#RolandMartinUnfiltered - HUD drops discrimination cases, HHS 10k firings, SBA takes over student loans,Justin Pearson vs MAGA

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

3.27.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: HUD drops discrimination cases, HHS 10k firings, SBA takes over student loans,Justin Pearson vs MAGA Two cases against a Texas homeowners' association charged with racial discrimination are stalled under the current administration. We'll speak with ProPublica reporter Jesse Coburn, who will break down the details of these cases. The Department of Health and Human Services is cutting 10,000 full-time jobs across several agencies as part of the Trump administration's plan to restructure the federal government. The country's $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio is now under the Small Business Administration. We'll talk to an expert about what this means for more than 40 million Americans holding student loans. In Phoenix, Arizona, three police officers have been suspended for 24 hours for repeatedly punching a deaf black man with cerebral palsy during his arrest. Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson will join us to discuss a heated exchange he had with Republican Andrew Farmer during a hearing on a gun reform bill. We are just five days away from Wisconsin voters casting their ballots for a new state Supreme Court justice. The executive director of Souls to the Polls Wisconsin will be here to discuss their efforts to ensure a successful voter turnout. #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.

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Go to startengine.com slash fanbase and own the next generation of social media. 7-2025 coming up on Rolling Mark on Footer streaming live on the Black Star Network. I told y'all Donald Trump and MAGA does not give a damn about black people. Two housing discrimination cases in Texas, my home state, are on hold because of MAGA. We'll talk with a reporter from ProPublica. They've been reporting on this story. They also don't care about regular, ordinary people.

Do you realize that Trump is trying to give money back to a company that was hit with discrimination charges from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? I'll tell you about that as well. 10,000 folks getting laid off in the Department of Health and Human Services. These MAGA cuts continue, and yes, they will negatively impact black people as well as veterans. Well, guess what? The country's $1.6 trillion portfolio of student loans will be leaving the Department of Education and going over to the Small Business Administration.

Do they know how to manage that? Yeah, we'll break down that. Also, Phoenix, Arizona. Cops, they actually repeatedly punched a black man with cerebral palsy. They get suspended for 24 hours. Does that make any sense whatsoever? Also, we showed you yesterday the confrontation in Tennessee between State Representative Justin Pearson and a MAGA Republican. He'll be joining us today to talk about what took place in Tennessee. Also, big election of Wisconsin Supreme Court race five days from now. We'll be talking to a grassroots

organization trying to get the black vote out to defeat the Elon Musk-funded Republican. It is time to bring the funk on Rolling Mark Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And he's rolling, best believe 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 he's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best you know he's rolling. Martel. Martel. Donald Trump picks a black man to lead HUD, Scott Turner. He's actually from Texas, but all skin folk ain't kin folk. The Department of HUD is actually dropping two cases of racial discrimination that have been filed in Texas. Joining us right now is Jesse Coburn, a reporter with ProPublica.

They have broken down this story. Tell us about this story, Jesse. It's titled, Fellow Investigators Were Preparing Two Texas Housing Discrimination discrimination cases until Trump took over. Yeah, and thanks for having me, Roland. So HUD for years has been mounting two major investigations into alleged housing discrimination in the state of Texas. One was looking at a state agency that, according to HUD, steered a billion dollars in Hurricane Harvey disaster recovery money away from communities of color like Houston, Harris County, other populous communities of color that were hit really hard in the storm, and steered that money away from those places and toward whiter, more rural communities that were hit less hard during

the storm. The other case involves a homeowners association outside of Dallas that passed rules in 2022 that prohibited landlords from renting to Section 8 tenants, so people who had housing vouchers that were subsidized by the federal government to help them pay for their housing. These are poor, elderly, or disabled people. In this town, it's called Providence Village, nearly all of the voucher holders in the village were black, and some of them started moving out after this rule was passed. HUD found that that violated the Fair Housing Act and issued a charge of discrimination in that case.

HUD referred both of those cases to the Department of Justice, which is a normal step after the housing department finds evidence of discrimination. And what normally happens is that the Department of Justice then takes those cases and files lawsuits against the alleged perpetrators of that discrimination. But what happened here is, after the Trump administration took office, the housing department yanked both of those cases back without explanation. And officials who I spoke to said it leaves these cases in a state of limbo, and they think it probably kills them. There's no clear way for them to move forward now, which is a remarkable turn of events, given just how long the federal government spent

investigating these cases and how sure it was that, you know, illegal discrimination had occurred here. Right. And so here's the issue. Here's the issue that we are dealing with here. And we've seen this not just with housing and so many areas. Donald Trump and MAGA basically are saying where there has been discrimination against black people,

we don't give a damn. They're literally ending these cases. There was a voting rights case in Texas. They pulled out of that lawsuit. We started talking about every single one of these departments over and over and over again. They've... Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, and MAGA are essentially saying,

there's no discrimination. We are ending everything, and we can seeGA are essentially saying there's no discrimination. We are ending everything and we can see this in multiple areas in the federal government. It certainly doesn't seem like a major priority of the administration. And, you know, you know, it's it's not just these cases, as you said, you know, at HUD, the agency is just cut dozens of grants to local organizations that fight housing discrimination. There's projections circulating within HUD that the division that fights housing discrimination is going to be cut by as much as 76 percent. The Department of Justice, in January, there were memos circulating saying, hey, we're going to freeze all of our civil rights litigation right now. The Department of Education just gutted its civil rights office. So there's a trend happening across the federal government

that suggests a sort of broad rollback of civil rights enforcement under the second Trump administration. I did a video shortly after the inauguration where I said MAGA wants to defund Black America. What this is saying right here is that if Donald Trump, Republicans, and MAGA, they don't represent all Americans, they don't represent all constituents, what they're saying is to black Texans and others, y'all don't matter.

We don't actually care. They're not even looking at these cases from a factual standpoint. It's literally, hey, if it's... They're looking at anything that says discrimination, race, equity, diversity, if it's they're looking at anything that says discrimination, race, equity, diversity, inclusion, hey, if that's

involved, it all ends. I haven't seen anything where they said, you know what, we're going to continue these actions. They are basically saying to people, if you discriminate against black people and others, you got free reign because HUD, DOJ, and other

agencies, we're not going to do anything to you. Yeah. And, you know, I spoke to a fair housing lawyer who used to work at HUD and was representing some of the plaintiffs in these cases. And she expressed the concern that, you know, we could be moving back to like a pre-Civil Rights Act era. Yeah. Discrimination is rampant. I mean, that's someone who's spent her life working in this area, and that's her concern. So, you know, for people who are working in this area, there's really alarm bells ringing right now. But I do want to talk about that billion dollars, because here's the deal.

The late Sylvester Turner, former congressman, he was the mayor of Houston. He was the mayor then. And what you had there was you had Texas governor, Republican, MAGA Republican, Greg Abbott. They were like, you know what, we're going to penalize Harris County. And the Republicans in the Texas legislature, and again, I'm native Texan,

so this hat ain't just for show. They were targeting Harris County. They hate Harris County. They hate Harris County because it's blue. They hate the fact that there are four Democrats who are in the Harris County Commissioner's Court. They hate the fact that Democrats control the city council. Democrats control the district attorney's office.

And so this was about penalizing Harris County. And you had massive damage in Harris County. And that money came from the federal government. That money came from the federal government. And this is the problem when it goes to the states, where the governor can say, I'm going to decide how it's being spent. And they simply said, we're going to screw Harris County

and we're going to spend the money elsewhere. And to me, and I would love for some lawyers to weigh in, but this actually has a negative impact as your story lays out on African-Americans and others, because these are largely black and brown people who were impacted by this. That's certainly HUD's view. I mean, you know, it's kind of remarkable. In the city of Houston, I believe half of all buildings were damaged in Hurricane Harvey, and the city of that initial billion dollars didn't get a penny. Harris County, not a penny. So, you know, when you think about, you know, the sort of racial composition of

the city of Houston and of the other counties that, you know, were basically snubbed for this money. You know, it's not hard to see why HUD came to the conclusion, you know, that there is a sort of race-based discrimination here. Yep, absolutely. So, essentially, with them abandoning this, do residents have any place to go? So, the plaintiffs or the complainants in the cases, they can bring their own lawsuits. But, you know, that's a costly and time-consuming process. And, you know, in the Hurricane Harvey case, you know, they'd be fighting the state, you know, which has endless resources to litigate these cases. And they've shown that, you know, they really don't think the cases have any merit.

They've disputed the allegations from the start. I don't, you know, see them don't think the cases have any merit. They've disputed the allegations from the start. I don't, you know, see them backing down from a fight on this. But, you know, it's really the federal government's job to enforce civil rights laws. So, you know, I think some, you know, fair housing advocates would argue, you know, the victims of this alleged discrimination shouldn't have to, you know, spend their own time and money, you know, fighting these cases in court. That's the that's the government's job. And, you know, as they see it, the government's not not doing that here. So, you know, short of that, it's not really clear how these cases move forward.

They might just die on the vine. Folks, here we go to my iPad. Folks, if you have the time, go to ProPublica.com, P-R-O-P-U-B-L-I-C-A.com. You can look at this story. Fellow investigators were preparing two Texas housing discrimination cases until Trump took over. The story done by journalist Jesse Colburn. Jesse, we appreciate you being on the show. Thanks a lot.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm going to go to my panel right now. Dr. Greg Carr, Department of African American Studies at Howard University. Glad to have you, Greg. Also, Dr. Nola Haynes, of course. She also is a foreign policy expert professor at Georgetown here in D.C. Glad to have both of you here. Greg, you've got family there in Texas. Nola, you from next door in Louisiana. I'm just gonna be... Here's the deal.

I'm gonna say it, and I don't care. He appoints a Negro to lead HUD who's from Texas in Scott Turner. They do these actions. All of those Negroes who were dancing and enjoying themselves at the White House Black History Month reception, silent.

You've heard them say nothing, nothing about this case, nothing about them pulling out of the case of Cancer Alley there in Louisiana impacting black people, nothing about all of these here. And so it's fundamentally clear, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, Doge, the Republican Party, MAGA, don't give a damn about black people, Greg. They don't care. You're right, Roland. And the beautiful thing about this is perhaps we finally will get the message that they don't in a way that will help us react the way we should be reacting.

We don't give a damn about them. Let's be very clear about that. In fact, it's ironic. Last night in a class I teach over at Howard Law School, we covered the chapter in our casebook on housing law and housing discrimination. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 has been ineffective in a lot of ways. We know that. But we also know this. Private nonprofit fair housing organizations processed three—they processed about three-quarters of all housing discrimination complaints. And, frankly, the HUD only processes about 5 percent. And the Department of Justice processes less than 0.2 percent—actually, 0.1 percent—of housing discrimination cases. It has always been the nonprofits. The Fair Housing Act is very important.

