#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Immigration Judges Fired, Dangers of Dismantling DOE, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Fla. Special Election

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

2.19.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Immigration Judges Fired, Dangers of Dismantling DOE, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Fla. Special Election An 11-year-old Texas girl gets bullied so severely about her family's immigration that she takes her own life.  Trump's DOJ fired multiple immigration judges, further disorganizing an already backlogged system. One of those fired judges is here.  We'll also talk to a law professor about the repercussions our children will face if the Department of Education gets dismantled.  House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will join us in the second hour to discuss the massive layoffs and how the Republican budget betrays the middle class.  In our Crocket Chronicles, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett explains why midterm elections are vital and tells the View audience that if they don't understand how dire our situation is, they will soon find out once Trump's policies fall at their doorstep.  #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the L.A. fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires.

Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to asenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our L.A. community rebuild. It takes all of us. Today is Wednesday, February 19th, 2025. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. An 11-year-old Texas girl gets bullied so bad about her family's immigration status. Literally, her classmates were threatening to call ICE

as she took her own life. Trump's Department of Justice fired multiple immigration judges, but I thought that their focus was on immigration, causing more disorganization in an already backlogged system. We'll talk to one of those fired judges. We'll also talk to a law professor about the repercussions of our children that we'll face if the Department of Education gets dismantled or severely hampered. We'll be joined by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to talk about how Democrats are fighting back against this Donald Trump-Elon Musk

attack on America. Plus, in our Crockett Chronicles, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett explains why midterm elections are vital and tells the view audience that if they don't understand how dire our situation is, they will soon find out

once Trump's policies fall at their doorstep. That and more. It is time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Mark Unfiltered on the Blackstone Network. Let's go. Wherever it is he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine And when it breaks he's right on time And it's Rollin' Best belief he's knowin' Puttin' it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's Rollin' It's Uncle Roll-Roll-Y'all

It's Rollin' Martin Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Now Martin Martel! How many times have we told you that the crazy plans of Donald Trump and Elon Musk are all about causing discord, causing drama, as well as nothing but destruction,

and they don't care who they impact? Well, guess what? One of the biggest issues is that how they are firing people left and right, impacting families as well. And so what you see is them firing a massive number of federal workers, making no effort to actually study what they do and what they accomplish. This weekend, 20 immigration judges were fired with no explanation. Folks, already there's a backlog of more than 3.7 million cases in our immigration courts, and it already takes years for people to have their cases heard. So instead of adding judges,

these idiots just went ahead and fired them. Joining us now, one of those immigration judges, Carrie Doyle. She joins us now. Glad to have you on the show, Carrie. It is. So, first of all, explain what happened here. Did what? Did you get an email? Did you get a phone call? Was it one of those two line sentences that said, OK, you're gone.

That's it. Don't come in. Hi, Roland. Happy to be with you. I received an email late Friday afternoon, about 3.50. I was observing court as part of my training. The judge was finishing up their decision, and I had my laptop open and following the case and got an email with an attachment, and I saw the title of the attachment was terminated. So it actually was two paragraphs, but there was really no explanation other than them saying, the acting director saying it was no longer in the interest of the agency that I continue with my employment. Okay. That's actually confusing considering that they're talking about people should come in the country

the right way, you're an immigration judge. For people who don't understand what you do, explain what an immigration judge does. Sure. And you're absolutely right, and we'll get to that. But an immigration judge hears cases for any immigrant that's applying for relief. And what that often means is filing for asylum, which is for people who would be protected, who would be persecuted or severely harmed if they were sent to their

home country. People also file for green cards, permanent residence status in front of an immigration judge. And we also have the authority to terminate a case if immigration has put someone in front of an immigration judge improperly. a judge will make the defining either to grant that person's application so they can stay in the country or order them removed. All right. And for those who don't understand, this has been the longstanding practice. This is the policy in terms of how people legally file to come into the United States? Well, absolutely. Once you're here, if you have a claim to stay, often that's adjudicated by an immigration judge, particularly if you've been stopped by immigration at some point. They will usually write up some paperwork and have you see an immigration judge.

And to your point, there's currently 3.7 million cases pending before the national immigration courts. With this administration focusing on the arrest and removal of everybody that they can find, those numbers will only increase. Additionally, the communities that were paroled in, including large Haitian community, Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans, they're ending their parole. They'll end up in immigration removal proceedings in front of an immigration judge also to have their asylum cases heard, as well as anyone who has temporary protective status that's being terminated as well.

So these numbers will just grow. And as you point out, the hypocrisy of then firing some of the newest immigration judges really makes no sense. And I have really no rational or logical explanation for what happened. How many immigration judges are there in the United States? There are about 700 immigration judges nationwide. Each judge hears between 500 and 700 cases a year. So the 13 immigration judges of the new group,

the new class that was coming in, of which I was a member, would have heard between 8,000 and 9,000 cases this year alone. If our training program, which got canceled early on and late in January, if that had gone forward, we would have had our formal ceremony of being sworn in. We get sworn in on day one and start the training, but we would have had the formal pomp and circumstance on Friday the 14th. We would have started hearing cases late this week, most likely. But instead, we all got termination notices on that Friday instead. And walk us through in terms of what the application is, because this is not like the political appointees where a president gets to pick their federal judges. They are confirmed by the United States Senate that obviously, whether they want to say it's not, it's actually

a very political process. So how does one become an immigration judge? Do you apply? Are you recommended by a member of Congress? How does that happen? Right. Absolutely. That's a great question. It's a civil service hiring. So with everyone in the federal government, it's a neutral application process. You're hired as an employee of the Department of Justice and the immigration courts. It's completely neutral. You have panels of interviewers that interview you. They're not allowed to ask, nor did they ask any questions about your political affiliations going through. You need to have at least seven years of experience as an attorney. Some folks come in with extensive immigration experience. I've had

30 years of experience in immigration, both representing individuals in the nonprofit and private setting, as well as working for the federal government for the Department of Homeland Security. So I have really unique perspective coming in, but we also had some veterans that were in our group and some folks from different backgrounds. So again, it's a neutral application process and we're hired the same as any other federal employee through a neutral system. And in fact, they are not allowed to ask about your political affiliations or questions in that regard. So they're not allowed to ask for that. What were you doing before you wanted to become an immigration judge? So I was the principal prosecutor for Immigration Customs Enforcement.

I was the general counsel, also called the principal legal advisor. So I oversaw 1,500 prosecutors and attorneys out in the field who prosecute the immigration cases. And we also have attorneys in headquarters. And then I also served as a deputy general counsel in the Department of Homeland Security. So I worked on a number of the regulations and the border bill, for example. There was a bipartisan border bill that was proposed and accepted about a year ago that this incoming president then blew up that agreement. And the proposal, the bill never became law. That would have put a lot of resources into the border, into immigration courts

and fixed some of the serious problems that exist in our broken immigration system. So again, this is speculation or what you've heard. I mean, do you believe that what the desire here is, is to appoint hardcore MAGA judges? Honestly, I don't know what the goal is here. I think your guess is as good as mine. I would like to know. There's been very little information shared.

As I explained, I mean like to know. There's been very little information shared. As I explained, our group, the cohort of judges that were coming in, were quite mixed. A number of them were immigration prosecutors, which in the past, when administrations have wanted to focus on being tough on immigrants or being a little more strict. Those would be the hires that they would focus on. And so there's been a desire to have a broader group of people coming in. But nonetheless, a good number are immigration prosecutors who the office I used to head, but they have extensive immigration experience, which is quite helpful. And then we had people that had come from other backgrounds, and I had both in my background,

so both being a prosecutor and being a defense attorney, if you will. It's just baffling. And I think that the problem here is that in your case and so many others, they're just firing folks and they have no idea what they're doing. I mean, they literally fired 300 workers who are responsible for overseeing our nuclear system. And then it was like, oh crap, we kinda like need to call them back.

It's happened in other agencies. That tells you right there, there's no rhyme or reason. It's literally, oh, you know what? They got to go. I mean, there's no thought going to any of this. No, it makes, right. It just, baffling is the perfect word. It makes absolutely no sense. Again, with an administration that has a focus on immigration removal, you need the immigration judges to issue the removal orders. Those are the orders that are then carried out when the person is to issue the removal orders. Those are the orders that are then carried out when the person is removed from the country. And the system is already overloaded

with the 3.7 million cases. This group of 13 judges would have heard between 8,000 and 9,000 cases this year, which will not be heard and have to be spread around the existing immigration judges. It just really makes absolutely no sense. And I just can't imagine what the thought process is if they continue. I just hope I'm only the last and not the first of the group that will be fired, because if they start firing more judges and the probationary judges, the court I was in will collapse. There will only be one, maybe two judges left there. And it was stood up to take the backlog off the Boston Immigration Court, which was

one of the largest backlogs in the country. And they're just struggling and they need the help. And meanwhile, the Department of Justice is asking for more money to hire more judges. So I'm sorry. Trump's DOJ is asking for more money to fire more judges and they just fired some judges. Yes. In their budget, they're asking for more money for judges. Yes. Absolutely baffling. You obviously had left your previous job. So right now you're out without you're out of a job. I am unemployed and I have a child in college with a very big bill. So I need to fill out my unemployment paperwork. I haven't had time and then figure out what comes next for me. It's certainly a very unsettling place to be.

Some of my colleagues that were in the same class had moved to other cities. One of the veterans had the moving van outside with boxes being loaded when he got that email. A number of them are in states where they don't have their bar licenses because as immigration lawyer or immigration judge, you just need to be licensed because you're doing federal law. So the options for them to even get new employment are pretty limited. People really change their lives for these kind of jobs. They want to serve the public. They want to serve the nation.

To work and have a mission and to feel like you're giving back is an amazing opportunity. I love working in the government, and I would have really cherished this opportunity. And, you know, again, a number of veterans, people coming from different backgrounds. And this is just heartbreaking, honestly, and baffling, as you said. And I keep making that point that by them doing this indiscriminately, it's impacting individuals. It may lead to people actually being evicted, losing homes. They've got children in college. They've got uncertainty there. It's going to cause individuals to

potentially have to apply for SNAP benefits or other government benefits because of this sudden termination. And then they're trying to cut that as well. And so there are real world consequences to this willy-nilly, just whack

people, who cares who they are, and then let's go out and just scream, hey, we're saving you billions of dollars a day when they actually aren't. Absolutely not. Imagine how much money it costs to hire us. I interviewed in October 2023. You have a resume review, two interviews with panels of people, of judges, other judges. You do a background check, you do a drug test, you get biometrics taken. It's a process and it costs a lot of money to hire people. And now we've been fired and even if they replace us, it's going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to bring more people on board. And there's real

world consequences, both for the employees that have been fired, but also for the people that are appearing in immigration court. As we discussed earlier, they're going to have to wait even longer to have their cases heard. And some of them need to have decisions in their case because they may have family overseas that they need to get to safety here. And they're just having to wait longer and longer because of this

confusion and misguided decisions that are being made. Unbelievable. Unfortunately, sorry to hear that you've had to endure this and so many others. And hopefully people in this country will realize the destructive path that we're seeing take place as a result of these just ridiculous decisions by people who are grossly unqualified to even do these jobs. I hope so. Very much. I appreciate your time.

Thank you very much, folks. The story of the Texas is stunning and shocking. 11-year-old Texas schoolgirl Jocelyn Rojo Carranza took her own life after enduring relentless bullying from classmates in her sixth grade who threatened to call ICE on her family. Latino Times reports that some kids told her that once her family was deported, she'd be left here all alone. And to be clear, there's no evidence that her family is here illegally. Jocelyn's tragic death comes as the Trump

administration doubles down on deportations, targeting immigrant communities at an alarming rate. Now we're seeing even more aggressive moves. This is just unbelievable. Guys, put the video of Congressman Mike Lawler, Congressman Mike Lawler out of New York. That was a meeting taking place, and this is exactly what I'm talking about, where he literally challenged the immigration status of an elected official. I want you to listen to this video.

