#RolandMartinUnfiltered - JD Vance Trump's VP Pick, Trump Case Dismissed, Biden's Black Voter Support, GA Bail Reform Victory

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

7.15.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: JD Vance Trump's VP Pick, Trump Case Dismissed, Biden's Black Voter Support, GA Bail Reform Victory The Republicans officially make a convicted felon their presidential nominee, and JD Vance, an election denier, is the Republican Vice President pick.   A federal judge dismissed the charges in Trump's stolen documents case.  Black Voters Matter Co-founders say the calls for Biden to step aside are reckless.  Cliff Albright will be here to explain.  According to recent headlines, Biden's Black Voter support is shaky.  We'll talk to the  Director of the Black Voter Project and Co-founder of Black Insights Research to see if white mainstream media is reporting the truth.  A federal judge halts Georgia's limits on how much nonprofits or charitable organizations can post bail for those unable to pay. We'll talk to someone from the Bail Project about this injunction.  #BlackStarNetwork partners:Fanbase 👉🏾 https://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. Hey, Black, I love y'all. 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? so We'll be right back. Thank you. Today is Monday, July 15, 2024.

Coming up on Roland Martin on the filter, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Donald Trump has picked his VP candidate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, a hypocritical, lying, anti-female MAGA Republican. We'll tell you more about that. Also, a corrupt federal judge in Florida has dismissed charges against Donald Trump in a documents case. We'll discuss that as well. Lots to break down on today's episode of Roland Martin Unfiltered with the Black Star Network.

It's time to bring the funk. Let's go. And it's rollin' Best believe he's knowin' Puttin' it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' With Uncle Roro, y'all It's rollin' Martin Rollin' with Rollin' now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real Yeah, yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah, yeah He's punk, he's fresh, he's real

The best you know, he's Rollin' Martel Now Martel Folks, over the weekend, there was a assassination attempt of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. The young man, 20-year-old Republican, who took a shot at him. According to the FBI, they searched his phone, but they found no motive for why Thomas Crooks did what he did. Now, Donald Trump says he was shot in the ear.

We see the video, of course, where he was bleeding. We have not heard from his doctors as to exactly what the case is. Now, of course, Republicans immediately begin to blame the left. The reality is it's one of their own who took this shot at Donald Trump. So as a result, Trump then came out and said he was going to change his speech, it's going to be more about unity. Well, that's actually not what happened. And then today he made his vice presidential pick, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.

And trust me, there's nothing unifying about J.D. Vance. Here's a video dropped today by the Lincoln Project. The Lincoln Project salutes our fellow never Trump activists, J.D. Vance. He led the way in opposing Trump in 2016, even calling Trump our Hitler. J.D. Vance speculated that Trump might be America's Hitler. Trump is the fruit of the party's collective neglect. I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a-hole like Nixon, or that he's America's Hitler.

Are you a racist? J.D. joined John Kasich as the only major Republicans in Ohio to vote against Donald Trump in 2016, and he boldly told the truth about Trump voters. We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people. Trump is cultural heroin. Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. J.D. Vance is a multimillionaire big tech banker with a degree from Yale, our kind of candidate. He gets it. J.D. Vance for Senate, the Lincoln Project candidate. After they go to my iPad, this was a tweet that J.D. Vance deleted where he said,

Trump makes people I care about afraid, immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this, I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us. And not only that, J.D. Vance also said this, Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation's highest office. That's the guy who Donald Trump has picked to be his vice president. My panel, Dr. Julian Malveaux, economist, president, emeritus, Bennett College, also an author out of D.C., the Amakongo Domingo Senior Professorial Lecture, School of International Service, American University out of D.C., Long Victoria Burke, Black Press USA, Arlington, Virginia. Julianne, I'll start with you. J.D. Vance, very much anti-women. He cannot stand no-fault divorce,

even said that if women were in an abusive marriage, they should have stayed for the kids. This is a godsend for Democrats because this is the kind of person who could help them drive their female numbers up. Absolutely. I think this is fascinating. Of course, J.D. Vance has been slithering towards Trump ever since he said all those things in the Lincoln Project ad. He's been slithering towards him. Trump endorsed him when he ran for Senate. And so here we are. I think ideologically he's most closely aligned with Mr. Trump. And so we've got a vice presidential pick who has said things about Trump that even Trump probably can't stand. But he's also said things about women. He said things about people of color, GBLTQIA people. And he's going to help Democrats, I think, in the long run. I also am

salivating at the side of my mouth to watch him and Vice President Harris go at it. I mean, she will slice and dice him and serve him on a bed of lettuce, literally. He's a smart man. I mean, that doesn't mean anything, so did Clarence Thomas. But, I mean, he's not a stupid man. And his book, Hillbilly Elegy, is an interesting book. Remember, William Barber says that he doesn't tell the truth in the book. And I'm not surprised at that. That makes him even more closely aligned to Mr. Trump than we've said. But what he's done, Mr. Trump has reinforced, he's tried to slide to the middle with his reform platform.

But then to pick this man is really to go all the way back to the right. And people know it. And they can lie their way out of it or try to lie their way out of it. People know what's going on here. Here you have a 39-year-old U.S. senator. He's only been there two years on the Congo. And so I don't want to hear anything from any Republican calling Vice President Kamala Harris unqualified because this man has a very, very thin resume.

Absolutely. And this idea of being ready from day one, this man has no ability to do that. But they will use it, and they want to talk about Kamala Harris being a DEI hire and now look at her extensive background. And we have to continually call that out, just on the experience aspect alone that you bring up, Roland. But there are some other things that people need to be taking away from this. So you got the experience factor. He's inexperienced.

Another thing, it's representative of the fact that the Trump campaign is not going to call for unity. He says unity, but it's unity behind me, right? That's what he wants right now. So if you wanted unity, you would pick somebody like even a Doug Burgum, right? Somebody who does not have a strong history of this inflammatory rhetoric, of this ignorant rhetoric that goes against people, the women's conversations and stuff, someone similar to that. Even a Marco Rubio who could appeal to Latino voters and other groups on many levels. But he didn't do that.

He went with the MAGA extremist guy who said that if I was in the Senate at the time, I would not have certified the election. That's who that guy is. So—and lastly, I will say this is another example, Democrats, of Republicans falling in line while Democrats are waiting to fall in love. We know how vindictive Donald Trump is. Yet with all of these things that Vance said about Trump, this is the person that he picked. And so if we come out of this week still arguing over whether Biden should be the nominee and still not suggesting other people, except for us who say Harris, then we are dooming ourselves.

They have fed us on a plate, an opponent that Democrats can pick apart on so many levels. And this is the time to consolidate. We've had the Democratic discussion. We aired the dirty laundry. People say it was necessary. But now is the time to consolidate and move forward. Lauren, this is J.D. Vance talking about the effects of no-fault divorce. And this is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is this idea that like, well, okay, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they changed their underwear, that's going to make people happier in the long term. And maybe it worked

out for the moms and dads, though I'm skeptical, but it really didn't work out for the kids of those marriages. And I think that's what all of us. Wow, Lauren, that's the person who wants to be vice president. Yeah, I guess so. I don't know what the heck that was. You know, the inability of this version of the MAGA Republican Party of the most inexperienced vice presidential picks in a really long time. I have to go look at how long Dan Quayle was in the Senate. But this is ranking up there with one. This is Sarah Palin level in terms of why would you pick this person and what qualifies them to be a heartbeat away from

being the president of the United States. We have a president, Donald Trump, a former president, running again, Donald Trump, who's 78 years old and has a heart issue. So I'm not sure why J.D. Vance was picked, because a few of these other people, Tim Scott, Marco Rubio, they've been in the Senate much longer than J.D. Vance. So I'm not understanding that. The other interesting thing about this, of course, is that in this moment of time politically, Donald Trump is like the luckiest man alive for various reasons.

The court case, obviously, you know, thank God, the failed assassination attempt on Saturday, which was hehe was inches away from being killed on national TV. So he's had a very lucky run. He's also lucky in his opponent in this particular cycle. And he makes this mistake today. I think it was a huge mistake for this campaign, because J.D. Vance is on the record saying a lot of things negative about Donald Trump.

And everything is going to be replayed. And you couldn't have done that with almost any of the other people, other than Marco Rubio, that were on the list. On top of everything else, it's a double MAGA pick. You already have a MAGA person on the ticket, and his name is Donald Trump. You didn't need another MAGA person on the ticket. He was likely to win Ohio anyway. So this is a mistake. This is a huge mistake. And once people start talking about the record of the vice president, Vice President Harris,

they're going to have to shut up pretty quickly, because he can't compete with her resume. So you want to talk about DEI picks and people who are not qualified? The person that Donald Trump just picked as vice president for his vice presidential running mate is not qualified. And people are going to bring that up. Well, you say folks are going to be playing stuff. He said, like us, listen to this. I'm going to vote third party because I can't stomach Trump. I think that he's noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place. I'm going to vote third party because I can't stomach Trump. I think that he's noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place. Well, again, that's what he had to say there, Julian.

That was to NPR in 2016. Oh, and as you played it the second time, I'm like, well, let's play it three or four more times just so people really get what that man said. You know, he was a never-Trumper. And all of a sudden now, he's the vice presidential pick. Pundits, all kind of folks, Roland Martin. You've got plenty of fodder here on J.D. Vance, and that's a good thing. Because in addition to, I think Lawrence's point is very well taken,

about him being the least qualified. I think Dan Quayle may have been, now he's the second least. But his qualifications are skimpy. Has he passed any legislation? Has he done anything? Has he led anything other than his pen to write his autobiography? So again, I'm just sitting here cracking up. The soundbites are, there are going to be so many soundbites that he's going to have to run away from or lie about.

Well, again, he's good at that. At least he's Trump's vice presidential pick. So they have lying in common. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing.

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

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

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

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

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for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. He's going to lie. He's going to slither. He is going to learn is absolutely he does nothing for this ticket. But guess what? That's good for Democrats. Well, I'm a Congo. He ran for U.S. Senate in 2020 against Congressman Tim Ryan. He had it. He had to pivot to be a MAGA Republican. So he sucked up to Donald Trump.

