#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Marilyn Mosby Speaks, FAMU To Hire 3rd Party to Investigate Donation, No VSU Presidential Debate

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

5.15.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Marilyn Mosby Speaks, FAMU To Hire 3rd Party to Investigate Donation, No VSU Presidential Debate Marilyn Mosby is in the studio to talk about what it has been like for her to be convicted of mortgage fraud and perjury.  The Florida A&M Board of Trustees unanimously voted to hire an external firm to investigate the historic $237 million donation during its Spring commencement ceremony.  We'll let you hear what the university president had to say.  We'll explain why a presidential debate will not be held at the first HBCU picked to host one.  The 2024 National Black Voter Project survey results are in. The director of the Black Voter Project will be here to discuss their findings.  The Founder and Executive Director of the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition will be here to explain the Black Ballots, Black Futures 2024 Campaign, which aims to get more black voters to the polls in November.  #blackstarnetwork partner:Fanbase 👉🏾 https://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase 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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It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today is Wednesday, May 15th, 2024. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Marilyn Mosby is in the studio to talk about what it's been like for her over the last several years, but definitely over the last 15 months as she dealt with being under attack from the U.S. Attorney's Office,

which led to a conviction for mortgage fraud and perjury. We'll talk about that, but also upcoming sentencing and, again, having to deal with all of this, including significant financial issues tied to it. Florida A&M Board of Trustees today voted to hire an external firm to investigate what the hell happened with the ridiculous, historic, now fake $237 million donation that was given during the spring commencement ceremony. I watched the whole thing. I'm trying to figure out why in the hell the board couldn't do it.

Also, the president apologized for what took place. Okay, we'll play that too. Also, we'll explain why a presidential debate will not be held at an HBCU for the first time ever after President Joe Biden skipped the Presidential Commission on Debates. 2024 National Black Voter Project survey results are in. We'll talk with the director about the results. Also, the founder and executive director of the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition will be here to explain the Black Ballots, Black Futures 2024 campaign. Folks, and also, Congresswoman Zaisley Plaskett just smacked the hell out of Jim Jordan and Republicans today in the special committee.

And we always love to show you when Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett jacks up one of Trump's people. We've got all of that and more. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fat, the fine. Let's go. He's rollin' with Uncle Roro, yo. Yeah, yeah. It's Rollin' Martell, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Rollin' with Rollin' now. Yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know. He's Rollin' Martell now. Next week, federal judge Lydia K. Grigsby will sentence former Baltimore state's attorney Marilyn Mosby, who was convicted of mortgage fraud and perjury. She's facing up to 40 years in prison. Today, though, a number of attorneys, 50 some odd attorneys, came out publicly calling for President Biden to pardon her. Go to

my iPad, please. This was a statement released by Attorney Ben Crump, where he noted that it says National Civil Rights and Personal Injury Attorney Ben Crumpley, attorney Jeff Trevelyan Jr., attorney Barbara Arnwine, attorney Barry Sheck, and more than 50 other attorneys are urging President Joe Biden to pardon former Baltimore City attorney Marilyn Mosby. As the release says, attorney Mosby is one of several black female progressive prosecutors who have been targets of a disturbing political agenda for standing up for communities of color and for advancing progressive causes. Mosby's vocal opposition to the to the previous administration, sending in federal troops to arrest protesters in the community following the murder of George Floyd

and her efforts to hold law enforcement accountable following the killing of Freddie Gray, appear to have fueled retaliation. Crump and 50 plus other attorneys listed below are calling on President Biden to rectify this injustice immediately by partnering by partnering Marilyn Mosby. She joins us right now along with Attorney Monique Presley. Got to have both of you here. First, there's some things we can't obviously talk about because everything that you say leading up to sentencing can be factored in. So you've got U.S. attorneys, you've got the judge all paying attention to all of that. When you started, did you think this is where you would be ending up? When, of course, when Freddie Gray happened and people were demanding justice,

and when you chose to charge those officers, and all of a sudden folks came after your law license and all the different attacks. It's a whole different worldview now than where you were then. It absolutely is a whole different world. I mean, when you go into a position, understanding and recognizing that prosecutors are one of the most important stakeholders in the criminal justice system.

We decide who's going to be charged, what they're going to be charged with, what sentence recommendations we're going to make. We make a determination as to whether someone gets into the criminal justice system in the first place. And when you go into it with the heart and the passion to reform the criminal justice system, you don't ever think that you're going to be on the other side of that, right? I went into this with the concept of representing the ideals of what this country is supposed to represent, freedom, democracy, justice. And so to now have that system, which I was attempting to balance the scales and ensure equality for everyone is now being used against me.

It is a very sobering sort of moment. And over the last 15, 18 months, you're going to court. Your first group of attorneys have to leave. Then you got a second group of attorneys. You are then going through divorce. Then you're dealing with the trial. Then you deal with the conviction. That is a lot personally to have to contend with.

Then, of course, losing the race as well. So it's personal and professional all collapsing, if you will, at the same time. So, I mean, to be honest with you, it's been mind-boggling. You know, it's definitely been a storm. I think that when I think of all that I've been through, and you've kind of mentioned it, the thing that is most sobering to me is that this is more about my children, right? Yesterday, my ex-husband was in a 25-year relationship. And I want to be very clear, like, this attack has been lodged against me to break me, break me psychologically, break me physically, spiritually, financially. Like, my whole entire savings has been depleted,

fighting these bogus allegations and now this wrongful conviction. But the worst part is that my children, my ex-husband just yesterday lost his presidential race for city council and my little girls came into my room and they were devastated. And I said, it's okay, baby. At the end of the day, this is just an election.

And in my mind, I'm thinking it's not like he's fighting for his liberty, it's okay, baby. At the end of the day, this is just an election. And in my mind, I'm thinking it's not like he's fighting for his liberty. It's gonna be okay. And what my baby said to me at 13 and 15 is I don't want dad to go through what you've been through for the past two years. The depression, the isolation, the feeling of abandonment, when everybody around you has now villainized you

and made you out to be some sort of corrupt public official. When all that I did was what 35,000 other people did nationally, 739 in the city of Baltimore. Right. Like I withdrew my own retirement savings. This is not PPP loans. This is not COVID relief funding. This is me trying to build a better future for my children and understanding and recognizing that they ultimately have been the one to sacrifice the most. And to now know that the government is not happy with the disillusion of my marriage, the disillusion of my political career. But they're still coming after me in a way in which they want to take my sole asset, the only asset that I have. And they also want to put me in prison. I'm facing up to 40 years, but they want to and are recommending that I go to jail for me withdrawing my own retirement savings, which, again, in and of itself is ridiculous.

You talked about, again, the personal battles. So here you are a public official. And when you're in the public official, you're in the public eye. Absolutely. And then all of these things are happening off air, behind the scenes as well. And while all of this is going on,

you're trying to sit here and maintain sanity. I've seen you at different times over at different events the last several years. But for people who don't quite understand what what that is like and what you have to endure. Walk folks through and how have you how have you tried to maintain sanity? To be honest with you I think

sometimes I still think I'm losing my mind but I thank God like for the isolation I thank God for to be honest I've tried to find the beauty in, in this traumatic sort of experience. And I wouldn't be able to do that on my own. It was because of the isolation. It was because of the people that I loved unconditionally that showed me the conditions of their love. It was, it was because of the, the abandonment that I felt,

the depression that I went felt, the depression that I went through, the toxic addictions, me trying to numb my pain, that I was able to get through all of that through God and to get closer and to come out of this crucible stronger, wiser, and more empowered in my faith. And so I don't credit anything but my faith and knowing that at the end of the day, I know that in that role and in this position, I know that I've done nothing illegal. I know that I've done nothing criminal. I know that I've done nothing wrong. I know that I've been wrongly convicted.

And I know that the work that I was doing has everything to do with why I'm in the position that I'm in. When 35,000 other people nationally have done the same thing and I'm the only person in the position, I'm being selectively prosecuted and now facing 40 years in prison, I have to understand and recognize that it's greater than me. It's not about me. It's about what I represent to so many others. And so when you put that in perspective, then you kind of understand and you can see the beauty and appreciate and have gratitude in this traumatic experience.

More than a year ago, you and a number of other black female prosecutors went to St. Louis to stand with Kim Gardner. And Kim Gardner has since resigned because of attacks against her. Aramis Ayala is no longer a prosecutor there in Florida. Monique Worrell, who replaced her, was removed by DeSantis. She's now running for re-election. Kim Foxx in Chicago opted,

went through a divorce herself, opted not to run for reelection. Ku Klux Klan came outside her office and demanded her resignation. I mean, that, and so y'all had this sisterhood, and when you now look over the last several years, what has happened to all of you. I don't think people quite understand this national attack constantly on progressive prosecutors, but especially black female prosecutors. I think you bring up a really great point. I think that there is definitely an attack.

I think when you look at the prior administration, the Trump administration, whether under William Barr, where he explicitly went on record and said these social justice rogue prosecutors will do anything within our power of the Department of Justice to go after them jurisdictionally, those prosecutors that aren't prosecuting whole areas of the law, right, jurisdictionally, or whether they're individual politicians, they did just that. It's a larger sort of picture.

And you've already talked about it. Fannie Willis, Tish James, so many of us that are all under the same sort of ire of this prior administration. And understanding that and recognizing that. And I have to say, the vitriol for black women prosecutors in these roles is very different than the progressive prosecutors. Because the progressive prosecutors like Chesa Booden and, you know, Larry Krasner. Or Andrew Warren. Or Andrew Warren, right? They've come after us. And it hasn't just been the Trump administration, but the Trump administration and the cronies. So I had very public disputes with Larry Hogan, right, now running for Senate. This is something that is very much calculated. And the playbook is executed perfectly.

It's written and then executed perfectly on everyone else. And so understanding that it's a larger sort of mechanism in which they can try to negate. And Trump just last week came out and said, what is he going to do? He said that he's going to give full immunity to police officers. Right? And said they should be able to do their job. They should be able to do their jobs, but he allowed them to kill with impunity. Yeah, he said full immunity. So when you have

prosecutors, and I was one of the first prosecutors to attempt to hold police officers accountable for the death of a black man, right? You know, after Freddie Gray, we successfully prosecuted 33 police officers after Freddie Gray, right, who were violating the rights of citizens in Baltimore City. When it comes to the gun trace task force, these were corrupt, rogue officers planting guns and drugs on citizens for decades.

My office was the one who not only drafted the legislation but lobbied for the legislation and passed the legislation and vacated 800 convictions as a result of those rogue police officers. I mean, it can go on and on. I started the first conviction integrity unit in the entire state of Maryland, where we did reinvestigations into claims of actual innocence, where I exonerated 13 innocent black men who collectively served 300 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit. Now being on the other side of that is a sobering sort of reality. And having that system that we were attempting, and not just me, but my

sisters all across this country, attempting to equalize, to now be used against you, and the progressive sort of attacks against others, when it comes to black women, they use the criminal justice system to come against us. I the support uh that you have been receiving um not just from the lawyers today but so many other folks in the community folks across the country um what has that been like um have folks been reaching out to you on social media privately email things along those lines giving you encouragement i can just tell you i'm so humbled and i'm so honored i'm so grateful um you know to be at the lowest point in your life and to have everything taken away from you or to be at rock bottom and to pray and to to ask god you know just to question why I'm going through what I'm going through. And then for God to send earth angels into my life, like Monique, like Angela Rye, like so many

of the local sort of supporters, the Tyrones and the Sheenas and the Hakeez of the world who, who came in and just believed in me and understood that this is an injustice that could happen easily to them, you know, is beside me. And recognizing that this is so much greater than me, I'm so humbled. Fourteen civil rights organizations have signed on to support the pardon request. Fifty-eight attorneys, you know, have signed on. I'm just so humbled. And there's been over 40,000 people who have signed that petition who understand that this is an injustice.

