#RolandMartinUnfiltered - LA ICE Raid, Trump Signs Big Beautiful Budget, Faith Leaders Respond to bill & Fatal Texas Floods

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

7.7.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: LA ICE Raid, Trump Signs Big Beautiful Budget, Faith Leaders Respond to bill & Fatal Texas Floods The twice-impeached, criminally convicted felon-in-chief, Donald "The Con" Trump, officially signed his "Big, Beautiful" budget into law.  Black faith leaders took to the pulpit Sunday to discuss how the new law will impact the black community. We'll show you what they had to say.  Did Trump's massive federal job cuts contribute to the number of people who died in the Texas flood? We'll speak with an expert from the Center for American Progress about the ongoing debate regarding who is to blame. A federal appeals court ruled that Alabama prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of a Black man sentenced to death in 1990.  #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Did Trump's massive federal job cut contribute to the number of people who died in the Texas flood? We'll speak with an expert from the Center for American Progress about this issue. A federal appeals court ruled that Alabama prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of a black man us to death in 1990. And also, the mayor of Los Angeles is demanding that the federal ICE agents stop raiding parks in Los Angeles. We'll show you what took place today. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin on Filtered, the Black Sun Network. Let's go He's rolling with rolling now. It's Uncle Roroyo.

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Folks, Los Angeles looked like a movie set today as federal ICE agents literally raided MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. And we talk about raiding the park literally, coming through with armored vehicles, coming through their horses as if it was a federal assault on the park there. Folks were shocked and stunned, individuals literally, and joined the park there. Folks were shocked and stunned. Individuals literally joined the park. You've got vendors and things along those lines. And they come in and just sweeping people, just sweeping them through.

And it caused massive amounts of chaos today. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass demanded that these agents stop doing this in LA. I want to bring in my panel and talk about this because this is one of the issues that, again, here's what we have to understand. I need everybody watching to really pay attention to what I'm talking about here. What they are doing, they want this to be a television show, this show of force. Numbers don't lie. More people were deported under President Barack Obama and Joe Biden than Donald Trump,

if you compare the data of the first six months. But what Trump is doing is let's show this show of force. Let's attack these folks. And then let's have these high profile arrests at immigration courts and things along those lines. Because then it's telling the people in the country, see, see, look at what Trump is doing. He's being effective. That's right. He's shutting these people down. He's getting rid of these lawless people. Yet when you look at the data, we're talking about folks, most of them who are not lawbreakers. But the whole design is to play on the hearts and minds

of the public to get them to believe that's what's going on. Dr. Omekongo Dabenga, senior professor of electoral school in the National Service, American University, author of Lies About Black People, How to Combat Racists out of D.C., Andrew Clark, managing partner, District Legal Group also out of D. DC. Morgan Harper, Director, Policy and Advocacy for the American Economic Liberties Project out of Columbus, Ohio. Glad to have all three of you here. Let me first start with you, Andrew. in, most of the people who they are snatching and arresting,

they're not violent criminals. Over the weekend, they went to one car wash, and the owner stopped them from coming onto his property. At another car wash, they waited until the owner went to the restroom. And then they went in and snatched the guy, and then the owner came out, and it was already too late. And that's what they're doing.

And we don't know who these people are. We don't know if they are legitimate individuals. They're not showing any warrants. They're not showing any ID. Their faces are covering. We don't know if these are bounty hunters, if these are vigilantes. We literally have no idea what's going on here.

And the mayor of Los Angeles is making it clear, stop. But what Trump and Ice Barbie, Kristi Noem, what they wanna say is, oh, Los Angeles is being besieged, it's being invaded. So therefore we must take it over. Yeah, and you know, Roland, thank you for having me on the show. And this is not the first time that we've seen an action like this from Trump.

If you recall, June 1st, 2020, in Lafayette Square, right here in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump wanted to do a photo app. What did he do? He had the U.S. Secret Service and Metropolitan Police Department tear gas protesters that were lawfully protesting in Lafayette Square to clear the way so that he can go and take a photo out of a church. And we're seeing the same type of law action here

in Los Angeles. And you're right, Roland, you're right. This is exactly what they want. They want chaos, they want odds. And is exactly what they want. They want chaos. They want eyes. And what do they want to distract us from? That's a question that we need to know. They want to distract us from the bill that's going to destroy the American economy.

They want to distract us from everything that's happening overseas that's going to have a direct impact on the United States. And they want all eyes to be on Los Angeles and the travesty that's happening, the lawlessness that's happening on a court of what the United States government is doing at the direction of its commander in chief. On the Congo, again, what I'm trying to get people to realize is that the numbers are the numbers.

It's not like they are dramatically removing more people than happened under Biden and Obama. The difference between Obama and Biden didn't turn it into a daily TV show. Yeah, and neither administration went into cities, neither administration focused on going into inner cities or focusing on blue states. And the people who they arrested actually had due process, which is why people like us who spoke up and said there's so many deportations happening and some people call them the deported in chief, people didn't dispute the process because it was done legally, though it was excessive. This, Roland, this is completely different.

The fact of the matter is, Trump now has his brown shirts. I mean, I think, I just think often about the Holocaust the last few days, and literally everything that's happened and that happened at the beginning of Nazi Germany is happening here, obviously, with the exceptions of the death camps and the gas chambers and all of that. Those are everything else, singling out people, targeting them, kidnappings off the street, snatching people up, the intimidation taxes. This is tactics. This is all a playbook out of Nazi Germany, which we know that Trump is fascinated with.

Americans have to continue to fight this. Americans have to continue to fight this. Americans have to continue to speak up. And you all who are in these red districts and these red states and stuff, if you feel like it's just a matter of time before this stuff is never going to come to your community, we see in certain spaces, oh, they arrested the Vietnamese lady who served us for 40 years, and they arrested this Iranian, and this, these one-offs, it's going to start happening, because, really, the person who's really running this is Stephen Miller. And Miller is obsessed with numbers. And he said, go to Home Depot, go to 7-Eleven.

I can get folks. Just get them. And eventually they're going to run out of places to target in these blue states. And before you know it, they're going to start hitting the red areas as well. This is an opportunity for people to come together as a country to demand change. But unfortunately, Roland, we are so splintered just by the news outlets that we watch alone. And so many people watching other networks and so-called news networks are entertained by this. Unfortunately, they're going to be entertained until they find out that their economy is also suffering as well, because there's going to be no folks on the farms.

There's going to be no people in these buildings, no people to work manufacturing. Their costs are going to go up in addition because of what Trump's also doing with no folks on the farms. There's going to be no people in these buildings, no people to work manufacturing. Their costs are going to go up in addition because of what Trump's also doing with his ridiculous tariff policies. Now's the time to speak up, and I'm so glad we're leading the show with this tonight. Here's the thing, to that point right there, Morgan, that Omekongo just made.

And too many people don't understand any of this. The reality is, and this is for all of these, these, these, these Adolf FBA, FBA people who hate immigrants. The reality is, if it wasn't for immigration, our economy would not have recovered as fast as it did after COVID. Yeah, and in addition to that, I was just listening to a story this morning about our birth rate right now in the US and that a lot of people, millennials, not trying to have a lot of kids

is how have we been able to continue to see growth in our country and economy? Well, it's because we've had a lot of immigrants and the fact that we have had that ability for people to come here and build a life and decide to have children. And look, it's not to say that there's no need to address the immigration issue

and make sure that we're protecting people and providing resources people for people who have been here for a long time. But there's no denying that the United States is at its best when we are open to all sorts of people, particularly those who are facing real danger in some of the places where they come from and come here sincerely trying to contribute to society and build a good life here. I mean, that is the best economic outcome for the US.

And I would just add another thing. I mean, in terms of some of the impacts that we're gonna see from this, because now Trump's starting to talk about these carve outs for certain industries, like the agricultural industry. But I agree with my fellow panelists here with you, Roland, certain industries, like the agricultural industry. But I agree with my fellow panelists here, with you, Roland. It's like, give it time.

There are no carve-outs when the goal is destruction. Just give it time. If you don't feel it yet, it'll be coming because even if he tries to do carve-outs for the agricultural industry, lots of people work in restaurants, lots of people try to eat at restaurants. This is gonna start to increase the cost of all goods in addition to food. And unless you are, you know, what is this all about? It's to benefit, we know, the richest of the most rich

in this country that probably don't even spend that much time in this country, if we're being honest. And they will be the only ones who probably will be safe from the the real widespread impacts of all of this. Yeah what you're seeing right here is video footage from Los Angeles from one of the local stations that was showing them literally in MacArthur Park with this armored vehicle. And you're sitting here going, really? You need all of that?

And again, it's all by design. Let's do this show of force. Let's do this massive show of force. And what we now know, because of the bill that Trump just signed, they are adding billions of dollars on the Congo to the federal budget, because Trump and Stephen Miller, and they want more of this.