He was funded by billionaire Peter Thiel. He's a Silicon Valley guy. He tried to act like he's this white working class. No, dude, you're a tech bro from Silicon Valley. And so I fully expect him to be exposed further on the national stage by the Biden-Harris campaign. Absolutely. He's a fraud. I mean, he's a chameleon. He's very Tim Scott-esque, although it doesn't look as performative in the way that he shifts. And I think folks in Ohio should be kicking themselves that Tim Ryan didn't win that election, because you know what turned out being what it could have been. But the fact of the matter is, every single step—there is nothing consistent about this individual. But, hey,

there's nothing consistent about Trump. And this solidifies the fact that this is Trump's party from top to bottom. Mike Pence ain't there at the convention because people still call for him to be assassinated, to be quite frank with it. And, you know, this was the part, you know, was it Don Jr. who said, you know, Trump is the greatest Republican president in history? Well, their greatest Republican president used to be Lincoln and Reagan, right? But these are the guys that they're talking about now. So the party is 100 percent MAGA from top to bottom. All of the dissenters have been completely pushed out. And the sooner we get

a grips on that and the sooner we can start to actually focus on his record, I mean, just that the one about divorce alone is it's there and there's so much of it doesn't believe in abortion in any way, shape or form. And they and they asked, you know, someone at the RNC chair today, what's the Republican—what are we going to do as it relates to abortion? And they said, whatever Trump wants. But whatever Trump wants is contradictory to what Vance said. And so, again, they're hypocritical. They're doing anything for power. And they are showing that they are not interested in unity.

They have gone with the white male male, ultra-MAGA candidate. He's more MAGA than Trump, Roland. And that's who they went with. They didn't try to sugarcoat this in any way, try to find a Nikki Haley type or anything like that. And so the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can get back to the business of unifying the Democratic Party so we can beat these individuals, because there is no middle ground on this anymore.

And quite frankly, there never was. Lauren, I can't wait to see the immigration conversation considering, go to my iPad, J.D. Vance's wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants. Yeah, they'll ignore that and pretend it doesn't exist or, you know, I don't know what they're going to do with that. I'm really actually surprised that he picked J.D. Vance. I really am. I was very surprised because they were sort of on a little bit of a trajectory to make sort of a change here. There's some, you know, some interviews that Donald Trump did on his way from New Jersey to Milwaukee, he had two interviews, one with The Examiner, the other with The New York Post, in which it sounded like, to me, he was a little bit shaken up, actually, from what happened on Saturday, which one could expect that that would be the case. You have a near-death experience.

So now he's talking about unity. So now they're talking about unity on the floor of the convention in Milwaukee. So you then answer that by picking somebody that is not a uniting unity type of figure. You're picking a MAGA Republican who's more MAGA than Trump. And that is true. He is more MAGA than Trump. And so that doesn't really make sense. And what he says up there in his speech

is not going to—unless they write the speech for him, are they really going to get serious, maybe, and change the speaking patterns of J.D. Vance, who, by the way, blamed Joe Biden for the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Saturday, which makes absolutely no sense. So and is bizarre. I thought it was a missed opportunity because a lot of other folks on the list that that he could have selected with maybe the exception of Marco Rubio would have been a lot less MAGA. Certainly the the governor, Burgum, would have been less MAGA and Glenn Youngkin would have been less MAGA. But when you pick J.D. Vance, that's like picking Tom Cotton. I mean, you're asking you're bringing in a extremely partisan individual and the Democrats are going to have a field day, an absolute field day marketing against him. You talked about that particular tweet that he sent out.

This was a tweet that J.D. Vance posted on Saturday after the shooting in Pennsylvania. Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempt at assassination. Total, got 18 million views on Twitter. Total BS, Julian, because we know a

right-wing Republican is the one who fired those shots. Oh, absolutely. These people, you know, why tell the truth when a lie will do? I mean, they're trying to, this young man, there is a contribution in his name, and his daddy has the same name as does his grandfather, for 15 bucks of some Democratic voter turnout group.

So they're trying to say he's a Democrat. Well, first of all, 15 bucks. Secondly, do the math. The guy was—he's 20 now. So when this contribution was made, he was like 18, 17. So, I mean, it just doesn't hold up and it's just not logical. But they'll do anything to try to smear the Biden-Harris campaign. And so J.D. Vance's language is inconsistent with Mr. Trump's plea for unity, inconsistent with everything we know about the shooting. It looks like this kid was a Lone Ranger.

He didn't have any help, quite frankly, without appearing to be silly. I mean, I had lunch with some sisters today, and we were all talking about, could this have been staged? That's a conspiracy theory. I don't necessarily believe in them. But this just seemed to be a little too convenient in so many ways. But, again, J.D. Vance is going to put out incendiary rhetoric. He's going to try to blame Mr. Biden, President Biden, for this. And people just have to push back.

The only problem is you've got this network called Fox, and they're going to be all over it. And there are some people who don't watch anything but Fox. They watch Fox and they're on X. And so, again, the bifurcation in the media is problematic unless there are ways to get people to essentially expand their horizons and look at other things. Hold tight one second. I got to go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk about some poll numbers. We're showing Biden-Harris down in several states compared to the Democrats who are running for United States Senate. We're going to explain what's going on there.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. contract in my house, having a case. It's four of them, my four-year contract. I got a $600,000 signing bonus. My base salary for that first year was $150,000. Matter of fact, $150,000. $150,000. That's what I made, $150,000. Now, think about it. My signing bonus was a

forgivable loan, supposedly. When I got traded to the Colts, they made me pay back my signing bonus to them. I had to give them their $600,000 back. Wow. I was so pissed. Cause, man, I try to be a man of my word. I'm like, you.

I'll give you your money back. You know, even though I know I earned that money, I gave them that money back. I gave them that $600,000 back. But yet, I was this malcontent. I was a bad guy. I'm about the money. It wasn't them the $600,000 back. But yet I was this malcontent. I was a bad guy. I'm not about the money. It wasn't about the money.

It was about doing right. Because I was looking at, I looked at, cause you look at contracts. Look at John Edwards. John Edwards making a million dollars. 800,000, I was making 150. I mean, I was doing everything. And I'm like, but yet I was,

man, I got so many letters. You know, you. So I just play for free and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you don't forget that kind of stuff. That stuff is hurtful. What's good, y'all? This is Doug E. Freshener watching my brother Roland Martin unfiltered as we go a little

something like this. Hit it. It's real. Folks, we start talking about how this race is stacking up. Of course, today is the first day of the Republican National Convention. But when you look at polling data, and let me be very clear, a lot of this polling data is totally jacked up because of how black people are underrepresented. But I want to show you something that I find to be interesting.

This is a YouGov poll. It shows that in Wisconsin, Trump is up five over Biden, yet the Democratic Senator is up seven against her opponent. In Nevada, Trump's up four, the Democratic Senator is up seven. In Arizona, Trump's up seven.

The Democratic senator, the person who's running for Democratic U.S. Senate, is up seven. Pennsylvania, Trump up three. But the Democratic senator, Casey's up 12. In Michigan, Trump's up two. But the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate is up nine. Well, McCongo, here's what I think is going on here. There is no way in the world, there is no way in the world

you can say that this is going to be split-ticket voting. You cannot convince me that a Democratic person for United States Senate up seven, up seven, up seven, of 12, of nine, that those folks are not gonna vote for Biden. Here's what I believe is happening. Because we saw it in 2020. In 2020, during the primary, people said,

Biden's too old. We want somebody else. Well, there were 15 people running. People went, damn, Biden. We got to the fall. Folks like, man, I wish we had somebody else. I wish we had somebody else. I wish we had somebody else.

Biden's too old. When it got down to the final two, it was Biden, Trump. They said, Biden. I believe all of this year, Biden's too old. I wish we had somebody else. I wish we had somebody else. I think what's going to happen, we're going to get to start voting, and they're going to say, Biden, Trump.

And they're going to see Biden, Trump, and they're going to break for Biden. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one.

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

some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion

dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early

and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I do not believe this level of disparity actually exists. That's why I believe Biden-Harris will win in November. Absolutely. And this is only going to make it better as it relates to them choosing J.D. Vance. Once more, his comments start to get recirculated. And I'm

glad, like, how we do on this show, we don't spend a lot of attention to the polls, but we use them in, like, context, like you're doing. Because one of the things that is not being reported on many of these networks that are obsessed with polls in these shows is that in many of these polls, like, 90-plus percent of people who are polled who say Biden's too old to vote, they say they will vote for him if he remains on the ticket. And that is an important point to make. They are not saying, I'm not voting for him. They're saying, you know, I like my local candidate, my state candidate more, like you're talking about with Gallego in Arizona and the like. But they are not saying that they will not vote for him. And so, like you said, Roland, one of the choices that people have this electoral cycle

is also the couch, staying home. But if they are getting off the couch to go and vote for their guy, they are going to vote for Biden as well. I mean, that's damn near factual. Like, how could they not? Even Biden talked about the fact that when he was running for office, different offices in Delaware throughout his career, he didn't have, like, endorsements from presidents all of the time.

And there were times where he polled higher than the presidents in his home state. And so he won elections without them. And so I believe that if people are going to report these polls, they need to be fully accurate as it relates to them. And I have not seen a single poll or a single report about a poll that said that, one, Biden, people think Biden is too old, and, two, if it comes down to Biden v. Trump, they will not vote for Biden. And that's an important part of the story that needs to be told as well.

Lauren, Chris Toler of the Black Voter Project tweeted this. He said, as an example of bad black polling, both the Pennsylvania and Michigan sample have 100 black respondents each. In Michigan, black support for Trump is 11 percent. In Virginia, it's 21%. He said, feel free to offer, feel free to try and offer regional explanations as to why twice as many black Virginians plan to vote for Trump. I'll wait. The point that he makes is in many of these polls, black people are being undercounted. And of the black folks being counted are individuals who are not regular voters, folks who did not vote in 2020. Those are people who are less likely to actually vote in November. So what he's saying is, and others have said, and the Black Pack poll showed it, is that as the closer we go to the summer to the fall, you're seeing Biden-Harris' black numbers

increase and Latino numbers increase. That's playing a large reason why his polling numbers are so low. Your thoughts? You know, I don't know. I have seen now several polls that have done this. And in fact, in Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University is apparently going to have another one that does this, where they have Trump up by three and then they have in the Senate race between Democrat Tim Kaine, the incumbent, and Hung Kau. It's supposed to be like 10, 10 point difference. Now, why would you have that in a 20 percent black state. And when I look at some of the other black folks that are running for the Senate, Hill Harper and some of the states that really matter, like Michigan, against Justin Amash, things like that, you see these disparities.