I'm grateful to you, Roland. You've always been there for me through thick and thin and provided a platform for me to be able to express, you know, what's happening, the real, not any misinformation in the media. And so, you know, I'm humbled and I'm grateful. Do you regret going to public service? I don't. I always said that justice is worth the price paid for its pursuit. And everything that I did in that role as state's attorney, that was my passion. I did it for the right reasons.

And I wouldn't do anything differently. Going to go to a break. We come back. I do want to talk about the case and we'll do that when we come right back. Folks, we're talking with Marilyn Mosby, a former state's attorney in Baltimore. You're watching Rolling Mark Unfiltered right here on the Blackstar Network. We'll be right back. I said, take a year off. Work on Malcolm X. I said, okay. But first of all, for the folks who don't know, Spike is my cousin. Spike is my cousin. Just for, the person watching like, how the hell is Spike just gonna tell you?

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I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. Right now I'm rolling with Roland Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamned believable. You hear me? All right, folks, welcome back. Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We're talking with former Baltimore State's attorney, Marilyn Mosby, of course, who is facing sentencing next week after being convicted

of mortgage fraud and perjury. Also joining us, attorney Monique Presley was here with her as well. And so because, obviously, the sentencing is next week, there are certain things that Marilyn can't talk about,

which includes the case, which is why Monique is here so so so for money people who don't understand who maybe didn't follow this trial we were covering it things along those lines what was the basic crust of the government's case that they accused and eventually convicted Marilyn of? So first, thank you, Roland, for having us. I appreciate you and using your platform in this manner. One of the reasons that Angela Rye and others of us came together

is not because she didn't have quality attorneys, Marilyn does, but as organizers who are part of the civil rights and justice community, it's important to us that people understand that the role of the prosecutor as someone with tremendous amount of discretion, they can charge what they want to charge, Roland. They can go in there. The grand jury belongs to the prosecutor. Everybody knows that. So that works for us and against us, but it works against us way more than it's for us. So when you go from having someone like a Marilyn Mosby who is willing to look at reformative justice,

who's willing to look at rehabilitation for those who it's appropriate for, when you have someone who's willing to look at charging police officers when they commit murders on the street, And you take that and you target that and replace it with someone like a Leo Wise, who's willing to target people because of that kind of work, who are willing to look at people who are progressive and say, oh, yes, that's who we need to get to next. That's where we are now. So that's exactly what happened in this case. Anytime you've got 35,000 plus people in the United States who are activating the

provisions that were provided through COVID relief in order to access their own retirement funds, which is all that Attorney Mosby did. She accessed funds that she had been putting in. Was it $800 every two weeks? $780 every two weeks. $780 every two weeks for years until you build a nest egg, which is what this so-called American dream is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be that you go to school, you work hard, you save your money, and then when the opportunity presents itself for you to access your own funds and create for a future for your children, you do it. That was her plan. That was

what she was doing. That was what 35,000 other people were doing, 730-something people in Baltimore. And what the government says is that she didn't qualify to be able to do that because she didn't demonstrate a legal standard to show adverse financial consequences or adverse financial hardship, even though the term is not even supposed to be used in this context in order to justify withdrawal of the funds. Now, well, and I've been on your show a million years. I'm a stickler for let's figure out what the law says. And sometimes I take positions that are contrary to the popular one because I'm saying, well, this is what the law says. And so if this is what the law says,

then this is what we were bound to do when we worked from there. But there was no law. There was no standard. The judge actually had to, didn't have to, but chose to tell a jury, use your common sense to figure out what it means. Now, anybody can look up right now on Google. And if you look up jury and common sense, it'll say, don't do that. Don't ever do that. Asking a jury to rely on their common sense for something that should be defined by code or by judicial decision making is the absolute wrong thing to do because a jury is full of lay people. The jury is supposed to make a fact based decision. The judge is supposed to apply the law.

Am I right or am I wrong, Madam Prosecutor? So I think you're right. And I think one of the things that she's emphasizing is that unlike financial hardship, right, which has been legally defined and there's precedents that's already been set, this was a provision that was created under the CARES Act that was defined as adverse financial consequence. This is not a financial hardship. This is adverse financial consequence. That has never been legally defined. When we got to trial, the government's witness, the director of the compensation board for Baltimore City, stated on the record at my trial that the only thing he never gave anybody any sort of direction, none of the 739 other people other than what was

said in that statute. And he said the way that he defined adverse financial consequence was if you suffered a $50 adversity or more. I didn't think I needed to take the stand at that point, right? The government put on evidence that I suffered more than a $50 adversity. And so... But it's not even really about what... I know that it's about what happened at Maryland's trial, but it's about the fact that there were not 738 other trials. And it's about the fact nationally that there were not 34,999 other trials because it's akin to, I mean, 35,000 people, that's whole cities.

That's whole cities in the United States. So imagine if you're living in a town and everybody does the same thing. Everybody receives the same advice. Everybody uses the same provision. And then the government comes in and says, yo mama, yo mama did it and we are prosecuting her. That is casebook targeted prosecution. That's casebook targeted prosecution. That's casebook malicious prosecution.

That's casebook targeted, isolated, ill-meaning prosecution of a citizen. So there were two trials. So that was obviously one trial that dealt with perjury. And then the second dealt with mortgage fraud. And this was a press release that the Department of Justice sent out where they said that Marilyn made a false statement in an application for a $428,400 mortgage to purchase a condominium in Longboat Key, Florida. As part of the application, Mosley falsely stated that she had received a $5,000 gift from her husband to be applied to the purchase of the property.

They then said that, oh, that wasn't the case, that she gave him five grand, he gave her five back. Yes. And at trial. That was the case? And at trial, the testimony came in from the people that advised her that she had been advised that it was appropriate for the gift to come from her then husband. And he testified at trial about the same. So what we're having and I'm rolling if you listen to the press release and I don't know. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

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

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Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I got it right here. I don't know. I don't know if we've even called it out in this manner, but the one thing that I want to say that I know that she can't is there's this whole prevailing theme that black women aren't supposed to have money, that we're not supposed to have savings, that we're not supposed to make smart business decisions.

We definitely aren't supposed to have no property that we're buying in Florida while we are government service. We're supposed to be impoverished. Stay in our place. We're not supposed to be thinking for ourselves. We're not supposed to be taking advantage of opportunities. So that's why we can have a former president with 91 sundry indictments all over the United States for doing things like crimes against America, for subverting elections, and he's not facing up to 40 years anywhere right now.

Like, he's not up for sentencing anywhere right now, but we've got this black woman who is trying to help us. And the reason why that matters to me is because I sit here as, like, a career, 30-year defense-minded person, defense attorney. Anybody can check the record and know I've never prosecuted anybody for anything. This is my sister. It is necessary.

We say all the time we need progressive prosecutors who look like us. We need progressive prosecutors who understand us. We need progressive prosecutors who come from our community. But then when they get attacked, we have this side eye. We have this mentality where we're tearing down the very thing that we asked for. All those initiatives that she tried to do and did do successfully, her people who follow her, who don't look like us, who don't talk like us, who don't understand us, they will not do those same things and are not doing those same things. And the reason why that matters in this case is because of this. Anytime you got the NAACP, Until Freedom, Black Voters Matter, and 12 others who all think the same thing at the same time and sign the same piece of paper,

you know, like, there's no harm, no foul. There's no debating the clear call that she requires justice. When you've got lawyers like Barry Shett from the Innocence Project, yes, people know him from his being part of the dream team, but somebody who is data specific like that, somebody who's devoted their life to defending innocence. When she's signing on with an attorney crump, with a Barbara Arnwine, with a DiMario, you can look, I mean, there are five former national bar presidents who have signed

on the same piece of paper, not just saying we agree that she should be pardoned, they represent her, that's her lawyers now. So I say all that to say, yes, they accused her of perjury, for following advice she was given, and for utilizing money from a gift from her own husband. They accused her of defrauding the government for taking her own funds that she had saved for her and her children.

And she's supposed to be what sets an example. She's supposed to be the chilling factor. So anybody who's bold enough to stand up against the establishment gets the lesson. Obviously, when it comes to a pardon, that comes down to the president of the United States, Department of Justice, they ought to do their reviews and make recommendations. So what you have, though, is this is a DOJ, DOJ prosecution. And so I take it folks have been trying to get to President Biden because ultimately his decision. He does not even require Trump to even talk to Department of Justice.

He doesn't even have to listen to anybody. He can make any decision on his own. Yes, he can. And the reason why that matters is this. Pardon power belongs to the chief executive office of the United States so that if every other part of the justice system fails, a citizen of this country or even an immigrant of this country who was falsely accused and convicted still has a place that they can go. We are going to that place now because the system has failed Attorney Mosby. So we are asking for people to sign on to the petition, asking that the president, and you can go to justiceformarylinemosby.com to find the petition.

And don't get me wrong, these are people who don't want the prior administration. These are not people who want to see Trump in office again. These are people who understand that President Biden has a unique opportunity to right a wrong and to support the people who supported him and his administration and its

objectives. There has been no greater champion than Attorney Mosby. She formed and framed her whole progressive system in her own prosecutor's office after the work that our vice president did in California and was a staunch supporter of that work when people were out there saying Kamala the cop. So we're asking them now to look and say, look, here's your supporter. Here's your emulator. Here's someone who has done good work for you who does not deserve what she's being given now. And we're asking them to fix it. Questions from two of my panelists. Rebecca Carruthers, Vice

President, Fair Elections Center out of Washington, D.C. Rebecca, go ahead. Thank you all for being on the show tonight. Marilyn, do you regret taking out the mortgages for the Florida homes? Yeah, Marilyn's not going to answer because that goes to the facts of the case. But what I can say

is that her lawyers have said in her papers and in the sentencing paperwork that she doesn't stand in a place of regret for doing what she absolutely had a right to do. And she did deliver testimony in that regard. But I can't let her say it here because her lawyers will hamstring me if I let her speak to the facts of the case while the judge and everybody else is watching. The only thing that I will add is that, yes, the federal government was able to come back with this. But let me be very clear that this was something that was being done ever since I charged the offices in Freddie Gray. These folks have been coming for my law license. The past four years, they've combed every aspect of my life.

They've gone through my taxes, my charitable donations, my campaign contributions. They've gone to my children's dance instructors, my hairdressers. They've knocked on my neighbor's doors at 5 a.m. to interrogate them, my employees. Like, they have gone and literally tried to figure out any way to put anything on me, and this is the one thing that they come back with. And so, to the extent of what Monique has already said,

all of that is already prescribed within the sentencing memos as well as within my testimony. Robert Portillo, host of People Passion Politics, News and Talk 1380, W-A-O-K out of Atlanta, who's also running for a judicial position in Atlanta.

Robert, go ahead. You know, the list of attorneys who are supporting you, add my name to that list and I'll go to the website after the show to do so. This is a travesty. And beyond even the black female prosecutors, we saw that when this black girl magic movement started to rise to power, we saw the immediate pushback from mayors. Think about what Mayor Lloyd Lightfoot went through, Mayor Bowser, Mayor Cantrell, the mayor in Baltimore who went to prison, Kiesland's Bottoms here in Atlanta.

