#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Nolan Wells Family Speaks At NABJ. Jeffries Lays Out Dem Agenda. ICE Spends $20M on Shock Gloves

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

8.13.2026 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Nolan Wells Family Speaks At NABJ. Jeffries Lays Out Dem Agenda. ICE Spends $20M on Shock Gloves The parents of Nolan Wells, Attorney Ben Crump, and Rev. Al Sharpton discuss the death investigation of Nolan Wells at the National Association of Black Journalist Convention. We'll share the family's side of the story and what Crump says is the main objective is while pursuing justice for Nolan. An attorney general could make history as the first black person to hold statewide office in Nevada if he's successful at the polls in November. He joins us to make his case for governor.  A white man threatens to kill black people in a mass shooting and walks away free with no charges. We'll tell you the technicality that got him off the hook. A candidate is running against a racist district attorney in Tarrant County Texas. Can she beat him to bring fairness and justice to the office? We'll talk to her as she tells us her plans on winning the position.    Black Star Network Partner: ChapterChapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. ____ Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Get Bell, purefiber internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks

Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture, with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kottenby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out.

You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you hear the new episode of the Hey Jonas Podcast? We are at D23. So we'll see who stops by. The cast of Frozen Stopped by, Kristen Bell, Josh Gass. and Adina Menzel.

I auditioned for Frozen. What? For Christoph. They said, okay, what are you going to be singing today? I said, I don't know. That must have been why you didn't get it. Oh, you probably won't. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars and more.

And I guess I can share that... No way. Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Folks, today is Thursday, August 13, 2026. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, screaming live on the Black Star Network. Today is day two of the National Association of Black Journal's Convention in Atlanta. In the newsmakers panel today, of the parents of Nolan Wells spoke about the investigation regarding their son.

They were joined by attorney Ben Crump as well as Reverend Al Sharpton, will have all of that stuff for you as well. Plus, also on today's show, we will have Democrat leader of Hakeem Jeffries, who spoke as well with NABJ president, Aaron Haynes, about the Democratic effort to retake the House as well as the Senate. In Nevada, Attorney General Aaron Ford could have become that's the first black governor. He will join us to talk about his campaign. A white man threatens to go black people in a mass shooting and walks away free of no charges, will explain. Plus, a candidate running for a district attorney in Tarrant County is facing a racist white

DA will talk to this such as she tries to topple this DA. It's time to bring the funk on Rollo Mark Dun Filchin. On the Black Star Network, let's go. Whatever it is. Journal's convention, Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffrey, sat down on NABJ President Aaron Haynes. To talk about the Democrats' plan to retake the House and the Senate in the midterm elections. He talked about a variety of issues. Here's some of what he had to say.

So I think we'll see, you know, what happens in terms of what the caucus looks like on the other side of the midterm elections. Certainly our focus right now is making sure that we. win as many seats as we can in November, flip as many red seats blue, and take the gavels back. So we can actually function like a check and balance on and out of control administration, as opposed to what Republicans have been doing, which is a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump's extreme agenda, entirely inconsistent with the vision of the House of Representatives. I mean, it was interesting. King Charles, when he came to the Congress, joined addressed.

know, to the House and to the Senate, stood there as a king and referenced the Magna Carta as the principle and foundation for the notion in America that executive power is subject to checks and balances. And of course, when he said that, everybody on the House side, the Democratic side of the House, stood up and gave him a rousing ovation. But then I looked over to the other side of the aisle, the Republican side, and they stood up and gave him a standing of a Haitian. And I was very confused y'all because King Charles was talking about them and their failure

to actually bring to life this principle. So we're going to do that. That'll connect all House Democrats, whether those are New Dems, progressives, or blue dogs. But I think most importantly, everybody is focused on the notion that life is too expensive in the United States of America. There's far too many people. Certainly this is the case in our community, in the black community, who are working hard, they're playing by the rules, but they can't thrive and they can barely survive.

And that's got to change. And so we have to make life more affordable, more comfortable for the American people. And that's what unites every part of the House Democratic Caucus. I think that we have to end Senators United. And one of the things, there's been a series of Supreme Court decisions that have eroded democracy in America. Ending Citizens United was perhaps the first. That came in 2010. Then in 2013, you had the Supreme Court and the Shelby County case decimate Section 5, that was the initial attack, decimate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Then a few years after that,

you had the Supreme Court declare that partisan gerrymandering is all, you know, for fair in the political sphere and that there's nothing to prohibit it in the Constitution. And then you had, I think, the final devastating two decisions, most recently by the Supreme Court, which is one, of course, completely gutting the Voting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the most recent CalA decision. And then the decision that I think has unleashed this unprecedented corruption on the country is in the Trump v. United States case where they gave the president basically complete immunity as if he was a king. So you have a series of systematic decisions going over the last 15 plus

years that have really decimated sort of our democratic fabric and we've got to unravel all of it. But Citizens United, I think, was the first and we support full repeal of Citizens United. You can only bring that about in two different ways, either a constitutional, or change in the Supreme Court, I think we're open to aggressively pursuing both. I think we have to try, anchored in the premise that Donald Trump has broken every single promise that he's made to the American people of consequence. He promised to lower costs on day one, costs haven't gone down, costs have gone up, as a direct result of Trump policies, including his tariffs that have increased costs on everyday

Americans, people in our community and beyond, by thousands of dollars per year. He promised that immigration enforcement was going to target the worst of the worst. But immigration enforcement has basically unleashed ICE brutality on American citizens like Alex Freddie and Renee Nicole Good in those instances killing them in cold blood. And certainly ICE brutality violently targeted. law-abiding immigrants all across the country. I was just with several in New Jersey connected to Delaney Hall earlier in this week. He broke that promise. He promised to release the Epstein files, broke that promise. We forced a vote on the issue. About half the files

have been released. The other half still being subjected to a cover-up by the Department of Justice. Donald Trump promised, right, to love and cherish Medicaid, then enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history costing about 14 million Americans their health care and devastating hospitals, nursing homes, and community-based health clinics in our communities and in rural America the heartland of America and all across America and then lastly of course this guy promised that he was in office not to start endless wars in the Middle East but to stop them and then turned around and got us involved in the reckless war of choice

in Iran. So he's broken every promise that he's made. Now, down the stretch, we've made clear to the American people, we're fighting for an affordable America. And we've said that looks like three different things, on costs, on care, and then on corruption. On costs, we've got to lower the costs of groceries, of gasoline, of housing, because life is far too expensive. On health care, we've said, look, this is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. to make health care affordable for every single American, and that's our commitment. Reverse the damage that's been done and then build something better. And then on corruption, our view has been, I don't know that we'll get partnership on corruption,

but we'll try to seek some common sense Republicans, the few that are left in Washington, to work with us on costs and on health care. But on corruption, we've said, if you've got people in office who are focused, primarily in enriching themselves, their family, their friends, and their donors, then they're not focused on making life more affordable for the American people. And so from beginning on day one, we're going to hold the crooks accountable. These are the explicit promises that we're making to the American people, and we have a responsibility to try to bring that about.

And if we're in a divided government scenario, we can do the accountability stuff in the majority on our own holding gavels and subpoena power, but in terms of actually moving legislation that makes life better for the American people, we'll need a handful of Republicans to join us. Now we've forced Republicans to join us in the House on a variety of different issues, including extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years on our terms, force that vote and then won that vote in January, I think in the majority we'll have the ability to do more. Folks, at the end of the show, they're telling the show, we'll play you the full remarks by Congressman Hakeey Trepies. I want to go to my panel now.

Dr. Gray-C. Card, Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, joining us from D.C. C.C. Co. host of the Risi-C.C.C.O.R.S.M. Radio from D.C. as well, Dr. Larry J. Walker, University professor. And former senior congressional staffer joining us from Orlando. Glad to have all three of y'all here. Reis, I'm going to start with you. there's been a lot of talk on the Democratic side about the job that leader Hakeem Jefferson is doing. You've already got people talking about, well, he shouldn't be Speaker of the House. Democrats ain't won nothing yet. My whole deal is, why don't y'all shut up and focus

on winning? Okay. The election is November 3rd. You got all that time, if the Democrats get 218 seats or more, you got time between. between November 4th and the beginning of the next session in January to figure out and have that fight. If I'm Democrats, if I'm progressives, if I'm liberals, if I'm DSA, shut the hell up and focus on getting to 218. Well, let's start with the fact that it doesn't actually get attention and clicks to attack Republicans. I did a little experiment on threads on Saturday, and I said, okay, if you haven't been called all these different names that they have for the bad Democrats, usually the bad blacks is how I refer to us.

If you haven't been called any of these names, then come here and drop your Apo research. And I chose eight Senate seats, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Michigan, which all of the progressives and every, you know, the leftists and all them were celebrating Abdul al-Said, so I said, hey, let's get some Apo research on his opponent, Mike Rogers, who just ran in 2024. And out of all of the eight Republicans that I put forward, I got zero, zero takers on Apo research. Now, if I had said Jasmine Crockett likes purple, it would have been APEC, APEC, it would have been all kinds of insults. It would have been a litany of every laundry that said anything, anytime that she's.

ever had taken a breath wrong that people didn't like. But when I solicited things about Republicans, I got nothing. And I think what people need is a math lesson here. Okay, let's go back to 2024. What happens when you allow the Republicans to maintain the House majority, not just through seats that are gerrymandered? Because, to be fair, there's a lot of gerrymandering that happens. But Republicans won the House by a 4 million vote.

margin in 2024. It's not decided by the popular vote, but I'm just giving you guys some context here. And the Senate, Republicans picked up

four Senate seats to take the majority. Then you had the White House that they took. You could say Elon Musk and fraud or whatever. The motherfucker is in the White House now.

So you have a trifective Republican control that they consider a mandate because, remember, Donald Trump did actually win the popular vote this time, unlike when he lost

to Hillary Clinton in the popular vote, but he got the electoral college vote. So you have a millions-vote-mort margin in the House, millions-vote-mortgage in the White House, and they pick up a large number of Senate seats, and they have a Republican Supreme Court, and then you motherfuckers have the nerve to say Democrats do something? That's not how this works. Elections have consequences, and people can bitch and about the Democrats all day long, but they don't have the power.

They don't not have the power because they're weak. They don't not have the power because they aren't trying to do different things. They don't have the power because the Americans went to the fucking polls and they voted Republicans' asses in. Then they said, oh, help me, please. Politics is not a plot twist. The people in power have the motherfucking power. Now, I will say to Leader Jeffrey's point,

he has stopped Democrats from defecting in things like the big, ugly-ass bill, cut SNAP, cut Medicaid, cut housing, cut Obamacare subsidies. He has stopped Democrats from defecting, and that's what a leader does is you keep your caucus together. You keep your caucus discipline.

They've even managed to get discharge petitions because the Speaker of the House gets to control the bills that come to the floor, but there are mechanisms like a discharge petition where if you gather enough signatures and you get some defectors on the other side, which again, I think you have to give Leader Jeffrey some credit for

they managed to do, and they manage to do, and forced the hand on the Epstein files. But there are just some things that you can't force to hand on, particularly when it comes to appropriations because those things pass on a simple majority in the House and in the Senate. So I understand that people don't

like living with the consequences of a Donald Trump administration. But every single negative consequence of the Donald Trump administration was broadcast and advertised. He said he was going to put in tariffs. They had Project 2020 fucking five. What did y'all think was going to happen?

was just going to say, just kidding. No. All the shit that they're doing is what they told y' asses we would do. And 8,9 million motherfuckers staying home. And then 74 million dumbass motherfuckers went and voted for Donald Trump. So here we are. Now, what can we do about it? We can vote in November and realize that our competition is the MAGA people that will rubber

stamp Donald Trump's agenda. And maybe we won't be able to hang on another two years with these detrimental policies. So it's time to start. treating leader Jeffery's like he's the fucking bachelor and you're saying you know what I'm going to self-eliminate I don't want to rose from the bachelor he is the leader of the minority caucus okay and so if you want to get the majority vote and then if you have somebody who's woker or somebody who's not APEG not X Y motherfucker that can do the job then have that battle but first we got to crawl before we walk so Larry I think I heard at least eight MFs and about three

three F bombs. I don't know if that was that. I wasn't trying to use the MFs, but I'm just, you need MFs for math. You may not be trying, but you succeed. But did I lie? Did I lie?

Larry, Larry, I'm just, I am just stating, making a factual statement, Racy. Larry, the thing for me here, again, Larry, the thing that I, that it's just, it is perplexing to me. Listen, primaries are where you have your intra-party fights.

When the primary is over, it's time to turn all your fire to the other side. Congresswoman Haley Stevens, it did not take her long after she lost to Al-Said in Michigan and saying, I'm standing support him. Okay? Didn't take long at all.

And so, this is the stupidity to me on the left this is the stupidity to where certain elements on the left can't handle when their candidate loses if you are a Francesca Hong supporter

in Wisconsin she lost you should be saying we're going to ride behind Crowley because we cannot let Republicans take control of the governor's mansion after we've had it for the last couple of terms. That's basic politics.

And it's no different. It's no different. I'm just going to let you answer that because the one I'm about to give Greg is going to straight up blow y'all away. But Larry's going to weigh in. Yeah, Roland, I'm glad you talked about, you know, when your preferred candidate doesn't win the primary. And so to note, next Tuesday in the state of Florida

is our Democratic Republican primary. And so, listen, you got to, whoever wins the primary, you got to get behind that candidate, particularly during the troubling times that we're facing unprecedented times in terms of the attack. You talked about the attack on black America and other minaritized groups. Obviously, we talk about ICE and some of the things that's happening there. The economic impact on the black community. We don't have time for this. And so you need to coalesce it, you know, behind a, whoever that candidate is, raise money, go out and knock on doors,

GOTB, get out the boat, right? And you have to move forward to make sure that you're prepared in November. Otherwise, you know, Risi highlighted a lot of really important points in terms of the unrealistic expectations that Hakeem Jeffries deals with. But if they don't get,

Democrats don't get their act together, we're going to be having this conversation after November about what we're going to do two years from now. And, you know, beyond that time between, you know, after this midterm this year and two years So now, it may be a rat for what's happening in the United States.

