's another conversation. I will say this.

She knew what she was doing. She was trying to get attention. She knew when she said it that and she knows that she knows the connotation of that phrase. She knows it. She was just doing what she does, as you mentioned, trying to raise money, trying to get attention, trying to get a little time on Fox or something. But clearly, if she was really about that life, you know, she wouldn't she wouldn't really move those use those words and turn them into action. She just wants to really be a spectacle. And that's what she did. You were dealing with simple Simons being on the Republican side and Nancy Mace, without a doubt, is clearly one of the most horrendous fools when it comes to trying to get attention for herself.

And she's shameless about it. Yeah, we live with a social media Congress, particularly on the MAGA side. They want to make a spectacle, and they want to make a scene. Nancy May strikes me as someone who peaked in high school. She was the mean girl in high school, was the most popular, and then all of a sudden the rest of her life has come down to this, where she has to seek attention, even though she's a Congressperson, right? She already has a position of power, but that's not enough. She needs additional

attention on top of that. And so she created this. I agree that this was gaslighting. And the funniest thing about this is, though, you have so many white folks online right now trying to figure out the difference. They're Googling the difference between child and child. And it's like we're having to explain it to them. But either way it goes, Jasmine Crocker was 100 percent correct. And either way that she used the word, because Nancy Mace is a child. She is the most childish member of Congress. And that's saying a lot when you got Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene there. And so I appreciate Jasmine Crocker. And honestly, Roland, I really appreciate the way you center her in this segment

and with that opening graphic because she's one of the number one targeted people in Congress right now. And I believe that all black people, all people need to rally behind her and support her in the way that you are. What the white conservatives do, Mustafa, look at her. She's ghetto. And that's the game that they actually play because they want to call her the N-word so bad. They do. Yeah, that's true.

But we also know that this particular congressional person, you know, that she's uneducated. You can tell that she has no cultural competencies because she would understand the difference between a word that ends in E and a word that ends in D and how it plays out. So evidently, she has had no conversations with Black folks or she would have understood that word. Now, I know that she doesn't care. I understand

that it was just for a photo op or for, you know, a quick meme or, you know, a quick video, those different types of things. But we have to go deeper, right? Because they are trying, you know, Congresswoman Crockett is actually trying to, one, educate them on the history and the importance of the moment that they have to be able to make sure that we are actually honoring the work that has happened in civil rights and to make sure that the subcommittee is in place, because we understand that the challenges are still there. But we also understand that they have no interest in that, because it doesn't benefit them, or at least they feel it doesn't benefit them. And it shows the short-sightedness. And that's

why I say that they are uneducated, because an educated person, even if it's not something that you necessarily fully believe in, understands the changing dynamics inside of this country, understands that the country needs to be stronger, and that civil rights is one of the elements that helps us to be able to do that. So, you know, the other thing that I thought was real interesting as I close is that yesterday, of course, was Delta Sigma Theta's anniversary, 112 years, 350,000 sisters. So if you want to get busy, there's a whole bunch of sisters that will give you everything, everything that you want. So I would be careful when I walked out on the steps of the Capitol, because you may have some very intense conversations by highly educated sisters who will also make sure that you understand what time it is.

Now, you know that fool ain't got a clue what DST is. She will. She's got to find out. Nancy McCain spelled DST. All right, y'all. Speaking of can't spell stupid, Pete Hegseth.

Today they had a confirmation hearing. Trump nominated him to be Secretary of Defense. Now, y'all know who Pete Hegseth. Today they had a confirmation hearing. Trump nominated him to be Secretary of Defense. Now, y'all know who Pete Hegseth is. He is a grossly unqualified white man who ain't never, ever run anything in his life

and when he ran a non-profit he didn't even know how to run it, couldn't pass audits, absolutely atrocious. Republicans hold... You ought to see some of these tweets. Oh, my God, the Democrats didn't land a finger on him. He was amazing today.

Now, that boy showed how he had no business being nominated, and there's no way in hell he has the credentials to lead the largest federal department. Here are some of what transpired today in the hearing of the completely unqualified, but they think he is superior white man, Pete Hexeth. I've never disparaged women serving in the military. I respect every single female service member that has put on the uniform past and present. My critiques, Senator, recently and in the past, and from personal experience, have been instances where I've seen standards lowered.

And you mentioned 11 Alpha, 11 Bravo, MOS, places in units. And the book that has been referenced multiple times here, The War on Warriors, I spent months talking to active duty service members, men and women, low ranks, high ranks, combat arms and not combat arms. And what each and every one of them told me, and which personal instances have shown me is that in ways direct, indirect, overt, and subtle, standards have been changed inside infantry training units, ranger school, infantry battalions to ensure that commanders meet- Give me one example. Please give me an example.