Whenever Black female politicians rise to power and start to regulate the white supremacist power structure, we've seen this immediate reaction from the power structure to punish them. And what we see on the other side of the aisle is they take care of their own. They make sure that if you're a January 6th protester, quote unquote, that they promise to pardon those people, they return to power. What has been the response from the Department of Justice and from the administration on these calls for a pardon? Because it's very clear that they have the power to do so. It seems that we shouldn't have to petition the people that we have put in power. We haven't had a public response as of yet. I do know that there have been ongoing conversations from the group of us. I'm one of the co-organizers for Justice

for Marilyn Mosby. Angela Rye is another. We have been stomping all the sidewalks, making all the calls, but it was just yesterday, Robert, that the official full pardon application was submitted to the pardon attorney with the over 50 names on it, and we will absolutely amend it to add your name, but it also came with like 700 pages of supporting documentation with over 20 letters of support that were sent to sentencing and then sent again. And we are adding affidavits of support as well. So we anxiously await hearing from them. Jolanda Jones is an attorney out of Houston, also a Texas state representative. Jolanda, go ahead. You're on mute. Hold on. You're on mute. I got, you got me now? Go ahead. So, so I want to say,

I'm so sorry for what you're going through, Attorney Mosby. It makes me want to cry, but I will also say that you can add my name to that list. I'm actually a 29-year practicing lawyer. Criminal defense is one of the things that I do. That's the first thing I want to say. I want to help you any way that I can. Thank you. I also want to say that President Biden needs to pardon you. He's got issues with black people.

This is a way he can show us that he's down for us. So we know how he is when he's for people, and he's had a very esteemed group of people asking him to support you. I believe I was—I know I learned that they started investigating you prior to him taking office, but they didn't indict you until, I think, 2022, once he was in office. Here's what I can say about prosecutors. Their greatest power is discretion. So you have the right to not move forward on something. And so I think that when people are peeing on us and telling us that it is raining, we need to look to make sure if it's peeing. And so I'm watching with bated breath to see what President Biden does since the official pardon request was submitted on yesterday. But I'm here to help you if you need me.

Reach out. Roland knows how to reach me. But based on what I've heard and based on what I've looked into, the fact that you are the only person charged federally with this, after I think you said 700 and something people in, I mean, where you're from did it, I absolutely believe it is retaliation for you doing what's right in the criminal justice system. And the question I have for you is, do you believe, based on your communications with other black women who are doing great things to reform the criminal justice system, that the criminal justice reform movement has been stifled? Are people afraid?

Are we going to continue to fight? Are we willing to lose stuff in order to do what's right by the people and by us? So, first and foremost, I say thank you for your support. I'm eternally grateful, especially you being another fellow attorney. You can understand the injustice from a legal perspective. You're absolutely right. I think that this administration can do something. And I had the expertise of, you know, Reed Smith and Scott Bolden,

who is often on this show. We were yelling loud, you know, asking this. This investigation started under the Trump administration. And then when the Biden administration took office, we were we were calling and begging for them to please just allow us to go in front of the grand jury. Allow us to come and talk to you. Please just look into this. And that didn't happen. But to your question, yes, this has a chilling effect. What is happening to me, the type of isolation that they've been able to create, the villainization of me and who I am,

and this idea that I'm somehow a liar and a corrupt public official. None of my colleagues have wanted to touch me with a 10-foot pole. They don't want to be seen in public with me. I've had family members and friends and people that I've loved the most that have turned their backs on me. And so, yes, it creates a chilling effect, not just for the people that I loved unconditionally, but for the individuals that are in this role that can make a decision that have an impact on our lives. So, yes, Roland and Monique have talked about it. Fannie Willis, Tish James, Monique Worrell, Aramis Ayala, Kim Fox, Kim Gardner. The list goes on and on and on.

Andrew Warren, Chesa Boudin, Larry Krasner. The list goes on and on and on. Andrew Warren, Chesa Budin, Larry Krasner. These are all of the progressive prosecutors that were attempting to balance the skills of justice in this country that have now been targeted in a way in which they villainize us, they isolate us, and for black women, they criminalize us. Yeah. I absolutely agree with that. And I'll say this. We have prosecutors that are white progressive. And I say that in air quotes, who are doing things and the government's not coming after them. They're not coming after them. And it makes me sad. And I hear people say all the time, oh, you're pulling the race card. You're pulling the race card. No, we're not pulling the race card. We're defending against your racism. You are using

your belief that we are innately inferior to you in order to prosecute us and to destroy us and to destroy our families. And I tell you what, the civil rights movement is difficult. It takes courage. And I commend you for doing what needed to be done. And we are here for you when you need us. Thank you, folks. This is the petition that they're asking folks to sign to seek a pardon for Marilyn Mosby. As you see, forty one thousand nine hundred and forty four of forty five thousand signatures. If you go to the easiest, the easiest place to go to, because this is campaigns.organizefor.org. The Justice for Marilyn Mosby.

There you go. All right, so that's easy. So justiceformarilynmosby.com. So justiceformarilynmosby.com. Then you can actually access the petition. So you'll see right there, and you'll see the other interviews and other other information of course this is going to be added on there y'all know that all information on there as well and so and go on the 23rd come to the sentencing if you're around come show you on so sentencing

is may 23rd where 23rd 30 a.m green belt district courthouse said 8 30 a 23rd, 10.30 a.m. Greenbelt District Courthouse. You said 8.30 a.m.? 10.30. 10.30 a.m. on May 23rd. All right then. Well, Marilyn, I appreciate you coming on the show. You know I always had your back. Thank you, always.

So we'll continue to do the same. And we'll, of course, keep letting folks know about the petition as well. Thank you, Roland. Appreciate you. Appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. Folks, we'll be back right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. I wanted the people of Baltimore to hear it from me.

I have done nothing wrong. I wanted the people of Baltimore to hear it from me. I have done nothing wrong. But I see that what you are trying to do is destroy this black woman for doing her job. I've heard your calls for no justice, no peace. However, your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of Freddie Gray. Marilyn was a force to be reckoned with. I was assuming this was all because of Freddie Gray, but it actually is much deeper than that. Baltimore's top prosecutor, a woman named Marilyn Mosby, was indicted yesterday in the Eastern District of Maryland for perjury.

Couldn't help but think about Donald Trump. This is what you gotta deal with when you are a black woman fighting for just causes in America. Yeah, but just take it on the police, period. She's stepping on their toes. They wanna cross her out of the system so she can't stand up for the future.

Reach to the pool and grab me and pull me out. Imagine if this were you. You would want people to stand in your corner. I lost my car. I lost my job. I lost my marriage. And I almost lost my mind for a little while. There's just so much right now, Lord.

And I'm just, why are you putting all of this on me? I'm about to break. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture, you're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people-powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it and you spread the word we wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us we cannot tell our

own story if we can't pay for it this is about uh covering us invest in black-owned media your dollars matter we don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Waits $100,000. We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit that. Y'all money makes this possible. Check some money orders. Go to Peel Box 57196, Washington, D.C.

20037-0196. The Cash app is $RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RM Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Farquhar, executive producer of Proud Family. Bruce Smith, creator and executive producer of the Proud Family, Louder and Prouder.

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

taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

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

at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players

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

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

Thank you very much. We hear a lot about polls during the election year, especially during this time, but of course, we don't waste our time with those BS polls that have few black people in them. We actually focus on those that speak to us. The Black Voter Project, they've released their latest survey results in which YouGov interviewed more than 2,004 African American or black respondents to gain unique insights into black political attitudes.

Christopher Toler is the director of the Black Voter Project, co-founder of Black Insights Research. He joins us right now from Sacramento, California. So, Christopher, what are the two or three things that jump out at you in this survey? I think there's, you know, you hit it on the nail on the head with just having enough respondents, enough Black respondents to actually talk about some of the demographic shifts or demographic findings within the Black community. One, the number one finding that jumps out is that

Black support for Trump in our survey is no more than 14.5%. And so all of these other sort of New York Times, CNN polls that are saying Black support is going to be 18, 20, some even 20 plus percent support for Trump are misreading and misdiagnosing the Black community. And so they're way off in their results when looking at how Black people are voting for Trump. Secondly, those that are voting for Trump or that say they're going to vote for Trump are really low propensity, unlikely voters. And so a lot of these polls are picking up even in their likely voter models, a lot of Black respondents who are not really going to vote. And so those are a lot of the people that are saying that they are going to vote for Trump and they're going to turn out.

We also have relatively high turnout amongst likely voters as well, echoing sort of the 2020 turnout when it comes to Black folk. And so Biden is, you know, according to our results, looking relatively good or similar to how he did in 2020 when it comes to actual turnout, especially among likely voters. The poll also did, though, focus on sort of the low propensity voters and collected an oversample of Black Americans that are not likely to vote. And amongst those Black Americans, there are some issues, one being the war in Gaza and Palestine. There is relative support of plurality. Almost 46 percent of the respondents support cutting off aid to Israel until a solution is reached in the Gaza Strip. And so there's a lot of things that Biden can still do and speak to to get those low-propensity, unlikely voters out to vote,

the voters he's going to need in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and especially Georgia, to keep those states blue in 2024. You say that 14.5% will vote for Trump. You say that those are low-propensity voters. How does that stack up to 2020? 2020 exit polls had Black support for Trump at around 12%. And so it's within our margin of error. We had a large sample, so our margin of error is relatively small, about 2.5%. And so that is within our margin of error compared to 2020. And so we, you know, Black Voter Project doesn't expect major shifts in black support for Trump in 2024. So as I as I go through this here and I look at you talk about low propensity voters.

And when I look at definitely will vote, probably will vote, maybe will vote, definitely will not vote. Don't know. Prefer not to say. 45 to 64. 65.8% say definitely will vote. 30 to 44, it goes to 51.9%. 18 to 29, it drops to 43.8%. The total is 58.4.

Probably will vote that 45 to 64 is 8% because largely they are gonna vote. Then it's 15.1, 22.0, then 13.0. And then that's definitely, probably, and maybe we'll vote, again, going to the older bracket first, 6.4, 10.2, 13.5, 8.4. And at 65 plus, definitely we'll vote at 76.7%. Probably we'll vote 5.5. Maybe we'll vote 1.7. Here's the point that I am constantly making, that I don't think these white Democratic

strategists or even these white Republican strategists have any idea about. But we also must say this to black people. Folks who are 65 plus and older, they get it. They understand the power of the vote. But those people are likely, they likely self-identify as Democrat. Once you start going lower, and I dare say really 55 and below, folks don't self-identify. So what that means is if you're the Biden-Harris campaign, and this is really important, again, to the white strategists in the campaign, to the Gino Malley Dillons, to the Nita Dunns, to those people of the world,

they're going to have to actually spend more time, spend more money than they normally have to get black folks to turn out because that 18 to 45 group, they make up a majority of the population today. You have to work to get them. And I keep saying the strategy that they have been using the past 30 years, that strategy is out the window. And even the one that got them

elected in 2020 can't be used in 2024. Absolutely. We also asked on the survey sort of how welcoming respondents thought that the parties were. And when asked how welcoming the thought that the parties were. And when asked how welcoming the Republican Party is to Black people, only 6% of the respondents said extremely

welcoming. And so clearly, as mentioned, Black people are not turning towards Trump and the Republicans. However, when asked how welcoming the Democratic Party is to Black people, only 28% said extremely welcoming. And so just as you said, the Democrats still have some work to do. They're still going to have to make some arguments. And coming out of the 2016 term with Trump into 2020, it was clear that a return to Trump would be detrimental and that Biden was a clear turn away from Trump. After four years of Biden, people aren't necessarily convinced that Biden can be as clear of a turn as they thought he was in 2020. And so there are more arguments, different arguments are going to need to be made because we're not coming out of four years of sort of a historically anti-Black president.

