#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Henrietta Lacks Lawsuit, Trump & 'unified Reich', Tulsa Race Massacre, Sen. Bob Casey & Greedflation

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

5.21.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Henrietta Lacks Lawsuit, Trump & 'unified Reich', Tulsa Race Massacre, Sen. Bob Casey & Greedflation A federal judge says Henrietta Lacks family can proceed with the lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company over its unauthorized use of HeLa cells. After backlash, Trump pulls the video referencing 'unified Reich' off off social media. We'll show you what Vice President Kamala Harris had to say about it.  Disgraced and broke Rudy Giuliani pleads 'not guilty' in Arizona's Trump 2020 election with his co-defendants.  Trump isn't charged but is identified Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator. We are just over a week away from the 103rd anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.  Justice for Greenwood's Damario Solomon-Simmons will be here to give us a preview.  Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey will be here to discuss his efforts to stop greedflation, the way corporations are raising prices for the record profits they are raking in. And Operation Hope, John Hope Bryant will stop by to discuss his new book,  Financial Literacy For All, and how DEI is good for business.  #BlackStarNetwork advertising partners:Fanbase 👉🏾 https://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbaseJustice For Marilyn Mosby 👉🏾https://justiceformarilynmosby.com/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastain. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

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

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season one, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Today is Tuesday, May 21st, 2024. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. A federal judge says Henry and the Lacks family can proceed with a lawsuit against a major pharmaceutical company over its unauthorized use of her Hella cells. After backlash, Donald Trump pulls a video referencing unified rights off social media will

show you the vice president Kamala Harris had to say about Trump touting. Nazi language disgraced and broke attorney Rudy Giuliani pled not guilty in Arizona's 2020 election interference case along with his co defendants. Trump is not charged, but is identified as an

unindicted co-conspirator. Also, we're just over the top. case along with his co defendants. Trump is not charged but is identified as an unindicted co-conspirator. Also, we're just over a week away from the 103rd anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Justice for Greenwood's Demario Solomon Simmons will be here to give us a preview of the activities happening in Tulsa. Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey will be here

to discuss his efforts to stop greedflation, the way corporations are raising prices for record profits they are raking in. Plus, Operation Hope founder John Hope Bryan will be here to discuss his new book, Financial Literacy for All, and how DEI is good for business. It's time to bring the funk.

I'm Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Sun Network. Let's go. With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roll-Roll, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now

Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Now He's fresh, he's real, the best you know. He's rolling, Martel. Now. Martel. All right, folks, let's talk about the case of Henry DeLax. Of course, she is the black woman who died, but her cells have played a huge role in many medical advances in this country.

Her cells were taken from her body in the 1950s without her permission. A federal judge in Maryland has rejected Oltra Genix's attempt to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the family of Henry relax again. It was in a racially segregated ward of John Hopkins Hospital, where she's been treated for cervical cancer where her cells were taken. For no medical purpose, your doctor surgically took tissue samples from her. Those that tissue from her tumor. She died of course in 1951,

became the first human cells to be successfully cloned in the harvested cells are known as the Hella cells. The family is asking the billion-dollar biotech company for compensation and control over the valuable cells. Attorney Ben Crump and Christopher Seeger released the following statement. The family of Henrietta Lacks is grateful

for the judge's important decision to deny Ultragenyx's baseless motion to dismiss the case and allow the lawsuit to move forward. This historic ruling is not only a victory for Henrietta Lack's family, it presents an opportunity to correct a monumental wrong. We invite Big Pharma to the table to resolve this on behalf of Henrietta Lack's family. My panel is Dr. Mustafa Santay Agoyali, former senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA out of D.C., Dr. Neon B. Carter, associate professor, University of Maryland School of Public Policy out of D.C., Dr. Larry J. Walker,

assistant professor at University of Central Florida out of Orlando. Mustafa, this is huge because we can talk about her sales, we can talk about land stolen from black people, we can talk about her sales. We can talk about land stolen from black people. We can talk about patents stolen from black people. There's a history in this country of black folks having things stolen that have generated billions for other folks. And since Ben Crump's involvement, the family has been successfully winning settlements from other folk because of what happened to Henry the Lax. Yeah. Well, you know, our country is built on a history of extraction. First, they started with

the extraction of indigenous people, moving them around. Then they went to Africa and enslaved us. And then we look through the medical sets of actions that have happened, we've seen not only Tuskegee, but we've also seen the experimentation that was done both during our enslavement and after our enslavement, with people doing everything, with doctors actually learning more about how to do hysterectomies without actually asking us, just experimenting on us. So there's a laundry list of the types of actions that have been used to extract our dignity, extract parts of our body, and a number of other things. And now you've got these pharmaceutical companies that continue

to make huge amounts of profit. Last year, they made over $100 billion, the pharmaceutical industry did. And when we look at the history of what our dear sister lacks left behind for us, when you look at many of the cures and treatments for both cancer and COVID-19 and HPV, and the laundry list goes on of how her cells have been used, there is a huge amount of money that is tied to that that has never come back to her family or even the history and the honoring of what she has done for the medical community. So we now have a moment to make sure that folks are actually receiving the resources that they are due, but also putting a spotlight on both the injustices that have happened and also the contributions we have made, whether willingly or unwillingly. Man, Niamh, listen, this is why there are lawyers.

You see, I love these people out here who love to criticize Attorney Ben Crump. Oh, he jumps in these cases. He's, you know, he's screwing over black people. He doesn't win these cases. First of all, most people have no idea, first of all, how the criminal and civil cases, how those systems matter. But also when you hire a Ben Crump, you are hiring somebody to purposely bring massive media attention to your story to put pressure in order to reach a settlement? Absolutely. And I think this family has been trying for many years, really since the publication of Rebecca Skloot's book, to achieve some sort of resolution to this. I mean, they had a family member whose cells were stolen and they didn't even know it had happened until the publication

of that book and some other investigative pieces and then trying to rectify that wrong. I mean, this is something that today would have monumental consequences for the medical establishment who harvested these cells and for anyone who purchased, cloned and would use those cells. And we're just trying to act like, well, it was 1951. There really wasn't an IRB and all of these things that are there to kind of safeguard the public from medical experimentation. And so it's kind of all good. And I think what

this moment is showing us is that these kinds of ROMs don't actually have a shelf life. And when we're thinking about the billions and trillions of dollars this woman's cells have generated, and to see her family have to struggle for generations, I mean, it's just disgusting. And it's really about time. And I think, you know, were it not for the Bill Crumps and others of the world, this family would still be facing, you know, many of the same hurdles to having their case heard. I mean, even knowing where to start. I mean, this is why people have attorneys. This is why people have, you know, celebrity attorneys. Like, where do you even start to address this kind of a wrong? I think many people probably have claims that otherwise

languish because they just don't have the legal knowledge, the funds and other things to move these cases forward, which is why it's important for the Ben Crumps and the Lee Merrits and others of the world to assist families who are facing a range of injustices, not just, you know, police abuse and other things. And so I think this is an extremely important moment in why you need those kinds of folks around in cases like this. You know, Larry, it's interesting. I was I came across this item on social media. Again, when you talk about ideas that black people in terms of our creativity and how generationally we don't benefit from that, you know, this is a perfect example right here. But I had no idea about this story right here. And when I saw it, I was like, wow, are you serious? And it's a guy, John Young, a brother in Buffalo, who actually created Buffalo Wings, but did not earn the millions or the billions because of the patent. I want to play this real quick.

You know, in hindsight, if he had a patent, we wouldn't be having this discussion. John Young is a man many credit with being the originator of the buffalo wing. He opened his first business on Jefferson and Carlton in 1963, where he started selling whole chicken wings. At the time, this was a part of the chicken that was either thrown away or used for stock. Young moved business up to Jefferson and High Street, but it was only once he realized sauce was boss that business started to boom. He was saying that the first two days that he opened the doors, he realized he had created a monster. People came from everywhere to get the wings with the mumbo sauce. Mumbo sauce, a tomato-based concoction, was brought to life at Young's third location at Jefferson and Utica.

Many near and far remember the famous deal splashed across the side of his building, 10 whole wings for a dollar. Young had many friends at the time, including Frank Bellissimo, who would go on to trademark the buffalo wing with his wife many years later. Racial and social instability forced him to leave his business behind and take his family to Decatur, Illinois in 1970. His family says Young's inability to trademark and market his mumbo sauce is partly to blame for why they feel he's been written out of the history of the wing.

Young left a handwritten account to his daughter of what he calls the truth. And until his death in 1998, his family says it pained him to feel that story was being erased. You know, in hindsight, if he had... I mean, right there, right there, Larry, we're talking about billions, billions of dollars that would have gone to Black families, Black communities that didn't. Roland, this is part of a long history

of Black folks being uncompensated for ideas in Mrs. Lacks' situation. Cells, it is unfortunate, it's a time-old tradition in America. And as you write, you know, there are so many different accounts. This one, obviously, Buffalo Wings and Henriette Lacks, which we're talking about, in terms of which black folks could build generational wealth. And I think that's one of the things that's really important. As a realist, you know, Ms. Lacks, you know, this is, you know, it's been over 60 years, Roland, and once again highlights the challenges of being Black in America in terms of, you know, you talk about the creativity of Black folks. But, you know, unfortunately, there's always so many barriers in place for us to really

get the due that we deserve. And, you know, I listen. It's interesting because watching this, you know, talk about Buffalo Wings, you know, the mumbo sauce, the first time I came in contact with it was when I lived in D.C. And then after that, I lived in Baltimore. And so very familiar with Henry Lacks' story, which still resonates with Black Baltimoreans, you know, to this day. But, you know, just once again, right, we have to do right. And I'm glad that, you know, Attorney Crump and his colleagues are

suing the pharmaceutical companies because they literally probably make billions of dollars in this. And I'm hoping they settle out of court and their family, her family gets their just due. And like I said, it's been 60 plus years. But once again, this is another example of justice denied when it comes to the black community. Indeed. Got to go to break. We come back, folks. More on the Black Star Network, including Donald Trump loving him. Some neo-Nazis. Where did we show you the video that he was trumpeting? Now taken down, but it's clear exactly where he stands. Also, we talk about financial literacy with John Hope Bryant,

who has a new book out on the subject. Folks, you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. First, President Barack Obama's road to the White House. We got about 500 copies of the book available. And so this actually is all of the coverage of the 2008 election. But the other thing is, is here I talk to folks like Malik Yoba, Hill Harper, Eric Alexander, Kevin Lowe, Spike Lee, Tatiana Ali. There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff in here as well, where I talked about some of the stuff that went down at CNN. Also, when you go through here, a lot of the photos that you see in here, photos that I actually shot, photos that were my time at CNN.

And so what I decided to do, because one, I published the book and I own it myself, is that so I said, you know what, I'm going to slash the price to $10. I'm not reprinting the book. So once we are sold out of these 500, that's it. They're gone. So you can go to rollingmessmartin.com forward slash the first to get a copy of this book. Everybody who orders this book through the website, not on Amazon, only through rollingmessmartin.com, I will personally autograph and mail you a copy of this book. It's all to the coverage.

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business,

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

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King,

John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz

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

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Interviews that I did with him, and just to show you, of course, when it came out, there's actually even in here the interviews that I did with him and Michelle Obama, which won TV One Cable Network's first two NAACP image awards. And so all of that for $10. Go to rollingmissmartin.com the first and order your copy today. Hey, yo, what's up? It's Mr. Dalvin right here. What's up? This is KC.

It's in here representing the J-O-D-E-C-I. That's Jodeci. Right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks. Welcome back to the Black Star Network. So Donald Trump really does love him some Hitler. Often is talked about them. OK, now guess what? He's now taking down a video that was posted on his true social account

that included reference to a unified Reich after President Joe Biden's campaign and others criticized use of language often associated with the Nazi regime. Here's a 30-second video that was posted on Monday. What happens after Donald Trump wins? What's next for America? The economy booms. American energy is unleashed and an end to crushing taxes. The border is closed and the largest deportation in history is underway. No more wars as we focus on home. Law and order is restored. The American dream is back and the best is yet to come. Make America great again. Love some Nazi references. Well, Vice President Kamala Harris has something to say about this.

Extremists are trying to divide our nation. And we see them as they encourage xenophobia and hate. Just yesterday, the former president of the United States, this kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president of the United States. This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising,

coming from the former president, and it is appalling. And we got to tell him who we are. . And once again, it shows our freedoms and our very democracy are at stake. In the face of these attacks, let us remind each other of our collective power. Let us continue to stand against those who dare to attack our freedoms. And let us continue to fight to make real the promise of America. So this has been talked about and on the view of Lisa Farah Griffin who actually used to

work for Trump talked about this and said how she also was appalled. Watch this. It doesn't impact millions of Americans the way somebody calling for a third Reich or saying immigrants poison the blood of America in this rhetoric he's using does. So we always have to be ready to call it out. And I just took a little bit of issue. So the throwing the staffer under the bus and then they tried to claim it was stock footage of a newspaper. So I watched the ad a couple of times. They specifically selected lines about Trump. Trump wins by a landslide. Make America great again. Largest deportation program in history.

And then they chose this. So they want me to believe they chose all of those lines specifically, but that one just somehow snuck in there. It just doesn't even make sense. It's not like he's saying the quiet part out loud. He's shouting it. It doesn't impact millions of Americans. And that's the deal.

Niambi, he's shouting it. So believe him. And for all these people who keepambi, he's shouting it. So believe him. And for all these people who keep acting like, oh, this is no big deal. You know, when you have idiots like Amber Rose out there, when you have Waka Flocka Flame supporting Trump, when the Cardi B's of the world say, oh, I can't stand votes, so therefore I'm not voting.

Okay, I'm trying to tell all you fools, if that pathetic orangutan gets back into the White House, trust me, they are going to be executing an agenda that is beyond shameful. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think this is the problem, especially with people who are exceedingly wealthy, as some of the people you talked about. I they can withstand maybe some of this they have the money to flee to to move elsewhere to do other things even maybe stay in the country and live through what donald trump has promised will be an authoritarian uh regime i mean he said i want to be an authoritarian for a little bit. I mean, he was one when he was president the first time. He will certainly be worse this time. He's trying

to get revenge. And what he was doing was essentially putting this ad out there to see what Americans would tolerate, to see how far he could push them. This was not some sort of guffaw. This was not some insincere or tepid effort on his part. This is exactly what he believes. He believes America belongs to white men in particular. He believes that only wealthy people should have rights in this country. I think that's something that many of his followers need to get in their head. He has no respect for people who do not have money.