I get you're making these generalized statements. Commanders meet quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted, and that disparages those women who are incredibly capable of meeting that standard. Commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry. That does not exist. It does not exist. And your statements are creating the impression that these exist, because they do not. There are not quotas.

We want the most lethal force. But I'm telling you, having been here for 15 years listening to testimony about men and women in combat and the type of operations that were successful in Afghanistan and in Iraq, women were essential for many of those units. When ranger units went in to find where the terrorists hiding in Afghanistan or in Iraq, if they had a woman in the unit, they could go in, talk to the terrorists hiding in Afghanistan or in Iraq. If they had a woman in the unit, they could go in, talk to the women in a village, say, where are the terrorists hiding? Where are the weapons hiding? And get crucial information to make sure that we can win that

battle. So just, you cannot denigrate women in general and your statements do that. We don't want women in the military, especially in combat. What a terrible statement. So please do not deny that you've made those statements you have. We take the responsibility of standards very seriously and we will work with you. I'm equally distressed. You would not meet with me before this hearing. We could have covered all of this before you came here. So I could get to the 15 other questions that I want to get to. So women, you have denigrated. The first one accused you of being a Christian Zionist. I'm not really sure why that is a bad thing.

I'm a Christian. I'm a Zionist. Zionism is that the Jewish people deserve a homeland in the ancient holy land where they've lived since the dawn of history. Do you consider yourself a Christian Zionist? Senator, I support, I'm a Christian and I robustly support the state of Israel and its existential defense and the way America comes alongside them is a great honor. Thank you. Because another one, another protester, and I think this one was a member of Code Pink, which, by the way, is a Chinese communist front group these days, said that you support...

What is the highest level of international security agreement that you have led? And can you name some that the Secretary of Defense would lead? There's three main ones. I have not been involved in international security arrangements because I have not been in government other than serving in the military. So my job has been to lead men and women in combat. So no, the answer is, can you name one of the three main ones that the Secretary of Defense signs? You're talking about defense arrangements. I mean, NATO might be one that you're referring to.

Status of Forces Agreement would be one of them. Status of Forces Agreement. I've been a part of teaching about Status of Forces Agreements inside Afghanistan. But you don't remember to mention it? You're not qualified, Mr. He mention it? You're not qualified, Mr. Hexeth. You're not qualified. You talk about repairing our defense industrial complex. You're not qualified to that. You could do the acquisition and cross-servicing agreements, which essentially are security agreements. You can't even mention that. You've done none of those. You talked about the Indo-Pacific a little bit, and I'm glad that you mentioned it. Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in ASEAN and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations? And

how many nations are in ASEAN, by the way? I couldn't tell you the exact amount of nations in that. But I know we have allies in South Korea and Japan and in AUKUS with Australia, trying to work on submarines with them. None of Hexer, none of those countries are in ASEAN. None of those three countries that you've mentioned are in ASEAN. I suggest you do a little homework before you prepare for these types of negotiations. I was pleased when I was contacted on your behalf about meeting before this hearing. I've been on this committee since 2011, and during that time, I voted to confirm six nominees to be Secretary of Defense from three administrations, two Democratic and one Republican,

the first Trump administration. Every one of those nominees met with me and my Democratic colleagues on this committee before the hearing. So as you can imagine, I was disappointed when no one ever followed up. When we followed up with your office, you were not able to meet. Do you understand that if you're confirmed to be Secretary of Defense, that you will have a responsibility to meet with all members of this committee, not just Republicans? Senator, I very much appreciate and understand the traditionally bipartisan nature of this committee. Their national defense is not partisan.

It should not be about Republicans or Democrats. And so I look forward to working together with you and your colleagues on priorities facing this nation. Yes. I think we would expect that. I wanna return to the incident that you referenced a minute ago that occurred in Monterey, California in October 2017. At that time, you were still married to your second wife, correct? I believe so.