They have created this narrative that the United States is being invaded. And as a result, we need to have this type of action on American streets. And what he's doing is he's not doing this in the states where there actually are more individuals who are undocumented in the country. He's not doing this in Texas. He's not doing this in Florida. He's doing this, he specifically wants to do this in blue cities and it goes to show you,

and in fact, control room, find the comment of this pathetic dude in Iowa, where he literally has talked about how he despises and hates Democrats. Remember when all of these people were saying, well, Joe Biden, what about the 75, 70 plus million who voted for Trump? It's amazing how they want it. They want everyone to respect his voters. But he has no respect for the voters of Vice President, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party.

Yeah. And they're still talking about Hillary Clinton's use of the term deployables. You're still hearing that in some of their broadcasting networks. This guy is called Democrats everything. He's put a target on their back with his language. And we're just coming off of last month, you know, the tragic assassination of the Minnesota lawmaker and her husband and the shooting of the other Minnesota lawmaker and his wife and that type of rhetoric.

And what did the guy have in his car? A bunch of Trump paraphernalia. And the Trump gets a pass to literally say that he hates Democrats and they hate our country. This is the language, as I said, this is the language of any type of beginning of any type of genocide or mass killing. You put a target on somebody, you talk about them in hateful terms, vermin, rodents, taking our jobs, and so on and so forth.

He's giving people, as Lyndon Johnson said, people to look down on. And that's why so many people look at this and justify this. And to Morgan's comment about the carve outs for agriculture, Trump tried to do that a couple of weeks ago, said we were going to do that. And then, apparently, Stephen Miller I mean, last time I checked, well, and who's the president? Because they both want this. People are saying Stephen Miller is overruling, but Trump wants this as well. They said, no, it's not going to happen, because his business sponsors are saying this is hurting us, But the people who are in his administration and his base are saying this is what we want. And people are saying he's conflicted.

No, Trump is a master of doublespeak, and he's a master of marketing, and he's a master of giving a little bit to people here and a little bit to people there. But we need to look at the actions on the ground. This is looking like the riots in 92 in L.A. I mean, come on now. This is Rodney King, right? This is what it's looking like. And we're already seeing stories about civilians, American citizens getting harassed.

And it's just a matter of time, Roland Martin, before somebody starts shooting back, or these soldiers start shooting themselves, because these Marines and guys, they're not trained to work in the United States in civilian areas. That's not what the military is trained for. This is a tweet from Mayor Karen Bass three hours ago. And this was what she posted.

She said, this is footage from today in MacArthur Park, minutes before there were more than 20 kids playing, then the military comes through. The second I heard about this, I went to the park to speak to the person in charge, tell them it needed to end now, absolutely outrageous. Look at this, they literally are on horses, troops walking in their head.

This is where kids were playing soccer. They don't care, they don't care at all about what happens to folks. Here's California Governor Gavin Newsom. What a disgrace what's happening in MacArthur Park. What theater. On the six-month anniversary after all of these fires, that's the message from the polluted heart of the President of the United States, the polluted heart of Stephen Miller. Those National Guard men and women that were out there protecting people are now being used as political pawns, out there on horsebacks running through soccer fields in the middle of the day, timed around announcements and events like this, says everything you and

I need to know about the state of mind of the President of the United States in this administration. So to those that feel torn asunder by everything that's happened over the course of the last six months, notably highlighted and reinforced last six weeks and over the course of the last 60 minutes, a day like today, I want folks to know we have your back and we'll continue to come back and do what we can to protect our diverse communities, to protect the spirit that defines the best of this city and our state, and to push back against this cruelty, to push back against this cruelty that is being perpetuated by the President

of the United States. This here is video from the Fox affiliate in Los Angeles right here and you see how they stormed in. And again I want everybody watching to understand that this is what Donald Trump wants. He wants this to look like a movie. He gets off, literally, the man gets off, probably because Mulaney won't sleep with him, he gets off on watching these folks in gear. This is when Mayor Bass heard about it, and she showed up on the scene to confront.

Let's see if we pull audio up, please. Okay. All right. So, um, so she came there, uh, to confront, uh, the, uh, uh, the leader, the leader right there, uh, and, and let them know exactly how she felt about this action that was being taken in her city. And again, people just need to understand that, as I said, Trump wants this whole theater, he wants the cameras, He wants to see them

in their uniforms. He wants to see them in the hats and the horses and all of it. This is exactly what he wants. Andrew? It's just so sad to see this. And those are federal agents. This guy looks like he's of Asian or Hispanic descent. And a lot of it is Trump to blame. But at some point, when do you just stop doing your job? When do you say, look, the $50,000 that they're paying me a year is just not enough to sacrifice my dignity? When do you put down your weapon and march with people?

Where is the Los Angeles Police Department? You hear the mayor saying that, the governor saying that they're going to be standing with them, where's his resources? Putting towards stopping this travesty. Just a sad, sad day for America, sad year for America. Amazing to me, Morgan, are the people also who support Trump who get off this as well. MAGA loves this. They eat it up and they want more. This is red meat to them. This is them, no, no, go to iPad.

This is them, look at, look at that Democratic man, look at the black woman on the phone, begging Trump, talking to, look at, that's what, this is exactly what they desire. Yeah, I mean, I think to approve of what's going on, then you have to have gotten to a pretty dehumanized place, to think that it's acceptable to be sending horses after people in the middle of the day and then in the middle of a city,

you certainly don't respect your fellow humans. I mean, it's like, let's just remove it from like, you're a citizen, you're a resident, you're this, you're that, where your paper book is. Why should we be treating anybody like this? And we know that there's a better way to do it, even if, which it hasn't been clear, there's some communal, or there's some consensus

on who we do or do not want to be here. It never needs to look or be like this. And again, I mean, let's be honest, there were frustrations with, and I think, you know, some of the panels were referencing honest, there were frustrations with, and I think, you know, some of the panels were referencing, there were frustrations with how Biden and Obama were handling this too. But this is so far beyond anything that any, most of us consider normal. And I do think that a lot of this is to score political points. And like, you know, Governor Newsom was saying, to distract from the real problem that they're facing in California is the ongoing need for resources and support to rebuild from the fires.

I guess that there's one positive thing I could point to. It is that politically, do I have a ton in common with Governor Newsom, not necessarily. I mean, he hasn't been a great champion of taking on monopolists by any means. But the fact that he is on the same page, that this isn't acceptable, that he does represent a type of leadership that is going to at least try to be honest about what's happening, I think that's our challenge right now is finding as many of us as possible

who fit in that category and continuing to speak out that this is not the United States of America that we want to be part of and we can do better. We showed you the remarks of Governor Gavin Newsom, these are the remarks of Mayor Karen Bass. Today, I was on my way to the press conference with the governor talking about the six-month anniversary of the fires of the natural disaster, the worst in California's recent history, and to report on the progress. While I was on the way though, I got alerted that there was a ice operation, military intervention, who knows, at MacArthur Park.

I turned around, we went to the park. I could see a helicopter in the air, I think it was a Black Hawk helicopter, and I saw military tanks. It was the Custom and Border Patrol, and it might have been military on the periphery. To me, this is another example of the administration rationing up chaos by deploying what looked like a military operation in an American city. So I went to MacArthur Park because it is very important that the truth be told about what happened there. Now, you can spin it any way you like, but in my opinion, it's a political agenda of

provoking fear and terror. Frankly, it is outrageous and un-American that we have federal armed vehicles in our parks when nothing is going on in the parks. It's outrageous and un-American that the federal government seized our state's National Guard. that we have U.S. Marines who are trained to kill foreign soldiers overseas deployed in our American city. So here's the truth. There's no plan other than fear, chaos, and politics. Home Depot one day, a car wash the next, armed vehicles, and what looked like mounted military units in a park the next armed vehicles and what looked like mounted military units in a

park the next day. This is I mean, again, I I need people to understand. We're only six months in. They just handed them more than $100 billion billion dollars. We're only six months in. They've just handed them more than $100 billion. Y'all, this is going to continue. They don't care. Adam Sir of the Atlantic coined the phrase, cruelty is the point.

And that is the point. It is cruelty. That is their objective. That is what they want to do. Going to go to break. We'll be right back. Roland Martin on Filchard right here on the Black Star Network. This week on the other side of change. Mass incarceration.

Trump administration is doubling down on criminalization and how it is profitable. And there's something really, really perverse about saying that we need to put people in cages in order for other people to have jobs. Like that is not how our economy should be built. Only on the other side of change on the Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, the enigma of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

What really makes him tick? And what forces shaped his view of the world, the country, and Black America? The answer, I'm pretty sure, will shock you. And he says, you know, people think that I'm anachronistic. I am. I want to go backwards in time in order to move us forward into the future. He's very upfront about this. We'll talk to Cory Robyn,

the man who wrote the book that reveals it all. That's next on The Black Table, only on The Black Star Network. Hey, what's up y'all? I'm Devon Franklin. It is always a pleasure to be in the house. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Stay right here.