He has even less respect for white people with no money. This man is going to be a danger and a threat on every single level. The people that he surrounded himself with, these, you know, the Roger Stones and the Steve Banns of the world, they've gone nowhere, right? So he is going to be even more of

a problem, and that's putting it mildly. Should he win again, particularly with the particular idea that presidents can't be prosecuted for anything. So God knows what he may do. When you look at what this thug said to Big Oil, go to my iPad, he actually met with

oil executives and said to them, hey, if y'all give my campaign a billion dollars, I'm getting rid of everything. I'm getting rid of electric vehicles, wind energy, everything. I'm going to give fossil fuel industry whatever they want. That's the kind of person we're dealing with here. Yeah, you know, Trump is in favor of genocide. And let me clarify what I mean, because I know when you use that word, it can raise lots of different flags. We understand that the fossil fuel industry actually kills people.

We know that over 350,000 people died last year by the burning of fossil fuels. So if there was a President Trump who was able to do the things that he's saying, then we know that there's a huge amount of people who are going to lose their life prematurely. Then when we unpack that, we know that his black and brown folks are the ones that are disproportionately dying inside of that larger number that I just mentioned. So if you want to protect the lives of your grandmothers and your nieces and nephews and your children, then you might want to find someone to vote for who actually is not going to give the fossil fuel industry the ability to run amok and do whatever they want. So just like Hitler annihilated and had atrocities, you know,

Trump is also setting up a paradigm to do very similar things. So we need to be very mindful of how we utilize our vote and who we give it to. And stop just listening to these bumper sticker slogans that people have out there of why you shouldn't vote. You should be analyzing why you should vote. And the number one thing that should be tied to your vote is actually protecting people's lives and helping folks to be in a better place. But again, we live in a democracy and you get to do whatever you want to do, whether you want to vote or not vote, or to continue to share misinformation about the records of individuals. If somebody's falling short, push them, get engaged. If you don't do that, then I don't think you have a whole lot

to talk about if you're not holding people accountable and making sure that they know what your expectations are. Your expectations can't just be from the sidelines based upon something you heard. It should be based on real research and then also bringing solutions forward about how we improve the lives inside of our communities. Larry, what we're seeing here is the language. Look, he's clear. The language he's using, they are appealing to racists. They're appealing to white supremacists. You see them language. Look, he's clear. The language he's using, they are appealing to racists. They are appealing to white supremacists. You see them floating.

Oh, his attorney general could be that idiot out of Texas, Ken Paxton. And so this thug plans on loading up this administration with more thugs, the more Stephen Millers, the more white nationalists, white supremacists.

And those are just facts. Yeah, he wants an ethnostate. And you can't be as clear as any. And listen, Roland, this country is dancing on the head of a needle. And if we're not really careful in the next couple of months, it is going to go downhill as fast as possible. He's already talked about whether the comments are poison and blood. Let's remember what happened in Charlottesville when he said, when the white supremacists rallied, he said there were good people on both sides. So this kind of language and rhetoric is consistent with what they're doing.

The other thing is, I've never seen—and I worked on political campaigns—I've never seen a campaign propose harmful laws, and people swallow it like if, I've never seen a campaign propose harmful laws and people swallow it. Like, if he becomes president, everything is going to be okay. And one of the phrases I describe in terms of what, you know, you talk about Bannon and some of these other folks, you know, what Trump wants is he wants Jim Crow remix. And as Black folks, if you're watching this show, you do not want to mess around and find out in November and then January whoever swore in the presidency of the United States, because he's talking about creating concentration camps, mass deportation, using the military to deport some of these people,

some of the people who are watching, some people that you care about and love. But in addition, they're also using the military when individuals are protesting. So you have military individuals in the U.S. military who make a decision whether they should shoot individuals who live in their community. And that's what it's going to come down to. And once again, Americans need to be very aware that he's telegraphing exactly what he's going to do in terms of oppressive policies. And we won't be a democracy anymore. We'll be a totalitarian society and things will go downhill as quickly as you can imagine. Now we're waiting for the verdict with the case in New York where the prosecution and the defense arrested their cases in Trump's campaign finance scandal trial dealing with hush money. The court

is in recess until Tuesday. Judge Juan Merchan told the jury that there wouldn't be enough time this week with scheduling conflicts and the holiday to hear closing arguments and begin deliberations. Now, one of the things that you continue to see is you continue to see this parade of shameful, despicable Republicans showing up outside of court, just making up all kind of other stuff, defending him, throwing kind of crap out. So one of the idiots who has been out there is Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Now, first of all, just so y'all know, Dan Patrick, y'all, is considered to know this idiot is defending Donald Trump for hush money to a porn star who he cheated on his wife with after she had a baby. So just understand what you're dealing with with all of these idiots who are backing him. You want to hear stupid? Here we go. We are here to defend our Constitution, our freedoms, and we are here because we are friends

of Donald Trump, the President of the United States. And when a friend is trouble, friends have his back. The way he has been treated, you would see in Russia, you would see in China, you would see in North Korea, you would see in every little tin pot dictatorship across the world. And that's what we have here in New York, in America. If they can go after the former president of the United States of America, who has the ability and the financial resources to fight back, what happens to the average American? What happens to any of you? If the courts in New York come after any of you because of something you said, because you said something the ruling class didn't like. And that's what all these other countries are

about. They shut down the ruling class. They want to be, they want to be sure that anyone that speaks up against the ruling class disappears. They want Donald Trump to disappear. They want to send him to jail. They want to take him off the main stage because they know here's their biggest danger to take in the ruling class down. No, you know, so Donald Trump is not a part of the ruling class. Really? Really? And what you've seen, folks, you've seen a steady procession of Republicans from Congress, from all across the country, going there and sucking up to this fool. What have I said consistently on this show and other shows? They are about power. Project 2025 is about power. And Larry, people out

there who are sitting here talking about, man, I ain't gonna vote, I'm gonna sit on the couch. We already see right now the Republicans want to make massive cuts to SNAP benefits. That's food. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action.

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

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

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

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

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

or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We're dealing with a country where 30,000 people die every year hungry. They want to cut SNAP. We can go on and on and on talking about the policies they plan to enact. And all of anybody out there who's running around talking about, man, but them STEMI checks we got, those

checks ain't coming back. I'm telling you right now, it ain't coming back ever, ever, ever. Y'all can F around and find out, but then y'all gonna be real pissed when y'all find out. And then we gonna

say, hashtag, we tried to tell you, Larry. You ain't telling no lie, Roland. And this is like Avengers Endgame. And listen, once again, I make my point earlier. They're not telegraphing. They tell you exactly what's going on here. First of all, he's got a bunch of his generals and lieutenants who are, you know, state and federal leaders of the Congress. Or you can talk about Patrick, you know, lieutenant governor in Texas, among other individuals.

And the language that they're using is to delegitimize, you know, when it comes to the judicial system. So, here's a powerful white man who held the most powerful position in the world, who's somehow not part of the ruling class, and is being treated unfairly. So, and obviously, you know, a lot of these white folks from middle class and underserved backgrounds who voted for him a few years ago and certainly will vote for him again, they won't realize how foolish the mistake they made until it starts impacting them. And let's just be clear about what this is really about.

Because if folks who vote for him who don't look like the panel and like everyone on the show, if they realize what these policies really would do, they think they won't be impacted by it, that they wouldn't even think about voting for him. But the challenge is that they believe that the policies that the Biden-Harris administration is putting forward is trying to balance out the system. And that is essentially what this is about. It is about getting power back that you think you've lost and, once again, creating a Jim Crow remix where Black folks and other minoritized groups don't have any power. We suffer. Our mortality rates go down. And we continue to deal with many of the challenges we dealt with prior to the Great Society programs

in the 1960s. And if folks are watching it, you better get up, register to vote, get other people registered to vote, support campaigns, and get out there, or once again, we will regret it after November. And that's the thing that is real, Mustafa. And when you listen to these idiots stand there and talk about, oh, my God, how this is so unfair, not being allowed to speak. Anybody else would be sitting ass in jail if you actually got charged four different times. Ninety one counts. Yeah. Donald Trump, his whole life has been about privilege.

I'm sorry. Let me clarify it, because if I just say privilege and leave it there, people might not understand. White privilege, wealthy privilege. And because he has had that, he has been able to thumb his nose at the law at every turn, going all the way back to him and his daddy and the things that they got in trouble with around housing-related issues and not wanting to rent to people who look like folks who are on the panel here tonight. So he has been able to utilize his privilege to actually get over on the system,

to have a whole bunch of everyday people who started their own small businesses end up going out of business, going into bankruptcy because they did business with him. And because he made the decision and his team that what was owed, he thought that he could only have to pay a percentage of it. So when we look at what's going on here in this moment, you really got to take a step back and just ask yourself the question that Roland posed to us just as we started here. You know, if it was anybody else who was black or brown or indigenous or even a lower wealth white person who did the things that this individual has done, would they receive the same type of support from the legal system? Would they also be able to get away with saying certain things and there being no repercussions

for them? So we've really got to make sure that justice actually has equality built into it. And this is the moment when we also know that to make that become a reality, that you got to vote. And that just means you got to get engaged. And we have to say it a thousand times over and over again. Eventually, it will find fertile ground, because if you want change to happen, if you want to make sure that those folks who have had privilege, who break the law, that they are held accountable, then that means that you got to vote. You got to get the right judges that are in there that will be fair and impartial. And you just got to make sure that you're utilizing your power. As we talked about on this show, my grandmother says you have power unless you give it away. We got far too many

people in our community that continue to give away their power. To listen to folks who have nothing in common with you. When I saw some of the folks that I've known and some folks that I've known, others have known who've been in the entertainment industry saying some of this stuff. And I'm thinking to myself, you're a millionaire. You live in a penthouse or you live in a mansion. What do you have in common with somebody who's living in public housing? Somebody's trying to put food on the table and keep the lights on or figure out how they're going to save enough money to get their kid to be able to go to a good school.

So we've got to actually flip this paradigm, stop listening to other people, use this massive amount of brain that we have, and then make sure that we're making the right choices in the ballot box. Nyambi? Well, look, I think people always think that there's going to be another election,

and we cannot presuppose that luxury. Donald Trump is a threat. Donald Trump is a bully. And to what my colleagues pointed out, I mean, somebody's going to be the president, whether people vote or not. That's not going to change. The two-party system that people don't like is not going to change just because they choose to stay home. And I'm not suggesting that it's ideal or whatever, but these are not people you have to like. These are people that we need to have to make sure that there's enough stability so that if we want to create change, that we actually can. There's nothing to change if the system collapses.

And very clearly, this system cannot withstand another four years of Donald Trump. There are not going to be enough judges. We can't depend on the Supreme Court or even lower courts that can insulate us. Donald Trump has made it clear that when he comes in, he wants to put judges in as young as possible so that this legacy will continue for generations to come.

And that's just not the Supreme Court. That's lower federal courts. Also, the people that he's going to appoint to cabinet positions are going to be dangerous. He said he wants to get rid of the Department of Education. I believe the Department of Health might even be on there. So he is going to do real damage to our country, no doubt. And if there's a country left when he leaves in four years, I guarantee people won't recognize what it is or how to even manage it. I'm not saying our country is perfect. It certainly isn't. There are a lot of gaps and there are a lot of things to be

displeased about. And there are a lot of things that you can take to your parties and argue with them about, even thinking about changing the way we do our electoral systems. But it doesn't matter if there is no elections to be had. And so stay home in November at your own peril, but somebody will be elected, and it's likely not going to be the person that is going to do the most for you or that will do the most good. And in some cases, the most we can hope is that the person won't harm us at all.

And that's, I mean, and if that's as low a bar as you can have to still show up in November, then go with that. Yep, play a game if you want to. I'm just saying it's not going to be a good idea. So we're going to, of course, let y'all know what actually goes down in this year. And hopefully that jury finds his ass guilty.

All right, got to go to a break. We'll be right back. Roland Martin on the filter of the Black Star Network. Support the work that we do, folks. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. The goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average $50 each per year. That's $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. Send your check and money order to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196.

Cash app is Dallas Santa, RM Unfiltered. PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered, PayPal, R Martin Unfiltered, Venmo is RM Unfiltered, Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com, download the Blackstone Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Back in a moment. I wanted the people of Baltimore to hear it from me. I have done nothing wrong. But I see that what you are trying to do is destroy this black woman for doing her job. I've heard your calls for no justice, no peace. However, your peace is sincerely needed

as I work to deliver justice on behalf of Freddie Gray. Marilyn was a force to be reckoned with. I was assuming this was all because of Freddie Gray, but it actually is much deeper than that. Baltimore's top prosecutor, a woman named Marilyn Mosby, was indicted yesterday in the Eastern District of Maryland for perjury. Couldn't help but think about Donald Trump. This is what you got to deal with when you are a black woman

fighting for just causes in America. Yeah, but just take it on the police, period. She's stepping on their toes. They want to cross her out of the system so she can't stand up for the preacher. Reach to the pool and grab me and pull me out. Imagine if this were you. You would want people to stand in your corner.

I lost my car. I lost my job. I lost my marriage. And I almost lost my mind for a little while. There's just so much right now, Lord, and I'm just, and why are you putting all of this on me? I'm about to break. Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated.

Trump was a failure on healthcare. Hundreds of thousands of black Americans lost healthcare insurance. That is outrageous. And if he's president again, he would cancel insurance for millions more of us. Failure on healthcare. Hundreds of thousands of black Americans lost healthcare insurance. That is outrageous. And if he's president again, he would cancel insurance for millions more of us. We cannot go back. President Biden and Vice President Harris

have lowered healthcare premiums and expanded coverage for black families. They also capped the price of insulin at $35. Joe Biden is getting the job done for people just like me. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Hello, I'm Paula J. Parker. Trudi Proud on The Proud Family. Louder and Prouder on Disney+.

And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Brandon Cotton has been missing from Holyoke, Massachusetts since February 16th. The 16-year-old is 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighs 130 pounds. The black hair and brown eyes, anyone with information about Brandon Cotton should call the Holyoke, Massachusetts Police Department at 413-322-6900. 413-322-6900. Former Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Christina Bob pled not guilty today. The duo and other Republicans answered charges in an Arizona courtroom over an alleged plan to keep Donald Trump in the White House by falsely certifying he won the state in 2020. Giuliani and Bob are among 18 people indicted by a Maricopa County grand jury last month. All face nine felony counts, including conspiracy, forgery and fraud.