And you had just fathered a child by a woman who would later become your third wife, correct? Senator, I was falsely charged, fully investigated, and completely cleared. So you think you are completely cleared because you committed no crime. That's your definition of cleared? You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you're completely cleared. Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child that had been born two months before, and you tell us you were completely cleared? How is that a

complete clear? Senator, her child's name is Gwendolyn Hope Hegseth, and she's a child of God, and she's seven years old. And you cheated on the mother of that child less than two months after that daughter was born, didn't you? Those were false charges. It was fully investigated and I was completely cleared. And I am so grateful for the marriage I have to this amazing woman behind me. You've admitted that you had sex at that hotel on October 2017. You said it was consensual, isn't that correct? Anything? You've admitted that it was consensual and you were still married and you just had a child by another woman. Again, how do you explain your judgment? False charges against me. You investigated and I'm completely clear. You have admitted that

you had sex while you were married to wife two after you just had fathered a child by wife three. You've admitted that. Now, if it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense, wouldn't it? It was a false claim then and a false claim now. If it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be Secretary of Defense, wouldn't it? That was a false claim. So you can't- He's talking about a hypothetical. So you can't tell me whether someone who has committed a sexual assault is disqualified

from being Secretary of Defense? Senator, I know in my instance, and I'm talking about my instance only, it was a false claim. But you acknowledge that you cheated on your wife and that you cheated on the woman by whom you had just fathered a child. You have admitted that. I will allow your words to speak for themselves. You're not retracting that today. What's the largest number of people you've ever supervised or had in an organization in your career? Not 3 million.

No, I don't expect that. No one, very few people have ever had that experience. But how many? It's a straight-up question. I think we had over 100 full-time staff at Concern Vets for America, roughly with thousands of volunteers. I was also a headquarters company commander, which would have been a couple of hundred. So nothing remotely near the size of the Defense Department, I would acknowledge that. Actually, not remotely near even a medium-sized company in America, let alone a big

company in America, especially a major corporation, and you're basically, we're hiring you to be the CEO of one of the most complex, largest organizations in the world. We're the board of directors here. I don't know of any corporate board of directors that would hire a CEO for a major company if they came and said, you know, I supervised 100 people before. They'd ask you, well, what kind of experiences you had? We need innovation. Can you give me an experience or your actual experience of driving innovation in an organization? Give me an example of where you have done that.

Oh, my goodness, Senator. Absolutely. At Concerned Veterans for America, we created the Fixing Veterans Healthcare Task Force, a bipartisan task force that had never been done before to create policy, to drive policy change on Capitol Hill that organizations fought ferociously against. We got the VA Accountability Act passed and the Mission Act passed in a way that a nonprofit of our size, veterans organization, has never done. And that's testified in all the letters that we put forward to the committee, which are on the record. Okay, I have limited time. Thank you for that. Give me an example of where you've driven down cost. I've heard examples that Senator Blumenthal gave. The cost was a real problem for you in your

50-person organization that you actually raised a lot less than what you actually spent. Did you drive costs down in a 50-person organization? Let me tell you, we've got to drive costs down dramatically in an organization of 3 million people and hundreds of billions of dollars. You don't have that experience that you can talk about. To me, this is our acquisition reform. Acquisition reform, you bring that up. Have you had experience in acquisition reform? I've written about and studied on acquisition reform. Have you actually done it? Because what we need in the hands of our warfighters better change because we're not doing it well right now.

It better. And we need people who have experience actually doing that. You know, you talk about standards. Again, I'm going to go back to a CEO of the most complex organization in the world. I don't think there's a board of directors in America that would hire you as a CEO with the kind of experience you have on your resume. You talk about standards. You talk about raising or lowering. We have a problem of standards in the DOD, and we have to raise standards for the men and women who serve. Do you think that the way to raise the minimum standards of the people who

serve us is to lower the standards for the Secretary of Defense that we have someone who has never managed an organization more than 100 people is going to come in and manage this incredibly important organization and do it with a professionalism and has no experience that they can tell us that they have actually done that. I have real problems with that. This is not about other issues that are brought up. They're all very important. I'm just about trying to get things done, managing efficiently and having the best people who have demonstrated that in a large organization. And I'm sorry, but I don't see that in your background. There are a lot of other things you can do very well. You're a capable person, but I'm not, I do not, you have not

convinced me that you're able to take on this tremendous responsibility with a complex organization and having little or no significant management experience. Mustafa, we have to consistently listen to right- wing MAGA people whine and complain about affirmative action, about this completely, grotesquely, unqualified, unmitigated disaster of a choice, Peter Hexeth, to lead the world's most lethal military. Not only that, not only that, the Republicans have refused to allow all members of the committee to have access to his FBI file. They failed to interview the women, the woman that accused him of sexual assault. They did not talk to wife number one or wife number two or wife number three. And this man has, he doesn't have red checks.

He doesn't have red flags. He literally has neon signs that go up in New York's Times Square that says, do not hire this white man. But they are like, no, no, Master Trump wants him. So we got to do what Master Trump says. I mean, I don't know where you start with something like this. You know, this is one of the toughest jobs that anyone can fill inside of an administration. So you can't be unserious, you can't be unqualified, and you can't be unprepared. You got a trillion dollar budget.