Somebody that looks like me, right, is approached by ICE. What would your immediate expectation would be for me to do? What should I carry on me to demonstrate that this immigrant is the vice chairman of this board? Well, like every other person that is engaged by law enforcement, if you are asked for information, cooperate. I wouldn't expect you as a, I don't know, I assume you're a citizen. Maybe you're not. Maybe you're, but... Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing non-profit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new

emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to asenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. Well, you're telling me about ICE approaching. That's the point that I'm making. I'm sorry. That is the point that I'm making. With your birth certificate, you know. I don't that I'm making. Get around with your birth certificate. I don't.

I don't, and I am a citizen. Otherwise, I wouldn't be duly elected to serve in this board. That's what I'm saying. At least represent the wishes of the local government that you represent. And that's the point that I'm making. I didn't realize that you didn't know that in order to be elected, you have to be a citizen. But in order to vote, you have to be a citizen. Okay, I just want everybody to understand.

The man who was talking, go to my iPad. He was Jose Alvarado, the vice chair of the Westchester County Board of Legislators. A constituent of Mike Lawler. And so why is this important? Because here's Mike Lawler, a white man, telling a Latino man, hey, if ICE comes up, you should comply. The only reason ICE would approach this man, Jose Alvarado, is because of the color of his skin. Because, and this is what people are talking about, that you're going to be unleashing law enforcement across this country, just willy-nilly walking up to people. Hey, show me your papers. As Alvarado said, I don't walk around carrying my birth certificate.

Do you? Lawler goes, no, because Lawler's a white man. This is what we're talking about here. It's exactly what happened in South Africa when black South Africans had to carry a passbook and they would have to show their papers on demand. That's what led to the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Party, the black Polaroid workers, Ken Williams, Carolyn Williams,

when they realized that Polaroid was making the actual documents. And it was that group, the Polaroid revolutionary workers, they're the ones who actually started the divestment campaign against South Africa. What we are seeing is we're seeing racist racism being unleashed against people. And let me be real clear to all your black folks who are watching, who are saying, well, guess what? They should leave. It applies to you as well, because if they think that you look like you're from Bermuda or from Haiti or from Jamaica or from any African nation, they have the right to stop you and say, show me your papers. So I need everybody to understand this is not only applying to Latinos because Latinos

are not the only people. The people coming in this country who have been undocumented, they're not just Venezuelan, Colombian, Mexican from Latin American countries. No. Y'all realize the country that actually sends a significant number of undocumented people to the country? India. So now we're talking about Indians. Black people. What we're talking about is nonsensical. We're witnessing in this country.

George Cheney, founder of Joy Strategies out of DC, Dr. Zachary Kirk, educator and content creator of Atlanta, political sys, social media, political activist from Nightdale, North Carolina. Political sys, I'm going to start with you. People just don't understand. This is significant what they're doing. We cannot ignore this reality. This is a racialized attack.

After y'all make this round of comments, I'm going to bring a guest in who's the author of a book, The South's Long War on Black Literacy. This is, and I have been saying this, I have been yelling this since 2009 for 16 years, that what we, I said then we are in the, I said we are in the beginning stages of white minority resistance. What this is, is white nationalism and white supremacy. It is attack on black people, on people of color. Yeah, go ahead and get your papers. Have your passports out. Have your birth certificates out because that's where we're at. I don't understand why black people doesn't realize that this does apply to them.

We saw how they treat how they treated the Haitian people. So be ready. I'm black. I better have my papers out because I could be walking to work next thing I know they're coming up on me and I was born and raised here in North Carolina I'm a citizen I don't believe you they take and snatch me up it applies to all dark

skinned people including Indians yes yeah I mean this is about if you're non-white yo you're good and Zachary there you go, you're good. And Zachary, if you are a white Latino, and they look at you like, hey, you don't look like one of them, you're good.

That's essentially the black people who passed for white during Jim Crow. It's exactly the same thing. And it's just such a heartbreaking, like when you brought up the story of the little girl in Texas and it just broke my heart. Like that whole story has just really captivated me because that is the result of the hatred that is being perpetuated by the entire MAGA movement. And it illustrates that that hatred is continuing down through generations. They have unleashed or they are perpetrating a type of infestation in this country that's going to take generations to root out that we're not even beginning

to address. It's heartbreaking. Joy, I've been... This is six years we've had this show. It'll be seven years in September. We have been warning people that this is the case. All of that talk on Fox News and conservative radio

and conservative digital spaces, great replacement theory. We saw in 2021, it was a tax on Black Lives Matter. 2022, it was CRT. 2023, it was woke. 2024, it's DEI. What this is, this is absolute white anger at the changing demographics of the country and what they are doing is shameful and despicable. And frankly, there were so many people, supposedly progressives, supposedly Democrats, supposedly independents, who voted for this. Oh, I'm sorry. They didn't vote for this stuff.

They voted for the policies. Well, these are the policies. That's right. And this time, there can be no mistake what he meant. Last time, unlike us, many people found themselves confused, thought they were going to get something else. But this time he was very much on the nose, very plain spoken in terms of what he was advocating for. And Project 2025 made it even plainer. So none of those people have any excuse. And we're not going to tolerate this. That was racism. That was xenophobia. That was misogyny that has been that drove their vote. And how

we are here, this is white flash. And we know what it is. And so, you know, we have to begin naming it. Because for some of our white friends, they have a fantasy of themselves that is not, you know, they don't think of themselves as Bull Connor. They don't think of themselves as the person who would be screaming at Ruby Ridges. They see themselves in a better light. And what we have to remind them is, no, you are that person in history. You will be that person for your own children. And just as a moment of personal privilege, my stepson is Afro-Latino. And the first time Trump was elected, he was scared for himself and his family. Now, he's a citizen and his father is

an American, and he was born here. But children don't always understand, right? And so I grieve for that child, who didn't—who, in this case, understood the threat being made to her because she was being bullied by the students around her, but that Donald Trump is so indiscriminate with his words that he doesn't understand that they're—that, you know, even if someone's here illegally, they're not bad people. And most Americans, to the extent they were concerned about immigration, were concerned about criminals, not law-abiding people, but for the fact that they're here illegally

and their family members. That is so grievous. I pray for her family. That is so grievous. I pray for her family. This is a perfect example. Texas State Representative Armando Wale, a Democrat from Houston. This was 2023, where he went off on fellow Republicans

over bills of things such as this here. Watch this. You're my friend man i can't go hang out with my i can't drive my brother my cousin okay i i can't take them anywhere bro i can't go to i can't go to a boiler i can't go to i can't go to a baptism because my community is being attacked okay y'all don't understand it hurts our community it hurts us personally bro it hurts us just let us debate it it hurts us personally, bro. It hurts us. Just let us debate it.

It hurts us to our... You're my friend, man. They actually don't care, and this is what we're seeing. And every Democrat in the country should be talking about that little girl. And this is what happens. You unleash this kind of stuff. These children listen to their parents, listen to what's on television, and they repeat that crap in schools.

This girl is dead because they threatened to call ICE on her family, and that is diabolical. And that should not be happening in this country, but it is. It's happening every single place in America. We're going to a break. We'll come back. We're going to talk about the consistent attack on black folks and black books, black authors. Y'all, this is absolute. I called it in my book, White Fear, how the brownie of America is making white folks lose

their minds. I keep telling people what's going on. We're going to talk to a book off the next who breaks down how this is not new when it comes to white supremacists from the South. You're watching Roller Mark Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. This week on the other side

of change. Abolition focus. Should we aim for reform or abolishing the entire system? Kamone Felix lets us know how much possibility lies in abolition. That is such a radical image because it offers the suggestion, a suggestion that we already know to be true, which is that we have what it takes to take care of each other and to take care of ourselves. Watch us on the Black Star Network. So tune in to the other side of change. On a next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, think about for a moment some of those icky behaviors that you display every now and then.

Are you a petty Betty or a crabby Kathy? Where did those less than attractive traits come from? We all have them. And more importantly, how do we get rid of them to make certain that they don't infect other people? Pettiness is something that we all carry. It's just make sure that you carry it well and you don't use it to intentionally hurt.

On the next A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie on Black Star Network. What's up, y'all? Look, Fanbase is more than a platform. It's a movement to empower creators, offering a unique opportunity for everyday people to invest in Black-owned tech, infrastructure, and help shape the future of social media. Investing in technology is essential for creating long-term wealth and influence in the digital age. The Black community must not only consume tech, we must own it. Discover how equity crowdfunding

can serve as a powerful tool for funding Black businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to raise capital directly through their community, through the jobs act. Carl Payne pretended to be Roland Martin. Holla! You ain't got to wear black and gold every damn place, okay?

Ooh, I'm an alpha, yay. All right, you're 58 years old. It's over. And you are now watching... Roland Martin, unfiltered, Uncut, unplugged, and undamn believable. Folks, we've talked a lot about what we have seen from the attacks on the right, especially when it comes to education. The book bans all across this nation. If you go back to 2022, remember I was just talking about how Black Lives Matter was being attacked in 2021. Then all of a sudden in 2022, it was all about CRT. That led to Moms for Liberty taking over school boards, especially in the South. What then happened, they came in and started firing

black superintendents, progressive superintendents. They began to dismantle all sorts of programs. They began to target books, black book authors. Then all of a sudden you saw laws passed in Florida, South Carolina, all across the South. Well, first of all, this ain't new. This has been going on in the United States for forever. My next guest has a book called Dangerous Learning, The South's Long War on Black Literacy. Derek Black joins us right now. He's a professor of law at the University of South Carolina. Glad to have you on the show, Derek. I mean, the thing about what you lay out here in this book, this is American history. This is black history. And the problem is the folk who are doing it, they don't want students to read your book.

They don't want people to know what has been happening in this country for decades, for centuries. Talk about that. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's an interesting part of this history, which is there's this assumption by a lot of folks that black literacy, black reading and writing was always criminalized during slavery. And what I talk about in this story is actually there were black schools in Charleston, South Carolina. There were black schools in Savannah, Georgia in the late 1700s and early 1800s. And it wasn't really until black people demonstrated the power of literacy. They started using that literacy to fight back that it became dangerous. And at that point, that's when you see the South

begin to close in. I start with a man, Denmark Vesey. A lot of people may not have heard of him, but he was born into slavery, actually got his freedom with a lottery ticket, if you can believe that. He'd been hiring himself out, sharing some of the proceeds. He buys a lottery ticket, gets his freedom, and spends the next 20 years developing his literacy. And in the early 1800s, he's reading congressional debates about slavery. He's reading about the Haitian Revolution and that folks there are free. He's reading the Bible and interpreting it for himself instead of what he was hearing at the church. And he starts preaching a message of freedom. And that certainly resonates, right?

He writes a letter to the president of Haiti. Will you receive us? You know, he starts making all these arguments. And, you know, there were estimates that thousands of black people were ready to follow his lead. And it really is only when that story slips out at the last moment that, at least in South Carolina, whites go, wait a minute, this sort of reading and writing thing is pretty dangerous, and we need to start cracking down on it. You know, there's some other figures, happy to jump into them, but I want to follow your lead. But you have this sort of,

you know, decade or so in which Black people are demonstrating how powerful reading and writing is, and that's what causes the repression prior to the Civil War. Well, first of all, James D. Anderson makes that perfectly clear in his book, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860 to 1935, because there were so many slaves. He talks about one woman who says she was responsible for more slaves being killed than a white plantation owner because she was teaching them how to read. And the reality is those white plantation owners understood that that was power

in that book. Frederick Douglass said, once you learn to read, you will be forever free. And so, and what those people of African descent, those enslaved people of African descent realized is like, wait a minute, if they are trying to kill us, if we're caught reading, it must be something powerful about that book that they want to keep it from us. I mean, that's actually the sort of interesting thing that happens, which is once it becomes criminalized, it becomes this forbidden fruit. And you're exactly right. Like communities keep this knowledge and keep it secret. And they run secret schools for three decades and it comes, it becomes the forbidden fruit. But, you know, as some, you know, some black people said,

it was like the black man who could read and write, you know, had magic in his hands. He had magic in his heart and he could wield it. And that was an incredibly powerful tool that people tried to share with each other in secret and keep alive. And of course, you mentioned Frederick Douglass. He's writing people's freedom papers. He's forging his own papers to get to the North. Susie King in Savannah, it's kind of interesting. She was part of these secret schools for three decades there.