So it's important to keep in mind. The other thing is, I want to mention really quickly is, since we're talking about Hakeem Jeffries is, heavy there's the head that wears the crown. And so as a black man who, you know, member of the CBC, and what may happen if the Democrats flip the house and he becomes the first black speaker, there are always these expectations that black folks, particularly black Democrats have to deal with that white Democrats and other groups don't have to deal with.

Riesie mentioned Jocelyn Crockett. We could go on in the terms of list of black members of Congress who have to constantly deal with these unrealistic expectations. Lastly, Risi made the great point. Listen, this ain't reality TV. I need folks to take civics classes. Because when I worked on the Hill, we were in a minority, you had to do what you had to do to get bills passed.

Now, if you flip it and you're in the majority, then some of these bills, as he talked about holding individuals who have been cheating accountable, then we can provide some balance in which the framers of the Constitution initially when they developed the system of government. Otherwise, we'll be dealing with the same issues over economic issues and the same scandals over and over again. But folks, once again, as you say, have to get behind whoever wins the primary fund and knock on doors. See, Greg, we talk about consequences all the time, political consequences on the time. And I was having a conversation with someone today at NABJ and Atlanta.

And we had to get a laugh out of this. It's amazing to hear one of the biggest loud mouths who was telling black people not to vote. Who was telling black people that Kamala Harris was the same as Donald Trump. Turn around and say the Trump Department of Justice needs to investigate the death of of Nolan Wells. And I'm like, I'm sorry. You were one of the people, literally telling people not to vote. And it is undeniable that a vice, that a Kamala Harris Department of Justice,

a president Kamala Harris Department of Justice, would be far more aggressive in prosecuting civil rights cases then there would be a Donald Trump Department of Justice. There's a perfect example to say to progressives, you look like an idiot where you have a circular firing squad and you are trying to destroy your own when you haven't even reclaimed the House or the Senate. It's called fight later, when now,

But fight now and lose later is pretty damn stupid, Greg. I'm not going to change proper fail the electoral strategy, particularly by petty bourgeois, long-signed, safe, black-elected officials, particularly in the federal legislature, who have proven themselves incapable of extending the tradition. that they have inherited and have for too long, it seems to me, run on a racial that is more about demographics and skin color than it is on policy basis. In the state of Maryland, I voted undecided in the crime areas prior to the 2024 election, fully knowing that whoever the Democratic Party candidate was, I was going to support.

I think what we see right now and when we look at Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability.

Bell, connection is everything. If your bookshelf and your 4U page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Proz Society. The weekly podcast, that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, characters, and that is a Trojan horse.

Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners.

Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip the script? What is the surprise woman?

Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott This entire time You've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show I would never expect I have I would never set expectations for something like that to happen

If the universe allows for something like that to happen I'm open to it I'm always going to accept You know Danny McBride Fine Yeah it's all this fragile masculinity Exuding I could smell it walking on the hallway To be honest with you

I was like, is that weed? Nope. It's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb.

And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Farrell told us personally, He loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Hoda Kotbvi, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotbby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like one of my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you.

You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michigan, and we look at with concerts, we see, I think, two situations which give us a good lens to think about the pragmatic policy.

In Michigan, of course, Dr. Elfad prevailed. And everybody came together, Representative Stephen. Hey, I'm supporting him. We got to move together. And then in Wisconsin, where we saw Brother Crowley win, we saw Hong come in at the unity breakfast this week. Did not speak. Crawley spoke.

Says, we're coming together. She endorsed us to them to work out there in campaign and said the campaign's not. And this is what Hong said in a release statement. The campaign is not about getting one person in the office, about them the movement, but permanent affordability and a government that puts working people first. I will not feed a narrative that I think is completely overblown that presumes people are stupid enough to set out of election rather than get behind in a two-party system, the candidate that pushes their interest most. We're in August.

This venue who were in that political class. Folks, Greg is still traveling overseas, so we're having some issues with his video feed and audio. So we're going to get that worked out. I just want people to understand. You have to win. You can't change public policy if you lose. If you're in the minority in the House,

the minority in the Senate, you ain't got no power. Oh, you can hold news conferences. you can try to block appointments, but you have very limited power to govern. So folks might want to consider that when they are focusing on attacking inward and not attacking your enemy. Going to a break, we come back.

We're talking with Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is running for governor of Nevada. That and more right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. All right, folks, let me get first to for a second. My mom had questions about her Medicare, so she called Chapter, a Medicare advisory company, and she texts me right after saying it's a great benefit. It was easy.

A real person walked her through the whole thing, and now she understands better what's going on. But also it's not just her. Woman and Yonkers rode in saying the process was so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was so glad she called. Then there's Maryland, 90 years old, in Florida, living on Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year north of $400 a month. for coverage she could barely afford any more. So what does she do?

She called Chapter. And they found her the same top-tier coverage for hundreds of dollars less, 90 years old, and finally, somebody in her corner. I hear stories like that again and again from our community. The Medicare system was not built to work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans. Yet Chapter's advisors are independent and honest, the only Medicare advisors that compare every plan nationwide.

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So, call Chapter at 724-264-8-281. 7-24-264-8-1. That's Chapter. Let me ask you a question. Why do so many people seem to think they know black men so well? What they think we want, what they think we need. Hell, they even tried to tell us why and how we voted. They never had a conversation with us.

Never asked us how we felt. What brings us joy? What makes us angry? What makes us scared? How do we live? That's what this show is about. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. We can speak for ourselves.

This will be a show where we bring brothers on that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope. Brothers that are doing work in local communities with black men for black communities. We're going to hear each other and try to understand. And so perhaps we can move forward together. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. What we need is each other. No translation.

Right here on the Black Star Network. Check it out. Hey, what's up? It's Jamie Roman. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherry Shepherd Talk Show. It's me, Sherry Sheppard, and you know what you're watching. Roland Martin, unfilting. In the history of the United States, have only been three African-Americans elected governors of states.

this year we could actually see four in November. Right now, Governor Westmore is the incumbent in Maryland. He's running for re-election. Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia. You also have David Crowley, the Democratic candidate in Wisconsin. Actually, you could have five. You've got Republican MAGA Congressman Byron Donald's running for governor in Florida. In Nevada, Aaron Ford, the Nevada Attorney General, is running for governor against the incumbent Republican MAGA Joe Lombardo.

So joining us right now is Attorney General Aaron Ford. Glad to have you here on the show. Let me say it again. As a matter of fact, I was downstairs before I came here. I had a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists, and that was a brother who was a Kappa. and I said, I said, I asked him had he made a donation

to Aaron Ford's campaign. I said, you need to go here and support your Kappa brother. And he said, you actually had something nice to say. I said, only because he was a Texas A&M Aggie,

I said, I ain't going to give it to him too much. But glad to. I'm glad to have you. Rose, and glad to have your no, no,

ain't going to happen. ain't going to happen. Let's get into it. You're running against incumbent governor. He was standing beside Donald Trump a week ago, touting how great billionaires are. You're in a state that has been, your economy has been decimated. Las Vegas has been decimated by Donald Trump's attitude

towards Canadians and foreigners. Is that the main focus you're making this campaign on how awful the Nevada economy has been by having your mega governor staying shoulder to shoulder with Donald Trump. First off, Roland, always great to see you. I've known you since Texas A&M days. You're a guy I've looked up to even though you made the wrong decision on frats.

But you are a good guy. I got a lot of appreciation for you. But I got to pick on you for a quick minute. I got to tell you, if you come to my state and you call it Nevada, you don't get upcharged, okay? They're going to upcharge you and don't call your friend Aaron Ford. You know my name ain't Aaron. It's Aaron Ford thinking you're going to get me to... So what are y'all, Nevada?

That's right. Nevada. Okay. So let me say. You Aaron or you Aaron? I feel like that skits from Key and Peele. I knew you're going to do that. No, it's Aaron Ford from Nevada. And, you know, grateful for you, man. But look, to your question, to the serious point of the question, you use the word decimated. That is the word. The fact is, Joe Lombardo and Donald Trump have decimated our economy. It's called the Lombardo Trump economy for a reason.

Donald Trump wanted to institute some tariffs. Joe Lombardo said we should maybe feel a little pain from them. Those tariffs have, in fact, caused high unemployment. They've caused businesses to close. They've reached havoc all throughout the entirety of our state. And so when President Trump comes out here and he talks about The no tax on tips pledge and the law that he passed, it doesn't really matter about tips if you're not. It doesn't really matter about your taxes if you're not getting tips in the first place.

And for Joel and Bartow to get on stage and highlight the fact that these billionaires are the reasons why he's supporting Donald Trump just shows you how out of touch he is with what's happening on the ground right here in Nevada. I talk to folks all over the state. They're struggling right now. And we should be focused on those individuals and not worried about these billionaires that Donald Trump and Joe Lombardo are cozing up to as much. Data centers, huge issue that is being playing out. How is that, again, a part of this campaign there in Nevada? Yeah. Look, Roland, everywhere I go, it doesn't matter where I am.

Urban, rural, suburban Nevada, I'm hearing about these data center issues. And I've made my position very clear that if they're going to operate here, they're going to have to, number one, use something besides water to cool themselves because we live in a desert and they can't take our water. Number two, I have said that I don't want to see our residence rates rise by one pending based on what energy use these data centers are using. So they're going to be required to build out their own, the grid to fulfill their particular needs. They're going to have to ensure that they are hiring local individuals if they're going to be operating in our state. They're going to have to ensure that they have what we call community benefits agreements in place. And most importantly, we're going to have to listen to the local people on the ground, whether it's Reno, Boulder City, Perump. I was in Mendon, and they were talking about a data center coming to Earrington.

The input of people is paramount, and I think they're making their voices pretty known about how they feel about these data centers. Again, again, we talked the issue of data centers, we also, of course, the economy. Healthcare, significant issue. How has Nevada been impacted by Donald Trump's vicious attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act? You know, there's a connection here, and there's a pattern between how Joe Lombardo responds to the needs of the people versus needs of the corporations.

We talked about data centers a second ago. One of the key differences between Lombardo and me is that he is bankrupted by them. He's taken millions of dollars from data centers, which is the reason why he's endorsed entirely the existence of these data centers. He's getting millions of dollars from them. Similarly, he's getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies, right? And so when you have these big, beautiful bills passed and the health care components associated with it, our governor,

has said, we should be excited about the big, beautiful bill. And I say excited about what? The fact that 100,000 of baddens are going to get kicked off of Medicaid? Roland, you may not recall because you graduated right before I did, but you know my story. You know, I was a single parent when I was at Texas A&M. You know that I was living on Medicaid to keep my son healthy. You know, I was living on food stamps to keep us fed. And so these types of lifelines are very important to me, and I understand the importance of them to other people.

And so when I have a governor who's so afraid to stand up to Donald Trump, who kowtals, capitulates, kisses up to, and simply lies down for Donald Trump, that gives me great concern, which is the reason why I'm running right now, because there's a difference between there's a choice. They can have someone who foes all the time or they can have someone who fights all the time. And that's the alternative they have in me. your state doesn't have a huge African-American population. Obviously, it has a very large Latino population, Native American population. How are you building a broad-based coalition to get Democrats in your state to stand behind your campaign? And frankly, to stop what I call the previous segment, this circular firing squad, between your center-left Democrats, your progressives, your liberals, and your far-left Democrats and DSA candidates? You know, there are a couple of answers to that. The first of which is I have been all across the state several times, talking to folks in every corner of our state,

and there have been a handful of topics that have risen to the top I've distilled from these conversations. It doesn't matter the demographic. I could have been in urban, rural, suburban Nevada. I could be talking to a black, white, Latino, Asian, a white person. It doesn't matter who I'm talking to. these demographics across the board, these topics have risen to the top. It could be a man or a woman. It could be a Democrat, Republican, or Independent.

And here's what they tell me. They just want a good job to buy a house in a safe neighborhood where the schools are preparing their kids for careers or college and where the health care system is available and affordable to them. And among all of that, to be treated with humanity, dignity, and respect. That is across every demographic. And so I'm speaking to those issues in what we call the affordable Nevada plan, a plan that addresses each of those issues. We are in the state right now with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

In fact, under Joe Lombardo's tenure, we've had either the highest or one of the highest unemployment rates, his entire tenure. Right now, unemployment is higher than it was when he took office. That's his fault, right? Housing costs are skyrocketing, health care is skyrocketing, energy costs are skyrocketing, and that's across demographics. And so we are being, we're able to keep this coalition together because we're talking about things that matter to them. Now look, you specifically mentioned the Latino community, and I wanted to speak to that issue. And what the past is that I'm talking to them in their language. I'm going to say to allow with them to learn what's important to them.

I mean, some of y'all are going to understand what I just said, some of you won't. But the point I was making is I'm talking to them in their language. I'm going to their neighborhoods. I'm listening to them. I'm asking them what's important, and we are putting that in our Affordable Nevada plan in a way that resonates and that has ultimately led to us having a groundswell of support, and not just frankly the Latino community, but all across the state. All right, let's go to questions from our panel. First up, Dr. Larry J. Walker, Alpha Man. Ag, Ford, thanks for joining us.