It's still there. There's Section 1982 and 1983 of the federal—the U.S. Code, which stretches back to the Civil Rights Act of 1866. All of that law remains on the books. And here's where I'm going with this, finally. When we look at that clown Ben Carson, horribly miscast, of course, as the secretary of HUD in the first Trump administration, we also know that he wrote the chapter on HUD in Project 2025.

You told people for years. They showed us what they were going to do. Ben Carson wants to hollow out HUD and outsource all that stuff to private developers, to get your tax money for everything from rent to subsidize Section 8, subsidize housing. All that's the thing they're putting in place. But here's the punchline. This is the moment when we step up and punch these white nationalists in the face the way

we did in the 1930s and 40s with voting rights in Texas. We see the Nixon versus all right cases and all those cases, the white primaries. Our lawyers now must now congeal around the idea of these private nonprofit fair housing organizations using the Constitution, win or lose, around the 14th Amendment, around the Civil Rights Act of 1866, around the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and around the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Because the federal government has never, never been a champion of fair housing. And that goes for both administrations. See, this is the moment right here, Nola, for me, that if you're Democrats, and you're talking about regaining power,

then you hit stuff like this very hard. You begin to make the argument that for all of their talk, they do not care about working class people. They don't care about regular ordinary people. And see, Trump wants to target diversity, equity and inclusion, wanted to discuss anything with the race, but this is where you say, listen up Latinos.

What Trump is saying is is they can discriminate against you and they will do nothing. You say the same thing to black people. Democrats have got to be, to me, using language where you are saying they are screwing you over. They want to take your money that was awarded to you and give it back to these folks in the Consumer Financial Protection

Bureau. To me, that's the argument that you should be taking. They're going to be far more aggressive in doing that versus some of the basic language they've been using. I agree. How the Democrats decide to punch back, because that's absolutely what needs to happen. As we're talking about this, I cannot get that disgusting video of Kristi Noem out of my head. And what that signals for me, as she's standing in front of those stacked human bodies for some sort of disgusting, sick photo op, it just reminds me how much these people don't consider us to be human.

It's not even about, oh, they don't care about Black folks. They don't care about Latinos. Of course not. They don't think we're human. They don't. You see what I'm saying? Like the idea that they care about how we are being mistreated, that they care that overwhelmingly that their policies are targeting, specifically targeting us, they do not care. And what they are banking on is that the rest of the country won't care either, that other people will not care, right? So I think the Democrats need to come back and stay on this issue and make the American people understand what we are up against. This is not just dismantling of the federal government, which, you know, snatches away

the future of the black middle class. This goes a lot deeper. And that's—the Democratic Party needs to get down to that nugget of that thing inside of you. You know what I mean? Like, that's where they need to touch deep down, because this is way beyond, you know, firing people from their jobs. Absolutely. And see, I need people to understand what's going on. I need everybody to understand what's going on here. And if y'all don't understand it, I broke it down right here.

What is happening before us, Project 2025, this right here, go to my iPad, Henry. This is what Greg was referencing. This is the chapter that Ben Carson wrote on HUD. First of all, we know he didn't write it because he ain't that smart discussing housing. So let's be real clear.

He put his name on it, or his name was attached, or he agreed to allow his name to be used, but he is not that smart on housing policy to write this section. This was written by white conservatives in the Heritage Foundation. But I lay out in my book, White Fear,

how the browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. That the attack on civil rights and on things, not just DEI, but the attacks on, again, fighting and discrimination, this is because of this. They are scared to death. And the reason, Greg, I keep saying white Democrats should not run away from this

versus trying to use this non-racial language to appeal to white people, the reality is Vice President Kamala Harris did not lose because she lost white voters. In fact, the polls show, the exit polling, the data show, from Black Voter Project, from pollster, my man Terrence, from Hit Strategies, that she got on par the number of white votes as Joe Biden did in 2020. Where she lost was there was a decrease in black turnout, Latino turnout, and young turnout.

And this, to me, is where you say, guess what? Ain't no Democrat going to get higher than what Biden and Harris got with the white vote. But if you're going to win, you're going to win by jacking up black turnout. And what you say is you hit this right here. You say black America, Donald Trump and MAGA has no concern about protecting your rights. They want to allow people to discriminate against you. And then you simply cite their own actions. That's how you reach the folk who have been tuning you out.

You're absolutely right, Ron. And for me, I'm excited, actually. I'm very much energized by the moment we're in. Because hopefully, and this is with our effort, as you say, we're going to finally have it out with these white nationalists. John Rick Clark used to say this, black people, you have no friends. And I'm saying that, and I'm so glad that you were in conversation last night with my friend and colleague, Sherrilyn Ifill, who's opening her 14th Amendment Center here at Howard at the law school tomorrow, 9 to 4.

And the public is invited, as she talked about last night, because now is the time when we come out of the defensive crouch and we punch these white boys in the face. The dog-killing Kristi Noem is standing there because, as her molten face vomited some other form of supremacy, she is desperate. It is exactly what you said. It's not white hate. White hate comes from white fear. And so they are terrified, and they should be. Why? Because this is the end, friends. Your demographics are

cratering. You're losing support. There was an article in the Financial Times today that talked about how poor whites in rural Louisiana, their hospitals are going to close if MAGA Mike Johnson, whose district, 53 percent of those people rely on those benefits between Medicare and Medicaid and Obamacare, while these people cut their throats, these white nastas will go to the grave voting and choosing their whiteness over their lives. But as you have said for a long time, as our friend Gary Chambers says in Louisiana, when we vote our numbers, we win. This weekend, I was in Atlanta, brother Randall Mangum, who is a Georgia state Senator, District 55. His district includes Stone Mountain. He was

saying to the point you're raising right now, Roland, he said 400,000, almost 400,000 people, black people didn't vote this year who showed up in 2020. And they carried Georgia by over 100,000 votes. That was enough to deliver Georgia blue four times almost. If we organize, if we participate, we win. And this is, last thing I'll say, this is the point you're raising, Roland, that is so critical, so critical, and it excites me to no end. Listen, these whites, stop chasing these white boys. Send James Carville back to the swamp.

Send Joe and Mika back to the studio. And we roll over them like the sea. And not only will we win, history shows us we will always win when we do that. This is the time to be excited as far as I'm concerned. Indeed, indeed. And a little bit after this next segment, we're going to talk about Kristi Noem. Nobody's talking about the fact that she also was likely standing in front of a green screen.

I'm going to show y'all, I'm going to show y'all what I'm talking about when we get to that segment. We're going to go to a break. Yeah, I'm trying to tell you, when I show it, you're going to see it. Trust me, when you see it, when I show it to you, you're going to be like, hold up. What happened right there? I just can't.

Y'all can't wait for that. That's going to be in about 20 minutes. All right, y'all going to go to a break right here on Rolling Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network when we come back. Lots more to discuss. We're going to talk about the slashing of 10,000 jobs in health and human services. Yeah, 10,000 more jobs. A lot of veterans.

And trust me, a lot of black people as well. Also, they're moving the control of the small business, the student loan portfolio, out of the Department of Education over to the SBA. Is that a smart move? Ain't nothing the Trump folks doing is smart. That's next right here on the Black Star Network. This week on the other side of change. The economy is not working.

Trump's got trade wars, recalls, the price of groceries are through the roof. And there is a better way, there is another way. Join us as we talk more about it and we reimagine something better on the other side of change. Only 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 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 Reith's 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, Thank you. 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. What's good, y'all? This is Doug E. Freshener watching my brother Roland Martin Unfiltered as we go a little something like this. Hit it. It's real. If you're among the 43 million Americans with student loan debt,

you will soon be making the payments of the Small Business Administration rather than the Department of Education. That's because the twice-impeached, criminally convicted felon-in-chief Donald the Con Trump announced this change on March 21st. Here is that fool. The SBA,

the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler, is a terrific person, will handle all of the student loan portfolio. We have a portfolio that's very large, lots of loans. PERSON. WE'LL HANDLE ALL OF THE STUDENT LOAN PORTFOLIO. WE HAVE A PORTFOLIO THAT'S VERY LARGE, LOTS OF LOANS. TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LOANS. PRETTY COMPLICATED DEAL.

AND THAT'S COMING OUT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IMMEDIATELY AND IT'S GOING TO BE HEADED UP BY KELLY LOFFLER, SBA AND THEY'RE ALL SET FOR IT. THEY'RE WAITING FOR IT. IT WILL BE SERVICED MUCH BETTER THAN IT HAS IN THE PAST. IT'S BEEN A MESS. Loffler at SBA and the role set for it. They're waiting for it. It'll be serviced much better than it has in the past. It's been a mess.

Roxanne Gars, the Director of Policy at EdTrust, joins us now. Glad to have you here, Roxanne. Roxanne, real simple. Okay, explain. The move makes no sense. This is all about destroying the Department of Education. And it's not like you're saving jobs because you're going to have to have people who are experts in this simply still do the same job. Yeah, no, that's definitely correct. It doesn't necessarily create a better system for students

and borrowers. And, you know, I just want to say this has just been something that the president has talked about in a comment. There has been no plan put forward for what this would look like. And, you know, I think the important thing to note is that everybody's talking about the executive order that the president signed, you know, to begin to shut down or dismantle the Department of Education. They themselves have acknowledged that they need Congress to do that. They cannot unilaterally do that. They also cannot unilaterally move the student loan portfolio to the Small Business Administration. That is also in law. So the idea that in the meantime, they can do this piecemeal shuffle of, you know, core functions of the Department of Education to other agencies is is not not right. It's also illegal. I mean, they could do it, but it would be while they are ignoring the law, essentially.

