#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Miss. PD Violates Civil Rights,NY Mayor Indicted,Russian Election Interference,Biden & Gun Violence

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

9.26.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Miss. PD Violates Civil Rights,NY Mayor Indicted,Russian Election Interference,Biden & Gun Violence The Justice Department's investigation into a small-town Mississippi police department, Mississippi, found numerous civil rights violations by officers who routinely used excessive force and arrested people who owed fines for minor traffic offenses.  We'll hear  Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ Civil Rights Division,  Kristen Clarke, break down what they found.  New York City Mayor, Eric Adams is indicted on bribery, campaign fund fraud, and other corruption. We'll tell you why North Carolina purged thousands from its voter rolls of voters from just weeks before registration deadlines.  Foreign actors are ramping up efforts to interfere with the 2024 election. Security expert Nola Hayes will explain how Russian actors use the internet to spread misinformation.   And President Joe Biden signs an executive order addressing gun violence in America.  Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. 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. Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches. I'm real revolutionary right now. Black power. Support this real revolutionary right now. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. I love y'all.

All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Today is Thursday, September 26, 2024. Coming up on Roller Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. North Carolina removes more than 700,000 people from the voting rolls.

We'll explain exactly what is going on in the Tar Heels state. Also, a shocking report that shows Democrats barely spending any money in the last two weeks on digital media targeting African Americans. What the hell is going on with the millions of dollars being raised by Democratic PACs while they're not spending money on black people? Vice President Kamala Harris sit down with MSNBC last night after her economic speech

talking about what she will do if she is president. And don't y'all notice that all of a sudden, every time she does an interview, they've been complaining about the interview, but they complain that she don't do enough interviews. This is why she should ignore mainstream media. Folks, in New York, Mayor Eric Adams makes history becoming the first New York City mayor

ever criminally indicted. That's saying a whole lot, a lot of the corrupt mayors in New York City's history. 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 fact, the fine And when it breaks, he's right on time

And it's rolling, best believe he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin

Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's rolling, Martel. Now. Martel. All right, how many times have y'all heard folks say,

oh, Biden, Harris, they ain't doing nothing for black people. You don't see them doing anything to address police brutality and what's happening with all these cops out here. I don't told y'all that's a flat out lie on many occasions. The Department of Justice under Biden-Harris has been the most aggressive civil rights division since Robert Kennedy was attorney general. Today, the DOJ announced what has been taking place, the blatant racism taking place in Lexington, Mississippi. Folks, their findings show that the Lexington, Mississippi Police Department have had a pattern of using excessive force, unlawfully jailing people, discriminating against black people. This follows, of course, where their officers were busted and went to prison for brutalizing African Americans. Assistant Attorney General Christian Clark, who heads the Civil Rights Division, details the investigation's results doing a Zoom call today with news media. Watch this.

We are here today to announce the findings from our pattern or practice investigation into the city of Lexington, Mississippi, and the Lexington Police Department. We find reasonable cause to believe that the Lexington Police Department and the city of Lexington engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, the Safe Streets Act, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, we find that the Lexington police use excessive force, unlawfully stop, search, and arrest people, including by jailing people on illegal, quote, investigative holds, end quote, unlawfully jail people without affording prompt access to court, violate the rights of people engaged in free speech and expression, including

by retaliating against critics of the police, and unlawfully discriminate against Black people. The department also unlawfully arrests, jails, and detains people based on their failure to pay money without assessing their ability to pay, unlawfully arrests people just because they owe outstanding fines and imposes money bail without justification and again without assessing ability to pay. The fact that fines and fees fund the department drives its law enforcement, resulting in a crude policing for profit scheme. The Lexington Police Department operates under an unconstitutional financial conflict of interest. Lexington's focus on revenue and its overly aggressive form of policing leaves the people of Lexington feeling harassed, helpless, and hopeless. For example, on the day that we opened our investigation,

Lexington officers chased a man down and tased him until he foamed at the mouth. In the previous months, police officers had repeatedly arrested the man for minor offenses that most police departments would have handled with a ticket. For stealing sugar packets from a gas station, the man spent 13 days in jail. He spent four days in jail for taking a second cup of coffee after paying for the first. Each time, the Lexington police kept him in jail because he could not afford to pay the fines or the $50 processing fee

Lexington charges for every arrest. Especially for a person in poverty, these fines are no small thing. Even though he has no money, the man owes the Lexington Police Department over $7,500. At no point did the police or city assess his ability to pay those fines. In America, being poor is not a crime. But in Lexington, their practices punish people for poverty. We cannot stand for the criminalization of poverty in this country. On February 29th, we provided official notice to Lexington city officials and the police department about our concerns regarding illegal arrests and detentions that penalize people for lacking resources. Lexington has made modest changes, but as today's findings show, more meaningful reform

is necessary. Lexington's fines and fees have been absolutely devastating for the people who live there. Although Lexington is one of the poorest counties in America, people owe the police department $1.7 million in outstanding fines. The Lexington Municipal Court has issued bench warrants for over 650 people based on unpaid fines, equivalent to roughly half of Lexington's population. Based on these warrants, police officers have unlawfully arrested and jailed people using the leverage of incarceration to extract more money from them. Other times, the Lexington police send people to jail for days or weeks for minor offenses. People are left to languish in jail until they can go before a judge or they can scrape enough money together

to pay their fines. This too violates people's civil rights. For example, the Lexington police arrested a black man for allegedly taking $15 worth of gas. The police told him the fine was $300. He couldn't pay it. The police sent him to jail until the next scheduled court date two weeks later. Unjustly enforcing fines and fees creates a two-tiered system of justice that can perpetuate a cycle of poverty. It also fuels a financial conflict of interest for the police department. The police must enforce the law even-handedly, not based on generating revenue. Lexington, though, focused its law enforcement on strategies that generated income, even at times linking police officers' paychecks to the number of arrests they made. Over the past two years, Lexington has made nearly

one arrest for every four people in town, more than 10 times the per capita arrest rate for Mississippi. The Lexington police also illegally arrest people for using profanity, and they retaliate against people who simply film officers or criticize the police. The First Amendment protects swearing, yet the Lexington police broke down a man's back door and arrested him for swearing in a public space. The First Amendment also protects the right to film or criticize officers, but when a man filmed officers approaching his suicidal brother with their guns raised, a police officer batted the man's phone out of his hand, pushed him to the ground, and arrested him. While making arrests, the Lexington police frequently use excessive force. We found instances in which officers used a taser like a cattle prod to punish people

or to make them comply more quickly with officers' orders. For example, officers used a taser to shock a Black man 18 times until he was covered in his own vomit and unable to speak or talk. Officers punch, hit, or kick people who are unarmed and handcuffed. One officer kicked a black man in the groin so hard that he wet himself. Another used his gun to repeatedly hit a Black man already in handcuffs. Another officer knocked an elderly Black man unconscious. Nor are children spared from attack. An officer grabbed a Black child by the neck and shoved him into a patrol car, banging the child's head against the doorframe. Black people bear the brunt of the Lexington Police Department's illegal conduct. Lexington's former police chief, Sam Dobbins, who regularly spoke

disrespectfully to Black men, set in motion the aggressive enforcement of low-level violations. Dobbins left the department when recordings of him using racial slurs were released. Officials told us that with Dobbins gone, so too was the problem. We found, however, that the discriminatory practices he initiated continue unabated. We found, however, we also found that Lexington officers frequently tase, punch, and beat Black people without justification, while we identified no such use of force on white people. Low-level traffic violations that resulted in arrest for black people yielded only warnings or citations for white people. The result, 98% of people arrested for traffic offenses are black. This pattern of racial discrimination not only violates the law, it also erodes the community's trust in law enforcement, the judicial system, and the government more broadly.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, half of America's police departments have 10 officers or fewer. Every person in the United States enjoys certain fundamental rights, regardless of the size of their town, the contents of their bank account, or the color of their skin. Residents of rural and underserved communities have the same rights and deserve the same protections as people who live in major cities. The Justice Department is committed to providing that protection. Police misconduct in smaller communities may not always garner national attention, but rest assured the Justice Department is watching. No city, no town, no law enforcement agency is too large or too small to evade our efforts to safeguard

the constitutional rights that every American enjoys. Small and mid-sized police departments must not be allowed to violate people's civil rights with impunity. Lexington is a small rural community, but its police department has had a heavy hand in people's lives, wreaking havoc through use of excessive force, discriminatory policing, retaliation, and more.

For too long, the department has been playing by its own rules and operating with impunity. It's time for this to end. To the people of Lexington, I want you to know that we heard you, we listened to your testimonies, and we thank you for having the courage to speak up. The Lexington Police Department and the City of Lexington have agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department to address the serious challenges we outline today. As we begin the hardest... 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 St Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters,

and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull, we'll take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

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

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

Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. 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. 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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend.

At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Essential work of rebuilding trust and restoring equal justice under law. We need to continue to hear from the Lexington community in the coming days and weeks. We stand with the people of Lexington to extend justice to all its residents, rich and poor, regardless of their race.

I need every Black man and every Black woman who's even thinking about voting for Donald Trump to come here and pay attention to what I'm about to tell you right now. What you just heard from Christian Clark, who heads the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice under President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, is egregious. It is shocking. It is pathetic. It is degrading. And it is demeaning. And what you just heard would never happen under Donald Trump. Let me remind y'all, Donald Trump, when he went to the Oval Office, he named Jeff Sessions his

Attorney General. They tried to get out of the Baltimore consent decree. A federal judge and the city said, absolutely not. They tried to get out of a consent decree in Chicago. Jeff Sessions literally said, and we're going to find a clip for y'all. We need to pull back on these police and patterns and practices investigations because the cops are suffering from low morale. Bill Barr, who replaced Jeff Sessions, said the exact same thing. So how can you call yourself somebody who cares about black people and you care about justice and you care about equality? you know damn well that there is a 180 degree difference between a Trump Department of Justice and a Biden-Harris Department of Justice. And there's going to be a big difference between a Trump-Vance Department of Justice

and a Harris-Walls Department of Justice. The facts are there. and a Harris-Walls Department of Justice. The facts are there. This administration has had more than a dozen police pattern and practices investigations. They have been investigating police departments all across the country. They have been putting rogue cops in prison. They have been putting individuals committing hate crimes in prison. Can we say the same thing about the Trump Pence Department of Justice?

Absolutely not. I am not confused by any of this. And there is no way in hell any self-respecting black man or black woman or any person of conscience will be willing to vote for a thug like Donald Trump and J.D. Vance knowing full well that they would never pick someone like Christian Clark to run the Civil Rights Division, that they don't care about people who are being beaten and humiliated. You heard her detail. Cops arresting people who swore at them, knowing full well that's not against the law. Arresting people for a cup of coffee and putting them in jail for multiple days

after the man had already bought a cup of coffee. coffee? If you want to see the biggest example of a difference between a president, a Democratic president, and a Republican president, all you got to do is look at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. But let me also add, this is my final point before I go to my panel. The Civil Rights Division under Christian Clark, they've also been going after redlining. Did Trump go after redlining? No.

Please, by all means, show me how aggressive Trump and Pence was when it comes to going after these banks for discriminatory practices against African-Americans. I'll wait. Because you can't find it. Y'all can play games all y'all want to. And in 41 days, we will elect a new president. And I'm telling you right now, there's no way in the world I will consider voting for anybody who wants to give cops 100% immunity. I would never vote for somebody who wants to say to the cops, do as you wish.