You have to make decisions about China and the Ukraine and North Korea and a number of other crises and potential crises across the planet. So you got to really know your stuff. You also got to be somebody who understands that you have a very diverse set of folks who are both active duty and civilian workers who are underneath of your charge, underneath of your umbrella. So when you're out there having these conversations, when you're on Fox News or other places talking about DEI and how people are not worthy of some of the jobs that they hold, getting rid of generals, all these different types of things you're saying that are all sort of rooted in racism and misogyny, then how can those folks actually follow you?

Now, I have many members in my family who are in the military. We go back almost 100 years that I know about. And it's important in the chain of command of being able to respect the individual who is above you and to know that they have a working knowledge, a set of expertise, really, about what they're asking you to do, because one, you're putting lives on the line, and two, you're in charge of very important sets of decisions. So this gentleman, he's no Lloyd Austin, right? We've had Lloyd Austin on the show before. We know his resume, how amazing he is. He's not a Chris Miller or Mark Esper or James Mattis or Ashton Carter or Chuck Yagel, many people remember

Chuck Hagel, excuse me, or Leon Panetta or Doms Rumsfeld, all these folks, whether Democrats or Republicans, came with a resume of experiences, whether we agree with their policies or not, you know, they had been through the fire. And then you bring forward this. Now, the question becomes, we know that there was, I don't know what the number is, 36 million registered Republicans, whatever the number is. Is this the best that you actually have? To put this individual as possibly leading, you know, one of the largest sets of budgets, of sets of actions, of individuals. And then it goes back to what you shared at the beginning of this, Roland.

You know, when they talk about DEI or they talk about affirmative action, we know over decade upon decade, century upon century, that there have been unqualified white men who have been pushed into positions and supported. But this is a position where if you're not coming from straight out the gate knowing your stuff, there are others in China, in North Korea, and a number of in Russia,

a number of other countries who are going to have individuals who are talented and who know what they're doing. So this is incredibly important. And it makes no sense to have this individual up for this position. If we want to talk about gutless Avis, Joni Ernst, U.S. Senator from Iowa, served in the military, understands personally sexual assault, and now she's going to vote for Pete Hexeth. The Republicans have had a massive pressure campaign against senators to vote for this man. And if you want to see despicable, this is Ari Fleischer, who was the press secretary to George W. Bush, President George W. Bush.

Ari, who knows better? Tweeted this. Pete Hed Seth is crushing it. It is refreshing to hear someone relentlessly focus on warriors and lethality without playing Washington's word salad game of forcing nominees to talk like social workers who run government agencies. And this is how I responded, Avis. This is a joke.

If the Dems nominated someone with Pete Hex's weak resume and troubled background, Ari Fleischer would be hyperventilating. These Republicans are a joke. And this is the thing that Democrats have to understand. These Republicans forget rules, forget norms, forget institutions. They are in 100% Trump ass-kissing mode. And people like Ari Fleischer, who know better, who was the press secretary when 9-11 happened? This man knows when he puts that phone down, that peak

headset is barely a good TV anchor or TV host. He damn sure ain't qualified to be secretary of the Department of Defense. But oh, what it means to be Secretary of the Department of Defense.

But oh, what it means to be an unqualified white man in America. Because all you need to be qualified as a white man in America is to sit there and go on television with your hair slicked back, nice knot in your tie, and smile on TV and say, hey, I love Jesus, and I'm a white man in America. And I hate everybody that's not white. You can't leave that part off. OK, here is, you know, it is so infuriating that you have someone, as you mentioned, the least qualified person to ever, as far as I know, be considered for this position. It is absolutely disturbing, given, as you mentioned, the gravity of this position. But we have to understand he wasn't nominated based on qualifications. And he's not

the only one. A whole bunch of Trump's nominees, the overwhelming majority of them actually have nowhere near the level of qualifications that someone would actually need to be competent in the position that they are being nominated within. But they do fulfill one very important qualification. And that most important qualification is they will do whatever the hell Donald Trump wants them to do. That is the only qualification that anybody cares about. This is why the Republicans will vote for someone who is clearly unqualified, because that's what Donald Trump wants. And they don't want President, you know, not, well, President Musk to fund people to run against them. So they're going to go and do whatever Donald Trump, you know, the felon in chief wants to be done. Okay.