To your point about welcoming, the extremely welcoming to the somewhat welcoming combined is 69 percent. That leaves you 31 percent. Bottom line is you're going to need that. And the argument that I will continue to make when you talk about black voters, this is not a party conversation. It has to be an issue conversation. And what they have to understand is you have to actually speak to the critical issues, which you also have to know where to go. So let's go to the political info and media. And so where do you get most of your political information? Social media, 20%. Television, 43%.

Newspapers, 3%. Online internet, 25%. Trusted community leader organizations, 1%. Email messages notices, 2%. Text messages, 1%. So I'll say this here. If you actually combine social media and online internet, because I really think you're talking about the same thing there,

that right there is 45%. Those two combined is higher than television. And so again, if you're Biden Harris, or if you're other folks who are, if you're those Democratic senators, and you're trying to win in Nevada, trying to hold Sherrod Brown in Ohio, you've got Tester in Montana, you've got Casey in Pennsylvania. And so you're trying to hold those positions. Obviously, also Brooks is going to be the nominee against Larry Hogan in Maryland. They better have a strong campaign that's digital as opposed to dumping your money on television. Yeah, if you go back to what we were saying about low propensity voters, that's even more so the case where low propensity voters, those younger voters, those voters that are less educated are also more likely to go to the online sources for information.

They're more likely to turn to the Internet or turn to social media rather than tuning into a two, three hour news program in the evening or go online and read a newspaper article. And so it's absolutely important. And so here's what's interesting. And actually, I would have loved for this question to actually go deeper when you talk about black media, because you asked the question, do you rely upon black media outlets or programs that focus on the black experience for political information? Yes, 9 percent. No, 69 percent.

Don't know, 14 percent. I prefer not to say 9%. The reason I would have wanted to ask an additional two or three questions, because I would have wanted to know, what do they refer to as black media outlets? Because one of the things that we know is that a significant number of black folks get their information from radio. And if you're listening to, frankly, radio shows where they're playing music and it's gossip and other stuff, you ain't getting real political information.

And so I really want to unpack that particular question to know what they are defining as black media. Are they defining BET as black media? They don't have any news shows other than a monthly magazine show. So I would have wanted a couple of more questions in that category. Yeah, we wanted to go deeper there. We ran out of space on the survey, unfortunately, but I'll just mention this is the first cut at this. We are lucky enough to collect a unique sample here where we're going to have a longitudinal design. And so

there's going to be two to three more waves of this survey where we're recontacting the same respondents prior to and right after the election. So there's going to be a lot more data to come. We were able to ask those that said they did rely on Black media, what Black media was to them, what type of Black media. And not surprisingly, your show kind of came out on top as one of the highest mentioned forms of Black media but people also did mention bet as you said they mentioned the griot um the root and some of those other um sort of questionable or debatable um sources of media as to whether or not they are black owned and actually speaking to and from the black experience well i absolutely would love if you're going to do

this again later in the year of to go a little bit deeper there. Because in the reason being, that's important because when we're making the argument to these campaigns, why if you're going to be spending money elsewhere, why you should be spending money on black owned media. That stuff is critically important. Let's go to my panel for questions. Representative Jolanda Jones, your question. Yeah, here's what's funny. So I'm an elected official. I've got to determine how I'm going to spend my money to get my vote. I don't put anything on TV because I DVR everything that I watch, and I don't listen to political campaigns. I mean, you know, political commercials. So I know, for example, here in Houston,

we have black newspapers rolling. You know, you're from here. We have black newspapers that are pretty reliable. So a lot of older black people who we know will be voting and who understand the importance of voting, that's where they get their information from. There are also certain news, certain radio stations that aren't news based,, but they're music, like, for example, Magic 102. Older people listen to 102. Now, you can expect that you have to pay more for that, because the voters listen to that, and pray. So religious stations, they listen to that. So I think that white people who poll black people are always wrong. At least they're always wrong here in Houston. They make projections and predictions all the time based on their polls.

And most black folks, if you contact them, we ain't filling out nothing. We're not about to tell you what we're doing in our house. We don't know where you come from or any of those types of things. So I think you hit it right on the nail, Roland, that how are you, like the methodology that you are using, is it really designed to get the true feelings of Black people? Something that I would like to see is to talk to the people that are not going to vote and find out from them, why are you not voting? Like, tell me what the impediments are, whether you don't believe in the system, whether you ain't got transportation, whether you ain't got no money, whatever. And I would speak to that. And so

I think that there is a huge space for black people. I think the Democratic Party nationally and within the states and within the counties need to get more black people on their campaign teams and let the black people do that because the days of white people knowing what we're going to do and the days of us just accepting with whatever white people tell us, that's out the window. It's out the window. It's out the window. And so that's what I will say. And I also believe that, no, we're not about to go run and vote for Trump.

I don't see that here. But I also know that we don't trust the Democratic Party at the state level or the national level, because they consistently go after Hispanics and progressive whites and independents. And they take our vote for granted, and we're sick of it. But, Christopher, to the point she makes right there that I do want to jump on real quick, and that is this here. When Jolanda makes the point about folks not running to Trump, here's the thing that we have to factor in. Since 2012, Obama's re-election run against Romney,

2014 midterms, 2016 presidential election, 2018 midterms, 2020 presidential election, 2022 midterms, you've seen a drop in black voter turnout. So what happens is if you have a drop in black voter turnout, the reason why that percentage of folks who are voting for Trump or Republican looks larger than it normally is, is because fewer black people are voting. So Christopher, so what Jelani also said, which I do think could be very interesting,

solely locking in on the people who are in the maybe, definitely, will not vote, don't know, because that's 21, that's 27%. The reason that is interesting to me is because that's a big piece that I keep talking about on this show. We have to be maximizing our vote. If black people vote at 60, 60 is the low. But I really want 70. If we look at the raw numbers, we can sweep elections. We can flat out sweep elections.

And so that's part of the thing for me, trying to explain to our people, yo, when we talk about we want stuff, we could sweep elections if we're at that number. But if we're at 26, 28, 32, 35, 40, the power's being left on the couch.

And then people are like, well, nothing has happened. Because the power, it's like having an iPad that's dead because you ain't plugged it up. You need power to charge it. No, I think two things here. One, the Obama years, you see a dramatic increase, historical turnout for black folk and support for Obama for right. One, you have people getting off

their couch who normally wouldn't vote that wanted to vote for the first black president. And two, you have independents, independent conservatives or conservative black people that said, I'm going to vote for Obama and go against my party. And so you see the support for Obama skyrocket and support for Republicans during the Obama years dramatically decline. Following that, you see those people go back to their couch and you see the other black conservatives return to the Republican Party in what seems like an increase in support, but it's really just returning to a historical mean. And so that's absolutely the case with what we've seen going on. It's not a resurgence of the Republicans among black folks whatsoever. It's just a return to politics as usual after the Obama years. As far as what black folks, especially the low propensity black folks, are talking about. Over the last

two years, we have conducted over 10 focus groups with about 50 black individuals, both high-propensity and low-propensity voters. And when we talk to the low-propensity voters, the reason they're not enthusiastic about the Democrats, the reason they're not voting is because, one, they don't find any connection with the party. They don't feel like the party's speaking to them. And two, they don't really feel they're being heard. They don't feel like they have any power, that they can't do anything. And when we say what would motivate you, one of the main things that turns them out is, especially at the local and statewide level, Black representation, having people that look like them running for office, heading campaigns. And then two, the threat of a possible another Trump presidency or a return of MAGA

to the White House to state politics. And so those are really the two areas in which we see low propensity voters actually start to talk about and get engaged with politics. But it's a conversation to have. And in fact, Terrence, that shows a bit of research as well, that his research shows that when you tell Black people that your vote could make the difference between winning and losing, that changes their... A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news

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

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

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

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

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

John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz

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

your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Perspective on whether they're actually going to vote. Rebecca. Hey, Christopher. Good to see you tonight. So I see this is a national survey that you did.

Can you tell us if you have any insights with like state by state breakdowns, especially in the battleground states among black voters? Yeah, unfortunately, the samples that we just talked about, small sample size, our samples state by state are still too small. I think the most we have is like 300 in places like New York. And I think we tried to collect as many as we could in Georgia. But that's still not enough for us to say anything confidently about these battleground states. We are working on putting together an analysis of just the battleground states, so grouping all of the sort of battleground states with significant Black populations together to try and see if there's something that can come out of that. But really, I would just echo what we've been saying so far, which is in the battleground states, it's going to be really important for Democrats at the national and statewide level to speak to these low propensity voters and to make sure that these people aren't staying on their couch and to not worry about convincing them to vote for Biden, but to find reasons to get them out to vote

and to get them to the polls more than anything else. Robert? You know, I literally just came in from putting out yard signs and going to barbershops around Atlanta. I'll shout out my barber, Rock, on the last minute haircut. But I think it's important when we have these conversations about low propensity voters, we make it seem as if they just simply don't want to vote. They feel as if people are not talking to them.

You know, we all know the old saying, yard signs don't vote. We know that there's conflicting evidence on the effectiveness of radio advertising and print advertising. In your research, what have you found to be the most effective way of communicating to these voters about policies that are actually affecting them and how that translates to getting them to turn on to the polls? Yeah, so unfortunately, in our research over the last couple of years, and especially in this poll, we haven't found any real policy that sticks. And so trying to talk to low propensity voters about policy gains is a really difficult way to engage them and get them inspired and out to vote, simply because there's such a lag in policy passage and policy action and effect to individuals' lives. And so the policy conversation is really hard to have,

even when you're talking about sort of highlighting the policies that Biden has passed under Biden that benefit Black folk. Even those are a tough sell. And so for us in our research, we've really shown, one, highlighting the historical significance of voting and the reason that black folks should vote as related to the struggle for voting that the black community has had over the last couple centuries and really put it in historical perspective. And two, highlighting the threat that's posed if they don't vote and the gains that could be lost very, very quickly if they stay at home and the wrong people get into office. Those in our research have been the most effective way to get these low propensity people out to vote because, as you said, they are extremely disillusioned. It's not that they don't care.

It's not that they don't think about these things. It's that they feel like their voice doesn't have a place in politics and their vote doesn't matter anymore. Now, just a quick follow-up. We've also seen the Trump campaign investing heavily in the kind of social media influencers and entertainers to appeal to those low-propensity voters, you know, your sexy red, low-pump, whoa Vicky, Waka Flocka Flame, others. Has there been anything to suggest that these entertainers being brought into the political apparatus has had an impact on motivating more people to vote? No, there's no evidence of that

being successful whatsoever. Again, even though we're talking about low and high propensity Black voters in the Black community, the Black community is still very sophisticated when it comes to politics. And they see right through these scans. We see through these people. We understand that throwing these celebrities out there, Lawrence Taylor most recently, as sort of black tokens to support the black community is not going to work. And I've actually done a number of research projects looking at black celebrities and their influence in politics. I have a question if you guys have time for it. Yeah, absolutely. And really, the one thing that attaches the black community to celebrities when it comes to politics is that black celebrities

potentially face the same struggles that the black community does. And so when black celebrities are speaking their mind and they're getting pushback from the forces that be, that's what sort of drives support amongst them or for them amongst the people. And you don't see that with these these black celebrities supporting Trump because they're aligned with the system rather than actually trying to fight for progress. Jelani, real quick. Yeah, here's the thing. What the Republicans do masterfully is they scare the they scare the crap out of their voters and they go vote. I want to know, have we ever asked about what we're afraid of, right, what we fear, as opposed to we're just disillusioned, because we are motivated by fear or anger, not, oh, we can make a difference. That's my opinion based on my over decades of being elected.