Giuliani appeared remotely Tuesday and was ordered to post a $10,000 appearance bond. Trump is not charged in the case. Still the indictment names him as an unindicted co-conspirator one, a former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election. He faces federal and state election interference cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith in D.C. and Fulton County D.A. Attorney Fannie Willis in Atlanta. Here's why Giuliani was so hilarious. He was sitting here. He was sitting here running from the subpoena, y'all.

And he wouldn't let himself be served. But he was live every single day, going live online, and that's how they found his ass. And so he had a birthday party in Palm Beach. He got served at the birthday party. Would you like a subpoena with your cake, Mr. Giuliani? Look, listen, this thug has continued to malign the two black women in Georgia

even after getting hit with a $138 million judgment. And the bottom line is, it couldn't happen to a better scrub, Mustafa. When they say stupid is and stupid does, I'm just like, man, you can tell

that he also lived a life of privilege because he would have understood not to be making his locations so easily found. But that's beside the point, because if he hadn't been a part of an administration that was less than any administration we've ever seen before, he wouldn't be running into these problems. If he didn't continue to live out the paradigm of his former boss, then he wouldn't be in the situation that he is. If he had any character, then he wouldn't be in the situation that he is. So the things that are coming back to him, as Malcolm once said, coming home to roost, the chickens coming home to roost,

he should have been quite aware that that moment, these moments were actually going to eventually play out. You know, what we're facing here again, and I know somebody out there saying, man, y'all just sitting here talking about Trump again. I need people to understand these folks don't have a bottom, Larry. They don't have a bottom. They will do whatever it is in order to win. They tried to steal it last time. Don't think for a second they won't try it again. Yeah, a couple of years ago, it was a dry run.

And based on what we're seeing from the Supreme Court, you know, if it doesn't work this time, they're hoping it works in a couple of months. And, you know, Roland is interesting with Giuliani because I remember a time when he was mayor of New York City and it's to the stop and frisk. And a lot of times he was pretty much like, you know, hey, listen, if you just comply, you'll be fine. You know, it didn't work out for a lot of black and brown brothers and sisters in New York City during that time and still being used in cities and jurisdictions throughout the country. So what I need him to do, I just need to make sure he complies with the law and follows what he's being told. These judges show up for court on time. Don't zoom in. Show up on time

and in person and pay his dues and comply like he talked about a lot when he was mayor. And also, obviously, years ago, he took down the mob in New York City. So, once again, you know, but it's contradictions wrapped within lies. And this is what his life has been like for the last several years. And so, look, he jumped on the Trump bandwagon, and this is where he's got him. He's got multiple indictments, like you said, in the federal government in multiple states. And so, once again, if you just follow the rule of law, you wouldn't be in this situation. And now it's time for you to pay the piper. Niyambi?

Well, look, Giuliani should understand better than anybody else that the feds don't come for you unless they plan on winning. And the fact that you would do this and know better, I mean, you know, that's the thing, I think. He's not like any other person on Trump's staff. He's been a federal prosecutor. He knows what's at stake here, and he did it anyway. So this is why I think, you know, to your point about these people having no bottom, they have no shame, and they will do anything, break the law, bend the law, ignore the law, just to get their way. This is all about power. This isn't about right or wrong. This isn't about what's legal or illegal. These people don't have a limit.

And when you have people with no boundaries, I can only imagine what schemes they're cooking up now to take the election this year if they are not successful. We saw what happened on January 6th. We also saw all of these sort of procedural steps that they took in multiple states. Michigan, I think, is the other where they did something like this. And so I can only imagine what comes next should Giuliani and others get another bite at the apple, so to speak, this go-round. But, you know, unfortunately, our legal system works a lot slower than American elections. So we shall see what happens at the end of this. All right, folks, hold tight one second.

Got to go to a break. We come back. We'll talk financial literacy with John O'Brien. He has a new book out, The Fault of Operation Hope. Also, Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey would join us talking about all these corporations who've been jacking up prices and taking advantage of America causing inflation

to stay higher than it should be. And also. Y'all have seen numerous songs dropped about bad built Marjorie Taylor Greene. Oh, my God. I got to play a lot of them. We had fun with those the other day. And I. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be

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

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

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

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

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

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Got to play more of them today on the show. I'll be right back. Roland Martin on the Black Star Network. A lot of y'all have been asking me about the pocket squares that we have available on our website.

You see me rocking the Chibori pocket square right here. It's all about looking different. Now look, summertime is coming up. Y'all know, I keep trying to tell fellas, change your look please. You can't wear athletic shoes every damn wear. So if you're putting on linen suits, if you're putting on some summer suits, have a whole different look. The reason I like this particular pocket square, these shiboris, because it's sort of like a flower and looks pretty cool here, versus the traditional boring

silk pocket squares. But also, I like being a little different as well. So this is why we have these custom-made feather pocket squares on the website as well. My sister actually designed these after a few years ago. I was in this battle with Steve Harvey at Essence, and I saw this at a St. Jude fundraiser. I saw this feather pocket square, and I said, well, I got some ideas. So I hit her, and she sent me about 30 different ones. And so this completely changes your look. Now, some of you men out there, I had some dudes say, oh, man, I can't wear that.

Well, if you ain't got swagger, that's not my problem. But if you're looking for something different to spruce up your look, fellas, ladies, if y'all looking to get your man a good gift, I've run into brothers all across the country with the feather pocket squares saying, see, check mine out. So it's always good to see them. And so this is what you do. Go to RollersMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. You can order Shibori pocket squares or the custom-made pocket squares. Now, for the Shiboris, we're out of a lot of different colors, and I think we're down to about 200 or 300.

So you want to get your order in as soon as you can because here's what happened I got these several years ago and they the the Japanese company signed the deal with another company and I bought them before they signed that deal and so I can't get access to any more from the company in Japan that makes them and so get yours now so come summertime when I see y'all at Essence, y'all could be looking fly with the Chibori Pocket Square or the custom-made Pocket Square. Again, rollinglessmartin.com

forward slash pocket squares. Go there now. Fan base is pioneering a new era of social media for the creator economy. This next generation social media app with over 600. This next generation social media app with over 600,000 users is raising $17 million

and now is your chance to invest. For details on how to invest, visit startengine.com slash fanbase or scan the QR code. Another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits when you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture we're about covering these things that matter to us speaking to our issues and concerns this is a genuine people-powered

movement a lot of stuff that we're not getting, you get it and you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in black owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover ours. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Waits $100,000. We're behind $100,000. So we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible.

Check some money orders. Go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is $RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at Roland unfiltered. PayPal is rmartin unfiltered. Venmo is rm unfiltered. Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. Coming soon to the Black Star Network. It was my junior year at Georgetown, and Spike calls me and he says,

Malcolm, what are you doing next year? Graduating, you know. He said, take a year off. Welcome, Malcolm X. I said, okay. First of all, for the folks who don't know, take a year off. Work on Malcolm X. I said, OK. But first of all, for the folks who don't know, Spike is my cousin. Spike is my cousin.

You're just what? The person watching, like, how the hell is Spike just going to tell you? It's true. It's true. Next on A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, summertime when the living is easy, or is it? Summer vacations, class reunions, kids in summer camp, all fun, but stressful. You need to get into a summer mindset and have a plan. Oh, yes.

Our panel gives us their favorite summer planning hacks. On the next A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie here at Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney Plus. And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. All right, folks. We're always talking about the importance of money, resources, wealth creation. And a lot of people complain about, okay, what has happened in the past, but the reality is there are things that can actually be done to change the future of our lineage today. John O'Brien founded Operation Hope.

It's a new book out, folks. It is called Financial Literacy for All, Disrupting Struggle, Advancing Financial Freedom, and Building a New American middle class. He joins us in studio. Doc, glad to have you here. Honored to be here. I came here just for you. Let's talk about it.

By the way, people need to, when you're in Washington, go to the King Memorial, go to the Lincoln Memorial, go to the White House tour, do all that. Then come see Roland Martin's real serious studio. This is not some like created on Instagram thing. Like he's got an, I'm really upset with him because he's got an entire command center, control room, that looks just like CNBC, CNN, or anybody else.

It is absolutely beautiful. And it was done by a black owned company. Yep, out of Atlanta. So lights were done by a black owned company. The green screen done by a black owned company. Yep, out of Atlanta. So lights were done by a black owned company, the green screen done by a black draped company. The set was built by a black set design company. And black artists, black artists, black artists. He's got Freedom Journal on the wall.

Black artists, black artists, black artists, so all that. You get off the elevator, he's got an elevator ID I keep talking about the streets to the suites so he's got, literally he's gone from the streets and reporting to building an enterprise in the suites and he's got elevator access. You know you made it when you have elevator access

for your building. So come see Roland Martin. Two blocks from the White House so you know you gotta have all that. But you got to have, well, and look, when we talk about. And you can't do this unless you're real. That's my point. You can't fake this.

This is real real estate, prime real estate, real cameras, real staff. These are not AI people. This is not artificial intelligence. No, no, we ain't doing that. This is real people. This is real staff people, real producers, real makeup artists. I mean, it's very impressive.

I see four different setups for studio setups. Six. Six, excuse me. So the set is one. Standing position is two. This is three. The love wall is four. The green screen is five. And, oh, you didn't see the art screen is five, and oh, you didn't see

the art pieces of Prince, Miles Davis, and Jimi Hendrix. I saw it when I was here for the holiday. So that's six. If you throw in the kitchen where we can shoot stuff, that's actually seven. So look, come to Washington, make sure you ask for a tour. Maybe you'll say... But only those who will contribute to the Breonna Funk

family. Well, there you go. And that part. Got to do that part. Silver rights. Because you got to fund it. Silver rights. And that's the thing that we talk about this a lot, John, and that I'm always trying to explain to people.

We can't talk about how do we advance African Americans, how do we get out of poverty, how do we do all of these things? Then you have people who say, who talk about, well, you know, I hate capitalism and I don't like how it's done. And I have people who, I got people hit me, man, why are you begging these white folks

for advertising money? And I'm going, hmm, let's see. Disney takes advertising money. Comcast takes it, Fox takes it. It's not white folks, it's green folks. It's almost $400 billion spent every year on advertising. Wow, black owned media can't be in a position of poverty when it comes to saying, oh no, don't take any of that,

when that's what the whole industry is based on. So Saturday, first of all, the book, thanks for talking about the book. The book, Financial Ludicity for All, debuted on USA Today National Bestseller List as number one on nonfiction, number nine amongst all books. No, I think it was number 13 of all, 12 of all books,

and number nine on Publishers Weekly, and number one on Amazon for economics. It's still number one in business on Amazon two months later. And we're, best I can tell, black and brown folks are buying the book and they're enjoying it. And so I encourage people to pull it out,

put it in your kitchen table, have a weekly conversation, go into a school, teach folks about this, go to your sororities, go to your fraternities, make this a normal conversation. Go from civil rights to silver rights, from the streets to the suites. This is the new movement. Financial literacy is a new civil rights issue

of this generation. On Saturday, you and I were talking, I think it was Saturday, you landed in Palm Springs, and on your Twitter feed, if you refuse to call it the new name. Same. Thank you. On your Twitter feed, where people

are arguing about something that was pretty ridiculous, well, why are you talking about capitalism? I hate capitalism, or something like that. But it was really funny. They'd say, I don't support capitalism. And they're on a phone. They're using the comments. They're making the comments on a phone or computer

that they bought with capitalist money. In other words, you use your human capital to go get a job and be compensated for that talent, or you have a business that compensated you, that's free enterprise and capitalism. You then went and bought a product from a capitalist, which is Apple or Android or wherever you bought your phone. That's not the government, that's not a socialist.

I'm not even sure what a socialist, all socialism is a tax system. That's a whole other conversation. But that's not the government, that's not a socialist. I'm not even sure what a socialist is. All socialism is a tax system. That's a whole other conversation. But that's capitalism. You're talking on a screen that is made by, well, a capitalist. You are interfacing through a platform, Twitter, which is a capitalist system.

Everything around them, your car you're getting into, that's a car note, that's capitalism, or a manufacturer, that's capitalism. The place you're sitting in, sitting in the note, you're either renting it or you're owning it. That's capitalism. People say, oh, I hate rich people. No, you don't.

You hate rich people until you become rich. What you hate is a game system. Rightly so. What you hate is a system that is rigged against you so you can't succeed. Rightly so. What you hate is a system that is rigged against you so you can't succeed. Rightly so. Hate the system. Hate the game. But become the game master.

And that's the transition. You know, whenever the rules are published in the playing fielders level, we kill it. The thing that... Remember Jackson has said that for years. Really? I was watching a video in 2010. He said, why have we excelled in sports? The thing that... Reverend Jackson has said that for years. Really? This is why... No, that's literally... I was watching a video in 2010.

He said, why have we excelled in sports? Because of what you just said. Bottom line is... Rules are published. Rules are published. Playing field is level. Level. You get five.

I get five. You get extra amount of timeouts. The basketball goal is 10 feet high. Same distance from the free throw line. No matter what court you go, it's 94 feet long. Now it's like, all right, let's play. Let's play. By the way, the arts, same thing.

Either you like my performance or you didn't. Right. Either you can sing or you can't. Right, either you like my lyrics and you want me to buy them or come to my concert or not. Church, that's where we are able to articulate for the first time. That became a place of power, right?

And that we proliferated in faith to this day, from slavery to this day. Politics, rules are published, playing to this level, either you vote for me or you don't. Unless, unless folks are trying to. Shutting down voting locations, vote ID, can't give what. So that's where the rig

part comes in. But more black mayors than we've ever seen. My point is, where the rules of population, the playing field is level, we kill it. All we have to do now is master free enterprise, capitalism, economics, and ownership.

Also, black people and brown people are the only group black people and brown people are the only group of people, and poor whites, who didn't use free enterprise and capitalism to set themselves free. Out of literally hundreds of ethnic groups in America, what are the three groups held back? Poor whites, more poor whites than poor anybody else.

