#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Historic Montgomery Bus Station for sale, Rep. Al Green speaks on House floor, Failing Trump economy

Episode Date: March 8, 2025

3.7.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Historic Montgomery Bus Station for sale, Rep. Al Green speaks on House floor, Failing Trump economy The historic Montgomery Bus Station has recently been listed for sale by the U.S. General Services Administration. Alabama Congressman Shomari Figures is here to discuss his plan to stop the sale.  Texas Representative Al Green took to the House floor a day after being censured. We'll show you what he said.  February's job report is in, and it doesn't look good. We'll talk to economist Morgan Harper about why the numbers look so grim.  We'll tell The Bail Project about a new survey that comprehensively examines pretrial reforms across the country and how the findings suggest a very different story than the narrative. An arrest was made in the Louisiana fraternity death case of Caleb Wilson. And a major music loss.  Tony! Toni! Toné! guitarist D'Wayne Wiggins, has died after his battle with cancer. ✨Get your "Don't Blame Me ... I Voted for the Black Woman" tee and #FAFO 2025 tee TODAY #RMU Merch 👉🏾 https://rolandmartin.creator-spring.com/ #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication.

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Today is Friday, March 7, 2025. Coming up on Roller Mark Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. The historic Montgomery bus station has recently been listed for sale by the U.S. General Services Administration. You can blame Elon Musk for that. We'll talk with Congressman Tamari Figures about the plan to stop the sale. Texas Congressman Al Green took to the House floor a day after being censured. Let's just say he gave him hell for 32 minutes.

We'll show you all of it. The February jobs report is out. It doesn't look good. He gave him hell for 32 minutes. We'll show you all of it. The February jobs report is out. It doesn't look good. We'll talk to economist Morgan Harper about how Donald Trump is killing the economy. Plus, the bail project. They have a new survey that comprehensively examines pretrial reforms across the country and how the findings suggest a very different story than the narrative we've heard about. Plus, an arrest has been made in the

fraternity death case of Caleb Wilson, who was pledging Omega Psi Phi fraternity and one of the graduates has been charged with manslaughter. Plus another music loss. Tony Tony Tony co founder Dwayne Wiggins has passed away after a courageous battle with bladder cancer. It's time to breathe the funk.

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

With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling Martin Rolling with rolling now It's Roland Martin Yeah Yeah Rolling with Roland now Yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real

The best you know, he's Roland Martin Now Martin Well, folks, Elon Musk and his doge idiots are doing their part to show how stupid they are. One of the things that they have done is literally list one of the critical civil rights museums trying to sell the building. Yeah, seriously, that's what they're trying to do. The U.S. General Services Administration recently listed the historic Montgomery Bus Station, now home to the Freedom Rides Museum, for potential sale.

The station holds profound significance in the nation's civil rights history. In 1961, Freedom Riders were violently attacked there by white supremacists as they challenged segregation in interstate travel. The proposed sale has sparked immediate reaction. Congressman Shamari Figures and Congresswoman Terri Sewell have jointly urged the GSA to remove the museum from the sale list, emphasizing its invaluable role in educating the public about our nation's struggle for equality and justice. Of course, this is also the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. And of course, it's been commemorated this weekend. Joining us right now is Congressman Shamari Figures of Alabama. Glad to have you here. First and foremost, I take it none of y'all knew about any of this.

And this is just another example of Elon Musk and Doge just whacking things left and right. No consideration given to it. They're just looking at us on a spreadsheet sheet and going, yep, get it. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Absolutely. We had no heads up that this was coming.

We knew nothing about this at all. I was just as surprised as everyone to see that this building was something that could even be considered to be sold, given its historical significance to this state, to the civil rights movement, and quite honestly, to this country and to the nation. And so we were caught off guard with it, but we jumped into action immediately

to push back because this is not something that we can tolerate. I also don't think that it was coincidence that this happened the week before they knew we would be descending down to Montgomery and Selma in celebration of the 60th Jubilee. And as I said, I mean, you know, these guys are just doing whatever the hell. No, no, no direction whatsoever. There was a an emergency cabinet meeting yesterday where literally Trump's appointees were arguing back and forth with him, like Secretary of State Rubio, like Secretary of State Secretary Sean Duffy, about how they're just making willy nilly decisions and not thinking through cuts that they're making. No, no, that's true. And we're seeing that reflected particularly in the black community. When we look at what they did with land grant college scholarships, how they impacted the 1890 land grant colleges such as Alabama A&M and Tuskegee and FAMU, while at the same time they did nothing,

nothing to pause that exact same funding to the predominantly white land-grant colleges, which are the Texas A&Ms, the Auburns, the LSUs of the world. And so this is intentional. And that's a fight that we're still having. We just learned yesterday that there's a separate pot of HBCU money that they still have not unfrozen for scholarships and have not touched the money to the predominantly white institutions. And so this is routine of this administration. They are not interested in researching and doing the due diligence before they make these reckless decisions.

You know, the museum here, when I saw Congresswoman Terri Sewell, a tweet from her with regard to this, have y'all heard anything from the GSA since this became public? Not yet. We just got a letter out yesterday. The news of this just broke with us on Thursday, or we just became aware of it on Thursday because GSA had kind of listed it and then pulled it back and then pulled down the whole website at one point. And so we could not see it directly. But once we confirmed that it had been there, we reached directly out the next morning to GSA. We requested phone calls. Those requests went unanswered. We then sent a letter and obviously pushed out things on social media and pushed out things on press to put the pressure on them.

And I think this is something that we will see on. We've reached out to other members of our delegation in Alabama, the Republican members, who understand the history of this building and what this means to this area as well. So we're not going to let up on this. Another question. You voted president along with Congressman Al Green when they were trying to censure him. And a lot of people were trying to understand why. Can you explain it? I voted in solidarity with Al Green. Literally, there were two people who voted present.

It was Al and myself. And I had told Al the day before I was going to vote with him. However he voted, that's how I was going to vote, because he had voted present for the procedural motion. So it was a vote in solidarity with Al, nothing more, nothing less. It was certainly not a—it wasn't a vote of no support. Obviously, we had, you know, plenty of Democrats, too many Democrats who voted, in my opinion, to actually censor him. But it was a vote in solidarity with him and in an objection to the process, because there were several things that happened that night that just made even participating in the process of voting on censor just unreasonable to me. We had a member from the Republican Party reach across an aisle and snatch a sign out of a Democratic member's hand, toss it in the air after it looked like President Trump may have even indicated something about that sign to that Republican member. We had another member who was reportedly told to remove a political hat twice and did not and sat through the entire speech without any repercussions. And so, you know, this one-sided enforcement of decorum is just not right.

What do you make of Speaker Mike Johnson saying he's going to further penalize Democrats? I think it's not right. I mean, I don't think that's how you lead. I think you lead by example and not lead by exceptions. And right now he is being an exception to the rules for the leader of the House of Representatives, for the Speaker of the House of Representatives to even use words like punish or penalize Democrats is just unreasonable, particularly when we see the sentiments that come out of the White House routinely, the disrespect, the lack of decency, the inhumane decisions that are coming out of the White House and how reckless they are and the impacts they're having. To see that come from the Republican side, look, I think that that's just totally uncalled for and totally unreasonable.

So the 66th anniversary this weekend is going to be the commemorations taking place. They've already started. But we're living in a moment where there's a massive attack on voting rights, and that has been continuing since the Shelby v. Holder decision. And we've seen Republicans doing all they can. And so, you know, beyond the folks who traditionally are making that, you know, commemorative march across Edmund Pettus Bridge, what more should be done? What are you, how are you challenging people to use their power?

One of the biggest issues that I keep raising is that we are not maximizing our numbers. We should be voting at 70 percent minimum, 70 percent of our capacity. And I keep saying that until we do that, we are making it easier for folks to oppose us. Yeah. When you look historically at the impact of the civil rights movement and why coming out of the civil rights movement, the late 60s, the 70s, into the 80s, we were able to have these gains as black people in terms of social wins, in terms of things that we were seeing changing and giving us a better opportunity to participate in society.

It had to do with the fear of the black vote. change and giving us a better opportunity to participate in society. It had to do with the fear of the black vote. It had to do with the fear of people going to the polls and voting for their interests and putting people in office that were going to further the interests of the black community. And when we don't take advantage of that, we run the risk of losing that, as we have seen. And so our voter turnout is far too low. We have to utilize that power. At the end of the day, we know historically most of the victories that have come for Black

people have come through the courts and obviously some critical pieces of legislation as well. But the courts are the ones that had to uphold those pieces of legislation. And right now, the numbers on the court side are not necessarily in our favor, at least on paper, in terms of who appointed the judges. But one thing that we can control is who we are putting in office to make these decisions at every single level, because as we see right now, the state elections are the ones that are really having the most ramifications because those state elected officials are drawing the maps that are, you know, putting Republicans in these consistent positions of power. All right, Ben. And Congressman, smart figures. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Roland. Good to see you, man. Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Going to go to a break. Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. What's up, y'all? Look, Fanbase is more than a platform. It's a movement to empower creators, offering a unique opportunity for everyday people to invest in Black-owned tech, infrastructure, and help shape the future of social media. Investing in technology is essential

for creating long-term wealth and influence in the digital age. The Black community must not only consume tech, we must own it. Discover how equity crowdfunding can serve as a powerful tool for funding Black businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to raise capital directly through their community, through the Jobs Act. Hey, y'all. Welcome to The Other Side of Change, only on the Black Star Network and hosted by myself, Rhea Baker, and my good sis, Jameerah Burley.

We are just two millennial women tackling everything at the intersection of politics, gender, and pop culture. And we don't just settle for commentary. This is about solution-driven dialogue to get us to the world as it could be and not just as it is. Watch us on the Black Star Network, so tune in to the other side of change. I'm Russell L. Honore, Lieutenant General of the United States Army, retired, and you're watching Roland Martin on Filth. All right, folks, introducing my panel, Michael Imhotep, host of the African History Network show out of Detroit, Robert Petillo, host of People, Passion, Politics, News & Talk 1380, WAOK, out of Atlanta,

Dr. Zachary Kirk, educator and content creator out of Atlanta. Glad to have three of you here. Robert, I'll start with you. First and foremost, let's just be clear here. It is beyond a joke what we're seeing from Speaker Mike Johnson by saying that there should be more punitive action taken against Democrats. Bottom line is there are absolute crazies on his side that he will not admonish, will not hold their feet to the fire. And, you know, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, a Democratic leader, has been very adamant by saying, yeah, you come up to my people or it's going to be a problem. It's absolutely correct.

And I think we have to stop expecting this moral hierarchy to come from the other side of the aisle. They've made it very clear. They elected somebody with 34 felony convictions to be the president of the United States of America. They are not interested in fairness. They're not interested in following the rules. There's a felon making the laws of the nation currently. They have abdicated the powers of Congress to an unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, to make decisions that should be left to the public. So this expectation, this idea that somehow they will care about fairness and balance and, oh, my God, I can't believe they're doing this, we're past the, oh, my God, phase of

things. Every single day that the news is on behind you, you hear something that you have never expected to hear coming out of our government, and we have to recognize that. We're going to buy Greenland. We're going to invade Gaza and turn it into a casino. We're going to conquer the Panama Canal. We're going to make Canada a state. These people have gone off the rails. So this idea that somehow we're going to appeal to the better angels of the Republican Party, or that we are going to somehow find these compromises in the middle, as Mitch McConnell

said eight years ago, the era of bipartisanism, it seems to be over. And we can either continue to live in this fairytale land that will go back to the days of Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill smoking a cigar and drinking scotch and coming to an agreement, or we can realize we are in a full-blown battle for the future of America and that we have to take this battle seriously. And it's not going to be enough to hold up signs. It's not going to be enough to sing songs. We have to get into a bare-knuckle brawl where the people are punching us in the face while we're singing songs back at them. Amy Ogle said he wants to penalize them.

Listen to Hakeem Jeffries respond. Let me, oops, let me get this set up right. Watch this here. Let's see here. Here we go. Dynamic sister, our Attorney General, Tish James, and my team informs me that some far right extremists have introduced a resolution to try to throw Democratic members of the House off of our committees. That resolution is going nowhere. You ain't throwing no one off of any single committee.