Yeah, absolutely. The main thrust of my research the last few years has been trying to understand how to move disillusioned voters not necessarily to a place of fear, but to a place of anger. Social psychological research shows that if you can motivate people by anger, it's one of the most powerful ways to get people into positions of action and to take action. And so when we look at these polls and our survey results and we do public opinion data and we ask people, how much of a threat do you think Trump is? Do you have confidence? Are our institutions threatening things such as the Supreme Court most recently? The people that find these things, Trump, MAGA, these institutions, the police, the most threatening are the most politically active, even amongst low propensity voters. And so if we can get these disillusioned people to move from a place of apathy to a place of anger, we will be able to

get them to the polls and use that energy towards political action. Look, people got to act. People got to stop acting like black folks different from everybody else. The numbers don't lie. When you have a Democrat who's in the White House, Republican giving explodes. When you have a Republican in the White House, Democrat giving explodes. When the Democrat wins, you know what those Democrats do? Okay, we're good. We can go back, which is the dumbest shit in the world. And I keep trying to explain to people the elections, the election is the end of one process and the beginning of another. What you cannot

do is when the election is over, go, okay, I voted. Again, I go back to 2008. I did Wanda Sykes' show. I did Monique's show. It was on BET. And they were like, well, I did my part. I'm like, no, you did your part for the election. Now that the election

is over, now we've got to push and prod and demand action on our agenda. And that's where I want black folks to also be. I hear all kind of black folk. Man, all Obama did was do stuff for the LGBT community. Guess what? Within the first 90 days of his administration, they gave him a 52-page agenda. Do you know when black groups submitted a black agenda to Obama? In year five.

I was there. I covered the event. And so that to me, Christopher, is a part of this. We also have to make folk understand that we can't just show up when we're pissed off. We have to take that anger and fuel it to drive us to the ballot box. But then once they win, say, hey, we ain't left. We watching your ass. You got to be doing what we want y'all to do. That's the piece that i think is

often missing yeah i think so and we asked whether or not there should be a a third party when it comes to politics to challenge the the first two and you know almost half of the respondents said absolutely so and so there's there's this need or this want to have consistent competition for black needs for black wants amongst the two parties that just isn't there right now all right where can people go to get uh to see the the full uh results of the black voter project uh survey places it's on both of the websites i run one the black voter project.com and then also my consulting website, blackinsightsresearch.com.

Both of those have the full results. And my partner at Black Insights Research, Archon Chris Parker, wanted to make sure he sends his hello as well. All right. Tell him I said what's up. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Absolutely. Thank you. And y'all don't be shocked. Mainstream media

don't call Christopher, because you know that's what they do. They show the white polls all day. But when you actually have black polls that survey actual black people, it's amazing how they never end up on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC. But they love quoting the white polls that only talk to probably 6 to 8, 10 black people. That's how it goes. All right, We come back.

I'm going to show you this video, y'all, of crazy deranged Angela Stanton King. Now, she run around claiming she with the King family. But guess what? She's a big MAGA supporter. She did a video where she said, yeah, my goal to get black people to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is to actually help Trump. I'm going to roll that video for y'all. And plus, we're going to talk about another black voter initiative as well.

Plus, Biden pulls out the presidential commission debates. Guess what? That screws up Virginia State. They are not happy if they're not going to get a presidential debate. We're going to talk about that as well. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Support us in what we do. Join a Breeden Funk fan club.

So you're checking money. Order the PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 2003-7-0196. Cash app, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal, RM Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinunfiltered.com. You too, folks. Y'all are slacking. Hit the damn like button. We should be easily over 1,000. I shouldn't have to be asking y'all.

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

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

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subscribe to Lava for good plus on apple podcast this every single day come on let's get with it back in a moment hatred on the streets a horrific scene white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. On that soil, you will not reflect on. White people are losing their damn minds. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting.

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

This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is Whitefield. A lot of y'all have been asking me about the pocket squares that we have available on our website. You see me rocking the shibori pocket square right here. It's all about looking different. Now look, summertime is coming up. Y'all know, I keep trying to tell fellas, change your look please. You can't wear athletic shoes every damn where.

So if you're putting on linen suits, if you're putting on some summer suits, have a whole different look. The reason I like this particular pocket square, these shibori, is because it's sort of like a flower and looks pretty cool here versus the traditional boring silk pocket squares. But also, I like being a little different as well. So this is why we have these custom-made feather pocket squares on the website as well. My sister actually designed these after a few years ago. I was in this battle with Steve Harvey at Essence, and I saw this at a St. Jude fundraiser. I saw this feather pocket square, and I said, well, I got some ideas. So I hit her, and she sent me about 30 different ones.

And so this completely changes your look. Now, some of you men out there, I had some dudes say, oh, man, I can't wear that. Well, if you ain't got swagger, that's not my problem. But if you're looking for something different to spruce up your look, fellas, ladies, if y'all looking to get your man a good gift, I've run into brothers all across the country with the feather pocket squares saying, see, check mine out. And so it's always good to see them. And so this is what you do. Go to RollersMartin.com forward slash pocket squares.

You can order Shibori pocket squares or the custom-made pocket squares. Now, for the Shiboris, we're out of a lot of the different colors. And I think we're down to about 200 or 300. So you want to get your order in as soon as you can because here's what happened. I got these several years ago, and the Japanese company signed a deal with another company, and I bought them before they signed that deal. And so I can't get access to any more from the company in Japan that makes them. And so get yours now.

So come summertime when I see y'all at Essence, y'all could be looking fly with the Chibori pocket square or the custom made pocket square. Again, RolandSMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. Go there now. and fitness coach, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Well, the report of 34 million eligible black voters, about 21%, do not trust the government. That lack of trust is one of the many reasons black voters do not vote. Well, the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition launched its 2024 plan to mobilize, empower, and protect millions of black voters. Abdul Dosunamu, hope I got that right, sorry, the founding executive director of the Young Black Lawyers

Organizing Coalition, joins us from Dallas. Been a while since I saw you in Atlanta, glad to see you here. The trust in government piece, but here's one of the things that I'm always telling folk. Folks say, I want government out of my life, I don't trust government, then I say, but you know government is in every part of your life.

There's nothing, I don't trust government, then I say, but you know government is in every part of your life. There's nothing, I don't care what anybody says. You can be in rural America, urban America. You can be a hood. You can be a farmer. You can be sitting here working an auto mechanic. It don't matter. Government plays a role in every facet of our lives. It's a fact. That's absolutely right, Roland. Thank you for having me on. Good to see you again. I'm going to pick up right where your last conversation left off, because I think that one of the challenges that we face in this moment is that as a nation and

as a community, we have largely divested from civic education. I'm talking about the old-fashioned civic education of a Septima Clark, a Dorothy Cotton, and Andrew Young. There really is no space in Black America where you can go, save for the excellent work that you do on this show. There really is no space that you can go to to find trusted civic education. And so part of what we're doing this year in 2024 to help empower Black balance is that we are leveraging the voices and the social capital of young Black lawyers and law students to do civic education work. This is not knocking on the door and having a one-minute conversation. This is actually sitting down in dialogue with Black voters and non-voters alike

to help them understand how to claim their civic power, to understand exactly what you've laid out in terms of the connectivity between their vote and policy change. One of the things we say as an organization all the time is that Black ballots are Black futures, that if we don't get democracy right, we won't have a chance to get all of these other issues right. And so our campaign is really centered on harnessing the social capital, the pride that folks have in the accomplishments of young Black lawyers and law students to do real

intensive civic education work. have and the accomplishments of young Black lawyers and law students to do real intensive civic education work. And we're starting, Roland, by listening. We're starting not with lecturing, but by listening, because as you well know, there are a whole host of conversations about Black voters. There are lots of talk. There's lots of talking at Black voters, but there's not enough listening to black voters. And so that's the core work that we're going to do. If we really want to build power, we've got to first do the civic education work to make sure people understand their power.

Well, absolutely. And one of the things that I try to do again with this show is to walk people through to explain that because the problem is what you're getting on mainstream television is process excuse this process that's what you're getting you're not actually getting them talking about how do you actually make change what's really happening you're just getting all of the horse race crap like that uh and and you're right and i've said to many of our black organizations you got to get back back to those Saturday morning workshops and teaching and training. I mean, look, my parents were civic club members. They worked elections. They ran phone banks.

They did all those different things. So I learned the nuts and bolts of politics by being with them and understanding what are city functions, what are county functions, what are state functions, what's federal as well. And that's part of the deal. And I think when people come up to me all the time and they say, you know, that they want to see change, I then go, okay, what are the three things you care about? That's right. Because my deal is I can't listen to people bitch and moan.

My deal with them is, okay, I need you to be in this conversation. One of the three things you care about. Then I walk them through. OK, well, that's city. OK, that's a combination of city, county. This is what the federal does. And that's what I try to do with people. I don't have all these whining sessions. No, we have to move people to action. Right. Absolutely. So it was probably late February that we hosted another one of our cohort trips of black lawyers and law students. We fully fund teams of black lawyers and law students from Howard, NYU, law schools across the nation to travel around the country and do voting rights work. And in late February, we took a team to Michigan. We went to Detroit,

but not just to Detroit. We went to Pontiac. We went to Grand Rapids. And in union halls and barbershops and Black churches across the state of Michigan, we sat down with Black voters to do exactly that, to do those workshops and those clinics, to help people to understand why this moment and this election is important, but also beyond that, to help them to understand, okay, what are the things that I care about, and how is this vote connected to the things that I care about? And doing it in a way that honors and celebrates their own dignity, doing it in a way that affirms them and next month, we believe that as we continue to do that work, we will be able to build a base of people who understand not only that they have the right and the responsibility to vote, but that it is in their best interests to vote and making sure that we've done the civic education to help them get there.

Questions for the panel. Robert, you're first. Well, thank you so much for all the work that you do in this field and in this space. And one thing that I found is that we, from the fundamental level, high school, middle school level civics,

is completely missing to the point that people really only vote from the top down based on what mass media is posting out there. So people think that every election is just about Trump versus Biden or about the gubernatorial race or congressional race. What do you think is the best method by which to educate people about the importance of those down-ballot races to have the most direct impact on their lives? I want to talk to young people this weekend.

They talked about police brutality in jobs. And I explained to them that whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden are going to do almost nothing about that, but depending on who you vote for, for a prosecutor, for example, or who you vote for, for these judicial seats or from city council will have an impact on that. What method have you found to be the most effective in communicating that particularly to young people? You're absolutely right. It's critically important that people understand the connectivity.

One of the things that we start with, it goes back to what Roland mentioned, is we start with what's your vision for the change you want to see in your community, right? Starting there helps us to connect the dots. One of the things that we, I think, take for granted is that people just sort of wake up knowing what a prosecutor does, that people wake up knowing what the mayor does and knowing what kind of government they have in their city. Do they have a strong mayor form of government? Do they have a council manager form of government?

I know these things because I grew up in a family that emphasized civic engagement. I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant in Dallas, and our restaurant was very much a hub of civic life. So that's how I came to know these things. But we don't have a space where we're actually doing that intensive education work, as you point out, from a young age so that people understand what these roles mean and how they connect to their day-to-day lives. And that's part of the work that we must do. It's helping people to understand what is a prosecutor, what is a mayor, what is a police chief, who appoints whom, so that they can understand why the election is important. We often do the what, but not the why. We've got to do the why

in order for people to really understand their power. Rebecca. Thanks so much for being here. I lead one of the largest campus civic engagement programs in the country that's nonpartisan. We work with about 4.5 million students right now. I was reflecting back to when I was in law school, as you were talking, I was a part of the Black Law Student Association. So what type of support do you need, I guess, to have formal partnerships with law schools in order to get more students involved in this pipeline? That is a great question, and I'm so glad you

asked it. We primarily right now work with BALSA chapters across the country, but we are actively working to systematize our relationship with law schools. So, you know, to the degree that there are faculty out there that are willing to sponsor us as partners to the degree that there are staff members in student affairs, alumni affairs, other spaces that are willing to work with us. We are actively seeking out those more formal partnerships so that we can scale and grow this program. As I mentioned, cohort trips, we'll be doing them regularly in the summer and the fall. We fully fund everything. So the university, the law school is not coming out of its pocket really anything.