Whatever you want to do, knock some heads if you want to. And you just heard how this small police force in Lexington, Mississippi, and this ain't just Lexington, Mississippi. This is police forces in small towns, in rural America, in big cities, red and blue, need an aggressive Department of Justice overlooking them. Black man and black woman, do not be fooled. All you brothers out there talking about, yeah, yeah, Trump gonna put that money in my pocket.

I'm gonna get some STEMIs. No, he not. But I can guarantee you this. He going to bring back stop and frisk. I can guarantee you this. He's going to allow cops to knock black men upside their heads. So y'all go ahead and play around if you want to. And don't come crying.

If he wins, don't come crying later. Oh, my God. Where's Ben Crump? Where's Harry Daniels? Where's Lee Merritt? Can I take where's Reverend Al Sharpton? Where's the NAACP? You're going to say that if you sit your ass at home, you're going to say that if you vote for Trump? I'm telling y'all right now, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, it ain't even, they're not even in the same planetary system when it comes to holding rogue cops accountable. My panel, Dr. Greg Carr, Department of African American Studies, Howard University, out of Washington, D.C., Lauren Victoria Burke, Black Press USA coming to us from Arlington, Virginia, and Joy Chaney joining folks and they're commenting on the posts that I'm making, others on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter and Facebook

and Snapchat and all different platforms, Fanbase, Tumblr, all social media. Oh yeah, oh yeah, Trump, oh yeah, I'm down with Trump. I ain't down with her, I ain't down with the prosecutor. Yeah, Trump has made perfectly clear. He supports stop and frisk. He supports 100 percent immunity for cops. He does not support the George Floyd Police and Justice Act. He does not support holding cops accountable.

Every black person listening had better understand Greg, that you are going to see cops running rampant in our communities because they will have a MAGA red hat wearing fool in the nation's capital who will tell

the Department of Justice, don't you investigate them. And for anybody to think I'm lying, y'all mad about that brother Marcel Williams being executed when that same Republican governor in Missouri said he's going to pardon a cop who was found guilty of crimes in Kansas City. You got Greg Abbott who pardoned the white man who killed the white Black Lives Matter protester at the protest in Austin. to realize absolute police thugs will be in charge if Donald Trump prevails against Vice President Kamala Harris. Of course, you're absolutely right.

You're absolutely right. You know, last night in class, we were talking about Reconstruction. We were reading a chapter in Derrick Bell's casebook on Reconstruction and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. And one of my students over at Howard Law School made an observation. He said, you know, there's a reason why in this country that it took me coming to law school, my third year of law school, to have a sustained conversation about something that we learned nothing about in high school and I didn't learn anything about in college.

I said, you're absolutely right. This is the most important period in U.S. history for us to study is Reconstruction. And as you've talked about many times, Roland, what comes immediately after Reconstruction in this country is what the white boys, what the Crackers called the Redemption Movement, the White Lash Movement, what Rayford Logan, historian, called the nadir, the dark period for African people, requiring us to undertake a second Reconstruction to make those Civil War amendments stand up, 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, in the 1950s and 60s. And since the 1960s, what these practitioners of devilment, I'll stop short of calling them

devils, but only very closely short, have been doing ever since is trying to roll back not only the 1960s, but the 20th century. The vigilante force, known as the police in this country, the patarollers, are licking their chops at the prospect of one of their own, an open white nationalist, assuming the vice presidency. I'm talking about Junior Varsity Vance, who threw, of course, his own family under the bus, who's currently throwing his wife under the bus and his children under the bus as he practices this form of hatred of everything non-white in his form of his immigrant shaming and blaming and falsifying descriptions of them.

But the president of the United States, the malevolent force known as Dementia J. Trump, or Donald Trump by some, he is the wild card that will enable Junior Varsity Vance, who is a hardcore ideologue. Why? Because Donald Trump doesn't believe in anything but himself, and he'll say anything and he'll let people do anything. That license, the license that we'll see in a little town not even an hour outside of Jackson, Mississippi, where they follow a man home based on tint on his windows and tase him for 15 seconds, where they lock up a man for swearing at the police. These white boys are the Klan.

They are the Klan of the 19th century. They are the Redeemer's movement. They are the Knights of the White Chameleon, the Ku Klux Klan. And they are licking their chops at finally taking the next quantum leap toward redeeming themselves in terms of white supremacy. That's what Make America Great Again means. And finally, I'll say this. For all the people out there who think that somehow Donald Trump might be better for you if you're of African descent, you've opened your mouth and you've put your whole rotten brain on display. You've demonstrated that you are a danger, not only to yourself, but to...

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

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

Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really 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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend.

At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. The rest of us. Lauren, there's somebody who's watching, Lauren. And they're saying,

Roland, Trump doesn't believe those things. I'm a black man, and Trump stands with me. Really. What I'm about to play for you is literally on his campaign website. This is where I found it. All you brothers who hollering, Trump, Trump, Trump.

Oh yeah, Trump. Oh yeah, I'm down with Trump. Mm-hmm. Listen to this. Because the Democrats want to take those protections away from our police because we want them to do their jobs. And we want them to do their jobs right. You can't take their protections away

if you're going to have them do their jobs properly. Second, to qualify for this new funding and all other Justice Department grants, I will insist that local jurisdictions return to proven, common-sense policing measures, such as stop and frisk. Very simple. You stop them and you frisk them. Strictly enforcing existing gun laws against convicted felons, cracking down

on the open use of illegal drugs, and cooperating with ICE to get criminal aliens off our streets and get them out of our country. Third, we will go after the radical Marxist prosecutors who are abolishing cash bail, refusing to charge crimes, and surrendering our cities to violent criminals. They have surrendered like never before. I will direct the DOJ to open civil rights investigations into radical left prosecutors' offices, such as those in Chicago, L.A., and San Francisco, to determine whether they have illegally engaged in race-based enforcement of the law.

I will also work with Congress to give the victims of their Marxist policies the right to sue local officials for harm and suffering. And it has been great that they have caused. If your small business is pillaged because shoplifting goes unpunished, if you're brutally attacked by a violent felon released without bail or bond, then you will be entitled to massive damages. Fourth, I will order the Department of Justice, or as some people call it, the Department of Injustice right now, and Homeland Security dismantle every gang, street crew, and drug network in America.

Every single one of them will be dismantled. We already know where these turf wars and drug dens are. We know who the people are. All right, so come back to me. So, Lauren, any of these brothers out here, y'all voting for that? Okay.

Let me know how that's going to go down, Lauren. Yeah, I don't really buy into the idea that there's a ton of black men out there voting for Donald Trump or planning to vote for Donald Trump. I think that that has been overplayed on CNN in particular and the New York Times.

They seem to love to present some outlier example of some black male who wants to vote for Donald Trump. And then when the election actually happens, which we have now two examples, 2020 and, of course, 2016, that show us that, of course, the most dedicated group for the Democratic Party is black women, followed by black men. And so in talking with Mondale Robinson and other people who know a hell of a lot more about this than I do, I'm not seeing, you know, I'm not seeing what I would consider to be hard evidence that there's a ton of black men out there burning to vote for this lunatic that is running for president again. That's the first thing I would say. The second thing is we just got, of course, a huge report this week that crime is down, violent crime is down, years low. And of course, as you know, Roland, the Republican Party has been

saying the same thing really since the late 1960s with regard to crime and law and order, which is the way that they play their Southern strategy, their racial Southern strategy to scare white folks in the suburbs to vote Republican. And they've just been doing this now for 60 years. It never stops. It doesn't matter what the crime stats say. It's the same thing over and over and over and over again. Of course, to your point, Roland, you're absolutely right with regard to the Department of Justice and Kristen Clark. You've made the point several times, four very correctly, that the DOJ should really be playing up this work that they're doing in these spaces. Lexington, Mississippi, in that situation, sounded a hell of a lot like the Black Codes,

which, of course, is not taught in most high schools, I suspect. But it's really just a remnant of the post-Civil War activity that we saw in the South. And the police department has become the arm of that activity. It kind of reminds me of the 2015 DOJ report by Attorney General Holder on Jennings on St. Louis County, which was extremely familiar to what Kristen Clark just said, which played role in, it was effectively the same report. They're using black people for fines and fees to fund everybody else. Right. And through branding blacks to criminality. Wow. Where did they get that idea from? Very familiar.

But here's the thing, Joy. I don't care if the number is 14%, 12%, 10%. No self-respecting black man or black woman should remotely even be considering voting for a thug who says, I'm going to withhold funding from local police departments unless they institute stop and frisk, which we know by the data targets black and brown people. And in New York City, the crazy number of people who were not even guilty of anything.

It was racial profiling. When this man says, we're going to target Marxist prosecutors. Now, who he's talking about? Kim Fox in Chicago. He's talking about, although she's no longer there, Aramis Ayala, who was in Orlando.

The woman who took her place, same thing, who DeSantis pushed out. They're talking about Larry Krasner in Philadelphia. They're talking about the DA in Los Angeles. They're talking about every place, places in Virginia, places in New York City. They want to target progressive DAs because they want a hardcore right wing, lock them up, throw the key away prosecutors. So for all y'all black folks out here who are talking about the aftermath of George Floyd and y'all talking about how we get abused, This man wants to unleash law enforcement

against this country, and he ain't talking about white people. No, he's not. This is a reinstitution of slavery, right? And when you are chasing black people down in an effort to keep them in check and in line, this is what he's wanted. This is, frankly, what he's always wanted. Donald Trump has changed many of his positions over the years,

but he's been pretty consistent. When you look at how he treated Central Park Five, some of the other positions he has taken, this person is not someone who cares about the average rank-and-file person who may come in contact with the justice system. In fact, he wants to unleash the justice system on all of those people, and in particular on Black and brown people. And poor whites, he'll get you, too. He will get you, too, because all of the things that would deny you bail, all of the things that would impose economic crimes on you, would also—on Black people, would also apply to you if you don't have the money to pay.

So this is not anyone who is concerned about the rights of those within the criminal justice system who are interested in criminal justice reform. This is not anyone that you would want to put in. He's about celebrity, right? And he's about tricking you and thinking that you are not paying attention. And so, you know, that's what this is about. And let me tell you, it's also a reminder of how important it is to have the right person in the Oval Office so that you can have the right person at all of the agencies across the country. You've said it before, Kristen Clark is the national treasure. She has single-handedly sought justice for communities of color who have been abused. And let me tell you, if you are a community who is being abused out there by your

police department, she has avenues for you to alert the Justice Department so that they can look into it. This is a person committed to justice. Again, for everybody to understand, the president appoints the attorney general. The attorney general picks his or her team and so who heads the civil rights division, who heads the SEC, who heads, I mean, we could go on and on and on. So don't think for a second, folks, that who you vote for for the presidency

doesn't matter. That's who heads the EPA, Health and Human Services, the Pentagon. We can go on and on and on. So I'm going to say it again. No self-respecting black man or black woman should even remotely be thinking about voting for Donald Trump when that man plans to unleash law enforcement against black people in this country. And let it be real clear. Some of y'all, I know some of y'all are saying, oh yeah, we'll put

the thugs in jail. 90% of those people who were going through stop and frisk, they were innocent. Oh, let me go ahead and add this. Oh, let me go let me say this right here. Black men, I've been seeing a whole bunch of y'all tweeting about the execution in Missouri. I've been seeing a lot of y'all tweeting about Kamala Harris. She ain't say a word when that black man being put to death. Y'all overlook the fact that it was a Democratic DA

who wanted the man taken off the death row. Y'all forget that it was a Republican Attorney General who stopped him, a Republican governor who stopped him, a Republican state Supreme Court who said move forward with the execution. A Republican U.S. Supreme Court that moved forward. But you may be asking, well, Roland, why are you bringing up executions and Donald Trump? Now, y'all remember, this was the ad that he took out right here.

