#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Our Voices, Our Vote: VA Town Hall, Shutdown Day 21, Hakeem Jeffries Under Threat

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

10.21.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Our Voices, Our Vote: VA Town Hall, Shutdown Day 21, Hakeem Jeffries Under ThreatWe are LIVE in Fredericksburg, Virginia, at the Vision Community Church for a special edition of Roland Martin Unfiltered "Our Voices, Our Vote" Town Hall, powered by Virginia House Democrats and the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.We'll talk to Democratic candidates who are vying for and defending their seats in the upcoming November elections.It's day 21 of the government shutdown. The Senate failed to pass the bill to reopen the government a dozen times. The House of Representatives remains in recess, and Democratic leaders say they are ready to negotiate with Republicans to get the government running again. And a pardoned Jan. 6 terrorist is behind bars for allegedly threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.#BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbaseThis Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing.Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV.The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Michael Lewis here. My best-selling book, The Big Short, tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. A decade ago, the Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie. Now I'm bringing it to you for the first time as an audiobook narrated by yours truly. The Big Short's story, what it means to bet against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial situation? system is as relevant today as it's ever been.

Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home? Hey!

Hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at Agree2agree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council. The NFL is rolling. That's right, and you should be listening to NFL Daily as we march along to Super Bowl 60.

It's in the name, NFL Daily. So you'll have fresh content in your feed all season long. Join me, Greg Rosenthal, in an all-star cast of co-hosts for previews and recaps of every single game. NFL Daily will keep you up to date with everything you need to know so you can sound smarter than all your friends. Listen to NFL Daily on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase, and I'm here with a very important message. We are at a turning point in the black community where we must have equity in the apps we use that scale to billions of dollars. But this time, we own the infrastructure, we own the culture, and we shape the future.

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And that can't go on. So once again, go to startengin.com slash fanbase and invest today. We must own the platforms where our voices live, our stories matter, and where our culture drives the world. Thank you. Folks, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punch!

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See, this is between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black on media and Be Skate. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Thank you. Folks, today's Thursday, October 16th, 2025, coming up on Roland Unfiltered.

We're streaming live on the Black Start Network from the campus of Virginia State University here in Petersburg, Virginia, for the special edition of our show, focusing on the upcoming election. Critical elections happening in this state that will determine who is in control of government. Lots are going to break down. We'll also hear from the chair of the Congressional of Black Caucus, Congressman Yvette, Ed Clark. This is the third anniversary of the million men, March. So there's a lot we're going to talk about, including yesterday's Supreme Court, oral arguments that dealt with the issue that could jeopardize nearly half of the Congressional Black Caucus and destroy black political power all across the South.

Lots of this breakdown. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Unfiltered. On the Black Stud Network, let's go. Unfiltered. He's got whatever the piss, he's on it, whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. He's right on time and it's rolling Best believe he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for gigs

He's rolling It's uncle ro roo yo It's rolling Martin Yeah Rolling with rolling now You know he's rolling Marta now. Folks, we're live on the campus of Virginia State University here in Peterburg's Virginia, for our voices, our vote town hall with Virginia Democrats and the Virginia legislative

Black Caucus. Glad to be here. Lots of we're going to talk about because the crucial election that's taking place two years ago, and we travel all across Virginia, talking to voters, because at that time, you had Democrats who were trying to regain control of the House. If they did so, Don Scott would become the first black Speaker of the House here in Virginia. That actually happened. So now, two years later, they're trying to hold onto that power, and there's some crucial issues that are at play. One of those issues deals with restoring the voting rights, passing

in the legislature to put it as a constitutional amendment to change the Constitution. That's a huge, huge issue we're going to get into tonight. So there's a lot we're going on what we want to get to. We'll be talking to candidates who are running for the House of Delegates. We'll also be talking with the University President. And, of course, and I mentioned earlier, Don

Scott, my alpha brother, University of President, my Alpha brother. Sorry, Wes. I'm sorry, Wes. Everybody ain't able, Wes Bellaby. So we're going to get to all of that. First, let's go to our panel right here. I want to introduce them right now. Wes Bellamy, he is political science chair here at Virginia State University.

Janelle St. Clair is the chair of the Petersburg Democratic Committee. And Arnold Westbrook is a Petersburg City Councilman. All right, y'all give it up. You know, one of the things that we keep emphasizing is that we have to be maximizing our voting. power. And what we have seen is when we do that, 2008 for the first time in history, West, African Americans, percentage-wise, outvoted white Americans. But since then, and that was of course the election of President Barack Obama. Since then, we've seen those numbers go down. We're seeing the results of that. What happens when we don't vote our numbers? You've had some elections in this

state that if we turned out at 70, 75 percent of our capacity, we sweep elections. And so, let's Talk about that. What needs to happen for us to really lock and load to get people to understand that we cannot leave our power at home, untapped and unused? It's to Black America, specifically ensuring that our stories are told and that our issues are being discussed. We're super excited to be here at Virginia State University, where today we had our student voter registration day as a part of Trojordia Voting Week, and which today alone we were able to register 412 young people. Super excited about that. Very, very exciting election coming up this year. And we've been emphasizing not only in classes within the campus,

but President Abdullah, who, you know, he's an alpha, but he's all right with me. I like you. Shout out to the noops. But in all seriousness, we've been very steadfast on campus in the surrounding community about the importance of folks coming out to vote. And while we know that there's a great deal. deal of conversation taking place on the national level. We have pivotal elections that are taking place here in Virginia. One, the gubernatorial election, which everybody knows about,

or we're hoping that everybody knows about. But it's really these state houses seats, these state house seats and the Senate seats that make the difference. We have a couple of candidates who are here. Shout out to Kimberly Pope Adams and others who will be here. We're going to be hearing from them. And we're encouraging our young folks specifically. It's one thing to complain about what's happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It's another thing for us to get out and do something. And we cannot allow our voices to be taken for granted. We can't allow for our votes to be active as if they don't matter. And if we don't put the energy in time into going out and making sure that we vote, we can't complain about what nobody else does.

It starts with us. Nobody else is going to come and do this for us. Nobody's going to save us. There's nobody coming down out of the sky to come and make sure that we get everything we need. We have to take care of ourselves, and that starts with voting. I guarantee you somebody here is 412 and they say okay it's 412 well let's go back to Sherry Beasley when she ran for Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court had she won Democrats would have had a 6 to 1 control

of the state Supreme Court when they control the court they ruled against racial gerrymandering political gerrymandering they stopped a lot of the actions of the Republican legislature She runs, she loses by 401 votes. You had more than 100,000 black folks alone in North Carolina who did not vote. What happens? It goes

from Democrat, potentially 6 to 1, down to 4.3. Well, then they lose again. Now it's Republican 5 to 2. What happens? Public Jared Manning being allowed. They bought the gerrymandered more seats, racial Jeremy, voter ID, all those things.

And so, folk have to understand every vote does count And remember, even in this state, the race that was tied, and it was a choice out of picking name out of a hat that determined who control the house because they were tied. So folks say, well, one vote doesn't matter. We know that's a lie.

Yes, we do know it's a lie. As Kimberly Pope Adams, 53 votes made a difference in her race. It's 53 people in this room that could have made a difference two years ago. Now we have people that are sitting in our insuffer, at this moment, making pivotal decisions that impact me, but more so our young people and that will impact your children. If we do not get out and vote, we will not be able to stop them from anything trickling down from the federal level to the state level.

We have to have a gap stop at some point to say that no means no, and we're not going to abide by the horrendous. policies that they are doing up at the national level. So we have to have someone at our governor level, our lieutenant governor level, especially our attorney general level, but more so our general assembly, so that they can implement policies that will protect us. Absolutely. Before I go to Arnold, just folks know, we always, when we go to many places,

we invited Petersburg Mayor Sam Parham to come on today's show, but he declined an invitation to come. And so just to folks know, so folks are like, man, talking about the mayor, we did. He ain't here. So, listen, I'm just stating a fact. Counselman, one of the things that I'm always saying, though, that it's one thing to tell folks you to vote. It's one thing to say, hey, need to get you to register.

But we have to also really begin connecting the dots because, let's just be honest, a lot of folk have no clue what the hell y'all do. They don't. People don't, a lot of people don't know how the difference between a city councilman, a county, a county exec, a state rep, a state senate, what a school board does. You get members of Congress who say they get phone calls, that's about stuff, that that's really the city or the, really a county job. And so we also have to have, after the election, before the next election, constantly what I call voter education, civics 101, so people really understand how. how government works and how government impacts every facet of a person's life. I definitely would agree with that.

On behalf of Mayor Pairn, who was a little bit under the weather, I am stepping in on his behalf. He doesn't sit as a guard. Well, that's a big thing, like communication. Michael Lewis here. My book, The Big Short, tells the story of the buildup and births of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception.

It was like feeding the monster, said Isman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The big short story, what it means when people start betting against the market,

and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, it is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation.

Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home? Hey! Hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at Agreetoagree.org.