I do think it is the result of black folks not being polled, even though I got to tell you on my phone, on my cell phone, I'm getting like all the time some text message just trying to poll me. But I don't consider myself a normal, average, everyday person that's just out there, you know, minding their own business. I think when you're involved in politics, you end up on a lot of lists. But I think, you know, the person who's out there who's the average, everyday, blue-collar Black voter, working-class Black voter, is probably not getting polled. I mean, I think that's a lot of it. And particularly when you think about places like Michigan or Pennsylvania, where there's a hot Senate race involving the incumbent Senator Casey, you know, there should be there shouldn't be a difference. To your earlier point with regard to the Senate races helping out Biden or something like that,

what I hear generally from people is that if there is a problem with the top of the ticket, what people generally do when they go in the voting booth is they will, you know, choose the top of the ticket. And whatever the party is that they choose for the top of the ticket, they're going down usually on the same side. There's not a whole lot of crossing back and forth. So this problem that the Democratic Party has been involved in for the last 17 days of effectively destroying their nominee, their presumptive nominee, is hugely problematic, hugely, hugely problematic. And they are playing with fire, particularly in these states of Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. So people usually stick with the side they're voting for and they go all the way down.

And so I don't know why there would be a disparity in the polls. Well, Julian, that's why it was to me it was idiotic what Democrats did the last couple of weeks. Because, I get it, it was an awful debate performance. But, every time you talk to somebody, they couldn't name a candidate, they couldn't get around the infrastructure problem, they couldn't get around the money problem. And so, it was like, it was, and when you kept looking at the polls, you saw it was like, it was, and when you

kept looking at the polls, you saw it was in the margin of error. And you're talking about, it's July. So it was just nonsensical to spend 17 days trashing your own candidate when you should have been directing everything

at that liar Donald Trump. Well, you know, I forgot who said said I don't belong to an organized party. I'm a Democrat. But there you have it. I mean, Democrats basically like to fight, but we like to fight each other. Whether we like to fight Republicans, that's what we saw going on. I mean, there is no get around Biden. He is the nominee. You know, there's no get around Biden. He is the nominee. You know, there's no getting around Biden. So we all need to, if you want, if you don't want Trump, then you have to want Biden. It's a binary choice. And I don't understand. I mean, you've heard a lot from a lot of people.

Let's have a fake primary. There are all these theories. None of these theories make any sense. It is July. It's mid-July. It's one month until the Democratic convention. There is nothing that's going to happen to move Biden from that ticket unless he chooses to move himself, which we all know he's not going to do. Given that, it makes sense to rally around him. It makes sense to support him and to support those Democratic Senate candidates, because it's not just Biden. It's all the House and the Senate. And so basically, every time this Biden, we shoot ourselves in the foot because Trump gets in, no different. Republicans get in, and where does that leave us? J.D. Vance told you where he would leave women.

He's already been very clear about that. Trump has told you with his—now he claims that 2025 is not his. Just look at the authors for that thing, and many of them are his former cabinet members, Ben Carson, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So he's told you what he's going to do. J. cetera. So he's told you what he's going to do. J.D. Vance has told you what he's going to do. The question to Democrats has got to be what you're going to do. Now, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, many of the stalwart Democrats have said, look, or what Jim Clyde, now, ride with Biden. I don't know why others are having so much trouble. Yeah, he old, but he been old. I mean, he was old in 2020. He's old now. And 2028,

he's going to be even older. That's just the aging process. To throw him under the bus for one bad debate, it was an abysmal debate. Okay. It was a debate. Where does that stack up in terms of all the work he's done in the last three and a half years, all the benefits he's had. I mean, HBCU's got money. Student loan forgiven for a whole bunch of people. I forgot the number, but student loan forgiven. And we can go down the list. So Democrats are being foolish, and unfortunately, the rest of us are going to end up having to pay for it. So far, about 20 Democrats have publicly called on President Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. A couple will say he should resign the presidency. Well, the folks at Black Voters Matter released their own statement calling such a decision reckless

and short-sighted to change the nominee this late in the process. Joining us right now is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter, Cliff Albright. And Cliff, every time I saw one of these people put this thing out, I would go, okay, who's your pick? Then I would go, okay, if it's not Harris, how are you going to get around the money issue? How are you going to get around the fact that you can't transfer 1,000 staffers and 100 field offices?

How are you going to get around trying to build a national campaign on the fly? None of these people could answer any of those questions. That's why this was stupid. Yeah. And I think that what you're raising, you know, the question that you raise in terms of like, who else would you be picking? I think really shows the problem. You know, there's a meme going around on social media talking about, you know, the real problem

with Biden's age is really Kamala Harris's race and gender. And that's really what's driving a lot of this, is that you've got some elected officials, some donors, definitely the media, that, you know, it's not enough of an answer for you to say, well, if something were to happen to Joe Biden, you know, heaven forbid, but if something hit, obviously you've got a vice president that's going to fill in. That's what it is that they don't want to see happen. And that's why you see or that's part of the reason why you see, you know, these calls for him to drop out. Yes, we know that the debate was terrible.

Yes, we know that he was old. As Professor Malvo says, black folk do that four years ago. Like, nobody black watched that debate and came out of the debate, you know, wringing hands and gnashing teeth, saying, oh, my God, I didn't know Joe Biden was old. We knew that already. That was already baked in. But what we recognized four years ago, just as what we recognize now, is this is the best chance of beating Trump. You know, and part of that is because of our distrust of the way that other white folks might vote. But what you're raising is really, you know, it's a big part of the issue, which is that there's no process for how they would go about doing this. And we've argued that any process that

would pass over the vice president would be detrimental to the base. You'll immediately lose a whole bunch of black women and black men that will see that level of disrespect. We, in our statement, what we said is that we want to see the process be respected. It's not coincidental in our minds that you have this call for the first time in decades. You have this call to ignore the primary results in the very first year when that primary was led by a southern state with a large number of black voters. So the primary system was changed in order to put South Carolina first. And then you put the year when South Carolina and black voters were put first to say, oh, we want to just ignore that there was a primary process. And at 14 million

folks, a large number of which are black, you know, voted for President Biden. So as you've said several times, it doesn't make actually, I don't know about you, Roland, but anytime I see the level of coordination and collusion, like what we saw over those two or three weeks of the elected officials, the media, the billionaires and celebrities, all of the moneyed interests coming after Joe Biden, you know, and arguably, you know, coming after him in a way, you know, back in the day where they would say, you're an N-word lover, right? You know, I think part of the anger that he's been getting has been because of having a first black woman vice president, because of putting a first black woman on the Supreme

Court, because of putting a historic number of judges within the judicial system. And we got another reminder today in the form of Judge Cannon about why it's important that you're able to put these judges in these positions. And so, you know, when you see that level of collusion come from the media and ignoring the polling—which I'm not a big fan of polling, like the same people that are talking about these polls now, the same polls that were telling us that there was a red wave coming in 2022, and we see where that wound up. So I'm not a big fan, except for a couple of people that I trust. But when you look at the polling that's come out over

the past couple of days, with Biden either maintaining where he was or in some cases, like with the Marist NPR poll, where he's developed a two-point lead and there's some other polls showing that he's developed the lead. When you see that happen after two weeks of just being pummeled by, you know, his own party and by the media, when you see that, you got to wonder what would the polls look like if for two or three weeks, instead of focusing on Biden and the debate, they were instead focusing on Project 2025. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be

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

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

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

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

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

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

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Focusing on Trump and the Epstein files, if they were focusing on these court cases, then what would the polling look like? But instead, we saw the opposite take place. So it's really amazing that he's still at where he's at in those polls. Example here, Nancy, this political reported, I'll go to my iPad. Nancy Pelosi thinks Biden will lose and she was working the phones to replace him. I was told point blank that Nancy Pelosi was not in support of Vice President Harris replacing Biden.

So then you got to ask, well, who the hell were you going to get? And again, history shows you the two times Democrats replaced their nominee, they lost. Right. Yeah, I mean, when you look at the Democrats in contested conventions, 1968 of all places, you know, Chicago. When you look at the 1980 race and, you know, Kennedy challenging Carter and what took place there, and then even as recently as 2016, which was somewhat of a contested debate, I mean, contested convention, you know, those don't end well. You know, they just don't end well. You know, they just don't end well. And this year, I think, especially, would be chaotic. And I really think we create a process where you'd see a lot of black voters feeling like

our voices were just ignored in favor of, you know, again, the big-money donors and celebrities and in terms of the media, the corporate media interest. And so, I don't see that process ending well. And I've got to add on that, look, there are people within our movement, people very close to me, me, myself, who have legit concerns on policy matters in regards to President Biden and one policy matter in particular in terms of Gaza. There's a debate that could be had there, right? Like, people that favor human rights and all of that, we can have that debate and work

out and discuss what would be better, you know, on that issue, what would be better for Palestinians. Would it be Joe Biden or would it be Trump, who we all know wants to expel Muslims and expel protesters and give Netanyahu a blank check to do whatever the heck he wants to do. But that could be a discussion. That's different from this discussion that we've seen in the media over the past two weeks, which has been focused on just his age, on just the debate, on just the polling.

Oh, Lord. And I hope I'm still there. But you're here. That's a different kind of debate. So it's fair game to talk about like real policies. What do we want more? What is the agenda? What was done well? What wasn't done well? Like all that's fair game, right? But this thing that we've been seeing play out in the media, that's been something that we all should be very concerned about. Because, again, a lot of it is driven by, you know, again, not just President Biden's age, but the nature of VP Harris as the vice president. Cliff, Cliff, y'all are out there. You're going door to door. We had Adrienne Shropshire, a black pack, and she talked about what they are hearing from folks door to door. We had Adrienne Shropshire, a black pack, and she talked about what they are

hearing from folks door to door. And what she said is, and it looks, you know, y'all are nonpartisan organization, but the reality is she said that they are seeing as days progress, black voters are going, hey, I'm not jumping up and down about Biden, but I do know there's a binary choice. And folks are making that choice. And I just simply believe one of the reasons you see these polling numbers the way they are is because one, they're under-polling black people,

but also you're seeing that black number go up as you go week by week. So it's sort of ludicrous to make an assessment saying, oh, they're guaranteed to lose based on what you see in July as opposed to what it's going to look like in October. No, and that's actually the same thing that I've been saying that our organization's been saying to the media ever since January or even going back to 23 where people were talking to us about the polling and what are black folks going to do and why is enthusiasm slow and all of that?