I have a cousin lives in the state and also friends, so really important to follow your candidacy. Can you talk, unions play an important role in your state for obvious reasons in terms of casinos, etc. And so I'm wondering if you can share with the audience, what are the one or two points, when you talk to unions, what are the one or two points you highlight to make sure you can make their lives better if you become governor? Well, you're right. We are a union town. And I enjoy the support of almost every union. out there, including the largest union in our state, the culinary union. I was literally just with them this morning as they did a ground or ribbon cutting for the brand new health facility. But it goes back to what I just answered for Rodin, this last question. This

affordability crisis is real. This Lombardo Trump economy has decimated the ability for individuals in our state to not just thrive or try to thrive, but even to survive. And so speaking to these issues, whether it relates to our economy being decimated. Our housing costs been too expensive. Our health care going up, especially when I was there at a ribbon-cutting boy health care center. It resonates with union members. And that's something that, by the way, I'm not new at. I've been in elected office since 2012.

They know my track record, and it's always a standard for the working class in a way that allows them to provide for themselves and their families. All right. Next question. My man, Dr. Gregg Carr, is in Egypt? Alpha man. Thank you, Realman. You are surrounded General Ford, but that's okay, though.

We're all in the same team, generally. Good talk with you, brother. I was reading the Nevada Independent and a questionnaire that you and the governor answered. And it's very interesting to see how he evaded direct answers to several key questions. Education, K-12 funding, didn't give a yes and no answer, whether it should be raised,

and you want to, of course, increase funding. Data centers, of course, as Roland asked, you didn't give a yes and no answer, and you said, no, there's got to be some more strict legislation to regulate them. Is he attempting to, in some ways, evade some of the very clear issues in terms of lines in the sand that you have drawn? And if so, in a state where it looks like there at least as many registered Democrats as there are Republicans, and in terms of not active voters, seems like even those who have identified as Democrats may even have an edge,

how important is it going to be to turn out the voters in your state in order to win the election? Well, let me take that latter part first. Turnout is absolutely imperative. In the midterm, obviously, we know that turnout is usually less robust, which is why we have an even more robust ground game right now. We're working with my colleagues all on the ballot, whether it's congresspersons or other statewide consensual officers or legislator to ensure that we have a ground game that's going to not only register folks to vote, but drive them to the polls.

We're confident in that. And I just mentioned the culinary union. They have an unparalleled ground game that we get to tap into because they have 80,000 members with hundreds of them who will go out and knock on doors for us. And so we're excited about that. But to your first question, the Nevada independent article you referenced, and I know exactly what you're talking about. And you're exactly right.

Joe Lombardo is evading questions because he is the reason why we're in this position right now. His policies, his plans, his leadership, or lack thereof, has led to us having, again, one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, right, where our housing costs continue to escalate and rise. And by the way, he's had opportunities to do things about this. Even Donald Trump agrees with me on this one notion that corporations don't live in homes, but people live in homes? I mean, he wouldn't sign the bill to fix that to be sure he let it come into law.

But Joe Lombardo could have signed a bill that would have limited how many corporations, how many homes corporations can buy up because 25% of the homes in North Las Vegas, for example, are our own corporations. We could be experiencing relief right now had Joe Lombardo really aligned himself with the people of our state. That's why he can't answer questions about education because we continue to rank at the bottom of education. Look, he couldn't even agree to feed our children.

He vetoed a bill that would have guaranteed school meals for children. Roland knows I was a single parent. He doesn't know that I used to eat stale candy bars for dinner. Score bars are my favorite. I used to sneak those stale candy bars and eat them for lunch. I was that kid in the classroom whose stomach was growling and couldn't pay attention in class. And Lombardo said it would have been a waste of money on a kid like me.

And then he went out and spent $25 million on office furniture. You see, when I'm governor, we're going to feed our kids, and we're going to ensure that our education system continues to improve. That's the reason why Lamar was being evasive. That's why he is trying to distract from his record. That's why he lies so much. And at the end of the day, this is going to be a referendum on him, and Accountability Day is November 3rd. Reese Colbert, what's your question? This is ladies last today, not ladies first.

But you can come on my show, General Ford. No, no, no, no, no, no, Al, no, Al, no, Alph was first. Ah, oh. Okay, just, just throw shivery on the window, just, I guess we're equals here. Okay, so, General Ford, though, to get serious, you know, a lot of times people talk about, they want Democrats to fight, they want Democrats to fight, and I think that Attorney's General's Attorney's General have been some unsung heroes in terms of the lawsuits and the wins that you all have been able to rack up against Donald Trump.

Can you talk a little bit about how you have resisted and how you have delivered for the people of your state through your lawsuits and how you protected them through your lawsuits of Trump? And then how that executive experience being the head of the DOJ and your state translates to you being governor. No, look, that's a great question. And I want to get to that. But I want to let you know they're pretty boys like the noops like I am. You would have been first, you see. We do put our women first. There we go.

Here we go. Anyway, let me stop. Let me stop. Let me stop. Boy, he kicked me off his screen. Anyway, true question, real question. And look, the fact that the matter is, attorneys general, Democratic Attorney's General, aren't scared to fight.

And we have been in court probably upwards of 75 times this term. It was over 100 times the first time he ran for office. and our win rate against him for violating the law is upwards of 85 to 90%. We have saved education money. We have saved energy money. We have saved the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, right? These are the types of things that we have stood up for. And this is a stark contrast to a governor who I have already described you as one who capitulates,

catawls, and kisses up to Donald Trump, lies down and lays down his own principles before Donald Trump. I'm not scared of Donald Trump. Excuse my colloquialism. I ain't scared of none of them. And that's the reason why I am willing to stand up for what is right, irrespective of a political bullback, of a punditry. It doesn't matter. The fact is, things are too important for us right now.

We are in dire straits. And if we don't continue to stand up and fight back, we will find ourselves with less rights as we continue to see them trying to undermine our very existence in this country. So I'm proud of that work. It is work that the people in my state have recognized as well. You know, it's funny, right? Because I sued over the tariffs. These tariffs that I knew from the beginning were unlawful.

Donald Trump said we should be, I'm sorry, Joel Nubrano said we should be excited about the big beautiful bill. He said that we should feel pain from these tariffs. Call my lawsuits unfortunate. What is unfortunate, Risi, is that he doesn't understand the plight of the person on the ground. He's aligned himself to corporations and not the core of our state. It's people. I have.

And when I take this, this fight to the governor's office, office, we will be that much better. Period. Last question for me. Last question for me, it's not really a question. There's somebody who is watching this show right now. They're listening to the podcast. And they are saying, you know what?

There's voting stuff. I'm not buying it. I'm not falling for it. I just can't go with it. What do you say to that person who actually believes that their vote is a waste of time and that the couch is a credible option. Listen, Roland, there are a lot of canned responses to that that are not just can, but accurate, right?

They're trying to take your vote away because they know it matters, right? You know, your vote is your voice, right? I can say all of that. But here, I can give you a real life example. When I became the Attorney General back in 2018, I barely won my race. I won by 0.47 percentage points, right? I try to say 0.5 and said, no, you can't round up. 0.47 percentage points.

4,533 votes out of over a million cast is what separated me from winning and losing. And the reason why that's important is because during my first term, we had George Floyd. During my first term, we had COVID. During my first term, we had a president in Donald Trump held bent on undermining our elections. And thank goodness it was me in this office as opposed to the alternative because none of those things that have been taken seriously. Your vote absolutely counts, and it's important that you actually show up to vote. We need your help out there. Look, we can all throw the towel in.

This isn't easy. You think I like getting called everything with a child of God, right? You think that I like getting called out my name and being disrespected and having my life threatened and have to have, you know, armed security around me all the time? No, I don't. But I'm in the fight because I know that if people like us aren't in the fight, we will continue to regress. We will continue to go backwards. And I, for one, for the sake of the child I had when I was in college, for the sake of the other two children, my wife and I have had, for the sake of the nephew are raised, and for the sake of all children out there will continue to stay in this fight.

And I need the people to go out to vote and stay in this fight with us. folks that is Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, Aaron. He is running for governor of Nevada on the Democratic nomination, and I appreciate him joining us on the show. Good luck in the campaign. And so, as right, he's saying, go to his site. That's right. What he really saying is he's really saying drop cash at PayPal, Ven-Bosell.

If you want to contribute, go to $4.4. Ford for Nevada.com, forward for Nevada.com. And also, listen, and I've sent this to people as well all the time. Hey, you may not live in a state, but you can also volunteer. There's phone banking,

other ways people can assist to help with campaigns. And so, Aaron, I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. And again, so, A. Scott Bolden, if you're watching and listening, I told you, I told Hakeem Jeffries this today.

I said, see, I let a few capers come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It might be cold over there, but it's pretty, too. But ice cold, they've got to be kept warm. All right, I appreciate it, my brother. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Take care. Can't always be serious, y'all. Appreciate that. The point that we made, and I'm going to go to you first. on this one, Greg. Again, I keep telling these people. I said it earlier. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus.

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I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements.

We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka The Biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right?

How about we flip this around? Okay. What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think it's the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott. This entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I have.

I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity.

Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, they're like, oh, everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested. or just like, oh, I've got my life, I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us.

Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize. maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're

hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You got the folks out there who were yelling and screaming about don't vote, don't vote, your vote don't matter. But Now you want the DOJ to intercede in the Nolan Wells case.

And I'm like, you can't sit here and say you want something from government, but then you're saying don't participate in the same thing. Your vote creates the avenue for that to happen. Greg, we keep saying the parties are delivery systems. Is that about identifying? I've never identified.

as a Republican or a Democrat. I don't even identify as an independent. I say I'm a voter, a black voter. But people need to understand there is a clear, undeniable difference between when Republicans are in charge and Democrats are in charge. I just don't play that all.

They're all the same. Some, yeah. But bottom line, I don't play that game. There's a difference. No. And, you know, I can say this is just somebody who voted decided in the 2024 primaries before fully supporting the vice president in the general election,

because I'm not stupid. I think you see a contrast in the primary for Senate in Michigan with Syed L. Syed winning and the governor's race in Wisconsin. I think you see a contrast there, and you see in both cases, Haley Stephen, who I think He was a terrible candidate, which probably contributed to Syed Winnie, endorsed him and said, we got to work together. And then in Wisconsin, you saw the unity breakfast this week with Francesca Hong having put out on social media, a full-throarland, of course, of Brother Crawley, him saying that we're going to unite together

because it's not about the name on the back, it's about the policies and about defeating what is clear, a clear in present danger to all of us, I think, you know, we have to remind ourselves that politics is local, even though it has national and, in this case, international implications in terms of this election. And we just have to be smart. The largest block of voters that can decide this election of the ones who have not voted, the ones who need to be organized. And I think that this contrived narrative of the DSA, you know, I mean, listen, no, Don't do that, y'all. I mean, don't fall for the banana and the tailpipe at this point.

You know, I'm, you know, listening to Representative Jeffries, I think he has been very clear and consistent in a very kind of politically tuned message to kind of stay out of things. I think the thumbs need to stay off the scale in every area. I think Jim Clyburn, God bless him, made a lot of work and done a lot of great things over the years. I think he needs to stay out of local elections,

and by local, I mean Senate elections, congressional elections, don't do that, bro. Just don't do it, LD. Stay out of it. Because I think finally that black politicians at the national level who have been elected to the federal legislature, in particular, have really, over the last several decades, squandered the momentum of the VIII Act few first two generations

of black elected officials, and have increasingly kind of conflated demographic with policy. And unfortunately, that has not satisfied voters who have become suspected and have become very vulnerable to propaganda campaigns by those who hate all of us and who are trying to hoop up all this wealth, who brough up all this money, and shovel it into the pockets of billionaires. The Nevada election can be won by those who have not been reached out to, and whether it be a Tala Rico in Texas or whether it be an Elsaid in Michigan or whether it be, as we just saw here, or Ford in Nevada, this election can be decided by those who can get those boots on the ground because they're not going to match dollar for dollar, the billionaires who are going to put their thumbs on the scale.

And I think we can set aside these things to defeat this common enemy in the short term if we can simply continue to focus on that granular door-to-door politics. And then once we get past that, sure. Then we can have the conversations, but don't lose sight of the fact that you can have any conversations if you don't doubt. Well, I always say,

I constantly say, Reese, ground game. Listen, you can spend I mean, what David Crowley just did, he was in the race, he dropped out, he got back in, he missed 10 days of early voting. he completely outspent hung on television.

But frankly, he had no choice. But what I keep saying is that, listen, there's going to be massive saturation in September and October before November 3rd. And if Democrats want to win, they're going to need a ground game, and they're going to have to invest in black people. And it's going to have to be a massive investment.

And people are seeing in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in many of these places, is, hey, where you got lots of black people, you got to turn them out. North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Texas, Mississippi, those are going to be critical places where you need a massive black turnout

and folk better be paying attention today and not waiting for the second week in October. Absolutely. I mean, credibility is cumulative with our communities. And it doesn't take a whole lot of time, but you can't just swoop in at the last minute. And that's why I am happy to see some of the candidates that didn't necessarily focus as much on black voters during their primaries have pivoted and they are putting on more work going to black outlets, going on Urban View mornings with you, Dr. Carr, coming on Roland's show and other shows. So I think that it's important to build that with consistent engagement, but also engagement needs dollars. It is crazy how black folks, black organizers, black organizations are always expected to. do things for the culture, do things for the people,

and white consultants break up millions and millions and millions of dollars directing where the funds go, and usually it's not towards us. So there should be a massive galvanization of funds going to the boots on the ground. And we did just see where there's, you know, controversy this week about their not being a big investment going into Mississippi. Now, granted, you got two black guys, on doggone general election battle chair. You got somebody who's independent and democratic.

that probably eliminates the chance of that state turning red, turning blue in terms of that sentencing, but there's still a gubernatorial election and other things that are happening there. But to Dr. Crock, respectfully, I am curious why Clyburn in particular has to stand out, stay out when the D.SCC chairs Chuck Schumer, Kristen Gillibrand, they have much more power in terms of the behind-the-scenes machinations with Senate races. And then you also have Bernie Sanders and AOC then when, and they made their endorsements. And so I'm just curious, because you got cut off a little bit earlier, what is the problem specifically with black electives that is uniquely symptomatic to them? Or what is it that I'm missing that you seem to take issue with?