And this is what we're left with. It is infuriating because at the same time that he is extremely unqualified, he has the unmitigated gall to sit there and talk about wokeness. He has the unmitigated gall to sit there and allude to quotas that don't exist. He has the gall to sit there and talk about the issue of DEI as if it is such a horrible thing. And the reality is the reason why there is such a backlash to DEI is because the existence of that puts a kink in the plan of his reality. Because without that and prior to that, the norm was to have unqualified white men hogging everything or anything. Like, there was no need to have this discussion, right? And so now he has to, you know, he's in this space, he's completely unqualified, and he

has the nerve to sit here and talk about other people's qualifications. It's the height of hypocrisy. But once again, it really is America going back to maybe when they believed it was great because that's certainly a harbinger of that era. The thing here, again, being that they love to

I mean, these people have been crashing the white fire chief in Los Angeles. A little woman. Okay. And all, then I saw, I saw that ignorant food,

Melanie, Megan Kelly complaining that the two underlings under her were also lesbians. And so all my goodness, we got, we got these, we got two white women and one black woman, all three lesbians. Lord, what the hell are we going to do? And then they want to sit around and they want to yell,

oh, who's ignorant? Who's incompetent? Who has no business being here? And they love saying this stuff about black people. They call Vice President Kamala Harris a DEI hire. So I got no problem saying it. Pete Hegseth is an unqualified white man. And they are chomping at the bit.

Then you got Will Kane at Fox News. He just been riding for his boy. But Will Kane is a perfect example. It's no shock Will Kane supporting Pete Hexeth. Will Kane was an unqualified white man when he got a job at ESPN. He only got a job at ESPN because his agent was one of the biggest agents in the business. And so he basically told ESPN, take my boy. That's all that is.

And Fox News just gave Will Kane his own show at 4 p.m. when Neil Cavuto retired. So again, Fox News is filled with unqualified white men who love to talk about other folk not being qualified. That's the entire season we're living in. And I don't think, well, that's been the American experiment the entire time. We are living at the apex of this. We're now the most unqualified person in the history of ever being considered for the position of secretary of defense, Pete Hexeth, who's also a philanderer, who's also known to be a public drunk,

who's also credibly accused of sexual abuse. This is who they are lifting up, and they are saying, you're going to take this, America. I would hope that white people would be able to see how much of a scam white sub-premise is, but I'm not putting any stock in that, because we made that mistake in the 2024 election. I think that they're going to continue to do this until they ultimately destroy the United States of America. There was an excellent point made, that it takes the caliber of leadership and the qualifications for you to get the type of respect that you deserve.

And what they are doing with Pete Hesek, they don't care if he doesn't get any respect. What they care is that he is going to carry out every order of Donald Trump, whether it's constitutional or not, as he was unable to answer that question today. If Donald Trump or if anyone gives him an unconstitutional order, would he carry it out? And he could not answer that. So that lets us know, not only are they smearing this in our faces, bringing him—and when you compare resumes to Lloyd Austin, you really kind of have to laugh at just how pathetic this man is. But when you consider his job is to do anything and everything Donald Trump tells him to do, well, of course, you want someone who is inexperienced and who isn't loyal to the United States or the military, but loyal to Donald Trump. And what is truly amazing to me, which I found to be absolutely hilarious, and I just got to play this clip because not only was it a lie, not only sound like a fool,

but he lied on former Republican and Democrats who have been secretaries of defense. Listen to this, y'all. Now it is true and has been acknowledged that I don't have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the last 30 years. But as President Trump also told me, we've repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon

with supposedly the right credentials, whether they are retired generals, academics, or defense contractor executives. And where has it gotten us? He believes, and I humbly agree, that it's time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm. A change... Gotta stop right there. I cannot believe this sumbitch sat there and said that.

Lloyd Austin led troops in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dust on his boots. You've had Republicans, Republicans, dust on their boots. And Pete Hicks is sitting here acting as if, oh, he's been in the armed forces for 30 years and I put him in the task. How dare you denigrate the service? You mentioned Chuck Hagel, Republican. Dust on his boots. But this arrogant ass sits there and these Republicans, That's right. That's right.

That's right. He got dust on his boots. Pete Hegseth is so unqualified. And he literally. Could not hold the jacket. Of retired four star general Lloyd Austin. The current secretary of defense. He could matter of fact, if they were in a room having a conversation,

and if Pete Hicks had started talking, he would give the look that any father, any daddy gives to their son when he look at him like, shut your little dumb young ass up. This man can't even, he don't even know, Senator Tammy Duckworth just exposed his dumb ass. He named three countries

that wasn't even in the group. And she said, go do some homework. See, here is the mistake. And I know why we do it. I know why we do it. And I understand it. And look, I've been guilty of it. I remember when the Baltimore Sun

had this white boy racist-ass TV critic who wrote something on me saying that I wasn't qualified to be on cable news. And I'm like, hell, my resume deeper than yours. And so what ends up happening is