These people are malignant clowns. Andy Ogles is a fraud. A complete and total fraud. You aren't throwing anyone off of any committee in the House of Representatives. Don't make me expose you to folks who don't know you. What say you, Michael? Oh, I agree with Representative Hakeem Sekou Jeffries. Absolutely. Expose these clowns. Expose the hypocrisy.

This is the type of fight that a lot of people want to see. And if we go back and look at 2022, 2023, 2024, when President Joe Biden gave the State of the Union address, we know that two of the dumbest Republicans in the House of Representatives, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert constantly interrupted Joe Biden. We saw it continue in 2023. Various Republicans did it, 2024. None of them were censured. And keep in mind, it was Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, 2023, 2024, who was in charge of the House of Representatives.

He didn't censure any of those idiotic Republicans that were interrupting Joe Biden. So, but why do you censure Representative Al Green? I think it's white supremacy. That's what I think. So I totally agree with Representative Hakeem Jeffries. This is going to be an all out brawl and it's going to be a fight on multiple levels. We're seeing an uprising among. 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

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In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This has kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We've got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players

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We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more.

Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Republicans who voted for Donald Trump, who voted for these Republicans in the House and the Senate, who are coming out, coming to town halls, and we're going to see this continue, this anger continue as these cuts happen in the federal government. And it's important for people to keep in mind the 2.3 million federal employees, about 85 percent or more, are all across the U.S., not in Washington, D.C. These are your neighbors. These are your mothers. These are your fathers. This is the U.S. Postal Service, Social Security Administration, the VA administration, et cetera. So as this pain is felt more at home and knocks on the door of people who voted for Republicans, you're going to see this boil over. Absolutely. I totally agree with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader.

Zachary? You know, I can't help but to also agree with my newly leader, but I would say I would love for Leader Jeffrey to take it one step further. Don't shoot, you know, not shots fired. Let's have shots hit the mark. Let's go ahead and expose them. Like, we have to go a little bit dirtier and a little bit deeper. Senate, I mean, our House Republicans are playing by their own rule book to have no rules. There are no scruples, there are no ethics, there are no values, and there are also no concern for the American people. And right now, our Democrats

are not moving the needle. They're not making progress. The American people, the popularity for Donald Trump among Republicans is still high. We have work to do to get the message out across America so that these people can understand what is happening to them and what is about to happen to them so that when they start to feel the little pain, as Donald Trump and Elon Musk call it, they will understand what is causing the little pain. If there is something to expose, let's expose it. We have nothing to lose because we have already lost. It was extremely disappointing to me to see 10 House Democrats stand against Representative Al Green and the Black community, the CBC, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Progressive House Caucus, those people stood against not only these individuals,

not only their fellow members of the House, but they stood against the American people. All across this country, people are begging and demanding for Democrats to do more. And when you finally had Democrats have the courage, the fortitude to stand up and protest in a way and dissent in a way that would renown or resound with the American people, these 10 cowards, these 10 traitors stood against them. We have been waiting for Republicans to stand up to Mike Johnson, to stand up to Donald Trump, and to stand up to Elon Musk over multiple executive orders. Republicans didn't stand up for their constituents when it came to ending the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, or getting ready to abolish any number of departments and cuts. They haven't stood up for the American workers who have lost their jobs. They haven't stood up for anything. But yet,

Democrats stand up over a censor, over somebody who they feel wasn't as respectful as they wanted them to be. This, to me, was an absolute embarrassment, over somebody who they feel wasn't as respectful as they wanted them to be, this to me was an absolute embarrassment. And it made me feel ashamed to call myself a Democrat. Well, folks, you want to see how crazy these right-wingers are? Check this out. They now are demanding that Donald Trump pardon, yes, pardon the man who murdered George Floyd. Yeah.

Listen to this idiot, Ben Shapiro, as he tries to make the argument why Derek Chauvin should be pardoned of the federal crimes that he was convicted of. If we are issuing pardons, however, there is one person that President Trump should pardon from federal charges forthwith. It would be incredibly controversial, but I think that it's absolutely necessary. That person is Derek Chauvin. President Trump should, in fact, pardon Derek Chauvin. He should. He should pardon him in his federal charges. If we are talking about reversing the evils of the last several years in American life, obviously COVID and its handling was a massive evil.

Destroyed the economy, set us on a path to fiscal insanity, destroyed children, led to massive health-related cover-ups, just horrifying all the way around. And President Trump has taken on a lot of those things. But when it came to BLM, the inciting event for the BLM riots that caused $2 billion in property damage in the United States and set America's race relations on their worst footing in my lifetime was in fact the railroading of Derek Chauvin

in the death of George Floyd. The evidence demonstrates that Derek Chauvin did not in fact commit murder of George Floyd. George Floyd was high on fentanyl. He had a significant pre-existing heart condition. George Floyd was saying he could not breathe before he was even out of the car. He was in the car saying he could not breathe. Derek Chauvin, for a large segment of even the tape that was shown,

had his knee on George Floyd's shoulder or back, not on his neck. The autopsy of George Floyd showed that he had no damage to his trachea, that probably George Floyd died of excited delirium. There were no accusations, even at trial, that Derek Chauvin had committed a hate crime against George Floyd or that he targeted George Floyd because of his race. Nonetheless, on the basis of extraordinarily scanty evidence. And despite the fact that there was massive pressure on the jury, that the mayor of Minneapolis paid a settlement to the George Floyd family immediately, that the president of the United States suggested that Derek Chauvin was guilty right off the bat, that the jurors were being openly threatened and admitted as much.

Despite all of that, Derek Chauvin was convicted on federal charges and pled guilty to federal charges. Derek Chauvin should, in fact, be pardoned on that. We will be covering that a lot more in coming weeks because I think it is worthwhile to remember that there is a man who is rotting in prison because the media decided in the middle of 2020 that they were going to turn a tragic law enforcement stop that ended with the death of a man who had a significant problem with drugs and preexisting health problems into the raison d'etre of the entire 2020 election.

And it led to vast chaos. It led to, again, the destruction of racial comedy in the United States, $2 billion in property damage, and a guy rotting in prison who the evidence demonstrates certainly was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in that case. If we're gonna talk about delivering pardons, President Trump, I think,

should really seriously consider pardoning on federal charges. He can't pardon on state charges. Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of the murder of George Floyd. As I say, we will be covering this pretty extensively in the coming weeks. Right now, you should go to pardondrick.com and sign our petition asking President Trump

to grant justice to Officer Derek Chauvin. That is pardon, P-A-R-D-O-N, derrick.com. Robert, these races sure are pretty hilarious to sit here and go, well, you look at the evidence. Actually, a jury did. And didn't he even say that Derek Chauvin pled guilty to the federal charges? He did indeed. And this is the interesting thing that has come from this entire movement. Just finally getting to see people for who they were. Because if you listen to Ben Shapiro from five years ago, let's say, he tried to come across as this centrist, moderate, who wanted to be on both sides of the aisle but had a conservative tilt. And now we've just been able to pull the mask off of these things, where they

want to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They want to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They're pulling the federal government and DOJ out of consent decrees with themselves and police jurisdictions. They're pardoning the January 6th rioters. And now they want to pardon one of the few opportunities of racial justice that we've had. And I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't just go back retroactively and pardon everyone ever convicted of a hate crime against African Americans just to prove a point. And, at this point in time, we as black folks have to decide whether we're going to have skin in the game or not.

Is our response to all these things simply going to be that we're going to make angry posts on social media? Remember after Trayvon was murdered, everybody changed their Facebook profile picture and blacked it out in order to make a change? Are we really going to dive down and figure out how we are going to be to understand that we are being pushed back in to becoming second-class citizens in this country? The first generation of Black folks to have full rights were born after 1965 and are still alive today and are barely 60 years old, and those rights are now being rescinded and going backwards. This is the first generation where that baton that was passed down from the our first ancestors

who left the continent, who ran away, who fought their captors, who fought through the Civil War and through enslavement for freedom, who fought through Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement, those rights are for the first time by this generation. That baton is being dropped, and we're allowing people to go, allowing America to go backwards. And the question becomes, what are we going to do about it? If they pardon Derek Chauvin, is every black police officer in this country going to turn their badge in and say, y'all go figure this out yourselves, and we're not going to be part of this justice system? Is

every lawyer going to say, well, I'm not appearing in court before the corrupt judicial system, which clearly does not respect the rights of African-Americans? Our lawmakers are going to simply say, y'all figure it out yourselves, and we're going to go back to our communities and figure out how we can sustain an economic model that creates a nation within a nation, as we've seen around the world. Or are we simply going to say, dang, that was messed up. Hope that don't happen again, and they'd be right back there the next day. This is the reason that they, when they started this attack, they didn't go directly here

first. First, they decided that they would attack history and say that any black history is critical race theory and therefore ban it from schools. Then they are, so once you uneducate a population, then you can say, well, any programs that are made to ameliorate past equality, that's not fixing a problem. That's reverse racism. And you go after that next. And then you remove the legal protections that keep us on an equal footing. So, at what point in time will we just keep backing up and backing up and backing up, they would simply say we're going to do something about it. We have to be at that point right now or else there will be nothing less to say. So Derek Chauvin is indeed pardoned. We can't be mad at Shapiro or Trump or Musk or anybody else.

The conversation then has to be what are we going to do about it? What's hilarious, Zachary, is that he got 22 and a half years in prison on the state charges. He got 21 years on the federal charges. They're being served concurrently. So a partner ain't going to do nothing. And he's not rotting in prison. He was justly sentenced for his actions. By a jury of his peers in an American justice system that rarely gives justice for someone like him when someone like me loses their life. So it is clearly, it is clearly Ben Shapiro and the people that support him and the people that uphold him trying to send a message to people like Derek Chauvin that they can do what they want to do. And to people like me and you, Roland, that our lives have very little value, if any at all, and that we are once again, as always, in danger. That's what it's

about. That's what he's trying to say. That's what he is trying to say. They are showing us exactly who they are. Ben Shapiro is the white nationalist that he absolutely is, Michael. Oh, absolutely. But Ben Shapiro left out an important fact, well, many important facts. So, he wanted to talk about the numerous Black Lives Matter protests that took place. And Washington Post did an analysis, and approximately 90 percent were nonviolent. But I find it very ironic, very interesting that Ben Shapiro, you didn't want to talk about the January 6 insurrection, because the Government Accountability Office found that the January 6 insurrection cost $2.7 billion in estimated costs when it comes to damages. And they broke this down in a 122-page report,

and it dealt with damage to the Capitol building and grounds, costs borne by the Capitol Police, the District of Columbia, and federal agencies. So how is it that you talk about numerous Black Lives Matter protests all across the country, but you don't want to talk about this one-day incident incited by the same guy who you want to give a pardon to, Derek Chauvin, but at the same time there was overwhelming evidence proving that Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, and they brought in experts as well, and they showed the video. So Ben Shapiro is one of these white supremacists that out here put this bullshit out here

to drive up MAGA, to rile up MAGA, and distract from the fact that Donald Trump is not bringing down the price of groceries and they're losing their jobs at the same time. Okay, so deal with this, Ben Shapiro, or shut the hell up. Absolutely. All right, folks, going to a break. So deal with this, Ben Shapiro, or shut the hell up. Absolutely.

All right, folks, going to a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about Trump's failing economy. I love how they want to put this on Biden. Now, Blair, see, you can't all have all the good stuff for you that you want to keep putting the stuff on by. No, no, no. You got to own this now. We're going to talk with economist Morgan Harper next. Folks, don't forget to support the work that we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club.

The goal for us is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average at $15 a year. That's $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. That goes to support this show and the other shows that we have on the Black Star Network. Sorry. If you want to give me a cash app, do so using the Stripe QR code. A lot of y'all have been trying to give directly on the cash app. They closed out our accounts because they changed their rules.