And she said, actually, black folks got to move around, at least the ones that were close to her, with some level of relative freedom in Savannah because they thought no one who was black could read and write. And she's writing passes for them. So all you had to do was go to Susie King, get her to write you a pass, and folks would go on about their business in the evenings. And of course, all, I mean, the interesting part is this is all happening right under the nose of the white community. And they don't have a clue about it because they thought, you know, they passed the laws

and that was that. I've talked about this because of what, like I say, I've probably sold more copies of James D. Anderson's book than he has because I've talked about it so much across the country over the last 20 years. And the reality is America should be thanking the ancestors, the people of African descent,

the formerly enslaved people of African descent, because that's why we have taxpayer-funded education. And what we're now seeing is, because that didn't exist until Reconstruction, it didn't exist until those black people were elected to the state legislature in South Carolina and other states, and they put it in the state constitution.

And then when Jim Crow came, they got rid of a lot of stuff. They kept that. That is publicly financed education is a gift from formerly enslaved people of African descent. I mean, look, it sounds like you're the professor here.

I mean, I'm impressed with all this because, I mean, you're hitting it nail on the head here, which is that, you know, you look at W.E.B. Du Bois in his book, Black Reconstruction. He says public education is a black idea in the South. And that's exactly true. You look at Southern whites. Illiteracy amongst Southern whites

was four times that of the North prior to the end of the Civil War. And that's because there was no public education system to speak of in the South. Yeah. I mean, Anderson says, correct, that 92% of Black students in Memphis were enrolled in school. And it was about 40% of whites in Washington, D.C. That's right. You know, there was there was some fascinating periods where you had black children because it had been repressed so long that people were desperate to go to school to get something that couldn't be taken away from them. And that's the other key. This is a these freedom schools started before the end of the Civil War. And, you know, black

people didn't know how this thing was going to turn out. They didn't know what Abraham Lincoln was going to do or not going to do but they knew if they got their education they had something that couldn't be taken away and so yeah the numbers are astronomical and the things that i really sort of detail hey drew scott here letting you know why i recently joined the board of an amazing non-profit a sense of home for 10 years this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care it's an an incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even

donate funds. You can go to asenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. All here in this book is those early schools here in the South Carolina Sea Islands where people are literally relocating, right, to different places to be close to the best school. They are rowing across the bay, you know, in the early morning to get to the school, right? I mean, the outpouring of passion to get to school is really something we've never seen in American history like that moment. And that passion breeds leaders. Those leaders, as you say, become, you know,

they become constitutional delegates to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868. They become, you know, United States representatives, and they become the people who make the laws that makes public education a reality, not just for black children, but for all children in the South. So it really is this magical moment that's partly about black literacy, but it's also the story of public education. And, you know, it's also, as we look now, all this conversation about, you know, the Federal Department of Education and, you know, it's also, as we look now, all this conversation about, you know, the Federal Department of Education and, you know, its labor union handout, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, guess what? The first United States Department of Education was created in 1867 during Reconstruction because as Congress saw these schools being created in the South, they wanted to make sure that they continued. And they wanted that public education program to expand across the country. So the Department of Education actually dates back to black freedom and public education for white, low-income white children in America. It's not some sort of fanciful idea that was dreamt up in 1979 by Jimmy Carter and the

teacher unions. You end the book in the 1800s, but the reality is this book could have continued from the Great Compromise of 1877 through Jim Crow, because what you lay out here, we saw continue in the South, but also across the country, but really in the South during Jim Crow. We saw it continue through the Brown versus Board of Education I and II. And you can actually take this thing

through the 70s, 80s, 90s, because we never actually stopped fighting the Civil War. Because even what you see right now, literally there's an attack. I mean, you say the South's long war on black literacy. There is an attack as we speak right now, the South when it comes to books, black book authors, subjects that deal with the issue of race. Laws being passed that, oh, if somebody white is uncomfortable with a topic in the classroom, then if they complain, the teaching has to completely cease. These are laws that were passed in Florida. So

this long war didn't stop in the 1800s. It's present today. Yeah, I mean, I dig deep on the 1800s because I think that's a period that most people are not as familiar with. But, you know, in the last chapter, I sort of very quickly skim over, like, how did that period become today, right? Well, so one of the things that happens during Jim Crow is that although there's this beautiful moment in history during Reconstruction for black people and for poor whites in education, those sort of old sentiments about history, about equality, they come up, right? They come right back during Jim Crow. And so they start perpetrating this lost cause narrative that it wasn't, the Civil War wasn't really about slavery and that, you know, black people aren't fit for citizenship.

So they start putting that narrative in there, right? And they segregate schools. They change the way they're funded. You know, we take some big steps forward with Brown v. Board of Education. But, you know, school desegregation only lasts for a decade in most places, and we begin going backwards in the mid-'80s. And school desegregation and equality, at least in terms of race, really flatlined about four decades ago. But what happened—and I talk about this in the book—is that after George Floyd's murder and the murders of others, you know, we had a new push for equality in America. We had, at least in our schools, we had a new push to be more inclusive. We had a new push

to think about, you know, maybe we should think more seriously about our history. And that's when we have another backlash. And so what this book really is, is a story of, you know, two steps forward. Hopefully it's only one step back. But, you know, the arguments that we hear today, they echo up the past. You mentioned making, you know, white folks uncomfortable with history. You know, I point out that when we hear legislators saying, you know, we shouldn't teach this history because it makes white people uncomfortable, it reminds me of John C. Calhoun, the senator from South Carolina, arguing that the discussion of slavery should be banned in the halls of Congress because it injures white honor.

It injures Southern honor. And therefore, they impose a gag order on the United States Congress. And so this uncomfortability with self-critique of America or the South's uncomfortability with the less rosier parts of its history is, as you say, it's not new. It's been there. And we're still struggling as a country to come to terms with a difficult past. I believe, because you brought the death of George Floyd May 25, 2020. When that happened and I saw the reaction, I said this is a third reconstruction.

And I said then, but this third reconstruction has to last a minimum of 20 years, unlike the first two reconstructions. And the reason I thought, and I also, we can pull the tapes of what I said then. What was so dangerous about that was because the Black Lives Matter movement was the first black movement for social justice in American history where a majority of Americans approved of it. to white America because you had young white folks who were understanding, who were seeking out other sources, who were learning about the real history, not his story. And I kept warning people, the backlash is coming, it's coming, and as that thing was developing, then when I began to see the attacks on BLM,

then the attacks on critical race theory, where Christopher Ruffo publicly stated they wanted to lump anything dealing with race under CRT. And then from CRT went to woke and woke went to DEI. And there's no there's. So there's a reason why education is a part of this, because what you just said about Calhoun is what these folks want today. They don't want any conversation about race, about history, about slavery. They sure as hell don't want people to know what was actually happening, what you describe in your book, what Anderson describes in his book, what W.B. Du Bois describes in his book, what Eric Foner describes in his book on Reconstruction, because that's telling a real version of American history.

And frankly, there are people today who want white Americans, but also black Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, they want them wholly ignorant of American history so they can walk around and believe the fallacy, the fraud that we've been taught in our school system. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of echoes here, but, you know, I'd add, Roland, there actually is something different, and it scares me. And what it is is that for all the racism

that's been part of our public education story, right, for all the segregation and inequality, there has always been a commitment to stick with the public education project, right? So during or at the end of Reconstruction, there were some who said, let's do it with public education altogether. It's benefiting too many black kids. And a lot of white legislators said, yeah, we can segregate these schools. We can make them unequal. But let's keep this public education project, right? After Brown v. Board of Education, Virginia passes a statute that says,

let's have private school vouchers and you can just close your public schools. And the Supreme Court strikes that down. But there's actually a lot of other communities, and Jim Ryan writes about this in a book about Richmond. They said, look, if our choice is between no public education and integrated public education, we will very reluctantly take integrated or desegregated education. But what has changed in this moment, if you sort of step back in it, is this is the first time in American history that the public education system itself is being condemned. The public education system itself is trying to be taken down. And, you know, I've written about this in my other book,

Schoolhouse Burning, right? If public education has never been perfect, it's never fully served students of color and probably never will in my lifetime. But it has consistently tried to make steps forward. We have made important steps forward. But if we give up on that institution, if we remove that as a pillar of American democracy, which is what many conservatives are trying to do. I don't know how we move together as a people. I don't know how it is that we can all go to separate schools, learn separate histories, learn separate sort of religious tenets, believe some people are inferior and others are inferior or superior, and move forward as a multiracial, multireligious democracy.

To me, they're taking it even one step further. This is a war on everyone's public education at this point. But Derek, to be honest, I don't think that I got no problem saying it, I don't believe these people even want poor white people educated.

I think what is happening here is you have these billionaires who are desperately trying to change public education, public financing. You look at Tennessee. Look at the voucher scam in Tennessee. Look at the voucher scam they're trying to pass in Texas. the various zip codes that when it came to poor areas, only one in 100 of one out of every 100 students was taking advantage of the vouchers. In rich zip codes, 28 out of 100. I believe what you're seeing is, I mean, and I had Representative James Tallarico on the show talking about Texas.

I mean, you don't have enough available private seats in private schools. Even Greg Abbott finally has conceded that, oh, with this voucher scam, that it could lead to cuts in public funding for public schools. They don't want that. That's not their desire.

I mean, it was one of Ronald Reagan's aides who said, let's start college tuition because we literally don't want everybody getting educated. I believe these people want an illiterate class of Americans in the future. Their actions are actually saying it. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things I wrote a lot about this in public in Schoolhouse Burning is particularly sort of anti-government sentiment. Like if you're anti-government at the federal level, then you're against Social Security and you're against Medicaid. If you're anti-government at the state and local level, you're anti-public education because that's the largest institution. That's where most of the taxes go. And so a lot of the

billionaire and wealthy class actually just want to remove poor people from the public budget. Like, why are they spending money on someone else's education? And so that's driving a lot of it. Of course, there's religious elements that are raging against secular education, and there's racial elements as well. They don't want to go to integrated schools. But I think you're exactly right. There is a substantial portion that says, look, let's have a laissez-faire approach. Everyone take care of themselves. And this voucher scam, as you call it, is really about getting people off the public dollar. Because once you get them in a private system, you're not obligated to meet the full cost. You're not obligated to raise the cost of the value of the voucher each year.

And there's no reason to believe they would. That's number one. But number two, as you point out, high-quality private schools cost a lot more than the vouchers are worth. And they're not interested in educating low-income students. one of the sort of basic points I try to make is if what happens is that all the wealthy families end up going to private school and get some partial voucher, and we have public schools where the only people remaining there are low-income children, the public education project, as we know it, is over at that point. I mean, back in the 1800s, we had what we called pauper schools, which were just sort of for the poor and neglected children.

And it never worked well, right? To the extent our public schools have been a success, it is because they are community schools. It is because they serve everyone. And what we are moving towards with the privatization of education are two entirely systems, one public that doesn't do a very good job that no one cares about. And then some tax benefits, some tax write-offs for those who go to private school. And I think that's a democratic disaster. Questions from my panel. Zach, were you first? So this is brilliant. I really appreciate this. I can't wait to get the book as someone who's done 17 years in public education. I'm loving it. I'm loving it.

Here's a question that I have. We're looking at massive cuts coming from the federal government and the Trump administration to the Department of Education. What do you think will be the impact on black and brown children in this country as a result of those cuts at the federal level? Yeah, I mean, one thing I worry about, so one thing they're talking about is block granting the money, right? Which is to say the states can take it and spend it however they want. So the way that federal dollar comes out right now is that you can only spend it on low-income students. And so it has to go to those schools. So Texas can take that money and give it to suburban schools if they want. I don't know what they're going to do. So that's problem number one is the students who actually need the money, right, the students who this is set up for and who have extra needs, right?

They may not be getting that money. And that's a big problem. And that's what I worry about most. But there is an irony here, which is all these red states are saying do department, you know, do away with Title I, et cetera, et cetera. Look, if Massachusetts wants to, it can walk away from the federal dollar. Like, it can support its system. If New York wants to walk away, it can do it. But guess what? How the blue states can do it. How the blue states can do it. Red states can't walk away. That's right. I have one brief follow up. I have one brief follow up. And it's this as someone with the vast historical knowledge and context. Right. Like I'm looking through history to see times when black people have faced similar situations and been able to overcome those situations.