The student is not coming out of their pocket anything. What we want to do is make sure that there is no excuse and plenty of excitement and energy around doing this work. And so all we say to the law students in particular when we work with law students is just get on the plane. If you get on the plane, we will give you a voting rights experience that will ignite your passion and will give you a way to do meaningful work on the ground. This is not just the election protection work, which is so critical. And we're part of that. And we partner with all of the organizations. But we want to see you in churches. We want to see you in union halls. We want to see you in barbershops. We want to see you

in barber colleges and beauty colleges hosting the sessions that help our people understand their power. So those more formal partnerships are absolutely critical for us as we expand our efforts. Yolanda? Yes. So, I volunteered to be one of your partners. I'm in Houston. I'm happy to help you. Here's what I would start off with, because we—I'm trying to figure that out. I work with young people. You need to ask people what they're mad at, right?

Ask them what they're mad at. I'd be willing to bet you money that something that they're mad at is affected by the government. The government did something that didn't afford them whatever it is they want. Because I've been elected to three different governmental bodies, city council, the school board, and now I'm a state representative. People would come to the city council complaining about stuff at Houston Independent School District. Okay, city council has no control over that. People have now called me with Houston Independent School District

about something that we don't control like as state reps. And so I actually filed a bill because I think local politics matters. That's what affects you the most. But I am convinced that legislators in Texas want a dumb electorate because my bill goes nowhere, because it is important that when you turn 18, that you are registered to vote. So I actually filed a bill to opt in. I'm sorry, to opt out of being a registered voter rather than having to go register to be a voter. But apart from that, when you graduate from high school, when you turn 18, you're automatically registered to vote. And you know literally, I filed this bill as well, to let you know what all the governmental entities are in your area, a mud district. Some people don't know what that is. City council,

TERSes, whatever. So when you get angry at something, who do you need to go to complain about it? And so I will help you. People can come work in my office. But I will ask you, do you ever ask young people, what are you mad at? And then let them know what governmental agency they need to be directing their attention to. And also, do you encourage them to run for office? Because I asked a lot of elected officials to file a bill for local politics, as I told you I did when I got on here. Other people literally didn't understand why that was important. So we need to run more. We need diversity. We need people who look like us. So are you doing those things with Y Block? Absolutely. Well, to your first question, let me answer it by saying this. We

were in Georgia. We were having a conversation with a young brother and we asked exactly that question. What are you mad about? What ignites your energy, your passion right now? And he was telling us a conversation about insurance rates. He was really upset about the high cost of car insurance. And little did he know that the insurance commissioner was on the ballot, right? And so that conversation is one that is so critical for us to be able to have so that people can connect, again, what they care about to the vote and who's on the ballot. You know, in terms of our curriculum, what we teach are the three A's of civic engagement. We teach the three A's. We start with an agenda. You have to have an agenda. Gone are the days when you just go vote to vote without an agenda. Voting itself is a civic right and a civic responsibility, but you

have to back it up with an agenda if you want to see real change. And so we start with an agenda. We then move to advocacy. You have to be engaged in advocacy. You can't just vote. You've got to continue to remain engaged in the process. And then we end with accountability. If there is no connectivity with the agenda that you wanted and the change that you got, there has to be accountability. If we can start to teach folks about the three A's of civic engagement and agenda, advocacy, and accountability, I think we can start to build power in our communities and give people a stake in the process that helps to move us forward. All right, then. Well, look, where do people, if they want to sign up,

they want to volunteer, where do they go? Go to our website, YBlock, Y-B-L-O-C.org, and you can follow us on social media platforms at Young Black BLK Lawyers. All right, then. I appreciate it. I will see you out there on the road somewhere. Absolutely. All right, Abdul, thanks a lot.

Thank you. All right, folks, we come back. I'm going to play for y'all one of these crazy, deranged, black MAGA folk who are trying to get people to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr., she admits it's all to help Donald Trump. Also, Florida A&M board trustee makes a decision when it comes to that debacle over the $237 million fake gift.

We'll discuss that as well. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. I wanted the people of Baltimore to hear it from me. I have done nothing wrong. You need to go to hell or you will be free. But I see that what you are trying to do is destroy this black woman for doing her job. I have heard your calls for no justice, no peace.

However, your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of Freddie Gray. Marilyn was a force to be reckoned with. I was assuming this was all because of Freddie Gray, but it actually is much deeper than that. Baltimore's top prosecutor, a woman named Marilyn Mosby, was indicted yesterday in the Eastern District of Maryland

for perjury. Couldn't help but think about Donald Trump. This is what you got to deal with when you are a black woman fighting for just causes in America. Yeah, but just take it, just take it on the police, period. She's stepping on their toes.

They want to cross her out of the system so she can't stand up for the preacher. Reach to the pool and grab me and pull me out. Imagine if this were you. You would want people to stand in your corner. I lost my car. I lost my job. I lost my marriage.

And I almost lost my mind for a little while. There's just so much right now, Lord, and I'm just, and why are you putting all of this on me? I'm about to break. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show. You're watching Rolling Mark. Until tomorrow.

Now, folks, you got third-party candidates out there like Robert F. Kennedy. He's upset today because he's not included in any of the two presidential debates that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have agreed to. And what have I said to y'all repeatedly? We got we got these black conservative grifters out here. Oh, just just let them keep talking. And they're going to tell you exactly what they're trying to do. So here's Angela Stanton King. Remember I had her crazy ass on the show? She's hardcore anti-choice, anti-gay.

She went to prison for being involved in a theft ring. She's loud. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith.

Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? or wherever you get your podcasts. called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. people real perspectives this is kind of star-studded a little bit man we got uh ricky williams nfl player hasman trophy winner it's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves music stars marcus king john osborne for brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug fans. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Overbearing and ignorant. Well, yeah, I said that in Alone That Fooled Vernon Jones. So listen to this conversation where she talked about why she's working for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. My fear is that they're going to stop at nothing to keep Trump from winning. And I don't want to just give it over to Joe Biden. If for some reason we see another 2020, we need to have another option.

And I think that RFK may be that. So that's kind of like where I'm at. I love Trump. My Republicans friends that have supported me so much. I love them. My Republican friends that have supported me so much, I love them too. But even sometimes when it comes to the Republican Party, we've seen where the Republican Party didn't even stand behind Trump. And I am so afraid. I'm really afraid for President Trump, right? Because I know how tough he is. And they're afraid that if he gets in, he's going to completely destroy him. And we know our guy. And we know he is not going to play.

So I'm just, I don't know. I want us to have another option. Like my community has to have another option besides Joe Bob. I love them both very dearly. A Trump-Kennedy ticket would mean the world to me because they're both guys that have shown me that not only do they care for me, but they care for my community. So for me, it's the winning ticket. I don't lose either way,

right? If Trump or Kennedy gets in, I don't lose either way. But for both of them to get in, to me, that would be a dream come true. And I don't know what those guys are doing. Trump hasn't picked a VP yet. And I'm thinking like Trump still may want to, if Trump got in and Kennedy didn't, Trump still may want to pull Kennedy and make him, you know, the director of health administration. There are just so many options here,

but I don't think that the Kennedy campaign and the Trump campaign are enemies, right? I don't think so. We all want to liberate our country and maybe we're going two different ways about it, but we're all about America and we know that it's us against the Democrats

either way it goes. It's the Republicans and the independents against the Democrat Party and we've got to all unite. My fear is that there's... What you got to all unite, right? My fear is that they're going to- So what you've got to understand here, we'll pull the panel up now.

So we know what the real deal is. The bottom line is what folk like Angela Stanton King want black folks to do, Robert, they want them to get sucked into supporting the anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, the same Robert F. Kennedy who don't give a damn about the Palestinian people, and the same Robert F. Kennedy who, frankly, has said some absolutely crazy and outrageous stuff. And listen, if you put yourself in the same sentence with Donald Trump,

you damn sure ain't good for black folk. Well, you know, I find it interesting. And Angela's a friend of mine also, but just to fully disclose. But I think that if you think about the constituency of an RFK, that he hurts Trump far more than Biden. If you're somebody who believes that Fauci should be arrested, you drink monster energy drinks every day, you have a live free or die tattoo somewhere on your body. You listen to the Joe Rogan podcast, you know, 24-7. That's a Trump voter. And anywhere that Robert Kennedy is on the ballot, he's going to be pulling those votes away from Trump.

And other than the Kennedy family name that we've already seen the entirety of the living Kennedys disavow his candidacy, I'm not quite sure how exactly him being on the ballot would hurt Joe Biden. If anything, he'd be pulling those kind of conspiratorial votes, those far-friend votes away from President Trump. And you've even seen President Trump tweeting to Republicans saying not to support Kennedy because he figures that it will be coming directly from his base. So if you're somebody who supports worms in the brain eating little pieces of it, I don't think you're going to be on board to vote for the Democratic agenda regardless. And so I think that this may be a situation

where you're hoisted by your own petard where they're attempting to do 3D chess to hurt Biden, but they end up actually hurting Trump. I'm laughing here, Rebecca, because somebody else posted this. I guess Annie was on some spaces or whatever. She out of space and was whining

and complaining because she was desperately trying to get a job with the Trump campaign, but they wouldn't hire her and they kept making excuses. And then this is the line right here. If you want to understand how all these folks are crazy, her included, Robert's friend, King met RFK Jr. through her really good friend, Dr. Simone Gold, convicted insurrectionist,

Mike Flynn's Reawaken America tour fellow speaker and anti-vax covid propagandist. Then she said Queens King switched her voter registration to independent because being a Republican was affecting her tax-exempt anti-choice organization, and it was, quote, hurting her brand. Oh, but I thought you were a person of conviction. And then, again, she complained that, again, Trump wouldn't hire her. I kept saying, King repeatedly reached out to the Trump campaign asking to be paid as a consultant. I kept saying, hey guys, you know, I really would love to work for Trump and help him with his black engagement,

but I was shut out. First of all, girl, ain't no black people listening to your ass. But then she goes on this space, after 45 days of the back and forth with the Trump campaign, King accepted RFK Jr.'s offer. So basically, she admits to being a grifter.

I mean, no offense to Robert and little friend. I can't take her seriously. Like, Merlin, I know you don't like covering Real Housewives on your show, but I can't take her seriously ever since the Real Housewives of Atlanta scandal that she had with Phaedra Parks, right? She is somebody who just shows up every once in a while to figure out what is the latest grift? How can she make money? How can she get some type of media attention? Because unfortunately for people like her, any attention is good attention. And that's what she's trying to get here. Here's the bottom line. No Black, I don't know any black people who's going to listen to Angela Stanton on who she's voting for, who she's supporting and whatever her strategy that she think is strategy, even though we all know that is not strategy. I mean, this is a bunch of nothing like she could she could just go on just like her non bestselling book. But what kills me are these grifters who love to try to talk about,

oh, so-and-so on the plantation, so-and-so this, so-and-so that. Jolanda, she kissed more Trump ass than anybody else in black America for four years, and the man still wouldn't hire her. That was a lot of ass rolling. And let me tell you this. You said no offense to Robert. Oh, yeah. I take offense to it. Because these are the kind of black people that

Trump and Kennedy pick. Buffoons. I mean, she's like 2.0 or was it Silky and whatever those idiots were. I mean, why is it that people like Trump and people like Kennedy take idiot black people?