Brought to you by the Ad Council. Hey, it's Greg Rosenthal, host of NFL Daily. No matter of the day, NFL. Daily has fresh content in your feed. Last week's games, we recapped him. The unexpected happened in so many in these games, and I love it. This week was like the defensive line

stepping in getting a stop on fourth and goal. Get the old Mo back on your side. It was a lot of good defensive stops, including in the game of the day. This week's games, we previewed him. He is the best quarterback in the league this year. He reminds me a little bit of Tom Brady in his later years, and this is a compliment.

He's no longer hanging in quite as much to take those big hits because he's playing the long game. They're not going to get pressure on them. Newsflash, it's not going to happen. I think they smoke them. And so much more for all you football sickos. Listen to NFL Daily on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Communication in our communities is very important. And I think it does start with the youth and this new generation of voters and not getting voting fatigue. I think that's what you kind of was alluding to because in Virginia, we vote every year. But that's everywhere, though. No, not every state votes every year. No, no, probably. And what I'm saying is, no matter where you go, there's going to be an election, whether it's a statewide, federal, city, county, or school board.

So the reality is you're always going to have, and also depend upon what municipality you live in. And so I get people to say voter fatigue, but they sure not fatigue when electricity goes up. Correct. Not fatigue when they're looking for improvements for economic development. Correct. When they're talking about funding HBCUs, and so, again, other folk ain't tired. And that's, I agree. We have to make sure that our students understand that this is a marathon and it's not a sprint,

as well as our older people to pour back into the elders, to pour back into the youth and the middle class so that everybody's playing their part. And that's what I meant about communication, because it is a difference between being on city council as well as being on school board. I can't handle all the issues, but I kind of be informed of them, so I can talk to the constituents, let them know that I am concerned. and I think it's about servant leadership so that as I teach the students

whether it's my crown him guys call to the kings or my crown hurt girls that I empower the young people to understand what are the crown her girls you get the crown guy shout out well see the crown hurt girls are here y'all gonna put y'all your crowns up

all right oh so the dudes say something but y'all don't say nothing we're working on that we're working on it roll y'all ain't got no calls I don't want to do all about calls because y'all got no call in response

Just go, hey, girl, girls, hey. Well, we got one for everybody. We got one that everybody does. Can we get a hell state? Hell State. Okay, that's good enough for you, brother. No, because in the girls, she ain't said nothing. It's a lot of calls.

I'm just saying, go ahead. I'm not a call on my Omega brothers. I don't miss nothing, but go on here. You know what I'm saying? I ain't missed that dup and that alpha shout out, but again, we hear about all of us working together. He's on the Omega. On the front lines, too.

On the what? The Omega's on the front lines, man. You know what I'm saying? Don't hurt your feeling. In all sense, we all play our parts, and we all know how to get these things out, so whether there's economic development, the homeless rate, the poverty, or issues that really affect people differently. It's all about still just getting out and making sure that we can have good,

sensible conflict resolution discussions because I teach speech and debate here at Virginia State University, and we're also taken into the schools of Petersburg so that we can understand. In this time, we can be disagreeable without being violent and just straight-nash-down. to people. But how can we get to the table and talk? Because a lot of times when we get to these table, we can find that there's similar talking points between us both so that we can move this needle forward for a better country

that we live in. The way, the thing for me, though, is when we're talking about, again, elections and for me, the reason it's, I get it in a different way, because my parents were co-finals of a civic club. So the age of 8, 9, and 10, I'm sitting there, because we all

free labor, sitting here. So the, the, the granular issues that have impacted a neighborhood going to city council meeting, knowing who to call, how to get vacant lots cut, and how to get abandoned houses torn down. So I saw it

at that level. And that's the thing I think we need to get out, get many people to understand, and this is why I think voter education is so critically important, because that's the role of government. What has happened is folk are running around and saying, well, government has no impact

on my life. And I'm like, that's the dumbest crap I've heard of my life because it impacts literally every facet of your life from the womb to the tomb. And so this idea that it does it, it's crazy. Yeah. I mean, we had this discussion in class just yesterday, and I want to give a special shout out to our SGA, who are all up here in the front row, Marquis, the president, and several others. They've been working diligently to ensure that, again, students are registered to vote, and we're talking about the issues. But one of the things we discussed in one of my classes yesterday was specifically when we talk about the school board, for example. Some people talk about, well, when I was in high school,

I didn't learn black history. I'm not learning it how I'm learning now. And we had a real civic lesson about, okay, well, if the governor appoints the members of the board of education, and then the board, which I served on, I served on the State Board of Education, and then the State Board of Education members direct the superintendents who also work in conjunction with the school boards. And they say, well, this is the curriculum in which we want to pointed out or put out for our communities, and if those curriculums are disadvantageous to black folk, and we're not able to learn where we need to learn, the issues isn't necessarily with the teachers.

It's, again, us understanding who we need to put in the seats on the school board, but then also the appointment person. So that's why this gubernatorial election is of the utmost importance. Roland made a very pivotal point. We've seen across Virginia, there have been some cities in which water has been a very serious issue. Well, in many regards, that's a city and municipal issue with some funding also

coming or not coming from the state, but also not coming in from the federal level. We've seen the president currently say that there will be resources withheld from institutions that include HBCUs across the country for his bogus or lack thereof for that matter.

If there's never a reason... They're withholding billions from blue states and blue cities. Yeah, and being very intentional. of saying if the Democratic cities, we're not going to give them the money. If they're democratic initiatives, we're not going to give them the money. And that's absolutely nonsensical. So again, y'all, if there was ever a time for us to be fired up, if there was ever a time for us to feel as if our ancestors are depending on us, if there was ever a time for us to stop seeing the

nonsense that we're not like our ancestors because they fall a lot harder than many of us will ever think about doing, it's now. We have to ensure that your country. your mom, your niece, your nephew, your auntie, everybody in your family needs to be registered to vote and then going to vote because that's the first leg of the marathon. And then after we get that baton, we run in the city council meetings, we run in the school board meetings. We show up to committee meetings at the state appropriation meetings. We show up at the state house. We show up in the governor's house to ensure that they're doing what they say they're going to do. We show up in our congressman's offices.

We need to be engaged. We don't have time to play around and be able to be. to play around and BS around. This institution wouldn't be here unless we have people who were fighting for us. This institution wouldn't get the nice dorms that we're working on. We wouldn't have this new building that we have

without people like Eldon Burton and President Abdullah working to secure funds for us. So y'all, the least that we can do is go and fight and show up. Janelle, you know, what Western's laid out, what I always say is we have to make this personal to each and every single person.

That's literally how we have to communicate it. And it's not party. Granted, I know you're on the Democratic Committee. What I tell people, this ain't a party thing. It's an issue thing. And then the question then becomes, who supports your issues, are the multiple issues?

And so it's a stark contrast between, frankly, Democrats and Republicans. Correct. So I'll give you an example. Winston Sears is running for governor. They have her on record that she broke the tie opposing contraceptives, not abortion, contraceptives, condoms, plan B, birth control pills, IUDs. Those are all things that you use to prevent pregnancy. They already put on the board they don't want you to have an abortion.

So why would you oppose anything to keep you from getting to the point? of abortion. So these are the things that goes against everything that I believe in as a woman. How can you tell me I can't have those kind of things to protect me? So why would we want to vote for a party that is so opposed to things on our behalf?

What about there's other policies that they have, like they don't want to do EPA? We need EPA, especially in the Brown and Black communities. Well, first of all, look, one of the things that Trump did, he canceled. You had massive flooding, sewage backing up in the homes, in the yards of black families in Lowndes County. They canceled that as a settlement under Biden Harris. They canceled it, they're calling it an illegal DEI settlement.

You got black folks who are dying in Cancer Alley in Louisiana. The federal government, Trump pulled the federal government out of the lawsuit against those companies. Folks who there dying. I just had a sister on from Mississippi just the other day. They're battling a chemical, a chemical company as well. was happening there. The turbines of Elon Musk in Memphis that's affecting the air there in Memphis

and Trump's, they're like you can do whatever you want and so they don't actually care. So they don't care about the breathing of black folks, the quality of the air, all those different things and they even call environmental racism DEI. So what you're seeing is a

complete just betrayal of folk and for them, even though the state of Alabama voted for him, he don't give a damn about those black folks in Lowndes County. And again, that's our folks, and that's how we have to be thinking about public policy. Well, just for real quick, so folks understand

EPA. Environmental Protection agents. So, like, y'all understand, like, that is the air quality, where we live, everything to do with the environment. Air, water, everything. Louns County, Alabama, just like a really quick history lesson, like, that is arguably the birthplace

of the Black Panther Party. Like, Huey, P. Newton, Bobby Seal, they look to Stokely Carmichael, who organized Lowndes County in Alabama to ensure that black folk were registered to vote in 1966, 1967 did phenomenal work there. For the people who don't know, the original Black Panther Party

was a political party in Alabama. Correct. And then... And then went out to Oakland. Right. They got their basically what they wanted to do from there. So like, y'all, all of this is tied to us. But this is why it's important again for us to understand our history. Like these things

are also just repeating themselves. We've had individuals who serve the highest seats in certain states say segregation now segregation forever and now you see individuals literally taking away provisions to ensure that our folk have access to healthy living. Not that they want to hand out, not that they want anything that's going to allow them to be better than someone else, just healthy, equal living. Y'all, we have to pay attention, but also we have to be engaged. We cannot afford to just sit and stand idle.