we end up responding, responding to, well, I've done this, this, this. Let me say this right now. For every black person watching right now, for every Latino watching right now, for every woman watching right now, when one of these, when one of these

ignorant, dumb, nonsensical, trifling, MAGA fools, when any of them have the audacity to question your resume, to question whether you have, how did you get into this college? How did you get into this university? How were you able to get this job? y'all to do exactly what I would do when they say that, which is, quote, the great Della Reese. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Kiss my entire ass. Enough said. I'll be right back. Hmm. Coming soon to the Blackstar Network. Well, y'all, when you're on that stage,

and you're seeing two and three, four generations in the audience, that's got to speak to you about the power of what y'all have become. Oh, most definitely. I think we were doing our show before our break, and remember, I was watching this kid. I could not take my eyes off him because he was about nine or so. He was sitting in the front row. Over on the right hand side.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was amazed that this kid knew everything and he was, I was like tripping to see how many songs this kid actually knew. And he knew them all. And he knew them all. We had to go over there

and bring him on stage and take a picture with him, you know, at the end of the show and stuff, because it was just that amazing. It was like, this is crazy. You know, the music travels everywhere, you know, like what Phillip was saying, seeing this young kid. Then you see, hear our

songs on commercials, cold commercials. Then you have the younger ones that sing, hear our music and animation. I'm Russell L. Honore, Lieutenant General, United States Army, retired, and you're watching Roland Martin on Viltrox. A disturbing encounter took place between an 11-year-old black girl and deputies from a New York sheriff's office. The young girl was walking home from school when a deputy from the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office approached her and claimed she resembled a suspect wanted for stealing, watch this y'all, a car. Fortunately, her friend was quick thinking and began recording the incident.

The girl's mother later shared the seven-minute video clip on her Facebook page. We contacted the child's mother as well as the county sheriff's office for comment. They did not respond for our request. Here is some of this video. Wait. Wait, I'm actually so confused. I'm scared. There's another one right there.

I'm staying with her. I don't care about what your dad says. Y'all can go. Y'all can go. You guys can keep going. No, I got to stay with her. This is my sister. Your sister?

Yes. We can't just leave her. It's my sister cousin. We're related. Where are you coming from? We're coming from school. We were really all just playing in the yard. Okay, well like I just said, you're just being detained right now because you're not going to escape from us. I'm going to put you in. I'm going to put you in. This school what?

Car. Oh. We can ride. What do you mean? Most kids can't drive when they're still out here stealing cars. That's a 6th grader. Yeah. I got 12-year-olds driving those Kias in one night. Oh.

He probably got Angela. No, it wasn't yellow. What color was it? Blue. What type of car was it? It was a Kia. It was one of them Kia boys. Kia group.

Brain Academy. Brain Academy. Brain Academy? Yeah. Yeah, that school right there. Where you guys gonna ask for? We gotta ask for that like once a- How in the hell you gonna, okay, this is why I'm confused.

How you gonna accuse an 11 year old girl for stealing a car? Where the car? I mean, what happened here, Avis? The 11-year-old girl go get a tarp and drive the car into an alley and then put a tarp over it and cover it up? You know, maybe they thought black girl magic was literal. I mean, maybe they thought she was able to make the card disappear.

That's the only way this makes any sense whatsoever. It is absolutely stupid. I have to say, I sometimes see this feed on Instagram that talks about, that shows little clips of completely useless police occurrences. And this would certainly fit in that feed because that absolutely makes zero sense. I am hoping that her parents have their lawyer on speed dial right now because thanks to their stupidity, she needs to have her entire college education and beyond paid for by that specific locality's government for the harassment that she felt and whatever emotional damage may come as a result. This is just dumb, Mustafa. A 11-year-old girl?

How are you accusing an 11-year-old girl of stealing a car? The same way, because they don't see our children as children. And many times they don't even see them as humans. You know, we see this play out time and time again, you know, where we have law enforcement that oversteps, that doesn't think things through. They could have very easily asked the little girl, where do you live? And made sure that they went to her mother's house or father's house or family's house

and asked whatever questions they wanted to there. But it really boils down to, and I know it's hard for some people, not our folks, but other folks who often see these situations, they don't really understand that through many eyes of law enforcement, they just don't see our kids as children. They see them as potential criminals

or as criminals or as folks who need to be checked. So we've got a lot of work that still needs to happen. And I don't want to just say it on training, because we always want to talk about training law enforcement. It's deeper than that. There's some psychological work that has to happen also. So I'm going to stop there, because this kind of stuff just gets me heated. And that's not where we need to be. We need to make sure that they have legal representation because these types of things are not going to stop as long as officers are not, you know, held accountable for their actions, just like they try and hold other people accountable for theirs. Lord, these people are just dumb as hell.