I'm a case specific there. Specifically, there is a conservativeism, political conservatism that quite frankly he's had since he was a student in South Carolina State. that I think is masked by the idea that he's a Democrat. And I'm using Clyburn as an example because he's one of the more active ones. I really don't care what Chuck Schumer does. I think the Democratic Party, Ken Martin and them have proven that they are soft white nationals. And as we talk about black politics, I think we have to have a candid conversation. And I'm saying that understanding that ultimately the Democratic Party presents us the best option

in terms of delivery systems of getting when we're saying. need done. But I think we have to be a little bit more honest about the politics of black elected officials in the federal legislature. And so when you see a clobron, put his thumb on the scale and start talking about, you know, black voters need to do this, black voters need to do this, respectfully to the elder. And this isn't being disrespectful to him at all. But what I'm saying is that when you line up and salute with a Pelosi, with the Schumer, with the rest of them, black people who are disaffected, can then look and say, well, look, man, nobody wants to hear that.

Nobody wants to, you know, nobody feels any confidence that you're doing anything other than telling us to stand up and vote blue no matter who. Now, that I think is what opens the door to the type of disaffection that then makes people

right for the propaganda that comes from the open white nationals, the hard white nationals. Again, so I, and I think Hakeem Jeffries has been dangerously close to that in the past. But as you see these enroads being made, who don't get the backing of the DNC, which is a soft white nesting organization,

which of course since the early 1990s, really the late 80s, has been really working hard to tamp down or somehow evade that kind of rising discontent, particularly among black voters. I think that's when you see people like Jeffries realize, I better stay out of some of these things. I need to probably just be quiet

and see what unfold. Meanwhile, it seems like Clyburn is just doubling and quadrupling down. And it creates, I think, a generational challenge. It creates a disaffection. You know, why are you playing along the margins? Why are you doing it? And then we'll turn around and say, I've inherited or we've inherited the conscious of the Congress. We've inherited the reconstruction history.

No, you haven't. Don't do that. Not ideologically, because people who don't help don't read, don't study will still pick up that vibe and be like, No, that seems like the old-timey Yassah Ball's politics that has stopped me from even listening, much less going to the polls. And then people are susceptible being low-information voters to the kind of propaganda that has us lose these elections. I mean, that's why I would say generally. Okay. Recy, any response?

Okay. No, I was just, I was just carrying. Look, I don't have to carry water for Jim Clyburn, but I just see, see, the reason why I ask is because, you know, and sometimes things are just very, online, but what I do see is I see absent any specifics about policy, about legislation, about voting records, certain labels are disproportionately attached to black elected. Now, you can argue which black electors that applies to accurately or not, but it's there are a lot of times it's

establishment. Then you have the APEC thing. Even people don't take AECBAC money. Somebody called David Crowley's APEC and he doesn't take APEC money. Don't even get involved in gubernatorial races. And so, And so whenever we start talking about black electives or black candidates, then I will like us to expound at least to where there is something specific that we can point to policy-wise that is something that needs to be corrected, something that needs to be challenged. And then I also like to have that conversation in the context of, well, how have other people who are not black demonstrated that?

every election cycle, there are some great white hope candidates come around or whoever hope candidates, the progressive candidates come around who have no legislative record, no voting record. All they have is rhetoric and they have PDFs of things that sound good, but they haven't demonstrated specifics on implementing that. And so I'm not saying that there aren't any that have, but I'm just saying that Graham Platner being an example, he's an oyster farmer and he became a great white hope of Maine. So all I'm saying, saying is because, you know, my lens is always towards black politics and black electives. And I understand that it's an imperfect system. And I don't want to just absolve them of things. But

often in the work that I do specifically talking about, black people, especially online, there's a lot of attacks that come their way that just aren't rooted in politics. And I know that you're more sophisticated and intelligent than that, Dr. Carr, but I just wanted to get clarification as to what you meant because there are people that hold your, your rifle. so hold your assessment of things in such high value. And so if there's a way that I can pick up on what you're talking about and I can say, okay, so when people are expressing that, then this is how I can tackle it. If it's fair, it's fair.

But in many cases, it's actually not fair for those people, not from you, but from other people. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Larry, yeah, you got to be in the floor voters. Yeah. Yeah, you know, thank you, Roland. And I think this conversation is really important because I think that a lot of times people when we think about black voters and thinkers that we're monolith and we're not.

And so while we have a conversation, we're talking about ideology, you know, different generations, different perspectives. And, you know, Dr. Carr used Clyburn. We could talk about, you know, Maxine Waters, among others of a different generation compared to Underwood and other, you know, members of Congress who, you know, have done certainly done the work, but the generation has benefited from that. And why this conversation is important is have to, you know, these officials who either are incumbents or hoping to be elected have to understand that the way in which you speak the black voters has to be more sophisticated. So not only in terms of understanding what their concerns are from a policy perspective, but as agee four got to, what is the story?

Tell me a story. You tell me about your policies. Now tell me how you personally connect to the, everyday lives of working Americans in which he does, and there are other black candidates that we've talked about not only tonight, but, you know, for other shows. So you've got your policy points, you've got how you personalize, and you connect to voters. And then thirdly, how do you get reluctant voters to go out and vote for you? That's the trifect of this challenge as we move towards midterms, and they'll also think about what's going to happen two years from now. And so these are all some of these important issues and, you know, someone who worked on campaigns

like many of my colleagues and worked on Capitol Hill, worked for a CBC member. I've seen these issues from multiple perspectives and some of these conversations we've had, I've had as a congressional staffer, as a CBC staffer about these different generational shifts. So it is real. And this conversation is really important.

And I appreciate receipt, you know, giving Dr. Card, I'm the opportunity to really nuance it out because she highlights, we talk about these issues all the time, right? We get this. We have the history. We understand the knowledge. We know the players.

But folks who are watching this may need us to pull on these threads to understand the importance of why you need to go out and vote. And the points that we're making to ensure that black Americans not only live but thrive. All right, folks. Got to go to break. We come back. We'll talk with a candidate running for district attorney in Tarrant County against the white DA, who eight years later, continues to try to put Crystal Mason. in prison for voting.

You're watching Rolla Martin Unfilter on the Black Star Network, support the work that we do, join our Bring the Funk fan club. A goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks each a year. That's $4.19. The month, 13 cents a day. That is to, of course,

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Roland-Martin Unfiltered.com. All right, folks, let me get personal for a second. My mom had questions about her Medicare, so she called Chapter, a Medicare advisory company, and she texts me right after saying it's a great benefit. It was easy. A real person walked her through the whole thing, and now she understands better what's going on. But also it's not just her.

Woman and Yonkers rode in saying the process was so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was so glad she called. Then there's Maryland, 90 years old, in Florida, living on Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year north of $400 a month for coverage she could barely afford anymore. So what does she do? She called Chapter. And they found her the same top your coverage for hundreds of dollars less, 90 years old, and finally, somebody in her corner. I hear stories like that again and again from our community. The Medicare system was not built to work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans.

Yet Chapter's advisors are independent and honest, the only Medicare advisors that compare every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing, what actually works for you. If you're already in the right plan, they'll tell you. No games. and people who switched to a chapter saved an average of $11,100 a year. All takes us 20 minutes. You talk to a real person and is completely free help.

So call chapter at 724-264-8281. 724-264-8-21. That's chapter. Let me ask you a question. Why do so many people seem to think they know black men so well? What they think we want, what they think we need. Hell, they even tried to tell us why and how we voted. and never had a conversation with us.

Never asked us how we felt. What brings us joy? What makes us angry? What makes us scared? How do we live? That's what this show is about. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. We can speak for ourselves.

This will be a show where we bring brothers on that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope. Brothers that are doing work in local communities with black men for black communities. We're going to hear each other and try to understand so perhaps we can move forward together. No translation. because we don't need anybody speaking for us. What we need is each other.

No translation. Right here on the Black Star Network. Check it out. Hello, we're the credit fixes. I'm Dr. Bernard Hodges. And I'm Dr. Terrence Ferguson. And you're tuning into Roland Martin unfilts. Folks, Terrant County in Texas, where Fort Worth is,

is the third largest county in the state. It's the last remaining large Red County. and one of the big races we're paying attention to in addition to the county judge race involving Lisa Simmons, who's trying to be elected county judge, is the district attorney race. Tiffany Burks, Democrat, she is running against the longtime incumbent DA in Tarrant County, Phil Sorrells. Now, why should, and I've been calling for black folks to be organizing and mobilizing like crazy? The Phil Sorrells, do y'all understand that this man has continued to target Crystal Mason? I need y'all understand. We launched this show September 4th, 2018.

Crystal Mason and her attorney were on our first show. This has been going on nine years, and he is still trying to put that woman in jail for voting in a race where her ballet wasn't even counted. Yeah, this man needs to be defeated. Tiffany Birx joins us right now. Glad to have you on the show. Is this one of the issues that you've been talking, especially to black voters about how this man is really, at this point, he is harassing Crystal Mason?

Absolutely. Thank you, Roland, for having me on the show. It's hypocrisy, and I think we know it, when we hear our president and other people in the Republican Party talk about election integrity, election fraud, all of those things. But right here in Tarrant County, we've had a jury and a court that has determined that Crystal Mason is not guilty. A high court made that determination.

And so for Phil Soros to now come back and say, no, we want to reverse that, it's just appalling, quite frankly. And I have gone on record to say that on day one, when I'm a little, elected the new DA in Tarrant County, my first item of business is going to be to withdraw that appeal so that Crystal Mason can move on with her life. She doesn't have to deal with the stress of this situation anymore and that she can move on. We are talking about a county, and I know you've talked to Commissioner Simmons. I speak with her on a daily basis. We're talking about a county where they are doing everything that they can to suppress the vote here in

Tarrant County because they know what's coming. They know that people are outraged about the corruption in our government. They know that people are upset about limiting or attempting to limit access to the polls. They know that people are very upset about the redistricting that's gone on, not only in the state of Texas, but right here in Tarrant County. And so I've talked to a lot of voters. We blockwalk every Saturday, Roland. Every Saturday. And we are going to. into neighborhoods and communities that people don't normally go to. And we're talking to them. And we are letting them know that this, as you've said,

is a very important and critical race for Tarrant County. And who their DA is matters, who their county judges matters, who their judges are matter. And we need to make some changes here in Tarrant County. And that's what we're fighting so hard to do. For a very long time, the people who ran for DA were always this tough in law and order. And then the people who understood criminal justice reform finally stopped focusing on politicians in Washington, D.C., and began to realize that, well, it's also about

electing sensible people as district attorney. Listen, prosecuting heinous crimes is critically important, but just filling our jails up senselessly also doesn't make sense as well. Your thoughts on that and how you would govern when it comes to deciding. what cases to pursue and what cases to adjudicate in a different way? You know, I am constantly on the campaign trail, and I tell people everywhere I go that we do not have to choose between justice and safety. We can have both. We can have a system, a criminal justice system in Tarrant County that is fair, that is

transparent, but that also holds people accountable. And I'll just tell you, district attorneys are the only judges, or excuse me, the only attorneys in Texas that actually have a mandate, a duty under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure that says we must seek justice, not simply convictions. And so the first thing I'll tell you that I will do is I will not make convictions the priority. You know, I have a lot of friends in the current administration, and when he came into office, he had a meeting with his lawyers and basically said, I need high numbers. I need you to put high numbers on the board. I need you to be trying cases that will make me look good. And that is not our mandate. That is, quite frankly, unethical as a district attorney.

It is our responsibility to seek justice. And so to that end, one of the things that I'm going to be doing when we're looking at the filing of case, in Tarrant County is we are going to be identifying people who have mental health issues. We are going to be identifying people who are first-time offenders, who are brought in for small misdemeanor charges, maybe even small drug charges, people who have addiction issues, our veterans, people who are unhoused in our community. And we are going to create the first ever diversion unit in Tarrant County. We will have a group of lawyers that will be reviewing those cases on the front end and

determining whether or not we need to be moving those cases through to prosecution or if there are other pathways that we can use to try to get people the help that they need. Because I'll tell you, people don't like to hear that. They want to say, you know, Democrats are soft on crime. But I'll tell you that most of the people that come through the criminal justice system are there because they have mental health issues, they have drug addiction issues, they are unhoused, veterans with PTSD. And so we need to be proactive as opposed to just being reactive. And if we can give people the resources they need, if they want them, then we can help reduce

our crime rate in Tarrant County. And that's something that we're going to do. Questions for my panel. Riesce, you first. Thank you, Ms. Berks, for being here. I'm glad that you mentioned the aspect about drug diversion because I noticed in the 2025 Tarrant County report that the first and the fifth top crimes that are prosecuted by the current office

are possession crimes. And, you know, that's something that obviously costs a lot of money to prosecute, it costs a lot of money to, if they end up getting incarcerated. So can you just talk from a fiscal perspective? about why it would make more sense to actually focus the office's resources and the county's resources on rehabilitation or on actually deciding what's most appropriate as opposed to

spending so much of the office's resources on these possession crimes. You know, about 10% of the crimes that are committed, or excuse me, most about, I think it's 80% of the crimes that are committed in a jurisdiction are committed about 10% of the population. So we have some bad actors in Tarrant County who commit crimes and they reoffend and they recidivate. That's just the nature of what we do. But the overarching or overwhelming majority of people

who come into Tarrant County's criminal justice system are those people that you're talking about. We would save a lot of money if we would just work and collaborate with organizations that are already on the ground here in Tarrant County wanting to provide assistance. I will tell you that I also ran in 2022 against Field Sorrels.