I referenced earlier Donald Trump's attacks on Democrats after he signed the tax cut bill that he called the big beautiful bill and when he was speaking in Iowa if you want to hear how nasty and despicable he is this is an example but I'm gonna show you all the contrast after we play this roll that. Republican congressmen and women, because what they did is incredible last night. And the Senate, the Republican Senate, we got not with all of the things we did with the tax cuts and rebuilding our military, not one Democrat voted for us. And I think we use it in the campaign that's coming up, the midterms, because we got to

beat them. But all of the all of the things that we've given and they wouldn't vote only because they hate Trump. But I hate them too, you know that? So it's sort of a, I hate, I really do, I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country. You want to know the truth? Really? Do y'all remember how long right-wing media went nuts when Obama made his comments about the cops acting stupidly for arresting Skip Gates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That was a thing for more than a week.

The panel has mentioned earlier Hillary Clinton deplorables. That was 2016. It's nine years later they still talk about that. But he gets to stand in front of people. I hate them. I hate them. You don't hear the right wing say, oh, no, no, no. You're the president for all people. See, this right here is what I keep trying to tell people, is the difference between the left and the right, Democrats and Republicans, Progressives, Conservatives,

whatever phrase you want to use. This is the difference right here. The right-wing echo chamber is all about advancing his agenda, right-wing talking points, and for mainstream, so-called liberal media or whatever you want to call it, to pick it up. That's their whole goal.

That's their strategy. And what's crazy is, I don't think this got virtually any play, any play at all, Morgan, after he said it. But I guarantee you, if this was a Democrat president, we would still be talking about it today, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and they'll be demanding apology. Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean, the double standard is real. Trump just gets to pretty much do whatever he wants.

I don't know if it will extend to any Republican from here. That's kind of an open question that I guess we'll have a lot of time to think about since, as you noted, we still have over three years to go with this president. But I do think you bring up a really important point, Roland, about how he vilifies Democrats. And one of the reasons why I do think we continue to make that, we who, again, want government to treat people with humanity and be functional, allow him to get away or make it easier for him to get away with that is we are not naming alternative villains. And so, you know, completely agree with you,

he is out of control. If a Democrat was doing this, they would not stop talking about it. But who are our villains that we're at least putting out there to try to take up some of that vacuum that he's been able to really take advantage of. I would recommend we start naming some of the people who are truly causing problems for American lives, the people that are making prices higher, some of the companies that are saying, hey, we don't care if you can't afford your water bill, your electricity bill, we're just going to keep charging you anyway.

I think this villain point is really important. And if we don't start coalescing around some kind of message quickly that is an alternative, it doesn't mean that an alternative villain is going to automatically take down MAGA and Donald Trump. But at least we know we're trying. It's a different strategy and not making it as easy because he is just rolling with this Democrats are the devil message.

And it seems to be working out okay for him. And again, this shows you, Omi Kongo, the difference between a right wing echo chamber that is able to amplify these things in the boomerangs around and what frankly Democrats progress to the left, whatever you want to call it, what they don't have. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I remember I heard somebody say that if Nixon had Fox or some of these other networks, he

would have never had to leave office because he would have had his own echo chamber to just continue to spew whatever he wants. And this is one of the challenges that I don't hear Democrats talk about enough or do something about. The Republicans have an entire media stream behind them, from the podcast space to the traditional media to YouTube and so on and so forth. And all of the Republicans from the lowest level in terms of their stature up to President Trump utilize them efficiently. How often there should be a Democrat coming on Black Star Network every night.

There should be a Democrat coming on all of the different networks to build with us as it relates to the communication infrastructure. That was one of the other challenges. We can talk about the Harris campaign on many levels, of course challenges, but one of the challenges was the fact that there is no democratic structure that's as strongly built as Fox and OAN and so on and so forth, but Democrats have a lot of opportunities

right now to start to change that, but they don't get out in front of people. You talked about this, well, you probably talk, you talk about this weekly. Why aren't Democrats out there with Reverend Barber? Why are they just talking about how bad a policy is as opposed to showing the actual faces? Like there is an ecosystem that they can take advantage of

if they want to, but they're still too busy trying to play this, you know, we have to come together, equal size, both sides this. You know, I got people like Alyssa Slotkin saying that she's using Republican language now, saying Democrats can't be weak and woke. Gavin Newsom was going maga-lite before some of this stuff started happening. If they would take advantage of the networks that have been growing and building, they would have an infrastructure in place to challenge these Republicans going into the midterms.

Republicans have already started with their midterm campaigning, and they're using the ecosystem to do that. And Democrats have that opportunity, but they're too busy. I remember last week he said, one of the politicians, every time he went on his feed, it was MSNBC, MSNBC, MSNBC hit. Nothing here, none of the other networks and platforms. If they don't get a fix on that, it's their election to lose in 2026. Andrew.

Yeah, so Jasmine Crockett, a very important activist in this time in history. I think that she's gonna go down as a very outspoken political figure in this time in history. She is one of the only Democrats that I can think of that on a daily basis speaks up against the Trump administration. There are so many other progressive Democrats that may send tweets.

They may say, oh, this is awful. This is terrible. But Jasmine Crockett is the only one that on a day-to-day basis is standing up and has something to say. And they even tried to silence her. They didn't give her the positioning to give her more power. But she's somebody that we can all look up to and we can all strive to be like. Myself, as a lawyer, I have my ability to advocate as well. Coming on this show and speaking my viewpoints is very important. But everyone, we all need to use our platforms. All we have to do is just pick up our phones.

We can all pick up our phones and flood the internet with better content than what we're seeing. We should not, we should spend the next three and a half years of just not even being concerned about what Trump is saying and only talking about what he's doing. Because he's doing a lot behind the scenes. And this show focuses on that. But all of us, we all need to focus on that so that we don't have a situation where we're focusing on the movie and forgetting about the script. All right, folks, hold tight one second, gonna go to break, we come back.

Devastation in Texas, massive flooding there kills almost a hundred people most of them children and where was Ted Cruz on vacation like he normally is when tragedies tragedy strikes in Texas he's been called out for his lack of care compassion and empathy folks support Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Star Network. If you want to join our Breed a Fun fan club, do so. This is the cash app. Do contribute to us.

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to learn about what manhood is all about? On our next show, we talk about why male mentoring is so important to men of all ages. Actor Dondre Whitfield leads an all star cast and panel to answer these and many other probing questions. A woman can't teach you how to be something that she's not. That's on the next A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie on Black Star Network.

The next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. Less than 5% of the top executive positions in corporate America are held by women of color. We know it's not because of talent. A recent study says that it's microaggressions, unconscious bias, and limited opportunities being offered to women of color. On our next show, we're going to get incredible advice from Francine Carham, who's recently written a book sharing exactly what you need to do to make it up into the management ranks and get the earnings that you deserve.

I made a point to sit down and I made a point to talk to people and I made a point to be very purposeful and thought provoking when I spoke to people. And I made a point to be very purposeful and thought-provoking when I spoke to them. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie of A Balanced Life. Think about the men in your life and ask yourself these questions. Who are their male role models? Who can they turn to for advice to learn about what manhood is all about?

On our next show, we talk about why male mentoring is so important to men of all ages. Actor Dondre Whitfield leads an all star cast and panel to answer these and many other probing questions. A woman can't teach you how to be something that she's not. That's on the next of Balance Life with Dr. Jackie on Black Star Network. This week on the other side of change. The mass incarceration,

Trump administration is doubling down on criminalization and how it is profitable. And there's something really really perverse about saying that we need to put people in cages in order for other people to have jobs. Like that is not how our economy should be built. Only on the other side of change on the Black Star Network. Hey what's up y'all I'm Devon Frank. I'm Dr. Robin B, pharmacist and fitness coach and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Hey, what's up y'all? I'm Devon Frank. I'm Dr. Robin B, pharmacist and fitness coach and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Alright folks, Black preachers were in the pulpit this Sunday, trashing the bill that Donald Trump signed into law on July 4th. We're gonna play for you three of those pastors. Pastor William Lamar, of course, here, Metropolitan in Washington, D.C., Pastor Reverend Dr. Frederick Haynes, Fridgerton West Baptist Church in Dallas, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Jamal Bryant. Here's what all three told their congregations on Sunday.

In central Texas now body bags, people swept 20 miles down river homes destroyed dead dreams and strangled hope. Violent wind ripped Job and Mrs. Job's children away from their loving bosom. children away from their loving bosom. Swelling flood water snatched away lives in central Texas. These awful occurrences we call natural disasters. But let me tell you about another disaster. Man-made.