And by the way, if it was only about race, there wouldn't be poor whites, it'd just be rich whites. But there's more poor whites than anybody else because some got the memo and some did not. Going back to 1600s, Native American Indians, number one alcoholism rate in the country unfortunately because of depression, and they were

locked out of the prosperity. And their land literally taken from them, which had oil on it and all that kind of stuff. And African Americans, not African Nigerians, not African Ghanaians, not African Caribbeans, not African, you know, Africans, African Americans. The numbers are different because experience is different. But when you give us a business plan and we can understand the rules of engagement, oh my God, we over index. Golf. We've discovered F1 racing. We discovered soccer. We do tennis. Wherever we enter a platform and somebody gives us the memo, that

was my fourth or third or fourth book, the memo, we kill it. So now this is a platform, an entry place, a business plan for us to begin to kill it successfully around free enterprise and capitalism. And it is inevitable. It is a natural progression. Dr. King's last book, Where Do We Go From Here, his speech, as you know, Jobs and Freedom. I mean, he was talking about money all the time. Well, and Phil Bowles' book, The Guaranteed Income,

that's what he gave out to all his lieutenants, which is where he was a believer in that. And the thing that, I was just telling someone when I was in Palm Desert, that you go back to- With money that you earn, honestly, from a network you own, which you control, all your golf fees, all your plane tickets, all your rental cars, all of it financed

by a network that you control and own in your self-determination. I'm just making a plane. Bad books, speeches, and all of that. Yeah, but I'm just making a plane for people. So the thing that was... A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

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

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

Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one

visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for and six on June 4th. Add free at lava for good. Plus on Apple podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the war on drugs.

We are back in a big way, in a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star studded a little bit, man. We got a Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

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

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Well, I remind people about the April 3rd, 68th speech, the Mason Temple, where he specifically talked about companies that we were going to boycott. He specifically said we have to redistribute to pain. Because what he said,

what he said in that sermon, see, everybody keep talking about the mountaintop part. Well, that's the last two minutes. Everybody like know the other 41 minutes of the speech. In the speech, he was very specific when he said that if you do not do business with us, we are not going to do business with you. But later in the speech, he talked about the power of the collective. He said individually, black people are poor. He said, but collectively represent one of the largest economies in the world.

He said, so we need to be moving collectively. And that to me, I think, is part of something that people don't want to confront. How do we move collectively? How do we work together? How do we not, I don't trust you, I don't trust you, I don't know, in these silos? And how do we use our organizations to do what's right by us and that is right by them for themselves? The first thing we've gotta do, Roland, is heal. In order to deal, you gotta heal. I mean, there's three ways to live.

Suicide, and you can die alive. You can be the most dangerous person in the world as a person with no hope. We pass people all the time, the eyes just glazed, living in a surviving mindset. So you got suicide, you got basically surviving or dealing or hustling or trying to get by, then you got healing. And most of us are in this sort of middle factor,

the INGs, you know, drugging, drinking, texting, sexting, sleeping, you know, all the INGs. What we have to do is get to healing. And once we deal with that and then get the mindset right, then get the financial literacy right, then get our skills right, technology and financial literacy, get our business plan for the rest of our lives right. Once you do that, now if I don't like me, I'm not gonna like you. If I don't feel good about me, I'm not gonna feel good about you.

Why somebody play Hayden Rowland, Rowland Martin? Why wouldn't they just say, bravo? I mean, if you have high self-esteem, you're like, God bless the brother. I may not be my business plan, but I'm glad he's killing it. And more like it.

But if somebody's hating on you or me, that's not my problem, that's their problem. I even said, look, it's the folks who run their mouths on YouTube, maybe on social media, and I've literally said, I don't pay attention to you. And I go, and I. Because you have high self-esteem.

But I also say, do you. I don't care, go do you, say whatever you wanna do. Do whatever you wanna do, cause I don't talk about y'all. But you're always talking about me. I like what you're doing much better than what other people are not doing. Again, are you an expert at what you're against,

surviving mindset? Are you an expert in what you're for, thriving and a winning mindset? That was my fourth book, I think, Up From Nothing. So all this is part of a narrative, and what we have to realize, Malcolm X, we've been bamboozled, we've been tricked, we've been fooled.

They really succeeded in destroying our self-esteem. Our self-esteem. And so part of the working together thing is we got crab in the barrel disease really badly. But again, if I don't like me, I'm not gonna like you. Tom Burrell talked about that in his book Brainwash when he said that there's been no group in America that has been under continuous, continual assault.

Mental assault. With messages. Emotional assault. Through media over such a long period of time African Americans. You always use the phrase we need to reboot. I always use the phrase that we need to be reprogrammed. And when we talk about

even financial literacy, there has to be a starting point. It's sort of like when you do tons of panels, summits, whatever. When I moderate, I'm not about to sit here and have an hour conversation

on the problem. About the problem. I can't, because it's like, we can run all this stuff down and I just want to cuss somebody out. I literally, I'm like, we got a problem, boom, boom, boom, now we better focus on total solution. That's right. So there's somebody who's watching who's like,

all right, that stuff sounds great, but look, I can't pay my bills, I'm broke, I can't save no money. I'm gonna make you a millionaire. I can't do it over there. I'm gonna make you a millionaire in this program within five years, I'll make everybody watching a millionaire just do what I say. Hold up, hold up, before you go there,

tell them what your mama did. Oh, yeah. Whew, first of all, she tell me, it was, it brought tears to my eyes because my mom passed last year, been promoted, a rolling new mom, Juanita Smith. Mom told me she loved me every day of my life. That's not what you meant, but that's important to say.

When your kids grew up, say, I'm frustrated with you. I'm going to discipline you, you future lawyer. I'm going to jack you up. I'm going to give you a whipping, you future entrepreneur. In other words, you gotta discipline them, instruct them, but you also gotta throw them into their aspirational future because self-esteem, again, is that sensitive thing.

So my mother told me she loved me every day of my life, no matter what I was making a mistake, I made a mistake, I wasn't a mistake. Number two, mom worked, and I know this is what you meant, she worked an hourly job at McDonnell Douglas Aircraft. She made $15 to $17 an hour, Juanita Smith, and mom and dad divorced over money. Everybody thinks I had a silver spoon in my mouth. My sister, Juanita, my mother, my sister, Mara, my brother, Donnie. I was the youngest. In South Central LA we had a gas station hustle.

Apartment building, gas station Vernon and Normandy. Home on Martin Luther King Boulevard was called Santa Barbara. Apartment building for a eight unit apartment building was worth millions a day rolling. We bought it for eighteen thousand dollars back then. Our own home, cement contracting business my dad did with his own home. My dad was a hustler but he was financially literate. So the more money he made, the broker we got. They argued over money, got divorced over money, domestic abuse over money.

Mom went to go live with somebody else, saved enough to borrow a down payment. By the way, he lost all those assets, lost it all. Went to go buy our first home in Compton, California, 15502 South Fraley. She used the equity from that house to then buy another house while she was working. She did a side hustle on the job.

By the way, anybody watching this who's married, one salary to pay the bills, one salary to invest. Yep. Right, so my mother would have this side hustle selling handicrafts and candies and things she made. She saved that money to go buy down payment for another home. She bought and sold seven homes

and when she passed away with an hourly job, 32 years at McDonnell Douglas Aircraft, now Boeing Aircraft, she had a million dollar net worth. She had a will, she had a life insurance policy which she cashed in, she had a burial policy, no one had to go do a GoFundMe campaign to bury her. Right. Can we please stop this?

Please stop the GoFundMe campaigns for burial. It cost you 25 bucks, or 10, I'm sorry, 4 bucks to get a $25,000 insurance policy. You can get, for 40 bucks a month, you can get a million dollar life insurance policy. There's your generational wealth, getting ahead of myself. Mom had a will, an insurance policy, she had a savings account, had X dollars in it, and she had these homes that she bought and sold, and when she passed away, there was a million dollars that could be distributed,

that was distributed over time to her heirs. And so here's a working class woman at basically 18 bucks an hour. So don't tell me what can't, with a high school education, went back to school at age 62, and got our high school equivalent and marched with cap and gown. So this is possible. I'm going to lay out right before we finish how everybody watching this can become a millionaire within five years. We're going to put a pin in it right now because we're going to go to a break. We're going to come back. We have Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey. He was supposed to be before

John, but they had some meetings and some votes. We're going to come back, chat with him. We're going to pick up the conversation with John as well. You're watching Roller Mark Unfiltered right here on the Blackstar Network. Support the channel. Dr. Gerald Hooper, a man regarded by many as the most important historian of our time. He provides us a history lesson I'm betting you've never heard before. Texas enslavers who plan to continue the conflict even after Appomattox, even after the formal surrender of Robert E. Lee.

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Hundreds of thousands of black Americans lost health care insurance. That is outrageous. And if he's president again, he would cancel insurance for millions more of us. We cannot go back. President Biden and Vice President Harris have lowered health care premiums and expanded coverage for black families. They also capped the price of insulin at $35. Vice President Harris have lowered healthcare premiums and expanded coverage for black families. They also capped the price of insulin at $35.

Joe Biden is getting the job done for people just like me. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. What's good, y'all? This is Doug E. Freshener watching my brother Roland Martin unfiltered as we go a little something like this. Hit it. It's real. Hey, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin on the Black Star Network. Target announced that they are lowering the prices on some 5,000 products. McDonald's announced that they are bringing back a $5 menu.

Why? Because customers are rebelling against high prices. The Biden administration and others have said that high prices is to blame for the high inflation in this country. Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey agrees with that. Senator Casey Jones is right now. Glad to have you on the show. Senator Casey, here's what is crazy. And look, COVID hit 2020, 2021. We're still impacted in 2022. Supply chain was totally screwed up. There were a lot of companies that lost a lot of money. Then all of a sudden we start seeing record profits, record profits, record profits, record profits. And then we see inflation coming down. And so when you look at every other factor,

there's no reason the world inflation should be even over 3 percent. And we're still seeing companies jack up prices in lots of sectors. Now what we're seeing are consumers who have caught on to this to this game. And now they're like, you know what? The hell with this. I'm tired of paying for these prices. And now the companies are realizing, oh, we now got to recalibrate. Yeah, well, great point. I think the power of the consumer is being brought to bear. And we've got to keep up the fight because these companies will not get the message unless we're bringing the fight to them.

I'm just holding up here this report. You can't really see all of it, but it's called Greedflation. I did this report last year, and really, it catalogs what you just talked about. And here's the data from the Federal Reserve. July of 20 to July of 22, corporate profits went up 75%, five times the rate of inflation. So they're getting away with it. They're jacking up their prices, especially food companies and those producing household items that working folks have to purchase virtually every week. And they were jacking up the prices and get away with it. It wasn't like their costs were here and they're matching their prices.

Prices were through the roof. So I think we've got to do three things. Number one is keep pointing it out and prosecuting the case. Secondly, to pass a price gouging bill at the federal level. Federal government doesn't have the power it needs. And thirdly, take away those big corporate tax breaks that they got in 2017. So earlier in the show, I was talking about Donald Trump's demand to big oil. Hey, raise me a billion dollars. I'm

going to whack all regulation. I'm going to kill electric vehicles, kill wind energy and all of that. And here was the craziest thing. In the article, these companies were complaining about regulation. Yet right now, America's producing the most oil ever in American history. So this whole idea with, oh, we're dependent upon OPEC, we're dependent upon foreign countries. No, we're not. And it is if that's not enough money. It's no, no, no.

We need more money. Yeah, Roland, I'm not a preacher, but I know one of the seven deadly sins is gluttony. So, I mean, look, when they've gotten these, the big oil is a good example. You know, I was talking about Greedflation earlier. They're doing the same thing with oil. We should, and the gas prices. What we should do with those folks, those big companies, is pass an excess profits tax, which would say if you're achieving excess

profits, just like in the context of price gouging, there should be a tax on those excess profits. It doesn't remove the profit from big oil, but it certainly would take a bite out of their excess profits. It's gross, it's obscene, and it's gotten a lot worse. I saw, first of all, I follow Robert Reich, and he's always dropping these great videos. And I saw this one post where he was talking about the millionaire tax in Massachusetts and how it raised additional resources to allow them to fund various initiatives. And he often talks about the corporate tax rate.

And it's always a kick when you hear these people talk about, ooh, make America great again, let's go back to how it used to be. Well, there used to be a far higher corporate tax rate. And I even saw a video of Warren Buffett. And Warren Buffett said, if the 800 companies like myself pay what they're supposed to pay in taxes no single taxpayer would have to spend a dollar and so really we have a system where the folks who are making the most money are forcing those who are making the least money to carry the burden And so when you talk about this greed inflation in these corporations,

what do you want the public to understand what they need to be doing to assist you and others to equalize the playing field, if you will, so we're not getting screwed for higher grocery prices, higher furniture prices, just higher, higher, higher? Well, Roland, I think it begins with what you started this interview with, talking about consumers demanding that they're not going to take it anymore. And I think that's happening. So in a sense, that's kind of a prairie fire across the country.

But we also have to toughen it up by making sure we're gouging legislation and rolling back the tax cuts. But look, this is part of, I think, a larger conversation about what do we do with the tax code? Every time you want to invest in children, invest in workers, invest in progress for lower-income folks or middle-class folks, the rich guys come to Washington and say, we can't afford it because we have to keep our tax breaks in place that have been in place for

generations. So they've gotten their way through lobbying for about 40 straight years now. The only time the big corporate crowd and the very wealthy folks, not just the billionaires, but the hundreds of millionaires, the only time they didn't get their way was in the 27 or 2021 American Rescue Plan, where we passed the child tax credit, the most forward-looking policy relating to families raising children. And by the way, we can do it again with a bill that the House passed this year. It won't be as generous as 21, but it would be a damn good start for a lot of families. In my home state of Pennsylvania, half a million kids would benefit. And a lot of those kids, Black kids and Hispanic kids and low-income white kids,

all across the state. Questions, my panel is here, so Larry Walker, you, Dr. Larry Walker, you're first. Your question for Senator Bob Casey. Yes, Senator Casey. I'm originally from the Commonwealth and proud to be from Philadelphia. So it was a pleasure to talk to you. Yeah. So talk a little bit about, you know, the upcoming election. How do and I want to connect in terms of what we talk about these absorbent prices. And obviously the Commonwealth was going to play a critical role in the election. How do you think policymakers, particularly when we talk

about the Biden-Harris administration, made the connection that some of these high consumer prices are not a result of the federal government making some kind of paper and not passing legislation in some cases, but in some cases corporate greed. But how do you present that to the common person,

everyday person, voter, to understand that some of the things you're trying to do has less to do by the Biden administration and more to do, like I said, corporations charging these high prices? That's a great question. And I think the most important thing is as much as I can do on the road as a senator and a public official, and we're doing that all the time. But as much as I can do that, the advertising in a campaign just gets that message across. We've already used greedflation in advertising, and we've got a very good response from voters across the state. Such a good response that my opponent is hopping mad about it, and he's got the big corporate

guys coming after me. They're pretty damn mad at me. But I got news for them. They're going to stay mad because I'm going to prosecute this case. But it is the fastest way to reach voters across the state is to do good old-fashioned advertising. Dr. Neambi Carter.