They don't take black people with brains who are smart, who are accomplished. And when she's talking about her people, who the hell are her people? I mean, they ain't me, right? I'm speaking Ebonics, because, I mean, would you take me seriously if I sounded like that, sounding like her?

And basically, she wants a Trump-Kennedy ticket. Are you smoking crack? I've got clients who smoke crack, and they think better than her, right? So anyone who thinks that having her on their campaign is going to help them with Black people is going to lose. And white people, pay attention. Black people who vote don't talk about things like her. They don't present like her. We don't take her seriously. But what that tells me about Trump and Kennedy is you don't respect us. That woman is not a role model for any of us.

And she's an idiot. She doesn't speak intelligently. Quite frankly, I'm offended. And, Roland, if this weren't so serious, it would be a joke. Yeah. She's a joke to black people. I remember when I had her on the show, she was loud and wrong constantly. But here's the whole thing that's a trip to me.

I know a lot of black conservatives who are two and three and four generation. They don't listen to folk like her. I'm telling you, I've talked to real black conservatives. They know She Grifton, Candace Owens Grifton, Brandon Tatum Grifton, Mars Ture. They know all them fools Grifton. They ain't got no impact on policy whatsoever. I don't know if they can spell policy.

And so that's what you got going on. So I laugh at them. And so she's always trying to take shots at me on social media, along with that fool Vernon Jones, who was out there crowd surfing with the Trump people. And, you know, he got served. He was so dumb. He tried to run for governor.

They told him to sit his ass down. Then he ran for Congress as a Republican. I don't know if that boy got more than 4,000. I don't know if he got 3,000 votes. He got more. I mean, I think I blocked more people on Twitter than he actually gotten votes. But that's what they do. So he's still out there, you know, kissing Trump.

And then he was running around with Giuliani when Giuliani was on trial for dissing two black women and that's why his punk ass got to pay 138 million dollars see if you got Vernon Jones on your legal team your ass going to jail I'm just saying all right y'all um ain't nobody going to jail at Florida A&M but I still don't understand what they're doing. So today the board of trustees had a meeting, y'all. Talk about this debacle, this $237 million fake-ass gift that came their way. And so what the board decided, first of all,

during the meeting, it was about almost a two-hour Zoom call, President of the University, he apologized for what happened. Y'all got the apology of the university, he apologized for what happened. Y'all got the apology? Play it, please.

Board of Trustees, for allowing me to address you regarding the proposed gift from Mr. Gregory DeRome. Let me begin by stating that as president of Fort A&M University, I take full responsibility for this matter and the ensuing fallout.

I apologize to this board, the Foundation Board of Directors, our students and their families, our faculty, staff, alumni, and friends who have worked so hard with us over the past several years to elevate Fort A&M University to its current status as the number one public HBCU and the rank of 91 in national public institutions in America, according to U.S. News and World Report. It is because of you and a dedicated and committed team of individuals who come to work every day to attend to the welfare of our students and perform their work consistent with our core values of accountability, inclusion, innovation, and integrity.

And to our donors whose generosity has led to new levels of fundraising and enabling the university to further support our mission, enhance student success outcomes, and so much more, please know that FAMU is still a sure bet when it comes to stewardship of those funds you provided us, and without question they will be directed to the programs and special initiatives that you intended to support.

Your investments have made and will continue to yield positive outcomes for many years for Fort A&M University. To the Governor, to the Florida Legislature the board of governors, and state university system chancellor and staff, we're extremely proud of being a part of the number one state for higher education in America and gratefully acknowledge your vision and substantial investments that help make FAMU a place where students' lives are

transformed and endless possibilities created as indicated by FAMU being ranked 21st in the nation among national universities with regards to social mobility. Thank you. I must admit that missteps were made in the manner we handled the proposed gift from Mrs. Rahman. It is my belief that with the guidance of this board, we will arrive at a process much more transparent when it comes to such large gifts in the future. I saw in this unprecedented gift the potential to serve our students and our athletic programs in ways unimaginable at that time.

It would truly be transformational, I believe. I wanted it to be real and ignore the warning signs along the way. There was no personal gain, but the impact on our students and our university would have been extraordinary. Ever last Wednesday, I received information suggesting that I always not what it appeared. I immediately contacted Chair Hopper and VP Dr.

Friday Stroud and informed them that the engagement with Mr. Jarami should cease. And we all agreed. For the record, I must note that I did not inform Chair Hopper of the gift, nor did I inform Chair LeBou of the Foundation Board of Directors, the Chair of the Foundation Board of Directors, prior to the commencement program on Saturday, May the 4th. I owe a sincere apology to Chair Hopper, who happened to be at

commencement and was asked to pose her pictures with Mrs. Robbins, not knowing about the total event or affair. It was reported by the way in error that she knew of the plans and she did not. My oversight is in no way a reflection of her integrity and diligence. I was determined to honor a non-disclosure agreement that if violated I thought would jeopardize this transformational donation.

The public announcement and commencement was premature at best, and I apologize to all who witnessed it and shared their joy and jubilation in the Lawson Center and in places through which the ceremony was streamed. In a gesture of good faith and accountability, Dr. Shante Friday Stroud, our Vice President for Advancement and Executive Director of the Foundation, has decided to step down from her advancement role to focus on her duties at the School of Business and Industry. I've accepted her resignation and I am thankful for her excellent work in boosting our fundraising to new heights. Her decision shows her dedication to transparency as we move forward. In the meantime, Dr. Donald Palmer, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer,

will serve as Interim Vice President for Advancement while discussions are underway as we speak with the Association of Governing Boards, AGP, for a longer-term interim. We will then look at a new full-time dedicated Vice President of Advancement as we review our processes, working closely with this board and the FAMU Foundation Board of Directors. I thank all of you for your commitment to this institution. Our motto has long been excellence for caring and we will continue to pursue excellence in all that we do here at Florida A&M University. Thank you Madam Chair, members of the board, I conclude my remarks.

So what the board then did was they voted to hire an outside group to get to the bottom of what happened in this whole thing. Okay, I'm sorry. This is completely dumb to me. First of all, there have been numerous news stories that have laid out that there were a limited number of people who were involved in this. Why do you need to hire an outside agency to spend money to produce a report to figure out what happened here? Hell, that's real damn easy. That's literally to sit here and say, President Robinson, when did you first get a phone call

or contact from this Jarami individual? Okay, Stroud. Who else is involved in this? Can you name all the people who were involved in this discussion? Oh, NDA. Okay, please provide the NDA. Who signed it?

I mean, you could go on and on and on. And even during the whole meeting, the board chair, y'all put the board trustees up. Y'all had the graphic up. I'm going to put it up. The board trustee, during the meeting, she talked about Christian, how she was there to take a photo, she had no idea about it. So, why was her name on one of the documents as a witness

when the deal was signed? I'm not signing the damn thing as a witness if I don't know nothing about the damn deal. See, all this stuff makes no sense to me. It makes no sense whatsoever. And I sat there, and I had numerous board members, transparency and accountability and using all the wonderful, great, big words, but this is very simple. That is, who, what, where, when, how, why.

And you heard the president say the VP resigned. She had three jobs. She was the VP. She was executive director of the Family Foundation and was dean of the business school. Okay? They're the only head that needs to roll. And I'm not sure that that's enough resigning from one of those jobs. I'm telling you right now, several people need to go.

When you embarrass your university like this, you got to go. When you make your university look like an idiot to the world, you got to go. And if President Robinson is sitting here and say, well, you know, some mistakes were made. Dude, you were told that there were some discrepancies and you still said move forward with allowing this person to be the commencement speaker. I don't get it. And I'm telling Rebecca. Family, you folks can say, well, you know what, this is just our business. No, no, no, no, no. This impacts beyond FAMU and other HBCUs in the state and across the country.

And if you couldn't do a basic Google search, and I understand, I asked questions last time saying, where was the general counsel? My understanding, the general counsel wasn't involved in this What does that tell you that you have somebody who's trying to bring a give you a? 237 million dollar gift who you have no knowledge about who you have no relationship with This is not like the white woman at a Spellman who gained a hundred million dollars her and her husband She'd been on the board damn near 30 years. They've given millions before. So that's a long standing relationship. This dude came out of the blue in Texas. I get, Jolanda, you there in Houston,

if this dude calls you up and say, hey Representative Jones, I wanna give a hundred million dollars to Texas Southern University and I'm the biggest black hemp farmer in the state of Texas, 7,000 employees, you're probably going to say, when can I come by your office? They never even, that boy gave an interview where he said, well, folks can find my corporate office. They didn't even know.

If somebody come to you with so-called $237 million in stock, I'm going to need to see your operation. Oh, absolutely. They didn't even do that. They didn't even pull up when he tried to give $95 million to Coastal Carolina

and the deal fell through. They didn't even do that. And it was out there. They could have Googled that shit. It's crazy to me. And well, let's hire an outside firm. So y'all gonna waste more money to do what people have already done in 15 minutes on Google?

Jelani, go ahead with your comment. This is what I'm saying. If somebody wants to give you that large a gift, which I believe would have been the largest gift to an HBCU, you've got to understand that you are representing all HBU's, quite frankly. People are going to judge other HBU's based on how you do this. So I'm going to call them in.

I'm going to have my general counsel there, even though I happen to be a lawyer. You stupid if you're your own lawyer. I'm going to call them in. I'm going to have my general counsel there, even though I happen to be a lawyer. You stupid if you're your own lawyer. I'm going to want to know the source of the funds. I want to know if you're a legitimate person because people are going to scrutinize a gift of this size. They just are. And for the board not to know,

or I don't know, did they know? No, no, the board didn't know. The board had no idea. The foundation had no idea. The foundation had no idea. The president. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up. so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action,

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

I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th.

Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-stud on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I said I was a buy-buy NDA. Just because you signed an NDA don't mean you don't talk to your bosses. And if you have an NDA, if there's a valid NDA, why did he bring it up at the commencement?

Right? You got to ask those questions. And so I think it's a very bad look for HBCUs. And I agree with you, Roland. A bunch of heads need to roll. And because clearly there's a system in place at FAMU that doesn't know how to vet, I guess, legitimate donations or not. And we don't know that.

So I hate that it happened. I hate it especially. It's sort of like when we realized that the D.C. shooter was black. We were like, damn, when we start shooting people like that. Right? Because that's normally not what we do.

If we get the opportunity to be the first of something with a donation like this, we need to make sure we have all the people in the room. How is the money going to be spent? How is it going to be allocated? How much do we get each year? Oh, no, no, no, no. They did all that the people in the room. How is the money going to be spent? How is it going to be allocated? How much do we get each year?

Oh, no, no, no, no. They did all that. Here's the thing. They had this whole thing laid out how it was going to be spent over the 10 years. That ain't the problem. The man said, I'm going to give y'all $237 million.

$237 million. Sorry. $237 million, $750,000 in stock in my company, and I'm valuing the 14 million shares at $15.85. First thing I'm saying is, wear your company. I need to see it. Don't send me some paperwork that you sent. I ain't trusting that. What the heck?

They literally accepted on face value everything that man said and sent. And nobody looked. The man had an issue with domestic violence against his ex-wife. He got all that public record. They didn't even do a basic public

record search on this dude. But Roland, the value of stock can fall. No. Not even the value of stock can fall. That shit could have been some penny stocks. That could... I mean, that's exactly my point. What is the value? It could have been some penny stocks. That could... Well, that... I mean, that's exactly my point.