And we've been saying for the past year now, wait a minute. You can't judge anything a year out from the election. As we get closer, as there's more discussions, as people become more and more clear that this is a binary choice for the most part, right? Because I think for a lot of the year, I think there were some of us that still weren't quite believing that the twice impeach, felony convictions, for a trial, all of that stuff, rapists, some of us weren't really believing that this dude is going to come back and be the nominee. But as we get closer, and again, we've been saying this for a year, that as we get closer to the election, as the reality sets in that this is not a referendum on Biden, this is a choice between two candidates, as the issues start getting more attention and more discussion, you've got people now paying attention to the nature of

the economy and what black unemployment has been. And it's not as low as what we want it to be ever, right? It's always twice of whatever white unemployment is. But the reality is that under this administration, we've had the lowest unemployment ever in history, you know, so that as we get closer to the election and we start getting more information about the reality of the economy, the realities around what this administration, particularly the Department of Justice, has done on police accountability and holding some of these police departments accountable, you know, that the more and more that some of the good story gets out there—and, again, it's not a perfect story, but there's a story there to be told.

And we've been saying that the more and more that we have these conversations, the more and more that black media gets resources to put information out there, the more and more that groups like ours and all the others in this ecosystem are able to knock on those doors and make those phone calls and send those text messages. The more that our folks get good information from legit conversations, that the more that you would start to see those polling numbers change. And that's exactly what it is that we've been seeing. This ain't rocket science, y'all. But when you've got a bunch of people out there that at the end of the day, and I've said this repeatedly for years, that you've got some Democrats, traditional, moderates, whatever you want to call them, establishment,

who would rather lose elections than to give way to a progressive black and brown base, to give way to a progressive black and brown base, to give way to progressive policies, right, to give way to a president that would pick a black woman to be his vice president, that there are some Democrats that would rather lose elections. And some of these quotes that we're now seeing coming out in the media are basically saying that, where they're saying, you know what, we're just resolved that we're just going to have another Trump presidency. The only way that you're resolved with that is if you really don't mind that happening.

And you've got some people within the establishment that that's that position, that they're OK with that happening, because at the end of the day, they don't have as much to lose as what our communities have. George Clooney and them, they don't have as much to lose as what our communities have staked. This isn't a game for us, right? These are our lives. When you look at Project 2025, it's the most

marginalized communities, black folks, brown folks, indigenous folks, women that are going to be feeling the brunt of 2025. You've got this dude that he just announced for his vice president who is out there talking about women should stay in even abusive

violent marriages, right? Because they want to get rid of no fault. Not only do they want to get rid of no fault of all divorce, they don't even want you to be able to get a divorce. Even if you're getting abused, this is not a game, right? And there are some people whose lives are going to be more greatly impacted than others. And those are the folks that for, to a large extent in our communities and our conversations that are saying

stay the course, whereas some of the other folks that got that luxury, that have that privilege, they want to play games around having some lottery system to get your take. Do you believe that Project 2025 is going to play a crucial role in driving Black, Latino, and young turnout? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I think the more that we have these conversations, the more that people learn. And shout out to Taraji P. Henson, who did more in 30 seconds at the BET Awards to raise the profile of Project 2025 than most media had done. And shout out to Simone Sanders, who on her show, she had had the dude at the Heritage Foundation, you know, who came on. And, you know, some people were critical because we say, well, why do you give them a microphone, right? And sometimes you give them the microphone so that they can expose themselves. And so, Simone Sanders on her show was able to do that.

That's where the president of Heritage, which, for those who don't know, Heritage Foundation is the group that's behind Project 2025, also a group which was founded—as they speak about Heritage, they were founded in the early years, put a lot of attention, and still to this day, to reinforcing school segregation and trying to fight against integration. That's the same Heritage Foundation that's behind this Project 2025. But I think that the more that people learn about it and talk about all the different ways that they're trying to take over government and get rid of voting rights and, you know,

send women back and—and, you know, we're going to be doing a rid of voting rights and, you know, send women back. And, you know, we're going to be doing a series of one-pagers talking about the things that are specifically targeted against black folks, things like continuing the attacks on affirmative action and DEI. In fact, they want to take the Department of Justice and Office of Civil Rights, and instead of it being to enforce, you know, the Civil Rights Act, they want to twist it around to say that civil rights moving forward is going to be investigations of anti-white discrimination. That's what this Department of Justice would become.

And so any advances that we've made in terms of civil rights and having the Department of Justice enforce that and implement that would literally be turned around where they would now be criminalizing, investigating any efforts to deal with racial justice. That's part of what's at stake. Environmental protections. They want to get rid of the whole office whose sole job is to deal with environmental racism, right?

Think about Flint. Think about Jackson's water. Think about environmental catastrophes and the impacts of climate change and flooding in our communities. They want to get rid of that office, right? They want to get rid of anything that tracks racial conditions, right? Because you can't make a claim that Black folks are facing inequities if you're not even tracking the inequities. They want to get rid of all of that. So there's several pieces of this 900 page document that specifically target black folks. And the more and more that we have those conversations, we believe the more and more that that to your point, Roland, that Project 2025, Trump's Project 2025, because we've got to make it clear. This is Trump's. And Professor Malveaux was just talking about this, this is Trump's Project 2025.

These are his people. These are his former administration, his former advisors, and not just former, but these are people that he is saying that he's going to be bringing back if he were able to get back in. So this is Trump's Project 2025, and we've got to remind people of that every opportunity that we get because it's not a game. And I argue that this part of

what this so-called shooting and that's a whole another discussion. Part of this, and Black Twitter is going to get to the bottom of it, trust me. But part of what's behind this so-called shooting is that it has changed the conversation where increasingly people are talking about Project 2025

online. Even some of the media was being pushed into it. And just like that, the narrative has been changed. So now all they're talking about is the so-called shooting that took place. And so we have to stay focused.

We can't wind up chasing all these other things. We've got to stay focused on talking about Trump's Project 2025, talking about what's at risk and keeping our eyes on the prize. Lauren, your question. Cliff, good seeing you. We just had a primary, as you know, a primary on June 18 in Virginia and talking to people who've been knocking doors. They say the issue that keeps coming up at the doors is the economy, the economy, the economy. I wanted to hear from you.

Do you think abortion is a big issue for black voters in the same way it is for white voters? Or is it just the issue that the Democrats want to talk about because they're getting millions and millions of dollars from plants. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

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

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get

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

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

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

from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

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

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Parenthood, what do you think about that thanks yeah that's a great question i actually think that it is a big issue in in our communities and for a couple of reasons and you can look at ohio and look at the the turnout that you saw in how when they had that referendum on abortion rights black folks came out in large numbers i even saw a poll that said that that black men actually voted for the referendum at an even

higher rate than black women. I'm kind of skeptical of that, but there's some evidence that, you know, that it's not even just a black women's issue, that black men, and I think some of the conversations that we've had, I've had lots of conversations with brothers that were like, yeah, we got to do something about this. And so I do think that it's a big issue. And part of the reason it's a big issue in our community is because it's a combination of several things, right? It's a combination of the health, it's a combination of the choice issue, like in and of itself, right? It's also a healthcare issue. We know the impact of reproductive justice in terms of like maternal mortality, right? And so for us, it's a health issue. It's also an economic issue. It's not separate from

those economic issues that people are very much concerned about. Whether or not you have a child is in part an economic issue. There are certainly economic implications to it. And so for us, and it's a criminal justice issue, because Lord knows that if they start criminalizing, you know, having abortions or trying to travel across lines to do so, who's going to get profiled the most when they're on the highways traveling to do that? And so, for us, it's a combination of issues. It's not a standalone issue in and of itself. And that's what we hear a lot when we talk about that issue. But they view it as a wedge issue, because you still do have some segments of our community,

the deeply religious community that, you know, for them that can be a wedge issue. But I think to a large extent, I'm not saying it's more important than the economic, because, again, I think that there's connections between them. But I do think that it's a legit issue that folks in our community are talking about. I will say this here. When they have the Ohio referendum, black black men voted in significant numbers for that referendum in Ohio. Julianne. First of all, thank you all for the work you do at Black Voters Matter. It's an important organization and it's really, really, really important. Everybody's talking about polling. Roland mentioned undersampling, the way that African Americans are undersampled. The other statistical issue is not only the undersampling,

the size of the samples. So we're talking about a poll that has 1,200 people in it and maybe 100 black people. Well, margin of error there is all over the place. Why aren't people talking more about some of these statistical errors as they talk about the flaws of these polls? Yeah, you know, somebody famous once said, figures don't lie, but liars do figure, right? I've taken enough stats classes in my life to know that you can create a sample and sample size and all that to say just about whatever you want to say. But you're exactly right. You know, that New York Times Sienna poll a couple of months ago made a big splash. It was one of the biggest ones that was talking about, you know, black voters.

And I think it was like the five or six swing states that they were looking at and saying it was like 20 percent. But if you got into the details of that, that poll had about 400 and something black folks, right? But again, this was across six or seven different swing states. And so essentially what you were looking at was a national story that was really based on like 60 or 70 black folks in each one of those states. And so you're right. The sample sizes in some of these, especially when you're talking about black folks. But I think to answer your question, a lot of people don't dig into that level of detail.

A lot of people don't dig into the methodology of these polls. They don't dig into the sample sizes. They don't dig into, you know, the cross tabs and and the different relationships between age and race and all of that. And so we're just left with what? We're left with the headlines that whatever media, mainstream media, decides to focus on when they're reporting on it. That's why it's important for us to be able to do our own polling. You know, and shout out to, you know, Cornell Belcher and Adrian and work that BlackPak's been doing on doing a series of polls and focus groups, because they really were some of the first to be able to point out that, you know, that there's a whole segment of our community

that is thinking differently than what you would have the mainstream media would have us believe. And so we've got to be able to study these polls a lot more closely and to be able to do our own polling. Thank you so much for all of your work, and it's so appreciated and needed. There have been so many things that have been in the news, from abortion to the assassination attempt, to all of these different conversations that are necessary to have. But I

feel like one thing that has slipped off the radar is conversations about voter suppression. Can you give us your latest information and news you have about voter suppression. Can you give us your latest information and news you have about voter suppression efforts that you're seeing going on across the country? Yeah, I'm so glad you raised that because it's been one of my biggest frustrations. And I say it to every journalist that tries to talk to us about these polls and about Black enthusiasm. And I make this point, Black turnout is not just a function of black enthusiasm, right? Black turnout is not just a function of black enthusiasm. It's also a function of to what extent we have the right and we have the access and the ability to cast our vote, right? When we weren't voting in

the South, you know, throughout Jim Crow, it wasn't because we weren't enthusiastic, right? If enthusiasm was the only thing that mattered that we we would have been voting in big numbers you know throughout the entire 20th century but we weren't and why because we were in the midst of jim crow and it wasn't the legal framework that would let us act on our enthusiasm act on our hopes and dreams for for how we could control our lives so black voting has never just been a function of how motivated or how enthusiastic we is. It's also always a function of voter suppression. And that's exactly what we're seeing and what we're very concerned about going into this election cycle.