Conceived and constructed by malevolent, misanthropic, cowardly, and unjust members of our own species. Brought to you by persons elected in this country, a meal plated with the garnish of death, topped with the special sauces of skillful deception, rhetorical mendacity, and policy sleight of hand. The winds killed the 10 children of Job and Mrs. Job. The floods snatched the lives away

of precious ones in central Texas, and this human-cause disaster may end up taking 51,000 lives in this nation, according to the University of Pennsylvania. Americans at the bottom 20% of all earners will see their annual after-tax incomes fall by 2.5% and the top 20% will see a 2.4% boost. This is human conceived devastation. $560 in losses for someone who reports little or no income by 2034 and more than $118,000 in gains for someone making over 3 million human design devastation. Yes!

A person making $217,000 or more annually would receive a $12,500 tax cut. Someone making $35,000 or less would see only $150 of savings, human designed misery. Medicaid. 70 million of us on Medicaid. Dana and I were listening to the radio, and there are people who say around this nation

they hate Medicaid, and they ain't even got sense enough to know that they're on it. Because each and every state calls it something different, but these people who want to racialize poverty and say that somebody is taking, they are the very ones who have nothing without Medicaid. Medicaid, the government's health care program for low-income folk, will be cut by $1 trillion,

forcing maybe 17 million people off its roll. This is necropolitics. The politics of death. This is human designed death. More than three million will lose food stamps while whitey's going to Mars. Nutrition subsidies will be destroyed and 17 million children will lose food out of their mouths while rich people buy bigger and bigger yachts.

This is damnable evil. And human cause pain. I laugh at these so-called deficit hawks who really just don't want to spend money on anybody that's poor, but will write themselves a check whenever they get the notion. National debt will increase by $4.1 trillion. This is a human malfeasance of duty. While I did not agree with everything that Barack Hussein Obama did, when he put Obamacare in place, he paid for it. And these evil lawmakers and their evil puppet master will drive up national debt, give your grandchildren a credit card so they can play on private islands.

Hundreds of rural hospitals will be hard hit. One quarter of nursing homes will close. Human caused abuse of the poor and the elderly. Can I tell you right now, Mike Johnson is in church. I tell you right now, Mitch McConnell has been wheeled into somebody's church on government-paid health care that keeps his evil behind from going underneath the dirt. They are in church. Winds killing us.

Floods killing us. Legislation killing us. Every now and then, I get tired of seeing wrong winning. Every now and then I begin to question and get upset with God because I wonder if God sees what's going on, if God cares about what's going on. I'm still not coming through. I'll make it real plain in a real sense. My sisters and brothers, it happens and it happens on repeat. This past week, we watched in this country as this big, beautiful bill is now signed into law and it will have ugly and unjust consequences. It is lethal legislation. It is a bill that kills,

and watch this, this bill that kills. The Republicans are so dirty and slick that they make sure that it will not go into effect until after the midterm elections and so people are going to get caught up in what tax returns they get and somehow conclude that this was a beautiful bill but the ugly consequences are soon to come and y'all when they passed it here's what messed me up there were those who had the nerve to get up and read their edited Bible and they read their edited Bible in order to justify the injustice that they were perpetrating have you thought about the fact that they have been so determined to kill

Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act that as a result of them murdering Medicaid and gutting the Affordable Care Act by the end of next year, 17 million people will not have access to health care in this country. They are so determined to blame the poor for their impoverished predicament that they are presenting this bill that kills this lethal legislation and some five million people will no longer have access to SNAP. They are cutting services for veterans while adding to the military budget. Wait what? I got to go back and grab you because the veterans who served in the military are losing resources while they are spending more money on weaponry because of militarism and the madness of militarism in this country. And my sisters and brothers, here is what a group of us did, led by activist attorney,

the brilliant Angela Rye. She has organized the state of the people movement where we've been going around the country targeting cities to organize and serve communities that are underserved. And then my sisters and brothers, this week we had a marathon, watched this streaming session where we were educating the public about the badness of this bill, the ugly consequences and the racist ramifications of this bill. And all right before I got on, attorney and preacher gets on and she says, Monique Presley says we ought to have a time of prayer. I came on and said black folk have always

understood the connection between policy and prayer. Let's have a prayer session for an hour. After all Jesus said could you not carry one hour? We prayed at midnight from midnight to one o'clock believing that God would come through and then my sisters and brothers Sadly sinfully shamefully the bill got passed the bill got passed and I cannot lie at that moment I wondered how is it that wrong can wickedness keep winning? How is it that injustice somehow is on the throne and justice is on the scaffold? It made me upset. It made me wonder with the psalmist God I know that you're good, but your goodness doesn't seem to be showing up in dealing with bad people I think I'll stop right there

because if I'm God, here's what I do. I wipe out all the bad folk. If I'm God, here's what I do. I make sure the bad folk, they get what's coming to them immediately, if not sooner. It seems like God just takes God's time. Y'all can judge me all you want to. I'm just letting you know There are some people on my list that I'd like to say God get them right now Don't wait another moment go ahead and handle your judgment Business y'all, but God doesn't work like that God has a way of just standing back and watching injustice

take place and if you're not careful it will discourage you if you're not careful it will cause you to lose heart is that not the interesting word used by our sable skin Savior and sagacious storyteller from the streets, Jesus of Nazareth. In the gospel according to Luke chapter 18, look what he says in verse 1, and he spoke a parable unto them because he wanted to teach us, watch this, how we should pray always and not get discouraged and and the word right there for discouragement means to lose heart. Can I park right there? It has to do with losing the totality of your internality. It has to do with you not having

anything left on the inside as a result of what's happening in the world around you and every now and then y'all I get so discouraged I lose heart I'm weak on the inside I'm broken on the inside yeah you do know the Hebrew word for discouragement it means shattered internally because whenever you get discouraged you are broken on the Inside whenever you are discouraged you can tend to lose heart and every now and then No matter how big your Bible is how long you've been going to church we get discouraged every now and then we wonder if we can keep going on every now and then. We find ourselves running on empty.

And when you're running on empty and there's no exit sign, you're running on empty. There's no sign of a gas station anywhere close. And somebody is checking in right now and I'm in your amateur Address because here it is you're running on empty and there are no exit signs There is no filling station any place close. Jesus said it in this Parable he spoke he said I want you to always pray and not give up The leaders of this nation who all claim to be Christian

Committed the most un Christ like things since slavery they have kicked 17 million Americans of health care and 653 thousand of them live in Georgia. They cut 186 billion off of food assistance from families and eliminated free lunch from children. Clutch your pearls, you ain't gonna believe it. Reach for your asthma pump. Everybody's electric bill will be going up by $168 a month. And at the same time, they're giving a $1 trillion tax cut for billionaires. Not to mention over the last week, they have left 500,000 Haitians unprotected.

A congresswoman in Minnesota was murdered, as was her husband, in their home by somebody who was a professed evangelical Christian Trumpite, and President Trump did not go to the funeral, he went to play golf instead of paying respects. There are in America 800 billionaires. That's it. 800 billionaires who benefit from the big beautiful bill, where, contrarily, there are 340 million who will suffer. What they don't understand, or what you don't understand,

is the majority of those on SNAP, the majority of those collecting food stamps are white people but they hate minorities so much that they will injure themselves just thinking they are punishing us 435 hospitals will close in rural areas. They cannot even give an estimate of how many people will die in the first three years because of the absence of Medicare, Medicaid, and the closing of hospitals. They have opened up in broad daylight, alligator Alcatraz that is fit for canines to house immigrants while white evangelical churches

have said nothing about any of it. This is exactly what the pastors should be doing across the country as to how they inform their congregations. Morgan, you first. Yeah, a couple of points. I mean, one, I think it's important to continue to call out the impacts of the Trump administration's policies. And I appreciate that all of the pastors, it sounded like, had done their homework and

were able to point to specific impacts and some of the numbers around that, like how much electricity bills are going to go up, for example. But I think we also need to keep in mind that we have limited ability to influence what happens with the Trump administration. Trump administration. Best case scenario, we lead him to roll back a little bit, something that he might have been thinking of doing, or present an alternative that's less bad. But I don't see a turnaround for the Trump administration that suddenly they care deeply about the advancement of black people. Right? So that's the second point.

The third point then is, so then what should we spend our time doing? And I want to come back to what Andrew was talking about with Jasmine Crockett. The fact that Jasmine Crockett did not get that, the seat was to be the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, right? That she didn't get that as one of the most popular Democrats in the country,

as one of the most effective young black Congress people communicating out there during this Trump administration, pushing back, because oversight is about pushing back on the administration, and you're only ranking members, so Democrats don't even have power. Why was that? And we should talk about that.

And is there something that these pastors are giving you doing to call that out, to really start to move the decision- that's happening within the Democratic Party that is not elevating our most talented people? That's a problem. Because how are we affirmatively going to regain power away from Donald Trump or whoever is going to succeed him should he be forced like way to step down, but we don't know what's coming there. How are we going to be in a position to have a message that will actually make people want to pay attention? And that's the other point I wanted to come back to from an earlier conversation. I agree, the ecosystem is out there. Roland, you have built an amazing one, an amazing platform for

all of us to plug into. I'm grateful for that. There are other podcasts that are out there. But the issue is, if you're gonna come on these platforms as an elected official, what are you going to be talking about? And is it anything that anybody cares to be hearing about? And not just people that already care about politics, but the people we need to start showing up that generally are disgusted with what they've seen to date, right?