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the country right now. Trump is often wrong and misleading about a lot of things, but especially about history. Donald Trump falling in line with President Elon Musk. In the wake of the unsettling news

that MSNBC has canceled Joy Ann Reid's primetime show, The Readout, Roland Martin and the Black Star Network would like to extend an invitation to all of the fans of Joy Ann Reeves' MSNBC show to join us every night to watch Roland Martin Unfiltered

streaming on the Black Star Network for news, discussion of the issues that matter to you and the latest updates on the twice-impeached, criminally convicted felon-in-chief Donald Trump and his unprecedented assault on democracy, as well as co-president Elon Musk takeover of the federal government. The Black Star Network stands with Joy Ann Reid and all folks who understand the power of black voices in media. We must come together and never forget that information is power. Be

sure to watch Roland Martin Unfiltered weeknights, 6 p.m. Eastern at youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin or download the Blackstar Network app. Hey, what's up? It's Tammy Roman. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching, Roland Martin Unfiltered. Oh, you gotta give it to these idiots. They love to sit here and take credit for stuff that happens,

and then they want to not deal with stuff when they screw it up. So the February jobs report came out. First of all, the first Friday of each month, the jobs report came out. And let's just say it was a lackluster month. In January, the U.S. economy added 143,000 jobs, marking a continued trend of growth. The overall employment rate is down 4%. However, when looking at the numbers within our community,

the story is more complex. Black unemployment stood at 6.2%, slightly up from 6.1%. And then, of course, well, you see the February numbers right there. But here's the other thing. So Speaker Mike Johnson, this is just too funny, y'all. He was on Fox News and I love how they how they try to frame how the economy was just so awful. It was just so bad. It was just terrible. Listen to this. The president is now, what is it, 45 days into his administration.

We're transitioning from Biden. 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 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. 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 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. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them.

Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at this is pre-tirement.org brought to you by aarp and the ad council mix in the just terrible economy that was delivered by the last administration it takes a while to turn that ship around but we are doing that and the congress is working to codify all the executive orders that the president. So I'm confused. The United States economy rebounded faster than every other industrialized nation from COVID. It was moving at a much faster rate. GDP was hitting its mark. Inflation was down. How many months of consecutive job growth?

So it was an awful economy? Hmm, interesting. Morgan Harper joins us right now. Morgan is Director of Policy and Advocacy for the American Economics Liberty Project. Morgan, glad to have you here. So you got to laugh, Morgan, when you hear these folks talk.

Yeah, I mean, it's really important and it's going to be very important week by week as we continue to make our way through this administration to kind of separate the politics from the reality. Or as we say, the bullshit from the reality. Another way of putting it, yeah.

And here's what I mean by that, because, I mean, you're exactly right. These top line statistics, things like the numbers that are coming out in the jobs report, they were very strong for the latter half in particular of the Biden administration, but for a lot of the Biden administration after getting through the pandemic in terms of jobs being created, unemployment being at historic lows, all of that. And so even in these early months, January and February, in some ways, we're still dealing with that economy that was being managed by a different administration. There's always a lag in these numbers. And then any changes that are happening are going to take some time to have an effect. So that could very well be why you see things like pretty consistent

job creation from last month and then a little bit where we left off at the end of last year. And even some statistics like we saw in this month with black male unemployment actually going down based on the data that was just released today. But that doesn't mean that we should completely buy into, you know, some of the narratives that are being put out there, that we're now seeing some kind of salvation in the economy and really starting to appreciate just the risks that are being introduced into the economy through some of the big shocks that are coming from this administration in the realm of mass layoffs from the federal government. As we've discussed before, government has been one of the job creation sectors most consistently in our economy for some time. And this month's data shows that the federal government for the first time, and I believe about two years, was actually seeing job loss, not job creation.

So there is still a net positive of government job growth, but it's because of state and local governments. And P.S., state and local governments also have fates that are connected to a lot of what's happening at the federal level in terms of funding cuts and all of that. So, you know, it's still too early to say exactly how things like Doge and the layoffs and, you know, the uncertainty around tariffs, how much those impacts are going to be. But I certainly am on the side of the camp that they are going to have big impacts. It's just a matter of when and then the full scope of that impact. There are some people that are saying, well, it's just the federal government. The federal government's only 1.5 percent or whatever of overall workforce. But as we know, there's a lot of cascading effects from decisions that are made in the federal government, not just directly who they're paying or contractors who they're hiring, but funding of different programs and projects throughout the country that can have a really,

a really big impact if that type of funding goes away. What I found to be most laughable was listening to Carolyn Levin and Trump go, oh, look at this. It was fantastic. The manufacturing jobs that were created, 9,000 auto jobs, high-paying jobs. And they were like, this was the most manufacturing jobs in 15 months. I'm sorry, correct me if I'm wrong, didn't more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs lost under Trump, but about 775,000 gained under Biden. So this narrative that somehow they are delivering manufacturing jobs, it's really a joke. I mean, this was one of the graphics that you look at the numbers, pure and simple, under Biden compared to Trump. It's

like real clear when you talk about manufacturing jobs. Yeah, it is true that there was a net loss of manufacturing jobs in Trump's first administration and a net gain in President Biden's. And like we were just talking about, I mean, it's even too early. It wouldn't even be possible at this point, you know, just based on the short amount of time that this administration's been in office to really take a lot of credit for any manufacturing job creation. But, you know, let's look at some of the other developments in that sector. I mean, part of the reason why we were seeing some of that growth during the last administration was from things happening on the industrial policy side of things with the CHIPS Act, with the

Inflation Reduction Act, government subsidies that were incentivizing certain private sector behavior, subsidies and tax credits. It does seem like all the signals from this administration are that those are likely to go away, and especially with some of the moves that are happening on the trade side of things with tariffs. If there isn't any complementary domestic production, domestic manufacturing incentives, then that might not have the desired effect of boosting, you know, increase in U.S. manufacturing. So again, you know, it's only been a couple of months. We got to take this week by week, month by month. But

it's a lot of mixed signs and a lot of uncertainty, and uncertainty is rarely a good thing when it comes to the business environment and the overall economy. Certainly. We got some great laughs, courtesy of Maria Bartiromo, who kisses more Trump ass than Melania. So this back and forth, I found to be quite hilarious. You spoke to the president of Mexico today. I want to talk about tariffs because even as you're seeing this optimism and excitement, there's some nervousness over your tariffs. Markets have been selling off. People are not sure how to view it. Why did you roll back or put a pause into some of the tariffs until April 2nd?

Because I wanted to help Mexico and Canada to a certain extent. We're a big, big country, and they do a lot of their business with us, whereas in our case it's much less significant. We do very little with Canada by comparison. And I wanted to help the American car makers until April 2nd. April 2nd it becomes all reciprocal. What they charge us, we charge them. It's a big deal.

But what they charge us, we charge them. But this is short term. And I felt that for the good of the American car makers and the MCA, you know, what the U.S. MCA, what it's Mexico, Canada. I thought it would be a fair thing to do. you know, what the USMCA, what was Mexico, Canada. I thought it would be a fair thing to do. And so I gave them a little bit of a break for this short period of time. But I asked you about this before. And I know you told me when I asked you, I said, you did use SMCA.

You put this together. And yet then you come back and you change it up with these tariffs. And you said to me at that time, I did it because I can. I put an amendment in there and I said in six years I can change it. But I think CEOs want to see predictability. They say, look, I have to speak with shareholders. I've got to make plans for CapEx spending. I can't if it's 20 percent one day and then it's off for a month and it's 25 percent. So can you give us a sense of whether or not we are going to get clarity for the business community? Well, I think so. But, you know, the tariffs could go up as time goes by and they may go up. And, you know, I don't know if it's predictability. I think that's not clarity.

No, I think I think. That's not clarity. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't it doesn't seem like clarity is the goal for sure. And and look, I mean, some of some of what we're hearing from the president there doesn't make total sense. For example, we do have actually pretty balanced trade with Canada. I guess it sounds like maybe it's easy to conflate just because they're close to us that, oh, we have this similar relationship with Canada and Mexico from a trading perspective. It's just not the case. We do have pretty balanced trade with Canada. Mexico is a different situation. And tariffs probably are a tool that make a little bit

more sense when it comes to our relationship with Mexico. But big picture, we are very much intertwined economically, especially in the auto sector. I imagine that's part of the reason why he rolled this back. And there is going to be a renegotiation of our trade agreement between Mexico, U.S., and Canada later this year. So is this posturing, getting ready for that? Who knows? But I think another important point to note, though, Roland, for all of us, is trade is a very important priority in this administration. But it's also something that we all need to be paying more attention to. Because when we're concerned about things like income inequality, economic inequality, you know, huge issue for our community, if we're not thinking about how trade

and the dollar and all of these things that I know, I would speak for myself even, I mean, I didn't know that much about the trade area before the last couple of years. You know, it's easy to try to set that aside as something like, oh, there's experts dealing with that. No. If there's somebody elected that's representing us, they need to know about trade. We need to be paying attention to this. And we have been in a really unbalanced trade situation with a lot of countries across the globe, including China, where terrorists do make sense. But this administration saying that the primary objective with a lot of these things, for example, is to take on fentanyl, that doesn't make any sense because the policy that would do something about it, closing a loophole called the dimin the point, though, that it's important that we have better trade policy.

And that's something, regardless of what party you're a part of, we need to be paying attention to. And it goes, oh, yeah, I'll do it to help them. They're like, uh, no. No. No. No. You rolled it back to help yourself because the stock market tanked. That's really what happened.

And that's just, I mean, at the end of theed. That's really what happened. And that's just, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we're dealing with. I mean, you've got, you see the cuts being made, and now you've got cabinet secretaries fighting with Elon, saying who the hell's in charge. They're just whacking stuff. I mean, these guys are so dumb.

They literally whacked a CIA dark site in Virginia, and they made it public. I mean, you got idiots who are sitting here involved here, and they're running around like, yeah. And then, of course, Elon throws out all these billions they cut. Then when you actually fact check it, they've rolled back a lot of those, and it comes out to about five billion. They're a long way from the one trillion he promised they can find in savings. Yeah, and it's really unfortunate because, I mean, look, well, I think we probably both agree.

It's like there's plenty of reasons and ways that we should look at making the government more efficient. Just like we were talking about with trade, there's plenty of things we could do to improve the trade position to help take on things like income inequality. But the way that this administration is choosing to go about it with just kind of the slash and burn, the Silicon Valley mindset of like, you know, break thing, move quickly, whatever, is really, one, not accomplishing the goals, and then also hurting a lot of people in the process. I mean, you know, these types of layoffs at IRS, different federal agencies, they want to politically make it seem like it's just a deep state Washington problem. But as we very well know, and I'm sure many of your viewers are personally experiencing, there are people employed by the federal government

throughout this country. And a lot of them are just living their lives and have no political agenda and just have a commitment to service and being able to provide for their families. So why they have to become collateral damage in a so-called effort to make things efficient, there's no reason that needs to happen. And I think a lot of people are starting to see through this if they didn't before.

All right, Morgan, we always appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Good to see you. All right, let's go to my panel here. I mean, you sit here, Zachary. And I mean, let's just be clear. These idiots are tanking the economy, you know, and it's going to happen. They could try to claim all these different things.

But the bottom line is folks need to buckle up, watch their coins, because it's coming. We have to buckle up and we have to watch our coins and we have to do all that we can do to divest from organizations and companies that are hurting our community and put that money back into our community. We have to look out for ourselves because it is going to happen. And a lot of people say that it's happening by design. They're saying that this was something that was talked about on the campaign trail, about how Elon Musk made a speech. It was kind of leaked out that they were going to try to have the American economy constrict down to cause a little pain, as they call it. And I think they were beginning to see it. The things that are happening make no sense. There's no reason to implement 25 percent tariffs on our neighbors to the north and neighbors to the south. There is no reason to sit here and mass fire so many government workers so fast other than to cause

economic chaos and market collapse. And that's exactly what we are seeing. And so as all of these things are happening, we are now seeing the impact come in with jobs reports and other economic indicators starting to lag. Soon they're going to crash in the exact same way that we have seen stocks crash over the course of the last two weeks. This to me, again, there are people out there saying that this is by design and the end result will be the rich getting richer. And the people that have money will be able to take from those of us who are just making getting barely getting by. That, to me, is something that we can all be concerned about. Can we do anything about it right now? Probably not. Not a whole lot other than simply be prepared for what is coming as a black community. I just again, it's for me, it's it's a it's a daily laugh factory, Robert, when these fools try to sit here and, oh, yeah, yeah, bye-bye, awful economy, awful economy.