I only lost by about 37,000 votes. And to Rowland's point earlier, there are about 300,000 Democrats that didn't go to the polls in 2022. And so if we can get those people to the polls to vote, then we can have a DA who's willing. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit.

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And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this?

How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip the script? What is the surprise woman? who actually you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it.

I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is.

You know what I mean? Like, you're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb except for you. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy.

Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotbby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotbby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts.

You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the world. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To go into these communities, work and collaborate with different organizations that I've met along the way, funnel people through those organizations to give them the most.

resources they need and do exactly what you said, save money. You know, a lot of people don't know this, but I am running for Tarrant County criminal district attorney. And the criminal piece in that title basically says that not only is it my responsibility to prosecute crime, but it's also my responsibility responsibility to be fiscally responsible with the money for the taxpayers of Tarrant County. And so I think to your point, having services like that available where if people want them, they are available, is certainly a better pathway than incarceration whenever possible. Larry.

Yes. I'm curious in terms of when you're out talking to voters and you mean someone that says they're undecided, they're on the fence, what is some of the key points you highlight why your tenure would be different than your counterpart? You know, that's a great question. There are a lot of policy differences that I have with the current DA. One of them is how we handle police-involved shootings. You know, I was in that very DA's office for 24 years, and for years, the way they handled it is if there was a police-involved shooting, when a prosecutor took the case to the grand jury, they were not allowed to ask the grand jury for whatever decision they wanted. If I, as a regular citizen, committed a shooting that caused someone injury or even death, prosecutors would have no problems telling that grand jury you should indict.

And so one of the major policy changes that I'm going to be making is that if there is an officer involved shooting and the prosecutors under me feel like the facts and the law warrant an indictment, we will be asking the grand jury for an indictment. We won't go into the grand jury and say, you guys tell us what you want to do with this. We are the experts. We are supposed to be the ones to know whether or not the facts in the law are on our side. So we won't go in there and say, just tell us what you want to do. We will tell them what we think they should do.

And that's only fair. That's being transparent. That's being fair across the board and treating people equally. One of the other policy positions that make me different, and what I tell people about, is we're actually going to investigate jail deaths. You know, I know the current DA sent a letter to our now Attorney General Ken Paxton back in, I think it was March of this year, and said, do we really have to investigate these jail deaths if the person didn't actually die within the walls of the Tarrant County Jail? And Ken Paxton said, you know what? You don't. It's okay. And so there are several families out here in Tarrant County, some of whom I've talked with who have no idea how their loved ones died. There has been no investigation. And whether or not there is some criminal accountability that will be attached to that investigation or not, the fact remains that these family members deserve answers. And so one of the policy changes that I will absolutely make is we, We will be investigating those jail deaths to determine what happened so we can give answers to those families.

Greg. Thank you, Roland, and thank you, Attorney Berks. You mentioned earlier the role of law and the role of prosecuted to seek justice. And do you mind saying a word or two about what has happened in the case of Lon Burnham and E.J. Carrion and the state. representing former representative carrying. And what happened on the 4th of August as the commission met to try to shut down 140 sites, voting sites, and how these two men are being subjected to clearly selective

prosecution in an attempt to perhaps jail them for basically speaking their mind and speaking up as citizens. Could you say something about that and how you contrasted seeking justice versus silencing criticism? Absolutely. You know, I want to be a little careful about how I approach this answer because I do represent Mr. Burnham right now in his lawsuit. But what happened, and I think the nation saw it, everyone here saw it, is that Mr. Burnham went to the commissioner's court on August 4th simply to exercise his right under the First Amendment to free speech, to criticize his government about polling locations. He has long been an advocate for free and fair elections,

but also against attempts to suppress the vote. And so he went there that day to speak out along with Mr. Carrey-on to do the same. And essentially what happened was Tim O'Hare didn't like what he heard. And he attempted to stop him from speaking. I think it's interesting, and I find it very interesting, that Mr. Burnham is charged with disrupting a public meeting. And they also added another charge, which is a class A misdemeanor, a higher charge of hindering a public meeting. And I find it interesting that they did that because if you look at the video, I think it's very clear on who the person was that actually hindered and disrupted that meeting. And you could see that it was Tim O'Hare, the county judge himself.

My client was still had time on the clock. He was still attempting to exercise his rights under the First Amendment to speak. And the person that disrupted the ability of my client to speak has somehow gaslit the entire criminal justice system and turned it on its head to make it seem like it was my client that was actually disrupting that meeting. And so it is very alarming, to say the least, that our government and specifically my opponent, who had the opportunity to look at that case file, to look at the law, because I clearly didn't read the law, and say, you know what, we don't have enough evidence here to proceed. I wrote a three-page brief before the case was even filed, and I presented it to the DA's office. And I gave them the law and the facts and why this case does not meet the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt to prove that Mr. Lahn is guilty of the offense he's charged with.

And I gave them that on Tuesday and Tuesday night. Mr. Carion was arrested, and I sent a message to my client then, and I said, they're going to file. This doesn't have anything to do with doing what is right. This doesn't have anything to do with making sure the law is being, that people are abiding by the law. This is selective, as you put it, prosecution. And we know that because there have been other instances in Tarrant County where people have contacted the DA's office about wrongdoing, you know, open meetings violations. Or right here in Mansfield, where I live, we had someone on the ballot. who didn't tell the truth about where they lived.

There was no prosecution in those cases, even when there was a request for the DA to do so. And so it's selective prosecution, and we just need to call it out for what it is. All right. Folks, Tiffany Burks is running for attorney, excuse me, for DA there in Tarrant County. If you want more information on her campaign,

what you should do is go to www.w.competon. for DA.com. Tiffany for DA.com. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. Folks, a former North Carolina police officer has been released from custody. He was, of course, arrested for planning a mass shooting of black folks in New Orleans. Christopher Gillen was arrested on April 22nd in Florida after state authorities said he was traveling to Louisiana to carry out a mass shooting.

Deputies found a handgun in about 200 rounds of ammunition in his hotel room. room. It was extradited to Louisiana and held without bond on a state terrorizing charge. But in June, a grand jury declined to indict him, finding there was not enough evidence to move forward with the case. It's released shortly thereafter was not publicly reported until this week. Louisiana officials say jurisdictional issues complicated the case because the alleged threat was made in North Carolina and Gillum never entered Louisiana until after his arrest. Gillum's attorney says he is not facing charges in any other jurisdiction. Well, I sure as hell hope they're going to be watching him, Larry, because that doesn't bode well for black folks.

I mean, is this supposed to make me feel safer? Because I certainly don't. And Rowland, you know, you highlighted, they're not tracking this gentleman. We don't know where he is. And so it's really concerning for me because we know of all, in the last several years, These instances in which black people have been targeted in South Carolina, among other Buffalo, et cetera, other places, when we're simply just living our lives and minding our business. And when you add on the extra layer of the rhetoric, directed rhetoric, we've seen in black people in other monarchized communities over the last two years, these kinds of stories that he was, you know, June, it is now August, I deal with this gentleman is doing. and it's really concerning

and also the fact that it seems like it was like secondhand kind of like well, you know, no indictment and he's just kind of out there and it'll be interesting if this gentleman was targeting the group with the conversation

had been a lot different any efforts in maybe in North Carolina or somewhere else in terms of holding this gentleman accountable would have been a lot different but I think we know to answer that question out. while Rishi, not enough evidence. Well, the evidence that they needed was right in front of them

that this person is a danger to black people, so let them loose. This is Trump's America, so it doesn't surprise me at all. Great. Yeah, I agree with Risi. I mean, this is a race soldier. He is as a race soldier in an increasingly openly white nationalist, federal government and state governments in Louisiana, in North Carolina and Florida, he is offered protection.

They didn't name the event that he was allegedly targeting, but as you say, I mean, the arrest came on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. And so, you know, the idea that, you know, in Louisiana, Liz Rerell, a white nationalist attorney general of Louisiana, just her offer said that, you know, that his family had taken him to a treatment facility. out of the state and that he's not facing any additional criminal charges. North Carolina did say, well, hell, we'd like to know if he's headed back this way. Florida didn't respond to a request for comment about whether he might face additional criminal charges in his jurisdiction.

But it's very clear to me that this is how you stop a race soldier. The easiest way to do it that doesn't involve bloodshed of any type or taking the law into your own hand is to check your voter registration and break the back of white nationalist politicians in Louisiana and North Carolina and in Florida. And at the federal level, ensure that whoever comes into the Oval Office next puts back in place some Department of Justice officials that will do something other than signal to these race soldiers that we will support you in your efforts to attack black people. And if that doesn't happen, what does history show us?

shows us that people will take the law in their own hands. So either way, this will be ending. The best way to do it, it seems to me, is to do it through the political process, but make no mistake about it. If you think the American Negro is just going to sit and wait for some rape soldier to come blow their brains out, you don't know anything about history.

Indeed, indeed. Larry, Reese and Greg, I appreciate y'all been on today's show. Thank you so very much. See y'all next week. Folks, today at NABJ, the parents of Nolan Wales, John Attorney Ben Crock and Reverend Al Sharpton for a Q&A that was moderated by Tiffany Cross. As we see it early, we showed you a clip, an extended clip of Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries,

also sitting down with NABJ President Aaron Haynes. Then, of course, also, there was a news conference, and Congresswoman Lucy McBath spoke. So what we're going to do is we're going to show you. the almost 40-minute discussion with the Wells family, then Macbath's comments, and then we're going to show you the full of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. And so we're going to play that. I've got some National Association of Black Journalist's Board duties I have to attend to. And so that's going to fill out the rest of our show. I'll see y'all tomorrow. I'm filtering on the Black Star Network. Let's roll it.

And they are joined by civil rights attorney Ben Crump and Reverend Al Sharpton. In here, I know you've been on a whirlwind, I know you've been traveling a lot. So thank you all. And I know you all have other challenges happening around the country that you'll be getting to after this. But I am so—we are all so honored to meet you and we are so saddened that we are connecting with under these circumstances. You know, I want to tell you, they asked me to call them Christine and Elmore. I want to say Mr. and Mrs. Wonsley, but Christine and Elmore, I want to tell you in the audience

in this room, but also watching at home are thousands of black journalists. But in addition to being black journalists, these are mothers and fathers, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles of black children. And we see your humanity. And we're going to center that in this conversation. There you go. Yeah. I told Christine, if we cry on this stage, it's okay because we're among family. Amen.

So you take your time. Christine, I'm going to start with you on Friday, July 3rd. Nolan made you dinner. And so as you're telling us about the last time you saw your baby boy, I want you to talk to us about who Nolan was and tell us about that day. So Nolan is and was an incredible, I mean, just incredible soul. He was the person who, no matter where you were in life, what was going on, he was going to be your biggest cheerleader.

And I can attest to that because after COVID, my sister was like, oh, you know, you should do social media. I'm like, oh, I don't want to do social media. I like to just watch others. And then Nolan was like, no, mom, you should do it. I'll help you with the videos. I got you. And, you know, just anytime I was like, oh, I just really don't want to do this anymore,

Nolan was like, no, mama, you haven't posted today. And I'm like, I don't want to post. I'm tired, yeah. But, you know, that's the kind of person he was. He was God-fearing, God-loving, that boy. had faith beyond measure, he was just a bright light. And he was our bright light. As far as that day goes, went to work. And he was making salmon. So he was facetiming me as I'm trying to see patients kind of in between. Of course, not answering the phone in the

room. And he's like, hey, mama, how does this look? Is this enough season? Like, what am I supposed to do with this. And I was like, okay, I was like, you know, you don't have to do that. And he's like, no, you know, I'm going to take care of it. I was like, okay, okay, sure. And so he finishes cooking, get home. He's like, yeah, what you know about this? And he was, guys, when I tell you, he loved to joke. Like, he was just one of those people. He wanted everyone around him to smile, be happy, feel comfortable and accepted. And that is the kind of person God made him. You know, us as parents, we definitely had that influence, but Nolan was just naturally a peacemaker. And so, yeah, after that, it was, you know,

eight, and then he got ready to go. He did his normal, hugged us up. I love you, mom. I was like, you know, be safe, knowing this was going to be his last weekend before going back to school because football was starting. The summer training was starting. And this was his second year at Southwest. And so we knew this was going to be a big year for him. Dad and him had been training and doing all these things and really just kind of sitting with him and letting him know, like, hey, you know, we're going to the next stage in your life as well as, you know, your football career. So the focus was there. And he was ready. So he leaves that. So he leaves that day. He leaves that day with, he drives his car and he told us kind of a general like, hey,

you know, we're going to go to the island. Like, we knew that. I'm staying at Jack's house. And Jacks was a friend. I think we've met in passing before. And that's the thing. You know, I always say there's a difference in meeting someone, knowing of someone, and then knowing someone. Knowing implies that we've sat down. We've had discussions about your hopes, your dreams, you know, knowing you, okay, hey, he stayed the night at my house, which, Wyatt, one of his friends, he had stayed at our house a couple of times. And then, Jacks, again, that was one I just maybe saw him passing a few times. There's only a handful of young men that we actually knew, like, he grew up with. And when I say grew up, I'm saying from, like, first grade, they've known each other all through high school now that they're great.

graduated. And that would be like Jalen and Javan, LeBaron, those are kids that we knew. So it's just, it's been hard seeing all this kind of play out. And, you know, these are people that he considered friends. Yes. Dad, I want to ask you, because it was Warren Hudson, one of the people that he traveled with, who called to alert you all, that Nolan was missing. Yes. So we know at 544, the boat returns Nolan is not there. At 11 p.m., he calls to say Nolan is missing. I wonder if either of you, whoever wants to answer, what happened in those few hours that prompted Warren to be concerned? I'm not quite sure what would prompt him to be concerned, but all I can say is what I did that day. So me and my sister, we made an order of ponset, which is a Filipino noodle dish for one of our friends. They were having a big family get together, and we really didn't have anything planned for the fourth.