OK, so what will what will be the impact on just regular ordinary folk? So the impact here would likely be just a lot of chaos, unanswered questions for students and borrowers. I think already, you know, even before he signed the executive order, there were mass layoffs at the Department of Education. So a lot of the expertise, the technical expertise that you need to run this very complicated program has already been lost. Before all of this happened, it was already hard to get somebody on the phone to answer your question whenever maybe you noticed you had a missing qualifying payment for something like public service loan forgiveness or you were having trouble getting in touch with your servicer. You would normally contact the Federal Student Aid Office. You would contact the people there that are meant to help you deal with these problems. Now, those people, you know, aren't necessarily there because they've let a lot of people go in

these mass layoffs. But I would imagine if they end up being able to pull this off and move the loan portfolio to the SBA, again, illegal, but if they somehow manage to do it, you know, there won't be people there with the expertise on student aid policy, the legal ways that you run that program to answer those questions, or even just like the customer service that students and borrowers need to help them answer their question to navigate this complex system. So you're likely to see, you know, long wait times, more confusion, and people just not knowing where to turn when they need help with managing their student loans. So again, to me, this is just more chaos and more disruption. That's really what the goal is.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think, you know, causing chaos, wreaking havoc, we already saw that in the last couple of weeks when the Department of Education essentially took down the applications for the income-driven repayment plan. So there was no option for folks to go online and apply for an affordable, manageable repayment plan. The department just reinstated that application, put it back online yesterday due to a legal challenge that was brought forth by the AFT, but they are not actually processing these applications yet. So again, it's already wreaking havoc on a system where borrowers are already living in limbo. They don't really know what to do. They don't really know where to turn on their questions about their student loans. And then infusing that with this conversation of, well, let's move the portfolio to another agency,

the Small Business Administration, which we don't really know why. I think more importantly, the president said that they will do a much better job. There's been no evidence, no plan to show why they would be doing a much better job at serving students, their families and borrowers. All right, then. Well, listen, it's just it's more drama. That's what they want. It makes no sense whatsoever. Anything else that our audience needs to know? I would say, you know, if you are having trouble reaching somebody at the Department of Education or in this shuffle, if you're having trouble accessing answers, I would reach out to your member of Congress. They have caseworker teams that are meant to help when you're having trouble with an agency. That's what they're there for. They should also know that these

announcements, these executive orders are causing distress for their constituents. They're having trouble getting their questions answered. So I would definitely reach out to your member of Congress, make sure they know, tell them, you know, why this is a bad idea, why this would be, you know, a terrible thing to do at a time when, you know, students and borrowers and their families, this is the last thing they need. They don't need more concern and confusion and chaos around, you know, the payments that they need to make for their student loans. So I would definitely just make your voice heard in that process. All right. Roxanne, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Folks, a little bit earlier, Greg talked about the pathetic individual who is the Director of Homeland Security, Christine Nome. Well, she was touring the prison in El Salvador wearing a $50,000 to $60,000 Rolex. And she decided to post this on social media. She said, I toured the CECOT, El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center. President Trump and I have a clear message to criminal illegal aliens. Leave now. If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadorian prison. And this is what she said. Here at CCOT today and visiting this facility. And first of all, I want to thank El Salvador

and their president for their partnership with the United States of America to bring our terrorists here and to incarcerate them and have consequences for the violence that they have perpetuated in our communities. I also want everybody to know, if you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face. First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.

So I want youall to notice something. I don't really know what the hell... Do y'all notice the glitch here? I want y'all to listen. Look at the guy. I want you to look at this guy right here, okay? I want y'all to look at this guy right here. And I want y'all to see how the video skips.

I'm trying to figure out... Was she in front of a green screen? What the hell were they doing with this here? Just watch this video again. And visiting this facility. And first of all, I want to thank El Salvador and their president for their partnership with the United States of America to bring our terrorists here and to incarcerate them and have consequences for the violence that they have

perpetuated in our communities. I also want everybody to know if you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face. First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people. It's like the video skipped as if it was recorded. But the bottom line, yeah, if you actually look at it, y'all, I'm trying to figure out, like, what... Nobody does the same movement,

and you can literally see in the background the guy skips. Like, it literally skips while she's talking. So that's just me. Recy Colbert joins us. Re Reese, I want to go with you. First of all, let's talk about this hack right here. She has been playing costume ball

since she got named. I mean, every time Trump, every time she goes somewhere, I swear she literally got the job and said, hey, I want y'all to send me all of the Department of Homeland Security outfits so I can go

out there and just front. She's been out there riding horses, shooting guns, showing up in a bulletproof jacket. First of all, you know damn well her silly ass not out there on the front lines at all with the outfits.

Y'all go to my iPad. Here's some of, look at this here. She got the hat. She got the cowboy hat. Then she got the firefighter outfit. Let me go over here and see. I can just click photos so we can see what the hell pops up. But she been absolutely playing a dress up. But she's been absolutely playing dress-up.

But you know what, Reesey? This ain't nothing new. This is a link here. This is her playing dress-up when she was the governor of one of them Dakota states. So she used to play dressress Up as a public official. How many costumes does this raggedy-ass bitch have underneath her belt? Good Lord. I mean, she was doctor, nurse.

Now she's jail warden. It would be ridiculous, but I feel like this is all a game to them. They really think that this is one big, like, action movie. Yes. Like, Donald Trump is Terminator. She's fill-in-the-blank. She playing all kinds.

Every white woman villain, she's signing up to be in the damn cast itself. She's like the Avengers of white woman villains, okay? And for some reason, they seem to think that this actually reflects well on them because they're sick, sadistic people. But she's a very unserious person in charge of very serious matters. And unfortunately, she, along with Heg, Seth, and all these other dumb motherfuckers, are not equipped to do the job, certainly not do the job competently or legally. But luckily, she's... Luckily for her, I should say, and unluckily for us, she's in an administration where competence

and following the law and actually being strategic is not part of the job description. It's just looking the part. I mean, here's the whole deal. You see it right here, Enola. Again, what we're dealing with here is, and Reese said it best, and I need people watching and listening to understand, everything about Donald Trump is a TV show.

Okay? They are deporting fewer people every week than Joe Biden did. The difference is, Joe Biden did not turn the Department of Homeland Security into 48 hours. Or, what's that cop show? What's the other cop show? Not just cops.

No, no, no. What's his name? The boy at Dan Abrams has a show. It's what? It's like 24-hour live. It's like where they go live with police department. That's all this is. This is a television show to them.

It's all about high production. It's like, oh, they're getting stuff done. They're not. Absolutely. And I'm reminded of the text in the now-famous Signalgate, you know, when Pete Hexeth is excitedly using terminology like ops security, then he's like, oh, that means operational security. You know, like Recy said, they're playing dress-up. It's like high school children who are in charge of, you know, running the country. And then, yes, there's this element of let me entertain you.

But they are breaking very serious things. And, you know, Trump's sitting there talking about the Department of Education and how the Small Business Administration, they're going to get going right away. And they're there, they're ready to prepare. No, they're not. It's a lie. They're not prepared. They don't know how to operate these systems. They do not know what they are doing. All they know how to do is to create chaos and say, oops, I broke it and have no plan to fix it. So while, you know, if I was in another country watching this, I broke it and have no plan to fix it. So while, you know, if I was in another country watching this, I would be cracking up, honey.

This would be my reality show. America, the downfall, honey. This would be my reality TV show. But we are here and we're having to live through it. And it's not funny. Very unserious people are in charge of very serious things and this is a problem that needs to be solved. They are

unserious people, but what they're doing, Greg, they are appealing to these people who don't pay attention, who really don't watch the news, but what they're doing is they're selling a narrative, they're selling a story, and the fact of the matter is, it's playing right

into their hands, and it has an impact on poll numbers and things along those lines. Now, I am not suggesting that if Democrats regain control, that's what they should do. But this is a perfect example, though, of why you do have to establish a narrative, tell a story so people actually see what you're doing. Absolutely. And we can't stress this enough. This is why the Black Star Network, as I say, you built it for a time such as this. It's not time to try to reason with these people. It is time to destroy them politically, to break their political backs. When we saw Justin Jones a couple of weeks ago going to battle in the Tennessee legislature, the hyper-gerrymandered white nationalist Tennessee legislature,

tonight when you talk to Justin Pearson, who did the same thing, it's not the time to shrink back or talk about my colleague. It's time to go on the offensive like Jasmine Crockett has done. And, you know, you said this earlier, talking with Roxanne Garza. You know, the cruelty is the point. The point is chaos. They got a $4.5 trillion tax cut they're lining up. That's the thing for us to keep our eyes on if we're going to keep our eyes on anything.

But all the rest of this stuff, and you just said it again, you know, he didn't staff a cabinet, he cast a cabinet. And whatever his obsession is with 1980s, I don't know, Cinemax after dark, D-list porn stars, like the ones who look like Kelly Loeffler or Cruella DeVille, I'm sorry, Tulsi Gabbard

or Kristi Noem, these are aging porn stars from the 80s. He's got a fascination with these white women with this fake-ass hair who look a certain way. But here's the point. They caught the car. It's a beautiful thing. They caught the car. The federal government is too big for them to

destroy. They don't have enough staff. Even in Part 3 of Project 2025, we're supposed to get all these resumes in and fill these staffers. They can't do it. The SBA that the Secretary of Wrestling ran in the first administration, you can't do it. Like Garza said, you've got to get Congress to go along with that. But guess what?

MAGA Mike doesn't have the numbers. Today it was announced. They had to pull Stefanski's ass out of the nomination for UN because they need the vote. You know what? We ain't got to put up with this long. There's a special election, two of them in Florida. They pulled her back from New York because it borders Canada. Her district borders Canada. They may have flipped that seat if she had gone to the

special election. Let's be crystal clear. We got 20 months to deal with this. And if you change the narrative, you come to Black Star day after day, hour after hour, week after week, month after month, you organize, we understand that on their side, they've got a man whose mind is melting before our eyes. He's signing paper with crayons. They're going on social media sites and apps and having group chats in part, I think, to evade telling him anything. Look at Junior Varsity done spilled his ass. And, Nola, I know you're going crazy because all those countries around the world that used to share intelligence with the United States, they ain't about to give

them shit. They're like, I'm not showing you shit. I found your social security number and your telephone number in the dark web. You were in Russia tweeting and texting in the group chat. Then you talk to this woman who got a little Cruella Divine gray streak out her hair and she's sitting up and looking like she's

about to cry. And you ask her where she was and she said, I don't know. Ain't you in charge of all the damn spies in the country? They got the car. They are going to implode. All we gotta do now is organize and we will roll over them like the sea. This is a beautiful moment if we can get our act together.

Indeed. Indeed. So, Greg there mentioned where we're going, uh, in terms of what we're doing with this network. Let me explain to y'all how black people get screwed by folks. Uh, it's time for our Where's Our Money segment. Did Nola speak in that last segment? She did.

Been frozen out. Facing an extinction level event. We don't fight this fight right now. You're not going to have Black Army. All right, folks. So I told y'all in the six and a half years that we have done, we've launched this show in the network. I have had numerous meetings,

numerous meetings with major corporations and with ad agencies. And I'm talking about Group M. I'm talking about Dentsu. I'm talking about Group M. I'm talking about Dentsu. I'm talking about Publicis. I'm talking about IPG. I mean, I can go on and on and on and on and on all of these different agencies that we've met with. And you know what many of them have told me?

Ah, yeah, we don't buy news. We don't buy news. We don't buy news. We don't buy news. I've met McDonald's. We don't buy news. I've met with JPMorgan Chase, Fuller New York, all these companies. And it's amazing how folks say,

you know, we don't buy news. Well, the Financial Times dropped this story right here. And I'm going to show y'all right now. And if y'all want to understand the lies being told, it's right here. Blue chip advertisers flock to Fox News following Trump return. Viewer numbers have soared in past year, prompting many companies to return to the Murdoch-owned channel. So when you go into this already, go into this,

Fox News has attracted 125 new blue-chip advertisers since the U.S. election. And what does it say? Companies include Amazon, G.E. Vernova, J.P. Morgan Chase, Netflix, and UBS have recently aired advertisements on Fox News for the first time in the last two years. Jeff Collins, Fox Corp's president of ad sales, said historically after an election, networks will see ratings dip. When we saw an acceleration in ratings, we saw new advertisers coming in.