It was just terrible, terrible economy. No, actually, Biden-Harris saved America's ass after Trump tanked it. Yeah, that's probably something more people should have mentioned before November the 5th. And when it comes to these messaging standpoints, what we saw was that when President Trump lost the 2020 election, he lost his reelection campaign at 1 a.m. the next day when he said, I did not lose the election. The election was stolen. I'm not going to concede. And he began from that moment running for the 2024 election. And in addition to that, they filed 60 lawsuits around the country. They passed 26 separate voter suppression laws, quote unquote, election integrity laws, And in addition to that, they filed 60 lawsuits around the country.

They passed 26 separate voter suppression laws, quote-unquote election integrity laws, nationwide. They raided local, all the way down to the county level, election boards to put MAGA people in charge, to make sure that they could control the next electoral cycle. Meanwhile, after the Democrats lost the 2024 election, it seems like they have run around in a circle for about six months trying to figure out what direction they want to go. Look, if you read Project 2025 like I did, it's 920 pages. Everything they're doing right now is in the book.

They're only on the ninth chapter. I highly encourage people to sit down and start looking through what they're going to do because they have spelled out in great detail with citations exactly what they're going to do, where they're going to do it at, when they're going to do it, and how they're going to do it. And based upon everything we've seen that they've laid out and that they are executing currently, I highly encourage people, learn how to can your own food, learn how to purify rainwater, stock up on MREs for your family. Things are going to probably get pretty bad going forward, but just in case, prepare yourself for that. Understand what's going on and where it's going to happen at. Because once it appears on cable news, once it appears on mainstream media, it is too late. That is a lagging indicator. You have to be ahead of it. And what we see right now

is the massive redistribution of wealth on an international level to the most powerful oligarchs around the world. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and all those people who were standing there on that row of billionaires during the inauguration were flexing to let you know that we will be taking all the money. Elon even said, I want to go down to Fort Knox just to check and see what's there while my goons, youons, big balls and all those people, are putting hard drives into the U.S. government and taking out and extracting the wealth. We see what's happening. They're not hiding it. They're not joking about it. This is the first election in history where people are saying, well, maybe the president

won't really do everything he said he's going to do. He's going to do everything he said he's going to do. You need to prepare yourself for that and start investing, start packing, start being prepared for what comes next, because it's all laid out in a very particular handbook that they told you all the things and be ready for it. Michael? Yeah, I encourage people to read Project 2025. Pay attention to Chapter 11, because they're starting to implement Chapter 11, which deals with the dismantling of the Department of Education. And this is going to be spearheaded by Linda McMahon. I guess she's going to put education in the headlock. She's from the WWE. So this is real. And this is what we warned Black people about before the election. And you have some people that didn't believe this. You have some

of our people listening to Black social media disinformation agents that really can't tell them what to do now. So we need to redistribute, redirect, renegotiate and redirect dollars from corporations that have gone that have dialed back their DEI programs, things like this, like Target as well. Kudos to Pastor Jamal Bryant and And redirect those dollars to African-American owned businesses. We know another 24-hour economic blackout is coming up March 28th. And on that day and that weekend, we need to focus on organizing cash mobs that target African-American owned businesses, spend those dollars with ourselves, and focus on teaching about history, economics, law, and politics so we can empower ourselves and fight back against what's happening. Indeed, indeed.

So, look, it's a whole lot we've got to deal with. So, y'all, buckle up. Trust me, because these fools will wreck the economy. All right, got to take a break. We'll be right back. Roland Martin, unfiltered, right here on the Black Star Network. Hello, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. And right now we're accepting investors in our $17 million round to revolutionize the future of social media.

Today, for just $399, you can own 60 shares of stock in Fanbase at $6.65 a share. Go to startengine.com fan base and invest today while the big platforms have grown too massive and disconnected from their users fan base is building a platform where creators and users truly come first we've already raised 8.6 million dollars for everyday investors who believe in this vision and now you can join them this is your chance to invest in a social media tech company with over 1 million users that is disrupting media by allowing anyone to reach all of their following

and monetize their content from day one. The market is changing, big platforms are failing to serve their users, and Fanbase is stepping up to fill the gap. Don't wait until it's too late. Invest now. Invest for yourself and your future. Go to startengine.com slash fanbase and own the future of social media. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. There's a lot of talk about the inevitability

of another civil war in this country, but on our next show, we'll talk to a noted author and scholar who says we're actually in the middle of one right now. In fact, Steve Phillips says the first one that started back in 1861, well, it never ended. People carrying the Confederate flag, wearing sweatshirts saying MAGA Civil War, January 6, 2021, stormed U.S. Capitol, hunted down the country's elected officials, built the gallows for the Vice President of the United States, and to block the peaceful transfer of power within this country. On the next Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. Hi, everybody. I'm Kim Coles.

Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. Yo, it's your man Deon Cole from Blackish, and you're watching... Roland Martin, unfiltered. In recent years, significant strides have been made toward reforming the pretrial justice system, particularly concerning the elimination of cash bail, a practice that has disproportionately affected black communities. This system often results in legally innocent individuals remaining incarcerated simply because they cannot afford bail, leading to job loss, housing instability,

and straining family relationships. Remember, that was the case with Sandra Bland. Organizations like the Bail Project have been at the forefront of advocating for these reforms, emphasizing the need for a more equitable system that doesn't penalize individuals based on their financial status. Joining us now is Jeremy Cherson. He's our director of communications for the Bill Project. Jeremy, glad to have you here.

So cash bills come under attack. The right wing has just been going crazy, just losing their damn minds about this. But does it make any sense? I mean, it actually doesn't make any sense because they act like cash, like this problem is just so egregious and people are being just let out left and right. It's really nonsensical. Yeah, we've been saying that for a long time, Roland. We at the Bail Project have been paying bail for people across the country.

We've bailed out 32,000 people to date who've returned to court 92% of the time. We've been arguing that cash bail is an unnecessary component of an effective pretrial system. And we have a new report out that looks across the country at 36 different jurisdictions that have made significant legislative strides to avoid unnecessary incarceration and uphold public safety. And the thing that we've been saying is that cash bail makes communities less safe. The more we incarcerate people who are too poor to pay bail, upsetting their lives, separating them from their families, subjecting them to horrible conditions inside of jails where they lose their jobs after maybe two days.

I don't understand how that's supposed to make our communities safer. And I think legislatures across the country are starting to see the same thing as well. And they've started to make meaning. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

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

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

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

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

Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position.

Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Full moves there. But the right-wing media has decided to attack cash bail as if it's responsible for crime increases, which aren't real. Crime is down across the country. And they just are looking for a scapegoat. So talk about those advances.

How have you all been able to win some victories? You know, there's like meaningful reforms that have occurred in places like Illinois. Illinois, first state in the country that's completely eliminated the use of cash bail. But in about 36 jurisdictions, if not more than that, they've taken meaningful steps to just minimize the impact of cash bail. They could do that by strengthening due process protections, like making sure that people have lawyers at bail hearings. There are jurisdictions across the country where legally innocent people who are not lawyers are forced to go in front of a judge

without any kind of defense counsel and manage that process. That's insane and that's not fair. They've also done things like eliminating the use of bail schedules, which is where somebody gets arrested and charged with a crime. And just on that charge alone, there's some monetary amount that gets set against them. It has nothing to do with their ability to pay bail. And cash bail, when it was originally created, was just supposed to be an incentive to ensure that somebody returned to court. It wasn't supposed to be a method to detain people. And that's what it's become. They set excessive bail for a lot of people that can't afford it, and they wind up exposed to these terrible jails,

losing their jobs and their stability in the process. That creates a vicious cycle, and we should be thinking more smartly about that. There are many different alternatives, and they're happening across the country. There's a lot of people out there that are trying to say things like cash bail is not moving ahead, that it's a lost cause. That's not true. We just have this new report out that shows that that's not true. And obviously, you still have these Republican-led legislatures who also just keep trying to muck the waters up. Yeah, I think sometimes there's a lot of bad faith politicians that drive home false arguments, prey on individual fear, don't invest in actual meaningful solutions that might prevent people from becoming justice

involved in the first place. There are ways to make our community safer, which would be like investing in services that actually help people and make communities stronger. Let's make sure that we have good schools and good jobs and good health care. But rather than spending the money and doing the difficult work of allocating funds for those kinds of services, they've just decided to move in the direction like this and find a way to lock more people up. That's a bad policy. It doesn't make anybody safer. And I think maybe they think it wins political points for them, but I don't think that's true. There's a lot of Americans that have been affected by the cash bail system, and there's a lot of support for not incarcerating people needlessly pretrial. So we should find better solutions.

There's a lot of people in jail who have mental health issues or struggling with addiction. Jail's not a place to solve those problems, and we need to stop thinking that the criminal justice system is a place to deal with that kind of thing. Go to my panel. Robert, a question. Thank you so much for all the work that you do. When I was on the board for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, one of the things that we worked on was educating local jurisdictions about the importance of reducing cash flow. The way that I like to describe it to people is just imagine getting abducted by an alien on a Friday night and nobody knows where you are. Within two weeks, let's say, if you aren't able to make bail, your apartment more than likely is gone, your job is gone, your car has been repossessed.

If you haven't paid your bills, your credit score can be irreparably harmed, you know, for years to come. And there's really no common sense or statistical reason to have this system in place. But what we saw was conservatives and right-leaning individuals, the criminal industrial complex, have been able to effectively use their spokespeople to demonize and to fear monger and to take isolated incidents of individuals being released on cash bills and committing crimes, and to use 3 percent of those people to negatively paint 97 percent of people who return to court, follow the rules, and don't reoffend, how can we better educate the public on the importance of eliminating these last residuals of Jim Crow laws and actually pushing forward the types of long-lasting criminal justice reform efforts, not just on the state and local level, but on the national level needed to codify these

things into law and to prevent these things from happening in the future. I think one solution to that problem would be asking Democratic lawmakers and elected officials to reclaim this issue and understand that advocating for public safety and criminal justice reform is a winning issue for the American public. But too many Democrats have been scared by these attacks. They have to represent that they're serious about safety as well and that we can pursue moderate and meaningful reforms that prevent unnecessary incarceration while keeping our communities safe. This is partially why the bail project exists.

We see it as a humanitarian crisis where people are being needlessly punished and incarcerated just because they can't afford to pay. Meanwhile, people who are rich and wealthy can afford to pay a bail bondsman or afford to spring themselves out of jail. And that doesn't do anything. You know, there are other ways to take money out of the criminal justice system. And I think we need to get better at messaging around this. We need to get elected officials to start reclaiming this issue and owning the safety issue as well. Michael? Jeremy, I know in your report, you talk about since 2020 that you all have identified 13 major

bail reforms nationwide. Can you give us one or two examples of either cities or states that have implemented these bail reforms and what were the results? Yeah, the first one I'll go to is Illinois, really. I mean, this is a landmark reform, the state of Illinois completely eliminating the use of cash bail and converting the system to one where there's a series of substantive hearings to determine different conditions of release, non-financial conditions of release, and if necessary, really in the most egregious and limited circumstances, detaining somebody pretrial. We have to remember that these are legally innocent people who have not been convicted of the crimes that they are accused of. We cannot just strip them of their freedom on an allegation alone. In the bail

project of the 32,000 people that we've helped, about 30 percent of those people have their cases ultimately dismissed. And without our intervention, that means they would have just been incarcerated for weeks, months, or even years, only for charges that get dropped. And so that's not an uncommon occurrence across the country. Another good example is in Harris County, Texas, in Houston, where there was a lawsuit that forced a court-appointed monitor to go in place, and the city went into a settlement where they would no longer detain people who were charged with misdemeanor offenses. In both Harris County and in Illinois, all these changes have occurred, and there's been

no increase in crime. The Brennan Center for Justice, which is a popular national criminal justice think tank, looked at 33 cities across the country that had done some amount of bail reform and saw no statistically significant relationship with crime increases. So all of these claims that by eliminating or minimizing the use of cash bail that crime will increase, that's just a fear-mongering talking point. There's no evidence at all to back that up. New York similarly took significant steps to minimize the use of cash bail altogether,

almost eliminating it for many different charges. There's been rigorous research from academic institutions like the John Jay College that have done experimental methods. The best kind of research you can do saw no increase in crime. So this is a fake talking point that's been used to scare people. The truth is, you know, I think people are affected by concerns about mental health and addiction, which is rampant across the country, but there are better solutions to that. We need to provide mental health care. We need to address addiction, but you don't do that in jails. Those people need a hospital bed, not a jail cell. Zachary, thank you. You know, you provided some really great statistics and

facts. I talk about the progress that's been made and the power of what happens to people's lives when that progress is made, but American sentiment isn't moving along in that direction because of the misinformation that's being pumped out by conservative media and Republicans. Just today, we have an hour, maybe an hour ago and some change. We had the first execution by a firing squad in 15 years in South Carolina of Sigmund. And what I want to know is, well, to me, it feels like we're kind of going backwards in regards to justice reform. And that is, and you talked about the Democrats, what can we, the people, do to push our elected leaders forward to help them understand the value of educating the public in the right way

about the issues regarding criminal justice? I think we need to remember that the popular attention for criminal justice reform occurred not only because of sensational, egregious jail deaths, the horrible conditions that exist that result in tragedies like Kalief Browder's death in New York, Sandra Bland, and many others. And then understanding that for most Americans, they don't understand the criminal justice system and they don't necessarily understand cash bail either. They're exposed to things like law and order that, you know, expose them to a very simple understanding of a very complex system. But the reality of it is that criminal justice reform is a racial justice issue, and it's a class issue.