Thank you so much, Senator Casey, for joining us. I'm a temple of love and a farmer. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters and how it shows up

in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding

of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Pennsylvania residents, I appreciate being here. And going back to my colleague's question,

is how do you make people understand that taxing these corporations, etc., won't necessarily mean the loss of jobs or the moving of corporations abroad, but means, you know, greater resources and better conditions for all Americans. How do you, I guess, prevent the fear from keeping people away from these kinds of policies?

It's a great question because it's not easy because the corporate crowd not only hires all the lobbyists for 40 years, and I believe it is 40, they hire the lobbyists and they also hire the PR people to get the word out that somehow if corporate tax rates are increased even a bit, that they're going to lose jobs. I think that's a lot of BS, but I think it's also important for us to say, look, there's nothing wrong with saying the corporate rate was a little high when it was 35 percent, and we should lower that. But I think there was a broad consensus, even not just across Washington, but across the country, that we could have lowered that corporate rate a couple of points,

maybe even to the high 20s. But you know what they did? They lowered it all the way from 35 to 21. Even I can do the math. Every point was $100 billion over 10 years. So the 10-year number was more than a trillion and a half, just to lower the corporate tax rate. And they won that PR battle because they had majorities in Congress to do it, and the president would sign it. But I also think there's a countervailing majority against having corporations get permanent corporate tax relief. Doesn't mean we won't reduce their corporate rate, but how about giving families the child tax credit, which we know that one policy alone lowered child poverty

in the country by some 40 percent. We should make that the permanent tax circumstance in the country, where families get help every single month, no matter what the economy is, no matter what the job situation is, families get help because they're raising their kids every day. It helps them offset child care costs. It helps them pay for food. That was a leading utilization of it. And I just think we have to have a big conversation about, do you want to give it to big companies where they give away stock buybacks, or we're giving it to families so they can buy food and maybe offset some of their costs like child care or rent. Dr. Mustafa Santagolali. Senator Casey, it's good to see you. You know, I saw some

numbers the other day that corporate profit was at about $3 trillion last year, and it reminded me of my conversations when I used to work for Chairman John Conyers. We would talk about policy should be reflective of everyday people's needs. How would you explain to folks who are there in central Pennsylvania or western Pennsylvania, a place I grew up not too far from, about how we help them to heal and how these sets of actions that you're trying to move forward on a nationwide basis sort of change the dynamics that you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis? Yeah, look, as much as we think there's this—and there is a big kind of urban-rural divide in the country, and we see it in voting patterns across Pennsylvania.

If you look at the map behind me, those counties, there's wide divergence in how people vote. But there is a lot of commonality between that guy in a small town who may be voting Republican all the time, may not vote for me. But I think there are an awful lot of areas of common ground where he's having the same, some of the same challenges as folks who live in a low-income urban area. Meaning that they're having trouble paying the high price of food. The rural guy that might be paying even more for gasoline, because there's a lot of distance between here and the grocery store, just like folks in urban areas are in food deserts, and they have trouble paying higher prices if they can even walk to a grocery store, which is a huge problem in places like Philly.

But look, they do have a lot of the same problems. And I think the more we're speaking to those economic needs and those concerns, the better off we're going to do. And as you know, part of the challenge in a state like ours is you can't simply get the urban vote that you need. And I've got to work to earn every day. But you have to be able to speak to folks in small towns who may not lean your way politically. But I think a lot of these issues, these economic issues, there's some real common ground.

And by the way, the reliance upon programs like Medicaid that Republicans denigrate all the time, and they're trying to gut Medicaid every budget proposal the last 10 years. They're trying to gut Medicaid. Every budget proposal the last 10 years, they've tried to gut it. Medicaid has a higher utilization rate in rural areas for rural children than it is in urban areas. That makes sense because rural areas tend to be fairly low income. And in the cities, you have a lot of rich people, but also a lot of poor folks. And so therefore, the Medicaid utilization is often higher in rural areas. a lot of poor folks and so therefore the the Medicaid utilization is often higher in rural areas a lot of people don't know that but it's true all right well first of all I get a huge kick out of the folks uh who say uh they despise Obamacare but don't touch the Affordable

Care Act I'm like um it's the same it's the same so it happens a lot uh Senator Casey glad to have you here look forward to having you back. We're going to be on the road this summer and the fall as well. So I'm sure we will be in Pennsylvania where you'll be out campaigning for reelection. So we'll see you on the campaign trail. Rowan, thank you. Thanks. Thanks to everybody. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Folks, we're going to break. We come back. We're going to continue the conversation with John Hope Bryant about his new book, Financial Literacy for All. You're watching Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated. Trump was a failure on health care. Hundreds of thousands of black Americans lost health care insurance. That is outrageous. And if he's president again, he would cancel insurance for millions more of us. We cannot go back. President Biden and Vice President Harris have lowered health care premiums and expanded coverage for Black families.

They also capped the price of insulin at $35. Joe Biden is getting the job done for people just like me. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Fanbase is pioneering a new era of social media for the creator economy. This next generation social media app with over 600,000 users is raising $17 million, and now is your chance to invest.

For details on how to invest, visit startengine.com slash fanbase or scan the QR code. Another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits. Hello, I'm Jameah Pugh. I am from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, just an hour right outside of Philadelphia. My name is Jasmine Pugh. I'm also from Coatesville, Pennsylvania.

You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Stay right here. All right, before I want you to break, John said, you know what? I can help you become getting a million bucks in five years. How? So this is the church of what's happening now and what have you done for me lately. This is not the Republican Party

or the Democratic Party. This is the Get It Done Party. And we need folks to help people get it done. Let's get it done. Financial literacy should advance your life. You're working, you're making $38,000 a year. You've got three children. You're watching this program. You're like, how does this change my life?

Okay, let's walk you through it. I want you to get a, to go to financial coaching with Operation Hope. It's scholarshiped for you, so it's free. It costs you nothing. It's worth about $10,000 when you sign up. You've got to get your credit score up from 54 points in six months,

120 points in 24 months. This is the first six months to a year. And you're getting the credit score up because when you get that car or you try to get that house and you have a low credit score, interest when you get that car or you try to get that house and you have a low credit score at interest rates is interest rate is higher and you're spending more money versus somebody who has a seven hundred six fifty seven hundred or higher credit score always yeah yes but even I'm

using the Roland Martin blunt category if you have a if you live in a 580 credit score neighborhood which is a lot of our neighborhoods and you go get that Mercedes from the but by here pay here lot, they charge you 18% interest because your credit score is 580. It's not a Mercedes, it's Mercedes payments. And that car is going to explode, implode. They're going to take it back and sell it to some other schmuck, I mean person, who had a 580 credit score. So I want to get your credit score up 54 points into the sixes. Your interest rate is gonna come down, right? We're gonna also reimagine your budget because you shouldn't be going to Starbucks

three times a week and you shouldn't be smoking cigarettes. The cigarettes. I also have 38,000 miles and three kids. I'm sorry, I'm gonna go and see. You should be buying a Mercedes. Well, a lot of you. No, I'm gonna say it. As you should, but a lot of people do it.

When your assets are on your, it's a problem. But a lot of us, as you know, do it. When your assets are on your, it's a problem. But a lot of us, as you know, do it. So we're going to stop the bad habits. And by the way, if you have a 580 credit score, it's an error in your credit report. So the first thing we do is we challenge the credit bureaus. And the law states if they cannot confirm it's yours within 30 days, they must remove it. And on that point, that's where you want to shout out a congresswoman, Maxine Waters, who was really aggressive in helping get those laws changed to the mandatory free credit report. A lot of those different things.

She put officers in each one of the federal agencies also to deal with these issues, make sure there was an obvious budsman in these offices that advocated for this. People don't know all the good stuff that she did and does. So credit score is one. Get your credit score up. And typically we can get you into the mid-600s. That's going to change your life. We're going to get your budget down, get your debt down $3,800.

Now you're making $38,000 a year. That's 10%. We're going to get your savings up $2,000. That's not the magic hasn't happened yet. This is just through coaching and counseling. Then we're going to say, have you ever heard of the earned income tax credit? Then we're going to say, have you ever heard of the Earned Income Tax Credit? And you're going to say, what's that?

And we're going to say, well, congratulations. If you ever have ever heard of EITC, and about $20 billion a year goes back to the federal government every year because our folks don't have tax pros, tax planners, or tax expertise. So we don't even know what this stuff is. But in translation, you make $38,000, you have three children. You work. This is not a handout program. The government owes you a check for working. It's a bonus for working. It's like a bonus on Wall Street. This is

one on Main Street. You make $38,000 a year, three children. Government owes you about $6,000. Probably more like $6,500. You go, whoa! That's a tax refund? Yes, it's cash. We're going to get a bank account for you. If you don't have one, we're going to open one.

We're going to wire that money in your account. By the way, if you've never heard this before, you've never filed. If you've never filed, it's retroactive for three years. So now you make $38,000 a year. We've now just recovered. If you haven't filed in three years, at $6,500 a year. Almost $20,000. Boom.

So now we're giving you $2,000 of savings because of our coaching counseling. We've reduced your debt for $3,800. We've got your credit score up to the mid-600s. Now you're paying less in interest rates. You're not getting paymentized. We just got you a check for almost $20,000. You're going to take that $20,000. Yes, you can pay down your consumer debt.

Yes, you can pay off your car loan. Yes, you can pay down your student loan debt. But I prefer you buy an appreciating asset. I would prefer you to put a mortgage on good debt. It's good debt and bad debt. Bad debt is when you finance something that depreciates, like jewelry. And good debt is when you finance something that appreciates like a home. 41, 43% of us own a home.

Customized jewelry, but go ahead. Yeah, well I was watching this show the other night, last night actually, with this NBA player, I'm not picking on poor people, NBA player said he was in a car, he had bought, this jeweler was in the back, he had bought a $50,000, he just got his bonus check, $50,000 piece of jewelry, probably cost the jeweler was in the back. He had bought a $50,000, you know, he just got his bonus check, $50,000, you know, piece of jewelry.

Probably cost the jeweler $8,000, by the way. And the guy behind him, the NBA player behind him, was competing with him. They've competed more off the court than on. And he wrote a $250,000 check to the jeweler at the same time. $300,000. That jeweler probably spent maybe $20,000 on that, the rest was pure profit, and you're gonna sell it, and you can't sell it for a fraction of that.

And it wasn't a black jeweler. No, it wasn't a black jeweler. Okay, anyway, but back to the story. So now you're gonna take $20,000 or some portion of it, pay a little on your student loan debt, pay a little on your car loan, down payment on a $100,000 house. I want you to buy the best house on the worst block.

I want you to buy in the hood, D-A hyphen H-O-O-D, in Paris and inner cities called France. Now hold up, so you want, first of all you're saying buy in the hood because one. It's centrally located real estate. Centrally located, two, land is cheap. Yes. Okay.

And they were stupid enough to put us there, but now they want it back. Right. Anacostia, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago in the Industrial Revolution, pollution, where's the worst place you can sit? On a hill next to the water. Why? Because the pollution

pollutes the air and pollutes the water. But now in a clean economy, where's the best land? Next to the ocean on a hill. What did Anacostia do? Got completely revitalized now at the headquarters for the National Guard and all that kind of stuff. FEMA's over there. People are buying land.

That's where Frederick Douglass, by the way, owned property. Inner City in the U.K. is called London. And Inner City is centrally located to jobs, commerce, transportation, it is a center. Well they moved out in the 60s, in the 40s, in the 50s to create their own environments. But now with traffic, nobody wants to. White flight in the 70s, then all of a sudden that was happening in the 80s, and then the 90s

it was kinda like, damn we done went out so damn far, now it's an hour, hour and a half. Now it's 90 minutes. Now they're like, you know, black folks not so bad. So now they're driving. And so what then happened was, they went, whoa, all this cheap land, Harlem.

All of a sudden comes in, start buying. So we call it gentrification. I remember when I moved to Chicago. It's a move to the middle class. Dude was complaining about that. And I was like, bruh, I said, I'm just gonna be honest with you. I said, do you rent or do you own?

He said, I rent. I said, you ain't got power. He goes, what do you mean I don't have power? I said, you don't have power. I said, owners have power. Owners can decide to sell. Owners can decide to jack your rent up. I said, bruh, we gotta stop.

Matter of fact, when I did the Urban League's. You know I'm the largest minority owner of single family rental homes in America, right? Me, personally. I mean, Promise Homes Company, 700 homes. And I'm encouraging you not to rent. I'm encouraging you not to rent. You come to me, get that job at McDonald's,

do it for a little bit, and then bounce. Go to Walmart. We all have those jobs coming up. It wasn't meant for you to stay there forever. Go there as a stepping stone, get your degree, and keep it moving. Come rent from me or somebody else. Frederick Douglass, by the way, owned $6 million worth of rental

real estate in Baltimore, Maryland. That's how he got his freedom and was able to be an abolitionist because he had free enterprise freedom. He even put his own check into the Freedman's Bank, wrote a check for $10,000 in 1865. Do that calculation because he could. So rent from me

for a few years and then go either through me or someplace else and go rent to own and build your wealth. Because the number one way you build wealth in America is home ownership. But 41 to 44 percent of us own a home. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters,

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

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. 75% of our white counterparts own a home. This is the easiest pathway to home ownership. I want to get back to your story, then I'll come back to how you finished on the million dollars. What were you about to say about?

Yeah, in terms of when you're talking about making these decisions, and we talked about even the car decision. 2008, when I decided I needed a new vehicle because my nieces can't live with me. My Corolla was too small. Right. Go in, the guy was like, hey. He said, so we financing?

Nope. He goes, we leasing? Nope. He said, what are we doing? I said, we're going to negotiate. I'll be back in 15 minutes. Because one, I said, I'm not about to sit here and pay you interest on this damn car. Negotiated, went to the bank, got a cashier's check, $49,000, came back.