That are not happy about how things are going, not just because of Donald Trump, but because of every other aspect of their lives as well. So that's what I really think we need to be focused on is what, again, what are those villains? What are the problems? What are our solutions? Because if we just spend another three years pointing out everything that is bad with Donald Trump and Elon Musk is saying he's starting a new political party, well, I don't know that that's going to be

enough. And I am very, very worried about that. I agree. But I do believe it's important to, and I say this all the time, Andrew, and I say it repeatedly, a year, 18 months before an election, we must be in what I call an informed, educate, and enlightened stage. I think we have to raise the ire of people. We have to make plain what they are doing to get people pissed off enough to turn out.

And so I hope that these preachers and others are using their sermons every single Sunday between now and the beginning of the primaries for the midterm election to do this because we're going to need a massive turnout. Democrats just need to win five house seats to control the house. That's the target goal. They have a defend the Senate seat in Georgia. They can win the Senate seat in North Carolina. We'll see what happens with Susan Collins in Maine. But I do think a lot of people don't know those details and spelling it out, I think is crucial. And if that pisses people off, great. And thank you for that Roland.

And one of the things about this badly built bill that I wanna highlight is what's going to do higher education. Right now, that bill has a cap on $20,000 for a master's degree, $50,000 for law school and a medical degree. We already have a doctor shortage. So think about the 17 year olds who have their whole life ahead of them. They're getting ready to graduate high school and go to college. And you know these kinds of Howard University law school is about $40,000 to go to. You have a bill that's coming out that's going to say, look, the federal

government is only going to give you maybe 20,000 if you want to finish, if you want to go past your undergraduate degree, maybe $50,000 if you want to get a law degree or a medical degree. But the limit that it's going to put on them is going to force them not to not finish their education because they're going to start it, but they're going to have to find other ways to fund it. Where are they going to go? To the private sector, where right now credit card interest rates going to take full advantage because they're going to give those loans. And they're going to give those loans with the promise that right now we're already playing a lifetime of student loans. With the privatized loans, you're going to be paying for your lifetime, for your grandchildren's lifetime, for your great grandchildren's lifetime. You're going gonna see communities,

and this is just not a black issue. This is why it's so important. It's not just not a black issue. It's an American issue. One of the preachers said that there's 800 billion, 800 billionaires in America that right now are setting the tone that are gonna be benefiting from this bill.

Everyone else, to some extent, we're gonna win, but mostly we're going to lose. Because we're all going to have to saddle and burden the debt. Who is going to be able to afford to buy real estate in five years after this bill is up? After they have so much credit card that they can't pay, their credit card, their credit score is in the tank. They can't even afford to lease. Right. Who are, who's going to be able to shoulder that? It's going to be the 40 and the 50 year olds, the 30 year olds. Right. On the Congo. And it's just that situation. On the Congo. For America. Well, my concern is that, you know, we talk about what Democrats need to be doing. You know, Jasmine Crockett was brought up with the fact that the matter is, because

of how she's been treated, she's leaving the national scene and going back to the grassroots. I'm looking at how Democrats have not embraced Azor and Namdani's political stances on particular issues. Again, somebody who built the grassroots campaign. And so we're talking about Democrats not taking advantage of the ecosystem. And we're also seeing how they're not fully embracing the younger Democrats who have a larger,

who are reaching more people. The three pastors who just spoke, they are speaking to people who need to be brought back into the fold. They are speaking to the potential non-voter who decided to stay home and now has to realize that they have an opportunity maybe to make up for that in the next year with the midterms,

make up for some of that. And lastly, when it comes to Donald Trump, Donald Trump has been known to back down when challenged at a hard enough level. And whether we're talking about tariffs, whether we're talking about his first administration and the child policies and cages that he changed after he saw some of the videos. So we can never not let up as it relates to continuing to challenge that. And so I feel like with these pastors, like you said, we need

to see more of that with engaging the Democrats who are newer, with greater ideas to reach more people and continue to confront Trump. All is not lost and we can make some serious gains between now and the midterms. All right folks hold tight one second we come back quick break. We're going to come back and talk about the deadly floods in Texas. Our Republicans still want to deny the reality of climate change and they want to deny that Trump's cuts to the National Weather Service contributed to this. You're watching Roland Martin unfiltered on the Black Star Network. in cages in order for other people to have jobs. Like that is not how our economy should be built.

Only on the other side of change on the Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, the enigma of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. What really makes him tick and what forces shaped his view of the world, the country, and Black America? The answer, I'm pretty sure, will shock you. And he says, you know, people think that I'm anachronistic.

I am. I want to go backwards in time in order to move us forward into the future. He's very upfront about this. We'll talk to Cory Robin, the man who wrote the book that reveals it all. That's next on The Black Table, only on The Black Star Network. Hello, I'm Paula J. Parker.

Trudy Proud on The Proud Family. Hi, I'm Tommy Davidson. I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. 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. Some Texas state emergency officials are placing the blame on the

short staff National Weather Service for its forecast for a storm that led to massive flooding in Texas that has killed more than nearly 100 people, including more than two dozen girls and counselors attending a Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River. The Weather Service came under fire from local officials who criticized what they say as the inadequate forecast which they blamed on federal cuts made by Donald Trump as soon

as he took office. Sunday, a reporter asked Trump who was to blame. And you know he took no responsibility at all. Are you investigating whether some of the cuts to the federal government left tea vacancies at the National Weather Service or the emergency court meeting? No, they did not. They did. I'll tell you, if you look at that, what a situation that all is. And that was really the Biden set up. That was not our set up. But I wouldn't blame Biden for it either. I would just say this is a hundred year catastrophe and it's just so horrible to watch.

and set up. Okay. White House liar and chief Carolyn Levitt said this about the actual fatal flood. Unfortunately, in the wake of this once in a generation natural disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats such as Senator Chuck Schumer and some members of the media. Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning. Here are the facts. In the lead up to this tragic natural disaster, the National Weather Service did its job. Despite unprecedented rainfall, the National Weather Service executed timely and precise forecasts and warnings. On July 3rd, the National Weather Service office in Austin, San Antonio, Texas conducted

forecast briefings for emergency management in the morning and issued a flood watch in the early afternoon. Flash flood warnings were also issued on the night of July 3rd and in the early morning of July 4th, giving preliminary lead times of more than three hours before flash flooding conditions occurred. And the National Weather Service office in New Brunfels, which delivers forecasts for Austin, San Antonio, and the surrounding areas, had extra staff on duty during the storms, despite claims of the contrary.

So to any person who has deliberately lied about these facts surrounding this catastrophic event, you should be deeply ashamed. At this time, the administration's focus will be giving on giving the victims and their communities the support they deserve during these recovery efforts in this tragic time. The alerts imminently were sent out before the flood when people were sleeping because the flood hit in the very early hours of the morning. when people were sleeping because the flood hit in the very early hours of the morning. So people were sleeping in the middle of the night

when this flood came. That was an act of God. It's not the administration's fault that the flood hit when it did, but there were early and consistent warnings. And again, the National Weather Service did its job. On July 2nd, there were initial notices of potential weather and flooding risks were issued.

On July 3rd, escalating warnings throughout the day with a flood wash issued at 1.18 p.m. And then later at 6.10 p.m. on July 3rd, the Weather Prediction Center warned of excessive rainfall and a high likelihood of flash flooding. At 6.22 p.m. July 3rd, National Weather Center issued issued a hydraulic warning highlighting considerable flooding risks, including in Carriville County. And then there were the timely flash flood alerts at 11 41 p.m. 114 a.m. And then another flash flood emergency warning issued at 403 a.m. just before the flood hit. So those were all of the warnings that went out to the affected area in region. It's a lot of cover warnings that went out to the affected area and region. It's a lot of cover your ass going on there. Cody Hankerson is the associate director of energy and environment campaigns at the Center for American Progress. Cody, glad to have you here.

So let's, is what's crazy. Officials in the county refuse to spend the money officials in the county refused to spend the money on a system that would have alerted them. The governor of Texas comes in with his thoughts and prayers and they did nothing. There has been a long history of flooding on the Guadalupe River. This ain't nothing new. Republicans have controlled Texas politics going on three decades. So all of this effort to try to blame Biden and Democrats, it's pretty shitty. It's horrible. If you look at it, the same climate misinformation that this administration and the GOP at large has been putting out for decades now contributed to the fact that that community

was left unprepared, ultimately. I think that that community should be demanding answers as to why the Trump administration at the beginning of the year decided that they were going to slash NOAA, which is the parent agency of the National Weather Service, and slash staffing and funding from the National Weather Service and slash staffing and funding from the National Weather Service itself. And the fact is that there were vacancies that were left there. But despite those vacancies,

the National Weather Service stepped up. They did the best they could with the data and the staffing that they had. But it doesn't negate the fact that there ultimately were funding cuts and that there are future funding cuts coming as a result of the one big beautiful bill. Now the death toll has surpassed 100. And you still have 10 campers and a 19 year old counselor missing.