And I think those are opportunities to build popular attention by recognizing that poor people are being incarcerated, people of color are being disproportionately incarcerated. The more we can link criminal justice reform to these larger social movements, I think the more popular they will become. All right, then. Well, we certainly appreciate you being on today's show. I'll continue, you know, making it happen, because at the end of the day, we got to have changes to this system. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Folks, we come back and an arrest has been made

in the case of a Southern University student pledging to make a sub-five for Turn Incorporated who was killed. We'll tell you exactly what has happened and how that is affecting all Divine Nine chapters on that campus. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Join our Bring the Funk fan club.

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007 007 unfiltered, deep into it, like pasteurized milk. Without the 2%, we getting deep. You want to turn that shit off? We're doing an interview, motherfucker. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana Police Department, they've made an arrest in connection with the death of a Southern University student following an off-campus fraternity ritual. 23-year-old Southern University graduate and member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Caleb McRae, is facing charges ranging from hazing to manslaughter,

with manslaughter carrying a potential sentence of up to 40 years in prison if convicted. Caleb Wilson, a member of Southern University's renowned human jukebox marching band, died last month during an undisclosed ritual Thursday morning, but he did not survive. The case is being treated as manslaughter because there was no intent to kill, but death took place during the commission of another felony, criminal hazing. The names of the other two suspects have not been released, according to the district attorney's office. They will be charged with misdemeanor hazing. The names of the other two suspects have not been released, according to the district attorney's office. They will be charged with misdemeanor hazing.

Now, as a result of this decision, Southern University has announced that they have actually suspended the chapter. Give me one second. I'm going to pull. I just got this particular update here. This is from Southern's, give me one second, from Southern's website. Let's see here. I'm just going to read it. They announced a cease and desist order for the Beta Sigma chapter of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Also, every campus Greek organization is being informed that no additional membership intake can occur for at a minimum the remainder of this academic year.

An internal investigation is underway, as well as code of conduct, judiciary proceedings. Any individuals and organizations found to be in violation of our code of conduct will face prompt disciplinary sanctions. You know, this is certainly a sad story. And again, Michael, they say up to 10 other individuals could be facing charges. Absolutely. And according to the police, it sounds like at least some of those are justifiable because they state that the individuals originally told the hospital staff that Caleb had collapsed while playing baseball. And also, according to the police, at no time did anyone call 9-1-1, attempt to call 9-1-1, or attempt to summon an ambulance to the location where the alleged hazing or pledging was taking place.

So, you know, this is a tragedy. Things have changed over the years. Basically, all of the Divine Nine organizations, to my knowledge, have come out publicly where they have denounced hazing. They have intake processes now. It's totally different than it was 20, 30 years ago. And this is just tragic. And my heart goes out to Caleb's family as well. Well, one of the reasons that intake process was changed, Robert, because individuals were being killed.

And, you know, no parent should be sending their kid to college and have them return home in a body bag. You're absolutely correct, Roland. And, look, this is the time for the come to Jesus meeting about this in the black community. There's absolutely no benefits derived from the hazing process. It's very much this idea of, well, I went through it, so the next generation needs to go through it just to prove themselves, because you devalue the brand, you devalue the shield, whatever the meaning is. Oh, look, plenty of folks who have been online will tell

you that they're supposed to build all this camaraderie and all these things. You barely talk to them folks after 10 years, half the time. You get together for parties every once in a while. We really need to be focusing on the real purpose of these organizations, of being academic, of being civically minded, of being community service-minded organizations. It's not just about wearing letters. It's about what you do with those letters, what it represents to your community. And beating somebody, paddling somebody, making people do silly tasks has nothing to do with that end goal. It has to be academically based. It has to be service-based, because that's what these groups are meant to do for our

community. And that's what makes people look up to these groups. It's not just being another party organization that looks cool to be a part of. And once we have that meeting, we have to enforce that and ensure that we're not telling 19 and 20 and 21-year-olds that they're in charge of a process to bring in 17, 18, 19-year-olds into an organization. The same folks who we don't trust to buy liquor, the same folks we don't trust to buy cigarettes, the same folks who don't trust to rent cars should not be in charge of the education process for the next line coming through. So it's time for us to readjust, because we cannot continue to have these stories, because it delegitimizes these organizations. It actually weakens the groups. It dissuades some of the best and brightest from trying to go through these organizations and joining,

where they think instead of it being based on who they are academically, who they are socially, what they believe in, the values they hold, it's rather about who can hold a paddle, who can kneel on rice, who can take licks or whatever the process may be. We have to refocus on what we're trying to do and then build our organizations up around that. Zachary? It's heartbreaking. It's when I read the story my heart broke immediately and you know i made a

video about this on uh for social media and i've seen the discourse and i've seen all the people with different perspectives saying who can talk about it and who can't talk about it this is something that affects and impacts the entire black community and has a specific focus on the divine nine and there's a lot of soul searching that needs to take place and a lot of discussions that need to take place because I thought, just like stated earlier by Michael, that we had moved beyond this. This is not the place that we were still in as members of Greek-led organizations. There is still work to be done.

And again, I thought that this day in our history had passed. And unfortunately, it isn't. I also, though, however, feel compelled to say that the actions of one particular chapter of an organization isn't something that defines all of us or isn't something that should portray all of us in a certain way. And even further than that, the actions of one member of a chapter who wasn't actually still a student at that chapter, hopefully won't taint that entire chapter too much. And there are issues at that chapter because this was allowed to happen. And there were issues among the brothers who allowed this to happen and to the people on that line that allowed this to happen and then covered it up. And I hope all that comes out, I hope that all that are responsible receive the due punishment. But I want to say there's a lot of good in our divine organizations. They have stood for right in the past from the inception.

They will continue to stand for right in the years going forward. And we need them. We need them to be strong. We need them to be moral. We need them to be sound because they contribute a lot to the black community It's just it's just for me. It's just shameful empathetic and There's no way to put it. I don't You know, I look for them. I played spring 1989 And I remember speaking at that first convention, and I blasted hazing constantly,

and my position has not changed in the last 36 years. I don't give a damn what anybody thinks. I really don't care what anybody thinks, and, you know, this is just, you know, just unbelievably ridiculous, and I just think that, you know, when we, you know, this man is dead. And you got to be a stupid dumbass. I mean, you got to really, really be a dumbass to throw your life away by killing somebody, punching them in the chest. Now, I know somebody is saying, well, innocent to proven guilty.

Well, guess what? There have been other individuals that has happened to. There are other cases where individuals got poisoned because they were forced to consume massive amounts of water. Individuals who died, you know, running around a track and they ran someone to death. I remember, I think it was around the same time I pledged, there was a young man who got hit in the chest who was pledging alpha at Morehouse as a result.

So you as an individual, so you now... And then in the people who are standing around, you're standing around watching somebody do it as well. It's just dumb as hell. And I don't want to hear shit. I don't want to hear that bullshit about, oh, you know what? These are paper members, whatever. Well, guess what?

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You dumbasses who haze, you created the new process. You created the new process because of your actions. Well, you know, this is how I came through. Nah, I'm sorry. That's just bullshit. It's just bullshit. It's just bullshit. And anytime somebody tries to tell me, well, you know, hey, you know, I just think hazing is good. That person, I don't want to be associated with that person at all.

At all. This kid is dead. His parents are grieving. They have to bury him. So here's a young black man who will never see his 21st birthday. This young black man who will never grow up to experience life

because you've got some dumb asses who choose to haze. I'm sorry. That's unacceptable. Take their letters, send all of anybody who was involved in this, who tried to cover it up, anything. I want all of them to go to jail. All of them to go to jail.

There are no excuses. None. We'll be right back. What's up, y'all? Look, Fanbase is more than a platform. It's a movement to empower creators, offering a unique opportunity for everyday people to invest in Black-owned tech, infrastructure, and help shape the future of social media.

Investing in technology is essential for creating long-term wealth and influence in the digital age. The Black community must not only consume tech, we must own it. Discover how equity crowdfunding can serve as a powerful tool for funding Black businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to raise capital directly through their community, through the jobs ad. Next on The Black Tape, with me, Greg Carr. There's a lot of talk about the inevitability of another civil war in this country.

But on our next show, we'll talk to a noted author and scholar who says we're actually in the middle of one right now. In fact, Steve Phillips says the first one that started back in 1861, well, it never ended. People carrying the Confederate flag, wearing sweatshirts saying MAGA Civil War, January 6th, 2021, stormed the U.S. Capitol, hunted down the country's elected officials, built the gallows for the Vice President of the United States to block the peaceful transfer of power within this country. On the next Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. Next on A Balanced Life, we're talking everything from prayer to exercise to positive affirmations and everything that's needed to keep you strong and along your way. That's on a next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, on Blackstar Network.

Hey, this is Motown recording artist Kim. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Boy, he always unfiltered, though. I ain't never known him to be filtered. Is there another way to experience Roland Martin than to be unfiltered? Of course he's unfiltered. Boy, he always unfiltered, though. I ain't never known him to be filtered. Is there another way to experience Roland Martin than to be unfiltered? Of course he's unfiltered. Would you expect anything less?

Watch what happens next. Oh, I keep telling y'all these idiots in the Trump administration are petty as hell. They have now withdrawn $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University, citing the institution's alleged failure to address anti-Semitism on its campus. The action comes on the heels of Trump signing an executive order titled Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship Aimed at Safeguarding Free Speech Across the Nation, while the administration emphasizes the importance of free expression and also underscores that federal funding requires adherence to anti-discrimination laws. Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated that Columbia's inaction regarding anti-Semitic

incidents necessitated this funding withdrawal. It's actually just stupid as hell. It's actually stupid because it's also quite illegal. It raises major issues with protecting free speech and ensuring a safe, inclusive environment on college campuses. It also prompts a broader discussion on how institutions can uphold both principles without compromising either. Columbia University has expressed its commitment to working with federal authorities to address these concerns and restore funding. The real deal here is they're pissed off that you had pro-Palestinian protests happening on campus. That's all that's going on here.

And so the Trump administration, they don't care about this. What they care about are penalizing people. They want to remove people from this country. They don't want to see any protests whatsoever. Robert, many legal scholars say the actions they've taken are absolutely illegal. Of course they're illegal.