Now here's the deal, that's 2008. It's 2024. That Navigator outside, I don't give a damn what y'all think. First of all, I barely even watch the Navigator because I don't care. You should have watched it though. No, I don't care, I really don't. When I say I really don't, I really don't.

I know. It runs. That's all I care about. I'm a car guy. But the part of this is also when you talk about, you're talking about the building blocks, you also have to change a mindset where you're not so concerned about what somebody else think or impressing them. No, it's a bunch of people who make decisions with purchases that they make who literally are broke and who are underwater. Our assets are on our ass.

Just say it. Just say it. Look, we're renting with money we don't have in places that don't want us to impress people we don't know about shit that don't matter and have conversations that don't involve us. to impress people we don't know about shit that don't matter, and have conversations that don't involve us. Aspirational people talk about their ideas.

Poor people talk about other people. What's happening in our barber shops? What's happening in our hair salons? We're talking about rappers and celebrities and we're on social media all day talking about somebody else's idea or somebody else's beef versus owning some beef. Nobody washes a rental car. Nobody washes a rental car. Nobody washes a rental car. You drive it and you bring it back to the owner,

which is a car dealership or the car rental company, and they wash it. You gotta own some steak to be a stakeholder. So that's why we're talking about becoming an owner. I want you to go in the hood. I want you to go into a working class, black or brown, doesn't have to be black or brown, but it could be white or rural, doesn't matter.

But a working class neighborhood where it's near jobs, near industry, near transportation, so you can access home ownership, I want you to buy, I'm making this up, a $100,000 house. Now, if it's Montgomery, Alabama, this works. If it's Birmingham, this works. It used to be Atlanta,

by the way. Well, first of all, and now in this situation, because we have such few housing stock, I mean, I actually went and pulled the neighborhood that I grew up in. I grew up in a 1,230-square-foot house. That home was, I think the mark was 175. And even in that neighborhood, I saw homes at 250, 275, 300, 350. You may have to move.

So what's happening is folk are like, yeah, but I don't know about that particular area. Yeah, but you still don't own anything. Yeah, exactly. Again, you got a doorman in a place you don't own. I mean, it's like the drug dealer saying, this is my block. No, it's not. It's the city's block. Right? No, you don't own the doorman. You don't own the door. You don't own the window. In fact, you're opening the window and literally giving money away. Every time you write that $3,000 check for rent, you're helping somebody like me pay off my mortgage for the investment of the whole building. Back to the story.

So I want you to take that $20,000, do a down payment, and get a $10,000 down payment assistance grant from one of these banks that we will hook you up with. We'll get you a prime mortgage, a $10,000 down payment assistance grant from one of these banks that that we will hook you up with get your prime mortgage A $10,000 down payment assistance grant and take $10,000 of your own money $20,000 together and buy a hundred thousand dollar house right in the compounding effect because you build wealth in your sleep make money during the day You may have to watch this over again. By the way, you build money you build wealth in your sleep We confuse making money making a living. We think that's all there is. No, no, no, no. If that's all you're doing the rest of your life, you'll be broke. You've got to build wealth in your sleep, which is stocks, bonds, investment, real estate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Buy that home and sit on it. All right. Now you've got to live somewhere, live in some place you own. People say,

oh, well, I don't own the bank. I don't own the home. The bank. Folks of me like, well, I don't own the bank. I don't own the home. The bank. Folks should be like, well, if you do that and it's a 30-year mortgage, you don't own the home. The bank owns the home. That's ridiculous. No, if you don't pay, the bank will own it. If you don't pay me, I'm going to own it, right? So this is real common sense. The tax system was designed for home ownership.

So if you get that 30 year mortgage, 20 years of that's interest payments. You can write it off and get your taxes. So you're basically getting that money back every month. You're paying $1,200 a month out, you're getting $1,000 back in a tax refund if you do it right. So when I was in the situation, in the position. I gotta get to the million dollars, but go ahead. When I was in the position where I had to make a decision to whether or not I wanted to pay off my house.

And my CFO was like, well if you do that, wasn't even taxed right. I said, look at that interest rate, and look what I'm paying on interest. I said, now. What year was this? This was 2000 and 2004, five. Okay, yeah.

So I told her, I said, no, I'm paying this off. I said, CNN, Tom Jordan, I'm speaking, I got books. And so I said, I had overpaid taxes twice and got two $25,000 refund checks. And I was like, no, I said, I'm paying the house off. And so she was like, yeah, I said, no, no, I'm not worried about the interest rates. I said, because, again, I knew, TV contract,

look, three year contract, no, you got a one year contract that gets renewed. So what ended up happening was, I paid the house off. So the only thing I'm not paying every year was taxes. Property taxes, yeah. Property taxes. Which is another way we lose property. Right. Well, my sister, her two daughters were living in the house.

Then my parents, they moved into the house. Yeah. Sister, daughters move out. My nephew, who's working for a bank, he moves to Dallas. He's living with my group. So literally, there have been three generations of family living in a home. But the other thing is that by my parents living in my house rent

free, that also impacts our entire family in terms of culture. There you go. So, again, when I explain to my CFO, this is why I'm paying it off. So now, I said, and as I get older, I got a house that's paid off. I just make enough money every year to pay the property now, I said, and as I get older, I got a house that's paid off.

I just make enough money every year to pay the property taxes. I said, and so it was, but it was forward thinking. And I've gotten calls the last six years, folks trying to buy it, but buy it in cash. I'm like, nope, don't call me again. Don't sell. That's another thing. Don't buy it, don't sell.

I bought it at $122. The value now is $340. Yeah, so yeah, I bought a condo, I bought a townhouse in L.A., I forget what year, probably 2004. Bought it for $170,000. No, I bought it for $220,000. It went down in the 2008 crisis to one something.

All my friends were like, sell it, sell it, sell it. I didn't freak out. I'm like, I gotta live somewhere. And so then I moved to Atlanta. I rented it out to a police officer who didn't pay. Who paid late. I rented it out, but I forgot about it. Then about 2017, I went to go sell it,

and I needed some money to buy something else, and I called a realtor friend of mine, black realtor. Hey, what can you get for me for this condo? Now, supposedly I'm the financial literacy expert. Roland and I was laid out, stunned. He bought it at 175. I bought it at 220, went down to 175 in the crisis. That's the last time I checked.

Right. Right, now I didn't do anything to this house. I didn't paint it, it's a townhouse. I didn't paint it, I didn't do nothing. I just paid the mortgage, right? And that was being paid by the renter. I was just paying the property, right? And that was being paid by the renter. I was just paying the property taxes. $750,000. Wow. I said, excuse me? He said, yeah, the market for that is

$750,000. Sell it. So I sold that. Then when the year was a 1031 tax-free exchange, it was another property I was looking to buy. And we can't get into too much detail because you know a lot about what I'm about to tell you now. It was a property in Atlanta that I could buy for $750. I bought that, I took the $750 from California, tax-free, transferred it. This is why I think you think about taxes depending on whether you own or you don't, but I use the taxes to my benefit. Bought in Atlanta with no tax penalty. That property today is worth millions of dollars. So it really cost me, my down payment of that $220,000 condo was about $30,000.

That's really, that and property taxes every year, which was $1,000 or something, is all that cost me. And that ultimately creating a multi-million dollar property by financial literacy strategy. Going back to this exam, and I bought a place in Turks and Caicos that's doubled in value. I didn't do anything. I just bought and hold. So buy this $100,000 house, $20,000 down. Do not sell. Within two years, I want you to go and get a home equity line of credit on that home. And take some equity out of that home and buy a second home.

Now I want you to buy something that's raggedy now. You can buy in Atlanta, when I moved to Atlanta, you could buy a home for $15,000. A raggedy home with a tree in the roof. That's exactly the one you want. Buy a home, get some local contractors, black folks, brown folks, buy it, rehab it, and rent it. So I want you to buy it, get a construction loan, future value, take that money from your home

and get it on your line of credit, put it as a down payment, construction loan pays the rest. Now this is good debt. Finish it with minority contractors, I hope. Half of my contract is a Promise Homes Company, by the way, are minorities and women, and rent it out. Then, in the year four now, do it again. Take the equity, buy a third home.

Rehab that one, rent that one out. Do not sell. You're a millionaire. That's a million dollar net worth. Then I want you to get a, while you're healthy and young, every young person watching this, go buy your life insurance policy. Knock it off, stop debating it. Get a term policy your life insurance policy. Knock it off. Stop

debating it. Get a term policy. I don't care what you get. What age? What age? I mean, if you're 25, 35, if you're 35 years of age and you're in good health, no one's going to question, the insurance company's not going to question your health. They know you're not going to drop dead. If you're 50 plus. It's going to be slightly more expensive, but still get one. So if you're 25, you're going to spend 50 bucks a month and get a million dollar policy So if you're 25, you're gonna spend 50 bucks a month and get a million dollar policy. If you're 55, you're gonna spend $100 a month, it may be a $100,000 policy, but you want a policy.

And by the way, if you work for a corporation like even mine, I have 400 employees, you don't know when you pass away, there's a $25,000 burial situation, death policy, inside of your health insurance policy. You don't make, I want everybody to go read the paperwork now. If you have health insurance right now, go read the fine print. There's probably a burial or a death policy inside of your health policy. That's the $25,000 to bury a loved one. You don't need a GoFundMe page. You should do that for an investment.

You should do that for some big idea, not to bury the past. We should be creating generational wealth through life insurance policies. A million dollar policy for somebody who's 25, 35 years old watching this is generational wealth. You can get it for 50 bucks or less a month.

But you do this whole thing I mentioned, a will, simple will, a life insurance policy, earning of tax credit. Thank you, Roland, for giving you a check because of him you're watching this. Financial coaching through Operation Hope, which I've scholarship to you

at between five and $10,000. Sign up to the One Million Black Business Initiative, by the way. Your nine to five job will finance your five to nine gig. So I got, okay, before I go, get ready, by the way. Your nine to five job will finance your five to nine gig. So I got, okay, before I go, get ready, Mustafa and Larry, person in our chat. I got no kids, why would I want life insurance?

Mama mia. I mean, first of all, you don't wanna be a burden to society when you croak. Number two, it is a vehicle for savings. Get a whole life insurance policy versus a term life insurance policy. It's a savings vehicle. This is the wrong mindset.

Like, whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't, you're right. Is the glass half empty or the glass half full? It depends who's looking at the glass. Get your mindset right. Stop hating on capitalism and saying you can't do this and do that. And do something. Stop waiting for the perfect to be the death of the good.

The perfect is the death of the good. Just do something. Like, if you're broke right now, it's like people say, well, try God. Well, why should I do that? Because God cannot possibly mismanage your life. Worse than you are. Give him a shot. Look, black people are one of the few people on the planet

who've not used free enterprise and capitalism to set them free. Say what you want about Jews. I want a black Jewish business plan. That's what I want. Seven and a half million of them, they represent most wealth in this country, and they were discriminated against, towed up, jacked up, going back centuries.

There's only 15 million of them in the world. I mean, it's unbelievable. Nigerians, they're black. But if you look at the chart I sent you last week about income levels, Nigerians are right at the higher level of all groups in America on income levels in America. By the way, whites are below them. These are black people, but they got their mindset right, and they are, as we all know, they're natural hustlers. By the way, the number one group of young people in the world populating?

Nigerians. So within our lifetime, you're going to see a majority of minorities in America. You're also gonna see a majority of minorities populate the world. And if we don't figure this free enterprise system out, everybody's gonna be broke. Broke. And you never had a superpower that wasn't the economic power at the same time.

So I need this brother to change his mindset. Just try what I'm saying. Right. It's not about the life insurance policy. It's about the action. Once, like you go to one million black business, you sign up, you try for two years, it didn't work out. But now I've given you a hustler's mindset.

Now I've given you an entrepreneurial can-do mindset. Well, you can take that into a job. You can take that into a career. Question, Mustafa. Yeah, well, John, thank you for dropping knowledge as always. I'm curious, when do we start teaching younger people about financial literacy? I know I started my first business when I was 10. Everybody around me and my family owned their own real estate and told us how important it was. But I don't see a whole

lot of that. Based upon your experience, when do we start helping folks with that literacy? Diapers. I mean, in Atlanta, Mayor Andre Dickens, I want to give him some love now. And he has really done a bold thing. He came to me and asked me to do him and Keisha Lancebottom saying will you do a bank account for kids in school? Sure, how old? Kindergarten. I'm like really? He said we wanna do children, kids accounts.

And they found that if you give a kid an account at kindergarten with no money in it, they're 50% more likely to go to college. You put $25 in that account, which is what the city funded, they're 75% more likely to graduate from college. The whole mindset changes because the kids now connecting education with aspiration at a young age. So we now have every kid in the Atlanta public school,

thanks to the city of Atlanta, funding $2 million to Operation Hope to start it out, to get every kid, every kindergarten kid now has a Hope child account and it sits at Citigroup, so it's an FDIC insured bank, it's managed by us. We're not going to wrap financial literacy around that, to your point. So now we're raising up a whole new, I said, rolling a note, I said I want you to change the street out front to black capitalist matter.

And I'm only partially joking. Like we need a complete mindset shift. And to your point, when I was in ninth grade, ninth grade, when I was nine years old, I'd seen two murders before I was nine years old

over money. And I went to school and this white banker came and taught financial literacy. And everybody wasn't interested and they were looking at the ceiling and throwing paper clips. I'm paying attention to this dude,

because all I saw was death with drug dealers, everybody dying in front of me. So I said to this guy, he came in once a week, rolled in for six weeks. The fourth week, I wore a suit. The third week, I said, what do you do for a living? And how do you get rich legally? I was dead serious.

He said, I'm a banker and I finance entrepreneurs. I said, sir, I don't know what an entrepreneur is. I've heard that word my entire life. But if you're financing it and it's legal, I'm going to be one. The next week, I came in with a suit on, the only suit I had. My mother made it, crushed velvet, purple, three-piece suit. Mom said, I'm not buying your suit. You can wear your Sunday suit, which I made.

And the kids teased me, man. As you say, I'm not buying your suit. You can wear your Sunday suit, which I made. And the kids teased me, man. As you say, I didn't care. Had a little briefcase, nothing in it but my dreams. I'm strolling, like to school. I'm trying to be like this banker. And I'm role modeling what I saw, a success. And I started my first business from that. It was called the Neighborhood Candy House.