So me and my sister are cleaning up, and this is about eight. And she's like, hey, you know, no one hasn't texted us. And that was the thing. No one was really big with communication with us, right? And so I call him, doesn't answer. I end the call. Call back. And this is probably, I think, maybe around eight.

Don't quote me on the times, guys. So then I call again later around eight. Still no answer. And then I want to say I called one more time. And I think that was at like 1048. So I'm in the kitchen, my phone rings. Now, this is probably like early 11 o'clock, somewhere around there. Phone rings, when I make it back to the phone, and I'm like,

whose number is this? Because, you know, we get weird phone calls sometimes. They didn't leave a message. Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus. From $94 a month, price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.com for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsesives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. So I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

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you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your best. podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners.

Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head? How about we flip this script?

What is the surprise woman? Who actually you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird? Adam Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept.

You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity. Exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times, out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is.

You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's just a state. Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right. fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life, I don't care about your life.

And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration. and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time into space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it.

And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The number pops back up. I pick up the phone because it says maybe worn. and I'm like, Warren.

So this is 1107. That's per my cell phone records. So I answered the phone. He's like, hey, Ms. Christine, have you seen her talk to Nolan? I said, no, why? He should be with you guys. And he said, oh, no, well, you know, when we went to the island, there was a girl named Katie that he met,

and he had decided to stay behind. And I said, what? Because we know our child. And Nolan isn't one to be like, oh, well, I'm just going to throw caution to the wind, and I'm going to stay here with this girl that I just met. So I'm on the phone with him. Now I'm in a panic.

I'm running into my room. Elmore was in bed watching a different movie, and I'm just, I'm like, frantic. He's like, what's going on? I'm like, no one is missing. I'm trying to pull up the GPS as I'm talking to him. And at some point, he tells me that I was like, well, you know, his phone says GPS, Life 360, not Snapchat. Right.

Life 360 says that he's he's on land and he was like, well, no, I mean, you know, well, we have his phone. And I'm like, what? And I'm like, okay, because at that point, you're telling me, this is coming from Warren, don't worry about it, we're going to find him, it's going to be okay. Don't tell me not to worry. This is my child, my flesh and blood that I brought into this world. and you're telling me not to worry. Absolutely not. So then it was after the phone call ended, of course, asking him for information, what was he wearing?

He was like, last scene, Northwest Tip, black shorts, sunglasses. That's important. So I end up calling DMR, spoke with the DMR. She took all the- Just for our audience, DMR. So DMR is because he, when missing on the island, they are basically the Marine people, right? They're the ones who's going to launch the boats to go into the water and all that. But before I getting off the phone with Warren, he was like, hey, I know some people at Coast Guard.

I said, okay, he's like, I'm going to call Coast Guard, you call DMR. Get on the phone with DMR. I give the young lady the information. And she tells me, hey, you know, I got this. Let me call you back. because she was like, I'm not sure if this is going to be in our jurisdiction, essentially. So then she calls back and she tells me, okay, yeah, you know, we spoke with Coast Guard.

And I'm like, okay, but they're like, this isn't our jurisdiction. You have to contact the city of Ocean Springs. I said, okay, hang up the phone. Call in Ocean Springs Police Department. They say, hey, you have to physically come down and give a report. I said, okay. So on our way, because we don't live that far from the police station, on our way there, I was like, well, let me stop by the hospital, because there's a hospital that's maybe five minutes of the road from our house. Stop by there.

I'm like, hey, have you guys seen this kid? Has he been brought in? The lady's like, no, no, ma'am, you know, we had. And I said, okay, thank you. Run out. We go to the police department. Get to the police station. And the officer basically says, again, this is out of our duty.

jurisdiction. And at that point, I'm like, my God, who am I supposed to talk to? Who is supposed to help me with this? So then he said, it's going to be, you would have to call DMR. I was like, we've already called DMR. DMR said, it's not in their jurisdiction. So we end up, I think at some point I had called Jackson County Sheriff's Office. Yeah. So she calls back and she's like, hey, are you there? I say, yes, we're here, but he's telling us the same thing you guys told us. which is no, we can't take it. She gets on the phone with the police officer. Now, this is Jackson County Sheriff's Department speaking with the Ocean Springs Police Department.

Ocean Springs Police Department is saying this is why we can't take this information. She says, okay, he gives me the phone back, and she's like, okay, I'm just going to take it. I'm just going to take the information. And that was, we met an officer. It was after midnight. right. Yeah, somewhere after midnight, met him in the McDonald's parking lot, gave him the information. He was just like, okay, thanks. I was like, like, where is the urgency? And so, as far as we know, there were no boats on the water that night, we actually, his high school

football coach, Coach Bramlett, text Elmore that morning. He said, hey, man, I got a boat. Because again, we don't have boats. Let me make that very clear. We do not have a boat. We're not boating people. We don't do water like that. Okay? So Coach Bramlin is like, hey, I got a boat. So we was like, great, let's go. We're on the water. We go out there. We walk the island. Cell phone works perfectly fine. I actually had an almost an entire conversation with my grandmother, who was in a panic, as we're walking this island looking for anything. I just want to pause there. The cell phone worked fine because in the reporting there's been so much reporting that there's poor cell phone reception and this is some of the disputes that we have about that night dad so free to jump in here because

they're saying he met this young lady katie and that he stayed back according to the reporting katie is saying no he said he was going to go with his friends according to the reporting the friends said no he left us his phone because there was no reception that have Have you found any consistencies? Have you spoken directly with any of his friends? Well, the first inconsistency was you called me and telling my son stayed on the island to talk to a girl. My son would never do that.

That's not in his character. I didn't raise none of my kids to do that. The second thing is, you say he doesn't have his phone. He doesn't leave his phone. I would wake up sometimes in the morning and no one would have his phone here right in my face. And I'll wake in a cousin. The first and I'm like, boy, you don't get to come on my face. And he just laughed and they giggling and stuff like that.

So there's twice. To me, there's two lies of them told me as a father. Like I said, we went on the island. And actually a classmate of mine called me that morning. As we were going out to the island with Nolan's coach, he's like 40 miles away. He calls him, hey, man, I got the boat. Me and my boys were going to go out there and help you look.

I didn't call him. He called me. And we're going to start on this end. I said, well, we're probably going to start on the other end. So me, my wife, Coach Bramley, and a high school classmate of mine were the only one. We were the first ones out there licking. Like I said, we docked the boat, got out the boat, walked on the island.

She had a whole conversation with her grandmother on the island, got back on the boat, went back around the island. I guess that would be the north side facing the Gulf of Mexico. I get another phone call. So my phone worked fine. So this whole thing about not having phone service, I don't know. I don't know if it's the carrier wet, but I was working fine. I think that was around maybe 8 o'clock.

Yeah, because we finished up around. Who was it, Jackson County? Yeah, Jackson County Sheriff. Finally showed up. Yeah. A couple of boats, they finally showed up. By that time, I was like, he's not out here. I was more focused that he was at someone's house.

That was tough. So, and that was, that was, that was, that's where my hopes and feelings were. So we left. The county stayed out there. My friend, he stayed out there because he called. He's like, well, we're going to stay out here a little bit longer. I said, okay, I appreciate it. So we leave. Then I would say maybe a couple hours later, my friend calls me back and he said, well, we're going to give him and go. But he said,

look, I can gas the bow back up. And if you want to go back at we can go back out there. I said, I don't want to go back out to the island. I just have a feeling that he's not, he's not there. And I don't want to go back to the island. So he said, he off. We said, well, if you do, we can go right now. I said, don't worry about it. I appreciate you coming out there. But he said, at that time, there helicopters were out there, more and more Coast Guard, more people out there. So he go back, to go back, get back on there. And as far as they keys what was that that night?

That was that night. There was not the call. Okay, let me back up. As far as getting the car back, after we gave our report to Jackson County, the shared department night, we were trying to figure out

who the good report to. We had a friend and the family that located his phone. We wasn't there to get the phone, but apparently there was some kind of friction be getting his phone. We don't know what the friction was. So the phone and the key were at the same location, which was Jack's house.

Okay. And again, all of these kids share their locations on Snapchat. And so she was like, hey, I can go pick his, I can go pick his phone up, not thinking that his car is there, you know, which she stopped everything. She was doing her and the boys, they went out. Like, we were all out searching for him that night. And, yeah, like Elmore was saying, there was an issue, some type of friction. The cops ended up coming and they left. And so then kind of the same thing when we came to pick up the key. Elmore went up there asking for the key.

Didn't know where the key was. And all of a sudden we know where the key is. But see, hold on. And this is another thing that bothered me. So when we got to the house, you know, it was some of his other friends where they there, you know, and they were, you know, beating on a door like, well, no one in there, we're not in there, you know, being known a little time getting in the house.

So I walk up, I walk up to the door, and I'm calming them down, because for one, okay, you allow, two, you're in these people's house. So if you tie these people house up, this could be a whole nother issue. I want y'all bought in it. And three, I need you, I need you guys to calm down, and I need them to kind of trust me as being an adult

so I can get something out of. So I get them out of them out of the house. house and then Jacks finally comes down the stairs I guess in the room Harold messed up like he just woke up whatever I said look I said I'm Nolan's father his car's outside I need to get his car and all this personal effects that's that may be left over you and he also man no one was like my what I said no one was like my brother I said well if no one was like your brother would you please go and get everything he is so I can get his car

I can go home She walks off, two or three minutes later, come back. I don't see the keys. Okay. So I leave out the house. Go back outside, stand by the car. During their time, one of the guys that was in the house, one of the other friends, he was on the phone with a girl who was apparently there with them earlier that day.

And she was telling him that his keys was on top of the Xbox in his room. So he goes back out to the door by herself. and we're still out by the car. And lo and behold, here comes the keys. So now to me, you allowed me three times. I don't believe nothing that you tell me on out. And this is Jacks. This is Jacks.

And eventually he does give you the keys. Yeah, eventually give you. But there was friction getting the keys. So when you tell me, my son is on left still on the island with a girl, two, you have his phone. And three, you don't give me the keys. I ask. I don't know any father who will believe just if one of my friends did that. I'm going to be causal with you, but I'm going to watch it. And I just...

It's, it's, Ben, I want to ask you because I'm hearing these two parents who essentially has to become search and rescue or law enforcement, looking for their own child with such a lack emergency on behalf of law enforcement. Obviously, we're talking to black journalists. We can't ignore the ugly racial history of Mississippi. I looked into the demographics of the Jackson County Sheriff

Department. It's quite asymmetrical. But also just the general attitude and the lack of value when it comes to black life. Does this sound like a normal process for when an 18-year-old goes missing to you? What holes have you seen in your looking into this case?

Tiffany, that was the question that Christine and Elmore had when they first called us, they wanted the truth of what happened to their 18-year-old son, Nolan Wells, and they had concerns whether they were going to get a fair and impartial investigation. And from that day to this one, it had been the same objective to have truth, transparency, and find out what happened to Nolan. They said, we want a thorough investigation because when they found Nolan, they expressed to me that the sheriff had already said no foul play. And they were like, no, my son, he knows how to swim.

Our son is a college athlete. Our son is in great shape. We don't believe that he just drowned and nobody knows nothing. Nobody saw nothing. I mean, there are about 300, 400 people on the island. And so that's what they were saying. We want to know what happened.

We want truth. We want transparency. We don't want his death to be swept under the rug. Well, just so make sure the audience and the people watching at home know. So they did declare very quickly, as you're noting, that he drowned when his body was recovered on July 6th. Mom and dad, and you all know, that he is a student athlete able to swim on July 4th, on Horn Island. It was very crowded. Certainly the suggestion is someone would have seen a child in distress. There is going to be

the convening of a grand jury. Now, the DA of this area, Angel Myers McElrath, a very out loud, proud Republican. If there is a U.S. attorney appointed to this case, it will likely be a Trump appointee. I'm just curious, Ben, from you and Rev. I think we have to be very candid here. What concerns do you have about the racial animus that we are seeing so much of play in this case? Well... You are Rev, whoever.

All I'll say and then defer to rev. You want to believe that this is a child, that everybody is going to do their level best to find out what happened so these brokenhearted parents will know what happened to their child. In time, we've seen Christine and the family be attacked just for asking questions. What happened to my child trying to say, no, no, we want to question this part of the investigation, that part of investigation, because day one, you said no foul play, but tell me now, what are you doing to be able to get us to the truth? And that is, it causes them sleepless nights. We talk at night. And so trust, but verify. We are trying to cooperate

everything we can do to say, hey, we want to help, but we want you to give them a thorough investigation. We want you to do for him what you would do for your child. Rev, I'm going to come to you in a sec,

but you brought up something, Ben, about attacks. And certainly, as journalists, we have a keen eye, and I have noticed that the narrative around this story has shifted to the, threats that are going to the young men who was with Nolan. They've hired attorneys who previously represented Donald Trump in cases.

They've gone on very MAGA-friendly podcast. And I just want to make sure that we keep the main thing, the main thing, the narrative to the victim, to the actual child who died. And I'm curious, Christine, if you can weigh in on what threats have you and your family experience. So there have been a big smear campaign just not not only professionally but

personally for me and they attacked your nursing license. Yes so it started out with one-star reviews of people saying they saw me my office verify that these were incorrect and then it went so much as to someone contacted the board of nursing

And then that started, that opened the investigation for the professional misconduct. There was no evidence presented for that claim. And the investigator I spoke with, he said, you know, we have to do our due diligence. I said, I understand it. I respect it. He was like, I'm sorry it's coming at this time. I was like, no, I get it, do what you have to do because I know who I am. I know what kind of care I give to my patients.