But by what point have they decided that they cared about what's legal or not? I remind people again, there's a felon who's the president of the United States of America. The only reason he doesn't have more felonies right now and is in prison is because he won the election with the support of billionaires who kept him from getting locked up and paid off his debt. So if you're looking for felons to follow the law, such as President Trump, you might want to find one that's been rehabilitated. Find somebody who has admitted to their mistakes. Find somebody who has reinvested in the community. All that President Trump has done is decide that he wants to redouble and double down on this. He also issued an executive order this week to try to ban all protests

on college campuses, but while at the same time encouraging protests from white nationalist groups, from AIPAC-aligned groups, groups that are against the interests of minorities. Stop looking for consistency in these people. The only consistent message they're going to have is a message of white supremacy and white nationalism. That's the only thing that you can count on them for. And what I encourage for students and for families and for faculty, if you are at a university that is taking away these programs, that is kowtowing and bending the knee, bowing and scraping to the Trump administration and to Doge and to their supporters, leave. If you're at a university where they're getting rid of their DEI program under pressure from President Trump, then leave and enroll in an HBCU. If you're at a university where they're getting rid of their DEI program under pressure from President Trump, then leave and enroll in an HBCU. If you're a faculty member at one of

these top-flight universities whose free speech is being suppressed and that your curriculum is being dictated by the political whims of Washington, D.C. and Doge, leave and go teach at a black college. We would love to have you there. If you are a donor to one of these schools, contributing towards their endowment, and you see what they are doing and that they are going against the interest of free speech and the interest of those students, give that same money to Clark Atlanta or to Morehouse or to Spelman or any other school that supports your issues. We have to get past this point of simply being outraged, of simply condemning things, of

seeing how strongly worded press releases. Put our money where our mouth is, move our feet, move our butts out of those seats. Because as long as we keep sitting there and then quietly protesting as they roll back these things, they get the message they can do whatever they want. There must be consequences to their actions or otherwise they will metastasize. Zachary? I agree 100%. We have to find a way to put some action and put some pressure where it needs to be applied. I want to

see what Columbia is going to do. I want to see what universities are going to do. This is becoming a much bigger problem where they're taking away and using the resources that should be, that were allocated, that have been approved to punish and penalize and to send a message. We have now universities who are canceling Black Alumni Weekend, you know,

as a way of saying that that's a part of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And Trump is saying that, you know, if you have this Black Alumni Weekend, you have a women's history event that's happening this month, then they're going to lose federal funding. And what are we doing to stand up against that? to lose federal funding. And what are we doing to stand up against that? Whether universities do it, then what are we doing? When we have guests rolling and you give me the opportunity to be on the panel, almost always I'm going to ask a question about what can we do from the expert? Because there's things that we should have done

prior to November the 5th that we didn't do and the numbers that we should have done it. And now it's time for us to make up for that. And that's why I'm asking that question. And we have to put some action and we have to put some work out here in these streets. And so I'm very disappointed to see these things happening. But on the back end, kind of going back to some things that Michael always kind of brings up when he's on the panel, we knew it was going to happen. It's in Project 2025. It was all laid out for us. And so what we knew would happen is happening. But how do we fight back against it? How do we fight back against it? And that's kind of where my mind is. And I'm constantly thinking about what can we really do to have an impact?

Well, exactly as Robert just stated, we need to make sure that for our students, these athletes that pump money into these universities, they stop going. They stop going. If Columbia folds, if a university is like OH that said that they're going to cancel and discontinue Black Alumni Weekend, there's no reason a Black person should go there. They're now out. If your major SEC schools do this, we don't go to those SEC schools. We don't send our children to play football for Georgia. We don't send our children to play football for Georgia. We don't send our children to play football for Alabama. Instead, we send them to a university that supports the work of diversity, that supports the work of equity and inclusion, or to an HBCU that has always done that, and that's what they exist for.

That's what we have to do. Michael? to do. MICHAEL ISIKOFF, The Washington Post- Are they going to cancel contracts from schools where African-Americans made complaints that went unheard or no changes were made dealing with discrimination against African-Americans on various college campuses? JOHN YANG, The Washington Post- This is really dealing with retaliation DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine.

DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine.

DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine. DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on the Rights of the Public Schools of Palestine.

DAVID BROOKS, Former U.S. Secretary of State for Education and the National Council on, where are you at now? Are you going to come out in opposition to this? Are you going to stay quiet? You know, because I find it interesting that the Trump administration, these Republicans, want to embrace the First Amendment except when there's a message they don't like.

Now, all of a sudden, it's a problem. Now you're being woke. You just said you embrace the First Amendment.. Now you're being woke. You just said you embrace the First Amendment. You said you're fighting for First Amendment rights. So then when people embrace First Amendment rights, now, all of a sudden, it's a problem. So we'll see what happens with this as well. We know WWE's Linda McMahon, who now somehow is the secretary of miseducation, she posted on X late Friday she had a productive meeting with Columbia

University's interim president, Katrina Armstrong. So, you know, this is more nonsense. As they work to dismantle the Department of Education. Okay, you can make this stuff up, but this is happening right now.

Yes. It is happening right now, and people might as well go expect there's going to be more of this, and this is just how these folks roll. All right, quick break. We come back. We've lost another great musical giant, Dwayne Wiggins of Tony, Tony, Tony,

passed away at the age of 64. We'll discuss his impact next right here. Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We begin tonight with the people who are really running the country right now. Now, Trump is often wrong and misleading about a lot of things, but especially about history. Donald Trump falling in line with President Elon Musk.

In the wake of the unsettling news that MSNc has canceled joy ann reid's prime time show the readout roland martin and the black star network would like to extend an invitation to all of the fans of joy and reeve msnbc show to join us every night to watch roland martin unfiltered streaming on the blackstar Network for news discussion of the issues that matter to you and the latest updates on the twice impeached criminally convicted felon-in-chief Donald Trump and his unprecedented assault on democracy as well as co-president Elon Musk takeover of the federal government. The Blackstar Network stands with Joy Ann Reid and all folks who understand

the power of black voices in media. We must come together and never forget that information is power. Be sure to watch Roland Martin Unfiltered weeknights, 6 p.m. Eastern, at youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin, or download the Black Star Network app. This is Tamela Mann. And this is David Mann. And you're watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. ¶¶

¶¶ Music fans were saddened to get the news today of the loss of one of the founders of Tony, Tony, Tony. Dwayne Wiggins passed away. His family announced that he died of bladder cancer. Stories have been circulating all week about him going into hospice care. Been suffering from cancer the last couple of years in this very, very, of course, difficult time for so many folks. This Bay Area group burst onto the scene with their amazing music and, of course, with a huge fan base.

And so, of course, people know about Rafael Sadiq, but Dwayne Wiggins was just known to so many for his guitar play and for singing ability. I was in the Bay Area December 6th, actually. I spoke at the funeral of the memorial service for Frankie Beverly. And that night I was invited by San Francisco Mayor London Breed to come check them out. As you see, you see that was a photo that we took after the performance. Dwayne said he was on stage and he was like, wait a minute, is that Roland Martin in the audience?

And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And so in the picture there you see London Breed but also Congresswoman Latifah Simon and both of them join me right now. Glad to have you both on the show. That was, of course, a great night, great performance.

And Dwayne was doing his thing. Here's some of that performance. Pull it up, guys. Don't stress people out. It's happening. I want to say something. Before we leave the stage, I see you in the dark I'm just saying. You know, in this music game, music business, it ain't easy. But I learned one thing,

and I learned from people like Slotstone growing up across the street from the Furby Park while I got this big-ass pot on my head. It's about owning your trademark and your brand. And I'm from Oakland. Hey. But my parents is from the South.

So they taught me responsibility and how to look out for others. If everybody around you ain't flyin' ain't good, you ain't good. Just that simple. Hey, I love y'all for coming out. And I'm gonna leave you on that note. It's about the songs, it's about the music,

and y'all made it classic. Peace, love, and happiness, and all the best. Peace, love, and happiness. Don't do no stress. Peace, love, happiness. I'm in a place to be. Peace, love, and happiness. I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here

I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here

I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here

I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here I wish you'd be here see each other. And for me, that night, great night,

great performance. And for a lot of folks, that was the last time to see Dwayne on stage. Yeah. Yeah. Roland, I don't even know what to say. I'm holding back tears.

You know, my dear friend London Breed is right now at Dwayne's house with his wife. We had a very small community, although Dwayne had a world of folks who loved him. What a good friend. What a good man. You know, Dwayne, and I'm going to pass it on to you, Mayor Breed. Dwayne had a warehouse just a few years ago that he rented out in East Oakland for young artists to perform and hone their craft. And he had a comedy night before that years ago. He opened up a cafe called Java House. So the young musicians could just come and play from East Oakland, West Oakland, from the Tenderloin, from the Fillmore, where we came. Dwayne is and will always be a gatherer of spirits. That man was a good man.

And, you know, he married one of our very best friends. And their love throughout this cancer journey was so beautiful. And one of the things that I want to say is Dwayne was so worldly and yet so private. He was so thoughtful about wanting to just be in his joy with his wife and his family. And I got to respect it as somebody who lost my husband to cancer as well. There is no pain like the pain that Dory Wiggins and his mother and his sisters and brothers are feeling. And we all know that there will never be, never, ever be another artist like Dwayne Wiggins who helped discover Beyonce and Keisha Cole. I mean, we can go on and on.

This man gave so much. London? And Latifah and I, we grew up in the Bay Area. We grew up in San francisco and we grew up on baby doll and all of the amazing music feels good came after but the first album we were rocking that in the bay and the music just brought us together and we looked at tony tony tony this group as an iconic group. And so then to later in life, get to know Dwayne and become close friends, we look at him as an icon. We have a tremendous

amount of love and respect for him. And we watch him in awe, especially when he performs. But as a human being, when you get to know him, I mean, you don't feel like you're a stranger with Dwayne Wiggins. He could walk down any corner, any street. He would come to the Breed family reunion every year. He blended in with all my cousins. Everybody is like, Dwayne Wiggins is my cousin because that's the kind of person he is. And he was always trying to provide other people opportunities. I mean, the warehouse he had was just a place when artists would come into town, celebrities and all, they go to this place and they jam all night. The jam sessions were legendary and Dwayne couldn't help but be right in the middle of all that. So there's so many stories that I know so many people can tell

about him, but I also think it's important to really honor him as a person. He was a good human being. He was a musician. He was an artist. He was an amazing transformative spirit. And, you know, his loss has left a big hole in our heart, especially people around the entire Bay Area. And we are hearing from people from all around the world, artists, celebrities, Dwayne Wiggins, Dwayne Wiggins, his impact is felt everywhere. I mean, London, he did fundraisers for all of us, all Black women running for office for free. You know, he showed up day in, day out. You would see Dwayne at the Trader Joe's or at a political rally at the Juneteenth,

the last Juneteenth that London facilitated in Oakland, the largest Juneteenth parade in San Francisco history. Dwayne was in his drop top, you know, front and center performing in the parade. So we know him as a political stalwart, an artist, a brother, a husband, a father. Roland, we're hurting. What was amazing about watching him perform,

again, that was just three months ago, the joy on the stage, we all went backstage. He was smiling. He was laughing. He was talking about how it was a great week of shows. And the energy was unbelievable from the stage to the audience and back? I mean, Roland, I don't know if you know, but Dwayne was also like a big brother to all of us. One of London's best friends became the regional director for Alpha Kappa Alpha last week. And Dwayne was so very ill. And he got out of his bed and had his full band last week and played in front of 2,500 AKAs, had to have his brothers come take him on the stage. He held that guitar and we said, no,

no, no, no. Dory, to his wife, he can't do this. Dory was really clear. Dwayne wants to live his last days performing and making the rest of us happy. You know, the rest of us of service. That was seven days ago, London, right? Yeah. That was seven days ago. That was his past Saturday, yes. Wow. Wow.

I mean, he wanted to die. Look, as they say about folks in the military with their boots on and musicians, I mean, that's their life. I mean, that's what gives them life and doing what they do. And so, you know, I just think that, you know, we recently lost Angie Stone, tragic car accident. Also this week, the great Los Angeles world-renowned musician Roy Ayers passed away at the age of 84. And Ayers was 84, Dwayne was 64, Angie Stone was 63. And the reality is, the thing about music, music touches us in a way that it also becomes timeless. And you're going to have folks, generations from now, jamming to those iconic songs that caused London to get out of her seat and dance. Yes. Yes.

See, Roland, you're bringing up some mess now, but I like to think that night sparked the Tony, Tony, Tony reunion that happened in 2022. No, I was talking about three months ago. I wasn't talking about doing cold. You brought that up. I was talking about three. ago. I wasn't talking about doing cold. You brought that up. I'll talk about three. See, see you. He made us get out of the house and go see some amazing music. That was a night, right, London? Yeah, that was a night that we made it Tony, Tony, Tony day in San Francisco.

We, um, I mean, look, you know, there's so many stories. Again, I keep going back to that. I was looking through my phone and finding videos. 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 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 man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really 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. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves.