Put the liquor store out of the candy business, made $300 a week on a $40 investment, and so became birthed John Hope Bryant, the entrepreneur. Also, the work of Operation Hope, I asked this banker, again, I'm nine years old. I know what grade that is, but I'm nine years old. I said, how many bankers are there in America? There's more than you? Oh, it's got to be millions. How many banks?

Back then it was 10,000. It's 4,500 now. So wait a minute. I said, it's your job to loan poor people money. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin.

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

I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

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

your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts. If I can just prove, I'll pay it back. Yeah. And I don't get dead if I don't pay you back.

Because that's what happened in the street behind me. Right. No, we just saw the notice of default. Okay, I'm in. So that's really what Operation Hope is doing across the country, is teaching people how to fish at scale and to master this system so that you become bank qualified so you can access capital at prime rates. And so to your point, we really need legislation.

We need, I call it silver rights legislation, financial literacy for all. The senator, hopefully he's still looking. We need bipartisan Republican and Democrat to embrace financial literacy for all. The senator, hopefully he's still looking. We need bipartisan Republican and Democrat to embrace financial literacy for all legislation so that kids K through 12 are taught what we're talking about right here. Larry? Yeah, sure. It's a very interesting conversation.

So, you know, thank you for your insight. So, you know, black people have, and you kind of got to this, black people have a history of taking a penny and turning it into a dime, right, throughout our history because we had no choice. So I wanted you to talk a little bit about, you know, the kind of elephant in the room that we really need to talk about is, obviously, financial institutions. And we just saw it with Navy Federal Credit Union just a few months ago. And that's the role racial discrimination plays in the financial industry. And so a lot of that is unseen, and, you know and you get denied a loan and don't know about it. And I'm wondering, what are some of the conversations you had with folks from

monarchized communities as the other layer to this is, how do you, you know, you may have faced challenges relating to discrimination in the banking industry? I'm so glad you mentioned that. Is racism real? Yes. Racism real? Yes. Racism is like rain. It's either falling someplace or it's gathering. So get out an umbrella in the color you like and start strolling through it because it's

not going to change. It hasn't in 400 years we've been here. So you must. So is Navy Credit Union real? The guy walked in, everything was right about his profile. Absolutely. Is appraisal discrimination real?

Without question. I'm a subject to, I have a home that's a million dollar house in Atlanta, I don't want to get too specific, but the Camp Creek area, the Cascade area. Well that home in Buckhead would be $3 or $4 million, the same home. So I understand that.

But I'm not focusing on what somebody else has that doesn't have it or whether it be $4 million. I know I got a million dollar house in Cascade, and I'm going to get prime rates or whatever. Yeah, so discrimination is real. But this whole concept of white banks, we need to knock that off. In 1920, there was a white bank.. In 1920, there was a white bank.

In 1850, there was a white bank. Literally a family of white people, who probably were racist, who owned the bank. Today it's publicly traded. I own Wells Fargo. I own Bank of America stock. We all, people watching this, I hope, are stock owners. So it's not a white bank, it's a green bank.

Now, is there a person there who's racist, who may be your loan officer? Probably. Let me tell you something. You get a credit score with a seven in front of your name, 720, 750, 780, my mother was 854. The bank just says yes. They may hate you, they may talk names or words about you,

but really they want to make some money. And the computer, there's AI now, the computer at midnight is not asking your race. The bank will just say yes. Get your debt levels, ratios up, your debt down, your income ratios proper. We can show you how to do it at Operation Ope because we know what the bank will approve. Get that credit score up as I mentioned. That's the most important thing. You have to have an income. And I guarantee you, in fact, not only will I guarantee you, the bank will say yes, if the bank discriminates against you still, because every, there's an exception to every rule, I will fund your loan.

I will, Operation Hope will put up our balance sheet, that if the bank does not approve your loan we will, and in 32 years of doing this, I've never had to fund a loan. We funded $4.5 billion of prime loans for home ownership, small business ownership, et cetera, because we know how the system works. And by the way, you haven't mentioned it, but let's also deal with black banks. We should support black banks.

I have a deposit at various black banks. The problem is they're just too small. They're too small, and their cost of capital is too high. They're afraid to death of loan loss. So they're going to, unfortunately, in many cases, we should support black banks. Please hear me. We should all support black banks.

We should have a billion-dollar asset black bank. But it's an and conversation, not an or. You probably need a relationship with them for savings, and a checking account maybe, with an ATM ATM and then you have a lending relationship maybe with them and a major bank that can give you you know more optionality and prime access to credit. Sometimes a the your minority bank they're going to ask you for more down payment, they're going to give you a higher interest rate and it's going to be less attractive terms. And that's not racism. Like, that's somebody who looks just like you.

They just have a more delicate balance sheet. They don't have the strength that the other banks have. So we just need to be more sophisticated in our approach. Discrimination is everywhere. Bias is everywhere. By the way, I got bums in my family. I don't need to go outside looking for one. I got bums who are related to me. We all can relate to that. We all have a po bums in my family. I don't need to go outside looking for one. I got bums who are related to me.

We all can relate to that. We all have a pookie in our family. Pookie them, right? So I over-answered the question, but it was a really important question. You have been really focused on going after the folks who despise DEI. Explain.

Yeah, so this is just stupid. Like, this is like, this is ridiculous. The folks who are canceling DEI are literally shooting America's business plan in the foot. And I wrote something called The Business Plan for America. I had a chance to debate Bill Ackman, the billionaire who led the DE&I effort,

anti-DE&I effort around the country. I debated him at the Milken Conference privately in a private session last Monday, I think it was, the same day The Business Plan for America was released on LinkedIn. And I can't tell you what happened in the session. It was a private session,

but there's been some articles written about it. And all I'll tell you is that the articles are not inaccurate. And I will also tell you that no one disagreed with my business plan. My business plan is just math. To quote Melody Hobson, I like math because it doesn't have an opinion.

God has a sense of humor. You know, Ambassador Young said, and he was on that balcony with Dr. King when he was assassinated, to live in a system of free enterprise and not to understand the rules of free enterprise must be the very definition of slavery. That's sort of where we were to where we have been. Here's the irony, Roland. 1950, America was white, 90% white.

These are just the facts, shocking numbers. 1950, America was 90% white. These are just the facts, shocking numbers. 1950, America was 90% white. That meant that what Dr. King, Andrew Young, Dorothy Hyde did was a miracle. It was just the right thing to do. Today, America is 40% black and brown. Within 10 years, it'll be a majority of minorities. You have the largest, the first time in history

that you're going to have a population over 65 in our lifetime. Those are white, wealthy baby boomers trying to retire. Social Security is not going to pay for their retirement. It will only pay 70% of it within 10 years. Now you have this group coming into free enterprise in the largest economy in the world, $23, $24 trillion, who are not prepared for the free enterprise system. And what are these DEI, anti-DNI people doing? Cancel, cancel, cancel jobs, career paths, internships, corporate gigs, school, so they can't create future capitalists.

So I asked them, what do you want to do, speak Mandarin? And by the way, because if we don't solve this, we will be speaking Mandarin in 10, 20 years. China will run the world. They want our place. We got to prepare this group to lead the economy. Here's the good news. The diversity, the numbers are on our side.

Biggest economy in the South, the traditional South. People just love messing with me. Oh, the South is Texas, the traditional South. Atlanta, Georgia, $450 billion a year. Roland is bigger than all six states around it. The city of Atlanta, GDP. Take three states, Mississippi, Alabama, put it inside of Atlanta together, it's still bigger. The biggest airport in the world.

The biggest economy in the south. The 10th largest economy in the U.S. And it's all of us. The color's green and it's diverse. New York and California. Biggest economies in the U.S., most diverse. D.C., incredibly diverse. We have the biggest black population is right outside of D.C.

As far as net worth. All cities. Houston, Charlotte. There you go. I mean, you start going So the wealthiest companies are the most diverse. So what I say to these folks is diversity actually is a business strength. The broke places are folks who actually have said, no, no, no. Under that progress, we want a white water fountain

and a black water fountain. You go to some of these cities in the South, it looks like 1960. Nothing has changed and their economies have gone backwards. So the reason I like this argument is it's not an argument. You're hitting your face on my fist. The math is indisputable.

And if we don't solve this, four countries want to take us out. China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, which just became more volatile over the weekend because their president died in an accident. They want to take us out. Yeah, hell got crashed, yep. But they can't do it on a fair fight, Roland.

We are screwed up. America's got all kind of problems, right? Democracy and capitalism are horrible systems, except for every other system. America's a jacked up country, except for every other country. I keep telling people, I hate America. Here's a plane ticket. They're not going nowhere.

We have an incredible system that we need to make better. And the least of these God's children, us, just might be the salvation for the future of America as a superpower of the world, for the future and the large economy in the world. We just may save it by becoming financially literate, by becoming stakeholders and owners, by voting and by being like almost moral capitalists.

I know this is crazy talk, but I think it's actually a radical movement of common sense. You know, I always get a kick out when people say certain things. You know, I'll run their mouths. It was so funny. Somebody had tweeted, Roland's spending so much time talking about his house instead of letting Franklin drop jewels on financing. This is the problem I have with this guy, Ego. And I had to respond back.

I said, first of all, you clearly ain't paying attention because his name ain't John hope all the time Franklin John John hope Franklin passed away several years ago he was a historian as John Hope Bryant but also but also we look I'll take the association also was silly folk like that make those comments what they don't quite understand is that you also have to make it plain. And so when you talk about, again, those conversations, how you make car purchases, how you make home purchases, how you don't get caught up in brands.

I got probably six, seven Air Jordans at home. I didn't buy none of them. They were gifts, because I ain't never spending $200 on no damn tennis shoes. That ain't happening. Cause how I was raised, my dad was like, ain't no way in hell I spend that money. Thank goodness. We gonna close it out with this.

Can I have one minute? Go ahead. Cause you mentioned Air Jordans, I gotta tell the story. I know, that's how about the hell you tell the story. That's how about the hell you tell the story. I know what I'm... I'm sorry's how about the hell you tell a story. That's how about the hell you tell a story. I know what I'm... I'm sorry. You've executive produced this. My bad.

Yeah, like, I don't know how to make a segue. I know what I'm doing. You do. So that was a guess. So that was a conversation between two young men and they dealt with the issue of Jordans. But I don't know you always paying attention. I mean... Okay, my bad. By the way, I love that you told the story about your house because And they dealt with the issue of Jordans. But I don't know you're always paying attention. I mean, this is...

Okay, my bad. By the way, I love that you told the story about your house because people presume and assume you don't have a problem in the world. First of all, I filed for bankruptcy. Well, people don't understand... I had a 500 credit score. I almost filed for bankruptcy.

I was homeless. I filed for bankruptcy because my appendix ruptured at the Democratic National Convention in 2000. I was over the miles on my lease. When I was in the hospital, at the Centinella Hospital in Los Angeles, because it happened, the convention was there, they picked up my forerunner from the airport parking lot. Wow.

They must have been tracking. Yeah. Picked it up from there. Had to file for bankruptcy because I didn't have health insurance. That's right. And so it was nearly, and 60 plus percent of Americans filed bankruptcy because of health insurance. By the way, the Biden administration,

Vice President Harris, have created a situation to get any charges on your health insurance will come off your credit report. Yep. It's not well known, but that will not work against your credit report. We covered that when she spoke in Detroit. When she spoke, we spoke in Milwaukee. Doing an economic tour, which I support.

And then when I filed bankruptcy, because they were gonna foreclose on my home. And the home that I now own. And what happened there was, a friend of mine, Mike Price, God rest his soul, Mike was like, Roland, he said, don't worry, because black people, we freak out. We have stress, oh my God, you know,

and we will let people call us, email us to death, and we will drive our blood pressure up. He said, Roland, the moment you file for bankruptcy, they can't call you, they can't email you. He said, if you don't have the reason. It was not chapter seven, it was chapter 11. I mean, it was a reorganization. Right, but what he laid out was, he said,

then what happens is, if your income is this and you can't pay all of that back, he said, it's gonna get nearly all wiped out. And that actually would've happened until I got the job of the Chicago defender We're not supporting bankruptcy filings. We just he just telling you the well, but but but but now but here's what I'm not supporting it But here's what I do know white folks have used bankruptcy as a financial measure planning including the former president I was sick cuz I was I was sitting in

One of the waiting for them to get called and this dude sitting next to me white guy It was his fourth bankruptcy. And he's explaining to me what he did. He's explaining to me all the stuff that they bought, the jet skis and all that sort of stuff like that. And I'm looking at, because I was looking at him and looking at all the stressed out black people.

And so the thing there was, and so again, it was all going to get almost wiped out. Then I got the job at the Chicago Defender. It was paying me $110,000. Like, oh yeah, you got to pay everything back. I said, oh, it was all going to get almost wiped out. Then I got the job at the Chicago Defender. It was paying me $110,000. Like, oh yeah, you got to pay everything back. So it was fine. But the point is, people have to recognize we're not sitting here having this conversation

as like some people, I guarantee you're thinking, oh, Roland, John, they got money. No. I had a secure credit card with a $ dollar limit backed up by two dollars in cash I mean I I grew up in the hood. I was so poor connect. I couldn't afford the OR well Well after the bankruptcy I refused to deal with all that credit card drama Took to these two CDs gave him 20 grand. Certificates of deposits. That's the backup for my credit card.

I pay it off every single month. So coming out of a bankruptcy, where the house almost got foreclosed on, where almost $100,000 in medical bills, paid the house off, today have no debt, launched this with $350,000 of my own money. This has no debt. Yeah. Launched this with $350,000 of my own money. Right. This has no debt. So I'm able to make decisions. Yeah. That,

that where I'm freed from the shackles of debt. Yeah. And so for the fool who was watching and saying, me talking about my house, I did that because there's somebody who was watching and listening who has been in the same position. That's right. Who maybe had no idea. That's right.