This is Yusuf Salam's response, but I need y'all to remember this is Yusuf Salam responding to Donald Trump. Donald Trump wanted to kill the Central Park Five. He said the death penalty, they deserve the death penalty. Okay, why am I bringing that up? Donald Trump lost in 2020. Y'all know what he did? He told Bill Barr,

who can we execute? Again, I want all y'all brothers. I've been seeing y'all tweets. I've been seeing y'all posting. I want all y'all brothers who have been talking all that trash. I want y'all to answer this for me. How many people have been executed on the federal level by President Biden, Vice President Harris? Zero. Zero. I want all y'all brothers and some of y'all sisters. I've been seeing some of y'all tweets too.

Especially y'all FBA ADOS folk. How many federal executions took place under President Barack Obama. Zero. Now, I want all of y'all to now answer the question, how many executions took place under Donald Trump?

Thirteen. If you go to my iPad, this is a Rolling Stone article. Trump's killing spree. The inside story of his race to execute every prisoner he could. Look at this right here. Black man and black woman. Before 2020, there had been three federal executions in 60 years. Then Trump put 13 people to death in six months.

So if y'all are posting. Tweets. Trashing the vice president Kamala Harris. She didn't speak up loud enough. She didn't do nothing. Why y'all ain't mentioning this. Well, why y'all not mentioning that after he lost, he was racing to kill people.

He literally told Bill Barr, let's take him out. Let's go. Lead paragraph, Rolling Stone. In the final moments of Brandon Bernard's life before he was executed by lethal injection at a federal penitentiary in Terry Hart, Indiana on December 10, 2020, President Donald Trump picked up the phone to entertain a final plea for mercy on Bernard's behalf. The call was not with Bernard's family or his attorneys, nor was it with representatives from the Justice Department's pardon attorney office, who had recommended just days earlier that Trump spare Bernard's life.

Rather, the call was with Jamal Fincher Jones, better known as Polau Dadaan, a music producer responsible for hits like Ludacris, Pippin' All Over the World, and Nicki Minaj's Anaconda. Jones didn't know Bernard, but he had publicly endorsed Trump for re-election, and that, Bernard's advocates had correctly suspected, gave him the best chance of getting the president's ear. Hmm. Trump took the call, but unfortunately for Bernard, it was too late.

The president had days earlier spoken with the family of the victims in Bernard's case, a young couple who had been kidnapped and killed, and promised them the execution would go forward. I'm sorry, he told Jones, I can't do it. I'm going to scroll back up. Representatives from the Justice Department's Parton Attorney Office had recommended just days earlier that Trump spare Bernard's life. So for every single one of you brothers and sisters who wants to criticize Biden and Harris for the state execution in Missouri.

There were there had been zero federal executions under Biden Harris. There were zero federal executions under Biden Harris. There were zero federal executions under Obama Biden. There were 13 by Donald Trump in six months. And before I go to break, I'm just gonna leave y'all with this right here. Before 2020, there had been three federal executions in 60 years. Then Trump put 13 people to death in six months. Now you tell me. 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 two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman

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

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Who should be the 47th President of the United States? Trump or Harris?

That ain't even a contest. It's absolutely Vice President Kamala Harris. I'll be right back on Rollerbutton Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. He told us who he was. Should abortion be punished? There has to be some form of punishment. Then he showed us.

For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I'm proud to have done it. Now Donald Trump wants to go further with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women's pregnancies. We know who Donald Trump is. He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Bob and I both voted for Donald Trump. I He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Bob and I both voted for Donald Trump. I voted for him twice. I won't vote for him again. January 6th was a wake-up call for me. Donald Trump divides people. We've already seen what he has to bring. He didn't do anything to help us. Kamala Harris, she cares about the American

people. I think she's got the wherewithal to make a difference. I've never voted for a Democrat. Yes, we're both lifelong Republicans. The choice is very simple. I'm voting for Kamala. I am voting for Kamala Harris. In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House. Now those people have a warning for America.

Trump is not fit to be president again. Here's his vice president. Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. His defense secretary. Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's secrets ever again?

No. I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation's security at risk. His national security advisor. Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump. And the nation's highest-ranking military officer.

We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. Take it from the people who knew him best. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can't let him lead our country again. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. IVF is a miracle for us because it allowed us to have our family. After having my daughter, I wanted more children. But my embryo transfer was canceled eight days before the procedure.

Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade stopped us from growing the family that we wanted. I don't want politicians telling me how or when I can have a baby. We need a president that will protect our rights, and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems.

Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, the crowd. This weird obsession with crowd sizes. It just goes on and on and on america's ready for a new chapter we are ready for a president kamala harris i'm kamala harris and i approve this message the overturning of roe almost killed me i had a blood clot in my uterus that caused my labor to have to be induced because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I wasn't able to get life-saving treatment sooner. I almost died. And that's because of the decision that Donald Trump made.

I was able to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I'm proud to have done it. The doctors and nurses were afraid that if they treated me in the incorrect way that they would be prosecuted for that and that's appalling. Donald Trump says that women should be punished. Do you believe in punishment for abortion? There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman? Yeah. I believe that women should have reproductive freedom to make the choices about their own bodies. Four more years of Donald Trump means that women's rights will continue to be taken away one by one by one by one. This has to stop because women are dying.

I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. What's up, everybody? It's your girl Latasha from the A. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. In the last 20 months, North Carolina's State Board of Elections removed hundreds of thousands of registered voters. 747,000 people have been stripped from the rolls. They were deemed ineligible to register because they had moved within the state and did not register their new address or because they did not participate in the past two federal elections, prompting an inactive status.

Other reasons for removal include death, felony convictions, out-of-state moves, and personal removal requests. North Carolina is one of seven swing states likely to decide the presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and that idiot. Only one Democrat this century, former President Barack Obama in 2008, has won North Carolina in a presidential contest, but he did so by 14,100 votes in 2008. But Harris has been polling close to Trump

in the Tar Heel state. The purge comes just a few weeks after North Carolina Republicans filed a lawsuit that said the state had failed to act on complaints about ineligible people on voter rolls. Now, what people need to understand here, Lauren, is that it was a white man in Ohio who filed a lawsuit dealing with the issue of being removed from the voting rolls. This conservative Supreme Court ruled

that Ohio could purge folks. As a result, Republicans all across the country immediately began to purge people from elections. They decided that even though that guy had not voted in several elections, it was okay to get rid of them. Now that still to me is dumb that you're purging people because they did not vote in a couple of presidential elections. They could have voted in local elections, but this is what Republicans have always wanted. They need to shrink the electorate to give them a better shot at winning.

Yeah, and then they need to not change any of their policies to expand the electorate for their party, which they refuse to do. For some reason, they always refuse to expand their ideas or their policy ideas to get more people under the tent of, you know, of their party. So, you know, it's a strategy, of course, of shrinking the electorate with, joined with never changing anything policy-wise. And really, really, with the MAGA Republicans, they're floating into a zone here of really not having any policies. They just have this sort of strongman, dictatorial style of their MAGA leader, Donald Trump, sort of standing there, not really talking in any policy detail. So it's even worse than that. But this is an interesting and crazy strategy that

is actually going to work probably for North Carolina and probably Georgia as well. And you can see in Georgia, they're going even further into other strategies that have to do with decreasing the voter roll. So it really requires everybody to turn out. There is a push in the country to make sure that people are checking their registration. So with early voting in particular, that's a big advantage because you have time to check your registration. You're not waiting for November 5, 40 days from now to see if you're on the rolls. But it's an unfortunate new strategy on the Republican side. See, Joy, the reason I want people to understand that lawsuit, again, it was a white man in Ohio. And Republicans, boy, they wanted the Supreme Court to allow them to remove folks from the rolls who have not voted.

And they have been using that in Florida and Texas and North Carolina. I mean, you can go on and on and on the places where they have been using that because they have openly stated if we shrink the voting rolls, if we get rid of ballot drop boxes, if we require voter ID. I mean, I'll never, in 2012, a leading Republican legislator in Pennsylvania stood up and publicly said Mitt Romney is going to win Pennsylvania

because of voter ID. That's right. And by the way, these are not new strategies. These are iterations, modern iterations of the same old Jim Crow strategies. Any attempt to keep you from voting.

And then—but what is new then, now they're adding it such that even when you vote, even if you win, if you don't win about big enough margins, they might try to undo the election or not electors. So these folks are committed. But here's what we do. I don't want us to focus—the lawyers are going to take care of these things. We have to talk about them. But I want you to focus on what you have to do.

As we already said, you got to check your registration. You cannot wait until Election Day to vote. I know some of you, I like to vote on Election Day. It's about getting out in front and making sure no one can rob you of your vote. So vote early. Bring other people to vote early. Check your name on the roll if you are a woman and you have a hyphenated name. If you've recently changed your name, if you've recently moved, anything.

Check your registration status. Make sure you have everything that you need and bring your ID to the polls even if you don't have to. You want to take every redundancy to make sure that you can vote. They are taking every redundancy to make sure that your vote won't matter. So you have to do your part because margins will matter.

And we need to flood the system with voting, voting in higher numbers so we can undo what they have planned. That is what is critical right now. So, yes, not surprised, but we can outsmart them. So Greg, I want to talk about this as well. Go to my iPad. Ari Berman posted this tweet, and this is sort of tied to it. Trump won 53% of the vote in Ohio, but the GOP controls 67% of seats in the state house

and 79% in the state senate. This November, Ohio voters can pass ballot initiative to finally end gerrymandering, direct democracy, key tool to fight rigged legislatures and protect key rights. Now, we saw in Wisconsin when Democrats got the fourth seat in the state Supreme Court how they attacked gerrymandering as well. And so these ballot initiatives are so important because Republicans have been fighting it. And the reason they're doing a ballot initiative there, the voters had already voted on this and the legislature in Ohio totally ignored them. Same thing happened in Michigan. They were like, nah, you can't do it.

And Republicans are ignoring the people, the will of the people in Utah. This is so even when you use democracy, they're like, yeah, we don't care. We still got the power. Absolutely. I echo everything that Lauren and Joy have said. And Joy, you know, has said it. I mean, you know, they're committed. These white nationalists know that it's the end of their funky dream. We're going to break their backs. The only question is when. It'd be better to break their backs politically this election cycle. I think early voting starts in North Carolina next month, October, I think, 17th through

the 2nd of November. You got to check your voter registration. And yeah, I'm a person who votes on the day. I'm in Maryland. But I have since I was 18 years old. But this year I'm voting early because there is no state that's safe in this funky settler state, in this funky settler colony called United States. There's no state that's safe. Not as has been reported by Greg Palast. He's got a new documentary out, these vote stealers,

these vote attackers, these vote Nazis are out trying to knock everybody off the roll. I've been checking my registration, and I keep checking it until the day for early voting, and I'm going to vote. Not on the day, not on election day. In fact, wouldn't it be nice if we made November the 5th irrelevant? And when the hillbillies show up to try to mess with people as they stand in line, they find out they're the only ones in the line? Why? Because we all voted early. It's important to understand.