So 11 people are still missing here. But also what's the problem here, and I just said it, you've had a history of flooding on that river. Republicans, they have slammed their heads into the sand. No, no, no, climate change is not real. And they just refuse to deal with it. And now you're seeing the effects. And it's Republicans who control

Texas politics. Yes. And one of the things that stood out to me about the clips that you had shown was their use of this term once in a generation. What we're seeing as a result of manmade-driven climate change is that these once-in-a-generation storms are becoming once a year, or multiple times a year in some case. And that's where that climate misinformation is so dangerous, is that it makes people think, oh, well, this is just once in a generation. It's not going to happen again. But the Trump administration is actively taking measures to both take away our predictive power as well as our mitigation efforts to help make sure that tragedies like

this never happen again. And so they're burning the candle at both ends and meanwhile they're going to ask FEMA to step in eventually to help with the recovery efforts and that's going to be much needed but the Trump administration is trying to dismantle that as well. So from both ends whether it's from prevention or response they're leaving their own people out to dry. We're looking at losses between, like this is the Texas Tribune, go to my iPad, looking at losses between 18 billion and 22 billion

in destruction and economic losses. Yet when you look at how much money needs to spend on the front end it's not that much and this is what I keep saying about this country and it drives me crazy in America we wait to shit blows up or a plane to crash or a space shuttle to blow up before we go hmm hmm, we might want to fix that. And our response always is to anything preventative that's going to cause money, it's going to cause money.

Well, I think there are families that would love to have a hundred loved ones still living. That was a conversation that I had with my colleagues as well is if you ask these communities, what would we pay to have our family members back or our community members back or for this to have never happened? For us even to have had a few more hours of insight or of alerts before this did happen to get our family members out, that there would be no price tag.

And so it's so important that we do the education and that we hold our public officials accountable whenever they are trying to spread this climate misinformation, which lets to be clear, it's coming from the oil and gas industry and that's funding all these campaigns. And so these politicians, whenever they're pushing this misinformation,

they're making people believe that this is not gonna be something that's gonna happen again, or we're doing the best we can, or it's all right if we defund this program, or their strategy of move fast and break things. Whenever you do that, whenever you have that as your strategy, you're going to cost people their lives. You're going to cost people time to be able to help themselves. Americans just want the information they need to keep themselves safe. And this administration is robbing them of that by defunding these agencies.

Questions from the panel. We'll start with you, Andrew. So what do you think is the administration's reasoning, or what do you think about the administration's reasoning around the whole thing of them saying that these alerts were sent out on time, even though they were sent out overnight? Normally, with a fully staffed weather system, would these alerts have come earlier? You know, all this information, all the alerts are based off of a lot of research and a lot of the models that are coming from NOAA, provided to NOAA, and then are implemented by the National Weather Service. Now, I can't say for certain that the National Weather Service would have been able to send out that information earlier, whether it be an hour or so. But what I do know is that if you break the system

that is feeding all of these models, all these predictive models that ultimately provide those alerts, if you break that system, which the Trump administration did at the beginning of the year, that it can lead to delays. And that if it didn't happen here in Texas,

that it's only a matter of time before it happens. And I also wanted to highlight something that was brought to me by one of my colleagues, which is, since 1999, Black people have died at twice the rate of white people in this country as a result of natural disasters. And so, whenever you're having these alerts go out or you're having data that is outdated or it just hasn't been as analyzed by a fully staffed national weather service, that can lead to deaths

and that disproportionately impacts black and brown communities. One of the questions that I had is that I'm wondering if, as it relates to when I was watching the press conferences, I saw nobody take responsibility at any level for what Trump said, what you know, I'm said it was old technology that needs to be updated. Then she said, we're supposed to follow the lead for the local people. The local people said they didn't get the updates that they were supposed to get. How does this bode well for the rest of us in this country? I'm not an expert on this, but some people, they say we just entered hurricane season

or this flooding season. What does this say for the rest of the country in terms of the regular people? Like, are we all on our own as it relates to this because the leadership at every level, particularly in red states is so poor? What are we supposed to do? You know, that is very much the role

of the federal agencies is to answer that question. As regardless of whether you live in a big city, say like New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina happened or whether you're in a very rural area like this incident here in Texas is that these federal agencies are supposed to be able to step in and make sure that you have the information in a timely and accurate manner in order for you to make these decisions. As far as us feeling alone, I don't know how else we could feel whenever Trump is over here trying to defund the agencies that are meant to alert us.

It'd be very much as if your house was on fire and then somebody goes over and defunds the fire department and then tells you, hey, I really care about you or I really care about your family safety. It's antithetical. You can't have two things at once. You can't really care about you, or I really care about your family safety. It's antithetical. You can't have two things at once. You can't really care about these communities and then also define the agencies and the programs

that are keeping them safe. Morgan. Yeah, thanks for the information, Cody. Couple of thought, well, one, I thought it was very interesting to see the White House press secretary give such an impassioned defense of the role of government. Maybe she'll find that. That's exactly what it's about to me too.

Yes, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. She'll learn the lesson. It's not just the National Weather Service that can do a lot for us. It's things like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that can send warnings when a company's trying to crash the economy. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that in the big, beautiful bill

that we did see some of those tax deductions for wind and solar were preserved. And so getting at your point of, you know, some of these environmental issues and how they impact the public, how they impact the black community, how are you seeing the public support for addressing the reality of climate change

and policies that would do something about it, clean energy grow? Are you feeling like more people are getting it? How are your campaigns going? Absolutely. We're seeing in poll after poll that Americans understand that climate change is happening. And they understand that it's being driven by the oil and gas industry. The question is then what do we do about it? You know, is this something that we can mitigate? Is it something that we need to, and by mitigate, I mean just lessen or do we need to try to rebuild our infrastructure to be more resilient? The answer is going to be all the above. Honestly, by the time that we're able to address all the harms that have been pushed by the oil and gas industry, we're going to have to have more resilient infrastructure. But what we need to have even before then is the research and the public education. And so we need channels just like this one

to continue putting out information that says, hey, especially in black and brown communities that typically are ignored or are left unprotected against natural disasters, that we need the funding in order to have these public projects and to build better housing and to have more infrastructure, more disaster preparedness. If we dismantle these programs that allow us to both predict and to react to these natural disasters in a time that climate change is worsening, and that's what the polling is saying as well

Is that most Americans know that it is worsening if? All those factors come along and all we've had at the end of the day is a bunch of debates and no action People will ultimately be her harm all right, well they are still are searching for the missing and They still are searching for the missing and it's interesting how these Texans are saying this is no time for politics. Yet they had a lot of political stuff to say when the wildfires took place in California attacking Governor Gavin Newsom.

Always happens. All right. We certainly appreciate you joining us. Thanks very much. Thank you for your time. Let me also thank our panel, Morgan, Andrew and only Congo as well for being with today's show. Folks, thank you so very much. We're going to go to break. We come back. I chat with Birmingham Mayor Randall Wolfin about his new memoir. You don't want to miss that conversation. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. This week on the other side of change.

Mass incarceration, Trump administration is doubling down on criminalization and how it is profitable. And there's something really, really perverse about saying that we need to put people in cages in order for other people to have jobs. Like that is not how our economy should be built. Only on the other side of change on the Black Star Network. MUSIC pop comedy. But right now I'm rolling with Roland Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamn believable. You hear me? -♪ whoosh, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, th Frank, glad to have you talking about your book.

It has to feel different to grow up in a city and to be sitting in the position that I dare say a lot of young men and women dream about to actually be the mayor of the place where they born and raised. My brother, first of all, thanks for allowing me to be on with you. And I will tell you, it is a feeling of humility. It is a feeling of opportunity to give back home. I know and I knew very clearly

at the age of 21, because I actually said it in a public, a national publication, Ebony Magazine, the August, September 2002 edition, a question was asked of all HBCU presidents around the nation. What is it that you wanted to be and or do when you grow up? At 21 years of age, a rising senior in college, I said I wanted to be the mayor of my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama. And 15 years later, at the age of 36, I became mayor. So it is definitely very, very humbling. What was your first taste of public service or politics? The first time you can remember doing something, being engaged in something, could have been

with parents or grandparents, the first time you were, what, were you got a taste of, of a political life? It was, it was actually older. There's no, there are no politicians in my family. We weren't a, my family's not. What, what, what do I mean by even if it's, even if it's somebody was involved with the community and then you are around, you testify for the city council or you,

yeah, you talk to a council member or a school board member, anything like that. The first thing I can actually remember, I was 19 years old. I got a chance to work for my congressman, Earl Hilliard, summer, 2001, Capitol Hill. But that wasn't the best part of the experience. The best part of the experience is the second half of the summer I worked in the district.