We know that the Republican Party has a strategy of recruiting thousands, I think like 10,000 of these poll watchers that they want to recruit. And in some of these states, those poll watchers have the ability, not just theoretically, like, we've seen this. We've seen this happen in states so far. We saw it happen in North Carolina, where they go into these polling places and they are intrusive, right? They get in the way of the poll workers, the poll clerks being able to do their jobs. They get in the way sometimes of voters being able to vote, and they wind up intimidating voters. And so—excuse me, I got whatever Roland got. And so, what we've seen happening is that voter suppression continues to be a major problem,

and especially in some of these battleground states in Georgia, in North Carolina, even in states that should be more of a battleground, but part of the reason that they're not is because of the voter suppression. Florida should be a lot more competitive than it is. People look at why did the last Florida election go the way they did win, and they think it's just because Rick DeSantis was possible. No, it's also because Florida passed one of the worst voter suppression laws in the country. And so to answer your question, some of the things that we're seeing are, you know, attacks on every phase of the process. They've made it more difficult to vote by mail. They've attacked drop boxes. They're still reducing the number of polling places. Of course, we know what

they do with the photo ID, both for in-person as well as when absentee voting. And the thing that we've been saying for years—and we have got to keep an eye on this, y'all. The thing that we've been saying for years now, one of the most insidious pieces has been the way that they've—in some of these laws, in some of these states, they've made it possible to take over local county boards of elections, to take over that process, to have board members be able to be replaced by the state legislatures, right, or have the state legislatures—in some cases, they've taken away the power of the secretary of state—I think Arizona might be an example of this—where they've taken away powers from the secretary

of state and put it more in the hands of the legislature. And so, these different mechanisms that they're using, not just to suppress the vote, but also to control the count, that is something that we not just to suppress the vote, but also to control the count. That is something that we have got to keep a very close eye on throughout this election cycle. Cliff, we appreciate it, man. Thank you so very much. Thank you, Roland. All right, then, folks, got to go to a break. We come back. We'll continue talking about the campaign coming up. Lots more to discuss. Also, President Joe Biden is, of course, going to be at the NAACP speaking there tomorrow.

And so we'll tell you about that as well. Don't forget to support us in what we do. Join the Breeden Funk Fan Club. To get your check and money, order the P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash App, DollarSide, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered, Venmo is RM Unfiltered, Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back.

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I was reading a couple of your tweets earlier, and we were talking about, again, all of these polls and all of these white mainstream polls. And you break down how they completely underrepresent African-Americans. And then the black folks they aren't counting are folks who actually haven't voted in the past. So just share with folks what you've been seeing as each one of these polls sort of comes out and is talking about, oh, black folks are doing this and black people are doing that. And they're seeing 20 and 25 percent of black support for Donald Trump. So I've maintained that the story when it comes to the black electorate for 2024 must be about turnout rather than support for Trump. And these mainstream... A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives

in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone,

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

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

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

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

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter. Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. and inaccurate and unreliable samples of Black folk. On your last segment, I just mentioned, you know, New York Times poll came out today polling Pennsylvania and Virginia, but within those samples of polls had less than 100 Black folk in each state.

Therefore, the polling error around that is, you know, 9, 10 percentage points. But in doing so, they're also getting accurate, inaccurate estimates, where in Virginia, they had Black support for Trump at about 21 percent. In doing that, when you then calculate the total support for Biden, you're going to miscalculate those numbers and you're going to underestimate Biden's actual total margin of win or loss in that type of state based on underestimating and completely missing the mark when it comes to black voters. So I think, you know, right now, unless you're looking at a poll that has upwards of 600 to 800 or more, hopefully, black voters in it, so a black-specific poll, you can't take those results seriously. And they're biasing the total results of the entire race. And so there's a major problem going on right now when it comes to understanding black vote choice. But I don't think that's going to be an issue. I think we need to worry far more about turnout.

Yep. And that's the point right there, because what I have been saying, the battle is with the couch. And and so when we had Adrian Shropshire with Black Pack, they talked they talked about how there was a plus 15 point jump from their most recent poll, the previous poll. And so she said the numbers are trending where they're picking up black support,

but what the campaign must be doing, they must be in overdrive. They cannot allow any day to move forward where they're not driving those black numbers because they must be getting to them now, not trying to wait until October. They need numbers at or above the 2020 numbers for black turnout for the Biden campaign. And it's clear now in order for Biden to win, he has to pick up Michigan. He has to pick up Pennsylvania. And he's not doing

that without historic black numbers. We saw a drop off in 2016 following Obama. Black voters, in my opinion, didn't really know what to make of the political scene. There wasn't the same excitement. After four years of Trump, though, people got to the polls. They changed the electoral map back towards the Democrats. Now, after four years of Biden, people have kind of been lulled back into a place where they're not exactly sure what to make of things. They've forgotten in some ways how much of a threat Trump was. A lot of Trump's agenda wasn't able to be executed within those four years, but he's coming back for round two. And if Democrats are not hammering home the message that if we don't get out and vote, if black folks don't get out and vote, Trump's going to get back in and get to finish the work that he started. They're not going to pull it off,

right? They're not going to win those states. Black voters won't go to the polls. And I wanted to point something out. I think there's been a lot of talk that, well, Biden's been trying to sell himself, trying to make a case based on his policy agenda. The data that I have suggests that's not going to cut it, right? When we look at things such as student loan support, black support for student loan forgiveness is at 63 percent, but amongst those low propensity voters, those that are probably or may be likely to vote, it drops all the way down to 57 percent and 47 percent. And so you're going to have to move those people based on a policy argument from somewhat supporting student loan forgiveness to highly supporting it to get them into that certain to vote category, to get them at that same level

of support. That's going to be really tough to do, especially in a couple of months. The argument has to be based on Trump, has to be based on the threat that Trump is, and the focus on what Trump, MAGA, and now Project 2025 represent to the black community in the future. So do you believe that? OK, so if you're if you can't drive a policy argument, is Project 2025 the gateway to reach those voters? Absolutely. I think, you know, the jury's still out on how much people actually recognize and know about Project 2025.

But if you look at the specific policies within there, the agenda within there and highlight things such as eliminating DEI offices at all levels of education, banning the teaching of Black history to the point where teachers could get jail time if they were caught teaching Black history. If you look at those policies and you highlight those as a main part of Trump's agenda, it's going to resonate and the threat is going to be real. People are going to understand, oh, this is an attack on the Black community. This is an anti-Black policy agenda. And Omokongo, you first.

I really appreciate the work that you're doing, because this is what so many of us who are not pollsters talk about as it relates to the vibes we get as it relates to what the Black community is thinking. My question is, do you feel like there are other issues outside of Project 2025 that will resonate with these low-propensity voters? And I mean, we understand that everything in there affects us directly, but are there other catchphrases that work with them, like voter suppression or, you know, those types of things that you feel like Democrats are missing as it relates to getting their attention? I think there's a

number of policy issues that can resonate and that will especially resonate with low-propensity voters. The trick is Democrats have to find a way to highlight the racial threat that the policy represents. So the threat, the specific threat that the policy represents to the black community. You can't just talk about abortion generally. You have to talk about how abortion is going to disproportionately affect the black community and continue to increase maternal mortality rates that are already, you know, exponentially higher for black women.

You have to make these threats very specific to the black community. But you could do that on a number of different policy levels when thinking about the attack on education, the attack on reproductive rights, and especially the attack on voting rights. All of these things are policy agenda items that Biden has tried to put forth, but has, you know, done so with very little success because of Republican opposition. And so you need to move to the other side of the coin. I've been arguing they've needed to do this for years now, right, to move away from trying to emphasize what we're going to do for you, because that's going to be very difficult in this polarized

environment, and really discuss how we need to kind of hold face and make sure that we're not giving up any more ground to the Republican agenda. Julianne. Well, first of all, thank you so much for the work that you're doing and for lifting up some of these issues. President Biden is going to be speaking to the NAACP and also to Los Unidos this week. What can he say to them that will energize? I mean, I think that Cliff made a good point in the last segment. People are not energized. Republicans are very energized. Democrats are not.

What can he say to energize our base? I think if Biden really wants to energize the Black community, He needs to highly emphasize how Trump not only brings in a racist anti-Black policy agenda, but also allows for sort of society and culture in America to embrace that to a different level, right? It's hard to forget how months after Trump was inaugurated in 2016, there were white supremacist marches all across the country, namely at the University of Virginia, right, tiki torch marches, very much in line with white supremacist movements of the past. Those are the types of things that Biden has to point out. Biden has to point out how the country will be less safe for Black Americans, how parts of Trump's agenda want to increase policing, want to make it so that police will not receive funding unless they stop and frisk,

right? There's just so much there that needs to be highlighted within Trump's agenda rather than trying to sell Black voters on how great the Democrats are right now. It's very clear, especially since the debates, that many voters, even Black voters, have soured on Biden and the Democratic Party. And there's sort of an unclear path forward. And so in addition to highlighting all of these things, Biden also needs to make clear that if Black people ever want to see continued Black representation, especially at the presidential level or at the congressional level in some of these states that are trying to push voter suppression, they have to keep Trump out the White House. They have to keep him from continuing to nominate justices to the Supreme

Court that are suppressing votes, that are rolling back civil rights legislation from the last generation in the last few decades. Lauren. That to Dr. Malveaux's question, you know, what could what can the president do to energize black voters? And your answer is very well taken to remind them of the obvious problems with Donald Trump when it comes to the issues that disproportionately impact black communities and the racial animus. And, of course, the black the white grievance campaign that Trump is primarily running, I'm sure you know that a lot of these Democrats who are in control of the party, the consultant class, a lot of them are listening to Jim Carville, who's been telling them to do the exact opposite of what you're suggesting, which means that, you know, everything is this fear of bringing up anything involving policy that would disproportionately assist black folks for fear that you're going

to tick off white voters, which makes sense because those white voters are probably not voting for you anyway. Is there any way around that? I mean, I don't see anybody doing that at all. And I was actually at a Trump rally on June 28 in Chesapeake, Virginia. And to say that that side is energized would be a massive understatement. And that is because Trump plays to the base, as he did today picking J.D. Vance. The Democrats don't do that. And so I guess what I'm asking you is, I mean, do you think that's

ever going to change? They're clearly listening to Jim Carville, and they have been for years. Do you think there's any chance that's going to change? You know, Democrats have been a precarious position ever since they embraced sort of the civil rights generation of the 1960s, on with the Rainbow Coalition, of having to bring so many different types of people together in order to win national elections. What we find right now, though, is that we are polarized to a point where you're not going to be able to make very convincing arguments to people who have already made their minds up. During the Obama years, things were a bit different. We weren't as polarized.