Well, guess what, y'all? We've seen a dramatic increase in our numbers since the election. Haven't seen any of these companies advertise. See, I've been telling y'all, see I need y'all to understand something, cause see, some of these simple Simon Negros love to sit here and say, see man there you go, there you go, you big and white man for money.

Well first of all, any dumb ass that says that doesn't understand the media business. Because the media business is driven by advertising. Every media company, Disney, Comcast, Fox, all of them, Sinclair, run the line, Salem, all of them, iHeart, they all run on advertising. Nearly $400 billion is spent every year on advertising. Black-owned media gets anywhere from 0.5% to 1% of the advertising money. Now, I've talked about this stuff in the last six years. And what happens is whenever I bring this up, it's amazing how it doesn't get much traction. Folk don't click the like button.

They don't hit the button on YouTube, all that sort of stuff like this. But if I post some bullshit, oh, my goodness, it's amazing how it takes off. But this right here, this story right here is primarily why black-owned media doesn't grow. In 2018, former Fox host Tucker Carlson's on-air comments about immigrants making the U.S. poorer and dirtier spurred big brands such as T-Mobile to pull ads from his program. T-Mobile ain't never advertised on here, even though I sent they ads $480 this month

for the goddamn cell phone deal. So I spend more money on T-Mobile than they spend here. So what I'm trying to lay out to y'all is this story right here, not a single one of these brands, not a single one of these companies, and not a single one of their agencies

can then tell me, oh no, oh no, we don't buy news, we don't buy news. Well, if y'all don't do opinion, why y'all buying Fox News? And I don't want to hear this nonsense, well, Fox News has news shows. No, they don't. Fox and Friends ain't a news show.

Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino ain't a news show. The Five is not a news show. Fox News, 24 hours, seven days a week, is a propaganda network. But these companies will spend millions of dollars with them. Greg, I know you've got to go at the top, but I want to go ahead and go to you first. This is precisely what I have been saying. This is how

right-wing media and mainstream white media is funded. The reality is this here. If you take MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, those three networks combined do in excess of two and a half to three billion dollars, not in revenue, in profit. In profit. And this is why we can have more shows, bigger shows, more hosts, do marketing, have more writers, because they will tell us. And I have been in the meetings. And I'm going to say it again. Publicists. How much have we gotten? Zero. Group M, even when they had a black CEO, got zero.

Horizon, zero. OMD, zero. Dentsu, zero. And by the way, the General Motors money we got was not because of Dentsu. That was because I negotiated directly with General Motors. But this is an example of how they lie to us. We don't buy news, but they will pour money into a Fox News. Absolutely, because they know they're soft white nationalists,

and they are protecting whiteness, and they know whiteness is always going to be there for them. But I have to say this to you, Roland, and I'm glad I didn't step out for a second in a second, but I want to say this here for everybody to hear. You like I said I was in Atlanta this weekend I was over at Morehouse and then I did something for the Howard University alumni raising money for students because the tuition is too damn high everywhere including this campus I took the MARTA I took the train I like to ride public transit you know get around I ran into no fear probably five or six different people

who were like tell rolling keep doing what you're doing. Keep fighting, brother. Keep fighting. Same thing when I was in Montgomery week before last with Fred Gray at the Fred Gray Symposium. The same thing. I'm saying all that to say this. When Carnegie Woodson couldn't get the grants from the white foundations, he got a little bit of money here, a little bit of money there. And finally, he children, from Black educators, from Black churches, from Black folk who gave money. And that institution continues to this day. There is no Black History Month without Asala, and there's no Asala without the Black community. I'm saying all that to say this, Roland.

As you continue to wait this morning, I saw something you put on social media. I just saw it, where you said, oh, y'all want to stop all the DEI in Michigan? If those Black players stop playing, I bet you run back. Watch this, y'all want to stop out of DEI Michigan? If those black players stop playing, I bet you run back. Watch this, y'all. We are at a moment when everybody's true colors are being revealed. And as this thing continues to catch momentum, all those years you have spent since you built the Black Star Network, on the road with your roller mobile, helping organize, having forums,

all the places you show up, live streaming, everything from the Celebration Bowl to town halls and forums, all that stuff begins to pay off as people look for a place to come. We saw what happened to Joy Reid. We saw what happened to Tiffany Cross and everybody else on these other spaces. But guess what? This ain't that. And as the thing continues to capsize and remake itself, it will be the independent

black institutions that are going to thrive. And this is going to be the place black institutions that are going to thrive. And this is going to be the place where those narratives are collected and broadcast. So I don't think we have to worry. We just got to stay on that, keep on that path. Indeed. So Greg, I know you got to go. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. No, you may. See you, Arlen. I'm going to go to you, Nola. Go back to my iPad, Henry. It says consumer goods, first of all, it says from 2018 through 2020, some advertisers had a, quote, no-air list of Fox News programs they wanted to avoid.

According to a person close to the company, these tended to be opinion shows, such as Tucker Carlson's nightly program, The Person Added. Consumer goods company Procter & Gamble, one of the largest advertisers in the United States, stopped running ads during Carlson's nightly show but returned to that slot in 2023 after he was ousted from Fox. P&G said its ads appear on a wide range of media that deliver a breadth of content. We constantly monitor advertising placement to ensure the media companies from which we buy ads meet these standards and address any potential issues directly with the appropriate parties. Now, a couple of years ago, we actually had a partnership with Procter & Gamble.

We advertised from, we actually broadcast from the Cincinnati Music Festival, covered the event down there, haven't done anything since, even though we deliver the numbers. And I remember the CMO, the CMO of Procter & Gamble at a conference of black radio executives actually said that what we did was a great way of delivering value. Mark Pritchard, here's the problem.

They ain't spent a dollar with us since. Now, we've had meetings, but I keep telling these companies and these agencies, I can't deposit meetings. And at those meetings, I'm the only one in that meeting not getting paid. They getting paid to be in the meeting, not me. Listen, people will, they will pick your brain to death, honey,

and not pay you a dime. But I'm glad we're having this conversation, especially as new media seems to be all the buzz and everybody's using that terminology. You know, you definitely, you know, I loved everything that Greg said, and I am going to invoke his prophetic voice, you know, um, and speaking life into, uh, you know, this is where, this is, this, this is where people will come. This is where people will come to get their information, their news. This is where people will come to, um, be in community. And so I'm going to speak that life into that. But, you know, this is a really important point as people are trying to think about, you know, I'm part of a group called Persist and still in the messaging world. I can tell you from Persist and all over the place in

the national security community, so many conversations are being had about, okay, how do we do this new media thing? Everybody's trying to figure out where are we going to get money from? How do we do it? How do we match what the Republicans did for the last presidential cycle? How do we find money for content creators? How do we find money for influencers? How do we reshape this news ecosystem? And here you sit, Roland. You've been ahead of the game in that regard. But this is, to Greg's point, this is a pivot. This is a time of change. And everyone is recognizing that the media landscape is changing and they are going to feel it. This is my prediction,

my prophetic voice, the same way Target's sitting up there looking crazy. And this is the only thing that's going to get through to them. They're going to continue. All right, y'all keep playing. Y'all keep giving y'all money to these divisive, racist people. And guess what? When your little product's not selling, you're going to wonder why. You're going to F-A-F-O your way out of that job on the board. I'm just here to warn companies, black people, we are using our resources very differently, and if you don't support us, we will not support you. See, here's

the thing, Reesey, I believe in just calling a thing a thing, okay? And so, here's an article right here, it says, 2024 top agencies in the world by revenue. And then it says the top 15 agencies in the world by revenue. And then it says the top 15 agencies in the world. And you see right here WPP, Accenture, Song, Publicis, Omnicom, Deloitte Digital, Interpublic, a group of companies, Dentsu, Blue Focus Communications Group, IBM, IX, Hakuhodo, Shell, Viv Vivendi, Havas, TCS Interactive,

Stagwell, Interocean Worldwide. And see, underneath that, see, they own a whole bunch of other agencies, okay? So what people need to understand is that in the agency game, what they do is they actually own a lot of stuff. They buy a lot of stuff. And so what happens is they actually own all the different agencies. And so it's called the big five, the big five holding companies. Go back to my iPad, WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, Interpublic, and Dentsu. So you take a group M, they're under one of those

particular companies, okay? Now, again, I need everybody who's watching and listening to understand what I am telling you. I have personally met with Group M. When Kirk McDonald was the CEO, a brother, we met with them, okay? I met with the whole team. If I could start naming names, I'd start naming names. I've met with Densu.

I've met with the chief investment officers of OMD. I've met with folks at Publicis. I've met with the folks at Interpublic Group. What has been the result? Now, mind you, what do we have? We have the largest black news and information network,

digital network in the country. Nobody else is doing what we're doing. Byron Allen has shut down his Griotv linear network. Shut it down. Nearly laid everybody off. Okay? They ain't doing it. Essence has the

Essence Music Festival. That's a three-day event. They ain't doing what we're doing every single day. It's no shade. It's a fact. Everybody is not doing what we do every day. Blavity is not doing what we do every single day. Recy, I literally was on a phone

call today with three different people, talking about the creation of a black business vertical to cover black news, because the fact of the matter is, black enterprise is really a conference company. They don't cover black news the way they used to. I literally was with another company talking about the creation of a black health show,

a black fitness show. These are non-news items. I was talking with several writers about being able, right now, I've already agreed to a black-owned company, Quantasy, to completely redo blackstarnetwork.com, and that will be turned into a news portal. But none of these things can happen if you can't grow revenue to be able to hire more people.

I have a plan as we speak right now. And if five million additional dollars comes into our company every single year, I can literally hire 25 to 30 new people to expand what we do. But what I hear from every single one of these companies, Recy, dating back to 2020, because see, I knew we launched September 4, 2018.

I knew that was the end of the year. I knew all of 19, I would not have had the data to back up while they should spend with us. But when 2020 hit, had all the data. And here's the reality. All of these agencies, zero dollars have been spent. And out of the brands that have done stuff with us, Procter & Gamble, once.

McDonald's, once. General Motors, current deal. This is now the multiple deals. The only Pepsi met with all a folks. Nothing happened. The only company that is consistently partner with us since 2020 has been Coca-Cola. But every single one of these agencies, they have shut the door and given us nothing but lip service. And this right here is why black-owned media will never be able to grow because these agencies that are largely white executives

will gladly send that money to Fox News and Fox Corporation and don't care if they are right-wing, MAGA, Trump-loving conservatives, but will look at us and say, oh, no, no, no, we can't, we can't, we can't buy news, we can't buy news. Send it to Aaron Loving Hip Hop and the other stuff now. You are in our role, and I watch that junk, that crap.