I know the relationship that we have. I'm grateful that my patients, a lot of them, are still trusting and loving in the care that they know they're going to get with me. And so these attacks are not going to, it's not going to break me. I have to find out to find out what happened to Nolan. That is the only question we've ever asked. We've never blamed anyone. We've never tried to smear anyone. I know I heard something about the picture.

that picture was sent to me because the... This is the picture of him on the boat. On the boat with the people. Yes. And what it was is they were like, the person was like, Ms. Christine, the information is incorrect. This is what he was wearing.

Because initially he was in black shorts, which again, that is the information I received from worn verbally and via text. When she sent me that picture, I was like, oh, completely different color. These are like a blue-gray short. So we have to correct that. But I'm grateful.

We are grateful to all of you. Thank you for keeping our son's story alive. And thank you so much, Tiffany, for having us. I think that's part of our assignment here, our responsibility. So often in newsrooms, we have to defend and define black life and defend and define our own humanity. And so it makes a difference, The same way in other newsrooms, when you see someone that you feel like they're familiar,

that so happens as they resegregate newsrooms and lay off black journalists in mass, that goes away. So the people in this room have a keen interest in this story because they see your humanity. And that's what we center in this conversation. Rev puts us in historical context for us, because as I look at Mississippi, I don't have to tell you of all people. some of the immediate thoughts that surfaced for us here? Well, when I got the call from Ben Crump and he had the parents connected, and they told me the story. I had not heard the story.

I heard something about some in Mississippi. But when I heard the details, the thing that jarred me from a civil rights point of view, I've been working, Ben has come National Action Network for 20-some years case and then from there on and on and on and on. And if it's not a civil rights position, we don't get involved. And when they told me

that law enforcement said there is no foul play, that's a prejudgment. And I said, wait a minute. They said, the repairs repeated to me in the phone. I said, they said it was this two days after it happened. And how do you investigate

and there's no foul play? and you don't even know what happened yet. So that's what perk my interest. I said that, well, we'll be involved and we'll help to the best of our ability. Talk to another day or two. I said, y'all come to New York. We'll have a national press conference.

That's how we broke the story. The first national press conference, they did it at our headquarters, National Action Network. Then all of a sudden, it was all of this attack for getting involved. And so, and they asked me to do the eulogy. I said, we'll take care of the funeral.

Tyler Perry called me. I said, no, I'll take care of it. So the thing that bothered me, one, it was pre-judgment. Second, the parents of the guys that were with him start talking about they was going to sue us for getting involved. And sue us, I don't even know the kid's name. So you can't say I'd defame your son. I don't know your son's name.

But I would say this on this stage. I want them to sue me first. And I'll tell you why. No, I'll tell you why. and National Action Network, you've served the papers, because I want to depose your son. If you sue, the plaintiffs are deposed. So rather than us depend on a Mississippi DA

who's already had people saying it was no foul, let's go to civil court, any kind of court you want to go to. Because you can't make this make sense. And direct to your point at Tiffany, as I said in the eulogy that I did, I don't know what happened. The parents never said they knew what happened. They never said

it was racial. Racial. I don't know it was racist. But they don't know it wasn't racist. You don't know what happened. So why are you prejudging it unless something is there you don't want out? Second thing is, you know,

and I said this to Elma and Kristen, I had hurt my knee. I had torn my meniscus. And when I taught, I told Ben the truth, I did it working out one morning, but I told them I got it because I was on my knees praying too much. But anyway, when they took me to say they may have to do surgery, the first thing they said is, well, we got to get your medical history from your primary doctor.

I said, okay. So I said in the eulogy that I don't know what happened, but I got your history in Mississippi. And the history tells me black boy go out with three white kids, three white kids come back. There's a blurred story and what happened. Now you're all hostile and all upset. Didn't have the keys, but then you had the keys. Something about this don't make sense, given your history. And I'm going to stay on this until we find out what happened.

It may be nothing, but we're not going to leave that up the chance with people that are distorted. We're going to stay on this case. And lastly, lastly, since they want to talk about lawsuits, one of the things tying your morning together, Tiffany, they may come back, as you suggested, playing right-wing politics with this, with the local prosecutor, may even with the federal people.

But if we have a change in January and there is a Democratic House, I said that if Hakeem becomes the speaker, he needs to have the chair, judiciary, subpoena them to the judiciary department, testify. Oh, that's what this vote means. We need to have a check and balance of government so that we got somewhere to go. We can't depend to go to Trump's Justice Department. So we need to really mobilize so people like these two parents can protect their children. Yeah, absolutely.

I think you laid out such a great example on how the tentacles of white supremacy cast such a dark shadow over almost every aspect of what your parents went through. I know that there are so many more questions that I have, and I'm sure the audience has. As all my broadcasters know, I have an IFB, and they've been telling me to rap for about 10 minutes. But, no, we want it. It was my pleasure to go over time, and not only my pleasure, my responsibility, to give you all a platform to share your story. I think it's so important, and I think this is the responsibility that the black journalists in this room take very seriously and will carry with them back to their newsrooms where they may be the only or back to their platforms where they are building reach or have a wide reach. So I thank you all for sharing your time and being so open. There will be a press conference.

There was an autopsy, a second autopsy that Ben Crump initiated, that I believe Colin Kaepernick helped to fund. There were questions around that, and so please, I encourage credentialed media to please go to the press conference and the access for credentialed media will be on the NABJ app for more information. So I don't want you all to think I didn't have more questions, but I passed the baton to you all to go ask all the additional questions. And I just want to thank all of you all sincerely for being here, and I want to thank you NABJ for being such an attentive audience. to the stage, NABJ President Aaron Haynes. You just want to do photos. You were so great. Vivid memories for me and my own family,

having lost Jordan to unnecessary gun violence in November 2012, Black Friday simply because he was black and playing loud music in his car. And so here we are again today, I hear for the loss of another black young man in our community. And we find ourselves asking the same questions. How did it happen?

Why did it happen? This family stands here demanding answers. This family deserves answers. I myself sought the same justice from my son, Jordan, that they're seeking for theirs, and they deserve answers. and they deserve justice. Justice that should not be denied this family or should ever be denied to any of our...

Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month, price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. If your bookshelf and your For-U page are equally important, to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought

daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture. moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside

compelling characters, then that is the Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka The Biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us.

Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip this around? What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think it's the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show.

I would never expect. I have. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity. Exuding.

I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times, out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, they're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb.

And fake. Right, fake and also not interested. or just like, oh, I've got my life, I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize. maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Children are lost loved ones. As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, I'm the second vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, We are demanding a full federal investigation. Cash Patel, we're demanding a full federal investigation as to what has actually happened to Nolan Wells. We want to make sure that every stone is unturned because his life matters. All of our children's and our families' lives matter.

and we must fight back. We must stand up and we must demand accountability for this family's loss. We cannot turn a blind eye to what continues to happen again and again and again. That's the reason why I ran for Congress to make sure that we continue to put a face

on what's happening to our families and our communities every single We must say Nolan's name. Say his name. Lift his name. And as the national black journalists of this country, you have the ability to be able to lift this story and not let it die.

We see over and over again these kinds of tragedies in our communities. that continue to happen. And they make it to CNN. They make it to MSN now. They make it to our local news for maybe 30 days, if that. And then the stories are gone. And the carnage is left with the families and the communities

that have lost someone that they love. So I thank the national black journalists. Thank you for lifting this family story. Do not let it die. Continue to say his name. Continue to tell his story because they deserve justice. And it matters.

It mattered for me. It mattered for Trayvon. It mattered for Eric Brown. It matters for all of our loved ones that we have lost. All right. Now, do you want to go ahead and get your Knicks references out of the way before we get started or what? Allie, all get it out of your system right now before we get started.

Orange and blue skies. Now also, before we get started, I should note that this audience can submit questions online. So what you want to do is you want to look for the prompt to do so on your NABJ app. It's under the Newsmaker Plenary event, okay? All right, well, Leader Jeffries, let's get started. Now, you're about 82 days out from the midterm elections, which you're going to decide which party controls Congress.

Today you're here with us in Atlanta, Georgia, in a room full of black journalists. What is your message to this audience in this moment? Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you, Erin, for your leadership and to NABJ. Thank you for what you do. This is a moment of peril, but a moment when the press overall and I think the black press in particular is needed, your independence, your voice, your authenticity and your connection to the communities that you cover, as well as to the country.

Our journey, as African Americans, of course, has been a freedom struggle from the very beginning, and we've been on a long walk toward freedom with fits and starts, with progress and backlash that has been the reality of our walk over the last 250 years. But every step of the way, the black press in covering that journey, authoritative, authentically has been an important part of making sure that truth is being spoken to power and we need truth spoken to power now more than ever Yeah, and what do you see the role of black journalists in doing that especially with the truth being under attack and under threat from the highest levels of our government? Well, in my view, what we're dealing with in terms of the opposition right now is three diabolical elements. Facts don't matter.

hypocrisy is not a constraint to their behavior. These extremists will say one thing, and then they'll do the exact opposite. And I'm convinced that they believe that shamelessness is a superpower. So when you're dealing with that kind of adversary, or at least that kind of entity, the Trump cartel, sitting in the White House, highest office in the land, then being unbought, unbossed, unafraid, in terms of speaking truth to power in that regard is going to be critically important. Now, I think the American people aren't buying what they're selling because we've seen historic disapproval across almost every measure, right?

That's general disapproval, that's the economy, certainly that's health care, even immigration enforcement, and certainly this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to go back in time a little bit because when you can When I came into Congress in 2013, John Boehner was the House Speaker. Nancy Pelosi was in your position now as minority leader, and you were 44 years old. A lot of people saw you as a firebrand progressive coming in with a lot of big ideas on criminal justice.

I think I was 42, but not that I'm talking. Well, you know, fact check me. Economic opportunity on generational change. Do you recognize that progressive platform in what the progressive wing of your party is fighting for now? Yeah. I do think that we are in an important moment of genera. moment of generational change. And, you know, I give a lot of credit to Speaker Pelosi, you know, then Majority Whip,

Clyburn, Majority Leader Hoyer, who in 2022 decided that they were going to voluntarily pass the baton to the next generation of House Democrats across the board in leadership and beyond. So that's a transition that, of course, is necessarily underway. And I've always thought about the House of Representatives. It's a special institution. It's the institution that the framers decided to be the closest, wanted to be the closest to the American people. Reflect the hopes, the dreams, the aspirations, the fears, the concerns, the anxieties, the life experiences, and the passions of the American people.

I think it was Madison who said the House should be an intimate sympathy at its best with the American people. And so in order for that to happen, I think transition, change, renewal will continue to be an important part of the story. And that energy is being brought to the House in a variety of different ways, including from our progressive members. Yeah. I mean, I think we could see that with these midterm elections in November. You've got the Democratic Socialists of America, DSA, with several candidates who were on the ballot headed into these midterm elections. your thoughts on what that energy, how that represents some of the change that you are talking about, that's happening in the progressive wing of your party? Yeah, so I think we'll see what happens in terms of what the caucus looks like on the other side of the midterm elections.

Certainly our focus right now is making sure that we win as many seats as we can in November, flip as many red seats blue and take the gavels back so we can actually function like a check and balance on and out of control administration as opposed to what Republicans have been doing, which is a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump's extreme agenda, entirely inconsistent with the vision of the House of Representatives. I mean, it was interesting. King Charles, when he came to the Congress, joint addressed to the House and to the Senate, stood there as a king and referenced the Magna Carta as the principle and foundation for the notion

in America that executive power is subject to checks and balances. And of course, when he said that, everybody on the House side, the Democratic side of the House stood up and gave him a rousing ovation. But then I looked over to the other side of the aisle, the Republican side, and they stood up and gave him a standing ovation. And I was very confused, y'all, because King Charles was talking about them and their failure to actually... bring to life this principle. So we're going to do that. That'll connect all House Democrats,

whether those are new Dems, progressives, or blue dogs. But I think most importantly, everybody is focused on the notion that life is too expensive in the United States of America. There's far too many people. Certainly this is the case in our community, in the black community, who are working hard, they're playing by the rules, but they can't thrive and they can barely survive. And that's got to change. And so we have to make life more affordable, more comfortable for the American people. And that's what unites every part of the House Democratic Caucus. Yeah. Well, I will say there's one thing I want to ask about, and that is aid for Israel,

because that may be one of the most contentious issues in your caucus. Many members, including you, have said that they want that aid to come with conditions. But what do you say to others who want to cut that aid off completely? Well, I think that that's certainly a conversation that we're going to have about what's the appropriate way to bring to life, I think, some principles that pretty much everybody within the House Democratic caucus, and I think America agrees with, the way I would articulate it is like this. One, you know, we believe in a safe and secure Israel, right, or Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, we also believe in an independent Palestinian state that for far too

long has been denied and that should be able to provide dignity and self-determination for the Palestinian people. And then the question becomes, how do you bring those two principles to life in a part of the world that has been contested for thousands of years? And I think what is clear in terms of what needs to be done is that one, you've got to reconstruct Gaza, you've got to allow new Palestinian leadership to emerge. Hamas has got to be out. You gotta figure out how you can economically invest in Gaza and the West Bank, you know, in ways that allow the Palestinian community to thrive on a pathway toward an independent state.

And then you gotta figure out, you know, how to make sure that people who have been breaking the law, U.S. law, are held accountable. And certainly that's the case with respect to settler violence in the West Bank that's out of control. Yeah. Well, I want to stay on the DSA for a minute because they're pushing a lot of these progressive candidates, and many of them are loud about getting big money out of politics. What do you make of that push? What is your thought about that? I think that we have to end Citizens United. And one of the things, there's been a series of Supreme Court decisions that have eroded democracy in America. ending Citizens United was perhaps the first. That came in 2010. Then in 2013, you had the Supreme Court and the Shelby County case decimate Section 5.