And as you just—you've talked to this guy before, and we've had him actually on the black table to discuss his book Laboratories of Autocracy, David Pepper, a former Ohio state legislator who has talked about this and has been screaming from the rooftops what they've been doing in Ohio. But this is the time for Cleveland and Dayton. This is the time for Columbus. This is the time for all of those folks in Springfield, Ohio, where Ohio University is, to go out and break the backs of these white nationalists by making sure that this ballot referendum passes and you can get rid of the gerrymander. The only way they have a chance to continue their white supremacist, their white nationalist fever dream is to steal your vote.

Three-quarters of a million people knocked off the roll in North Carolina. Ten percent of the voting population knocked off the roll. An average of 1,200 voters a day, every day from the start of 2023 through August of this year in the funky state of North Carolina. That's because they know they can't win it fair and square. They have no interest in winning it fair and square. They are trying to literally run their funky-ass dream through your chest by taking you off the rolls. I say you break their backs politically. Make sure you register and get out there and vote early.

Render November the 5th as irrelevant as we can. Absolutely. All right, folks, hold tight one second. When we come back, ooh, rough day for New York Mayor Eric Adams, indicted by federal authorities. We're going to break it all down with Ellie Mister with The Nation. He is up next. Folks, don't forget to support the work that we do.

Join our Bring the Funk fan club. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans on average every year contributing at least 50 bucks. That's $0.19 a month, $0.13 a day. We don't have millionaires and billionaires and foundations and major advertisers pouring money into us we've been making this thing work not going directly to the people for the past six years and that's how we've been able to survive so your support is critical now we keep having issues with

cash app we're trying to deal with them they don't allow companies like ours to actually now use cash app they literally are deleting our cash app accounts they are putting caps daily and weekly and monthly caps they need to change it but it's impacted us in a huge way so we're still trying to deal with square and a cure option is all back and forth so the four ways to give to our show check and money order uh p.o box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. PayPal is rmartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com.

Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back. He told us who he was. Should abortion be punished? There has to be some form of punishment. Then he showed us. For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated. And I did it.

And I'm proud to have done it. Now Donald Trump wants to go further with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women's pregnancies. We know who Donald Trump is. He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Bob and I both voted for Donald Trump.

I voted for him twice. I won't vote for him again. January 6th was a wake-up call for me. Donald Trump divides people. We've already seen what he has to bring. He didn't do anything to help us. Kamala Harris, she cares about the American people. I think she's got the wherewithal to make a difference. I've never voted for a Democrat. Yes, we're both lifelong Republicans. The choice is very simple. I'm voting for Kamala. I am voting for Kamala Harris.

In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House. Now those people have a warning for America. Trump is not fit to be president again. Here's his vice president. Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. His defense secretary. Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's secrets ever again? No. I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation's security at risk. His national security advisor. Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump.

And the nation's highest ranking military officer. We don't take an oath to a king or queen or a tyrant or a dictator. We don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. Take it from the people who knew him best. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can't let him lead our country again. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. IVF is a miracle for us because it allowed us to have our family.

After having my daughter, I wanted more children, but my embryo transfer was canceled eight days before the procedure. Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade stopped us from growing the family that we wanted. I don't want politicians telling me how or when I can have a baby. We need a president that will protect our rights, and that's Kamala Harris.

I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems. Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, the crowd. This weird obsession with crowd sizes President Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. The overturning of Roe almost killed me. I had a blood clot in my uterus that caused my labor to have to be induced because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I wasn't able to get life-saving treatment sooner.

I almost died. And that's because of the decision that Donald Trump made. I was able to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I'm proud to have done it. The doctors and nurses were afraid that if they treated me in the incorrect way, that they would be prosecuted for that. And that's appalling. Donald Trump says that women should be punished.

Do you believe in punishment for abortion? There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman? Yeah. I believe that women should have reproductive freedom to make the choices about their own bodies. Four more years of Donald Trump means that women's rights will continue to be taken away one by one by one by one. This has to stop because women are dying. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin.

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

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

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg 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. 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. 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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Hello, I'm Jameah Pugh. I am from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, just an hour right outside of Philadelphia. My name is Jasmine Pugh. I'm also from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Stay right here. New York City Mayor Eric Adams becomes the first mayor in history to be criminally indicted.

Today, the federal authorities unsealed the indictment against the first-term mayor. He faces five counts of bribery, campaign fund fraud, and other corruption. Here is the federal prosecutor supervising the Adams investigation, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, laying out the indictment. DAMIAN WILLIAMS, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, As the indictment alleges, Mayor Adams engaged in a long-running conspiracy in which he solicited and knowingly accepted illegal campaign contributions from foreign donors and corporations. As we allege, Mayor Adams took these contributions even though he knew they were illegal and even though he knew these contributions were

attempts by a Turkish government official and Turkish businessmen to buy influence with him. We also allege that the mayor sought and accepted well over $100,000 in luxury travel benefits from some of the same foreign actors who arranged many of the illegal campaign contributions These benefits included free international business class flights and opulent hotel rooms in foreign cities The mayor had a duty to disclose these gifts on his annual public disclosure forms so that the public could see who was giving him what. But as we allege, year after year after year, he kept the public in the dark. He told the public he received no gifts, even though he was secretly being showered with

them. We allege that Adams accepted these benefits knowing that they were given to him because of his position. And in exchange for some of those improper benefits, he intervened in the New York City Fire Department's inspection process for a building owned and operated by the Turkish government, allowing it to open even though it had not passed a fire inspection. The corruption alleged in the indictment is, as I said, long-running. As we allege in the indictment, Adams' solicitation of illegal campaign contributions began in

2018. After he started raising funds for his 2021 mayoral campaign, he agreed to take contributions offered by multiple Turkish businessmen, several of whom he met in Turkey. Adams knew that these wealthy individuals could not legally donate in a U.S. election. Federal law clearly prohibits foreign donations. That's how we protect our elections from foreign influence. Yet Adams directed his staff to pursue this illegal money to support his campaign for mayor. And as we allege, Adams continued to pursue foreign money in secret well into 2021. And it didn't stop with his first campaign for mayor.

As we allege, in 2023, the mayor rekindled these corrupt relationships, seeking more illegal campaign contributions from some of the same foreign sources to support his re-election campaign. Adams also took contributions that broke other laws. As we allege, he sought contributions from businessmen far in excess of what the law allowed. He also allegedly sought contributions from corporations which are not allowed to contribute at all in New York City elections. Many of those illegal corporate contributions were organized by the same people who organized

the illegal foreign contributions. And Adams allegedly disguised them all in the same way, by accepting the money through so-called straw donors. A straw donor contributes someone else's money, hiding the money's illegal source, such as a foreign businessman, a corporation, or a wealthy New Yorker who has already contributed the maximum amount allowed. And as we allege, Adams circumvented all of these laws, taking contributions from exactly the sources the law prohibits, all to benefit his mayoral campaigns. Now, Adams responded to these charters last night. He dropped a one

minute video, but he held a news conference today. Here's some of what he said. We are not surprised. We expected this. This is not surprising to us at all. The actions that have unfolded over the last 10 months, the leaks, the commentary, the demonizing. This did not surprise us that we reached this day.

And I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments. From here, my attorneys will take care of the case so I can take care of the city. My day to day will not change. I will continue to do the job for 8.3 million New Yorkers that I was elected to do. And the 300,000 plus employees of our city government will continue to do their jobs because this is what we do as New Yorkers. It's an insult to the hardworking people of the city that anyone would say that they won't do their jobs while this case proceeds in the background. They are a dedicated public servant,

and I have been one of them for many years, and they're going to continue to do their job moving the city forward every day. It's an unfortunate day, and it's a painful day. But inside of all of that, it's a day where we will finally reveal why for 10 months I have gone through this. And I look forward to defending myself and defending the people of this city as I've done throughout my entire professional career. Joining us right now is the justice correspondent for The Nation, Ellie Mistel. Ellie, glad to have you here.

Ellie, one of the things that's interesting here is that Breonna Suggs, who, of course, worked on the campaign, when FBI agents showed up at her door, she frantically called Mayor Adams. And he was on his way to Washington, D.C., to participate in a White House event dealing with immigration. This is what the indictment says, Ellie. After learning that FBI agents had arrived at her residence, but before answering, repeated knocks at her door, the Adams fundraiser called Adams five times, even though the agents had not yet given the Adams fundraiser any indication of the purpose for their visit. When the Adams fundraiser then spoke with the FBI agents, she agreed to discuss many subjects, but refused to say who had paid for her 2021 travel to Turkey. As the FBI agents departed the Adams fundraiser's residence,

Adams attempted to call the Adams fundraiser's phone. On the morning that the FBI agents executed this search, Adams had flown to Washington, D.C. for a publicized official meeting, but upon learning about the search, Adams canceled the meeting and immediately returned to New York City. Ellie, you've gone through this indictment. What do you make of it? Is Adams in some serious trouble? Yeah, so when you read through some of the text

that the FBI has collected about Eric Adams and this general Turkish scheme, I'm reminded of the famous quote from The Wire where Stringer Bell asked the young Hopper, brother, is you taking notes about a criminal conspiracy? I'm reminded of the famous quote from The Wire where Stringer Bell asked the young hopper, brother, is you taking notes about a criminal conspiracy? That's pretty much what Adams and his people did. They, I think, fell for the false gospel of deletion, right? The idea that you can text something out there, then delete it from your phone, and it's gone

forever and nobody will ever know. And that's just not the case. So one of the most shocking things in the indictment is when an Adams staffer says to Adams, to be on the safe side, you should probably delete all of our communications about this Turkish travel deal. And Adams responded, always do, which is a text the FBI and the Southern District of New York have. So that's the scope. That's kind of the scope of how deeply in trouble Adams is. So for folks, first of all, so you have encrypted apps out there, okay? You have WhatsApp, you have Signal, things along those lines. First of all, Ellie, there are many people who believe that the FBI has a back door to the WhatsApp. And so you think you delete it. There are other apps like Signal, like Wire and some others that look, look, you have the guy, the Russian guy.

I think he's a Russian guy. I forgot where he's from over Telegraph. And they arrested him and he was like, OK, I turn where he's from, over Telegraph, and they arrested him, and he was like, okay, I'll turn off everything, too, y'all. So some of those apps, they ain't WhatsApp. So bottom line is, you know, you thought you deleted the stuff, you didn't. In fact, this is also what they picked up on June 22nd, 2018, the same day as the fundraising event just described, the Adams staffer and the promoter discussed by text message a possible trip by Adams to Turkey. The promoter stated in part, Fundraising in Turkey is not legal,

but I think I could raise money for your campaign off the record. The Adams staffer inquired, How will Adams declare that money here? The promoter responded, He won't declare it or will make the donation through an American citizen in the U.S., a Turk. I'll give cash to him in Turkey, or I'll send it to an American. He will make a donation to you. The Adam Stafford replied, I think he wouldn't get involved in such games.