We can't afford to just tweet about it. We can't afford to make a TikTok about it. We can't afford to just talk about this on Instagram. This requires action. Like all of this, everything in which we're talking about requires all hands on deck. And you vote at the ballot, but you use your feet and your hands to put in the work. And let me jump in real quickly. Go ahead.

Real quickly with that, it's not only about knowing the past, but also about knowing the future. So if you talk about the EPA and the water, one of the biggest things on a lot of people's agenda is data centers. And how data centers will be affecting the water. usage as well as the quality of living. And we see that... Hold on. So we say for folks who don't know, we're talking about these data centers. Everybody's talking about AI, but those data centers require

a massive amount of water, electricity, and energy. But see, the thing about it was, as I see, we're trying to get them here in Petersburg because it would greatly help our tax base in lowering versus Loudoun County, who's one of the richest counties in Virginia, that's over-saturated

with them. They never needed them. So when they get their pushback, the rich People didn't want them near them, but they'll put it in our neighborhoods and it has to be in certain locations, but the AI generation is not going to stop. Yeah, it's not going to stop. But on that particular point, though, you've got to have environmental standards because there are towns in Louisiana and Texas where they right now, they are freaking out because of the massive water usage. So the data centers are drawing so much water in one place in Texas. is causing rationing all across these towns. So it's one thing to say it's going to impact the property base,

but then what then happens don't have enough water. So what's the balance? Well, to me the balance is, is it right for the people, and this is where the people come out. I don't want to make a vote for 34,000 people without understanding what does the will of the people want. And this is why I'm going out door to door, and I talk to people, and this is just one major issue of the future.

But it's also Petersburg, Virginia, has ranked number 10. I mean, excuse me, for 10 years straight, the unhealthiest place in the state of Virginia. And to me, that that's a problem of why is it that we can't get these things moving ahead? It's because I think more people are depending on that person that come out of sky to save us. Instead of we come

into those city council meetings, we go and talking to the legislator, so that we can't change the homeless rate, the poverty rate, help out with social services, all these things, as well as education, because our education system is suffering, but again, it's only suffering because we have to be more involved. Janelle, final comment. Yes. I will say,

with the data centers coming to Petersburg, it's more important to have the EPA to be solid, not withdrawn, because if that does come, what's going to protect the people? You can forget the federal EPA. No, no, no. What that means is you're going to have to have a

strong state environmental protection agency. So that is why it's important that we vote the right people in as our governor, Abigail Spanberger, our lieutenant governor hash me. I don't want to mess up our first name, and Attorney General, Jay Jones. And yes, I did say Jay Jones.

And I'm... Michael Lewis here. My book, The Big Short, tells the story of the buildup and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become, and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisenman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened.

Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, it is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics.

Get the big short now at pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home? Hey.

Hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at Agree2agree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council. Hey, it's Greg Rosenthal, host of NFL Daily. No matter of the day, NFL Daily has fresh content in your feed.

Last week's games, we recapped them. The unexpected happened in so many in these games, and I love it. This week was like the defensive line, stepping in getting a stop on fourth and goal. Get the old Mo back on your side. It was a lot of good defensive stops, including in the game of the day. This week's games, we previewed him. He is the best quarterback in the league this year.

He reminds me a little bit of Tom Brady in his later years, and this is a compliment. He's no longer hanging in quite as much to take those big hits because he's playing the long game. They're not going to get pressure on him. Newsflash. It's not going to happen. I think they smoke them.

And so much more for all you football, Sikos, listen to NFL Daily on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. General Assembly delegate, Kimberly Pope Adams. But not to take away from that also who you put on council because then we elect the local EPA. And we put those people on boards. So when is the next city council election? Tuesday. No, next year.

Oh, next year. City Council. Excuse me. Next year. Got it. All right. See, that's what I'm saying. See, it's election this year.

It's on next year. There you go. All right, give it for our panel, folks. Thank you. We're going to go to a break. We come back. We're going to chat with the Congresswoman of Bill Clark, who is chairing with the Russian of Black Hawk.

As you're watching, Roland Martin Unfiltered right here in the Black Stud Network live from the campus of Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. Back in a moment. I don't know. Afro-tech, it's a lot of beauty, a lot of brilliance, a lot of intellect, a lot of innovation. Companies that are most diverse are more profitable. We're getting culture, we're getting community, we're getting the best of the best. Not only are we here to greet each other, but we're here to network and to elevate each other.

Everybody from all the major tech companies here, and that means that now everybody's in the same domain. This is the premier event every year. This is really where we could take off. You can go fast by yourself, where we go farther together. This is where you're supposed to be. This week on the other side of change. Book fans, anti-intellectualism,

and Trump's continued war on wisdom. This is a coordinated backlash to progress. At the end of the day, conservatives realized that they couldn't win a debate on facts. They started using our language against us, right? Remember when we were all woke and the woke movement and all that kind of stuff?

Now everything is anti-woke, right? When we're talking about including diversity, equity, inclusion, higher education. Now it's anti-DII. All this are efforts to suppress the truth because truth empowers people. You're watching the other side of change only on the Black Star Network.

Hello, hello, hello. I'm Jerry Johnson from Harlem on Prime and you're watching the Blacks Star Network. All right, folks, we're live here for Junior State University at Peasburg, Florida. Glad to be here, focusing on, of course, the election in just a couple of weeks. But while this is happening, of course, the federal government shutdown continues, and we're still seeing the impact of health care. That's the dominant issue that we're seeing as causing

Democrats. They're not going to cooperate with Republicans until this is addressed. Joining us right now is the chair of the Congress of the Congress of Black Congress Congress of Black Caucus. Congresswoman, how you doing? Congresswoman, how you doing? Congresswoman, how you doing? Great to be with you and your audience. I can't hear. All right, come on. Can you hear me now. me all right she's going in it out folks all right she's going in and keep talking can you hear me now roland all right i can hear you now i can hear you now uh so so so first off uh again we are entering uh we're now hitting towards a third week

uh house speaker mike johnson's still will not call Democrats intercession. And what do you hear from your constituents? Are they standing behind you and other CBC members holding out with this government shut down over the issue of health care? Absolutely. My constituency here in Brooklyn, New York, very clear on the imperative here. They recognize that this is non-negotiable.

And when we say non-negotiable, we mean that we must. must address this health care crisis. Without our work and support in getting this as part of the negotiation, there is no trust in the Republican Congress, in the Republican White House that they will come to the rescue. This is a five-alarm fire. We recognize that so much is going on in terms of attacks. from the Trump administration and the enabling of that by Republicans in Congress.

However, we know that at the heart of everything is good health. Without our health, nothing else really can happen. And the idea of having 20 million people who have currently have health insurance for that to be out. out of their reach within the next two months is too much to bear. And so my constituents here in New York City in Brooklyn,

of this fight, and they support it wholeheartedly. Robert Rice, a former Labor Secretary, sent out this tweet today that I thought was interesting. He said, open enrollment for the ACA plans began yesterday in Idaho. One couple got notice that their monthly premium next year would jump from $51 to $2,232 as subsidies expired. 25,000 Idahoans are expected to be priced out of coverage. This is what's at stake in Trump shutdown. And one of the things that I've said, I said this to DNC Chair Ken Martin yesterday, I said to Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democrat leader, Hakeemper's,

is one thing having politicians talk about what's going on, but you've got to put a face on it. And if I'm Democrats, I'm chasing this couple down. I want them in front of a camera. I want them in front of a mic. Because that resonates a lot more in a much bigger way than I think than elected officials are doing it. So how are you also emphasizing that having affected people being out front talking about the impact of an increase in health care,

any health care subsidies and jacking up their health care calls? not their health care calls not their health care calls be aware that you know the House of Representatives has not been called back into session by Speaker Johnson but Democrats have been

going back to Washington each week of this shutdown and in each week we've had a public press conference on the steps of the House of Representatives with individuals from across this country who are telling their stories about

how the ACA meets the needs of their families and what this increase in fees and deductibles in their car for purchasing in the marketplace will mean in terms of their ability to even access that care for so many of those who came to either testify at some of the steering and policy hearings that we've been having as well as at our press conferences, this would mean that they would eventually have to drop their coverage because they won't be able to afford it. With the skyrocketing cost of living all the way around, add to that the quadrupling in many cases of their deductibles for their access to health care, folks just can't afford and they are with us, standing with us, telling their stories so that we can put a face

to what this actually means. And I think most Americans understand what it means. They're getting letters in the mail, too. These letters are going out across this nation as we speak. And folks understand what's before us. And again, the encouragement that we are receiving is enormous. in terms of people understanding why it's critical that we prevail with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to fix this crisis.