Can you think of a time frame that you're familiar with or a situation or an example of when public education was under an attack like this and the future of educating black and brown children, specifically those who may live in rural poverty, was at such great risk, but black people in the community found a way to overcome it. Yeah. I mean, look, you know, Roland talked a lot about or mentioned Jim Crow, but I mean, there's a lot of perseverance there. There was this moment in Mississippi in particular when they were debating what we're going to do with the schools, poll taxes, et cetera, et cetera. Black leaders said, look, as long as those school doors stay open, we got a shot at citizenship. You want literacy tests to vote? Fine, we'll overcome. Now, of

course, there's other things that came into play, but what you see is a period of the most educated, most well-to-do Black folks leading schools, lifting children up. And look, they were fighting against the odds, but there was a lot of success during that period. And so we need to hold that up. I mean, certainly it's a dark period in terms of public policy, but in terms of overcoming the odds, I mean, there's tremendous stories there, or to back up even more, the secret schools during slavery, right? I mean, reading and writing was criminalized, but yet people found a way to keep running schools without the authorities knowing it, to keep that hope alive. I mean, it's unfortunate that we're talking about fighting against the odds in that way keep running schools without the authorities knowing it, to keep that hope alive.

I mean, it's unfortunate that we're talking about fighting against the odds in that way here in 2025, but at least the Black community has found a way to do that over time. And you might have noticed that when the CRT stuff first started happening in Florida, there were religious communities that said, look, we're going to have freedom school on Saturday and Sunday. You know, the church is going to do it. So whatever you're taking out of the public school, we're putting it back in on Saturday and Sunday. Joy. So there are so many things I could talk about here, but I know we're short on time. Let me just challenge you on one thing. One of the reasons why we are seeing the attacks be more effective on public education is because, frankly, we have a generation of parents who are poorly educated by the public education system. And so they're looking at it and they're saying, what's my child getting from it? White parents, black parents, Latino parents, Asian-American parents, et cetera.

What do we do about that? Because I do think you're right, this time feels different. And I think that one of the things that feels different is that people have their own experience. And we don't want to be Democrats who are being tone deaf and saying, let's let's bring back a public education system that people think has failed them. So a couple things. I mean, let's let's stipulate right now. Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an

incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to ascenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. There's been no period in history in which our public schools fully met the needs of poor children or black children. That's a given. But I mean, I guess I would push back on this sense of disappointment. You look at election night this past November.

And in Kentucky, where Donald Trump collected 63%, 64% of the vote, there was a school choice bill on the statewide referendum to change the Constitution to allow this privatization. And guess what? In that Republican state, 65, 66 percent of Kentucky folks voted against it, right? So more people voted against the privatization of education in Kentucky than voted for Donald Trump. Same story in Oklahoma on that same night. I'm sorry, Nebraska on that same night. We've been talking about Texas on here. Look, Greg Abbott held four special sessions and refused to allow the legislature to go home because it wouldn't pass a voucher bill. That's where rural Republicans stood on this issue. So what did he do? What did the billionaires do? They primaried every rural,

these are rural white Republicans, to kick them out of the Republican Party in the state of Texas. So what we really have is a small group of political, well-moneyed folks that are spinning this narrative, raising money off of it, passing bills. But I don't think this is what regular folks want, regardless of political party. No, they don't. But that's also what happens when people don't vote, when they actually sit elections out. When 90 million people don't vote in the federal election, then that's what you actually see. Political sis, real quick. Go ahead. Thank you so much for coming on. That's one thing I want you to try to explain to the audience is that not having

public education, when they take money away from public education and put it to the voucher programs or voucher school programs or schools, can you explain to the audience how it affects people, especially poor people in rural areas in reference to transportation and reference to being able to discriminate against your children's disability or religion. Can you explain that? And one more question, I hope you don't mind me asking. Can you also explain the importance of us having federal loans, grants, especially when it comes to black women, because we rely on those programs so much? Thank you. Well, you threw a let at me. I'm going to try to get some of teachers. The heating

bill is the same. So you lose 20, 30, 40, 50 kids, and you lose $200,000, $300,000, $400,000, your bills are still the same. So the public school has to make a choice. Is it going to cut services or raise taxes? So that's where we're at on that. On the private side, and I'm glad you raised it because we haven't talked about it, we're talking about taking public dollars and sending them to private institutions where there are no protections. As one of my colleagues at the Southern Poverty Law Center said about four years ago, the further our children get away from the public school, the less we can protect them. There is no protection for sexual assault. There is no protection for sexual discrimination. There is no protection for racial discrimination. There is no protection for disability discrimination. There is no

protection for religious discrimination. And I'm not saying all private schools are doing that. But what I am saying is, even if you were OK with this sort of voucher scam, as Roland called it, there ought to be some protections. This is public money, and we ought not be giving our money, our public tax dollars to institutions that discriminate. And when you raise this in the statehouse, you know, they scream and holler, no, we can't do that, you know, private choice, and, you know, let the parents decide. I mean, I'm not okay with parents deciding to discriminate against other children.

To me, that's just sort of a non-negotiable. But that's what we're doing with a lot of these private dollars. Indeed, indeed. For the folks who are watching, the book is called Dangerous Learning, The South's Long War on Black Literacy. Derek Black is the author. Derek, glad to have you on the show. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Folks, we come back. More to talk about the craze that is happening in this country. We're also going to be joined by the Democratic House leader, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. What is his plan to combat BACA? I'll ask him directly right here on Rolling Mountain Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

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I voted for the black woman. Go to RolandMartin.Creator-Spring.com or go to the BlackstarNetwork.com. I'll be right back. This week on the other side of change. Abolition focus. Should we aim for reform or abolishing the entire system? Kamone Felix lets us know how much possibility lies in abolition. That is such a radical image because it offers the suggestion, a suggestion that we already know to be true,

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Wealth building, specifically in the black community, is about making sure that we have assets that can last beyond our lifetime. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. This is Tamela Mayne. And this is David Mann. And you're watching Roland Martin. On Twitter. Folks, what we're seeing right now in America is an assault on what makes America, America.

You've literally got a twice-impeached, criminally convicted felon-in-chief, Donald the conman Trump, who literally says that he is a king, who says that, frankly, he doesn't have to abide by constitutional law, that only he can determine what the law is. You see his administration

literally tell a federal judge they're not going to comply with an order from that federal judge. These folks are you see what you see at the actions they're taking. You see what Elon Musk is doing, how they are invading every federal department, how these people we don't know who they are. There are no protections. They want they wanted to get into the personal taxes of every single American. They are firing people left and right. No rhyme or reason for any of their actions. People are demanding change. People are saying, what do we do to stop this? I have traveled around this country and I consistently hear people saying, what's going to happen? Where's black leadership? Where's Democratic leadership?

Can this be stopped? What do we do? Because what we are seeing is a constitutional crisis and assault on this country. Well, joining us right now is the House Democratic leader, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Congressman, glad to have you here. It's a lot I want to get to. But first and foremost, this is what I hear. I hear this constant people.

People keep asking me. I was in San Francisco for the NBA All-Star game last week. They said, what the hell are Democrats doing? Are they fighting back? What is the plan? Great to be with you. Thanks for all that you do and bringing the information straight to the people in a clear and compelling manner. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post.

MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post.

MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. MICHAEL GERSON, The Washington Post. as part of a deliberate attempt to try to disorient and discourage and depress people

throughout America. And it's incumbent upon all of us to make it clear, look, we know it's an all-hands-on-deck effort. We're pushing back in the Congress. We're pushing back in the courts. We're pushing back in communities all across America. And we're gonna have to do it day after day, week after week, month after month, until we get the country through this moment. But the notion that this is all inevitable and that Donald Trump is simply gonna steamroll the country is belied by the facts.

There have been more than 75 different lawsuits filed in federal courts all across the nation related to at least 25 different unlawful and unconstitutional executive orders or administrative actions taken by Donald Trump. And we're winning in court. Donald Trump is losing. That's going to have to hold. We're going to have to continue to follow the process all the way through to the end. But we're winning in court. We're not losing. He's losing. In terms of the community and making sure that we can bring the information directly to everyday Americans on the ground, in town hall meetings, at rallies, in the living room, on social media, and in every possible way.

It's going to be critically important for us to continue to press forward in that regard. Abraham Lincoln once made the observation that public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. We are engaged in an effort to make sure that public sentiment pushes back aggressively against Donald Trump. When you say public sentiment, does that mean, I mean, is the goal to amplify these stories we hear? The federal worker whose wife was pregnant who couldn't get a medevac because of the cuts, the 71-year-old woman from Myanmar who died in a refugee camp in Thailand because she couldn't get

her oxygen that was being paid for by USAID for a hospital there. We just did the story of the 11-year-old girl in Texas who took her own life because she was being bullied by classmates who said that they were going to call ICE on her family. They were going to be taken. She was going to be left here alone. We even played a video of one of your colleagues, Congressman Mike Lawler, from your home state, who literally talking to a Latino legislator in Westchester County where he was like, well, hey, if ICE comes up to you, you know, you need to comply.

And the guy was like, what are you talking about? I'm an American citizen. I mean, so what we have is we have a visceral attack on people of color, on black people, on Latino people. And you've got, frankly, some Democrats who are like, hey, we're spending too much time talking about diversity and things along those lines. The elevation of these stories is going to be critically important because at the end of the day, the far right extremism that is being unleashed on the American people has real life consequences for everyday Americans in our community and in communities all across the

nation. And we've got to elevate these stories, continue to tell these stories, and do so relentlessly, exceeding the intensity by which these unlawful executive actions are being unleashed on the American people. And that's what we will continue to do. We're thankful for the work, Roland, that you've been doing in that regard. And it's going to be necessary. Look, the central scheme that is taking place here is that Donald Trump and Republicans consistently promised to lower the high cost of living for everyday Americans. We recognize that housing costs are too high, grocery costs are too high, child care costs are too high, grocery costs are too high, child care costs are too high, utility costs are too high, and insurance costs are too high. America is too expensive for far too many people. That should not be the case in the wealthiest

country in the history of the world. Things need to change. Republicans promised to try to address the high cost of living, but they don't have a single bill, a single idea, a single initiative related to making America more affordable. Why? Because it was all a bait and switch. At the end of the day, what they really want to do is pass a budget that provides massive tax cuts for their billionaire donors and wealthy corporations. And then the third part of the scheme is to stick working-class Americans, communities of color, and everyday Americans, including children, people with disabilities, and seniors, with the bill, by doing things like decimating Medicaid?

Obviously, they want to. First of all, last night on Fox News, Donald Trump said there'll be no touching Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security. But then today he endorsed the House Republicans bill. Are Democrats going to, obviously, there's going to be a lot of pressure on their side when it comes to that bill. Are Democrats going to obviously there's going to be a lot of pressure on their side when it comes to that bill. Are Democrats are you going to tell your caucus we're not going to lift a finger? Y'all want

to pass that crap? You're on your own? Or do y'all plan to offer amendments and things along those lines? Some people are saying that the position of Democrats should be no. If y'all want to pass that you must do it with your votes. Don't look to anybody on our side for any votes to help you pass this massive tax cut for the rich.