They might cause a big stink later on, but I'll ask anyways. The Adam Stafford then asked, how much do you think would come from you? The promoter responded, max $100,000. The Adam Stafford wrote, 100K? Do you have a chance to transfer that here? We can't do it while Eric is in Turkey. To which the promoter replied, let's think. After this conversation, the Adam Stafford asked Adams whether the Adam Stafford should pursue the unlawful foreign contributions offered by the promoter. And contrary to the Adam Stafforders expectations, Adams directed that the

Adams staffer pursue the promoter's illegal scheme. That's the staffer saying, hey man, this ain't, this, he ain't gonna do that because it's illegal. She said, hey bro, what you want to do? He was like, yo, show me the money. So there are two legal things to pick up from that, right? One is how deep they've got Adams, because that Adams staffer, that person is state's evidence, right? You don't get that kind of information in your indictment unless that staffer has flipped as now telling all the stories about Eric Adams and what he said and what he directed them to do, right? But that also, therein lies the beginnings of what Adam's defense is going to be.

Now, look, right now, he's in his law and order phase, where he's like, it's all lies. And he's doing the Trump playbook right now of trying to get to me by going—trying to get to you by going through me and all that bullcrap. None of that is a sufficient legal argument. What his actual legal argument will be once he gets to court is going to be dependent all on those staffers. Hey, man, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know where the money was coming from. That's all on them. It was up to them to make sure that these contributions were legal, right? Like, that's going to be the core of his defense, ignorance, right? Now, the reason why he's going to have a problem with that defense

is all of the stuff in the indictment about his travel, right? The stuff about his travel is important, is illegal, but it's critical in establishing his knowledge and complicity in the scheme, because there is various allegations about Adams essentially paying economy class tickets on Turkish airways, yet get first class or business class seats on Turkish airways all throughout the globe, not just to Turkey, where he says literally Istanbul is always the first stop, but to Sri Lanka, to France, to China. He's always flying Turkish air and he's always in first class or business class, despite never paying for a first class or bus ticket. It is going to be very hard for Eric Adams to stand up in front of a New York jury and say that while he paid for a

business, an economy class ticket, he didn't know he was flying first class, right? Because that's the kind of thing, you know, you kind of notice if you're in first class and ain't paid for it, right? That's just common sense. So when they're able to establish that, that's going to make it very hard for him to then say he didn't know nothing about nobody, right? So I think that's how they're going to get him when they go to trial. But again, he's going to try to blame all on his staffers. Now, this one here, this probably was a goodie right here, Ellie. On November 6, 2023, FBI agents executed a search warrant for the electronic devices used by Eric Adams, the defendant. Although Adams was carrying several electronic devices, including two cell phones, he was not carrying his personal cell phone, which is the device he

used to communicate about the conduct described in this indictment. When Adams produced his personal cell phone the next day in response to a subpoena, it was, quote, locked, such that the device required a password to open. Adams claimed that after he learned about the investigation into his conduct, he changed the password on November 5th, 2024, and increased the complexity of his password from four digits to six. Adams had done this, he claimed, to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone because, according to Adams, he wished to preserve the contents of his phone due to the investigation. But Adams further claimed he had forgotten the password he had just sent and thus was unable to provide the FBI with the password that would unlock the phone.

Now, Ellie, here's the first thing. So you change the password. So your staff would not go in and delete stuff. First question, why would your staff go into your personal phone and delete stuff if you were doing stuff legally? The second question is how the hell

you reset the password and now your ass can't get into your personal phone because you can't remember the digits. I mean, I'm smelling something real fishy. What's interesting for me with

all this, Roland, is that Adams used to be in law enforcement, right? He's a former cop. Right. So why does Adams think that law enforcement is stupid? Why does Adams think that this is gonna work that shit don't even work on law and order or csi like no nobody's gonna buy that and you would

you would basically think that a former cop would be better at criming than adams appears to be in this indictment with nod and wink just ridiculous arguments arguments like, I forgot the password I just changed on my phone, and oh, my staff sometimes gets into my phone and deletes my activity. Who can know why? Like, who is that for? Who does he think is going to buy this? And this, I think, goes to another kind of overarching theme of the indictment. Adams thought he was untouchable. Adams thought that nobody was going to come after him. And really, let's remember, Adams is now the first sitting New York mayor to be indicted on federal charges. But let's talk as adults here, Roland.

Adams ain't the first New York City mayor to commit some federal crimes, all right? We can go back to John Lindsay. We can go back to Jimmy Walker. We can go back to John Lindsay, Jimmy Walker. We can go back to lots of New York mayors who did lots of shady stuff. Adams is the first one to be indicted for any of that shady stuff. Right. Now, I would point out that the mayors that I just mentioned happen to be white mayors, while Adams happens to be a black mayor. And maybe Adams is the one who forgot that, right? As people have been saying, you know, your mama tells you, honey, you can't do what they do. And I do, reading the indictment, I do get that Adams thought he was going to be held to the rules that affected every other white mayor before him, not realizing, no, no, no, no, he was going to be held to the rules. And the rules are, you can't take money from foreign contributors, you have to cooperate with the FBI, and you can't delete stuff on your phone. Those are the rules that were going to be applied to him. And there's

one more thing in the indictment, Roland, that really, I think as a New Yorker, should really piss people off, all right? New York has a very good, very progressive program where the city will match small-dollar donations to political campaigns up to $2,000, right? So we, the New York taxpayers, with candidates, up to $2,000 in matching funds to try to kind of diminish the corporate and wealth influence in our New York state and city elections, right? Adams, for all of these shady contributions, for all of these foreign contributions, structured them so they would be available to receive those matching funds. So according to the indictment, even though Adams knew that he was paying $1,000 from a Turkish university, he was structuring those payments to be small enough

that not only would he get the money that he wasn't allowed to take from Turkey, but that he would get public taxpayer matching funds for that money. And I think that just as a New Yorker. And that was about that was about $10 million, right? Right. He got about $10 million of public money through that. And I think that as a New Yorker, that just that sticks in your craw, man, like that, that that's not OK. And so, again, I think when you put it all together, you have the picture of a man who thought he was untouchable, who got touched today. Oh, he got touched. All right.

Before I go to your law school classmate, Joy Chaney, I'm going to show you this. Last 03 coming out. This is a chart right here of all the free travel he got. Free upgrade to business class for two. Round trip ticket to New York to India. Was it disclosed? Nope. Round trip from New York to India. Was it disclosed? Nope.

Round trip from New York to France, Turkey and China. Heavily discounted hotel rooms in Istanbul, 41 grand. Disclosed? Nope. Business class tickets for two. Round trip from New York to China. Disclosed? Nope.

Free upgrade to business class for two. Round trip from New York to Hungary. Disclosed? Nope. Free upgrade to business class for two round trip from New York to Hungary. Disclose. Nope. Free upgrade to business class for one flight from New York to Turkey. Free stay at a hotel in Istanbul. Free meals, transportation and entertainment. Istanbul. Disclose. Nope. Free upgrade to business class for two on round trip from New York to Turkey. Disclose. Nope. Free upgrade to business class for two round trip from New York to Turkey. Disclose. Nope. Free upgrade to business class for two. A round trip from New York to Ghana. Free meal and transportation during Istanbul layover. Disclose.

Nope. You look at right here, you're talking about almost $100,000 in trips. And I'm just trying to figure out, that's a lot of travel to Turkey. Why is Mayor of New York constantly going to Turkey? Roland, I agree that all that is bad, but why are we talking about Clarence Thomas? Oh, I concur. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's right.

But no, no, I'm sorry. No, this is about 100,000 in free trips for Eric. Clarence got about 4 million. So, you know, if you do less than three million, you get indicted. But if you got four million in Supreme Court justice, it's all good. Which shows, again, is how just off the chain the Supreme Court justices are. Right. That if you are the mayor of one of the wealthiest cities on the planet, you cannot do this. This is actually an indictable crime if you're the mayor of a city. But if

you're one of the nine unaccountable, supremely powerful Supreme Court justices, apparently you can do this all day and nothing ever bad happens to you, and it's not an indictable crime. And I think that juxtaposition, that imbalance and incongruity really stands out to me as I look at all of Adams' travel expenses. In terms of your actual question, like why is he globetrotting around the world? Clearly, the man is fundraising. Clearly, the man is fundraising. And you go to where the money is, Adams was going to where the money is, and guess what? It wasn't in Flatbush, right? It wasn't up on Columbus Circle, right?

He went to where the money was and the money was in Ankara. Mm-hmm. Joy. Ellie, you get better and better with time. HLS class of 2003. Let me tell you, I remember another HLS server. 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 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.

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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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Frank said, he quoted, never write if you can speak, never speak if you can nod, never nod if you can wink, and never wink if you can do nothing. Eric Adams would have done well to take that advice. It's an old quote, not attributed to Barney Frank, but he quoted it well. Eric Adams is in deep stuff.

But let me ask you this. Does he need to resign? Because we have AOC asking for his resignation. That seems to be the boring go-to, is that everyone has to resign when you've been indicted. What do you think? Yeah, so I obviously think he should. Look, I think that I believe in innocence until proven guilty, absolutely. I believe that Eric Adams deserves to have the best legal defense

for him at this point. And we should reserve judgment until the legal process plays out. But the question about resignation is a question about whether or not this guy has the trust and the confidence and the ability to run the city effectively and properly during this firestorm. And I think that that is clearly no. First of all, it'd be good to have a phone when you're the mayor of New York City, right? And right now, Eric Adams can't be trusted to have one, right? So just straight up, like, number one, this man cannot be trusted with electronic devices. That's kind of a problem running the city. Number two, we don't know who he's running the city for at this point, right? Is he running the

city for the benefit of New Yorkers? Are he running the city for the benefit of New Yorkers? Are you running the city for the benefit of his Turkish international friends who are going to be his only way out as the legal process gets more and more deep into his past, right? So that's another reason why I don't think he can—he must resign. The third reason, and I bring this up a lot when talking about public officials who get into scandal, who get into trouble. The idea that any particular public official is important or indispensable is just wrong. That is just not how our systems are supposed to work.

If I may quote Bill Belichick, next man up. All right. supposed to work. If I may quote Bill Belichick, next man up, all right? Like, we've got other people in the city who are capable, willing, and able, aren't embroiled in international scandals. Jumaane Williams, the current public advocate, would take over if Adams stepped down. He's capable. He's fine. Let him have a shot at running the city now, right? Because the person is not important. The position in office is important. And the whole point of a democracy is that we should be able to cycle through unimportant people who hold relatively important jobs. I don't know. When the NYPD commissioner resigned, they named the replacement the next damn day.

You know what happened? They went and grabbed his damn phone the next day. I was like, damn, that was quick. Lauren, go. Yeah, you doing? You know what? I just think this this whole thing makes me nervous. I was born in the Bronx and I worked in the New York state government when I was a teenager because my mother worked for a politician. And when I see that we have had 110 mayors and only two black ones, and then one of the two black ones is the only one to be indicted in the history of the city of New York, it just makes me nervous.