Let me switch to another issue in that dealing with the oral arguments yesterday for the Supreme Court. Based upon the questions they raised, we potentially going to see this court rule against Section 2, and we could see anywhere from 12 to 30 congressional seats wiped out of African-Americans and Latinos. We're talking about destroying black political power, especially in the South. And just just your thoughts after yesterday's

oral arguments. It's just disgraceful. I had a number of CBC members actually seated in the court for the entire proceeding. And, you know, their takeaway is that the Supreme Court is actually

looking for a way to put an end to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, essentially rendering the Voting Rights Act a relic of our history. That would be devastating. Devastating across this nation. It would be just a travesty in terms of the history of this country, the lives that were put on the line to secure voting rights for people of African descent. And as you rightly stated, the disappearing of a number of members who were elected by the voting through the Voting Rights Act

to represent constituencies across this nation. Many people don't realize it, but the city of New York was governed by the Voting Rights Act so that people, the diversity of who we are, particularly African Americans who have been prohibited from voting for so long would have the opportunity in the wake of obtaining the franchise to elect individuals who come from their lived experiences, who they find affinity with in terms of policy and vision

for inclusion and diversity in our nation and equity. And so this would be a severe blow not only to the voting rights movement, but to civil rights in the United States of America. And so we hope that those questions will not stand in the way of doing what is right by the American people. We know that living in a colorblind society, we know that right racism, bigotry and hatred is on the rise in America as we speak. And we also know that in the wake of the lack of support from the Supreme Court for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the moment that that provision was allowed to lapse all across this nation, primarily in the South, without the preclearance, we saw the abuse of voting rights districts and voters in those districts by the powers that. be that had never really appreciated the Voting Rights Act, take action against communities of color. And so, you know, we have got to raise our voices. We have got to make sure we're

educated and informed about what is going down. This one decision, Louisiana versus Calais, will upend the Voting Rights Act as we know it. All right, Councilmane, Vic Clark, we appreciate you joining us. Thanks a lot. We appreciate you joining. Thank you for having me rolling. Having me rolling. All right, folks, we come back.

We'll talk about some critical house races happening here in Virginia that will determine who controls the House of Delegates in this state for the next couple of years. Of course, you're watching Rolla on the filter, the Black Stud Network. Don't forget support the work that we do. Join our Brena Funk fan club. Our goals are 20,000 of our fans contribute on average 50 bucks each year. It's $4.19. The month, 13 cents a day. Of course, what that does is it funds all the efforts that we do. We're going to be traveling all around the country going to different states in 2026, covering these critical elections, whether it's in North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Florida, you name it, will be on the road. So your support is critical. If you want to contribute via cash hat, uses Stripe, QR Code. You see it right here on the bottom left-hand corner. That can also be for credit cards. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo's R.M. Unfiltered Zail, at Roland S.martin.com. rolling at rolling martin unfiltered.com.

Check your money orders, make it payable to Rollin Martin Unfiltered Peelbox 5-7196, Washington, D.C. 2.003-7-0196. Back in a moment. If in this country right now, you have people get up in the morning and the only thing they can think about is how many people they can hurt and they've got the power, that's the time for mourning. For better or worse, what makes America special, it's that legal system that's supposed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. We are at a point of a moral emergency. We must raise a voice of outrage.

We must raise a voice of compassion. And we must raise a voice of unity. We are not in a crisis of party versus party. We are in a crisis of civilization, a human rights crisis, and a crisis of democracy itself. And guess what? You've been chosen to make sure

that those that would destroy, those that would hate don't have the final say, and they don't ultimately win. They said the quiet part out loud. Black votes are a threat, so they erased them. After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Republican legislatures moved fast. New voter ID laws, polling place shutdowns, purges of black voters from the rolls.

Trump's Justice Department didn't stop it. They joined in. In 2018, his DOJ backed down. is DOJ backed Ohio's voter purge system, a scheme that disproportionately erased black voters, their goal, erase black votes, and political power. Yeah, that happened. These are the kinds of stories that we cover every day on Roland Martin unfiltered. Subscribe on YouTube and download the Black Star Network app. Support fact-based independent journalism that centers African Americans and the issues that matter to our community.

Hello, we're the Critter Fictions. I'm Dr. Bernard Hodges. And I'm Dr. Terrence Ferguson. And you're tuned in to Roland Martin unfilcher. All right, folks, two years ago, we traveled around this state. My next guest was running for the House of Dillian, lost by 53 votes. Is that what it was? And so now she is running again.

Put your hands together for a Kimmelie Pope Adams. All right, so what are you going to do for this time and the last time? get 54 more votes. How are you going to do that? I mean, so, I mean, after last time, you know, what assessment did you do looking at your campaign and what assessment did you do to look at why you lost? What did you do? Yes.

Well, first I want to thank you for having me. Thank you for being here two years ago. And I will say this. I don't say that I lost. I say that I fell short because I learned so much. And in the days after the election in 23, it was actually. my son. I have a 17-year-old son. He was 15 at the time. He said, you know what, Mommy? He said, championships are won in the offseason. He said, if you want to do this again,

you've got to start now. Now, admittedly, I didn't want to hear that at the time, but he was right. He was right. So what I decided to do, I took a little time off for the holidays, but once we got first of the year, I kept staying involved. I kept meeting the voters. Michael Lewis here. My book, The Big Short, tells the story of the build-up. a bend burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception.

It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time.

The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the Big Short now at Pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home?

Hey! Hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at Agree2agree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council. Hey, it's Greg Rosenthal, host of NFL Daily.

No matter of the day, NFL Daily has fresh content in your feed. Last week's games, we recapped them. The unexpected happened in so many in these games, and I love it. This week was like the defensive line, stepping in getting a stop on fourth and goal, get the old Mo back on your side. It was a lot of good defensive stops, including in the game of the day. This week's games, we previewed him.

He is the best quarterback in the league this year. He reminds me a little bit of Tom. Brady in his later years, and this is a compliment, he's no longer hanging in quite as much to take those big hits because he's playing the long game. They're not going to get pressure on him. Newsflash. It's not going to happen. I think they smoke them. And so much more for all you football sickos, listen to NFL Daily on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Volunteered on congressional campaigns. I've moderated town halls. I showed up to community events. I kept making sure that my community

knew the importance of voting. I've been doing that for two solid years when I wasn't on the ballot, and I know that it's going to pay off this time. Did you also study the data in terms of looking at those precincts, how many people are registered, how many elder voters there are,

how many actually turned out and concentrated on those areas. So what are the three or four areas that you are targeting for a big turnout? Yeah, so my district is four localities. one is the city of Petersburg very urban very dense very blue the other three localities are all rural red leaning when you look at the voter turnout among the four different localities the lowest voter turnout was in the city of Petersburg the right my

race how low when you say how good like what's a percentage 32% 32% yeah that was the turnout yeah and so I'm always talking about I keep using 70 as as a number so if 50% turned out if 40% turned out you win yeah we actually did the math afterwards if 38% had turned out but but it's the point I'm making

I don't want 40 I don't want 45 what I keep saying is if we turn out at 70% of our capacity we sweep elections absolutely because here's one thing we all know when black people show up we win when we vote we win we've just got to show up.

It's that simple. We've got to show up. So what have you been doing and saying in the last two years, specifically Peter's bird to say, look, the only way this happens if you actually vote. Yes. So what I've been doing is making sure people understand the contrast between myself and my opponent. Listen,

my opponent is looking out for herself, not looking out for us, not looking out for our community. So every chance I get, as I'm knocking doors and meeting voters. I'm telling them firsthand, what did she vote on? How did she vote? I'm giving specific concrete examples to the voters. I'm not just talking about things in the abstract. I'm giving them real-life examples of times when she could have fought for us and chose not to. Like what?

Oh, there was, so the city of Petersburg has a casino coming. We have a casino coming and my opponent supported legislation that would have forced the city of Petersburg to share the revenue among five localities. Five localities that never fought for a casino, never showed any interest in the casino. Wait a minute, so being five other cities? Yes. So the casino will be in Petersburg? Yes. And so she wanted the money to be shared with them? Yes. Why? You'd have to ask her. Okay, go ahead. So when we found that out, we mobilized. I mean, we wrote letters. We reached out to the General Assembly. We made sure that the people who were supporting that bill knew how we felt about it, and it died.

It died. It did not pass. So because of our voices, when we, when we stood together, we made sure they understood what was important to us. And those are the examples that I make sure to remind people when we, if we aren't looking, if we aren't looking, they'll try it again. And the only way to ensure that she and others like her can't try it again is by voting them out.

Because our vote can do two things. It can hire, and it can fire. So running against the one is one thing, running four as another. What are your priorities if elected? Yes, so as I said, I'm a mother. My son's a senior in high school, public high school. Public school education is very important to me. I believe we can invest more than we currently do.

I know the college isn't for everyone, so I'm very much a supporter of the trades, vocational technology, you know, well, when I was in school, we called it Votech. making sure we have plumbers, welders, electricians, good-paying jobs that don't require a college degree. Also jobs that can't be outsourced across the ocean. Absolutely, absolutely. When you teach someone a skill, when you teach someone to trade,

how to work with their hands, that's theirs forever. So I want to make sure that we equip our public school students with the ability to take care of themselves, not to need mounting student debt to have a livelihood. What else? Oh, well, you know in Virginia there are three constitutional amendments that are coming back around. We voted, the General Assembly's voted on them once, and they passed. However, in Virginia, you have to vote on them a second time before it even makes it to the voter.