That, yo, and understand be inspired. Who maybe had no idea that yo, and understand, filed a bankruptcy in 2004, got out of the bankruptcy in 2008, paid the house off in 2009. Yeah, but hurt people hurt people, Roland. Look, I like what you're doing much better than what other people are not doing. And most people don't have a business plan for their life,

and so criticism becomes an easy sport. Oh, by the way, because you said something earlier, I do want to say this here to somebody named Al-Khatib. This also shows you when you're not smart when you tweet stuff. Because this person here claims to own the premier multimedia management and production company and they have their website. I'm not going to give it, but see if you were

smart, you would have tweeted me about how did you partner with your multimedia company, your production company. Or you hire them. Versus criticizing me, talking about my house. So one thing you just guaranteed you would never get called. Go ahead and make your final call. By the way, the panel made a great point about discrimination in banks. And what I'm going to tell you is that a lot of my entertainer friends, they'll call me because

we want to be the rappers. The rappers want to be us. The rappers want to be business people. And they'll call me and ask me money questions. A lot of them, they're banking with the branch manager. They're worth millions. Right. But they don't have, so this is my point.

You need relationship capital. You need, if you hang around nine broke people, you're going to be the tenth, right? You've got to get to know the senior vice president, the corporate vice president, the somebody in the C-suite at these major banks, build a rapport, build a relationship with them, send them information on your business and your household, build a rapport so when you actually need access capital, they know you, they can vouch for you.

The word credit comes from the Latin word credito, which means credibility. The word capital comes from the Latin root word capitas, which means knowledge in the head. And banking is a faith business. Faith, credibility, and knowledge. It has nothing to do with money. If you understand this system,

you can access capital at scale. I do now, it's called non-recourse debt loans. I did $100 million refinancing of my real estate portfolio at the Promise Homes Company earlier this year. It was non-recourse debt, which means I don't personally guarantee it. But when I started out, Roland, everything was personally guaranteed. A paperclip was personally guaranteed because I was broke. So that's the way the system works. You have to learn to manage. Was that a joke about banking? A bank will loan you money when you prove you don't need it. It's not untrue. So you've got to have that higher credit score. You've got to have that savings and have those ratios so the bank goes,

because, you know, capital is a coward. Capital is not trying to be courageous. Capital is trying to find a highest return with the lowest risk. By the way, so is me too, by the way. I want to have the lowest risk with the highest return. So you've got to present yourself in a way to the banker. They go, that's a good bet. That's a good investment.

I'm going to loan them some money, the dues, X, Y, and Z. I'm going to get it back. That's the way the system works. If you look like a credit risk, if you look like you tow up from the flow up, they're not going to loan you money. That's not discrimination. That's a tow up credit report. And when you go to the club

tonight, everybody, some people have heard me say this before. When you go to the club tonight, not, some people have heard me say this before. When you go to the club tonight, not tonight, Friday, and you meet the girl, she's cute, and you meet the dude, and he's handsome, and you get before you get too serious about this conversation, ask them their credit score. And I'm only half joking.

Because when you marry, you're marrying a life partner. You're marrying your business partner. You're marrying debt. Or equity. Okay, here's the story. Hold on, hold a story so before you go that way we talked about going to the club also you know you know marriage is not a romantic you've got to be stuck on stupid be paying $500 for a bottle that they paid $50 for please stop this is a whole other kind of bottle service bottle service VIP area and don't go there during the day.

The place is disgusting. All right, you're paying $500,000 for something that cost them $20. Do you know, I know, my billionaire friends own these clubs, they never go in them. They don't let their kids go in those clubs. They just have somebody showing up to get the cash. A club is just like a casino.

House money always wins. Las club is just like a casino. House money always wins. Las Vegas keeps getting bigger. Hello. It keeps getting bigger. So a couple people may win, but on balance, the house always wins. Vegas don't give my money. I won't turn you into the house.

Except the golf course. Last story. So Roland knows this story. I love this story. So this kid reminded me of myself. I was in a Detroit classroom teaching financial literacy. My volunteers were at Operation Hope. And so I came and do a visit.

And as I was walking down the hallway, this young man had just finished a financial literacy course. Volunteer was in there. And he was wearing a little suit. Reminded me of me. Right, right. So I was trying to get to him to talk to him, but his boys

had got to him first. Right. Yo, man, what you doing wearing that stupid suit? He didn't say something else, but I'm going to respect the broadcast. Wearing that stupid suit. We cut some here, but I understand. Go ahead. You're wearing that stupid suit. You know, why are you

hanging around these dang old bankers? They ain't nothing. This is all punk stuff. You're wearing that stupid suit. You know, why are you wearing that? Why are you hanging around these dang old bankers? They ain't nothing. This is all punk stuff. You a punk. So I go to defend his honor, right? And I said, look, you guys, I want to make a decision about Nike. Now, this is years ago.

I'm going to give you $70 each. It's four of them. Make a decision about Nike quick. And he says, I want to buy a share of Nike stock. Man, they jumped. Man, and that's the second dumb thing you did. Well, you can buy some stupid-ass stock. Excuse me. Here I go. You need to buy you some Air Jordans. Back when you, you know, they still needed another 30 bucks back then. It was 100 bucks. You need, everybody got Air Jordans. Fuchsia Air Jordans, black Air Jordans, Brown Air Jordans, Leather Air Jordans.

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business,

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

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Everybody in school has got Air Jordans. You dumb, man. You need you got Air Jordans. You dumb, man. You need you some Air Jordans. I go to defend young Derek's honor, and he says, no, no, no, no, no. It's cool. I want them to buy those shoes. Because when they do, they're making me money. Bingo.

Light on. I'm like, okay, this kid gets it. There's a difference between being broke and being poor. And for the folks who don't know, Anthony, go to my iPad. He was saying that he would. Anthony, go to my iPad. This, y'all, is what Nike's stock is at the close of business today. $92.82.

So today, the reason Michael Jordan is a billionaire, and Michael Jordan, his mama forced that, Michael gets 5%. Michael gets 5% of Air Jordan sales. Oh, yes. Five. Yes. Nike gets 95.

Equity. But Michael Jordan is a billionaire. Because of that. Not because of playing ball. Not because of his NBA contracts. Right. Not because any of that. Right.

Because just 5% of the money that Jordan Brand makes. So what the young man was, to tie this together, we gotta make smart sexy again. What the young man was saying was, y'all can talk all you want, that's what you said earlier. Not one ounce of my self esteem, depends on your acceptance of me. Y'all can say whatever you want.

I want you to go buy those shoes. Be ignorant. I'm gonna own the stock, and when you buy those shoes, you're gonna have my stock go up. And at that point, I realized he got the memo. I told, I would say, I've been here to tell people, go to a store and say, can you please hand me one of those empty boxes of Nike?

I said, and buy your kid some stock, put that stock certificate in that box under the tree and wrap that sucker. Buy a stock certificate for a birthday or Christmas and put it on the wall. Frame it and put it on the kid's wall. What I'm saying is, put the stock certificate in that box

and have them unwrap it and say, I want you to understand that pair of shoes in that box is going to be worn out in a year. That is gonna make you a whole lot of, and a sister that wear the TV one. By the way, that was probably a stock split. That stock value for Nike, that stock.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So that's multiples. Absolutely, so it would, right. But again though, when you don't know, you don't know. And so that's why you have the book. Folks, the book is called Financial Literacy for All. Mustafa Laird, did y'all have any additional questions? No, you answered my question.

Thank you. Cool. Financial Literacy for All, Disrupting Struggle, Advancing Financial Freedom, and Building a New American Middle Class by John Hope Bryant. Always good to have you, my brother. This is a civil rights issue of our generation, man. We've got to move on the traditional civil rights movement, thank them for that, support all the organizations who did that,

and then advance that with new software for the civil rights movement from the streets to the suites. And this is the way we get our liberation. It's okay if you don't like me, I like me. And I'm an owner. And so your opinion really don't matter. And that's where we got to pivot. And that's where I think we're going. So I'm going to close out with this here.

This painting here, y'all, is of my man, Harry Belafonte. And Harry Belafonte put in his book and he said to me personally that he saw what happened to his mentor, Paul Robeson. When America got sick and tired of Paul Robeson kicking ass on racism, America, they would not hire Paul Robeson in America. But Paul Robeson was making lots of money internationally. How did they break Paul Robeson? They took his passport. Wow.

He got some checks singing over the phone, talking to rallies, but he couldn't leave the country. Wow. So Harry Belafonte said, we saw what happened to Robeson. Robeson died broke. He said, I'm going to keep my activism, but I'm not gonna let them do to me what they did to Robeson. So, Mr. B, he owned his content, but he also, he was investing, he was saving his money.

That's right. Because he said, I can't be the activist. Paul Robeson handed him the mantle, handed him the baton. But he said, I don't want them to do to me what they did to Paul Robeson. So he protected himself financially to be the activist that he was. That's right.

If he did not protect his money, he died at 95, not 96, he would not have been able to do all the things that he did and have the financial freedom to do them if he did not watch his money. He said it was because of what they did to Ropes. You know, it's possible, Roland, that all the only true freedom is financial freedom

because all the others can be taken from you. And I want people as you as you think about what Roland has done here, and we talked in this when we started talking about ownership and in fact that this is his. I want you to think about this. Eddie Murphy, you love him. He's smart, he's funny. Eddie made his real money in investing. He bought one piece of art at an estate sale. $50,000.

The copy. The famous Good Times art piece. The copy of that piece sold for $18 million. The copy. The artwork is worth more than the house it sits within in any contract he ever got for acting. Everybody who watches this

who knows a billionaire in the arts or sports, they didn't get there dancing on a stage, rocking a mic, or hitting a ball or bouncing. They got it by taking that Magic Johnson, et cetera, into corporate. It's business.

Well, you lived in Los Angeles. We know her from the Jeffersons. Marla Gibbs owned a ton of property in Leimert Park. That's right, it was called Leimert Park, that's right. Lionel Richie owns a ton of property. Stevie Wonder, that radio station. On Rodeo Drive. So again, but it's understanding.

You can be an activist. Yeah. You can be a social justice warrior. But when you have the financial freedom to do it, that's the only way. Charlamagne owns his platform. The conversation that we're having right now can't happen over this period of time if I don't own it. Because otherwise, there's somebody in my ear saying, we gotta cut, we can only do eight minutes,

we can only do nine minutes. No, but when you own it, then you can say no, we can do the hour conversation, we can do it here. And that is the piece that our people have got to understand. That's so powerful. You're not asking a producer. So when I go on, I'm a contributor for CNBC. And I go on, and this is a seven-minute hit.

And that's long for TV. And I love doing it. Time Magazine and all this kind of stuff. There are only two times where I've done an hour piece where you can unpack this with the two platforms where the person doing it owned it. You today and a couple weeks ago I did Charlemagne and he's within iHeart but he owns Black Effect Network, his podcasting network.

The 50-50 partnership. I'm on his board. Yeah, iHeart. But he did it right. He had them funded but he owns the creatives and he's got publishing arms, and he's got his breakfast club show. But because he controls that,

he can have an hour conversation with me about something that really matters. This really is an important conversation. I hope people watching this not only take it to heart and change their life, but give you the credit you deserve. What I tell them, the financial freedom allowed the creation. That's it. And that is how

our people have to be able to think forward. Appreciate it, man. Always a pleasure. My pleasure. Larry, Mustafa,

may also thank Niyambi for being on the panel. I really appreciate that as well. Folks, hope you enjoyed the conversation.

Of course, you can always catch the restream. We're going to be posting video on all our social media platforms as well. But we also need you to support the work that we actually do. Now, you already know, I've been battling these ad agencies, fighting them.

I've got a meeting tomorrow. I've got other meetings set up with Group M. We've been meeting with Dentsu, meeting with Publicis, Horizon. Y'all tripping. I need to learn how to return some phone calls. And so, folks, nearly $400 billion is spent every single year. The media upfronts are happening right now. Very few black people are a part of it.

In fact, black-owned media investment is actually falling back in the wake of George Floyd's death. And the anniversary of his death is this week, the four-year anniversary. So when you support the show, you're supporting us having these conversations. Because I told y'all, this is $195,000 a month for the whole network.

Staff, rent, travel, insurance, all different things. We're talking right now on robotic cameras. We've got two robotic cameras in here. We talk about the production room. Again, black companies. So when you invest in this here, you're also investing in black-owned businesses because black engineering company built that studio production room. Talking about the lighting, the set. When we travel, we got black drivers. Every city we go to, we're picturizing black-owned

restaurants. And so understand when we talk about how does the black dollar travel, it can only travel if you make a conscious decision to actually use black vendors. So your support is absolutely critical. You can give multiple ways. Again, our goal is very simple. 20,000 people, if 20,000 of our fans contribute on average,

50 bucks each, that's a million dollars. That is huge for us to be able to do what we do. And so that's $50 a month. Excuse me, $50 a year. That's $4.19 a month, 13 cents a day for this show, plus five other shows, plus the live events we covered, plus the news conferences, plus the stuff that you're not getting this content anywhere. And here's the last point.

There's nobody in black-owned media doing what you're doing. Byron Allen just canceled his two shows. Ebony Williams' Daily Show, Mark Lamont Hill's show, gone. Doesn't exist. They canceled all their shows. Ebony's not doing it. Essence is not doing it. Black Enterprise is not doing it. Blavity is not doing it. No other black-owned media platform is doing news

and information five days a week live, seven days a week content the way we do it. Your support is critical. Senior Check and Money Order, PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 2003 7-0196, Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered,

PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, R-Martin Unfiltered, Venmo is RM Unfiltered, Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com, download the Black Star Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One,

Samsung Smart TV. Also, you can also, of course, get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds Available. Bookstores nationwide. Get the audio version on Audible. And I told y'all, I hit my brother.

He found 300 copies at his house in my book, The First. I told y'all, when we out, we out. I'm not printing anymore. That book is from 2009. And so you can get, I am personally autographing each copy. A lot of y'all been emailing me saying, when's my book coming? I am not Amazon, meaning it ain't going to be there tomorrow with Prime. I have to personally autograph it and put it in the envelope.

And so I cut the price as well to $10. And so once the books are gone, they're gone. And so go to RolandSMartin.com forward slash the first, RolandSMartin.com forward slash the first to get your personally autographed copy of this book, which is my coverage of the 2008 presidential election of President Barack Obama. Folks, that's it. Tomorrow I'm going to have for you, I'm going to play all of the songs inspired by Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett's

takedown of a crazy Marjorie Taylor Greene. Plus, I'll have some sights and sounds from Anthony Anderson's golf tournament, the sixth annual Anthony Anderson Golf Classic took place yesterday at Bighorn in Palm Desert. We'll have that content for you tomorrow as well. Until then, folks, y'all enjoy. Holla!

Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punches! A real revolution right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something

like CNN. You can't 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? A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways.

From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastain. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.