What's your strategy? The budget committee that took place last week, which advanced their budget proposal, every single Democrat participated in that 12-hour committee hearing. And at the end of the day, when the vote was called, every single Democrat voted against the GOP tax scam. And it's my expectation that you'll see that same level of intense and principled and enlightened opposition as we move forward, because the impact on the American people would be so devastating. Cuts to Medicaid, cuts to nutritional assistance for children and families and veterans, cuts to housing assistance at a moment when we should be

trying to make affordable homeownership accessible to people as opposed to making it more difficult. Next week, it's our expectation that the Republican tax scam will be on the floor of the House of Representatives. We'll be able to debate it extensively and reveal for the American people what it's all about, why it will be so harmful, and why we, of course, are going to do everything that we can to stop it. Some Democrats said that they've been critical of a video that was circulated, that was edited, where you said, hey, we don't have any leverage, we don't have any power. For the people who don't understand politics, Republicans, look, they have a three-seat majority in the House. So the question for you,

what leverage, what influence, what power do you and Democrats have to stop Republicans from what they're doing? The Senate is a lot different, where one senator can actually hold up a lot. Is Chuck Schumer, your colleague there, is he trying to be as aggressive as possible in doing that on the Senate side? Because what I keep hearing from people is they want to see a fight. They want to see they want to see Democrats breathing fire, firing away and saying that we are going to do all we can to stop the MAGA riot from, frankly, destroying the country? Budget Committee Democrats fought incredibly hard last week, and I think you'll see that level of fight continue to take place when the bill reaches the floor in the House. And it's my expectation

that we'll see a similar level of aggressive and principled opposition in the Senate. Now, what's important to understand is that in the context of that leverage discussion, the question related to Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans trying to set the stage to blame House Democrats for their inability to fund the government, meaning the Republican inability to fund the government, which could Republican inability to fund the government, which could relate and result in a government shutdown. And the reality is, Roland, that Republicans have been lecturing the country for the last few months about how they allegedly won a big and decisive mandate. They control the House, the Senate and the presidency, they have the responsibility

to fund the government at the end of the day, particularly given the context of their complete control of the situation. And the notion that they will try to blame Democrats for their inability to govern is something that it was very important to shut down and make clear to Speaker Johnson that we are not going to let them get away with perpetrating that lie to the American people. At the same period of time, of course, we're going to fight as hard as we can to hold the Republicans accountable if they decide to support this bill that will be on the floor next week, all we need is three Republicans to join with the 215 Democrats that we have in the House right now. And we can stop any of this bad stuff from happening, from ever becoming law. But we cannot allow these Republicans to escape accountability at the end of the day. They've got children. They've got

pregnant women. They've got people with disabilities. They have seniors in nursing homes. They have rural hospitals, all of which will be devastated by the up to $880 billion in potential Medicaid cuts that are being proposed. And we will not allow them to duck and dodge and hide and not have the attention put on them where it should be at this moment in time. You created a rapid response team to respond and drive out information. A lot of, I saw some criticism. They felt that the three leaders of that were way too old. They usually have had younger members on the rapid response team.

So, first of all, on this rapid response team, how many people are actually on it? How many people are is is a part of this? And how are they trying to craft the chair of the Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group is one of the youngest Democrats and one of the youngest members in the House of Representatives. It's Assistant Democratic Leader Joe Neguse. And it was made clear in the announcement of the task force and the litigation working group that Joe Neguse would be chairing it. Chair means leading it. What's confusing about that? Now, there are three co-chairs, Rosa DeLauro, who's the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, Jerry Conley, who's the top Democrat

on the Oversight Committee, and Jamie Raskin, a brilliant lawyer, led the second impeachment, who's now the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. They are there because those three committees are the... Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to asenseofhome.org to find out more

information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. Areas of jurisdiction that most relate to the unconstitutional and unlawful executive orders that are coming out of the White House. While you're talking, of course, this is the actual press release. Henry, go to my iPad. This is the actual press release here. I know we're running out of time. I want to ask you this here in terms of, and I've had to deal with this for a lot of people. What do you say to black women, to young black folks and others? And I've heard this a lot, man, we're resting. We're tired. We're tired of being out here. We put it all on the line, trying to elect vice President Kamala Harris.

You know what? Let the rest of these people do all the work, pick up the slack. What do you say to them when you've got local elections in 2025, but also you need a highly motivated base to turn out in massive numbers for the 2026 midterm elections? It's an opportunity to take back control of the House of Representatives in 2026. We only need to flip three seats out of a total of 435. This is the narrowest majority that Republicans currently have of any Congress since before the Great Depression. We are very close to being able to flip the House and cut Donald Trump's presidency legislatively in half in 2026. At the same period of time, of course, we have to engage

in that day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month effort through these first 100 days and beyond to continue to push back against the extremism that we're seeing. And we're going to be here. We're going to be in the arena. We need everyone to join us when they're ready. But obviously, the more people that get engaged, the better. Last point that I'd make, Roland, one of the things that has been undercovered but that we've seen, and you and I have talked about this over the last few months, is that there have been several special elections that have already occurred subsequent to Donald Trump being sworn in on January 20th, including one in Iowa in a Senate district, state Senate district,

that Donald Trump had won in November by 21 points. The Democrat won by four in January in the middle of the winter because Democrats turned out and independent and swing voters said enough already with the extremism. And it was only a week. And we've seen a similar pattern unfold in special elections in Virginia, in Delaware, and most recently in the suburbs of New York with respect to the Westchester County executive race, where Donald Trump's endorsed candidate lost by 27 points in a jurisdiction that has had Democrats and Republicans within the last decade or so serve as county executives. And so people are engaged. People do understand the stakes. And obviously, the more people get involved, the faster we can turn this thing around and move the

country in the right direction. Well, in a moment, I'm going to be talking with Josh Will, who's actually running for winning the special election there in Florida. So it's going to be a tough race. It's a ruby red district. But again, if folks actually turn out, there could be upset there. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much, Roland.

I want to go to my panel real quick. Joe, I want to start with you. Your thoughts on what you just heard. I loved everything I heard, but I will tell you this, and we've heard it on this show, the American people are looking for visible leadership. I know everything Leader Jeffries is doing. I know everything the Democrats are doing, and I'm excited about it, but I live in D.C. and I work in politics.

For the average American, they are saying, I I'm excited about it, but I live in D.C. and I work in politics. For the average American, they are saying, I don't see it. What is, who is fighting? Who's fighting for me? Where's the person who comes on at 4 o'clock in the afternoon to, you know, give the debate, the counterpoint to what Donald Trump is doing, somewhat, you know, a la what Governor Cuomo used to do, where they want that kind of visible fight. And this is something Democrats, I think, have just never been great about, showing our work. You know, at the end of the math exam, you got to put a, you know, a box around it and say, you know, this is how I got here, but this is my answer. And you got to show that work. We've got to show our work. And, you know, I've said things to folks privately. I'll say it here. I'd love to see Schumer and Jeffries bring together folks every afternoon to talk about what they've done and to bring in other people.

And if it's not them, some of the former leaders who've been leaders of our nation. This is the time, especially if you think you're going to run for president in four years. To hell with that. We want to know what you're doing now. If you're not doing it now, it's going to be a hard sell later on because Donald Trump is putting wins on the books that are going to be hard to undo. And so I want Democrats to show their work. And so that would be my challenge. That's what I was thinking while he was talking. Zachary? Look, I've been waiting for this moment, Roland.

I've been waiting for this. It's going to be a lot coming out, so just brace yourselves. I hope I don't say any bad words. Love my new leader, Jeffries. Huge fan of his politics and his work. But we have got to move forward into 2025. There was a clip that has gone viral from the horrible lies that are continuously perpetuated by Fox News that talks about the strategy that conservative media has of continuously getting out that one mainstream message that we as progressives, liberals, Democrats, whatever we are, are failing to do in this moment. Our House Democrats, the minority party, the opposition, are continuously relying on things that worked in 1994 instead of things that are going to work in 2025. They are not leveraging as strongly as they can independent media platforms like Roland Martin Unfiltered,

like using talented Black and Brown content creators, like using amazing black podcasters to get the message out, or even, again, liberal-leaning people in general to do the work and the boots on the ground. And I appreciate the fact that Congress has rules about messaging and about how do we get the word out and how do we get it right. But it feels as though there's a lot of time being wasted trying to message instead of really getting out there and doing, because we don't have the luxury of time when Donald Trump is dropping 300 executive orders in one week. We've got to be fast. Rapid response sounds good, but you've got to have people who can rapidly respond. We respond. We need jackrabbits ready

to rock and roll and not tortoises. We need the hares and not the tortoises. I'm not calling anyone a tortoise. Love you too, Jamie Raskin. But I'm saying it seems as though we are not meeting the moment. And that is what people are saying on the street, the American people. And we've got to be there and meet them. Also, last thing I want to say is we need to find a way to leverage our legacy organizations. I'm a member of Aota Patea, Roland, I see that you have on your Alpha shirt. These organizations are out there in the background. They need to be mobilized. They need to be used.

Where are they in this fight? We need to find a way to ensure that they are being used in the messaging of the party so that we can be effective in combating the misinformation that's being perpetuated by the other side and make gains and wins as you approach 2026. Before I go political, sis, this is the clip you were talking about from Jesse Waters on Fox News. It's not really the same. Dana, we are waging a 21st century information warfare campaign against the left, and they are using tactics from the 1990s. They are holding tiny press conferences, tiny little rallies. They're screaming into the ether on MSNBC.

This is what you call top-down command and control. You get your talking points from a newspaper, and you put it on the broadcast network, and then it disappears. What you're seeing on the right is asymmetrical. It's like grassroots guerrilla warfare. Someone says something on social media, Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it, and by the time it reaches

everybody, millions of people have seen it. It's free money. And we're actually talking about expressing information. They are suppressing information. If you... Realities is here. What he laid out there, political sis, is what the GOP has been doing. First of all, Fox News is the leader of this. This is nothing new. Uh, but part of the issue here is that the progressives have not invested in, uh, these various platforms.

That's just a simple fact. Agree, agree, agree. I agree with both of my people on the panel right now. But I want to take it a little step further. We... Our... Um, I think it was, agree, agree. I agree with both of my people on the panel right now. But I want to take it a little step further. We are. I think it was Hockeye Jeffress when he told his people to look, go into your districts. That is so true. My congresswoman, Deborah Ross. Look, I don't know what the hell she's doing. I'm just going to be frank with you. Come in these districts. People are thirsty. They want to know what's going on. Use us. We have your back as content creators. Like Zach said, that is what we should be doing.

But we have to be moving fast. We cannot be moving slow. But I am a strong believer of starting in your district. All politics are local. We have to start on a local level. Everybody is not watching our podcast or on TikTok or X. We have to keep that in mind. But it's extremely important that we also start on a local level as well. And in my congresswoman, a woman along with others need to go into their districts. Do not be afraid. Go into those red damn districts and say something. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to do so. That's what we're paying them for. Well, one of the folks, you heard Congressman Hakeem Jeffries talk about being three seats away. And the reality is there are a couple of special elections coming up in Florida.

One of those is who's running as public educator and single dad, Josh Will. He won the Democratic primary for Florida's 6th congressional district. Now he's going to head to head with Trump-backed Republican Randy Fine in a race that could help flip the U.S. House. Republicans, of course, holding that race at the end majority. It is, as I said, a quite red district.

So how can Josh win? Well, he joins us right now from Orlando. Josh, glad to have you here. Listen, these two races are going to be very tough. And that is they're in red districts. You've got political gerrymandering happening in Florida. And so what are you saying to voters in that district that that could put you over the top and lead to an upset win? Well, the first thing would be that, you know, I'm here to serve them. There's a lot of uncertainty. This is a district that is 24.9%

of residents age 65 and above. When they hear about cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, VA, these are things that greatly concern them and impact them. They're not partisan issues to them. And now I'm out here telling them that I want to represent that. They need a voice in Congress. They need skin in the game. And they need someone who is there to make sure that what they have been promised, what they have paid into and worked towards, is available for them. And my opponent is out here telling them that he will not work for them. He's here to serve Donald Trump. So we have a clear contrast in the message right away that is resonating across party

lines. When it comes to this district, what does it look like? What's the demographics of this district? It's primarily white. When it comes to this district, what does it look like? What's the demographics of this district? Primarily white, as I said, about 25 percent age 65 up. This is a really spread out district. It's one of the largest in the state. Congressionally from land mass. When we're talking, it goes from Daytona Beach all the way up to St. Augustine and then clear to the west side of the state in Ocala. To give you just perspective, Michael Waltz has three local congressional offices, which tells you about the size and the amount of ground that's covered. We're dealing with a population that is 46 percent Republican, 27 percent independent, 27 percent Democrat.

And over the last three cycles, the independents have voted three to one for Republican candidates. This district went to Mike Waltz by 32 points in the November election. But it's, according to voter registration data, 19 points Republican. So there's a big difference there. And it comes down to messaging. It comes down to the ability to fundraise, to build a campaign. The previous Democratic nominee, Bishop James Stockton, is a great man. He would have been a phenomenal representative for the people here in Congress. But he was only able to raise $34,000 for his race over two years. And

you can't build a field team. You can't get your messaging out with $34,000, especially when your opponent has $3.4 million. When you're out-raised and out-spent 100 to 1, you're not going to win messaging battles or get out to voters. This is a Q&A that was done. Your opponent doesn't even live in the district. Come on, go to my iPad. He was right here.