And those three are? Marriage equality, reproductive freedom, and automatic restoration of rights. Right now, Virginia is the only state in the United States where you do not, get your rights restored upon paying your debt to society. You have to ask the governor specifically and hope that the governor grants you back your rights. But also folks who don't know, that is a law that dates back to the early 1900s and was a racist law. It had absolute racist intent. The lawmaker that advanced it literally said, we're doing this to keep the niggas from voting. This is a Jim Crow era legislative.

that we have an opportunity to write as long as we come out and vote. And so if it passes for the second time, then it gets put on the ballot in November. Yes, yes. So for those Republicans who voted against it the first time, they weren't even voting against the amendment. They were voting against our right as voters to even decide on the matter. So we've got to make sure that we not only keep our Democrat majority, but expand it so that we can vote, we can pass these amendments. for the second time so that everyone in this room has the opportunity for themselves. Vote on it

next November. Don't know if your opponent has spoken on this, but when the Biden Harris administration, they followed, it's in a letter to a variety of states that showed that a number of HBCUs were cheated out of

upwards of $13 billion in land grant money. And Virginia State is owed $277.5 million. Now, this has nothing to do with any new funding and new request for funding, this is literally what this school was cheated out of for that certain period of time. If elected, are you going to sponsor legislation for that $277.5 million to be funded to Virginia State separate from any other funding

request? Oh, absolutely. And let me tell you, in Virginia, we only have two land grant universities, Virginia State University and Virginia Tech. And I will tell you, you, I'm an alum of Virginia Tech. And they got their money. Yep. And in fact, that money that was supposed to come to Virginia State actually went to Virginia Tech. Yeah, I've seen firsthand. I've seen firsthand the stark difference between the funding at Virginia Tech and here.

And I work here, full disclosure, I work here, and I know that there is no better HBCU in the United States of America than Virginia State University. So I will do everything in my power to make sure we're made whole. Last question for you. Somebody out there, they're like, okay, I get all of that, I hear all of that, but they still are not focused. They're still are not interested in voting. What do you say to that person?

That person who says, I don't really think this stuff makes any difference to me. It has no impact on my life. Everything we do is a choice. When we wake up every morning, we have to decide, do I want to think about just myself, or do I want to think about community. Your vote is an opportunity to do both. You are doing something for yourself, and you are also doing something for everyone else around you. I can't stress enough how your vote is not just one. When we collectively decide what we're going to do, then anything

is possible. And I need people to understand that this is not just about today. This is about next week, next year, next decade, because if we don't elect the right people, the power, policies they put in place today are going to impact us for a generation. So we have to think about what do you want today, what do you want tomorrow, what do you want 10 years from now? All right, folks, it's the 82nd House District. Put your hands together for Kim, Lee Pope Adams. I appreciate it. You're going to go to a quick break.

I'll be right back right here, Roller Mark Unfiltered on the Black Stud Network live at Virginia State University. Back in a moment. Thank you. Companies that are most diverse are more profitable. We're getting culture, we're getting community, we're getting the best of the best. Not only are we here to greet each other, but we're here to network and to elevate each other. Everybody from all the major tech companies here, and that means that now everybody's in the same domain. This is the premier event every year. This is really the premier event every year. This is really a very

where we could take off. You can go fast by yourself where we go farther together. This is where you're supposed to be. If in this country right now, you have people get up in the morning, and the only thing they can think about is how many people they can hurt

and they've got the power. That's the time for mourning. For better or worse, what makes America special, it's that legal system that's supposed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. We are at a point of a moral emergency.

We must raise a voice of outrage. We must raise a voice of compassion. And we must raise a voice of unity. We are not in a crisis of party versus party. We are in a crisis of civilization, a human rights crisis, and a crisis of democracy itself. And guess what?

been chosen to make sure that those that would destroy, those that would hate, don't have the final say, and they don't ultimately win. Farquhar, executive producer, a proud family. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Virginia State University. I am glad to be back here nine years ago. I gave the commencement address here at Virginia State. And we had a great, great time.

there. So let's welcome our next guest, the president of this university. My Alfred brother, put your hands together. Y'all know him well. Dr. Micola Abdullah. This is a

so we're talking about our voices, our vote, and this is the thing that I understand. This is the state school. This is taxpayer money. That's right. So black folks have been spending money, have been paying taxes, sales tax, property tax, vehicle tax, all of this, and we expect our institutions to be as well

funded as the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and others. That's right. That's right. And I think the key is you talked about it earlier. You talked about what a difference 400 students makes. We're about almost 6,000 students now, about 5,800 students. If you count faculty and staff, then you're almost close to 7,000. If the people at Virginia State University vote in local elections, where they're

whether it's Petersburg or Chesterfield County, they can swing every election in our local area. And regardless of who they vote for, the issue becomes them. And if the issue becomes them, then the issue becomes Virginia State University. So we're not red or blue. We're orange and blue

Virginia State, and we're voting on the issue of the issue. And the thing is, in many of these places, let's just be honest, they're scared of HBCUs. You take North Carolina. The Republicans there literally split. North Carolina A&T

into two congressional districts which is insane. I mean, I don't know how you split a college campus because they did not want, just what you described, they did not want a mass turnout of HBCU students determining who the member of Congress

is. And for prayer view, Waller County, they have been fighting prayer view students for the longest because if prayer view students voted, their numbers, they could control the entire county. the commissioners court. Look, our institution was built on that kind of political activism. You just had Kimberly Pope Adams here. She works at Virginia State University, but her seat

was formerly held by the founder of Virginia State University, Alfred W. Harris. The first black congressman in the Commonwealth of Virginia held Jennifer McClellan's seat, John Mercer Langston. He was the president of Virginia State University. And so voting, activism has always been important at VSU. And that's why I'm so proud of whether it's Arnold Westbrook or West Bellamy, even though they're not members of Alpha Phi Alpha Ferturnity Incorporated.

Everybody couldn't get in. Everybody couldn't get in. But what, I mean, it's true. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But for us to not just have a dream, but to have a plan, a strategic plan, to make sure that we register our students and not for a presidential

election. Many times as universities, we get excited and we get motivated. around presidential elections, but to do it for local elections, I think is very important. And speaking of that, it was unfortunate that the twice-impeached criminal- convicted fellow than chief would not do its second debate that was supposed to be... I was on your show talking about the debate that was supposed to happen here at Virginia State in this facility. The first presidential debate hosted by historically black college, it didn't happen. But again, all of...

Michael Lewis here. My book, The Big Short, tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened.

Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Talking about guns with others

might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home? Hey! Hey, we're so excited for tonight.

Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored secure. Locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at Agree2agree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council. Hey, it's Greg Rosenthal, host of NFL Daily.

No matter of the day, NFL Daily has fresh content in your feed. Last week's games, we recapped them. The unexpected happened in so many in these games, and I love it. This week was like the defensive line stepping in getting a stop on fourth and goal. Get the old Mo back on your side. It was a lot of good defensive stops, including in the game of the day. this week's games we previewed him he is the best quarterback in the league this year he reminds me a little bit of tom brady in his later years and this is a compliment he's no longer hanging in quite as much to take those big hits because he's playing the long game they're not going to get pressure on him news flash it's not going to happen i think they smoke them and so much more for all you football sickos listen to NFL daily on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast that and all of this is to continue to motivate young people to vote. And so

I started off this conversation in the same way because I need people to understand. When you talk about all right, these are the things that we want for Virginia State, we want for Norfolk, but also how you can impact even private HBCUs in this state. It's state

funding. Right. State funding, squeaking wheels gets the most grease. And so, what folk have to understand that when the election is over, I keep saying, that's the end of one process of the beginning of another. The reality is you just can't be, you and your administration and a few alumni can't be the only one showing up in Richmond.

You've got to have people in this city, alumni, others, not just on one day, but consistently pounding the door saying y'all had better make sure that when you take care of University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, you better be taking care of Virginia State as well as Norfolk. And our folk got to realize that you need that level of support. That's right. And you being here as an adjunct professor here at Virginia State University tonight and having your guests who have sat in front here and talked to the students so they could see who the candidates are. And so after they win or lose or win, that we can continue to hold them accountable to make sure that financial aid is on the docket,

that more capital funds are on the dock. So these students have the buildings that they need to be educated. All of those things are critically important. And so Again, that work is being done now, and we thank you for it. Look, we talk about, and again, I think a lot of people don't just really don't realize, look, it was very easy for me to be able to log on to your wireless guest account. But there are 80% of HBCUs in America are Wi-Fi deserts. Yeah. I mean, we talk about food deserts. So we're talking about a lot of these, a lot of universities, especially private HBCUs, you've got.

buildings that you, some campus, I think, when I was talking to the former president of Fisk, they were building their first new campus since the Eisenhower administration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was 1960. I think one of the critical things is that we continue to support each other. There's really no difference between a public and a private HBCU. You know, we compete with Norfolk State and Virginia Union and sometimes Hampton on Saturdays for football or maybe for basketball.