But, you know, Black mess is safe enough for them to spend money with. So why isn't Black news safe enough to be to spend money with? Because that is not aligned with their goals, actually. Their goal is not to help cultivate an informed and empowered and politically engaged Black audience, because their benefactors in the federal and state and local government are not the people that our people support. And so they'll play the game, and they'll pretend, and they'll have all these pretexts for why they can't support this. But the rules don't apply to the white side. But this is a prime example of why it irks my soul

when you hear Democrats like Gavin Newsom talk about how, well, we need to sit down and we need to have a conversation with a Steve Bannon or a Charlie Kirk because they figured out something that we haven't figured out. What they have figured out, the only thing that these white boys have figured out is how to get, I won't even say figure out, but what they have working for them is that they are heavily funded.

When you have $100 million behind you, hell yeah, a lot of people are going to listen. It's not that they are organically bigger. It's not that they have better ideas, that they're more articulate, that they're more compelling, that they're more convincing. It's that they have the money behind them, point blank, and the period. That is the only difference between why the Republicans have an information ecosystem, a disinformation ecosystem, why they have the massive numbers on their side is because they pay for it. And Democrats and people of conscience still want to rely on the goodness of all of our hearts to do this work, to not compensate people, to give people talking points, but again, not give them the resources to actually

get their message across. It's that everybody thinks that we're just supposed to be bleeding hearts for this when this is a business. And it only seems to be a problem to be a business when Black people are involved. But it's not a problem to be in business when you're talking about white people and racist ideologies. Then all of a sudden, that ain't a problem. Ain't a problem for them to get paid. Ain't a problem for them to get money. And that's the disconnect that we have to figure out. If the ad revenue isn't going to come in there, then hell. I don't think that OAN and Turning Point USA

and all that shit, they wasn't getting the ad money, but they still got funded. Yep. But who's going to fund us? That's the question without trying to handcuff us. So let me explain to the audience what's about to happen. First of all, there are six major advertising holding companies. Don't go to that yet.

No. There are six holding companies. WPP, Omnicom, Publicis Group, Interpublic Group, Dentsu, and Havas. Those are the six. I'm letting all of y'all know we have sat down, Black Star Network, me personally, as well as our partners with Urban Edge Network, all six of them. What have we received? Zero.

That's crazy. Zero. Zero. Y'all, I don't think y'all understand what I'm saying. I didn't say from the agencies we received $100,000, $50,000, $25,000.

We've received zero. It's actually cost me more money because I've flown to New York and I've had to pay people to put together presentations for them than they've actually spent. Now I'm going to my people to put together presentations for them than they've actually spent.

Now I'm going to my iPad. Now, there are individual agencies under these six. You got Ogilvy, zero from them. McCann World Group, zero from them. Leo Burnett, zero from them. Saatchi & Saatchi, zero. Wheaton & Kennedy, zero. BBDO, zero. TBWA, zero. Droga 5, zero. Weedon and Kennedy, zero. BBDO, zero. TBWA, zero. Droga 5, zero. Gray Group, zero.

VMLY&R, they've called me a couple of times to help them land a client. And guess what? Not a single dollar from that client came. Donor, zero. FCB Global, zero. Marketing Architects, the ad agency, Play Creative, DDB, zero. McKinney, zero. All of these folks. So I just need y'all to understand the money game.

I need y'all to understand why Ebony went through all of his drama when John A. Johnson died because Ebony was getting $20,000 for a full-page ad when Esquire, a smaller magazine, was getting $200,000 for a full-page ad. All y'all out there,

I heard all y'all Negroes, y'all remember Bob Johnson, Sheila Johnson, they sold out. See, y'all don't understand the game, because guess what? In Brett Pulley's book on the billion dollar bet, the unauthorized biography of Bob Johnson and

BET, when they were being sold to Viacom, Mel Carmesan, the CEO, as well as some of the Red Stones, discovered that BET was getting paid $1,500 for the same 30 second spot MTV was getting paid $1,500 for the same 30-second spot MTV was getting paid $8,000 for. BET was sold for $2.4 billion and $400 million in debt.

The total sale price was $2.8 billion. Well, guess what? If Bob and Sheila Johnson then married, if they were getting, if they were not being impacted by the black tax, if they were getting fair market value for their ads, that means that if they were getting the 8,000 instead of 1,500, Bob and Sheila Johnson could have actually sold one third of BET for the same $2.8 billion

and still today be the majority owners of BET. This is what happens when even when we do get the ads there's a black tax involved. So to the audience this is what is going to happen. Over the next week

and I've already made it clear to my team, we're going to record Fox News 24 hours a day. And we team. We're going to record Fox News 24 hours a day. And we're then going to record every program on Fox. And we're going to write down every single blue chip advertiser that runs ads

on Fox. I ain't talking about them 1-800 commercials because that ain't what I'm talking about. And what we're then going to do is we're going to contact every single one of those blue chip advertisers, and we're going to ask them and their agencies, we have a question. We noticed that you buy Fox News. What black-owned news brands do you also buy?

And I'm going to be waiting for them to say we don't buy any news. And then what I'm going to do, I'm going to come on this show and go on social media and tell all of you what every single one of those brands and what every single one of those agencies said. You are a brand, JPMorgan Chase, UBS, Amazon, and others. If you are putting your money on Fox News, then you should have no problem putting your money on black news and information, black-owned news and information. So to all the agencies and all the brands, do understand, I have hereby served notice. We are watching and we are going to tell our audience exactly

who you support with your ad dollars and ask the question are black people not good enough for your ad dollars as well? I'll be right back. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. I'll be right back. up of the USA has been part of the public debate since long before and long after the Civil War, right up to today. On our next show, you'll meet Richard Crichton, the author of this book, who says breaking

up this great experiment called America might not be such a bad thing. That's on the next Black Table, right here on the Black Star Network. Hey, yo, what's up? It's Mr. Dalvin right here. What's up? This is KC. Sitting here representing the J-O-D-E-C-I. That's Jodeci. Right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, big

election in Wisconsin on Tuesday. A state Supreme Court race that could determine who controls the court. Now, Elon Musk and his packs have dumped millions into this race to support MAGA conservative Judge Brad Schimel, who is a former attorney general there in Wisconsin. Some $81 million has been spent on this campaign because they want to beat liberal judge Susan Crawford. Her campaign believes the billionaire's support for Schimel is an attempt to buy support from the Supreme Court, hopeful as a Musk lawsuit is potentially headed for the high court.

A lot of folks have been activated there, including sold to the polls. And we're joined by right now by Reverend Greg Lewis, executive director of souls at the polls joining us from Milwaukee. Greg, glad to have you here. And so what have y'all been doing, trying to get black folks to maximize their power and not ignore this crucial race? It's not the only race on the ballot, but this is determined who controls the state highest court.

You know, Mr. Martin, I'm so glad to be here with you because, you know, we've been doing everything we can because this thing has gotten so far out of control and it's frustrating so many people. We got to do all we can. I mean, we got buses to the polls, brunches with faith leaders and community leaders, yard signs, billboards, caps, hoodies, T-shirts, pens, bracelets, posters so much at stake—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans issues, infant mortality here in Milwaukee, just about everything. And then for the poor working folks of our state, we got workers' rights, Act 10, collective bargaining for workers, housing, healthcare, education, job training. And all these things are on the line.

But I just don't believe people are paying attention. And so we just have to keep it moving, keep just telling people how important this is for them to go to the polls. And we really push absentee ballots, early voting. And now we're getting towards the end, and we got to push people to the polls on April 1st. And, you know, the thing about April in Wisconsin is that, man, we're going to have a snowstorm.

So I really, we really push people to vote early. But we're doing everything we can just to make sure that people know there's an election, because I talk to a lot of people, and I say, man, so now make sure you go vote on April 1st. Well, what's, you know, what they voting for? I'm like, what? You know, we have been, we have become

so disenchanted with everything that we don't pay attention to anything. And that's why we exist as souls to the polls to make sure that you know there's a vote on April 1st. And here's why this is so important. Now, Henry, go to my iPad. New York Times

did a story called What 11 Black Voters Think About Trump's Action in His First Month. Many black Americans were frustrated by the Trump administration's targeting of DEI programs, but others embraced the speed at which he moved. I want to scroll down to somebody

and this is not about embarrassing somebody, but at the end of the day, she did an interview with the New York Times and so therefore, the information is public and Greg, this bothered the hell out of me, brother, when I saw this. Keosha Wilder, 39 years old,

a public school classroom aide in Milwaukee. This is what it said. Ms. Wilder, a Democrat, said that she didn't vote. This is in November. She didn't vote because she believed that Mr. Trump

was going to win. Now she is preparing for what she believes he will do in office. In food assistance, Social Security, and housing assistance, among other programs for the poor. I already know that everything is about to end, so I've just been trying to get myself together and look for better-paying jobs, Ms. Wilder said.

Racism was here before I was born, she said. The battle I choose is employment. Can we get more pay? I work in the public schools and I make $17 an hour. That is not enough. Okay. Greg, here's my problem.

If you don't vote, he guaranteed to win! Like, I ain't vote because I thought he was going to win. You know, I ain't vote because I thought he was going to win. You know, I remember when I was a youngster, I heard this saying by Martin Luther King Jr. He said, the most dangerous thing in the world is conscientious stupidity,

sincere ignorance, and conscientious stupidity. And that's where we are right now. People are just really, they're tuned out. They're not thinking. They're not focusing. You know, I guess people are thinking about where they're going to get their next meal or where I'm going to live. But I think you ought to try to navigate your life through expressing yourself with

others through power. And that's why we exist with souls who oppose. I'm like, OK, all those things are, you know, true, and we know that we have these racism issues and bigotry and hate and all those things. But what you going to do, just stand there and just let the ammo fall on your head? You got to at least move.

You got to at least run. You know, even in martial arts, they say, you know, the first thing you do when people attack you, you know, your first line of defense is to run. We don't even do that anymore, Mr. Martin. We just stand there and just let things happen to us. And that's why I'm so frustrated. You know, I always say, man, why do you keep letting things happen to you when we can make things happen for us here in Milwaukee? We like 42 percent of the population.

A lot of people don't even know that we have black folks here in Milwaukee. The Hispanic community is like 18 percent. That's 60 percent. And then all the other nationalities that are here besides white folks, man, we have the power to do what we need to do. But we like Ferguson. You know, we like Ferguson, Missouri. We just let things happen to us when we have the power to stop it, because all the things

we fought for in the past, we don't take advantage of. We fought for voting rights. We fought for education. We fought for jobs. We fought to be part of unions. And now we don't even go as far as we need to go to be assured that those items that we fought for are positive in our lives. We just don't do that. And that is so mind-boggling to me. So I'm with you.