I got a chance to travel around the district and see the residents that the congressmen served, see them up close in not just urban Alabama such as Birmingham and Montgomery, but rural Alabama in the Black Belt where so many issues are still going on 25 years later. To see the residents, to feel them up close and see their issues up close had a profound impact on me saying, you know what, this whole notion of being a political scientist, one day possibly serving as an elected official, this is something I can commit to because you literally have the opportunity

to change lives for the better. That was literally 25 years ago. Now, you mentioned political science and seeing what I always say, that's a theoretical discussion. So political scientists have theoretical discussions about politics. Well, you know, look, I mean, for me, knowing Dr. Ron Walters, working on Reverend Jackson's campaign, so he had practical experience.

And so it's a lot different, the folk who talk about politics versus the folk who've had to actually do it and be in the thick of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Agreed. So look, political scientists, what can I say? You have a policy lane. You have a public administration lane. And then I took the lane of a jurist doctorate

to enhance the political scientists, where I practiced law for a considerable time. But then I parlayed that into well before I was an elected official, I spent a lot of my, a lot of time, professional years, helping other good candidates get elected as a professional campaigner. And this was post law school. So taking the experience of political scientists on top of a jurist doctorate, I probably that into candidate recruitment, candidate training, helping candidates on campaign finance in as well as campaign management in,

as well as my favorite part, field organizing, where you get to see it's not necessarily policy or public administration. It is in the field, on the ground, interacting with people no different than I did when I worked for the congressman and got to see it up close when you actually represent somebody. And with that, with that experience, what do you say to folk today? See, for me, my story is different. My parents were co-founders of a neighborhood civic organization.

I mean, I'm nine, 10 years old. I can't remember when it was founded. So I remember them working on campaigns. I remember meeting politicians. I remember standing on at polls on election day, passing stuff out. I remember when they would go to town halls and I'm, we in the back doing our homework.

I remember there was a debate, a mayoral debate and the TMO, the Metropolitan Organization, a mayoral debate. Uh, and metropolitan organization My mom was one of the thre and I'm sitting there watc of being able to interact for me when I'm talking a of what I lived in experi

a lot of young folk, a lot of black folks who don't have that experience. So what do you say to folks who say they wanna see change? How do you tell them that you don't have to wait until you're 20, 25, 30 years old? Reality is you can do something now. Look, I would say you don't have to wait till you're 40, 50, 60 either.

What I have found is that young people either wait or say, I'm too young, it's not for me. Or people tell them you're too young, it's not for you. One is disrespectful and the other one is not believing in yourself. And so I would say to anybody, I think we're in a situation in today's time because good people who have a good heart and an interest in serving people, because those people choose to not get involved,

we find ourselves in today's time where people who got selfish interests or personal interests and who are not about the people are elected officials. That is why government is the way it is right now. I would tell any young person, we need good people in office. If you are expecting other good people to just jump in, so therefore you will just wait, wait and won't do it or wait your turn, we will never get back to a point where elected office is about serving people.

We got to have good people take the risk. We got to have good hearted, kind people who have vision, who have some form of organizational skills. But the root of them, you want them to help people, lead people, serve people. The more we have people like that, and definitely younger, the beauty of being young and being in office is that you are full and fresh of new ideas. We have a continuum government. It can get stagnant if we don't have what I call multiple generations in office.

I'm proud to say that I have an administration that is full of all generations, both genders, as well as black and white and other, as well as just a multitude of different facets of just life and experience. And I think we need young people in office because their generation of challenges, their generation of ideas, and their voice is needed at the table. But I dare say, and this is what I say to people,

because there are a lot of folk who, they wanna be in office, but they don't wanna serve. That there is a lot of folk who they want to be in office, but they don't want to serve that, that, that there is a way that, that there is a training ground, there is a, a space, there are things that you have to do to get there. So when you are there, you know what to do with the power once you have it for you. There were things you did before you were mayor, the things that deposition you for that.

Talk about that trajectory. Was that how you planned it? Was that just simply how it unfolded? I would easily say it how it unfolded. I think for me, again, it's just opportunity upon opportunity. I got two opportunities at the age of 15 years old. One was I was a grocery store and age of 15 years old. One was, it was a grocery store and walking distance of our home.

And I remember being 15 and wanting a job. And I literally went up there. First of all, I told my mom, she was like, no, you can't have a job until you're 16. You gotta wait a year. And I was like, I don't wanna wait. And so I stumbled upon Western Supermarket. There's a, the manager there a manager there named Dale Smith.

First boss, I'll never forget his name. He told me no twice. And then upon begging, he finally gave me an opportunity. But when he gave me the opportunity, the first thing I realized is when someone gives you an opportunity, it's important that you not only take advantage of the opportunity, but be the best version

of yourself in having the experience of that opportunity. I was a bad boy, but I parlayed that into what is the ultimate way of providing customer service? How do I take care of the customer? The other thing that happened at 15 is that my church formed a step team and somehow the guys older than me, 16, 17, and 18, chose me to be the first instep ministry leader. Both of those experiences of one leading and the other serving customers back in their groceries and helping them and listening to them and understanding what the customer needed. I parlay that literally into being a mayor that says, I should listen more

than I talk, as well as when I leave people, it should be all about what I can do for them because I'm not representing myself. And those experiences help at an early, early age. And I would say the last another powerful experience I had was my great grandmother. Her name is Mary McGee. She lived to be 100 years old. She passed away my sophomore year at Morehouse. But she lived with us. She moved in with us and lived with us as early as 11, 12 years old.

And I spent so much time with my great grandmother, who was blind from diabetes. I learned that I learned to not only listen to her, but also to be patient. I think when you're an elected official, you have to strike the balance of running down the hill and walking down the hill. And what I mean by that is there are certain things you want right away that you can't always have, but you got to play the lone game because things, you just can't snap your finger and government all the time. Um, it's a process because you're dealing with public tax dollars. But from that, from those experiences of bagging groceries, leading the instep team ministry, learning from my great grandmother, these are all life nuggets I took with me, um, when I became mayor and

I apply them every single day. Mayor, as you were talking about, we're working at 15 and not wanting to wait till you were 16. It immediately brought me back to when I was a kid, working my grandmother's catering business. And the things that I learned, how I applied that, how I applied to every job I had since. Even when I was working at Wendy's,

when I went to newspaper, how that work experience was so important. And then when you talk about being picked at 18, I was in a black Catholic organization, the Junior Knights of Peter Claver. And then when we went to eighth grade, I was in the seventh grade, when I was in eighth grade,

and we were part of a group that took over the state of those experiences stil so I just think it's so v think millennials in Gen Z something but not having your thoughts? I am a tail Yeah, I'm on the front en work history? Your thought in extra jail in extra. Y end. Uh I've born november

on that end. I'm on 1981. we had four TVs, same tv in. I still like a tangib the actual newspaper. There are a lot of things I grew up with, including you have to work, right? Everything can't be given to you. By working at such an early age, you are taught and you learn what work ethic means. You learn what discipline means. You learn what time management means. You learn what discipline means. You learn what time management

means being on time. You learn that everything's not about you, that you serve something else or you serve other people, whatever type of job you have, and that you have to earn money, but in order to earn, you have to actually put in the work that things aren't just given to you. So I definitely think, you know, bring back jobs for young people, which is what I've done as mayor. We have a kids and jobs program, and we created another program that I give $2 million a year to,

to support young people to be exposed to work opportunity. We got to get, we got to get young people back working at an early age to teach them discipline and work opportunity. We got to get, we got to get young people back working at an early age to teach them discipline and work ethic. Now it doesn't mean what Republicans are doing by changing these laws allowing people as young as 14 to work and they can they can work late night hours and early morning hours to me that's stupid. I do believe you need to have restrictions on it, I do believe you need to have restrictions on it. But I do believe that stuff is just so valuable. Now, being born and raised in Birmingham,

you're born 22, 23 years after Dr. King was killed. So you had one generation that was post Civil Rights Movement. Give me a view of what Birmingham looked like for you then and what it looks like now. Yeah. So growing up, names like Fred Shuttlesworth, Richard Arrington, and even was AG Gaston were prominent names. Fred Shuttlesworth is the one who invited King to Birmingham. So his name is his name is everywhere. It's in our it's when you fly in it's not Birmingham Airport. It's Fred Shuttlesworth International Airport.

The AG Gaston Motel. But beyond that, I was on I was part of the. Gaston Boys Club where I played on the football team. A.G. Gaston was the first black millionaire in the state of Alabama who quietly and discreetly paid for and assisted a lot of people literally getting bond to get out of jail during the movement. In addition to that, the AG Gaston Motel, when you see the picture of Reverend Abernathy, when you see the picture of Dr. King, you see the picture of Fred Shuttlesworth, and then you see a young, Andy Young, Ambassador Mayor Andy Young standing in overalls with the press in front of them, that is at the A.G.