It says, and then he was asked, he said, I don't have to move there in order to run again. I can live in Key West. And you're like, hey, if you want to represent people in the congressional district, you might want to live there. So both of us are actually out of district, which gives us an even playing field in terms of ballot representation.

So neither of us have ever appeared on a ballot for anyone in this district prior to this race. The primary turnout was 14 percent. So 86 percent of voters in the district still haven't seen either of us on a ballot. I come from Orlando, which is about 45 miles out of—about 45 minutes south of the district. He's from over in Melbourne, which is a little further down on the East Coast. Now, the difference is, is that I'm in this district. I've been in this district every day.

We're coming to you from our campaign headquarters in Palm Coast right now, which for us has been the logistical center. We've set up our campaign here. I've been living here for the last couple months. It allows me to be on the ground with the people engaging with voters and, you know, learning this district and being here for them in a way that Randy Fine hasn't made any intention to even during his campaign. Questions from the panel. Zachary, you first. Yes. My question is, I understand about needing the increased funding and really having more support probably from the DNC and the surrounding groups,

but is it really feasible that Democrats have a real chance in these deeply ruby red districts to flip them? Absolutely. And if so, what can we do to support that work as content creators and boots on the ground in other places besides your actual district? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Yeah. I mean, what this district needed was someone to energize it. Some of this and look, I love Nikki Freed, the current state chair of our Democratic

Party. She's been in this position for two years, and I think she's doing a phenomenal job of helping to turn the state party around. But the leaders in this state before her made a choice. They made a decision to not invest resources in areas they couldn't win. And the problem with that is the Republican Party may be a lot of things, but they're not stupid. And if we don't invest resources in areas they couldn't win. And the problem with that is the Republican Party may be a lot of things, but they're not stupid. And if we don't invest resources, they don't invest resources. There was no competitive advantage on larger races by neglecting these areas. Over the last three cycles, you know, we had our 2024 nominee in District 6 who raised $34,000. In 22, there was no Democratic nominee. In 2020, the candidate

raised about $24,000. There has been no money, no ground game, no effort to activate voters in this race. Now, the campaign that we've had, which has been since essentially Thanksgiving, we've raised $4 million to this point. We've activated, we've knocked on over 150,000 doors. We're going to hit the entire district by the time this is done. We have an incredible field team. We have volunteers from all over the country who are doing phone banking, text banking, postcard campaigns. They're reaching out to voters from where they are. We have volunteers in all six counties that are out every day reaching out to voters everywhere they are. We have volunteers in all six counties that are out every day reaching out to voters everywhere they are. I am all over this district speaking to voters every chance I

get. We are making sure that people know we are here and we are live. And they see the difference right away because they haven't seen that from a Democratic candidate. And honestly, they haven't seen that from any candidate, because the Republicans have been able to take this district for granted. They haven't had—they haven't had a need to put any work in either. So, people here on the ground know that this is different. They know that we have a real race. And in terms of the additional support we need is—we need people knocking on doors. We need—and we need more than just—we

need diverse groups of people. We need—honestly, we need older people. We need veterans. We need black people. We need college students and young people, because there's a lot of people who voted for Trump for a lot of different reasons, you know, because they were disillusioned and felt like their community or their part of this country was not being properly served or taken care of. And now they realize that the threat is it's going to be served and taken care of even less moving forward. But we need people who can engage with them and speak to them and understand them on their level. And I'm doing everything I can, but I can't pretend to have lived in your world or walked in your shoes. We need people who can go out there and share this message and enter those communities as

surrogates, as representatives for what we're trying to build and bring here, because I truly believe—I come from a public school background. We don't choose our kids. We serve every kid in the district, no matter who you are, where you're from, what you come to us with, what your needs are, where you are three years behind, two years ahead. We find a way to help you learn and grow and give you the education you deserve. We serve everyone.

And that's my philosophy when it comes to this race. If you're a Republican, if you're independent, you know what, if you're a college student, if you're a veteran, if you're a senior citizen, you have needs and you should be represented in Congress. You should have someone there fighting for you. And that's what I'm here for. This was the, before I go to Joy, this is the results of the 2024 election. So Michael Walsh in coming got 284,414 votes. James Stockton, the Democrat got 143,000. So this is a special election. And so obviously, typically, you're going to have a lower turnout. And so I would reckon that in order for you to win, I mean, you're talking about 200, 225,000 votes that are likely going to be needed to win this special election.

Is that sort of how you're approaching this and saying, hey, how many doors we knock on, how many people we reach, how can we touch, how many people we can actually touch to sort of hit that number? Roland, I'm a math teacher. I promise you, everything we do is built on math. The entire campaign, the amount of funding that we put into our field program, the amount of doors that we hit, how we split them among Republicans, Independents and Democrats are all mathematically based on conversion rates designed to ensure that the work we've put in converts to a number of votes on the back end. And thankfully, we've been funded well enough by the people we don't accept money from. I don't accept money from corporations or special interests. It's entirely grassroots funded.

And they've supported this campaign enough that we're able to run the type of campaign that—the only type of campaign that we can feel can be successful, by having real people out there knocking on doors and talking to the voters and residents of this district. The math shows that if we exceed our expected voter turnout for Democrats by 30 percent, we can win this race. It also shows that if we steal 25 percent of the Republicans and 50 percent of the NPAs, while maintaining 27 percent of voters who show up on Election Day are Democrats, we win by four points. So, we have two paths to to victory by either taking their voters,

which count twice as much because it's one less on their total and one more on ours, or by increasing our voters. And I assure you that we have the resources on both ends to aggressively pursue each of them individually. And I believe we'll... Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved.

Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to asenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. My question to you is—I'm sorry? Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. My question to you is 29 percent of your voters, as you stated, are dealing with the elderly population. Since we have this veteran shit going on with him and Elon firing veterans. They're all up in Social Security. What methods are you using to reach out to the elderly population? Because I know that you definitely need their votes. Yeah. I mean, we've been all over, You know, they tend to be the more active in their Democratic groups or their political

organizations, their volunteer organizations, as retired people with the additional time. We're seeing them when we go out during the day, when we engage with these groups. But I'll be honest, right before I came on this call, I was flying back from speaking at a local VFW, you know, and I went into a packed hall of veterans, and I spoke to them as the Democratic nominee and shared my message and commitment to them and what I believed that they deserved in their representation. And, you know, at the end, about half the room applauded and cheered for me as I left,

which is a pretty good number for a Democrat walking into a VFW hall. Yeah. Good luck to you. All right. So, look, there are a lot of Orlando people on tonight. I am one of them. Josh, I'm so glad that you are representing my city, at least part of it. So thank you for everything you do. And if you are someone from Orlando in his district or nearby, we need you to get out there. Don't be on my social media pages just talking about it. This is one area where we can actually make a difference. Josh, what are people telling you about what matters to them? Just like,

what are you really hearing? Because sometimes I think Democrats, I don't know what the hell they're talking about. What are people telling you what matters to them? Well, in this district, the number one concern is social security. You know, people are struggling. Economic issues are at the forefront. They voted because they're hurting in their wallets,

they're hurting in their bankets, they're hurting in their bank accounts, and they needed relief. Housing is unaffordable. We're in a housing insurance crisis across the state of Florida caused by the Republican nominee up in District 1 running for the other seat. Groceries are unaffordable, and people on Social Security, on retirement, are living on fixed incomes. You know, they've been desperately asking to have updated COLA schedules and be able to have cost of living increases on a more regular basis to keep up with inflation. And now what they're looking at is a potential 28 percent cut to the money that they're going to receive.

And these are not entitlements. This is something that they have paid into their entire lives, so it would be here for them at this point in their lives. It's a promise we made to them when we took their money out of every paycheck during their working career. And now it's threatened to be taken back. Social security is the number one concern. For me, obviously, education is paramount.

It's what brought me into this race. But FEMA has been a huge one. You know, we see across the country, you know, there isn't a lot of—it's not as highly concerning, right? If you live in North Dakota, you know, you probably don't know why FEMA needs to be funded so much. But if you live in Florida, you know exactly why we need a robustly funded and responsive FEMA, because they are down here setting up shelters and making sure that people have a safe place to ride out the storms and helping immediately with our repair and recovery efforts. Because it ain't like the insurance companies are coming. People in Florida are still waiting for the money from Milton to repair their homes. The only type of recovery efforts we've had down

here are from FEMA. Republican, Democrat, or independent, they're not happy when they hear that FEMA could go away. That's right. That's right. Thank you for your service. And I'm going to be sending everyone your way. Everyone your way. What is the, just real quick, what is the black makeup of this district? It's less than 20%. There's a couple centers. We have an HBCU in Daytona, Bethune-Cookman, with a fairly robust black community around it. There's a historic black community in Lake County in the Eustis area. And then over in Marion County around Ocala, there's a larger black community. But again, I mean, first of all, even though less than 20%, at the end of the day, what I keep arguing

is that if African American, if our turnout is at 70% of our numbers, that is a significant number of votes. And so, what are you doing to activate that particular audience?

Well, so recently this week we hired on a team of six amazing activists out of South Florida who are leaders of their Democratic Black Caucus down there who are coming up and are going to be working in those three communities that I just mentioned to help us have outreach into the churches, into the colleges, into the neighborhoods, reaching out to people. We have until March 3 to reactivate or re-register voters for them to be eligible to vote on April 1. They're going to be doing voter registration drives. They're going to be doing community outreach and messaging and helping to ensure that our message reaches the intended audience in those communities. When is the special election? April 1st. All right, then. Josh Wheel, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Good luck.

Thank you, sir. All right, folks. Now it's time for the Crockett Chronicles. Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett continues to blast Donald Trump and his co-president, Elon Musk. Today, she was on The View and shut down former Donald Trump aide, Alyssa Farah Griffin, who confronted her with Donald's approval ratings. For all of the criticisms that exist of Donald Trump, he right now has a 53% approval rating. It's higher than it's ever been. 70% believe that he's fulfilling his promises. And 45% believe Democrats should be more moderate. What do you take away? I think there's a lot to make of those numbers. What's

your takeaway from that? My takeaway is just like the election. We've got to do better at education. People don't understand, but you will understand when those hospitals in rural America start closing down even more. You will understand when you don't have your social security. You will understand when your Medicaid, your Medicare goes away. You will understand when you don't have your social security. You will understand when your Medicaid, your Medicare goes away. You will understand as planes continue to fall out of the sky. Soon you will understand why it's important to maybe have somebody that isn't loud and ridiculous and maybe Sleepy Joe is what we wanted because we could at least sleep at night. Yeah. On Tuesday, she was on MSNBC and explained I WANTED TO BE ABLE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I

WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL

AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL

AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND I WANTED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL just are looking forward to the midterms. We only need three more seats. I'm sure everybody's tired of getting emails, text messages, phone calls, trying to raise money. But the reality is that we have an opportunity right now. I know that a lot of people look at these seats that are available, which there's going to be a total of three, and they say these are deep red seats. But here's the thing. We saw that in the state of Iowa, they swung a seat 27 points so that a Democrat could win. I say we have nothing to lose. We need to go out. We need to talk to those people that finally understand that the only mission that Donald Trump has is making sure that he can line his pockets, line Elon's pockets and any other billionaire all at our expense. It's not just going to be the people

you dislike that are going to miss out on their Medicare, Medicaid, or their Social Security. Or down in the state of Florida, where two of these seats are, they are talking about getting rid of FEMA. It is time to wake up. And it doesn't mean that you're a Democrat if you vote democratically. So this is where I want to get to. Who's the audience to swing some of these states? Is it progressives who understand that their priorities are being crushed? Or is it people who voted Republican to whom you say, you didn't vote for this, did you? You didn't vote for Elon Musk and a guy named Big Balls to have your documentation. How does that message get out there in a way that that entire audience hears it? I think that you're right. Definitely the entire audience. I just don't know how many progressives exist in Matt Gaetz's former district, right? But I do think that there are farmers in that district, farmers that are concerned because

they rely upon monies as it relates to USAID and other monies that are now being dismantled. And it means that you may lose your family farm. It may be bought up by a corporate organization. And so I think just having very real conversations, we've seen people who have talked about, well, we don't want you firing the people at the VA, or maybe it's somebody that has to fly all the time. And they're concerned because we have a record number of planes literally falling out of the sky because he decided he was going to appoint some guy from Fox to be over transportation. But at the end of the day, there were those that never believed that we could end up with two senators in the state of Georgia. And we did. There were those that

never believed we could have a Democrat representing Alabama. And in that special election, we did. So I think if there's any point in time that the people should rise up and figure out where should I focus my attention? It's on these special elections and it's having real conversations on the doors with real people talking about what's really happening and not the lies that they're putting out there. Zachary, I take you like what you heard there. I love it every time. I'm so thankful to have the Crockett Chronicles. She is speaking absolute truth and she's spitting pure fire.