All right, then, Mustafa, Avis, Ben, I appreciate y'all being on today's show. Tomorrow, folks, I'm going to get into Jack Smith releasing his report against the twice-impeached, criminally convicted, felon in chief, Donald Trump. That's what he will be called on this show. So we'll break

those things down tomorrow. All right, folks, let me say this here. This is really important here. I had a conversation earlier today with somebody we were talking about. They were talking about, man, what's up with black media? Why is it black media reporting this, reporting that?

Let me just be honest with y'all. Nearly all these black media people, they're not doing news. They're not. We gotta be real. Black Enterprise is not doing business stories anymore. They're a conference company. That's fine, that's your business model. I get it, but they're not.

Essence is not really out there writing news stories. Ebony ain't writing news stories. Everybody ain't writing news stories. Jet doesn't exist. I go to Blavity. No disrespect to folks at Blavity, but what do they do? They rewrite stories. They're aggregating. That's what they're doing.

So what's happening out there in black-owned media is what you see are folks looking at what's happening in white media and then turning around and rewriting those stories, slapping their byline on it, and put it on their website. What are you actually finding that's real and original at the root? Some limited stuff at the griot. But the reality is what we are being fed in black America, we're being fed

a lot of reality show drama, conversations about LeBron, MJ, or Kobe, who's the GOAT, BS memes, and viral videos that go out. And let me be clear, I ain videos that go out. And let me be clear, I ain't got a problem. I ain't got a problem with entertainment, not all damn day. People were asking me, hey, hey man, what do you think about Drake and Kendrick? And I said, I don't give a shit.

We were in the middle of a fucking election for president of the United States. Do you actually think I had time to give a shit about what Kendrick and Drake were saying back and forth? Now, if you're a music critic, that's fine. But I did not give a damn. I don't care what Jocelyn, who she fighting on Zeus Network. I really don't. I don't give a damn. But what we need to understand is right now, we are facing an existential threat in our community. Right now, what we are seeing right now,

we are seeing the targeting of programs and initiatives that specifically have been about advancing opportunities for black people. Meta, Amazon, all these companies talking about getting rid of DEI, it's not just DEI. It's not, oh, no longer are you going to have the DEI person, that particular job. They never had P in their responsibility, never had a staff, never oversaw budget.

You know what the real issue here is, folks? The money. The contracts. Supply diversity. Business diversity. That's what's really going on here. They want to get rid of all the contracts. And so when we're talking about black-owned businesses and we need black-owned businesses

and we've got to own and build, how are you going to do that when you can't get contracts? See, I love the simple Simons out there. Yeah, round of mind, you got $350,000 from the Kamala Harris campaign. Y'all do know BET got $10 million. Who owns BET? Viacom, Paramount, Sherry Redstone,

who since sold the company to Larry Ellison's son. That's who benefited financially from the $10 million. You know who got money? Sinclair, Comcast, CNN, which is Discovery Warner. You know who got money? iHeart. You know who got money? Next Star.

You know who got money? Liberty Media. See, all these black folks love talking about, oh, you got $350,000. Y'all do notice $600 million in advertising went through the agencies in the Harris campaign. Let me say it again, 600 million. Where in the hell do you think that money went? That don't even include the PACs and everybody else. So I need everybody out there to understand, while you are whining and complaining about, man, we need black media, we need to be covering this, we need to be telling our own story, how are you going to do that without contracts? $10 billion, a record amount, $10 billion went to black-owned businesses with federal contracts.

Guess what is going to happen in less than a week? They're going to stop keeping data, racial data. They're going to bundle contracts. I can say it right now, I will put the money on it. In the next year, you are going to see a dramatic drop in the number of contracts that black-owned businesses get from the federal government. But you know what's happening? State governments, oh, get rid of DEI, all that sort of stuff. You've got the governor of Texas, that idiot Greg Abbott, who literally is threatening the president of Texas A&M University with his job over a claim that Texas A&M broke

the state's DEI ban because of a conference for African-American professors. This is the front page of the Texas Tribune. It's happening. Come on, guys. It's happening. I'm telling y'all, you got to look at the contracts. What they want to do is they want to shut down the flow of dollars to black people. People keep asking me. Oh, my God. What are we going to do? What? What? What? I don't know, man. What's going to happen? What are we going to do?