There wasn't such a reaction or backlash to the progress that the country had made. And so it might have been easier to convince people to switch parties or convince conservative independents to vote Democrat. That's not the case anymore. And so Biden absolutely must play to the base because the base is what's going to bring him home in these swing states, in these battleground states where he needs two to three points to make up ground and actually win, right? He needs that extra 100,000 votes to cross the finish line. If I were Biden tonight, I would have a list of policies, and then I would have another list as to how those policies specifically relate to and disproportionately affect the Black community and really play up the notion that he's not the savior.

He's going to work for the Black community. But right now it's about protecting the country from Trump, from MAGA, and from this conservative agenda. Thank you. Chris, we appreciate it. We'll keep studying these numbers and breaking down. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. All right, folks, got to go to the break. We'll be right back on Rolling Martin Unfiltered with Black Star Network. Yeah, thank you.

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams,

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

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

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-stud on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this

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

Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Hatred on the streets.

A horrific scene. A white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. You will not. White people are losing their damn lives. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history.

Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys guys.

This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're It's Mr. Dalvin right here. What's up? This is KC. Sitting here representing the J-O-D-E-C-I, that's Jodeci. Right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. A federal judge temporarily blocks part of a Georgia law restricting organizations from helping people pay bail so they can be released while their criminal cases are pending. U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert issued a stay on Section 4 of Senate Bill 63, saying

the bond limit is unconstitutionally vague. Last month, we told you about the Bail Project, a national nonprofit that helps thousands of low-income people post-bond. The law forces it to close its Atlanta branch. Jeremy Church is the director of communications for the Bail Project. George, we're now from L.A. Jeremy, glad to have you here. Just your thoughts on this judge's decision. Well, it's encouraging to us to have a decision like this where the judiciary actually carried out its checks and balances. And we're encouraged

by the ruling. We want to continue to monitor the case over the long term to make sure that this becomes permanent. But it's good to see that the judges recognize the irreparable harm that the implementation of this law would create if it went forward. And what I always keep telling people when it comes to elections, this is what happens when you focus on federal judges. This is why federal judges matter. Indeed. I mean, we're a 501c3 nonprofit,

so I have to be careful about the politics. But again, when policymaking overreach occurs, it's important that the judiciary is there to take stock of what's taken place and determine whether what is taking place at the state legislature is constitutional or not. In this case, the judge seems to believe that there might be reason to believe that this is violated some constitutional provisions. Well, again, I mean, from a 501c3 standpoint, you can't endorse candidates, but certainly you want judges that care about civil rights, that care about the folks who are accused, and not is prosecutors.

And so that, you know, I keep telling people why these things matter. You can't ignore the reality of who appoints federal judges and who votes and approves or denies federal judges. And I think the other thing, you know, what is that the basic issue here is that the law implemented by the Georgia state legislature, the law they pursued, was one that would cause great harm. That also villainized and looked to scapegoat bail funds that are providing important supportive services in a pretrial system that is inadequately resourced or prepared to deal with the variety of problems that individuals who become justice-involved at some point encounter.

Also, the fact that bail, when it exists, creates wealth-based detention, where people who are too poor to pay bail are forced to stay in jail while people who are rich and have money are able to get out. And that's not justice, and I think we've been trying to make that point for a long time. It's unfortunate that the Georgia legislature has been pursuing a different tack. There are a myriad of other ways that pretrial reform can take place, and it doesn't require expanding the provisions or the situations in which cash bail is required to be set or deciding to attack charitable bail funds. Again, you know, there's plenty of reason to believe that in Georgia this is retaliation for

the involvement of bail funds in protests against the movement to build the police training facility that was known as Cop City. And I think more than that, you know, people need to understand that bail funds have a long, rich history of providing supportive services and helping people in need. And instead of looking at us like we're some kind of enemy, looking at us as resources. Our clients have returned to 91 percent of their court dates. We provide them with court notifications, travel assistance and resources to connect with supportive services that could address issues like drug addiction or housing insecurity. So that's not something that currently exists in pretrial systems across the country. And we're helping provide that.

So I don't understand why anybody's after us for this stuff. Well, but it's also, it's a part of conservatives' attacks on bail reform across the country. I mean, they consider this, group this with, oh, the Soros-backed DAs, people trying to be soft on crime. That's what they're doing here, trying to group all of these things together. Yeah, and I think we did see a series of political elections in which candidates tried to weaponize the issue of bail reform, often by preying on people's base fears about safety, trying to threaten that, you know, bail reform is responsible for the revolving door of

justice that they claim it is a part of. But the reality is we are doing great harm to people when we incarcerate them unnecessarily. And that is incredibly destabilizing. If we want to really close a revolving door of justice, we need to provide people with the supportive services that they need in community rather than relying on our jails and custodial facilities to try to address those things. It's a ridiculous approach, one that tends to rely on incarceration over supportive services and in community prevention. And also, I think it's been scapegoated where there's places where they claim that bail reform is responsible for upticks in crime

when a lot of the crime prevention responsibilities fall to law enforcement. They don't fall to people who are once they're in justice involved. The other thing I'll say is that we're about protecting the presumption of innocence. Many people that we support, their cases go on to be dismissed. We have about 30 percent of our clients have their cases dismissed. In Fulton County in Georgia, some of those clients stay in jail for months on end. If we hadn't

intervened and then they go on to have their cases dismissed. The idea that that would happen is an incredible miscarriage of justice. And that's why we say that pretrial detention, wealth-based detention, violates the idea of the presumption of innocence. Everybody should be entitled to a trial before jury, but really with cash bail, punishment occurs before any kind of conviction takes place. Have y'all seen an uptick in support from various folks as a result of this law? I think people are concerned when they see laws that are pursuing the regulation of charitable bail funds because they recognize the supportive services we provide. They recognize that we're filling a gap in a system that needs help. And I think that's why there's a real folly in the

decision made by lawmakers in this case to pursue regulation here instead of trying to find a holistic solution to the problem. They'd be much better off working with us to try to advance evidence-based solutions and try to think about the pretrial system far more holistically than they currently are. And I think people recognize clearly that the bail project is not a root cause of any problems that we're actually there to help. All right. Jeremy, we appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me again. All right, folks, we come back. Tonight is DEI night at the Republican National Convention. They're going to parade a whole bunch of black folks up.

One of them is Mark Robinson, Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina. Did y'all hear what he said about killing opponents? We're going to discuss that next, back in a moment. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, people can't live with them, can't live without them. Our relationships often have more ups and downs than a boardwalk roller coaster, but it doesn't have to be that way. Trust your gut. Whenever your gut is like, this isn't healthy, this isn't right. I don't like the way that I'm being treated. This goes for males and females. Trust your gut. And then whenever that gut feeling comes, have a conversation. Knowing

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world. My name is Morgan Chappelle. I'm from Dallas, Texas, representing the Urban Trivia Game. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you watch. Roland Martin on Unfiltered. So Republicans have lots of advice for Democrats regarding violence and saying, oh, tone down the rhetoric. In fact, they even tried to challenge President Biden, but when he made a comment about putting the bullseye on Donald Trump, he wasn't talking about a literal bullseye.

He was saying direct attention to Donald Trump. Lester Holt asked him about that in the interview he did with him today. But check this out. This is Mark Robinson, Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, speaking tonight at a Republican National Convention. This is what he said. You know, there's a time

when we used to meet evil on the battlefield, and guess what we did to it? We killed it. We didn't quibble about it. We didn't argue about it. We didn't fight about it. We killed it. Some liberal somewhere is going to say that sounds awful.

Too bad. Get mad at me if you want to. Some folks need killing. It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance. It's not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It's a matter of being mean or spiteful. It's a matter of necessity. Nice and green.

Go have them handled. Wow. Just in case y'all didn't fully hear that, I want you to listen again. You know, there's a time when we used to meet evil on the battlefield, and guess what we did to it? We killed it. We didn't quibble about it. We didn't argue about it.

We didn't fight about it. We killed it. Some liberal somewhere is going to say that sounds awful. Too bad. Get mad at me if you want to. Some folks need killing. It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance.

It's not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It's a matter of necessity. It's time to call out those guys in green. Go have them handled. That is a sick individual, Julian, who has no business speaking at a convention, who has no business being the governor of North Carolina? No, not only is he sick, but he's a bloody buffoon. I mean, if you see any of his performances, he hollers, he screams, he makes extraordinarily extreme statements. At a time when both President Biden, former President

Trump, Mike Johnson have all talked about toning down the rhetoric. This man is talking about killing individuals, not killing ideas, not being metaphoric, but killing individuals. I don't even understand how he's gotten so far in politics as he has. But he's come out of nowhere. He's done very well. Lieutenant governor and now a candidate for governor. I just hope the people of North Carolina hear him, understand truly have us screw loose, which is what I think is the case here.

On the Congo, he also posted on Facebook a meme saying he did not believe the attack on the husband of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. And he's also put out some stuff about the Holocaust, about women, about Michelle Obama. Like, the list goes on and on. And Dr. Malvo raises a really good point. Like, how did he get this far at this time, right? And the fact that he is speaking tonight, and I know these comments that he made about some people need killing were made before the assassination attempt. I want to know what people are going to ask him about that at the convention. I want to see what he's going to say tonight. And when I close my eyes, quite honestly,

this sounds like some, you know, white governor or some white sheriff in the South during the Jim Crow era was talking about us, right? And so he's talking about if any Black person out there, if someone in this country says some people just need killing, chances are they're talking about us. And those folks in that audience who were behind him were real smart not to be clapping and cheering, though there were some in the audience who we couldn't see who were, but they didn't want to be a part of that. This man is dangerous, kind of reminds me of Sheriff Clark on some levels, but he should have been disinvited from the convention for not condemning

these types of words or maybe push his speech back if he was going to change something. But again, nobody should believe in any way, shape, or form that the Republican Party is going to change its tactics and its thoughts about violence. This is who they are. This is the base of who they are, because they have no real policies. They switch up their agenda and their platform based on whatever Trump says. But this idea about violence and the ideas about using it has always been at the core of what they believed in. And these latest Mark Robinson comments are going to represent that. Nobody's going to talk this week, Roland, and talk about I'm a change man, I'm a change woman, I'm a change person based on what happened to Trump a couple of days ago.