A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I mean, he was there at my birthday party last year in August,

and he was right there videotaping the whole thing. And it just, when you think about it, Dwayne just wanted to experience the joy of life with the people he loved and care about. And, and, and so he showed up, whether it was on stage, he gave you a hundred thousand, 10, whatever the number is, he gave you all of what he had in himself. And it was as if it was the first show he ever did in his whole life. He just gave it to you every time. And even when he hung out with his friends, he just gave you all of what he had and he just enjoyed, he'd walk in the room. He's like, wow, this is beautiful. These people are beautiful. I love this. He always had this, this feeling of goodness and excitement

and joy and, and people loved him him so much i'm talking about he rolled down in his drop top caddy and in my neighborhood that we grew up in in filmo california and san francisco he couldn't even get one block because they were like duane duane duane duane they just had to say hi take a picture whatever the case And it was just nothing but love. That's what he brought to the table constantly. And so, you know, we're really hurting out here. The Bay is hurting people who loved him and worked with him. And we just want to do everything we can to honor his legacy and just really live like he did and don't take any moment for granted. I think that what London is painting the picture of is a man who was music but community focused.

Just a couple of years ago, he took over 20 black young artists to Ghana. Dwayne was an internationalist. He would laugh if I would say this. He was also the husband to his wife. So many of our close friends came through Dory Wiggins. And boy, oh boy, did he love that woman. And I do have to say, as somebody who was a caretaker, I have watched, London and I have watched this beautiful, beautiful love story of theirs to the last moment of Dwayne's breath. He had this woman

literally washing him, praying over him. So folks who are deeply sad in this moment, we should, we should all pray to move through the world as this man did. And in his last moments, he was holding the hand of the woman he loved the most that's music that silence that joy that crescendo he lived and employed literally hundreds and hundreds of people throughout his career he had amazing children who were super talented and he took his last breath in love with listening to music music. Come on. His favorite favorite songs. When the when that night after we went backstage, I was

talking to oh, I think it was a stylist and Mario. That was Mario. And I was actually I was talking to two or three different people and they were just talking about just working for him and how how great he made them feel and how down home.

That was what the folks were expressing about him and just being a part of the band and a part of this experience. Yeah, and that's just what he did with people. Look, put it this way. If Dwayne was mad at you, you did something real bad. It took a lot for him to be mad at you. He was not that kind of person because even if he were mad at you and you came back around, he'd be like, Hey, what's up? It's nothing but love. He, he would sweep it under the rug and keep it moving because, you know, he just, he just, he enjoyed people. He enjoyed being around

the people he loved and cared about. And, you know, being around him, people flocked to him. It wasn't as if he was going out there trying to find people. People found him. And he was just, he was, everybody came to Dwayne. Everyone wanted to be around him. Whatever event, oh, Dwayne Wiggins is going to be there? Okay, we need to, oh, you know, Dwayne Wiggins is having a whole, Dwayne Wiggins is, you know. And so people wanted to be there.

And the crazy part, before all this social media, because I remember as a kid, because my brother used to go to those parties when you could only take Polaroids. I still have pictures of Polaroids from Dwayne Wiggins at the parties back in the day before I was even 21. And, you know, with my brother and other people, because he would not say no to taking a picture. He enjoyed people in the park. He was always the same from back then when there was no social media, when there was, you know, Polaroid cameras to the person he had always been, you know, no matter what. And I think that's really something that I will always remember and be grateful to call him a friend. And also I will cherish the fact that you know God has blessed us to not only be his friend but for the world to have the experience of knowing the creativity of who he is the music

he not only made but the music he helped others to make I mean it is unbelievable just his legacy and I look forward to just really trying to celebrate and honor that. I'm hurting and I'm sad right now. But, you know, when I turn on Feels Good or I turn on Baby Doll or I turn on any of those songs, I'm just going to think of him. You know, it's just some songs, whatever you want. You know, as soon as you hear that, you don't even have to hear a word. You hear the song and it's like whatever you want, whatever you want. You know, as soon as you hear that, you don't even have to hear a word. You hear the song and it's like, whatever you want, sing that song.

He created a culture. He created a culture. Right behind London, right behind London, there is a swimming pool in this beautiful Eichler home that Dwayne owns. And I got to tell you, you know, the, the, the, the babies, the young kids are in that pool. Dwayne would have barbecues. And because he's a dad, he would go into his garage and pull out the floaties and the balls. This was a man who was loving not only to his wife, to his mother, to his children, to his nieces and nephews.

And he was, like London said,, you know, Mr. Martin, a savant, a producer, you know, he, he was, if you look in that house, there's a big base right by the door. There's a piano, there's a number of guitars, there's a drum set. The man could play all of them. He wrote more songs than you could ever imagine. We are losing our Barry Gordy, but in the sense that Dwayne was so much more than any master producer. Like we said, he was a savant of our time and we will celebrate him every single day for the rest of all of our lives, from hip hop to R&B to community activism. He implored all of that together. And thank you for giving us the opportunity to just reflect.

You know, he just passed away today. Yep. The family will begin picking up the pieces slowly. He was so much to so many folks, but to so many folks in that house that London is right now, he was there everything. And I'm thankful. I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful that we all are.

My celebrity friends like Chris Spencer, George Lopez, and God Torrey, they always are joking and tripping. They're like, man, why are you always shooting video? You and all your cameras.

But then what always happens is they always ask me for the footage later. And so I'm always shooting the stuff. And I wish I had a longer clip, but we're going to close this out. This is 29 seconds of Dwayne Wiggins

doing his thing. Listen. It was just that look. That look. Hey, when you're in the pocket, there's a certain look musicians have. And you can just see how, just go right to it right here, how he's just nodding his head like, yo, I'm in this thing feeling good. Yes.

Yes. All right, then. London Bree, Latifah Simon, Congressman Latifah Simon, I appreciate it. Please give our condolences to the family, and thank you for joining us for this tribute. Keep telling the story. Thank you so much, Mr. Martin. Thanks a bunch.

Appreciate it. Quickly, I'll go to our panel. You want to share your thoughts? Tony, Tony, Tony, who wants to go first? Absolutely. I'll hop in, Rutland. Just because I got three points I want to make. Well, one, I saw Tony, Tony, Tony at National Harbor last year when they performed.

And me and my wife had no idea that'd be the only opportunity we would have in our entire lives to see the full group perform. And so for these artists who are out here touring, I highly encourage you all to go see them. You never know when it's the last time you're going to see them. The last people who saw Angie Stone perform had no idea that's the last time they would get the opportunity to see her perform. Same with Tony, Tony, Tony. Secondarily, black men, if you have a friend or confidant or anybody that you haven't talked to in a long time because y'all been beefing, squash it. You do not know how many more times you'll have an opportunity to talk to them. And do you really want to waste 10, 20, 30 years being mad at somebody over something that whatever it was

that happened years ago, we have to start coming back together and understanding that life is finite. Two weeks ago, Roland texted me saying the stroke starts in two minutes. I was in a hospital bed because my blood pressure was 227 over 170. You never know what's going to happen. And you're lucky to be alive every day. So cherish those things. The last thing, make sure that you are taking care of yourself and taking care of your family and following in the image of individuals like this who are true pillars of their community and understanding that every day is crucial and valuable. Leave a lasting legacy just as he did. Zachary, Michael. You know what? It never rains in Southern California. It also

never rains in heaven. It never rains in paradise. And so may this man rest in paradise and he has earned his peace. I am so thankful that I had blessing and an inspiration to younger artists out there. And we'll maybe even as we listen to this catalog again and we go back in time and we listen to it all over again, it's going to motivate this kind of music to kind of come back into the mainstream because we have allowed it to go out of the mainstream. We've got to bring it back. That good time, feel good R&B that has a message but also brings all the feels. Michael? First of all, I got to say, Robert, speaking from experience, get your blood pressure under control. Mine was 193 over something. Okay, mine was 193 over something in 2022.

It scared the hell out of the doctors. It's down to the normal level. It caused me to start losing weight as well. Tony, Tony, Tony was phenomenal. I remember when it came out in 1990, it really hit it big with It Feels Good. They had, like, really good sounding music. It never rains in Southern California. Let's Get Down featuring DJ Quick.

And, you know, so this is a big loss. I encourage people to listen to the music during while we were listening to Representative Simon and former mayor London Breed. I was watching It Feels Good on YouTube. And also, you know, we just lost Angie Stone. I saw Angie Stone perform live down in Atlanta at the Three Day Juneteenth Festival about three years ago. I got a chance to meet her. You know, never met Tony, Tony, Tony, but, you know, phenomenal group. And one of the few groups that actually played instruments as well. So this is a big loss.

Indeed. Indeed. Folks, this is a big loss. Indeed, indeed. Folks, that is it for us. Let me thank Robert, Michael, as well as Zachary. Thanks a lot. I appreciate you joining us. Folks, we're going to do this here. You know how we always do it. We always end the show when we roll the credits.

So we're going to do a couple of things, though. We're going to roll those credits, but also after those credits roll, I don't know if many of you who saw the full speech that Congressman Al Green gave on the floor of the House after he was sent here. It was a 32-minute speech. It was phenomenal. We're going to roll that in totality.

And so we're going to do that. But before I go, don't forget, support the work that we do by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. If you want to give to us But before I go, don't forget, support the work that we do by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. If you want to give to us via Cash App, use the Stripe QR code. It's right here, right now.

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go to startengine.com forward slash fanbase. startengine.com forward slash fanbase. Startengine.com forward slash fanbase. I will see you guys on Monday. Again, we're going to roll the credits. So everybody who's a donor of our show, if you give it a one-time or every month, it doesn't matter. We are listed. If you don't see your name, send us an email so we can add your name.

It happens. We've had almost 35,000 donors. If you don't see your name, just shoot us an email. We'll be sure to add it. And then, after we roll the list of our fan club members, then we're going to roll for you that full 32-minute speech of

Congressman Al Green. It's a fantastic speech he gave on the House floor after he was censured by the Republicans. All right, folks. I'll see you guys on Monday. Holla! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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 man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch.

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

Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-up way, you gotta pray for yourself as well as for everybody else but never forget yourself self-love made me a better dad because i realized my worth

never stop being a dad that's dedication find out more at fatherhood.gov brought to you by the u.s department of health and human services and the Ad Council. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. And still I rise, a proud, liberated Democrat. Unbought, unbossed, and unafraid. And I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to call to the attention of the House

this place that I revere and notwithstanding recent events that I have great respect for. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in response to a censure, a censure that took place as it relates to my behavior. I have been told by some that they did not have an opportunity to hear the actual resolution as it was read. I have here H. Res. 189, the censure resolution, as it relates to my behavior. I believe this resolution should be read. I am not in any way upset with the Speaker. I want people to know that the speaker did what he was supposed to do. He did what he was supposed to do when we had the joint session of Congress. When I interrupted, the speaker called it to my attention.

He did it on multiple occasions. I have no reason in my heart to be upset with the speaker. Later, persons came over and escorted me out. I appreciate them. They were very kind to me, the officers, very kind. They said kind words to me. And as a result of my behavior, I have been censured. I'm going to read the resolution and give some commentary.

It reads, H. Res. 189. In the House of Representatives, Mr. Newhouse submitted the following resolution, which was referred to the committee on, and the copy that I have does not have a committee. I'm not sure it was referred to a committee. It may have come straight to the floor. But regardless as to how it arrived, it did. And I'm not contesting the procedure. The resolution reads, censuring Representative Al Green of Texas, whereas on March 4, 2025,

during the joint session of Congress, convened pursuant to House Concurrent Resolution 11, the President of the United States, speaking at the invitation of the House and the Senate, from Texas, Mr. Green. Whereas the conduct of the representative from Texas disrupted the proceedings of the joint address and was a breach of proper conduct. And whereas, after numerous disruptions, the representative from Texas had to be removed from the chamber by the sergeant at arms. Now, therefore, be it resolved that one, Representative Al Green be censured.

Two, Representative Al Green forthwith present himself in the well of the House of Representatives for the pronouncement of censure. And three, Representative Al Green is censured with the public reading of this resolution by the speaker. Some things bear repeating, that concludes the resolution, but some things bear repeating. I respect the Speaker. I have no ill feelings toward the Speaker, none toward the persons that escorted me away from the floor because I did disrupt. And I did so because the President indicated that he had a mandate.