And that is exactly what we need to see from more of our Democratic leaders. But beyond that, we need to see them messaging in a way that is fresh, that is exactly what we need to see from more of our Democratic leaders. But beyond that, we need to see them messaging in a way that is fresh, that is innovative, and that's reaching the people. And that's what Jasmine is doing continuously. That's the level of education that the candidate that we had talked about earlier about we need more education. That is the education that we need to have out there. And those are the kind of people we need continuously on the rapid response. Jasmine can't do it all. She can't do it by herself and she can't reach every single American voter who needs that messaging. But there are people in Congress who are being underutilized that we just see being put in the forefront.

Joy. Let me tell you, I have been saying it every time I talk about her on this show, rinse and repeat. We need that kind of fire from so many Democrats. It doesn't have to be every one of them. People do it differently. But when people see Jasmine Crockett, they know she is fighting for them. And she does so brilliantly, right? She understands the rules. She understands the subject matter, the policy. But she does it in a way that communicates in a normal way to normal humans, in a way that shows passion. That's what we're missing.

That's what we're looking for. And everyone can appeal to that. And so to me, I just want more of that. I mean, frankly, I don't think the Democratic Party made the right choice in how it's currently set up. It used to be they had sort of two leaders, right, one that was political and would be out there talking, a forward-facing person, and the one that was just sort of dealing with the party politics in the background. I think we may need to, you know, bring back that kind of bifurcated leadership.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, look, Joanne, they do have that. What do you— No, they don't have that. They do not have the Democratic Party. The DNC itself is not the same two-headed monster it used to be. So what do you mean? Okay, explain to me. What do you mean?

Hold on. When I was there, it was like two chairs, right? You had someone who was sort of the outward-facing public person and then someone who did the work behind the scenes. So to me... No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, who was that? So at the time, it was...

Oh, my God, I can't remember. It was like a boring guy that was inside, and then there was a governor who was the external person. I believe it was the governor who was the external white guy. My point is, one person was a communicator, and one person was behind the scenes. Okay, here's what I don't

understand. Here's what I'm confused. You just had the election, and they elected a chair. They got multiple vice chairs. So... Those vice chairs are not the people that are going to be the public-facing voice of the Democratic Party.

Why not? Okay, so let me hold up. She is an elected official. She is someone who knows how to communicate. She is someone who brings her own press. She is someone who understands how to communicate to the American people. We need that. It's not a knock on everyone.

Everyone has a different skill. Okay, so hold up, hold on. So this is what I'm looking at right here. Kim Martin is the chair. Raina Walters Morgan is the vice chair for. No, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Raina is vice chair for civic engagement and voter participation. Malcolm Kenyatta, vice chair, hell of a communicator. Artie Blanco, vice chair. David Hogg, vice chair. Hell of a communicator. Jason Ray, secretary. Virginia McGregory, treasurer. Chris Kortz, national finance chair.

Jane Cleve, ASDC president. You got Chuck Schumer. You got Hakeem Jeffries. So it's not like you don't have communicators there. And so I don't, it's not, and again, that's, that's, that's. Like Jasmine Crockett, like AOC. No, no, no, but she's not. No, no, but, but, no, but but no no but joy but joy joy they're

members of congress they're not dnc yeah we need uh listen nobody the american people don't know who those people are i'm sorry on this one wait wait wait wait no i'm confused i'm confused okay okay no i know malcolm kenyatta does a ton of media. He's an elected official in Pennsylvania. So I'm trying to understand. No, I understand. Hold on.

You just said, no, no, no. I'm repeating your words. You said the DNC needs to have a public-facing person and somebody who ran the party. That's the DNC needs to have a public-facing person and somebody who ran the party. That's the DNC. She's elected. So,

the reality is, the reality is, the reality is, the party, you need folks who do what they do, but you can have people who are communicators who are elected. You can have both. I always had vice chairs. I'm not asking us to not have vice chairs.

What I'm saying is have someone out there who can communicate to the American people, who can get on Morning Joe, who can get on Fox News, who can get on wherever they are needed to go and to be able to communicate with people. We need that. So is it that Ken Martin? Okay, Ken Martin, okay. We'll see. No, I'm asking you,

isn't that his job as the chair? Yes, that is his job as the chair, but he is not going to be able to get the press to be able to be the, it may not be his skill. Sometimes we need to stop looking for everything and everyone. No, no. Okay. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'll get no, but, but you,

you, you specifically said the party, the DNC, Crockett is not a DNC leader. She's a member of Congress. We would do better if she were a DNC leader. She's a member of Congress. We would do better if she were a DNC leader. We need people like that. Okay, hold on. Hold on. Why does she need to be... This is what I understand. Why does she need to be a DNC

leader when she's a member of Congress? You don't need... A member of Congress... Hold on. A member of Congress, that is an actual job. No, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. She has to serve the 700,000 constituents of her district. I'm one of them, okay?

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Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. You have her here and other people over here on the DNC. Why do you need a member in both? Look, when Tim Kaine was a chair, I thought that was idiotic. When Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the chair. I thought that was wrong. I don't think you can be a member of Congress and be

the party leader at the same time because that's two separate jobs. But P.S., I didn't say that they would be only one of them. I said two. I've been saying two. I'm saying someone that runs the party on the inside and then the person who's out there speaking.

That's the way it used to be. Go back and look it up. So I'm just saying to me, we ought to revert. We ought to have some kind of system where we can draw on people to have different skill sets. The reason the reason I don't understand that. It doesn't have to be Jasmine Crockett. No, but she's the kind of she's the kind of person and the kind of voice that when people are looking to the Democratic Party and they're saying, I want someone who reminds me of myself, who can speak for me, who can fight for me, they're looking for someone like that.

So kudos to her. I love your Jasmine Chronicles. More of it. And we need more. We could have an AOC Chronicles. We could have a couple of different people who are out there speaking to the American people in a way that they can receive it in a way that is distinct and that we understand. And those are not always the people who are leading us and who are sort of the party party movers and shakers. OK, Zachary, go ahead. Take takeaway from this is exactly what everyone is saying,

but I think it's like the nomenclature, kind of like who it should be. But the bottom line is we have got to have more diverse voices across the party being platformed. I personally don't believe that legacy media outlets are going to be of any help. They have chosen to not be. They have made a choice at MSNBC and CNN, places that used to be committed to truth and opposing democracy, to go in a different direction. There is nothing that I think Democrats like Malcolm Kenyatta can do to garner more good press, even if his popularity rose to the level of Jasmine's, because they're going to platform, but it doesn't mean that the Democratic Party can't put those kind of voices out there. We have our jazz, we have our AOCs, but we need to have more people in leadership positions get out in there to make those rounds on independent press and all throughout the whole entire stratosphere to get the message out. And I think that's kind of what I'm hearing is that we need more people. One person isn't enough. We need more Jasmines out there being spread around.

And really, to be honest with you, using platforms like this to get the message out. Like, Golden Partner has millions of followers tuned in right now. They need to be here. Here's my thing, political sis. Titles are irrelevant to me. They're irrelevant. At the end of the day, I don't care if you are a labor leader, if you are a member of Congress, if you're a DNC vice chair, or I don't care if you were to pack or whatever. If you have a coherent message that resonate with people, it doesn't matter.

The point I'm making is I think you you need Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett doing exactly what she does. When she has her five minutes in a hearing, when she is being called to do national shows, that's great. But here's the other thing that we just got to understand. We understand television. You're going to book who brings ratings. And the reality is it doesn't matter where they're coming from. If Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett wasn't in Congress and she was bringing the heat and she's on the DNC, she's going to get booked,

and a member of Congress is not going to get booked. Hell, there are members of Congress who are bored as hell who I'm not going to book because they're not bringing it. So it doesn't even matter to me. I might just been straight up to me. What we're dealing with here is you have to have multiple voices, but you need people who are doing the work. And what I'm saying is the work of the party, whether it's DNC or the GOP, it goes beyond a television appearance. It's actual work. How are you organizing? How are you mobilizing?

How are you building up? How are you winning special elections? How are you fundraising? So the jobs to me are totally different. So names are irrelevant to a lot of people. I know names are relevant to us because we know all these people. But when it comes to boots on the ground, they don't care. They just want to be they just want to know that everything is going to be OK. We need look, I'm if Jasmine Crockett, if you're listening,

not just them. If she's listening, I just truly wish that she was my congresswoman. We need more congresspeople like her. The DNC, I assume that their thing is to get the boots on the ground, to get people motivated out there, round people up. That's what I'm assuming that their goal is. But again, people are not going to recognize the two. They're not. They just want to be able to hear the message. They want to know what's going on, and they want to know that somebody's there to represent them and that everything is going to be okay. Yeah.

And here's the deal. You know, I love these people who literally don't know what the hell they're talking about. So, for instance, I do. Somebody was like, oh, Roland, you don't actually get it. Really? I don't get it. I don't get it.

So let me explain to some of y'all, such as D.C., Blacksmith and the other, because, you know, I will call your ass out. Here's what y'all don't understand. OK, here's what y'all don't understand at all. It's not a question of, OK, we don't need to get people out. Perfect example, I just showed you whole DNC leadership. I'll say it right now, I don't know who the hell

is the communications director for the DNC. I don't know who runs press for the DNC. Carol, tell me, have any of them emailed you or called you? The answer is no. The answer is no. The DNC has not picked the phone up or emailed to say,

hey, can we come on the show? Now, I can tell you, I have texted Ken Martin back and forth. We're supposed to talk. But what I'm saying is, if you are the DNC apparatus and your job is to drive out messaging, you might want to be calling and emailing folks who actually have media platforms to reach your audience. So if you have so if your apparatus isn't even reaching out to people, it doesn't matter who you have communicated.

Now, to me, this makes sense to me, like, I don't know Raina Walters Morgan. I don't have her number. But what I'm saying is, if she's the vice chair for civic engagement and voter participation, I would think they would be trying to get her out communicating on what her plan is to engage civically and to talk about voter participation. Then I would think that if you have an infrastructure, you will be trying to get Malcolm State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta on my show. But again, what are your communications people doing? I'm just telling you straight up. I ain't got a problem.

I was talking to Congressman Hakeem Jefferson the other day, and I said point blank, we hadn't heard from his communications people. After we talked, they damn sure called Carroll. Now, I ain't need them to call Carroll because I talked to him. So the issue here, again, for me, this is what some of the simple Simons in the YouTube chat don't know, is it doesn't matter if you have a slate of people who can communicate. If your infrastructure is not identifying platforms to place them, then none of that matters. And so maybe so what the DNC should be doing, because again, this is real simple.

Since the election, no text, no email from anybody, anybody in the Democratic National Committee. Wait till the last minute. That right there, that's an indictment on infrastructure. So if you... Because they're so internally focused and they're not externally focused.

And what I'm saying is I think we could do better. And I like the structure when we had a general chair, like when we had Ed Rendell, and then a national chair, Joe Andrew, who was the guy inside, the boring guy inside. Here's the whole deal. Here's the deal.

You can have Ed Rendell. I remember Joe. You can have Joe Andrew, and you can have Ed Rendell, but if your staff ain't booking, if your staff ain't making calls, if your staff ain't pitching, that doesn't matter. So that's my point. I'm not concerned about who is the forward facing and who's the person who's

speaking. If your infrastructure ain't doing that, they ain't getting booked. And maybe the problem is if you're only thinking about MSNBC and CNN and the Sunday shows that's the problem. That's getting less views than Roland Martin. That's the point that I'm making. They're getting less views than Roland Martin. So the point that I'm

making is whoever you have communicating, it's irrelevant if they ain't communicating with your core audience. And the reality is what the D.N.C. is not doing—you have a group called chorus, a group of progressive influencers that have joined together and who are sharing—and that's how I met Zachary and I met some others. Guess what?