But every other day of the week, we're the same institution. and we have to lobby together, we have to move together because we serve the same mission to educate our kids. But it goes beyond just black students. Look, 20% of HBCUs have non-black student population. We saw with the lawsuit in Maryland how the HBCUs were getting creative with majors that were attracting non-black students,

and then what did the state do? They allowed these PWIs to have duplicate programming. And so they said, well, look, if I got a choice between going to Morgan's state, and going to University of Maryland. I'm going to go to the University of Maryland. And they had that lawsuit. And sure, you had the settlement,

but it should have been a $2 billion settlement as opposed to the actual settlement that was signed. I don't think a lot of folk really understand how, from the day HBCUs were founded, they were underfunded from day one. That's correct. That's correct. We are the fourth oldest public institution in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Virginia, UVA, Virginia Tech, and VMI. But if you look at our campus and our campus facilities, we've got buildings 100 years older than some of the other institutions in the Commonwealth. And so when you talk about infrastructure, when you talk about investment, I think it's clear that our HBCUs have been underfunded, and we have to marshal our political capital to make sure that we can correct those problems. And again, we talk about voting. It matters.

and also how do you come through? The reality is, if Democrats control the House, you will still have Don Scott, Speaker of the House, African-American. The person controlling the money, Democrats control the Senate, that's Louise Lucas. It was Spanberger beats Lieutenant Governor. You're talking about a Democratic governor,

and guess what? It's called return on investment. Fully expect, with that level of leadership, getting at $277.5 million should not be a problem. And our responsibilities is to put pressure on those three to say, where to check. Well, look, it's important for me to say, Mr. Martin, that whether there are Democrats or Republicans that win, that we have to make sure that HBCUs are on the table all the time. We have had, now having said that, we've had incredible support.

Don Scott, the Speaker of the House and the House of Delegates, have been wonderful. Louise Lucas, the President Pro Tem of the Senate, and the Senate have been wonderful supporting Virginia State University. the governor has supported Virginia State University. And so we believe in all of those who support Virginia State University and the education of our young people. But I want more. No, I mean, because I don't, it ain't like being greedy as well-deserved. A good friend of mine said, we want our unfair share.

We want more. And more importantly, not that we want more, they deserve more. That's right. Our students deserve more. We are seeing massive changes on the federal level, Department of Education, cuts left and right. We're seeing attacks on universities, literally being extorted to sign pledges. We just saw another university, another Ivy League school, tell the Trump administration, no, we're not signing that deal. How have you had to navigate the crazy terrain that we now see happening coming out of Washington, D.C.?

Sir, as a university president, and I would say this, across. the board for all of my colleagues. We've always had to advocate, whether it's at the State House or in D.C. Sometimes we work with friends, people who love our HBCUs, and sometimes we work with people that don't love our HBCUs, but our jobs are to make sure

that we can gather as much of the resources that we can so that our kids can go to school. That's critical. When you see slashing, pale grants, things along those lines. Same thing. It's one of those things that people don't understand that, sure, when you hear Republicans in Congress say, oh, how we need to cut these

things out, people not understanding the cost of education has exploded in the last 30 years. You can't, when I hear these idiots on Fox News talk about when they were in college, I'm like, fool, the credit hour when you were in college isn't even remotely the same as it is today. That's right. And so you can act like, oh, just go get a job at a fast food restaurant. that's going to pay your credit. That ain't happening. The world has changed.

I like to say there's five partners who help us educate young people. There's the young people in their families themselves. There's the university in terms of trying to keep tuition low. There's the state government. There's the federal government, and there's private philanthropy. The federal government assists in higher education

with the Pell Grant and access to loans. And if the Pell Grant doesn't grow with inflation, and it hasn't, then those who said they used to be able to work their way through college and get a Pell Grant, You can't do that now. And if the federal government removes certain access from our students to get loans, then they also won't be able to go to school to get the capital that they need to go to school.

And so it's important that everyone looks at these very important issues, especially our students, and votes towards those issues. Granted, this is a four-year institution. But one of the things that we are seeing, and you heard Kimberly Pope Adams talk about it, and I actually was discussing this on my TV One show I got 15 years ago when we talk about trades the reality is

and this is hard for some people to do everybody is not meant to go to a four-year institution oh for sure 65% of the jobs in this country actually are trained by community colleges but saying you a community college graduate ain't as sexy but it's not and and matter of fact I remember I was interviewing

actually I was a part of a conversation with then Vice President Joe Biden, and he made that particular point. He's like, yeah, you don't see, hear parents like, oh, my baby fishing from community college. Right. Because it's an ego, it's an esteem thing. But the reality is,

supposed to come in with massive amounts of debt, not being able to get jobs. And so we flipped the other way, we completely got rid of locations. And again, I don't care how much money you making. Listen, I ain't dealing with no stopped-up toilet. Right. Hey, look.

And when the power, don't work, I ain't trying to go to get electrocuted. I'm calling somebody's got to do that work. I have no problem with the trades. I firmly agree that every young person and young at heart person, that's what I call old people, everybody doesn't need to go to college.

Some people should go to get an associate's degree. There's some who don't need to go to college at all. I don't have a problem with the argument. The only thing I have a problem with is some of those who make the argument they're making it just for my kids. See, and I don't like that. And that actually was

one of the reasons, actually, they went away because in the 70s, coming out of segregation, you had trades in all these schools. Black students were being pushed to trades. That's right. That's right. Pushed away from four years. That's right. Parents rebel. And if people want to understand history,

that literally was a 30-year fight at Hampton. When General Armstrong found out of Hampton, he wanted black, he wanted the children of the children that came out of slavery to be trained in agriculture. The black parents like, oh, hell no. We want

sciences, law, whatever. So that was a 30-year battle at Hampton. So we saw that after Jim Crow with trades, and so they got wiped out of schools, but then the problem is they got totally taken out. That's right. So there was no balance. No, no. The trades need to exist, and

many of our kids need to be in the trades. But I am not going to take that message from someone who doesn't respect or understand or appreciate my kids who are going to give them that message when they're going to send their old kids to college. Don't tell me that college isn't for them, but it's for yours. Right.

Tell me that. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Last question for you, and that is, we are operating in this athletic NIL world. Sure. You've got a bill that NCAA others are pushing, and then they are, they want HBCUs to get behind the bill, the Score Act. And in looking at that, I have some fundamental issues with it.

Then I just saw, I just saw something just earlier today, folks coming out, opposing it. And so have you weighed in, has Virginia State weighed in on this in terms of this NIL bill trying to get Congress to limit how students get paid? Well, first, before I address that, and since this is the last question, I better say my wife's name, Dr. Joaquinela Cobb Abdul, the first lady of Virginia State University. You know, she doesn't play any sports. Where she at? And she's not doing that. No, she's not here.

She's at home. But she's watching, though. Yeah, you better give a shout out. So I did that. I have weighed in. Look, I don't know all the details of the score act, but I do know this. I believe that young, particularly football and basketball players, particularly those in sports are the predominantly African American, that they deserve to get as much money

as they can from what they're doing. Now, if they do that, we're Division 2 and we're a smaller school. Can we compete with some of the Power 5 conferences of that? No, but that's okay. I can't compete with them for coaches and sell them for faculty. I have to compete based on who our institution is, but I don't want anything to slow down our young black men and women from receiving the monies from their actions.

I don't want any of that. So I don't know how that rhymes with the Score Act. But I've made my point clear. I agree with 100%. what I do want, I do want changes. I don't want these agents getting 20% ripping these folks off. I do believe there has to be some parameters there. But one of the points that I've made to folk is that I would literally argue that NIL is creating more annual wealth for black families than any other area.

If you just look at all of a sudden you've got high school. kids coming out and it used to be the NFL was so used to oh, that kid wanted to get drafted so he can buy mama house. Mama getting the house as a freshman. So it's changing the game economically. I just

want to make sure our brothers are getting financial literacy. They're saving, investing, and not burning that money on Carl's cars and jewelry and understand how that's life-changing money in case you never even make it to the NFL. But yeah, all

folk who want to stop it. I'm like, y'all ain't trying to cut no coaches' salary. Exactly. So I agree with you. Financial literacy is important, but let's do nothing to, even if they mess it up, they still deserve to have it. I don't want them to mess it up. And even if they do, I want them to get all the money they can.

Absolutely. President Abdullah, I appreciate it, brother. Thanks a lot. No, man. Thanks for coming, brother. Folks, we come back. More candidates running for Virginia House. You're watching Roller Martin Unfiltered right here in the Black Stud Network, live at Virginia State University, back at the moment. Thank you. is a coordinated backlash to progress. At the end of the day, conservatives realized that they

couldn't win a debate on facts. They started using our language against us, right? Remember when we were all woke and the woke movement and all that kind of stuff? Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the buildup and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black coal it would become, and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Isman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding.

Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Shorts' original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The big short story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system? It is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the big short now at Pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks,

or wherever audiobooks are sold. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home? Hey! Hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home?

Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at Agreetoagree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council. Hey, it's Greg Rosenthal, host of NFL Daily. No matter of the day, NFL Daily has fresh content in your feed. Last week's games, we recapped them. The unexpected happened in so many in these games, and I love it.

This week was like the defensive line stepping in getting a stop on fourth and goal. Get the old Mo back on your side. It was a lot of good defensive stops, including in the game of the day. This week's games, we previewed him. He is the best quarterback in the league this year. He reminds me a little bit of Tom Brady in his later years, and this is a compliment. He's no longer hanging in quite as much to take those big hits because he's playing the long game. They're not going to get pressure on them.

Newsflash. It's not going to happen. I think they smoke them. And so much more for all you football sickos, listen to NFL Daily on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The thing is anti-woke, right? When we're talking about including diversity,

equity, inclusion, higher education, now it's anti-DI. All this are efforts to suppress the truth because truth empowers people. You're watching the other side of change, only on the Black Star Network. This week, balanced life for Dr. Jackie, we're continuing our series of putting in the work a chef's journey.

Are you an aspiring chef, someone who already has a business, trying to figure out what your next steps will be, who to talk to, and how to get there? Well, on this week's show, our great guests and wonderful chefs will talk to you about what means to discover your purpose, your why of being in the kitchen, and then knowing how to put a business together. The menu controls everything. It determines, the menu determines everything. But the business business plan is where you have to go back to... When you get into the business, at the end of the day, you know, social media and TV, all of that stuff is cool, but you still have to run a business.

You still have to be in relationship with people. That's all next on a balanced life with Dr. Jackie here on Black Star Network. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene. A white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. On that soil, you will not. White people are losing their damn minds. There's an angry pro-Trump storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the lives of what I call white minority resistance.

We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic there has been what character Harold Anderson at every university calls white rage as a backlash. This is the rise of the proud boys and the boogaloo boys, America, there's going to be more of this. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people.

The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking out women. This is white fear. In this country right now, you have people get up in the morning, and the only thing they can think about is how many people they can hurt, and they've got the power, that's the time for mourning. For better or worse, what makes America special, it's that legal system that's supposed to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

We are at a point of a moral emergency. We must raise a voice of outrage. We must raise a voice of compassion. And we must raise a voice of unity. We are not in a crisis of party versus party. We are in a crisis of civilization, a human rights crisis, and a crisis of democracy itself.

And guess what? You've been chosen. to make sure that those that would destroy, those that would hate, don't have the final say, and they don't ultimately win. They said the quiet part out loud. Black votes are a threat,

so they erased them. After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Republican legislatures moved fast. New voter ID laws, polling place shutdowns, purges of black voters from the rolls, Trump's Justice Department didn't stop it. They joined in. In 2018, his DOJ backed Ohio's voter purge system,

a scheme that disproportionately erased black voters, their goal, erase black votes, and political power. Yeah, that happened. These are the kinds of stories that we cover every day on Roland Martin unfiltered. Subscribe on YouTube and download the Black Star Network app. Support fact-based independent journalism that centers African Americans

and the issues that matter to our community. Hi, I'm LaVelle Crawford. I ain't wear a bowtie out of day because I wanted to breathe. And you're watching. Roland Martin unfiltered. Thank you. All right, folks, welcome back to Virginia State University.

We've got three more candidates running for the house to introduce them right now. Deborah Gardner, she is running for District 76. You put your hands together for Deborah. Also joining us right here is Lindsay Dowardy, Lindsey Dowardy. Lindsey running in District 75, also Mike Jones represents Virginia's 77th district running as well. So all three are running. So first and foremost, I'll throw this out first. As you're traveling around your districts, what's the dominant issue you are hearing from folks that they care about, that's most important in their minds?

Thank you, Roland, and thank you so much for having me. I am currently in the House of Delegates, so I still am knocking doors just like I'm pretty in a pretty safe district. And what I'm hearing from my constituents is they're really worried. They're really afraid about what's happening in Washington, mostly regarding the economy and health care. And so we are trying to address some of those issues in the House of Delegates. I'm actually on Health and Human Services as one of my committees. I'm also on finance as a freshman. I'm really proud of that.

And so I'm able to hopefully alleviate some of their fears. But in our honesty, we're not like the federal government. We cannot make money. Yes. So one of the biggest things that I'm hearing about, just general affordability, a lot of it is around accessibility and affordability of health care. It's something that me and my family have faced. over the years and comes up on doors whether they're Democrats, Republicans, or independents.

And so I think that, you know, all the things that you mentioned before about it not matter and not matter in what side of the aisle folks typically vote on. These are issues that impact our day-to-day life regardless of what party we previously supported. And so we have to make that decision this year in Virginia on who we feel like is best going to lead us, provide a firewall of protection against what's happening at the federal level, but also building up our communities here in Virginia for the next two years. First of all, good evening, Michael Jones. Thanks for having us out. People are tired of the nonsense in D.C. On November 1st, there's roughly 57,000 Chesterfield residents and 36,000 Richmond residents who will not receive their SNAP benefits

because of the shutdown. That's not getting enough air time. We're not talking about that enough but our families and vulnerable communities are going to be impacted in a major way the cost of living is not going down it's rising and many of the people that we represent all three of us and and who lindsay hopes to resident uh to represent they're not receiving the assistance from the government federal and state that they're going to need and so we were talking about affordability uh when i look at um monday running in new york i mean he is running a campaign that is speaking directly to people's concerns you see it in the ad that he's doing the social media as well and health care is absolutely dominant but we also are seeing is the issue of

housing affordable housing we've seen prices of homes explode all across the country over the last several years and so what what specifically do you hope to do ladies and start with you if elected to confront the issue of housing cost in your district yes so I'm actually running against an opponent that voted against tax breaks for first-time home buyers. It seems like a no-brainer to me, and that's something that I personally would support when elected. She also voted to raise rents without notice to people, and since she is a landlord that benefits her directly, and I think that that doesn't serve our community. It doesn't represent

what we need at a House Delegance level, at a State Senate level, and it's something that I will directly impact when we flip the seat one of the things that we did the city of Richmond actually has a tax incentive program for affordable housing projects and that's going to be a model that we're going to use at the state level that any builder that wants to come into a locality and do an affordable housing project instead of a tax abatement program that basically gentrified the city of Richmond those dollars are now shifted to putting affordable housing stock out there and so that's key that's something that we can do as well

well, we have to ensure that the planning process, the planning and review process that a lot of our localities drag their feet on, it's just, it's, it's raising the cost of those projects when localities reduce the number of units in the name of infrastructure, right? You take a project that has 1,000 units, remove 200, you just increase the cost of that project by 20%. And the developer's not going to take that on. So we need to reduce the duplicative processes within a locality. We need to encourage them to get this process through within nine to ten months, not 18 to two, 18 months to two years. And for me, this year during the General Assembly, affordable housing was one of my issues. I actually put in three pieces of legislation,

two of which actually went to the Housing Commission for study so we could bring them back. They did not die. And one in particular, which is really kind of critical, is that, we have localities and we have the state who has surplus property and that surplus property could be used for affordable housing but most of the time we did the research and found out that the localities did not know how much surplus property they had the state did not know how much surplus property they had so my legislation would have required them to do inventory and to make these properties available at a fair market value to organizations who specifically targeted developing affordable housing. And so it got sent to study. It did not die. But we've got to stop talking about the problem and start doing something. The other piece was to actually form a task force that would bring all these pieces together,

including the one that Delegant Jones talked about, about how long it takes to get housing through the process. and so that one is actually they're working on pulling together and it would have to report within a year and not just be something that you do and put on the shelf. I asked this question earlier.

I talked about it with the president as well so I'm going to ask each one of you to say yes or no. If you return to the delegate, if you are elected and you return as well, will you specifically support the state giving the $277.5 million as owed to this school

that was taken, the money that came from the federal government, the land grant money. Do you support that? Hell yes. Absolutely. I work in a higher education university, too, and we need to get these dollars into the communities that need them. And I would, too, and my understanding is that they remove their designation as a land grant, and they should restore that as well as giving the money back.

All right, then. Mike, I'll start with you. This one of the issues that, specifically. Specifically, it's important to our community, black-owned businesses being able to tap into state contracts. What does that look like for black-owned business in this state?

The reality is, if you look at most of our businesses, the ones that have been able to build and grow, the reason Atlanta is what it is, is because of the airport, because of contracts there, because contracts with the city. We've not seen that replicated in some other different places. So talk about what,

you will do to advance that issue if you get to go back. Right. We know we can't do set-asides and namely say, all right, you have to spend X, Y, Z, but some of the things that we can do is begin to look at and focus on... Hold it, and hold our developers accountable that the procurement

processes, whether it's the locality, whether it's the state level, to ensure that they are being equitable in the dollars that they do in Atlanta. All right, if someone couldn't scale up to do the entire airport, okay, do the runway. How do we begin to do something? Or actually what Mena Jackson actually did was, he broke.