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

the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms,

the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, Season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Ran away from the media when he was questioned about that.

Watch this. This campaign says they're trying to smear him. Our Capitol reporter, Michael Hyland, is live in Durham. Michael, you tried asking the lieutenant governor about it, and he said, while pointing his finger, that was shameful. Right. His staff told us he only wanted to talk about the event he was having today, but of course we had other questions, and he refused to address those. Following a ceremony at the legislature Wednesday, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson declined to respond to the criticism he's facing for a comment he made recently at a church when he said, quote, some folks need

killing. His campaign points out he was talking about the enemies of the United States and the allied powers during World War II. Robinson went on to say that today there are wicked people doing wicked things and the boys in blue need to handle that. But it's unclear who he meant. Democrats say it's an example of violent rhetoric from Robinson. Lieutenant Governor Robinson, can you please clarify what you meant by the comments you made recently about some folks need killing? I just told you that if you had questions about what happened in there today, he would answer them.

This today is about Senate Moses winnings. That's all you got out of the ceremony. It's not about politics. That's all you got out of it. You want to come out here and you want to smirch this lady's award by coming out here and asking me that silly question. That's what you got out of this. There's your answer. Shame. That's what it is. Pure shame.

I talked to Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein as he toured Durham Tech Wednesday. Promoting political violence is absolutely unacceptable. The way our democracy works is for people to have free exchange of ideas and do so knowing that they will be safe. I also asked Stein about the debate in his party whether President Biden should stay in the race. You still want him to be your party's nominee this year? The decision is entirely up to the president. He has all the delegates and he has indicated that he's running for election and there's no question. I love these folks, Lauren, who love to run their mouths, but then we get questioned. Shameful. How dare you ask that question?

And I'm only addressing today's event. Yeah. Yeah. See, the problem, of course, is that he's working with the taxpayers' money. He's not owning and running a private corporation. And as such, the media does, in fact, get to ask him questions, you know, if it's OK with you. You'll notice that DeSantis and these people now are getting to the point where they're

blocking out the press. They don't want the press in the room. So they've got the taxpayers' money that they're using to operate in their public office. But they don't want anyone asking them any questions. The other idiot part about this is if he's claiming he was talking about World War II, then he can just say that, right? You don't get to control what people ask you at a press event. They can ask you whatever they want to ask.

And these are the same guys that want to carry a copy of the Constitution in their pocket but can't read the First Amendment. So you either believe in it or you don't. Obviously you don't when you say stupid things and then you got to own up to it and explain it. Mark Robinson can't explain it because he's a minstrel show. He is the type of black person that these Republicans love to have around, which is that person who never defends anything black, says the type of things that Bull Connor might

say in the 1950s and 60s. And it's sort of just a walking minstrel show. And for any of these people, particularly Mark Robinson, some of these other people on the program tonight, they've got a few people who are quite interesting, Byron Donalds, Marjorie Taylor Greene. For any of these people to be lecturing anybody on political violence is absolutely laughable. Marjorie Taylor Greene has a commercial where she is shooting an assault weapon with the words coming across the screen by how she's aiming at the Democrats and Joe Biden's name

on the screen with the assault weapon. And she's laying in the back of a flatbed truck, shooting the gun while she's talking. And Nancy Pelosi's name is at the bottom of the screen. They are in no position to be lecturing anybody about political violence or anything else. Their party has branded that. They've got Republican members of Congress on Christmas cards with their family holding assault weapons. So, I mean, what are you doing?

Co-signing murder? These are the same people, too, who will lecture you on the Ten Commandments and haven't read the First and Second Commandment. I mean, what business are they in? It's tomfoolery. And for the Democratic Party not to call that out every day of the week is insane. The Democratic Party to be spending all of its time destroying their top of ticket when you're dealing with these types of people is insane. Mark Robinson has a shot. He has a shot of winning and being the governor of North Carolina. So it's an amazing world we live in.

And frankly, I think the events of Saturday is a great example of how, when you co-sign to assault weapons and everybody, you know, is fine with assault weapons, even the Wisconsin Convention, they have some rule where there's some buffer area where you could actually carry a firearm. Of course, the governor of Wisconsin tried to get them to change that rule, and they wouldn't change it. You know, you are asking for trouble with these assault weapons, and trouble is what they got over the weekend.

Well, look, you make a good point here, because we're talking about a party, Julian, who openly embraces the AR-15. In fact, here's a photo. Now, mind you, the gunman on Saturday used an AR-15 type rifle. We haven't gotten the official from the FBI. This is at the Republican National Convention an AR-15 giveaway. These people are sick in the head. That's what they are. Remember, you had

members, you had of course what Lauren was talking about. These were ads or postcards, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebel. Yeah. I mean, this is, and you had Republicans who were even wearing AR-15 lapel pins.

That's how sick these people are. And then, of course, you had that one Republican from Georgia who tried to blame Sarah's shooting on Biden. This is one of his campaign ads. He was in town yesterday to talk about our elections. It seems that he and Kamala Harris called anyone who disagreed with the federal hijacking of this election are racist. Well, Joe, I got some news for you. Let me tell you what Georgians really believe. First of all, you count the legal votes that were cast in the state of Georgia.

Donald Trump won this state, period. Number two, get rid of those voting machines. Go back to pay for ballots once and for all. Number three, get rid of those ridiculous drop boxes across this state that the Democrats use to stuff the ballots and steal our elections. Number four, let's go to national forensic audits in every election cycle across this country. As a matter of fact, it's one of the first bills I'll introduce when I get to Washington. You see, Georgians are sick and tired of weak-kneed, spineless politicians who won't fight for Trump, get to the bottom of 2020, and fix our elections.

Well, if they won't do it, Mike Collins will. Send me to Washington I'll fix this election I'll get to the bottom of 2020 And I will fight for Trump's America first agenda I don't want to hear nothing From any of these fools About violence

Roland I mean this is not funny This is demented from any of these fools about violence. Roland, I mean, this is not funny. This is demented. But this guy with his stereotypically thick southern accent, toting his gun through the commercial, talking, why are they still talking about 2020? That has been decided. That's number one. Number two, all this ancillary use of

guns like they're some kind of a prop, with both Bobart and the 6B, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, grinning as they're holding their guns. And that's ridiculous. Picture someone at the Christmas tree holding their guns. The Second Amendment for all of us does not say that you have to have an assault weapon. An assault weapon is not ammunition. And after we've seen so many of these AR-15s shooting up our schools, after we to say that these Republicans say you got a gun allowed zone near your convention, that's asking for trouble. It's truly asking for trouble. I think that the governor of Wisconsin, I was watching something, and they said the

governor could just suspend the carry law, carry rights for the convention. There are going to be too many people around there, too many fools around there, too many emotions that are highly agitated. The way that these folks have wedded themselves to these guns raises all kinds of questions, both about their sanity and about their ability to connect dots, but also about why do you need those guns? We have more than one gun per person in these United States, and half of us don't have any guns. So that means, on average, of us don't have any guns so that means

on average two guns people have two guns why do you need them you do not use assault weapons to come you know i see the little hunters they want to go and kill deer there's something to say about that too but i'm not going to go there but why do you need that many guns why have they so saturated our society that people believe they have a right to take a gun to a convention, to carry a gun to a school? And where is—you talk about political courage. Where's the courage of someone to say enough? The Republican Party has drifted so far into nonsense that even after their presumptive nominee has been shot, they're still, this pool still has this commercial. That commercial needs to be pulled.

Well, first of all, that commercial went back to 2020. This was one of the commercials, Oma Kongo, that Marjorie Taylor Greene was running. I think that Lauren was referencing. I'm Marjorie Greene, and I approve this ad. America's the greatest country in the world. We need conservatives in Washington that will keep it that way. I'm running to stop gun control.

Open borders. The Green New Deal. And socialism. Democrats fight for their socialist agenda every single day. I'll fight even harder to stop them. I'm Marjorie Greene, Republican for Congress. Save America. Stop Socialism. That's how trash these folks are. I'm Marjorie Green, Republican for Congress. Save America. Stop socialism. That's how trash these folks are. I'm a Congo.

Period. Bottom line. And, you know, I'm running against socialism. And then you want to talk about you're basically talking about going to Washington, want to shoot the show's socialist. And remember when she got here, you know, it was her or Boebert. And one of them had this big issue about, you know, carrying a gun in the Capitol because they felt like they needed to do that for their protection. They have always been about violence. This is who and this is the thing, you know, we started talking about Vance tonight. This is also something where they have an incredible track record. They already put it all out there.

So every time one of them says we need to calm it down, show that. Show that. And show them talking about this. Let them condemn their own ads. Let them say, oh, I was wrong. I shouldn't do that. We need to tone it down. Let them say. And if they're not going to do that, it's hypocrisy.

Because even with this one, I remember this one as well. This is who they are. You may have Democrats who put out ads saying, you know, they believe in the Second Amendment or whatever, but to demonstrate violence like this, it just doesn't happen. And in that Lester Holt video, part of that interview, they're saying, oh, the whole thing with the bullseye. Biden's like, yo, how am I supposed to respond to people who are threats to democracy? What am I supposed to say about people who are trying to steal what this country is about? And, you know, Adam Kinzinger and other people, these guys, these Democrats who are saying, no, this is ridiculous, and former, you know, Republicans,

you know, like Kinzinger, who are saying we're going to keep talking about, you know, putting a target on Trump and his policies, we're going to keep fighting and calling off the hypocrisy. I was so glad to see them doing that within 24 to 48 hours, as opposed to acquiescing to this both sides argument that the Republicans and many people in the media are trying to make, because it's factual that it's Republican politicians who have a record on speaking on political violence and not Democrats. And we need to make that clear. You know, again, I mean, what you're seeing are individuals who I just don't want to hear them run their mouths long. I don't want to hear this unity crap. I don't want because I don't want to hear this. Oh, it's the leftist. It's the leftist. When the rhetoric that we hear about violence, when you have the Heritage Foundation president talks about, oh, it'll be bloodless if the left allows it.

Right. Well, you know, the left has to get real about talking about this stuff. I don't know why they're not talking about this stuff. And by the way, you know, just incidentally, you know, like a lot of people, I grew up around a bunch of guns because my dad was in law enforcement. He was a gun nut. And one of the things about respecting guns is respecting what guns can do and how dangerous they are. And in fact, he was a hunter safety instructor. What's so interesting to me,

that little reel that you just played, Roland, you know, Collins and Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, to my knowledge, have never served in the military. So sometimes in these ads, you will see people who are military members. Like we have a candidate, Republican candidate in Virginia named Derek Anderson.