And I wanted him to know that he didn't have a mandate to cut Medicaid. I did this because Medicaid is the only insurance many people have in this country. I am blessed as I stand here now. There's a physician waiting. If something should happen, I will be taken to that physician. I have the best health care in the world. There are other people who have less than I. I would have them have what I have, but I surely would not stand by and

see them lose what little they do have. Medicaid is for people who don't have the kind of health care that 435 members of Congress and 100 members of the Senate have, but they do have some health care. It has been approved by legislation that the Energy and Commerce Committee would cut $880 billion from their budget. The overwhelming majority of that budget has to do with health care. I see no way for this cut to take place without cutting into Medicaid. I am going to fight the cutting of Medicaid. I hope that this comment, this message that I'm giving today, will deter them and cause them to go a different way.

Then they can say, we were never going to do it. Al Green, he just had this false notion. Well, let me have it. Don't cut Medicaid. It's all they have. This is the richest country in the world. Mr. Musk has doctors. He will get the best health care. Let him understand that he should be on my side. He should be on the side of the people who need

this health care. He has the ear of the president. Mr. Musk, speak to him. He listens to you. But for the grace of God, dear brother, you could be on Medicaid. You've just been blessed. Don't assume that it's your intellect that has caused you all of these great blessings that you've received. You've just been blessed beyond measure. Speak to the president and tell him that Medicaid ought not be cut. But I continue. I interrupted.

I was said to be in need of sanctions. I came to the floor today, and while the speaker was reading, I recalled what happened in the 60s. I recalled when we were faced with adverse circumstances. We would sing a song that would inspire and encourage us to move forward with alacrity. The words were, we shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday. Deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome someday. That was an act of incivility.

Why, Al Green, would you come to the well before your colleagues in the world and commit an act of incivility? Here is why. Because when the President of the United States, right there at that podium, addressed the members of Congress, Democrats seated on this side, seated, many of them saying nothing, the President of the United States looked upon them, pointed toward them, and said, I quote, and said, lunatics. The President of the United States at a joint session of Congress called members of Congress lunatics. That was an act of incivility. Incivility.

There comes a time when you cannot allow the president's incivility to take advantage of our civility. And that's what's happening in this country. His incivility is overwhelming our civility. We cannot allow this. That act of incivility was in direct response to the president's incivility. Mr. President, you, sir, you were wrong when you pointed to the members of Congress and called them lunatics. Democrats, I might add. Called them lunatics.

The president hasn't been sanctioned. President hasn't been reprimanded. No censure of the president. The president is above the law. Supreme Court has said as much. He can do things that no other can do. Above the law as it relates to all things. Not all. He is still subject to the norms of society. The decorum that you expect from me, you have to respect and expect from the President. President, why would we allow him to use his incivility and expect me to continue to engage in

civility as it relates to his incivility? Mr. President, there are some of us who are going to stand against your incivility. We have reached a point in our history where we have to hearken back to that which got us to this point in our history. I remember the 60s. I remember Dr. King. I remember the movement. I remember what it took to get me in this house.

I'm not here because I'm so smart. I'm not here because of brilliance or good looks. I'm here because people made great sacrifices. And it was incivility. It was disruption. But they were prepared to suffer the consequences. We're going to have to resort to the same tactics that we used in the 60s, but we did it for a worthy and noble cause. Calling the people of Congress lunatics was not noble, Mr. President. It was an ignoble, ignoble act of incivility.

But I remember how we marched and how we protest. And I prepare to do it again. If you treat me like you treated me in the 60s, I'm going to respond the way I responded in the 60s. It is time for us to use the same level of incivility that was used in the 60s for a noble cause, to save Medicaid, to protect Medicare, to prevent the demise of Social Security.

It is time for us to take that stand. Incivility emanating from the highest office in the land cannot be tolerated and has to be negated. I did it, and I have said to people while I respect others and while I absolutely was cooperative when they led me away from the floor, but if circumstances permit it, given what I know, I have to be candid. I would do it again. I would do it because I care about these people on Medicaid.

For edification purposes, the state of Texas was accorded $100 billion. $100 billion Medicaid dollars. $100 billion Medicaid dollars sent to the state of Texas to help poor people. And what did the state of Texas do? The state of Texas rejected $100 billion for poor people and Medicaid. $ billion, not million, 100 billion. State of Texas does not have the goodwill necessary to manage Medicaid dollars. If we block grant this money and send it to Texas, those who are in need of it will get less of it. We have to stand up for them. They are among the least in our society. Unfortunately, we have to stand up for them. So I'm standing up for those people. I will continue to stand and I will continue to tell the world that this incivility has to be dealt with. We have to deal with the president's incivility. The name calling

never ceases. Maxine Waters, he has assaulted verbally. Ms. Wilson from Florida, the list goes on and on and on, as Congresswoman Waters is known to say. On and on and on. We sit and we watch with civility as he employs incivility. Yes, I said earlier, and I'm retreating to the point, that he has been given a certain amount of immunity. He has not been given absolute immunity. But he seems to have an inordinate amount of influence

with his party. Inordinate. I see people doing things that I never thought I'd see them do. I see people who are conservative that I have great respect for doing things that I never thought I'd see them do. I'm not calling names.

I'm just saying to you friends, the president has an inordinate amount of influence. Inordinate. An unusual, incomprehensible amount of influence. So the courts have given him a certain amount of immunity. His party has given him carte blanche to say anything, to come before the joint session of Congress and use the word lunatics as he refers to Democrats. The only thing left in ordinary times would be the courts. The court. Court orders are to be obeyed. I don't always like them, but I remember what John Lewis explained to me about peaceful protest. Protest, the court orders you to do certain things. You don't have to agree with it, but you do it.

You'll be willing to suffer the consequences. Well, the courts are right now in the midst of, as best as they can, trying to give us the laws necessary to prevent certain things from happening. Mass layoffs. Mass layoffs. Have to be taken to court. Mass layoffs. No due process. No thought of what's happening in the lives of these people that you just take a pen, and with the stroke of a pen, you're off. No concern about children in school.

No concern about loved ones who may be ill that they are taken care of, being the chief breadwinner for the family. No concern. You've got billions, Mr. Musk. Why should you care about the concerns of people who have much less, who are working every day to eke out a living? You have billions.

You shouldn't worry about them. Worry about making more money. Go to the moon. Well they don't have that luxury. I'm going to stand for them. Mass layoffs without any consideration. I just believe that this level of behavior, when he was president, if he behaved in this fashion, he would have been impeached.

He would have been impeached. I will go to my grave with this belief. We wouldn't allow these mass layoffs. We wouldn't allow these cuts to veterans. We wouldn't allow these cuts to veterans. And we wouldn't allow Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security to be on the chopping block. He would have been impeached. And to be very honest, I would have voted for the impeachment. Because I don't think that we should allow a president to circumvent what we do. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

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We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. We know to be the requirements associated with the legislative process and with due process,

which should be accorded people who are being fired, as it were. You do these things, the courts are acting, and the courts should act. But there is a point in time, Mr. President, if your incivility, if your incivility allows you to disobey court orders, given that your party has given you carte blanche, given that you believe you have absolute immunity by virtue of what the Supreme Court has accorded you,

and you don't have absolute, but I think you believe it. When you cross that line, when you cross that line, and you, Mr. President, decide you will no longer honor orders from the judiciary, when you decide that Marbury versus Madison means nothing, when you decide that you are the supreme law of the land, on that day, we will have a dictatorship and we are close because you are continually inching right up to the line and you're looking over to the other side.

And at some point, regrettably, you may cross over. Mr. President, I beg that you not do so. I beg that you would not do so that you would honor the third branch of government designed to settle disputes among us. Not always in a favorable way to some, obviously, but that's what it's there for. So I beg, Mr. President, that you would not, you would not dishonor the judiciary in this country. But here's what I know. I know that you have the ability to say to a judge, you've issued your court order.

Now let me see you enforce it. That's my Justice Department, not Al Green's president. That's my Justice Department. The head of my Justice Department has pledged fealty to me, not Al Green, the president. That's my Justice Department. Let me see you get my Justice Department to enforce your order, Mr. Judge.

More specifically, Mr. John Roberts, get my Justice Department to enforce your order. Let me see you get my Marshals to enforce your order. This president, whether wittingly or unwittingly, has put himself in a position such that the Justice Department has pledged fealty to him. Generals in the military, you don't get these positions now unless you pledge fealty, have pledged fealty to him.

We ought to be ashamed of ourselves to allow such a thing to happen. Yes, generals in the military, Justice Department, the courts, many of them are bending knees. Genuflex. Somehow you believe that you are showing respect, I suppose, or maybe you're just currying favor. But be that as it may, Justice Department, generals in the military, many of the courts giving a genuflex, winningly or unwittingly, he is setting himself up such that he is in

a position such that at the end of his fourth year, he might attempt to do what he tried to do and failed at the end of his last term. He tried his best to prevent the transition of power. He did all that he could. He encouraged persons to come over to the Capitol. People came and they literally broke into the Capitol. I was here. They came and they marched through the Capitol.

And by the way, for doing it, the president has given them the ultimate reward. You, you and you. Yes, you too. All of you. You are pardoned. You are given some sort of amnesty. You're okay. This is what the president has done.

So wittingly or unwittingly, he is now in a position to make that same effort, only this time the Justice Department is with him, not with the Constitution. Generals in the military are with him, not with their oath that they've taken. The president wittingly or unwittingly has put himself in a position such that if he chooses to stay on beyond his term of office, if he chooses to do what a member of Congress has suggested that might be done by law, which is to give him a third term in law. I hold no animus toward the member of Congress who's done this, filed the legislation.

No animus to you, dear brother. But what we have done is witness a president who wittingly or unwittingly has put himself in a position such that he will have the power to enforce the inanity of not allowing a peaceful transfer of power. He literally is putting himself in that position, wittingly or unwittingly. He is.

And as a result of his doing this, we have to not allow his incivility, his requirement of fealty, to prevent us from taking the necessary actions to protect liberty and justice for all, to protect government of the people, by the people, for the people, to protect what this country has in its great and noble ideals. We have to do what is necessary. I believe that we have to engage in a level of positive, righteous incivility. Positive, righteous incivility. The same kind of incivility that Dr. King engaged in, that

John Lewis engaged in. This incivility would only be a counterbalance to the President's incivility. I'm not saying that we get into the name-calling and stoop to the level that he does. I'm saying that when there are moments for us to have righteous incivility, we should. So now I'm back to where I started. Stood there in the house, the well of the house, other members with me. I never suggested to anybody that you do a certain thing. We did sing, We Shall Overcome. It was an act of incivility, but I want people to know that it was in direct response

to the president's incivility at the joint session of Congress. He has not been reprimanded. He has not been censured. He won't be reprimanded. He has not been censured. He won't be reprimanded. He won't be censured. However, there is one, one, as the President uses it in his parlance, one card. There's one card that we have. You told the president of Ukraine you don't have the cards.

Well, Mr. President, we have the cards. There are 435 of us with the cards. And the card, Mr. President, you know well, because on two occasions these cards have been utilized to check you. You don't always get convicted when you're indicted, but you do get indicted. And if you continue with this line of behavior, you may not just simply be indicted. That means impeached. You may be more than impeached. There may be a Senate that has the will to live up to the ideals in the Constitution.

And when that Senate does so, you will no longer be president. There are 435 cards. Mr. President, I have one of those cards. I have one of them. You are a Goliath. You are a Goliath. You now have control of the Justice Department. You have the generals pledging fealty. You are a Goliath, Mr. President. But there are 435 Davids, 435 Davids, 435 with the power accorded to us by way of the rules of this house to bring articles of impeachment. You may not be impeached the first time, but there's always a second and there's always a third. And in the end, if you, Mr. President, continue with this behavior, you will be impeached.

And I believe that will be the will in the Senate to convict. I'm not threatening anyone. I'm talking about the rules that have been accorded to this House, which I happen to be a member of and proud to be a member of, and accorded the Senate. You're a Goliath.

But Mr. President, there are Davids among us. Your incivility can no longer be tolerated. It has to be met with righteous indignation and righteous incivility. I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad listen to absolute season one taser incorporated on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i'm clayton english i'm greg glad 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 it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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