Gaston Motel. And so these are things that I saw as a child growing up, especially when the A.G. Gaston Boys and Girls Club was downtown Birmingham, near where the marches took place and kids were attacked and people were host. These are all things that were triggered. Then in the 90s, still as a child, Dr. Richard Arrington formed and created the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. And so then you were transfixed on understanding the movement from

museum turned Institute standpoint, where you see Birmingham's powerful, powerful role in changing America, um, as well as laws that benefited black Americans. And so as a child in the eighties and nineties, you saw these things and there was a, for me, that was an appreciation early enough to understand the world has always watched Birmingham and we reckon our differences on the world stage to see, we got to figure this out for our city. And so I was, I guess, indoctrinated at an early age about the importance of Birmingham's history tied to American history. When you, again, prior to becoming mayor,

you chose to be on the school board. Why? My mother is a retired educator. My stepmother is a retired educator. My sister is a current educator. And so around our kitchen table, education has always been a part of the conversation, but I'll give you something more, I'll give you something

equally or more important than that. I am one of those naive, crazy people who believes if you want to change the world, you want to change people's outcomes, families' outcomes, black men outcomes. If you want to change poverty, if you want to decrease poverty, if you want to decrease poverty, if you want to decrease crime, if you want to increase opportunity, jobs, et cetera, it's all centered around educating black kids. I believe that. And nobody can, nobody will ever convince me education is not the best way for all the

things you want to see in your community to get better. Running for the school board for me wasn't some springboard or something to do as a checkoff. It is something I had a genuine interest in because even as mayor, community members call me the education mayor. I'm still championing education in all type of programs and funding because I believe any mayor in America, if you want the best for your community, even if you don't control the school system, like Birmingham, I don't control the school system,

you still gotta make educating our next and youngest generation a priority for all the desire you have to make the community better. all the desire you have would make the community better. The job of a mayor is not a five day week job. And there are a lot of people who learn that real quick. When was the first time that it hit you that there was no such thing as a weekend off a day off that the reality is your phone may ring, you may get texts, you may get phone calls, you may get emails, things will happen

at any given moment day or night. So I'm about four or five months into the job. I'm sitting in my office with my economic development director. He just came in to tell me some amazing news about this deal that we're closing on, that he's closed on my behalf. We're ready to sign. Economic opportunity is gonna be transformational.

And I get a call from my chief of police that a high school student had been shot in a school. Well, everything we were talking about, the economic development deal was kind of out the door. I jumped in the truck, drove to the school. The young person, the young girl, unfortunately, en route to the hospital died. And when I realized in that moment anything can happen, the most tragic thing can happen.

And when that does, it literally pushes everything else aside. And you have to deal with that, in this case, a tragedy. I made it to the hospital, I interacted with their parents, and from there it was just a long process of not just grief for that family, not just grief for that high school, but for the community. And you realize you can get a call at any point of the day or night about a shooting or a death. You can get a call anytime of night

about a natural disaster in the form of tornadoes, which burmams in Tornado Alley, and so many other things. You know, you can have the best plans in the world and wanting to be a mayor. And you should have a team that only looks around the corner and thinks about tomorrow and only sees the forest. But a lot of this job, you can get caught in the trees and it can, unfortunately, become a game of whack-a-mo, because things always pop up, even if it's not tragic that you have to deal with.

And I find myself, you know, I found this early, four or five months into the job, you know, it's 25 hours a day, eight days a week. With that, a lot of people think the mayor can do everything to solve every problem. How do you deal with that when you know there are things that are out of your control, but your constituents are expecting you to get things handled? It's probably one of the hardest parts of the job managing expectations. And what I have found is as a core value is transparency is so important,

but so is over-communicating. I believe in not just communicating with over-communicating using every communication platform, social media, TV, radio, direct mail, as mayor, town hall meetings, neighborhood meetings, city council meetings, word of mouth barbershops, it doesn't matter, churches. In this job, I have to find ways to level set expectations about what I can and can't do. There are more needs than there are in tax dollars to solve for them. There are things that I can't control because there's no home rule. There are things that are literally not, how about this, not my responsibility. But I have to partner with these other

organizations as well as over communicate to my citizens. Here's what I can do and here's how we can assist you even if I don't have the answer or resigning my purview. So it requires over communicate Roland. And I'm gonna tell you, any mayor that unlocks that door, cracks the code on how to communicate with the people they represent and try to manage those expectations as realistic and as some of them unrealistic as they are,

they'll farewell because people will know, that's not the mayor's responsibility. Then you get other people saying it for you or, hey, the mayor doesn't wear a cape. The mayor is not inside this house, inside that car. The mayor doesn't control the school system. The mayor doesn't control the water. The mayor is not inside this house, inside that car. The mayor doesn't control the school system. The mayor doesn't control the waterworks, et cetera, et cetera.

You have a really deep, troubled history. Do you still face resistance from people going, oh, Birmingham, oh, the South, oh, no? Because you and previous black mayors have had to battle what people call the new Birmingham, the revitalized Birmingham. Or do you still grapple with Birmingham's history in trying to get folk to understand that the present day is not the same as it used to be? I do, I do. And that's part of the motivation of the book.

Song of Birmingham is really about not just telling my personal story, my journey. It's about showing the current world, Birmingham, Alabama did not stop in 1963. So many people only know Birmingham from the Civil Rights Movement through history books. And so in their mind, they don't have a visual of how green Birmingham is, how beautiful it is, how many trees it is, how it's tree city. They don't know that we're a foodie town. They don't know that we are a mid-sized city. They don't know we're one of the top,

we're one of the five blackest cities in America, top five blackest cities in America. They don't know these things. They don't know that it's an urban court, it is not rural. They don't know it's hilly and not flat. And so as mayor, my job is to be a cheerleader and an ambassador for the city and tell our story, our modern day story.

And that's what this book does a lot. It not only gives you my personal failures and losses, it talks about the triumph, my personal triumph as well, but it talks about Birmingham in today's time as a mid-sized progressive city that is not only open for business, but that is making moves and policies that improve quality of life for anyone who want to move here as well as those who currently live here. I ask every book author this, and this will serve as my final question for you and that is as you were sitting down and thinking through and writing and typing or researching and

doing interviews and reflecting what was what was a wow moment for you? Was there something that you remembered growing up? Was there something that struck you that may even make you go wow I forgot that or that that moment was crazy what was it for you. And for me it was actually is in the form of a tragedy. My brother was killed May 27 2012. The book is written in order but for the exception of writing about my brother.

And what I did not realize when I started writing and got deep into it was I didn't realize how raw emotion I still had and I hadn't fully processed or fully grieved or gone through all the grieving processes of acknowledging and or accepting my brother's death. I started writing the book in 2023. And so what's that? That's about 11 years later. 11 years later, I realized that not only do I still miss my brother, I hadn't fully processed his death.

I hadn't fully processed that I still got his phone number in my phone. And I remember our last conversation word for word, and processed all of that. So it was definitely a wow moment. But it was a mostly triggering moment. That since I've written about him, I've actually gotten better because I can talk about it. I wouldn't been able to be this vulnerable, honest with you prior to writing the book. So writing and talking about him was very actually therapeutic in a sense. Wow, that is that that is a powerful, powerful moment there. It is certainly

introspective, very fresh, but also forward thinking. I'll make this the last question, and that is when you are done serving as mayor, what do you want people to know about the city and how you made it better? The, the first thing I want people to know is that Birmingham, Alabama is a progressive city where you can be successful and have opportunity. Second thing I want them to know is that we gave black kids an opportunity to take control of their future,

whether it's going to college for free or going straight into the workforce and coming out with the work opportunity. Third thing I want people to know is something very, very, very important. I broke through the legacy of segregation. I now preside over a city that still has a duplication of services to parks, two libraries, two recreation centers in one neighborhood because one was black and one was white. But I have a population that's going from 340,000 at the peak in the late sixties, early seventies to 200,000 today in 2025. So what I want people to know is that we did the right

thing in providing services for our citizens, not at the cost of segregation, but at the cost of segregation, but at the cost of a efficient government that actually worked for all of our citizens. All right then, folks, the book is Son of Birmingham, Mayor Randall Woodfin, a memoir. I appreciate it, good luck with the book, and thanks a bunch. Always respect my big brother. All right, appreciate it. Yes, Fred, I appreciate it. Good luck with the book and thanks a bunch. I always respect my big brother.

All right. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. And here's Heather with the weather. Well it's beautiful out there, sunny and 75, almost a little chilly in the shade. Now let's get a read on the inside of your car. It is hot. You've only been parked a short time and it's already 99 degrees in there. Let's not leave children in the back seat

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