You know, I missed you when you were here in town because I was at Pastor Valerie's church, but I saw you later. You were great. Thank you. I appreciate it. And so, you know, I keep making the point that I really want black people to understand that the most guaranteed way for somebody to win

is if we don't show up. And if we vote, and the number I keep saying is voting at 70% of our capacity. I've got questions for two of my panelists. I'm going to go to Recy first, then Nola. Recy, what's your question? Thank you so much for the work that you're doing. Are there any particular voting precincts that you feel have the biggest impact if you were to, like Roland said, increase the turnout of those who are actually registered? And then, if so, how are you all targeting those precincts and those voters?

You know, in souls to the polls, you know, we really target our churches. So I have about 406 pastors on a roll. And every time it's time to vote, I communicate with those pastors. And hopefully, we can get them to communicate to the communities that their churches exist in. And that's just about all the Black community, especially 53206, which has the highest crime rate. It has the highest incarceration rate. It's like last in the country and people going to jail. I mean, all these things. I don't know if you know this, but Milwaukee is like almost last in every positive item that Americans appreciate in this country.

I don't know if you knew that or not. I mean, housing, jobs, all those things, home ownership, all those things. We're like dead last, and people are not believing that they're not free. It reminds me what Harriet Tubman said. I could have freed a lot more people, but I just can't convince them that they're not free. I'm like, man, do you know we getting done here? And it's so sophisticated and subliminal that they don't even know that they being, man, you being bamboozled.

You know, I have to tell people every day, I said, look, you're not even a minority anymore. I mean, even in the world we're not the minority. 8% of the world is white, 92% is people of color. And I'm just like, you know, we've been bamboozled so bad that we believe the story that we've been told. That's all to it. And that's what's got to change. NOLA? Reverend Lewis, there's so much that I want to say, but Roland is going to give me the side eye. But I feel your passion and I feel, you know,

your frustration. And so my question is about that. It's more of a messaging question. How are young folks, especially in Milwaukee, being talked to? Because one of the things that I've noticed is that there's a large disconnect between what came before them in terms of civil rights, in terms, you know, all of these things. There are a couple of generations where there's a disconnect to the point where it doesn't matter. How are you drawing these connections? Like, what's the messaging look like, especially when you're trying to talk to young folks who have horrible education and do not see any jobs in their future?

You know, that's a great question because that—man, we're deep into colleges right now. And then it's influencers. We're deep into influencers. And we're deep into having concerts for young people to let them know that we care. We want you to be with us and so on and so forth. But I'm going to tell you, the other team is playing hardball. You know, I try to tell, you know, the Democratic Party, I said, listen, man, you got to be a little bit rougher. Man, you got to be a little bit stronger. You got to fight a little bit harder because these guys, they're not playing. You know, I just heard the other day that Elon Musk is paying people $100 to come and sign some kind of petition. And then

they try to talk him into going and vote. I'm saying, and we can't even give people water when they come and line up to the polls. I'm like, what is wrong? What's wrong with this picture? Why don't we fight harder? And that's why I say, you know, it's going to take us to fight hard because nobody else is going to fight hard for you like you fight for yourself. And I keep trying to tell people, I say, hey, man, stop waiting on the cavalry. The cavalry is not coming. You are the cavalry. You need to be making decisions about your community. And we certainly need to be into these local politics because we can certainly control that with ease.

But we are so bent on believing that we have no power. And that's why we exist. We just keep telling people, you do have power, and we proved it over and over again. How do you think we got the other Supreme Court judges? How do you think that we got the governor who they said couldn't be beat? How do you think that happened? That was because we expressed ourselves in times when we were really needed.

And that is so important because I'm going to tell you something. And listen to this. You know, we always have to deal with our enemies, but we have to deal with our friends also. When Mandela Burns ran for senator, 30,000 Democrats voted for Senator Johnson. But I was lost by about 30,000 because 30,000 Democrats voted for... Actually, actually, actually even worse. That was a 50,000 voter drop off. That was a 50,000. Look, I know it well. It was a 50,000 voter drop off in Milwaukee alone from the previous election. And he lost by 30,000 votes. The point that you made about Elon Musk,

go to my iPad, Henry. Elon Musk has given $1 million to a person in Green Bay who signed a petition opposing activist judges. He's paying people $100 to sign this petition. So here's the whole deal. And this is how I need every black person in Milwaukee and Wisconsin who hears my voice to understand. Elon Musk may be doling out $100 and $1 million, but guess what? He's not a resident of Wisconsin. He does not have a vote.

And so if black people, if maximize our vote in Milwaukee and Wisconsin, guess what? That Republican can lose. And we know what that means, and the facts are already there. Democrats, when that woman won last year by 11 points, when they got on the court, they changed partisan gerrymandering. They dealt with ballot drop boxes. They restored powers to the governor that people voted for.

And so I need black people to understand. And see, some of y'all simple simons, this ain't about shilling for Democrats. It's saying who stands with folk who are going to advance an agenda that black folks support. Earlier, Greg, you may have missed the top of the show that the Trump MAGA folks stopped a racial discrimination lawsuit in Texas that that that where Texas was discriminating against black folks and others. When it came to federal funds, MAGA comes in and they pull it and others when it came to federal funds. MAGA comes in and they pull it and the case is going to be over. And so this is about advocating for black interests. And you got to say one of these folks are going to win. So this is real simple.

Y'all put the put the photos up of the candidates. Everybody black in Wisconsin and Milwaukee. Did you hear my voice? That guy on the right, Brad Schimel, that's who Elon Musk has put $17 million behind. He is not supporting the woman on the left. I can say it. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, you vote for Susan Crawford

over Brad Schimel. Greg, it's simple as that. Y'all keep up the good work. We're going to keep pushing this thing. We're going to have another group on the show on Monday because that election on Tuesday is too damn important. And so, y'all, souls in the polls there, souls in the polls in Milwaukee,

this is how you can access their social media on Twitter. I don't call it X. Instagram, TikTok, their website, Facebook as well. Greg, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Doc. Folk, y'all want, Facebook as well. Greg, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Doc. Folks, y'all want to understand how you confront power.

This is what happened yesterday in Tennessee. You had a white Republican who had the audacity, the unmitigated gall to insult Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson. Pearson was up talking about a particular bill, and you had this Republican who dared then to challenge him by saying, well, we've been here. Where have y'all been? Roll the video, please. You've been here. We've been here working. Where have you been? Well, that set Representative Pearson off

because he had been dealing with the tragic death of his brother, and at the end of the meeting, Pearson wanted to get in homeboy's face. Representative Pearson joins us right now on Roller Mart Unfiltered. And you have folks who were grabbing you, Representative Pearson, holding you back when you got in that Republican's face.

And he sat there stoically with a smart-ass grin on his face. But he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew why you had not been there. And so that was about insulting, frankly, your integrity, your credibility, and your honor as you were taking care of your family in the wake of your brother's tragic death. Absolutely. The vitriol that's coming from Republicans in the state of Tennessee, like Andrew Farmer and across this country, is doing nothing but seeking to destroy, denigrate, and divide people.

And it was very hurtful and harmful what he was saying, because the truth is, my fiance was watching that video. My mama was watching it. My daddy was watching it. My other brothers were watching it. Our entire community was watching him really try and be, not try, but be vitriolic toward me after the tragic loss that we have suffered that has been the most painful, most difficult time of our entire lives. And so, yes, I went to approach him and to let him know that that's unacceptable and we cannot allow what's happening with Trump and Musk and their attitudes and the way that they're treating people and exiling and trying to silence voices and bully people become the norm. I refuse to allow it to happen and that attack to happen on my brother, God rest his soul,

Tim Pearson, but also to my family, to my community that I love, appreciate, and serve. And we all have a responsibility of standing up and speaking up when we see people doing things that are hurtful and that are harmful, particularly when we're talking about sensitive issues such as homicide, such as suicide. And the legislation that I was bringing forward was intended to repeal permitless carry, which we have in our state. And since we passed that law, we've seen an increase in homicides. We've seen an increase in suicides. We've seen an increase of the very problem that we are now dealing with and grappling

with as a family that has shattered so many families across our state and across our country. But instead of talking about the legislation and the work that we needed to do, he wanted to have a personal ad hominem attack against me. And it's a personal thing that he has. I don't know what. He's the same guy who had the resolution to expel me two years ago, and I didn't even know what he looked like at that time or where he represented. And so he's got something personal.

But the reality is we've got a real problem that we've got to solve that is hurting black families and hurting families across this country every single day. This is a freeze frame of that arrogant individual sitting there with his smug look on his face and at least the chair of the committee had the decency.

And guys, rack that up. The chair of the committee had the decency after this guy attacked you to talk respectfully as what you dealt with. And I don't know if this I don't know if the person who spoke is Democrat or Republican. Republican. So just play what he said. This is how you handle that.

Go ahead and play, guys. Previous question has been called on the bill. We have objection. We are now voting on previous question. All those in favor of previous question say aye. Those opposed? No.

And after this idiot, Andrew Farmer, continued his attack on you and guys go to my iPad. This is Chairman Clay Doggett. Mr. Representatives, we are I know this is very difficult time for you to be back up here. I'm sorry for all the things that you've experienced. You've been a great uncle. You've done the things that you were supposed to do to help your family. I understand that. If I was in the same situation you were in, I would be doing the same thing. I understand

that. Okay. I know tensions are high up here today. Um... Disrespect is high here. But, ladies and gentlemen, we're, yes, we're gonna do our best to be as civil as we can up here, okay? And I appreciate that very much. So, with that being said, I'm going to go to Leader Lambert.

Representative Pearson, I'm curious. Did any Republicans come up to you afterwards and say what he did was uncalled for? I mean, a couple of them were appalled by his actions. And I don't know if he knows this, but several Republicans also have dealt with the loss of loved ones in their own family by suicide. And so many have texted me and came to me and apologized. And the reality is when we're dealing with something like gun violence, when we're talking about issues that you talk about on the show all the time, economic justice, social justice, racial justice, it's not just a black person's issue. We're talking about something that's good for everybody.

And our shared humanity at some point should supersede our desire for political talking points and political posturing. But for Andrew Farmer, that wasn't the case. He wanted to use the pain that my family and I are experiencing and exploit that for his own personal political gain, for his personal vendettas that he has. And so, as you saw with Clay Doggett there, who is a Republican and who is a chair, he said he would have done the exact same thing. Because in my family, family comes first. In my community, family comes first. And there's nothing that I'm going to do to put my family or my nephews, who I love and I care about, second. My parents, like we have a responsibility to care for our loved ones,

particularly at times of grief. And the truth is people deserve more time to grieve. I even brought up legislation to make sure that everybody who works in government at least has two months of bereavement time. Because when you have such a tragic loss that is literally altering the course of your family's life and your own life, you need more time to not only process that change, but make sure that the necessary systems are in place to help your family to operate and to be able to do the things that they need to do to continue to move forward. Andrew Farmer has a problem, but it is not a problem that is just in and of himself. Again, this comes from this Trump-Musk ideology that the more you berate people, the more evil you are, the meaner you are, somehow that is a good thing.