That was the initial attack on the Voting Rights Act. Decimate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Then a few years after that, you had the Supreme Court declare that partisan gerrymandering is all fair. the political sphere and that there's nothing to prohibit it in the Constitution. And then you had, I think, the final devastating two decisions most recently by the Supreme Court, which is one, of course, completely gutting the Voting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the most recent CalA decision. And then the decision that I think has unleashed this unprecedented corruption on the country

is in the Trump v. United States case where they gave the President basically complete immunity as if he was a king. So you have a series of systematic decisions going over the last 15 plus years that have really decimated sort of our democratic fabric and we've got to unravel all of it. But Citizens United, I think, was the first. And we support full repeal of Citizens United. You can only bring that about in two different ways, either a constitutional law amendment or change in the Supreme Court, I think we're open to aggressively pursuing both. Got it. I want to let you all know you should still, for those of you who may have come in, please,

you can ask questions, you can submit your questions by using the app that is your NABJ app. You can go under Newsmaker Plenary and you can submit your questions, keep those coming, and we're going to try to get to some of those in just a bit. So Leader Jeffries, even if your party wins back the majority in November, that one change the White House, President Trump will still be in office. You've talked about your two sides, you know, seeing your two sides, you talked about seeing the Democratic Party coming together on the other side of November, but do you see possibly Democrats and Republicans being able to come together to accomplish anything

substantial for the American people and even in this new climate? Yeah, I think we have to try, anchored in the premise that Donald Trump has broken every single promise that he's made to the American people of consequence. He promised to lower costs on day one, costs haven't gone down, costs have gone up, as a direct result of Trump policies, including his tariffs that have increased costs on everyday Americans, people in our community and beyond, by thousands of dollars per year. He promised that immigration enforcement was going to target the worst of the worst. But immigration enforcement has basically unleashed ICE brutality on American citizens like Alex Freddie and Renee Nicole Good, in those instances, killing them in cold blood.

And certainly, ICE brutality violently targeting law-abiding immigrants all across the country. I was just with several in New Jersey connected to Delaney Hall earlier in this week. He broke that promise. He promised to release the Epstein files, broke that promise. We forced a vote on the issue. About half the files had been released. The other half still being subjected to a cover-up by the Department of Justice. Donald Trump promised to love and cherish Medicaid.

Then enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, costing about 14 million Americans their health care and devastating hospitals, nursing homes, and community-based health clinics. in our communities and in rural America, the heartland of America, and all across America. And then lastly, of course, this guy promised that he was in office not to start endless wars in the Middle East, but to stop them. And then turned around and got us involved in the reckless war of choice in Iran. So he's broken every promise that he's made.

Now, down the stretch, we've made clear to the American people, we're fighting for an affordable America. And we've said that looks like three different things, on costs, on care, and then on corruption. On costs, we've got to lower the costs of groceries, of gasoline, of housing, because life is far too expensive. On health care, we've said, look, this is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. We've got to make health care affordable for every single American, and that's our commitment. Reverse the damage that's been done, and then build something better. And then on corruption, our view has been, I don't know that we'll get partnership on corruption, but we'll try to seek some common sense Republicans, the few that are left in Washington,

to work with us on costs and on health care. But on corruption, we've said, if you've got people in office who are focused primarily in enriching themselves, their family, their friends, and their donors, then they're not focused on making life more affordable for the American people. And so from beginning on day one, we're going to hold the crooks accountable. These are the explicit promises that we're making to the American people, and we have a responsibility to try to bring that about. And if we're in a divided government scenario,

we can do the accountability stuff in the majority on our own, holding gavels and subpoena power, but in terms of actually moving legislation that makes life better for the American people, we'll need a handful of Republicans to join us. Now, we've forced Republicans to join us in the House on a variety of different issues, including extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years on our terms, force that vote, and then won that vote in January. I think in the majority, we'll have the ability to do more.

Well, I want to back up to before day one and think about the other side of the November election, because, you know, in 2020, when you were able to regain control, there was an insurrection. at the U.S. Capitol. Are you concerned about possible backlash after the November election? Well, I think we're operating under the premise that the Trump administration and that Republicans have adopted voter suppression as an electoral strategy. And they're going to do everything they can to try to rig the election in their favor. We've already seen that through the gerrymandering efforts. And then the Supreme Court aided and embedded the MAGA extremists,

extremists by unleashing Jim Crow-like tactics in the South. And, you know, we've seen that now in Tennessee and in Louisiana and in Alabama. Certainly in Alabama, Shamari figures running hard, and I believe he's going to hold that seat, but making it very difficult for the African-American community to elect the candidate of their choice in all three places. Certainly, that's the case in Tennessee and in Louisiana, with Cleo Fields deciding. not to seek re-election as a result of what has happened. So we're operating under the premise that we've got to put together the largest voter protection effort in the history of the country.

And that's what we've been doing, House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic Attorney General's Association, the Democratic Secretaries of State Association, and then working in concert with civil society, the faith community, civil rights groups, organized labor, as well as civil liberties groups and good government groups. It will be the largest voter protection effort in the history of the country. That's to make sure that the right to vote is fully vindicated. And the press's role in exposing these efforts and the schemes that's coming from the other side is going to be important so that the American people have full visibility.

into what the other side is trying to do. They can't defend their record. And so they're going to try to alter the landscape electorally, and we can't let it happen. Well, I mean, some of that coalition building, some of the concern I hear you voicing, is that because in part you may be worried that the president could declare national emergency as he has not ruled out doing ahead of the 26th election? Yeah, I think we've always viewed this as a three-dimensional battle, legislative battle, litigation battle and then a battle for the hearts and minds of the American people and

communities all across the country and we got to be able to do all three and we have been doing all three and we've got to continue at the highest level of vigilance in that regard listen anything is possible I was there on January 6th and on the house floor and I'll never forget you know that day and it's a day that no American should ever forget. It was a violent insurrection. And I was seated in the leadership section at the time. And I was the number five Democrat, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus at the time. And there was a debate that was going on, I think it was to certify the results from Arizona, because we proceed in alphabetical order. And Sergeant at Arms interrupts the debate and says the mob

has breached the Capitol, they're on the second floor, so everybody needs to be prepared to hit the ground and secure the gas masks that are underneath your seats. Now, I gotta be honest y'all, I was in Congress at that point, a little over four terms. I had no idea there were gas masks underneath each and every seat. So I'm thinking myself, damn, this is a situation right now. And, you know, eventually we were all

evacuated and then obviously we saw what unfolded and this was this was an intentional effort to halt the peaceful transfer of power never before seen in American history and if it's happened before as Jim Clyburn the great Jim Clyburn often says it can happen again and so we'll be prepared well what happens if you don't win failure is not an option And look, if the Knicks just won the championship for the first time in 53 years, the Democratic comeback can take place. I set myself up for that one.

So look, you've got progressive saying... Get Bell, Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bill. Connection is everything. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsesives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages

inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz,

and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip this crap? What is the surprise woman who actually you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird?

Adam Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I have. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I am open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine.

Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity. Exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times, out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is.

You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right, fake. and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us.

Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration. and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people.

Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now, husband Andrew was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of

Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. They want leadership. Democratic voters are saying they want a fighter. How do you feel like you've earn their support. Yeah. Well, you know, I've been proud of the effort that's been underway by House Democrats from the very beginning. But it's not been easy.

It's been tough because the moment is tough for the American people. And what I think we've talked about as House Democrats is, look, we have to continue to stretch. We're in a more is more environment. And because of the unprecedented extremism being unleashed on the American people, we're we have to be in a position to do more and do more differently and do more creatively. And that's what we've tried to do. It's both, right, stopping the extremism whenever and way ever possible from being unleashed than the American people.

And then articulating a forward vision for what we believe needs to be done in this country, fighting for an affordable America, holding the crooks accountable, affordability, accountability, cost care, corruption. And I think after the 2024 election, there were a lot of people who were understandably, including Democrats, asking the question, have, has the party forgotten how to win? This happened again. And now we all have to deal with the fallout from him coming back into office. I think what we have shown collectively, and this is because of the American people, over the last 18-plus months, is that we've won every meaningful election up and down the ballot across the country,

at the local level, at the city level, at the county level, and certainly at the state level. I think there's something like 31 legislative seats that have changed hands over the last 18 months. All 31 of those seats have been won by Democrats. Republicans haven't flipped a single seat. And we've seen, you know, movements emerge and different type of candidates get elected in New York City, in New Jersey, in Virginia, Prop 50 in California, across the board. So I do think that we've turned the corner, but we, of course, have to finish the job. And finishing the job is not the November midterm elections. That's just the beginning

of the end. It's not the end. We can cut his presidency legislatively in half. by winning the midterm elections, and that's incredibly important. But then we've got to turn this situation around. And by the way, I should just say, this is not all political. We are in a backlash moment, and the people in this room have been on the wrong side of that backlash, as have many in our community across the country. But we're in a backlash moment in America. And, you know, we've seen from the very beginning of our journey, whenever progress

is made in this country, it often triggers a backlash. And we had the progress of emancipation, the progress of reconstruction. And then after 13 or 14 years, that progress is short-circuited by a backlash and the rise of Jim Crow. The rise of the KKK, the lynching epidemic, Plessy versus Ferguson. And it takes almost 100 years to unravel that backlash. And then a new generation emerges civil rights heroes and foot soldiers to usher in a new era of progress for our community and for America. Through the civil rights legislation that was historic, Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, Great Society programs that Dr. King and others fought for Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, things of that nature. But then that immediately is followed by a backlash with the election of Richard Nixon in 1968,

who ran on a platform of capitalizing on the anxiety to all the progress that had just been made. And then in his first term, declares a war on drugs, which is a war on us. And when he declares drug abuse public enemy number one, in his first term, in the summer of 19th, There are less than 300,000 people incarcerated in America. Today, about 2.2 million, disproportionately black, Latino, or low income of every race. Progress, followed by backlash. And then you have what I believe was a third moment of progress in this country.

And that's the election of Barack Obama. historic election, incredible thing for us to go from the outhouse to the White House. And of course it represented significant progress and some incredible things, including the Affordable Care Act, were accomplished. And our children, being able to look at a President Obama, a First Lady Michelle Obama, their eloquence, their brilliance, their class, their character. of course, Sasha, Malia, and grandma, all being up in the White House as well. What an incredible thing, that progress.

But you remember, many were asking the question at the time. Does this mean that America has now entered into a post-racial phase? That's the question, Roland remembers, that was being asked at the time. Those of us who have studied history know that those was meaningful. progress, it also meant that it was about to trigger a ferocious backlash. And that's exactly the moment that we're in right now, and we've got to show up with character and courage and conviction to get through it. Yeah.

Well, I want to get to a couple of questions from the audience if we can. You talked about the Voting Rights Act. We've got a question asking, why didn't Congress pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act between 2021 and 2023 when it was introduced and Democrats held majority in all three branches. And if you all are victorious in November, should you be the next speaker, would this be one of your first priorities? Yeah, absolutely. I've said that publicly on the campaign trail, on the Florida House, and all across America. And just a nuance to that question, the House did pass the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act under the leadership of Terry Sewell.

and the CBC, not once but twice. We sent it over to the Senate, not once but twice, including when we had the trifecta, and Joe Biden was president. And unfortunately, you had two, though we had 51 Democrats, there were two Democrats at the time, I guess they maybe have been independents caucusing with the Democrats,

who chose not to create an exception to the filibuster in order to allow voting rights to be fully brought to life in the United States of America. And that was a mistake. And what we've seen from the other side is that when they have power, they use it. And so I think one of the lessons has to be

when we have the ability to move forward and get meaningful things done, we've got to use it. And President Obama, by the way, here in Atlanta in 2020 during John Lewis's funeral, pointed out, President Obama, that the filibuster is a relic of the past and needs to be reformed. And we certainly support filibuster reform. Well, talking about reform, we have another question. It's about the Supreme Court.

You mentioned two ways that the Supreme Court could be overhauled. Could you expand on that and are Democrats prepared to take action on that now? In my view, dramatic Supreme Court reform is necessary. And, you know, I'm going to leave it to the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, led by Jamie Raskin, who will be the next chair, the American people, give us the ability to govern on their behalf. majority and there's a variety of different options that are on the table and I think that we can't foreclose any single one of them.

The Supreme Court, the conservative right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has become, you know, basically a subsidiary of the MAGA Republican Party. That's what that decision in Calais said to me and then they turned around when a court in Alabama, right, a three-judge panel in Alabama, found that the new map that Alabama Republicans wanted to put in place that would gut the second black opportunity to elect district, the district that Shemari figures now holds. That three-judge panel said that it was an attack, a racially motivated attack on black voters in Alabama. One of those judges, I believe, was appointed by Ronald Reagan, and the other two were appointed by Donald Trump.

If a three-judge federal panel appointed by Republican judges, two of whom were appointed by the current president, could conclude that that was a racially motivated map attacking black voters and the Supreme Court steps in and overturns that decision, it tells me that they don't have the credibility for us to move forward, acting like everything. is okay and the status quo is acceptable is not and we're going to push for dramatic reform in the Supreme Court. Well, Leader Jeffries, thank you again for coming here, being with us, answering some of the questions from the black journalists in the room and talking here with me. Thank you, Erin. You got it.

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Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space.

You're hired to fill the space with you. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you hear the new episode of the Hey Jonas Podcast? We are at D23, so we'll see who stops by. The cast of Frozen stopped by. Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Adina Mansell. I auditioned for Frozen. What?

For Christoph. They said, okay, what are you going to be singing today? I said, I don't know. That must have been why you didn't get it. Oh, you probably won't. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars and more. And I guess I can share that... No way.

Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Hayes, Davenport. and Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us.

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