I can't deny that it makes me nervous. Damian Williams makes me nervous. He had a case against the former lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, that turned into a bust. And then, of course, we watch them prosecute Sean Combs. And then, of course, now we have the mayor of New York being prosecuted. And even though I think that Sean Combs is a bad actor and, you know, we know certain facts that are pretty obvious right now, certainly the video of him

beating his girlfriend, et cetera, and so on, it's three different cases, of course. But any time I see a black politician prosecuted, I just get nervous. And I've read most of the indictment. I agree with so much of what Ellie has said. But at the same time, knowing history and COINTELPRO and the disparate treatment of Black people in this country, it just makes me nervous. I mean, it just makes me nervous. And I don't like this idea of everyone talking about due process and the presumption of innocence, but not actually believing in it when it's time to believe in it. So if somebody is guilty upon indictment and we don't need to have a trial to find out, then what are we having trials for? I mean, once the person is indicted, if in fact they are guilty at that moment and should resign. We had AOC, who I'm a huge fan of, calling for the mayor's resignation before even seeing the indictment. And to me, that is problematic.

I mean, if we're not going to find out in court what the details are, if we're not going to do a trial, and if we're deciding that somebody is guilty automatically upon allegation, then what do we have a court system for in the first place? Well, let me— Yes, go ahead. Actually, you said that the Brian Benjamin case went bust. Actually, it didn't. Go to my iPad. First of all—

No, no, no, hold up, hold up, hold up. It's spinning. No, no, no, no. First of all, no, this is fact. This is from March 8, 2024. A federal appeals court on Friday revived corruption charges against former Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin of New York, saying prosecutors had sufficiently demonstrated a plan to funnel state money to a now deceased developer in exchange for campaign contributions. They overturned a court in December 2022. And so that case has been revived.

I just want to go ahead and just state that as a matter of fact. Ellie, your response to Lauren? Well, you shared those concerns. And like I said, there's no, I do not believe that Eric Adams is the first New York City mayor to commit federal crimes. I mentioned Jimmy Walker, John Lindsay, at least, right? We know like famously, this is the city that produced boss weed. You can't tell me that Eric Adams is the first mayor to commit major federal crimes. He's just the first to be prosecuted. I think we know why. I think it's because Eric Adams

has a trait that doesn't wash off in the shower, right? So I think that that is clearly part of what's going on here. However, the fact that he might be prosecuted on regular rules as opposed to the special white rules doesn't absolve him of responsibility for his actions, right? Like, even though two things can be true at once, Eric Adams shouldn't have been,

most likely, the fitting mayor to be a prosecutor for federal crimes. Well, that doesn't mean he didn't commit the crime, right? That doesn't mean he didn't commit the crime, right? Doesn't mean he didn't do the, do the thing. Um, and it doesn't absolve him of culpability and responsibility to say nothing of the fact that knowing that he was a black man in this society, he should have been particularly careful about his actions as opposed to particularly cavalier as the indictment, uh, was. To the larger point of whether or not innocent until proven guilty means that people should have to resign or not before there is a trial. Again, my take on this is that we should absolutely have a trial. He should absolutely have to argue for his innocence. And if he's innocent, great. That will come out in due course, in due time.

That doesn't mean he needs to have his current job. Being a public official is a job of incredible public trust. And if you have dirt on you, even if it's the appearance of dirt, even if it's the whiff of dirt, you should maybe step aside and let people who don't have such dirt on them take the next step forward. Because, again, you are not important. It's your job that is important. It's your office that's important. So I believe in holding public officials to a higher standard, right? If Eric Adams was the, I don't know, the CEO of my, you know, video game company, I'd say, no, he can do his job until he has a trial.

But he's not. He's the mayor. And you can hold people to a higher standard. You can look at these allegations on their face and say, yeah, we can't trust that guy anymore. Next man up, next person to do the job up, and Adams can then focus on what's going to need to be a really extensive and expensive legal defense. With that, what happens in court doesn't really mean anything because he's guilty right now by what you just said. So let's say he's found innocent. If he's found innocent, he should have stayed as mayor and not—so the court process really doesn't mean anything. The allegation is, in fact, the conviction. Yeah, but the court process—I don't know if I can jump in, but the court process

and the political process are different. I agree with both of you, though, Ellie. You know, I would say a whiff of impropriety is not the same thing as an indictment of alleged pretty verifiable facts. And that's what we have here. So that's why it was silly for AOC to come out yesterday before she even saw the indictment, even though we knew something was coming, you know, before she even saw it. It was better if you wait till the day you did. It's pretty salacious. It's pretty, you know, things that your lying eyes, you know, can't trick you on. You can see that there's some smoke here and there was probably some fire. Got it.

Even if it's not everything. That doesn't mean he's guilty. He has to go through a legal process. But I don't want to be in a situation where we can investigate people, we can whisper about them, and then they have to resign. That's unfair, too. So there's a little bit in between. In this case, I think we've seen enough.

He is going to have his hands full. He probably does not have the trust of the people. But I don't think it's fair for politicians to be the first ones to jump in on it. They ought to be led by the people. Greg? Thank you for rolling in. Thank you, Ellie, as always, brother. I really don't, this really doesn't excite me much, animate me much.

Not when Donald Trump related to foreign and domestic amendments clause. The Saudi lobbyists alone staying at Trump Hotel for what, about $300,000 worth of hotel stay. Clearly, you know, Supreme Court waits until January after he loses the election to say that the two Republicans are moot and that Congress didn't have standing in the third case. This is the United States of America. So the idea that somehow we're going to get animated because of the mayor of New York City—no, I would say this.

Not only should he not resign, he should fight it until he gets his day in court. If for no other reason than if Governor Hocha takes him out or he resigns, that gives more follow-up to the criminal enterprise called the GOP. And they've got a whole-ass criminal sitting at the top who violated all kinds of federal laws

to set aside Harlan Crowe's wholly own boy, Toy Clarence Thomas. My question is more in the vein, since thanks for evoking the political side. I know that he has known Reverend Daughtry, Herb and Daughtry, for a very long time. And, you know, see Hazel Duke standing there, president, state president, andacey Peay. You know, how do you read those black clergy folk there, but particularly those elders? I got a lot of respect for Reverend Daughtry. Is this just a matter of being loyal to someone who they have known for many years? And how, before folks who don't know a damn thing about any of them start attacking them

for being sellouts and, you know, they jump up their ass to say something crazy about these elders. How, you know, how should we be thinking about, in your mind, those elders that we saw standing with him today? That's a great question, Greg. So I want to answer it two ways. First, to your original point, make no mistake, what this indictment shows is that SDNY and the Department of Justice are fully capable of prosecuting somebody for foreign emoluments and related international crimes when they want to. And I think there's no clearer distinction between

what's happened in Adams and what didn't happen in Donald Trump than this indictment right here. SDNY can do the job when they want to. And it's very clear that with Trump, they didn't want to do that job. So I totally agree and kind of take that first part of your point. In terms of how to understand elders, people standing still with Adams in this moment, I don't think we, I don't, I think you value loyalty at some level, right? Like, I think, you know, the man, you've been with the man, you are going to stand, you're going to stand with him until the end, right? I expect that of most of my friends. I would stand next to most of my friends

in that moment. I don't think that that's a political decision so much as it's a moral one in terms of like what kind of person you are. Are you the kind of person that's going to stand with your friends when they're taking heat? Or are you the kind of person that runs away? And I think these are people who are going to stand with their friends. These are the, these are the people you want as your friends. Right? So I don't think it, I don't think it impacts or tells us anything about them. I do think that it potentially tells us something about Adams and his willingness to put his friends through that, right? Because it was me and they had me like this. I don't, I don't know. I would hope like this. I would hope that I would not then

hey all my friends come stand in front of me so like take some bullets like no like at some point you would hope that you stand up and be accountable for your own actions listen Bill Clinton stood up there and said I ain't do it

he had his female captain members saying, we with you. And then they had to cuss his ass out later. I remember there was a pastor in Fort Arlington, Texas, Terry Hornbuckle. He stood with his attorney and his wife and church members.

I did not do what I was convicted of. And then he was convicted of sexually assaulting, sleeping with women in the church on meth and all kind of other stuff. And listen, it's folk who have been found guilty and had no problem asking people to stand behind them when they asked us to lie the whole time. But again, I mean, that happens. I don't care whether it's political people, whether it's preachers, whether it's sports people.

It always happens. Like, I always think it's stupid when a politician do something and he cheating and they bring him and his wife out. I'm like, no, man, tell everybody she can stay at home. Your ass did it. That's just me. Yep. Ellen, we appreciate you breaking it down for us, my brother. Thank you so much. I love you all.

Joy, so nice to see you again always, and thanks to everybody for having me. All right. Thanks a bunch. Folks, we've got to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about national security. A big-time general endorses Vice President Kamala Harris. And these foreign entities are still trying to impact the election, and they do not want to see Harris in the White House.

Nola Haynes is up next with the Gumbo Report. Support the work that we do, folks. Don't forget, join the Bring the Funk fan club. Senior Check and Money Order at PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C. 20037-0196. PayPal's R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo's R.M. Unfiltered.

Zelle, rolling at rollingsmartin.com, rolling at rollingmartinunfiltered.com. Back in a moment. He told us who he was. Should abortion be punished? There has to be some form of punishment. Then he showed us. For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated.

And I did it. And I'm proud to have done it. Now Donald Trump wants to go further with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women's pregnancies. We know who Donald Trump is. He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Bob and I both voted for Donald Trump. I voted for him twice. I won't vote for him again. January 6th was a wake-up call for me. Donald Trump divides people.

We've already seen what he has to bring. He didn't do anything to help us. Kamala Harris, she cares about the American people. I think she's got the wherewithal to make a difference. I've never voted for a Democrat. Yes, we're both lifelong Republicans. The choice is very simple. I'm voting for Kamala.

I am voting for Kamala Harris. In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House. Now those people have a warning for America. Trump is not fit to be president again. Here's his vice president. Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. His defense secretary. Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's secrets ever again? No. I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation's security at risk. His national security advisor. Donald Trump will cause a lot

of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump. And the nation's highest-ranking military officer. We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. Take it from the people who knew him best. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can't let him lead our country again.

I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. IVF is a miracle for us because it allowed us to have our family. After having my daughter, I wanted more children. But my embryo transfer was canceled eight days before the procedure. Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade stopped us from growing the family that we wanted. I don't want politicians telling me how or when I can have a baby. We need a president that will protect our rights,

and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems. Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, the crowd. This weird obsession with crowd sizes. It just goes on and on and on. America's ready for a new chapter.

We are ready for a President Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. The overturning of Roe almost killed me. I had a blood clot in my uterus that caused my labor to have to be induced because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I wasn't able to get life-saving treatment sooner. I almost died. And that's because of the decision that Donald Trump made. I was able to get

Roe v. Wade terminated and I'm proud to have done it. The doctors and nurses were afraid that if they treated me in the incorrect way that they would be prosecuted for that. And that's appalling. Donald Trump says that women should be punished. Do you believe in punishment for abortion? There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman? Yeah. I believe that women should have reproductive freedom to make the choices about their own bodies. Four more years of Donald Trump means that women's rights will continue to be taken away one by one by one by one. This has to stop because women are dying. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message.

What's good, y'all? This is Doug E. Freshener watching my brother Roland Martin unfiltered as we go a little something like this. Hit it. It's real. Folks, another big-time general has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Of course, Stanley McChrystal, who is the former commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, wrote an op-ed in today's New York Times where he says,

Stanley Chrystal, while Kamala Harris has won me over, he served as joint special operations commander under George W. Bush from 2003 to 2008 and is the 10th retired top military official to back the vice president. His support contradicts Harris's critics who say she's unfit to lead U.S. foreign policy after her administration's much-blind exit from Afghanistan. Now, folks, we are 40 days away from the election, and misinformation is significant. Internet trolls exist, bots all over the place, and trust me, foreign entities are doing all they can

to impact this election. In a recent national security and foreign policy poll, the presidential race across the battleground states is extremely close, 48% for Harris, 47% for Trump, and 2% for third-party candidates. But what's going on that we are seeing, folks, is a... 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 consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app,

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

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

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

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. real 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 from brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

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

wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcast. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

And the attack by foreign entities trying to impede this election. Dr. Nola Haynes is here with the Gumbo Report. Okay, I'm just messing with it. She's with Georgetown University's what? School of Foreign Service. She joins us right now. Ha ha!