What is the value... It could have been a fake company, which we now know what it is. So that's exactly my point. Basic things that people could have looked up, they didn't. If you've ever... I mean, people lose big in the stock market.

The stock market is designed for most people to lose. But here's the whole deal. I could understand if it's real stock. It wasn't even real stock, Rebecca. It's a fictitious company. They got fictitious stocks in a fictitious company, and nobody had the common sense to say, can we pay a visit to his corporate office so we

could actually see for ourselves? He claimed he got 7,000 contract workers. Rebecca, Jelanda's there in Houston. I'm from Houston. There's no way in hell you could be a 30-year-old black man who is the most successful hip farmer in Texas and nobody else black known. If you Florida A&M, you should have said, hold on. Texas Southern University, y'all never heard of this dude?

No? OK. Prairie View A&M University, y'all never heard of this dude? No. Okay. Prairie View Animal University. Y'all never heard of this dude? Okay. Houston Tillerson. Y'all are in Austin. Y'all never heard of this dude?

No. Paul Quinn. Paul Quinn. Y'all are in Dallas. Y'all never heard of this dude? No. Okay. Wiley College.

Have y'all ever heard of this dude? They could have called every... How this boy from Texas, and he called Florida... He's supposedly based in Austin. It's a black college on the other side of the freeway. But he called Florida A&M. He skipped over every black college in Texas to call Florida A&M. And nobody in Florida A&M thought to call the HBCUs in Texas and said,

have y'all ever heard of Gregory Jarami, a 30-year-old hemp farmer who claims that he wants to give us $237 million? Rebecca, go ahead. I can't. Go on. So here's the thing. This is not an HBCU issue. This is a FAMU issue. And it pains me to say that I have a lot of friends who are part of the FAMU-y, right?

But this is embarrassing for them. I mean, you know, I work with high value donors all the time. And whenever my organization, other organizations that I've been a part of have received large gifts and $237 million is a large gift. There is a third party intermediary. That's a part of that conversation. Because even when it comes time to transfer either the stocks or to transfer the actual money, it's not just you talking to the principal and then that's it. There's teams. And for a gift that large, even the donor will have attorneys, financiers, assistants. There are other people in this process. It's not just someone just showing up either by Zoom or I don't even know if it was an in-person meeting with FAMU. So it's very disconcerting that FAMU failed for the banana in the tailpipe. I don't understand how this happens. And then when I Googled him, I know it's wrong to judge a book by its cover.

But when I Googled him and saw his picture, my immediate thought was, I know you effing lying. Girl. Are you serious? Girl, listen. When they, listen, when FAMU posted that photo, then they took everything down. When they posted that photo,

and I saw him in them sharecropper boots. I was like, boy, that's how you... You mean to tell me Ebony, Black Enterprise, you're trying to tell me all of these black magazines don't have him on the cover,

talking about how he is the youngest multi, multi, multi-millionaire self-made in this country. So this is not a story. He would not have been on The Breakfast Club. He would not have been featured in The Griot.

There's so many other steps. We would have known if he was worth that much. Hold up, hold up. We ain't even talking Black Enterprise. The Shade Room! Not now. Black

newspaper in Texas ain't, cause he ain't real. First of all, I'm sorry. I know appearances are not everything, but ain't no way in hell. I done done 22 commencements. Ain't no way in hell, I done done 22 commencements.

Ain't no way in hell somebody rolling up to my commencement dressed like this and trying to convince me they ass got me. And for all those who say white people in the same jeans. I'm not dissing farmers. I'm not dissing black cowboys. All I'm saying is you got to have some common sense. If somebody call out the blue, I mean, nobody Googled. And they said the vetting process was six months?

What y'all do for six months? When people found this stuff out in 20 minutes. I, okay. Y'all done? I'm sorry. I just. Roland, look, I know that we see pictures of white billionaires who are just walking around

with dirty jeans and wear the same black t-shirt every single day i get it but let's let's just take a step back let's think about how black folks do things this isn't about white billionaires or white high value people black people still do things a certain way yeah whether or not you are a high value you don't show up we ain't coming to commencement as some wranglers. Right, and that's not saying that you have to be...

We ain't doing that. Yeah, that doesn't mean you have to be in designer gear from head to toe. No, we ain't doing it. That has to be name brand, but you do not present like that. I'm just saying. I'm just... Listen, I'm sorry. Look, the board trustees voted some outside firm. No, y'all, this literally, see, this is crazy to me.

If I'm on the board, no. And there was only a handful of people. Hell, they could have interviewed all them people today. They could have interviewed all five or six people today, and you ain't got to waste another month or whatever the hell. So that's just dumb to me. All right, I got to do this real quick. President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are going to face off in two presidential debates, y'all,

in June and September. Biden, y'all had the video Biden dropped. Oh, come on, y'all. Y'all don't have it. Come on now. Y'all didn't pull a video. Now y'all make me pull a video. All right, so Joe Biden dropped this video this morning,

y'all, throwing down challenging Donald Trump. Let me go ahead and get it queued up, please. So, no, cue that video, I'm ready. Here we go, listen to this. Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn't shown up for debate. Now he's acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I'll even do it twice.

So let's pick the dates, Donald. I hear you're free on Wednesdays. Donald Trump lost two debates to me. Alright, so here's what happened. So, threw it out there. CNN's gonna do one in June. Somebody's doing one in September. It don't matter. Here's the problem. ABC's gonna do it in September.

Y'all, here's the problem. That screws Virginia State University. So by ignoring the Presidential Debate Commission, Virginia State University was selected as the first HBCU in history to be selected to host a presidential debate. Now it's not going to happen because Biden sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates indicating that he would not participate in the committee's announced debate dates, but should instead participate in debates hosted by news organizations. Owen Williams-Dandridge, the Assistant Vice President for Communications at Virginia State University, released this statement. Virginia State University is disappointed to hear media reports suggesting

that U.S. presidential candidates may not participate in the scheduled October 1, 2024 debate at VSU. A presidential debate at VSU is a huge win not only for our students and the campus community, but for the greater community in general. As the first historically black college or university to ever selected to host a general election U.S. presidential debate, VSU recognizes the event's significance and welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the democratic process. We will continue to work closely with the Commission on Presidential Debates and their stakeholders as we assess this situation. The university will continue to provide updates and further details

as they become available. Now, to host this stuff, y'all got to raise a lot of money, and they were raising the money. And so here's what needs to happen, President Biden. You need to say, okay, you and Trump have agreed to one on CNN in June 27th and then one in September on ABC. You need to say, President Biden, we're going to do one of these debates at Virginia State University. Now, all these other rules, no crowd, cut mics off, all this sort of stuff, that's fine. But the reality is it should be at an HBCU.

Plus, it should be in Virginia because you're going to need Virginia to win. And so this, to me, is one of those, one of these things that I don't care what the damn networks, okay? And y'all doing this crap, first of all, with the white networks anyway, it needs to be, one of these debates, Jolanda, needs to be at Virginia State, and President Biden needs to say, Trump, since you love

claiming you did stuff for HBCUs, debate me at an HBCU and Virginia State. So I absolutely agree with you. I think it is disrespectful to Black people, it's disrespectful to young people, and the debate was already set. So you're stopping, but you already agreed to. And this is just one more example of how the white leaders of the Democratic Party absolutely take us for granted, us being black people. I'm going to say it. I didn't stutter. And they break deals with us, and they just expect for us

to vote for them. Well, actually, no, no, no. Biden did not agree to this debate. The Presidential Commission of Debates picked three locations. They picked three locations of presidential debates, one for the vice president. And so the Republican, the party had already said they didn't want to participate. Biden then announced today not participating in their debates. So he had not agreed to participate in those debates. Today, he said, I'm not participating. What I'm saying is, even though the commission has chose those locations,

and even if both candidates say they're not participating because of the commission's rules, they still are going to debate, and I'm saying tell the news organizations, hey, CNN's already said it's going to be at their studios in Atlanta. Okay? Then the ABC

one, they should say, ABC will do it, but do it at Virginia State. But that's what I'm saying, Roland. First of all, if they picked Virginia, then they should do it in Virginia. But ABC can put their cameras up in Virginia. Right. Whoever, they can do that. What I'm saying is the black vote is super important to Democrats winning. And there's yet one more example where we have black excellence. There are not a lot of HBCUs. Biden has a whole part of his campaign or part

of his office that's devoted, or at least they say so, to black Greeks, black HBCUs. So put your money where your mouth is, put your actions where your mouth is. And since you've given a little, was that John Wayne, whoever he was, in his little commercial that he just put out, then you need to use that vigor and that determination to make sure that at least one of the two debates that you agree to is at that particular HBCU. I am extremely disappointed in what he did. And again—and I'm going to keep saying this, I'm not just going to give my vote to people who overlook me. He needs to honor that debate. He needs to honor one of the two.

And the truth is, Trump talked about how he's trying to get Black people too. So if y'all do what y'all supposed to do at these debates, then it should be at an HBCU and it should be at that HBCU. And then show us what you got so that we can make a good decision. Rebecca. You know, it's really interesting watching this because I think the political apparatus of the White House and the DNC, I think they're making a miscalculation here because it's more important than ever to make sure that student voices are being heard, especially as we're seeing uprisings and protests happening across the country. And if we saw it this spring, then guess what? We're going to see it this fall, too. And so even with the three

scheduled debates from the presidential commission, it was on three college campuses. And I think that's very important. But the second miscalculation I'm seeing this week is the DNC floating out the idea of making the convention in Chicago partially virtual, as if they're trying to do it to cut down on the likelihood of disruptions and protests from those who are demanding ceasefire from this Biden administration. So I think the Biden-Harris administration really need to listen to their base because this isn't going to go over well. And quite frankly, they can't lose any more of their base if they hope to win come November. Well, again, President Biden, your campaign, y'all should do one of these debates at Virginia State University. Period. All right. Jolanda, Rebecca, Robert had to go early. I appreciate y'all being on today's show. Thank you so very much.

Hey, folks, tomorrow I'm going to play the video for Stacey, Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Because y'all know, because they called out the Republicans today for trying to have a little fake little hearing, okay? Because Trump made them do it. Because, you know, Wednesday, you know, there's no trial today. That's all these fools doing.

And I haven't played the video yet, but wait till I play y'all the video. I think I'm going to say that one, yeah, for Thursday for Greg and Reesey. Are these five black Republicans doing a TV show, and they call themselves the starting five? First thing, y'all need to get a bigger set, because y'all big asses too big on that small ass little set.

I'm just saying. Just saying. All right, y'all. Y'all want to support us at Rolling Martin Unfiltered? Please do so. You can join our Bring the Funk fan club

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available at bookstores nationwide. Get the audio version on Audible. And I am busily signing all these copies of my book. The first people been sending me emails, when am I getting my copy? I told y'all, I'm personally autographing like your name and inscription and my signature. And so I have to then sign it, package it, put it, go to the mailbox. So the books are coming. Trust me, the books are coming. I'm signing at least 75 to 100 a day.

And so I had to bring somebody to help package it as well. So it's happening, y'all. So don't worry about it. And I think, I think I found, I think my brother found some additional books in his house he's trying to count for me so when I go to Houston uh in a week I'll be able to pick those up because I think we might have like about a hundred that I found but we've taken the book off of the website uh because we've sold out of what I have here but I'm having him check

my parents check in my other house my other house in Dallas to make sure that they're... Because again, I'm selling all the copies. I'm not printing any more copies of the first, and so I'll let y'all know if I find any of the copies. So I ain't Amazon where it's going to be y'all next day. So I'm signing them, so you're going to get the books. That's it, y'all. I will see y'all tomorrow right here.

Roller Mark unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Howl! Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punches! A real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going.

The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home, you dig? A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one.

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