He was in the military. So some of his photos are from the military. He's holding a gun. That makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense to me is brandishing a deadly firearm on a Christmas card, brandishing a deadly firearm in a commercial where Nancy Pelosi's name and Joe Biden's name are at the bottom of the screen. And frankly, I have no idea why the FBI has not visited these people. Because Mike Collins is a, you know, he owns a trucking company. That has nothing to do with firearms. He's never been in a profession that firearms are featured in that profession, where it would make sense that maybe in his political advertising, there would be a

firearm. So why isn't the FBI having a little bit of a sit down with these people? I have no idea. And yes, Marjorie Taylor Greene did try to bring a firearm into the Capitol, which she probably did, because they had a rule before Nancy Pelosi put up the metal detectors that the members could walk around the metal detector. Then we started to find out that, oh, members of Congress just feel this need to bring a handgun onto the floor of the House, which makes no sense because you have the U.S. Capitol Police for that. So why are you bringing a firearm on? It makes no sense. They just want to brandish and brag that, oh, I've got a firearm. It makes no sense.

None of these people were ex-law enforcement or military. It's just wanting to talk tough and wanting, quite frankly, to have a threatening menace, menacing presence around the entire party. They're branding to that. And the Democrats have to wake up to that really fast because they've been doing this now for years. And when in 2011, when Gabby Gifford was almost murdered in Arizona, you know, that's when I thought they might sort of wake up. And then Steve Scalise got shot. I think it was 2017. I thought they would wake up with that. They never woke up with any of that. But why, why DOJ hasn't stepped in on some of these people? I would love to know. I would love to know why DOJ has not done that. This here, this was Thomas Massey out of Kentucky. One second. This was his Christmas card. I mean, who the hell makes that a

Christmas card? That ain't Jesus. That ain't Christian. These people are deranged, Julian. They are deranged. They're beyond deranged, Roland. I mean, who thinks that that's attractive? You know, most people have their Christmas cards. They have a tree. Maybe they have their family. They might have a snowman or something like that. Everybody with a gun. That's sending some kind of a signal. And they're letting people know. I think that there's something in the longer run that we as African-American people need to be clearly frightened about,

in terms of the direction our country is going in, frightened enough to fight back like hell. All these people believe that they can arm themselves. And then the orange man talking about going into our cities with so much crime and weaponizing the army. If you just keep thinking through that, you just unravel that ball of yarn, you can find us, you know, basically, I won't say concentration camps. That's too harsh a statement. But our mobility is severely restricted, just as it was in enslavement and so i don't mean to be dystopian but i just when i see all these people all these guns it just makes me shiver in fear frankly in fear is that what are you thinking why are you doing this why are we we um black people and other people but you know i'm thinking about my community and the ways

you carry laws, stay on your ground laws, all these things. This is dangerous. This is extremely dangerous, and I don't know that any of us has put the time and energy into basically unpacking it and then fighting it. We've got to fight this nonsense.

Hold tight one second. Go into a quick break. We're going to come back for. Hold tight one second, go into a quick break. We're gonna come back for final comments. Also, all y'all on YouTube, it's almost 5,000 of y'all. Hit the damn like button. We should easily be at 2,000, 2,500 likes. So get it done before I come back. I'll be right back on Rolling Button Unfiltered.

Coming soon to the Blacks. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer

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

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

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. for that first year was 150. Matter of fact. 150,000. 150,000, that's what I made, $150,000.

Now, think about it. My signing bonus was a forgivable loan, supposedly. When I got traded to the Colts, they made me pay back my signing bonus to them. I had to give them their $600,000 back. Wow. I was so pissed, because, man, I try to be a man of my word.

I'm like, you. I'll give you your money back. Even though I know I earned that money, I gave him that money back. I gave him that $600,000 back. But yet I was this malcontent. I was a bad guy. I'm not about the money. It wasn't about the money.

It was about doing right. Because I was looking at, I looked at, cause you look at contracts. Look at John Edwards. John Edwards making a million dollars. 800, I was making 150. I mean, I was looking at, I looked at, because you look at contracts. Look at John Edwards, John Edwards making a million dollars. 800,000, I was making 150. I mean, I was doing everything. And I'm like, but yet I was, man, I got so many letters.

You know, you, you, oh, so I just play for free and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you don't forget that kind of stuff. Right. That stuff is hurtful. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+. And I'm with Roland Martin on

Unfiltered. All right, so several folks have hit me asking, was I going to be in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention? Hell no. Absolutely not. So let me quickly ask my panel, Lauren on Macongo, Julian, will y'all watch any other Republican National Convention this week? I'll start with you, Lauren.

Yeah, I'll watch it. And I've been to, you know, plenty of Republican conventions. And interestingly enough, I think they run an easier convention to get into and to deal with. I'm not sure why that is. The security always seems to be a little less problematic, and the Democrats are just more logistically annoying. But I'll watch it. I'll watch some of it. I'll probably watch Glenn Young and the Virginia folks I'll watch, if there's any Virginia. You know, we'll see. Julianne? I don't know. I may watch a little bit of it.

I may watch a little bit of it. I do want to hear what J.D. Vance has to say. I really don't care what Mr. Trump has to say. We've heard him I don't know how many times before. Is it really frankly, Roland? It's news. I'm a news junkie, but we're not going to hear anything new, I don't think. And they will have lovely summaries on some of the networks. Omicongo? Yeah, I'm all about those summaries. I know I'm not going to watch any of it live.

I'm pretty sure, you know, because of the news work that we do, I'll go back and watch clips and talks and, you know, the speeches on YouTube and places like that and whatever Black Star Network is going to be covering throughout the convention of a speech.

But I'm definitely not watching it live. We'll be streaming it. Hell no, I ain't watching it. Check this out. So the man that was killed at Trump's rally on Saturday, who was a devout Republican, well, his wife, Helen Compuator, go to my iPad.

This is the photo there. She did an interview with the New York Post, and she told the New York Post, she told the New York Post the following. Hold on one second, I need to pull this up. That she said that in the piece, come on, come on, Pat. Helen told the Post that President Joe Biden tried to call her, but she declined to speak to him since her husband was a devout Republican and he would not have wanted me to talk to him. But she added that she does not hold the current president responsible for what happened to her family.

I don't have any ill will towards Joe Biden. I'm not one of those people that gets involved in politics. I support Trump. That's who I'm voting for. But I don't have ill will towards Biden. He didn't do anything to my husband. A 20-year- old despicable kid did. But check this line here out. I'm a Congo. The family has not heard from Trump. She had it. Wow. Wow.

There it is. And that's the ultimate definition of class. And that's something that people need to be mindful of. If people are saying we need to unite, unite, unite, who is more likely to work to unite this country, Donald Trump or Biden? The message is going to be this week, we need to unite, but it's unite behind Trump, who doesn't even have the class to call one of his own supporters. This is the same guy who didn't show up for military people who got killed when they came back and their bodies were brought back. He didn't call families when families were

killed in these Black Lives Matter issues and protests. This is who he is. And as Dr. Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who you are, believe them the first time. This is disgraceful. I mean, what if the man has not even called the family, Lauren.

How crazy is that? They're on brand, Roland. They're on brand. I mean, I think that, you know, certainly certain things transcend politics and transcend anything that we're talking about. I mean, you know, somebody almost gets, somebody gets murdered on Saturday at a political rally. And the president, the former president almost was killed at the political rally. Two other people, by the way, are in the hospital still. We don't know anything about them. And, you know, the president has a lot of class to call the former president. And

obviously that was probably a brief conversation because Trump probably was awkward during the conversation, you know, because he doesn't know how to handle people who do not, you know, people who are narcissists and it's all about them. It's just very hard for them to break out of that, no matter what the situation is. What we're hearing in the background is that he was pretty shaken up, as anybody would be, you know, bullets flying through the air and part of your ear getting clipped off by a bullet. But we haven't gotten a close enough look or a medical report from the former president to know what exactly his injuries are. But without regard to that, I'm sure he was shaken up.

I had two friends there that were two of the photographers who were there, Doug Mills and Evan Vucci. And Doug Mills, I texted a few times. And it's a frightening thing to have, you know, to have bullets going by. I mean, I've been to the range many times with my dad and one of my boyfriends. And I know what it is to have the power of a weapon going off. And to have that aimed at you is extremely scary. But, you know, you know, it's on brand. There's just certain things that Donald Trump and his and his personality he can't do.

I don't think we should be surprised at this point. The man is 78 years old. But I think we need to do the right thing, regardless of when other people do the wrong thing. What they do should not guide our behavior, you know, or, or Donald or Joe Biden's behavior. So Joe Biden's doing the right thing and he should, he should do, he should do the classy thing. And I'm sure he'll continue to do that. Um, I mean, that's just, he is who he is, Julian, all about him. Absolutely. Narcissists don't have empathy. Narcissists don't think about other people. They don't think about, feel about other people. They just think about themselves.

I do say, I mean, we all, of course, feel badly that condolences about the gentleman who lost his life and quite a hero, as the Pennsylvania governor said, throwing his body over that of his wife and daughters so that they were able to live through that, you know, fusillade of bullets. And, you know, of course, President Biden, being a classy person and also impact, he would reach out. And it's unfortunate that the woman could not accept his heartfelt condolences, but she gets a pass. She's grieving. Don't want to surprise that Trump didn't reach out. It's all about him. It's literally all about him. I'm still waiting to see the medical report. Did he really get shot? And I want to know more about this young man who did the shooting, because if you believe in conspiracy theories, there are a

lot of things you could think here, because they want to blame it on the Democrats. But this boy was a registered Republican and had been one. Yeah, I'm just shaking my head. All you can do in this situation is shake your head and feel sorry, really sorry for our country. But we're not going to be so sorry that we don't fight. This is yet another signal that there's a whole lot of fighting to do. Absolutely. And all these people who keep assuming Donald Trump has won the race, they're wrong. Lauren, I'm a Congo Julian. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thanks for all the folks for tuning in as well.

Don't forget, support us in what we do. Tomorrow, Vice President Joe Biden will speak to the NAACP. We'll carry it live. We'll also hear from Congressman Jonathan Jackson, who was in Nevada, but the president as well. Support us by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. Send your check and money order to PO Box 57196,

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

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