And this is I have been warned. Y'all can't say I'm in one of y'all. I've been warning y'all and I've been telling y'all this here. We are going to rule the day when we no longer have black news information sources, when we are being dependent upon somebody else for our information. So what is going on right now? You've got Meta. You've got Mark Zuckerberg kissing the ass of Donald Trump. A story came out today that said Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg,

and Elon Musk are going to be sitting on the platform on Monday. They're controlling the information flow. They're controlling how you get information. The algorithm is going to determine what you see and what you hear. Which means that we have got to understand when Kathy Hughes said, information is power. What do we always hear? I wasn't aware of how to access the contracts. I wasn't aware of how to access the grants.

Well, guess what? If you don't have information sources telling you about these things, you don't know where to go. You don't know how to access them. I'm telling you all right America is going to grow more ignorant and clueless about what's going on. And they won't know what the truth is if we stay on the existing path. This is why, this is why for now two years, I've been telling you, stop living on Twitter, stop living on Instagram, stop living on Instagram, stop living on Facebook, stop living on TikTok,

and download and invest in Fanbase. Because then you can have access to social media that is not censoring what you have to say. Isaac Hayes dropped this video today. What's up? It's that time, cause I know you see it. I see it. We've just crossed $5.5 million raised for Fanbase on StartEngine.

I don't think people understand how important this moment is, because as these apps climb the app stores, including Fanbase, there's only one that you can have equity in. And all these other apps are billion-dollar apps, $17 billion, a billion dollars, raising $900 million. And then there's us. story in tech right now that an independently funded, crowdfunded social media app is six spots away from being the number one social media app in America. That is insane to me. That is crazy.

But you guys have an opportunity to invest and have equity in fan base. So go to start engine.com slash fan base and invest. The minimum to invest is $399. Common invest. And I'll send you a link to invest right now. Do you understand that if you want to run an app up, run up families? It's the only one you can own. This is the craziest market opportunity I've ever seen. And I don't think it's clicking. So shout out to all the new investors who have just joined us. And shout out to those of you who will be joining us real soon.

Welcome to Fanbase. Now, that's a social app. When you start watching what you consume. So the reason we talk about why supporting this show. And I'm going to go in depth tomorrow as well so you can understand. But what you don't realize is the right has this entire plan. It is a 50 to 100 year plan to completely have a stranglehold on our politics, on our courts, on media. Mass media

is how people get information. Right now there are more than 3,000 people, more than 3,000 people who are watching on different platforms. So that means that if I had five people sitting here, I'm talking to more people right now. Understand this here. I'll put it this way.

I am talking to more. If this was a mega church, if this here. I'll put it this way. I am talking to more, if this was a mega church, if this was a church, if this was a church, we would be called a mega church. I want you to think about that. We're not some storefront church. You have to be able to get information to the masses. And you have to understand they don't want,

they don't want information going to the masses. They don't want our people to be aware. Why did they say if any enslaved person of African descent was found reading, you could be killed? Because they understood the power of information. Why did the white supremacists refuse to ensure that our schools were funded and did not want black kids getting education? Because they were scared to death of the power of information. What we are trying to do is create something that says, you don't have to depend upon what they tell you, what they show you.

Black liberation happened because of Frederick Dulles, the North Star, because of Martin Delany, because of Freedom's Journal, because of Ida B. Wells Barnett, because of Ebony, Jet, Negro Digest, Black Enterprise, Essence Magazine, Black Newspaper, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, on and on and on. But black people bought the magazines and the newspapers. The revolution, y'all, ain't going to be free. This stuff cost.

An 85-inch television for graphics is $2,000 to $3,000. So I need us to understand that we can actually do in 2025 what Robert Abbott did with the Chicago Defender in 1905. But we have to have the courage to actually do it. Folks, support what we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club for Cash App. Hit us using the QR code STRIPE. You can see it right there. Or if you're listening, go to Black Star Network us using the QR code STRIPE. You can see it right there.

Or if you're listening, go to Blackstar Network. Use the QR code. Send your check and money order. PO Box 57196. Washington, D.C. 20037-0196. PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo's, R.M. Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at Roland S. Martin.com.

Roland at Roland Martin unfiltered.com. Download the Blackstone Network app, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Also, be sure to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds, available at bookstores nationwide. Get the audio version that I read on Audible. And also get our Roland Martin Unfiltered Black Star Network merchandise.

All of that money goes right into the show. And so you can see the shirts right there, RolandMartin.Creator-Brain.com or go to BlackStarNetwork.com. Folks, that's it. I'll see y'all tomorrow. Dr. King's actual birthday tomorrow. Holla! Blackstar Network is here. Oh, no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now.

Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All the momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? this is an iHeart podcast