And we have to change that with a new true revolution of values that prioritize the people who are suffering, prioritize the people who are grieving, prioritize the people who are hurting, and make legislation and policy to address those needs, to address that pain, not to denigrate and degrade folks. You know what? I've had some people go, but I don't understand why they can't, why Pearson and why Jones, why they always going off. And let's be real clear. You got some Negroes in the Tennessee Black Caucus

who can't stand y'all. And they think that y'all make too much noise, you're getting too much attention, and you should play the go-along and get-along game. But that ain't gotten black folks anything. There's a lot of people who wanted to play the go-along, get-along game when it came to Tennessee State, and we saw how they still trying to take that university over.

Also, when the state controller wanted to take over that small black town because that money was coming in, same thing. So the go-along, get-along game, that is not helping black folks in Tennessee when you've got crazy, demented, MAGA Republicans in control. I mean, you've got to be honest about what we're up against. And too often we're playing from a rule book

or a playbook that is old, that is tired, and that they've thrown out decades ago. We have to realize that communities like the community of Mason, of Brownsville, they're fighting to get forward to have a community benefits agreement. And so what do Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly do? They actually bring forward legislation to make it illegal for corporations to enter into community benefits agreements if they get any incentives from the state. We realize that any time that we try to make progress here in our city, we're trying to do some work around guaranteed basic income.

And now the state legislature is bringing forward legislation that you can't use any money at the local level for guaranteed basic income. All the times we try to make this progress, we experience this white lash. It's the resentment to the progress that we are trying to make that is more equitable, that is more fair, that is more just. And for anybody who is operating on that old playbook, thinking that there's somehow this great savior of a Republican or there's a conscientious Republican who's going to start stepping up and stepping out of line with the status quo, I wouldn't hold your breath for it. What we have to do is fight differently, engage our communities more intentionally, and mobilize more people not just to register to vote but to show up at the polls to make sure that our voices are being heard at the local, state,

and the federal level. Because too many of our representatives believe that if they go to their jobs strictly, then that's all of it. And they're not back in their communities like I am here in District 86 fighting Elon Musk, who has an XAI plant here, who has 18 gas turbines that's polluting the air with formaldehyde at 10 tons per year, right? Like, we got issues that we need our elected leaders to be on the front lines of and to be working alongside community organizations to help to address. We cannot operate as though this was 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. We have to start planning, thinking that far into the future and realizing that if we continue to be silent, if we continue to allow our people to be disrespected, allow ourselves to be denigrated and disrespected, they are going to say that this is what we desired and this is what we wanted.

I refuse to do that on behalf of my district, on behalf of my family, because I know that if we do not resist, if we do not dissent, they will say that we are assenting to the pain and to the travesties that they are causing all across our country. Whether you talk about Dodge and the hurt to veterans and to Social Security and to Medicaid, or you're talking about right here in Memphis, seeing the White Chamber of Commerce exploiting the people in this community to allow Elon Musk to do whatever he wants without any recompense? We've got work to do, and we need elected leaders who are going to rise to meet this moment, who are not going to bow down, be broken and bent by the status quo.

Let's be real clear. They only believe in local control when they are the ones who are in control. So they want to tell Memphis how to spend Memphis's money, which is black people. They want to tell Nashville how to spend Nashville's money. I'm going to go to my two panelists with me. Nola, your question for Representative Pearson, then Recy, go. Representative Pearson, first of all, young brother, you are so impressive. I just I really need you to know that. And you are carrying the world on your shoulders and you are doing it just with elegance and grace and a ferociousness that I truly admire.

So I just want to say that you are so impressive. And I'm also I'm sorry and not sorry what happened, because you mentioned this idea of revolution of values. And I want to stay there for a while because you're right. So revolution of values. And I want to stay there for a while because you're right. So much of this is about the cruelty. It's about getting people to bend the knee. It's about, you know, take taking the hood off, you know, essentially and thinking you're supposed to scare somebody after you take the hood off. Right. But my question to you is about this revolution of values. This, to me, is important, and it's what's missing in the messaging.

What do you say to the party behind closed doors in terms of messaging and what's going right and what's going wrong? Look, I think for the Democratic Party, we have to prioritize the issues that are affecting people who have been negatively impacted by the oppression of a capitalistically exploitative plantation economy. We have to address the reality of our situation that has two billionaires, literally the Trump-Musk administration, hurting the future prospects of our nation. And to my colleagues and to people in the party, look, we work and we fight for working class people. We work and we fight for the uplift of black folks, for immigrants, for poor folks, for people who've been disinvested. And that is who we are.

And our responsibility is to go back to that true identity, to those true ideologies that helped to make us who we are and helped us to build a very strong party, trying to pretend like if we become more conservative, you know, then we're going to get enough people on our side. If we become more Republican, I think as Bernie Sanders once said, then we're going to get some of the Republicans on our side. That's not what we need to do. We need to fight oligarchy.

We need to fight these anti-democratic, anti-constitutional things that are happening at our state and at our local and at our federal level. We need to organize across states, whether that be in Nebraska or in Tennessee or in Mississippi and Alabama, to make sure that the voices of people who are in those states is being heard and not just concentrate our efforts on California and Massachusetts and New York. We have to use our power where we have it to go against the status quo. And even in places where Democrats are in power, we need to see a reduction in poverty. We need to see an increase in the minimum wage. We need to see an increase in the amount of laws dealing with guaranteed basic income. When we have power, we've got to use it. And where we don't have power, we have a responsibility

to build it. But we don't build it on the backs of people who are already oppressed. We don't build it on the backs of people who are already suffering. Instead, we come to those communities and do things for those communities to help them and to show them that, look, we are in this fight, not for every four years for a presidential election, but for county commission, for public utility board, for city council, for the mayoral race, for the sheriff's race, because we want you to need, which is proximity to poor folks, proximity to working-class folks, proximity to people who have not had access to power. That's what we have to do as a party, and that's our work. It's not to be friends with all the billionaires and millionaires and then shut up as they pollute the environment that we breathe. JOHN YANG REESE, CNN ANCHOR, CNN ANCHOR CORRESPONDENT, CNN ANCHOR CORRESPONDENT, CNN ANCHOR CORRESPONDENT, CNN ANCHOR CORRESPONDENT, CNN ANCHOR CORRESPONDENT, REESE, of course, moderated the conversation on Monday between DNC Chair Ken Martin as well as

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. We streamed that right here on the Black Star Network. Recy, what's your question? Thank you, Roland, for streaming that. I did see that. First of all, Representative Pearson, my condolences to you and your family. And I absolutely salute the fact that you have been tireless in your work. Your advocacy extends beyond being an elected official and the votes that you cast.

And I know that throughout your career, the Republicans use in trying to deflect away from what they're doing. So I would just like to know for a second, he was deflecting and he was trying to put it back on you in a very disrespectful way. And civility is not what they're really looking for. They're looking for you all being docile because they are the opposite of civility. So if you can, for the audience, just give people a handful of things or one or two things that these folks are trying to deflect away from by constantly trying to silence you and your colleagues. Yeah. I mean, the silencing of elected leaders who have been sent by their constituents to speak on their behalf is something that is becoming a core tenet of the way that the supermajority Republican Party in the state of Tennessee and so many other places is operating. Another way that you see this show up is in legislation. Bills that Democratic representatives bring forward oftentimes don't get a second in committee, which means that they don't

get heard, or committees get closed right before that representative speaks. That actually happened to me. Right before my bill was presented, they adjourned the committee for the rest of the year. These attacks are anti-democratic. They're anti-constitutional and anti-the principles that we're supposed to espouse, not only as elected officials, but as people who live in a democracy. And when you're thinking about the personal interactions, you saw what happened with Andrew Farmer and me, right? That's not uncommon, right? The disrespect that exists for representatives, particularly representatives who are black, is a part of the modus operandi of people. And then they're going to say, well, nobody mentioned race, right? Like that's going to,

again, a deflection from the reality. But what haven't we done is what I started to explain to Representative Farmer while I was helping to take care of my nephews and our family is continuing to mend from this tragedy. What haven't we done? We haven't expanded Medicaid in the state of Tennessee, and 300,000 people are uninsured, especially those in rural areas and in different parts of the state that aren't even in Memphis and Shelby County that I represent. What haven't we done? We haven't made sure that immigrants and undocumented people are getting access to the resources that they need to be full participants in this society. What haven't we done? We haven't increased the minimum wage from $7.25. It's the exact same thing as the federal minimum wage. And so we are having people who are consistently living in

poverty. And our income, median income here in Memphis, is $32,585, which isn't enough for anybody to live off of in an adequate way. We haven't improved the educational quality and outcomes of people. Right now, there's an attempt to take over the school board, but there's not an attempt to make sure that equitable resources are being given to schools that is not based on property taxes. And so the poor remain poor while the wealthier continue to get rich. We haven't addressed the systematic and systemic issues that are plaguing our communities, Black communities, Latino communities, queer communities, communities filled by people who are oftentimes overlooked and underinvested in. And so the work, right, is to not deflect. It's to get in the trenches. It's to ask hard questions. It's to use the research and the data.

And if the articulation of my words and the education that I've been blessed to be able to get because my mom is a teacher with a doctorate degree and my dad is a preacher with a master's from Howard University upsets you, that's your problem. But my responsibility is a teacher with a doctorate degree and my dad is a preacher with a master's from Howard University, upset you. That's your problem. But my responsibility is to advocate on behalf of our community using the information that I know can help us to move things forward. And we all have to do that. It's all of our responsibility to stay engaged and to continue to this fight for justice and to build this movement for justice rooted in love. Period. Again, Representative Pearson, condolences to you and your family for your loss. That is, it is never easy to, when a loved one,

whether it's a mother, father, brother, sister, passes away, but also keep up the fight, keep standing firm. And they hate when you're righteous. They hate when you bring the fire. What they really want is they want a lot of us to just shut up and be quiet and fold. They want us to be like a lot of the people who have given up, who no longer want to be in this fight. But as always, I love playing that video from the Tuskegee Airmen in the movie Red Tails by George Lucas.

And I purposely keep that near me because, again, a lot of our folk, we give up real easy. We give up real easy and we get frustrated. And a lot of people right now, they're like, well, you know what? The election is over. And people are saying, well, you know what? We're just going to rest. We're just going to sit here and sit down. And I keep saying, no, people like Tuskegee Airmen, they couldn't sit down and rest. They could not sit down and just say, well, we're just going to give up. And I always play this scene. And so there's 15 seconds. If you don't have it on your phone, I keep it on my phone whenever you need it. And actually, there's a couple that I always play. This is one of them. Watch this. Nothing's difficult. Everything's a challenge.

Through adversity to the stars. From the last plane to the last bullet to the last minute to the last man, we fight. We fight. We fight. We fight. We fight. We fight. And that really is the story of black people in America. That's it.