I have Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield like be mad at me because that's her whole thing. What? She has Gumbo diplomacy. So, Ambassador, that's him, not me. Oh, she got Gumbo diplomacy? She does. Yes, that's her thing. You ever try her Gumbo diplomacy she does yes that's her thing you ever tried her gumbo i have not tried her gumbo i might just see her i might just see her text and say i heard i

heard you got some good gumbo let's see anyway uh well i do that after the show uh but but let's talk about what we're seeing first of all i, I want to go back to 2019. There was no Democratic candidate who was under more vicious attack from foreign entities than Senator Kamala Harris. It wasn't even close. Now we're seeing the exact same things. being seen and what intelligence officials are talking about when it comes to these foreign adversaries who would love nothing more to see Donald Trump back in the White House? Well, let's take it even back. We're going to back, back, back it up all the way to 2015. So this is when we really started to see how bot farms were really kind of being intrusive in social media spaces, especially where Black people were. So you had a lot of anti-Hillary Clinton messaging. You had a lot of anti-Black

Lives Matter messaging. So this really kind of came on the scene as a tour de force in 2015 to help get Donald Trump elected in 2016. And so things ramped up yet again for midterms, and then, Roland, to your point, again for the 2020 elections. And what we're seeing right now is having a history of seeing what this looks like, because we were caught off in 2015. I'm not going to sit here and lie to nobody. So we were cut off in 2015. So what the State Department has done, Treasury, Justice, they all recognize the signs. They—you know, we know what to do now. We know where to look. And we know what we're looking for.

So you have a combination of Justice bringing charges against certain entities. You have State and Treasury sanctioning certain entities. So you have interagency cooperation, letting these countries know, insert Russia, that we are not playing around with our democracy. We are not playing around with our elections, nor will you catch us off guard again. And look, in 2016, frankly, President Barack Obama was too cautious. Republicans did not want him to go public with information. They held it to after the election.

I think that was a mistake. And we saw how much more aggressive things were in 2020. And, of course, Trump and his folks were trying all their best to keep it out of the public sphere. And I think in 2024, it's a totally different reaction. Absolutely. And I am happy that it's more of an aggressive stance. It's calling it out right when it's happening because these are not normal times.

You know, political norms have been reshaped. And I think that one of the things that the Harris folks get is that you have to take it to them, right? You can't be timid because the GOP is not timid. You know, the Trump campaign people are so concerned with norms, rule of law, with, you know, perception and character and all of these things. Not to say that those things are abandoned from the party, but the fight is different. Taking the fight to the person who is the aggressor has changed a lot, and I'm happy for it. And it also tells me that Vice President Harris, as we saw in the debate, as we were all live in the studio, she is not going to back down from these so-called strongmen.

So Putin can go around and play with his troll farms all he wants to all day long, but he's not going to win. This is from NBC News a couple days ago. Russia, Iran, and China are using AI in election interference efforts, U.S. intelligence officials say. But they say it's been falling flat. Nola? Again, because we know what we're looking for. This isn't 2015. We're not going to be caught off guard again. And also, you know, the landscape has changed. So the relationship with China has drastically changed since 2015. It's more adversarial than it has been.

And so in terms of what it looks like to produce misinformation, disinformation, we understand what that looks like now. And so this kind of—this triangle that you are describing, they all have interest in interfering in the U.S. elections for different reasons. Right? But, you know, like I'll reassert, we know what we're looking for now.

We understand the folks who do not like us. Right? We understand our frenemies. Well, as I just don't like us, go to my iPad, Anthony. It's also who they're targeting. This is from Microsoft. They should report, Nola. It says, Russian election interference efforts focus on

the Harris-Walls campaign. They lay out exactly who they're targeting, and so they say Russia and Iran have both undertaken cyber influence operations headed to the 2024 presidential election. In our last report, published on August 8th, we detail how Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations sought to undermine the Republican

campaign through targeted hack and leak operations. In fact, the United States has indicted some of those Iranians. But they also say the shift to focusing on the Harris-Walls campaign reflects a strategic move by Russian actors aimed at exploiting any perceived vulnerabilities in the new candidates. Initially, Russia influence operations struggled to evolve their efforts following President Biden's departure from the 2024 US presidential race.

However, in late August and September, we observed two Russian actors, MTA seed tracks closely, using videos designed to discredit Harris and stoke controversy around her campaign. Specifically, they identified news reports as a Kremlin-aligned troll farm produced and disseminated two inauthentic videos, each generating millions of views, and also producing content about the 2024 Paris Olympic Games

to publishing false videos discrediting Vice President Harris. That says all you need to know who Russia wants to see in the Oval Office, because frankly, they know they can control and own Donald Trump. One thousand percent. And also Donald Trump is not a fan and or friend of NATO. So it's a combination of giving Putin everything that he wants regarding Ukraine and then also, you know, dismantling NATO. Those are the two gets for Putin. So you know, of course, if I were Vladimir Putin, I would want Donald Trump to win. Vladimir Putin is in a very interesting situation right now.

While they definitely have gained territory in Ukraine, you know, that does not necessarily mean that Russia is gaining a strategic advantage in Ukraine to the point where Ukraine is just ready to say, OK, you know what, Russia, we're ready to give you whatever it is that you want. President Zelensky was just here, as we know, as some Republican congressmen are apparently very angry about that visit. While, you know, he definitely is interested coming to the table to maybe talk about a potential exit from the war, Ukrainians are not ready to say we lost anything. So this war, where we sit right now today, Ukrainians are still committed to this war. And so Vladimir Putin is kind of limping in many ways. He's having to make, you know, partnerships with strange bedfellows, you know,

the kind of alliance and security relationship, loose security relationship that he has with China, where China is still kind of hedging its bets. Then insert North Korea, which is a very interesting kind of multilateral relationship that China doesn't feel that great about. So Vladimir Putin isn't exactly in the best situation, but to put him in a better situation is to get his bestie Trump back in office because Vice President Kamala Harris is not going to allow him to do whatever it is that he wants to do. Questions for the panel? Greg, you're first. Thank you, Roland. And thank you, Nola. Now, who would rather see Harris-Walls in and why?

Particularly those countries that might be more interested in establishing domestic relationship, or perhaps, in the case of China, being able to work better with the Harris-Walls administration in terms of some form of bilateral cooperation—not that it wouldn't impede China, but it might also aid China. Do you see any foreign actors that might prefer Harris-Walls to Trump, and why? You mean who are more adversarial or who are already partners and allies? No, I mean, no, I'm talking about in terms of election interference. I'm talking about adversaries. So I think that there is an opportunity, you know, with China. I mean, you know, I want to remind Roland's viewing public that the trouble, the trade situation that we got into with China,

the contentious relationship that has been snowballing stems from the Trump administration. So while, yes, our relationship right now is incredibly tense in multiple directions, and they just recently released one of their national security strategies, where she is very interested in kind of recouping China's pride, China's pride of place on the international stage, something that they call 100 years of shame, that they—and one of the ways that they see them reversing those 100 years is militarily, right, through defense buildup. And so I say that to say, while there are areas where

China has made it very clear that they are interested in overtaking the position that the United States has, because they see us as a declining state, they have been very clear about that. But I still think there are opportunities in a Harris-Walls administration for bilateral conversations to resume, especially along the lines of, you know, economic interdependency, you know, an area where we had cooperation for quite some time, and we both still have incentives to make sure that that economic interdependency is still, you know, vibrant and thriving. And then I would also assert, you know, in terms of arms control agreements, while China is building up its military, I mean, agreements are there for a reason. You know,

it's one thing to deter, you know, the countries in your region because you want to be, you know, the you want to be the big guy on campus, so to speak. But in terms of bringing China back to the table to potentially talk about climate issues, to potentially talk about arms control agreements, I don't think those things are completely off the table with a different type of administration. Thank you. All right. I guess I'm up. So, you know, when we talk about foreign policy, I'm so glad to see Mr. McChrystal out. I think he's out there also to rehabilitate his reputation. Google him. That's a story for another time. But, you know, one of the things I think we've forgotten

is how horrific Donald Trump was for our foreign policy. And Kamala Harris has been very clear, and I think others have as well, the whole world was laughing at him. Even authoritarian leaders were laughing at him. So, you know, we know about what's going on in Russia and what's happening there. What did the international community feel about Donald Trump? Can you underscore that for us, build on that point? How much of a joke would we be if we elected this fool again?

Well, I am going to start. People in my community will never, ever, ever forget Helsinki when he met with Vladimir Putin as long as we live. To sit there and to agree with Vladimir Putin over your entire intelligence apparatus, no one in my community will ever forget that. And when you sit there and when you do that as the president of the United States, of course, everyone is going to first, they're going to be like, did he just say what I think he said? Once they get over that, then they're going to then realize, oh, OK, so the United States is no longer serious, and or Vladimir Putin must have something on him, because this is— Remind us what he said.

Huh? Remind us what he said. What he said was, is that he trusted Vladimir Putin, who was sitting right next to him, over the intelligence community, saying that Russia absolutely 1,000 percent interfered with our election in 2016. He said, well, Vladimir Putin said that he didn't have anything to do with this, so I'm going to believe him. He said that out his face, looked dead into the camera, and was serious, and said that to the world. And then we know about his shock.

That's right. And we know about his Ukraine comments this week, right, where he has been pushing Ukraine into a deal that they do not want with Russia, one that would allow Russia to steal their land and take their freedom. And now he's saying that, you know, he's prematurely saying that Ukraine has lost this war and that there's nothing we can do and sort of that we should fold and give up, calling the people of Ukraine a freedom-loving people dead. You know, let's talk about that. This person clearly is in bed, if you will, with Russia.

They have something on him. So I want to start actually with the poll that Roland opened this segment up with. So those figures are from National Security Action's poll that they did in battleground states. And so what was overwhelming throughout this particular poll was Americans actually support continued military—they support sending military aid to Ukraine, 53 percent to 34 percent. So there is a lot of support for Americans to continue to support Ukraine militarily. In that same report, what people said is that overwhelmingly that they believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is—you know, she's steady, that she's calm, she doesn't create chaos, and that in a situation where you have Donald Trump on one hand who is making very clear statements that, you know, yes, America first, but we would also be

isolationist. Now, you can have an America first approach. I am all for that. But to go it alone on the international stage because you are afraid or whatever the situation is between him and Vladimir Putin to give him whatever it is that he whatever it is that he wants. The American public do not want that. They want a strong leader. They want a steady leader. And they want a leader who isn't going to continue to get us mired in chaos and have North Korea, you know, y'all going back and forth on Twitter, talking about, you know, with nuclear threats and stuff like that. That's not what the American, that's not what the American public wants. So, you know, I want to kind of dispel this myth that Americans are tired and we

want to move on from Ukraine. yes, some of that exhaustion exists. But Americans understand overwhelmingly what's at stake if we do not continue to support Ukraine. And that's my whole point here. Lauren? You probably saw the hearing that Mark Warner did on foreign interference. I think it was last week. Is there any platform? They've talked to a bunch of tech leaders, social media platforms. Of course, X didn't show up because Elon didn't want to show up. But is there any platform where the foreign interference is handled the best,

you know, that comes to your mind? Or is there nobody that handles it well? Well, I think, you know, going back to the interagencies kind of really stepping up quickly, you know, you had the one-two punch from state and Treasury, and then you had justice follow it up. I mean, that sends a very clear statement, in my personal opinion. Now, what does that mean in a larger context? I mean, you know, the Russian entities that were named, shamed and blamed. Does that mean that we can go outside of our jurisdiction and go and arrest them? No. But that does mean that, you know, certain certain entities can't do business with them. they are limited to do certain business around the world. There are levers that we can

pull on outside of the FBI being able to have the jurisdiction to go to Russia to arrest them. I think that that kind of interagency response sends a very strong message around the world that we are not playing with these people.