These same folk ain't hitting them. The reason Democrats are getting their asses kicked is because nobody is sitting down with a damn chart, a damn Excel spreadsheet that lays out, huh, okay, show, show, show, show. They should, I should be getting, Carol should be getting emails every day. Got somebody for you? Got somebody for you? Got any room for us?

Who you got? We got a state rep. We got a state senator. We got a black mayor. We got a mayor. We got a governor. We got county person. We got a governor. We got county person. We got this here. It's called flood the zone. They ain't doing that.

And I'm going to go ahead and say it. I ain't got a problem. That don't happen with the CBC. I'm going to go ahead and say it. That don't happen with the African-American Mayors Association. That don't happen with the National League of Cities. That don't happen with the U.S. Conference of Mayors Association. That don't happen with the National League of Cities. That don't happen with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. So all I'm saying is this is one of the fundamental problems.

What the right does, the right seeds and feeds their communicators. They do that. They are sitting here sending folks and placing them and getting the message out. No. What progressives are doing is sitting on their ass hoping they get on Nicole Wallace's show and hoping to get on Chris Hayes show and hope Lawrence calls

them and hope they get a call from a CNN show and occasional Fox show. That's what they're doing. Like it's 1994 instead Fox show. That's what they're doing. And so... Like it's 1994 instead of 2025. That's what they're living in, an old antiquated model

of how the messaging gets out to the people. And they're completely ignoring the power they have in the people, like, rolling these influencers out there to go. And we talked about all the things the Democrats aren't doing. What Republicans are doing, they're going on Joe Rogan. They're using their platforms. They're using that theology.

And they're getting their message out and it's being multiplied by all of the influencers that count on that and they put it out there. The Trump White House is stealing the DNC's brilliant strategy of DNC content creators to make Trump content creators. And they're going to take

this great idea and they're going to multiply it and they're going to trample us with it because we built the infrastructure. They're going to take our infrastructure, perfect it, while Democrats have let that whole infrastructure fall to the wayside. Let all these great people who are mobilized, ready to fight, go.

This is real basic. I've had folk who have shows on this network and I literally said, how you got a show and you ain't even tweeting? This is real basic. I've had folk who have shows on this network, and I literally said, how you got a show and you ain't even tweeting? You ain't even posting on Instagram. You ain't posting on Twitter. You ain't posting on Fanbase.

You ain't posting on Facebook or Snapchat or TikTok. I literally said, how do you think you're going to get viewers, folks watching and listening, if you never tell them, oh, you expect me to do all the work? That ain't how this goes. The reality is, if you are trying to build something, if you're trying to construct something, you have to have a communications action plan to actually do that. And so what I'm saying is it doesn't matter who you have communicating. It's a question of one, when they do call you, are you accessible? Or is it, oh, no, yeah, we're not, yeah, the member

is not available for two weeks. We've actually gotten that from some black members. And I'm like, I ain't got a problem letting the audience know. I have said to the last five CBC chairs, hell, maybe six,

hell, maybe seven. Going back to Washington Watch 2009 and TV One. Going back to 2013 News 1 Now and TV One. I said with News 1 Now, I will have a CBC member on

the show every day. Six years ago, we launched Roller Martin Unfiltered. I said, don't matter. I'll book one every single day. Has it happened? No. You know why? Because there are a lot of folk who, frankly, they will jump.

They will hop, skip and jump. If MSNBC says we'll put you on at 6 a.m. But they actually won't make the time for black on media. So that's the point that I'm making. We agree on that. So what I'm saying is you can have all the great communicators, but if you do not have an infrastructure in place where you are driving them to targeted areas, it's absolutely irrelevant.

And that right now, to me, is the fundamental problem with the DNC. And I'm going to tell you right now, y'all ain't seen Carol. Maybe you can tell me. I can't tell you the last time Senator Chuck Schumer been on this show. I called out Nancy Pelosi and we were running. I was busting her ass on social saying, where's Nancy with that Kente? She was drinking that Kente photo. Nancy Pelosi didn't do black media. She didn't do black media. She didn't do black media. April Ryan told me she spent two, three years trying to get an interview with Pelosi. And the only reason she got one, because I was busting Pelosi's ass about not doing black media.

The late Joe Madison, when I called him, told me what I was doing, he said, man, I've been asking her. I would see her and I would tell her her staff never makes it happen. Joe Madsen went on the air the next day and said, I stand with what Roland's doing. Pelosi's people were listening and called him as soon as the show was over. Her ass was on the next day. Straight up. Straight up. So I ain't got a problem checking people who sits here and says stuff and who doesn't understand communication. And when I'm saying I don't understand communication, I give y'all the last one. Last year, Schumer and the Democrats had a black media deal. On the record, y'all, on the record. So we'll

communicate with them. They tell us on the record it can be recorded. Okay, I go to the deal. I got my case, got all my gear. I take out the tripod, the camera. I'm sitting live, the live view of the live stream. Young staffer, are you about to live stream, about to record? I'm like, yeah. No, no, no, no. There's no video. There's no live streaming. It's on the record, but it's audio only. I'm like, see what?

It's about 20 Democratic senators. I sent a text message to Senator Cory Booker, Senator Raphael Warnock, and said what what the hell? Are y'all serious? I said I can't do shit with no audio only I got a video show a digital TV show so Cory leans over he tells Schumer Schumer leaves over to his club with Char and When they nothing happened when they come to me with a question. I say y'all are analog not digital

I said I just sat here, I say, y'all are analog, not digital. I said, I just sat here and listened to all y'all complain about all the great and wonderful things y'all do for black people and nobody knows. I said, because maybe y'all have these dumb ass rules. I said, do y'all understand that if I was videotaping this, I could take something one of y'all said, post that sucker and it might go viral on TikTok and Instagram. I can't do shit with audio. I got to sit here and get your damn audio and then turn around and create a damn slideshow. That's a lot more damn work.

All Schumer had to do was, all Schumer had to say was, you know what, Roland? You're right. Do video. No! They continued the damn meeting audio only. So guess what?

That evening, the next day, next week, that wasn't a story that came out of that meeting because of their dumbass rules. It sounds like some of them are scared of those black folks. No, it's because

they are thinking... No, it's the civic rules and it's the way things have always been. And they can't break out of it. Yes, they can. That's right. Donald Trump, that's right, though. Yes, they can. That's right.

First of all, no, no. It's not that they can't break out of it. They don't want to break out of it. That's what it is. I agree with that. It's they don't want to. And this is why they're losing the it's called mass media for a reason it's mass media you're able to reach the masses and that's why i keep telling

these other people hey we having a rally and you go to the rally there's 300 people there y'all live streaming it So that means you're only talking to people who are here. That's dumb. So that's all I'm talking about. So folks, understand, if you want to win a messaging war, you have to have

a communications strategy, which means that you are reaching out to as many outlets and sources as possible. And then what you're doing is for the folk like us who don't have a show, what you also you also have a media list where you are sourcing clips. You are sourcing. So when somebody said, well, oh, well, the Republicans took that Hakeem Jeffries clip out of context.

Okay, Democrats, where's the full clip? Where's the in-context clip? You're in a messaging war. And as Jesse Waters' clip is right, the Republicans have a oil machine, and it

is a digital machine. Democrats are analog. a oil machine, it is a digital machine. Democrats are analog. That's how they... We gave them the machine. That's how they're operating. And they have not flipped to a digital

system. And understand that the messaging now is not the 6 p.m. news. The messaging now... There's such thing as primaries. The messaging now is not the 6 p.m. news. The messaging now... There's such thing as primaries. The messaging now is not... There's such thing as primaries. I want your audience to know

that there's such thing as primaries. Right, absolutely. Primary they ask. Nancy Pelosi, primary they ask. We have too much to lose, especially us black folks. And they definitely need to be bringing their asses up here talking to us and getting the message out to them. We have too much to lose. I us Black folks. And they definitely need to be bringing their asses up here talking to us and getting

the message out to them. We have too much to lose. I have a granddaughter, right? She's turning one. I'm so scared. Is she going to get the rest of her measles shots, her polo shot? What the hell? What the hell? That is what I'm talking about. They can be primary.

They can be primary. And everyone who runs needs to be answering questions about what are they going to do to close black health disparity gaps, black wealth gaps. They need to not just be talking to us about one issue or another. The answer should always be what am I going to do to make sure black people can achieve the American dream? Whatever the version of that dream is. Yeah, but also, I mean, Vice President Kamala Harris had plans like that, but you also, again, have to be driving

it home consistently. And all I'm saying is, again, you can have folk who do it. And my last point, Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016 actually hired some black people who made regular appearances on my show. Then when they got on the campaign, they wouldn't let them do the show. I was like, ain't that why you hired them? So that's the other thing.

Don't hire black folk on campaigns and then don't let them talk. That's kind of why you hired them. Didn't they have a problem with the vendors with Kamala? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about a perfect example of there were African-Americans who Hillary Clinton's staff hired to communicate people who actually came on my TV One show, but then when they hired you to campaign,

I couldn't get them on the show because of the campaign's bureaucracy. And I'm like, but isn't that why you hire them to do shows? Like, all I'm saying is that's how dumb this is when you hire people to communicate. And then because of your bureaucracy, you don't let them communicate. And then you wonder why nobody got your message. Political sis, Zachary. That's your message. Political sis, Zachary. That's my message. Political sis, Zachary, Joanne, I appreciate it.

Thank you so very much. Folks, there were other stories I wanted to get to, but we'll hold those. I want you to support the work that we do. Join our Brain and Funk fan club. Your resources are critically important. The work that we do is invaluable and trustworthy. The conversations we're having, ain't nobody else in black-owned media having. I keep hearing that wherever I go, and it's absolutely true.

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So you're checking money over at Appeal Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 2003 7.0196 paypal r martin unfiltered venmo's rm unfiltered zelle rolling at rolling s martin.com rolling at rolling martin unfiltered.com and i now love these people on youtube uh who have shut the hell up by saying i know what i was talking about y'all just got exposed y'all better leave a grown-ass man alone. All right. Download the Black Star Network app. Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung

Smart TV. Be sure to download and get my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. Get the audio version I read on Audible. Be sure to get our Roland Mark Unfiltered gear. Of course, get your shirt, get your merchandise. Hashtag, we tried to tell you, FAFO 2025. Don't blame me. I voted for the black woman. Go to RolandMartin.creator.spring.com or go to the BlackstarNetwork.com. And also, folks, don't forget, download the app Fanbase.

You can get that, of course. And if you want to and be one of the investors in Fanbase. You can get that, of course. And if you want to be one of the investors in Fanbase, you can do that as well. And so you can go to StartEngine.com forward slash Fanbase. StartEngine.com forward slash Fanbase. So we want you to take advantage of that. And then just as a reminder, I want everybody to remember, we talked about this last night. If you have the app, I'm going to show you right now. If you have the app Clubhouse, I want you to delete it. The venture capital firm that's put in a ton of money in the clubhouse, they hired Daniel Penny. You know, he was the former Marine who killed the black guy on the subway. They got Daniel Penny. You know, he was the former Marine who killed the black guy on the subway. Daniel Penny has no knowledge about venture capital.

He never worked in it. He never expressed any interest in it. He studied architecture where they hired him primarily because he was found not guilty. And so we don't need to give our talents, our knowledge, and our expertise on that app. If you want to talk in an audio room, go to Fanbase. They got audio rooms there. They're just as good and better than Clubhouse. So enough of that nonsense, y'all.

Do not support people who do not support you. And that is Clubhouse. Delete that app today. Tomorrow, folks, I'll be broadcasting live from Los Angeles. I'm headed there for the NWCP Image Awards. Note, we didn't get nominated this year, but still there going to cover some stuff. So I'll be broadcasting from

LA on tomorrow and Friday. Pre-show is Friday. Awards show is on Saturday on CBS. And so that's it. I'll see y'all tomorrow right here on Roller Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Holla!

Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of black America. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared.

It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes

for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to asenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. This is an iHeart Podcast.