That's it. We fight. We fight. And we can't. We can't not fight. And praise God, Roland, that there were some people who didn't know who we were going to become that fought for us. And we know that generations from now, there are going to be people who come who will say, praise God, that there were some folks who fought and they never knew our names. Absolutely. Representative Justin Pearson, we appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Let's keep fighting. Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Folks, we talk about fighting. Yesterday, I played a video of Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett. She was really fired up about what's going on with Social Security and all of these various cuts. I want to play this for you. Watch this. And you know what? This place is broken because Congress has abdicated its responsibility to be the ones to find that race fraud and abuse and to do something different about it. We're letting somebody who's unelected,

who's an auditor, now he's an auditor, is he everything? Is he God? To be able to do what he wants to do with the American people. It's got to stop. I yield back. Now, that was, again,

Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands. And remember, we told you what Howard Lutnick said. Howard Lutnick is worth $4 billion. And he gave an interview, and he made this comment about,

well, what would happen if Social Security checks were laid? And, you know, it's really no big deal because, you know, his 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn't complain. Let me remind you of that. Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain. Mm-hmm.

She just wouldn't. She'd think something got messed up, and she'll get it next month. Yeah. Mm-hmm. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling, and complaining. Mm. Racy was being very nice when she called,

when she said POS. No, Howard Lutnick, who's worth $4 billion, is absolutely a piece of shit. And he's also joined by the world's richest person, Elon Musk, because moments ago on Fox News with

Brett Baier, this is what Elon Musk said about Social Security. No, in fact, what we're doing will help their benefits. Legitimate people, as a result of the work of Doge, will receive more Social Security, not less. I want to emphasize that. As a result of the work of Doge, legitimate recipients of Social Security will receive more money, not less money. All right. I want to emphasize that point and let the record show that I said this, and it will

be proven out to be true. Let's check back on this in the future. So it's Washington Post. Y'all know that boy lying. He's lying, Reesey, because I'm sorry. How are you going to receive more if, I'm sorry, how are you gonna receive more if it's already been established how much you are to receive?

It's not all of a sudden, oh, yeah, we're gonna go find the waste, fraud, and abuse, and before, you were getting $400. Now we're gonna send you $700. That's not how Social Security works. Well, first of all, let me be clear. I only said POS out of respect for Representative Harrison. Y'all know I don't have a problem, That's not how Social Security works. Well, first of all, let me be clear. I only said POS out of respect for Representative Pearson.

Y'all know I don't have a problem cussing, so fuck Elon Musk. And this is what happens when you put a South African billionaire in charge of the whole goddamn government because he wouldn't know a damn thing about Social Security, how it's calculated, the fact that we as Americans pay into Social Security. It's our motherfucking money, okay? So you're not bestowing more or less money because of this so-called waste, fraud, and abuse. It just shows more and more how they're out of touch.

Howard Ludnick, why the hell would your rich-ass mama or grandma or whoever the hell be checking for a social security check? People need that coin. I don't know how much money these people think that folks have that are on a fixed income, that are over the age of 67 and it keeps growing

thanks to Republicans. People are going to raise hell because they need that check. And these people, these Republicans from the Trump administration are doing more and more to stand in between people and the money that they have put into this system, the bullshit they're trying to do around eliminating phone verifications, trying to force people, not being respectful

of the fact that, if you're an elder, you're on a fixed income, it's going to be harder for you to take your ass into somebody's office. Not everybody has access to Internet to do this internet verification and so on and so forth. And that doesn't even include what the acting social security director has been saying about basically threatening to shut down the operations of social security because the judge tried to block him from getting Doge access. So these people are playing in your faces. And I want you to hear this in particular, Florida first and sixth district, because I know a lot of y'all are on Social Security.

And I know a lot of y'all keep voting in these goddamn Republicans because you think they're playing about going after Social Security. But these people right now are telling you, if unchecked, which Republicans have completely abdicated their responsibility to do, they're coming after your benefits. And then when you try to cry about it and your ass is evicted and you can't put food on your table, they're going to call you waste, fraud, and abuse. So what you

going to do about it? Elections are on April 1st. Get your old ass out and vote for the Democrats, period. And in Wisconsin too. Well, the election in Wisconsin is April 1st. You have constitutional amendments in Louisiana on Saturday. March 29th. And we absolutely should be voting in that case. Here's the whole

thing here, Noel. I'm going to play one more clip because I need people to understand what the game is, okay? The Republicans are all about bumper stickers. So what is their bumper sticker? Waste, fraud, abuse. Waste, fraud, abuse. Waste, fraud, abuse. Waste, fraud, abuse. As all you hear on Fox News, waste, fraud, abuse. Waste, fraud, abuse. Waste, fraud, abuse.

Waste, fraud, abuse. As all you hear on Fox News, waste, fraud, abuse. Oh, the only people who are complaining are fraudsters. The only people who are complaining are fraudsters. Listen to Elon Musk moments ago with Britt Baier on Fox News. Righteous indignation, the fraudsters. Come on, guys, have the audio up. Here we go.

Listen. Most amount of fake righteous indignation, the fraudsters. That's, it's a tell. You understand. There's NGOs that are crazy, like the $2 billion to Stacey Abrams NGO that basically didn't exist, and suddenly gets $2 billion awarded from the federal government. She says, why? And there are many such cases like that. I think that most people, common sense-wise, would say the fraud's got to end.

They're concerned about the 94-year-old mother who skips a check or somehow doesn't get what she's supposed to get. See, I want you all to understand what they're doing here. Again, Nola, they're sitting here going, oh, you saw how he did that. Oh, the fraud. Then he slides in Stacey Abrams. Got $2 billion. Here's the reality.

Doge ain't pinpointing no fraud. They literally are canceling legitimate contracts. They cannot back up what they're doing with facts, and they're constantly having to revise their numbers because they then go on Fox News, they lie about the waste, fraud, and abuse they found, and then when somebody calls them out on it, oh, yeah, let's revise it down,

but the lie has already been circulated. Mm-hmm. They were rolling out messaging. They were testing messaging. That's what that was about. And to your point, because Elon Musk doesn't strike me as a really confident person, the way that he slid Stacey Abrams in there and attached two billion dollars to her name, you know, which is woman, you're getting money, you're not building spaceships, you know, because the money that Elon Musk gets from the government, you know, in his mind and people that support him, that money is okay. Give him all the things, give him all the money. But this black woman down in Georgia, it must be fraud. So what is going to happen,

people who speak up about social security, they are branding them. This is basically the new welfare queen message, right? So anyone that speaks up about, hey, I didn't get my benefits or my mom or my grandmother, oh, they must automatically be committing fraud. Nothing has to be proven. We've seen with this administration, they don't need to provide proof of anything, nor do they need to provide a plan for anything, right? So to me, this is testing messaging. And they're trying to see if it sticks and they're trying to see if it lands. Yep, that's exactly what it is. So I just need people to understand what's going on, what

they're doing here. It's no different than the announcement that the Department of Health and Human Services, they're laying out 10,000 people. Oh, these researchers, these doctors, the employers, they're not important. I'm warning everybody right now, watch what happens when you see an increase in salmonella cases. You're going to see an increase in drinking water cases because they are getting rid of all regulation. They're getting rid of inspectors. They're getting rid of people who are there to keep us safe when it comes to prescription drugs, when it comes to testing, when it comes to studies. They don't want any of this Reesey. And when they

talk about waste, fraud, and abuse all in Social Security, and don't y'all also notice, isn't it amazing? HUD, HHS, USAID, Social Security, Department of Education, they're silent about the one department that gets the most money

everywhere and in any other agency in America that gets almost a trillion dollars that has the highest documented amount of waste in America, and that's the Department of Defense. Real silent about them, Recy. Well, maybe that's in the Houthi signal group chat. Maybe they having that conversation there as opposed to having it publicly. But the crazy part, Roland, was they actually increased in this past continuing resolution the budget for the Department of Defense. And so they are cutting federal workers, but certainly that money is going to go to contractors

like Elon Musk, who has got his paws in every single doggone bucket. But the reality is we have to look at all of these policies that they're putting out, the way that they're dismantling our health care infrastructure, our educational institutions, because those are largely funded by research grants, the way that they are attacking Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, you know, it's referred to, well, yeah, food stamps, snap food stamps. All of these things put together, oh, and by the way, climate change, combating all that stuff, all that stuff put together, it paints a very clear picture. This is about pruning the population. It is about getting rid of the people. They think that we're the waste, fraud, and abuse. We're the waste.

They want to get rid of the human waste, the people that they think are sucking on the teeth of the billionaires, even though the billionaires are using our resources to buy them yachts and trips outer space. We're the waste. And once people start to realize that they don't see the humanity of people who have different abilities, they don't see the humanity in Black people, they don't see the humanity in people outside of the United States, then they will understand that the waste is us, okay? And they're never going to be satisfied until they diminish the wasteful population. So this is a matter of survival that people have to understand. It is truly about life or death.

It is truly about generationally, are we going to be better off because of these policies, if we're even around, to have that conversation. And so just so you know, this is a story I pulled up, Nola. Take the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. That was supposed to cost $200 billion. The lifetime cost of that program has soared to $1.7 trillion and has more than 800 unresolved design flaws. And it shows you just that you're going to love this graphic right here.

The Pentagon has a budget of more than $800 billion a year. In its most recent audit failure, the Pentagon could not account for over half of its assets. But Doge ain't going near the Pentagon budget. They'd rather focus on Social Security checks of old folk in America. Well, this is part of the problem, where you move fast, you break it, and you keep building, right? This kind of Musk way that we've adopted in terms of innovating. You know, he criticizes NASA for saying that, you know, they move too slow, they move too slow, they move too

slow. We have to go faster, build harder, and if we break it, we build it all over again. You could see them applying that same sort of strategy to the way that they're approaching the federal government. They don't care if they break it. They don't care if they break it. You know, they don't care if they break it. And so when you think about DOD and when you think about how so much money is spent and so much money just completely evaporates because they're trying to innovate, they're trying to innovate, they're trying to innovate.

But, you know, at the same time, they're trying to innovate, they're trying to compete, but they're going fast. They're going fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, and they're breaking things all over the place. And that creates this kind of waste, right? This creates this waste. And like you said, you know, once upon a time, there was a division of kind of like national security and foreign policy labor where Department of State, diplomacy first, you know, got more of that chunk of money to go out into the world and to lead with diplomacy. But then there was a shift. There was a policy shift. And DOD has, over time, definitely been the agency where the money kind of goes and disappears.

So, you know, I don't have much to say beyond that, other than I just don't think this model of go fast and if we break it, do it all over again. I do not see how that is a sustainable model. Indeed, indeed. All right, then. Folks, I really appreciate you both of you all joining us on the show. Thank you so very much. Of course, Greg, thank him for joining us earlier as well. Appreciate it, folks. That is it for us. Hey, tomorrow

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