All right. Dr. Nola Haynes, we appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Night, y'all. All right, folks. Going to a quick break. We come back. President Biden issued an executive order

dealing with the issue of guns. We'll hear from him, the mayor of Birmingham, and Vice President Kamala Harris. That's next. Rolling Mark unfocused on the Black Sun Network. He told us who he was. Should abortion be punished? There has to be some form of punishment.

Then he showed us. For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I'm proud to have done it. Now Donald Trump wants to go further with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women's pregnancies. We know who Donald Trump is. He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Folks, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris addressed gun violence today at the White House. Biden signed an executive order focusing on the trauma inflicted on children by active shooter drills in schools on the first anniversary of Biden's Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

The order will also tackle the threat of machine gun conversion devices. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday,

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

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there

and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. 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-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves music stars marcus king john osborne from brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man benny the

butcher brent smith from shine down got be real from cypress hill nhl enforcer riley cote marine We'll be right back. 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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Small devices are made with a 3D printer, turning a handgun into a fully automatic weapon. Here is some of what was said at the ceremony, first the president and then the other speakers. And with your help, we passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun violence in the United States. And so many things because we had a first-rate prosecutor who had no... No. What an incredible experience.

Among many things, it strengthened background checks for anyone under the age of 21 seeking to purchase a firearm. Since we implemented the background check system last year, we've kept almost 1,000 guns out of the hands of people under the age of 21. But folks, the law also invests over $1 billion, the largest one-time-ever investment ever in seeking to deal with mental health issues in our schools. When we took office, we promised to take on the crisis of gun violence. And we passed passed under the president's leadership the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years a bipartisan law which includes an historic investment to address the

trauma caused by gun violence we are hiring 14,000 new mental health counselors in public schools across our nation. We need to hire more. We need to hire more. But it is the single largest investment in student mental health in history. And for as much as we have accomplished, more must be done. We need more leaders. We need more leaders like the leaders in this room, in Congress, who have the courage to take action, to stand up to the gun lobby, and to put the lives of our children first. Last week... I am honored to serve as mayor of the city of Birmingham, Alabama. I want you all to know that I am not here representing myself.

I am here representing the 200,000 residents I serve. Gun violence. Gun violence is very, what I would say, very personal to me. Because I know the scream of a mother when her child is killed. I know that because I heard it from the voice of my own mother when my brother was killed by gun violence. I know that scream. I heard that scream again this past Saturday as the lives of four people were stolen and 17 other victims were shot during the horrific mass shooting in Birmingham.

Saving lives, saving lives should not be partisan. Saving lives should not be Democrat or a Republican thing. Saving lives, everyone. Saving lives shouldn't even be political. Saving lives is the most American thing we can do together. Now, folks, yesterday we talked about the stupidity by Republicans on Capitol Hill with this government weaponizing committee. And you can always expect conswoman Jasmine Crockett to keep it real.

Roll the Crockett Chronicles. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And I'll pick up maybe a little bit where my colleague just left off, and the question was about Butler, Pennsylvania. I'm curious to know if any of you are aware as to whether or not the FBI is involved at all in determining what's going on in Springfield, Ohio, because as far as I'm concerned, there is domestic terrorism afoot, and it is at the word of the Republican nominee and his running mate. So do we know if anyone is checking into that on the

federal level? I'm just curious. Just a yes or no, anybody? I don't know. Okay, perfect. Either way, I want to move on, and I want to talk about Mr. Kirshner. I'm just curious, if you were to define what weaponization of the federal government looks like, just in a quick, short definition, what would it be? Using the Department of Justice to reward your friends and your criminal associates by delivering pardons after they'd been convicted by juries or before their case was even concluded or before their case was even charged and conversely using the Department of Justice to punish your perceived enemies, order investigations and prosecutions, even if they're not warranted by evidence. I'm sorry that was not brief.

That's okay. It was accurate because that's how I see weaponization as well. And it's something that we saw a lot out of Trump specifically because all of his friends were going to prison and he's probably got more friends that are headed to prison soon. And if we are lucky, he will find him a cellmate soon as well. But nevertheless, as we talk about weaponization, because this whole committee feels as if it's projection, I want to go to something that's pretty interesting, but I'm going to start with Mr. Allen. I wasn't on this committee the first time you were here, so this is the first time we're interacting, but I am caught up to speed, and I have a simple question for you, yes or no.

Do you believe that career employees like yourself should have your job taken away even if you've done your job well and followed agency rules? Do you think it's right to be fired just because you have political disagreements with those above you? No, it's not right to persecute anyone for their political or religious beliefs,

especially in an organization where there's supposed to be the free flow of ideas. Okay, I appreciate your answer and your honesty, and I absolutely agree with you. It is interesting though, because that's exactly what Trump and my Republican colleagues would do if they won the election. It's spelled out in Project 2025. Trump would strip due process rights available to career civil servants and remove, suspend, or reduce their pay in an all-out effort to oust agency employees for partisan reasons rather than because of issues with merit or performance. And before you say Trump and Project 2025 aren't affiliated, I'd ask unanimous

consent to submit into the record Trump's campaign page where he he claims, on day one, I'd reissue 2020 executive order restoring the president's authority to fire rogue bureaucrats, and I will wield that power very aggressively. The only reason democracy is standing strong today is because we had public servants who pledged loyalty to the Constitution and rule of law and not to Donald Trump. Mr. Kirshner, your testimony today demonstrates you're familiar with project 2025 Is that a fair statement? As it pertains to the Department of Justice, okay And you are aware or maybe you're not we'll see on page

547 that project 2025 states its goal of implementing a top-to-bottom overhaul of DOJ that, quote, must include the FBI because anything less would, quote, guarantee the failure of the conservative administration's agenda. That does not make a lot of sense to me. Okay, but that's in Project 2025. It is. Yes, it is. All right, just wanted to clarify that um and also this agenda includes for example enforcing federal criminal laws against

providers and distributors of abortion medication as well as rescinding policies that hold that sex discrimination includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation transgender identity among other things. Is that correct? Yes, Representative. On page 562, they talk about aggressively going after, prosecuting, quote, providers and distributors of abortion pills that use the mail.

So folks who are, you know, mailing abortion pills to women who need it, that is really not what is endangering our country or inspiring, you know, violent crime. I absolutely agree. This week, the New York Times reported multiple instances of Trump trying to weaponize the DOJ to retaliate against his political enemies, finding that, quote, Mr. Trump told Mr. McGahn that he wanted to order Mr. Sessions, the attorney general, to prosecute Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Comey, and if Mr. Sessions

refused, he would take matters into his own hands. I know my time is running out, so I just have to ask, Mr. Chairman, given you've convened this hearing, theoretically it's you, given that you've convened this hearing on weaponizing federal agencies, will you commit to publicly condemning Trump for attempting to weaponize the government and condemn Project 2025 for its efforts to do the same? The gentlelady's time has expired. I mean, bottom line is, we see, Lauren, this is an absolute waste of time, this stupid weaponization committee of Jim Jordan and, of course, the individual who still has refused to accept the subpoena that took place.

And so these Republicans, they come up with one stupid hearing after another, and now you got Comer saying, oh, now he wants to investigate Zelensky flying to Pennsylvania. I mean, really, this is why this this house is the least productive house in decades. Well, they don't I mean, the Republican Party is a party of spectacle. They don't do anything. They're not a party of policy. The Clay Higgins, the way this ended this week with Clay Higgins was completely on brand. They don't do anything. I mean, that passed the CR because they don't do policy. They don't know how to do policy. They don't know how to govern. There's nothing surprising here. This has been going on for years. The Zelensky thing to me was a little bit weird,

though. At any time we have another, I don't know, $10 billion going out of the Treasury, I think we should know what's going on with that. But at any rate, I mean, the Republican Party in Congress is not a governing party. It's just not. They're listening to Donald Trump and then sometimes not listening to Donald Trump. But they're directionless. So it's going to be interesting to see who controls the House after, you know, January when they come back in after the election. And I'll tell you, I can't imagine that voters are going into the voting booth in a presidential election year and not thinking about the fact that Congress is really unable to govern at this point. Greg? Yeah, I agree with Lauren.

I mean, you have the MAGA Muppet, MAGA Mike, needing Democratic votes to get anything passed. And, of course, that saved the latest extension, of course, for the debt ceiling, at least funding the government through December. But the price for it, MAGA Mike wanted to get that citizenship requirement, proof of citizenship requirement through, and he couldn't do it, because the Democrats, they needed their votes, and they were like, hell no. You know, Jim Jordan is a perfect example of what has happened with the GOP. The GOP has imploded.

It's no longer—as Lawrence said, it's not a serious party. And a man who, in the words of one of the half-dozen wrestlers who were at Ohio State when he failed to intervene on their behalf, you know, who wants a guy in leadership in the federal legislature who won't stand up for his guys? And we know in the gymnasium of Jim Jordan's mind, the pride of Troy, Ohio, it's all about standing up for his master. His master isn't just Donald Trump. His master is staying in the federal legislature. If the citizens of Ohio had any sense at all, they'd turn him out.

But if sense were a requirement for voting, there might only be about maybe a couple thousand voters in the United States of America. We've gone way past spectacle at this point. We're at a point now where the existential threat isn't just to the federal polity, isn't just to the concept of democracy. It's to the very globe, because the United States has nuclear weapons, not just Russia, not just China, not just whoever else, North Korea, but the United States of America. And we are a hair's breadth away of turning over those nuclear launch codes and everything else to a madman and a party that once that happens, will sit back like they had nothing to do with it.

Indeed, indeed. All right, folks, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Let me thank Joy. Let me thank Lauren. Let me thank Greg for being on today's show. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot, folks. We certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Let me thank Joy. Let me thank Lauren. Let me thank Greg for being on today's show. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot, folks. Listen, we're going to keep doing what we're doing. We'll be back here tomorrow. I'm going to show you Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett's takedown of Jim Jordan on this hearing. So we're going to have

that for you tomorrow. Also, we are going to talk about these Democratic PACs. Why are they not spending money on black people? And I've been emailing for these PACs for now 10 days. They want to respond to an email. OK, I'm going to start naming people tomorrow. I keep telling y'all, y'all keep playing games, you're going to get called out. So that's tomorrow's show. Folks, support the work that we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. Senior Check and Money Order.

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