So I cover city government and county government. And the reality is, in order for you to bid on a prime contract, you had to have been a prime before. Well, if you never can become a prime, you can ever be on a prime contract. So what he did was he actually broke the contracts up. So versus there being a $100 million contract, he broke it into $4.25 million contracts or $10 million. which gave us about an opportunity to become a prime contractor, and once you become a prime one time, you now can be it on other prime contracts.

That's the way of doing it. That's not, or when I cover City Hall in Fort Worth, one of the things they did was give preferential treatment to zip codes or to businesses in the city that are actually headquartered in the city. The last thing that Jackson did also was require banks, where the city put their money in those banks to provide lines of credit to the businesses getting

city contracts. He said, we're going to be paying them, but they can't survive on six months. And that's not a race-based policy. That can be for any business that has a state contract or a city contract. There are ways to actually help build capacity to get around

those restrictions. And some of the things that we did, after my first session, we held a banking while black symposium, and we looked at how African-American business, were not able to scale up or get the type of lending that, you know, white organizations could do. Which is why B. did get a PPP loan in the first place. Exactly. And so what we did this past session and put in a budget amendment that gave a grant about,

it was close to a quarter of a million dollars to the Metropolitan Business League so they could help small businesses, black businesses, minority-owned businesses, begin the process of scaling up. And so that's something that I want to see just more robust, more dollars put there. because if we help local organizations like NBL, Floyd Miller can get those dollars to the companies and the men and women that are actually out here doing that work and help them be successful.

Do you want me? Yes. What I want to say is I'm actually a small business owner. I'm registered in Chesterfield County. And not only those kind of things... You're not talking about what the business is. Huh? What's the business?

I'm a consulting business. I do executive and executive coaching, but it's been on a whole since I've been running. You better always be selling, but a tell point what it is. Go ahead, go ahead. Yes, but along those same lines, we also have to make sure that they're not intentionally cutting them out. A group came to me to bring up possible legislation in this session about how they have been kept out of this by having to check certain boxes that if you've ever had a felon, then you can't bid on this,

or if you ever, anybody in your company who has these certain things and you check those boxes, you can't even bid for some of those contracts. So we have to stop some of the roadblocks that are put in before small businesses, especially black-owned businesses, to make sure that they can bid on these things, that they're going to be qualified. As a small business owner, we also have to help processes where I have a macro business, but I have to jump through the same hoots that some of these larger businesses have, and that deters people from wanting to go into small business.

And as we know, small businesses are the backbone of our community. They're the ones who provide the services to us every single day. Yes, so I think that, especially with the tariffs that are happening at the federal level, need to really sew into the small businesses across our communities. And, you know, that's women-owned businesses, that's black-owned businesses, that's minority-owned businesses, because those are going to be the businesses that keep our community safe, keep us fed, keep us healthy. And so I think that if we're able to connect them to SWAM at the state level, help them navigate these procurement processes at the state level that are convoluted and have typically been built to kind of exclude

people, then we will be successful in doing that. And so it's working with the small businesses in our communities to help them through that process, to connect them to resources and help them thrive and then help our community thrive too. But the key, I'm being very specific, not small business, black owned businesses. Because what we have seen, we've seen many of them get frozen out, left out. And the problem is they remain small. They have one to employees. So the reality is we have to build scale. So that has to be an intentional effort by the state to say

we're going to do that to provide access. Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the buildup and birth of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Isman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan,

there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics.

Get the Big Short now at Pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home for dinner for the first time. How would you ask if there are any unlocked guns in the home?

Hey. Hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over, though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access. Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation

at Agreetoagree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council. Hey, it's Greg Rosenthal, host of NFL Daily. No matter of the day, NFL Daily has fresh content in your feed. Last week's games, we recapped them. The unexpected happened in so many in these games, and I love it. This week was like the defensive line, stepping in getting a stop on fourth and goal. Get the old Mo back on your side.

It was a lot of good defensive stops, including in the game of the day. This week's games, we previewed him. He is the best quarterback in the league this year. He reminds me a little bit of Tom Brady in his later years, and this is a compliment, he's no longer hanging in quite as much to take those big hits because he's playing the long game.

They're not going to get pressure on him. Newsflash, it's not going to happen. I think they smoke them. And so much more for all you football sickos listen to NFL Daily on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. To folks that have often been left out, if you were able to grow black-owned businesses,

you can change in many of these communities. But it has to be the ability to be able to ask, access city contracts, county contracts, state contracts, because we're seeing how they're being cut out on a federal level. And capital. They have to be able to access that capital. Well, capital, but also contracts. I mean, so part of the deal, what happens, we talk about whatever this issue comes up, we spend lots of time talking about access to capital, but the reality is if I have access to contracts, I'll get capital. And I think the one thing that we have that Debra and I both have, when folk come in, you know, and they're lobbying.

us for votes. My one power is the vote. That if it's coming before me on labor and commerce, which I serve on, if it's coming for city counties and towns, all right, hey, why aren't there anyone in this room that looks like me? As our legislature in Virginia, as it blackens

and browns, right? Why don't we see black and brown lobbyists? Why, you know, you can ask, and I've done that, I don't care what they're... Those are jobs, those employees, those folks have families, there's a whole downflow. And you could ask them, hey, you want my vote, are you hiring any minority businesses? Those are questions that I

ask in my office, are you? And if you're not, what do we need to do? Even with the unions. If all the union reps, you know, I've been saying to unions for a long time. Don't come big if a black, there's votes and then you're not hiring black folks, especially trades. And even putting them in their apprentice programs, you look at those programs, you don't see many brown people. Yeah, but I don't, I ain't talking about a printers. I'm the people who are not printers who actually already have the skill set. I've been on that for like 20 years and the trades folks

get mad at me all they want to but I don't give it down I don't give it down because those those are high paying jobs that we often are frozen out of and that's and that's a problem when again they want black votes so to get past but where are those jobs? Yeah and so when I go through their shops I'm like

hold on why I don't see any African Americans in here why don't see anyone that looks like us in there and I think that that's that's up to us as legislators to really sound that alarm sound that Trump in and put that expectation out there, that we want representation. We want to see individuals that look like us and that are being supported by us. And so that's key for me. Your individual districts, give me a sense

of the black makeup of your district. My district is Chesterfield County. I only have one jurisdiction. It's predominantly white. I am the first black person, black Democrat to ever represent just Chesterfield statewide. My district covers the eastern part of Chesterfield, all of of Hopewell City and in the northern part of Prince George. And the black vote makes up about 35% of my district. I represent parts of Richmond and parts of Chesafield County, 47% African American. And I'm the first African American to represent this area in the state. In the state. So last question for each one of you. I've asked you earlier. Give me your next priority if you are able to serve in the house delegates. I already told you about affordable housing. My next one is early childhood education,

and that includes like child care, affordable, accessible quality child care, as well as zero to five because I used to be the chief deputy for the Department of Corrections. And what I realize is if we don't catch them on the front end, we're going to pay for them in corrections on the back end. Absolutely. It's going to be more costly. More costly. Yeah, so I think that I'm one of the main things that I am really going to want to tackle when I am elected is modernizing the state funding formula for schools. This looks at, you know, zero to five funding. This looks at major maintenance that our schools need, especially in our rural areas, and it hasn't been updated in decades. And so it's not going to be something that can happen

in the first year, but it's something that we can finally start to write as we move through the next few years and will benefit entire communities and families. For me, it's economic mobility. It's not just making $15 or $18 or $19 an hour. How can they move up from there? And so I work on and I'm reporting to the Workforce Committee within Labor and Commerce, and that's key for me. How can we just not get a good job, but how can we continue to grow on those jobs and ensure?

Next piece is ensuring that, yeah, again, they tell black kids that, hey, college isn't for everybody, but they're not telling that to kids at Collegian and places like that. I want to ensure that Virginia students can get into Virginia colleges and not spend the farm to do it. My son is in his first year, College of Law at Famu, and 33,000 out-of-state tuition. He got in-state tuition because he trained for the pros and all that stuff down in Miami, $13,000 a year for law school. For law school.

How can we do that here in Virginia? How can we ensure that every Virginia that wants to go to school in Virginia, it is a bad economic decision to leave this state. And so that's something I want to look at. How do we control the cost? How do we ensure that our young students can do that and ensure that our young boys and young girls are going to schools? All of my kids have HBCU degrees, including their dad. And that's important to me, and that means something to me. And so how do we get more of our kids here where they're going to be cared for, where they're more than jobs?

just a number, but they care and get the compassion that they need. All right, folks. I'm an HBCU grad as well, North Carolina Central University. He's pulled it through it in earlier. See, you late. You're late. Put your hands together for Deborah Gardner, Lindsay Dowdy,

Mike Jones. We'll come back. We're going to hear from some of the students, what's on their mind, what issues they want to see addressed by the officials in Richmond. That's next right here, Rolla Martin Unfiltered on the Black Sudd Network live in Virginia State University. Next on the black table with me.

Brad Cawker. Why the America we live in today is not what the founders intended or what they outlined in the Declaration of Independence and even the Constitution. Professor and author Kermit Roosevelt will join us to talk about his book, The Nation That Never Was, How History was Misinterpreted, the intent and realities of America's beginnings and missed a much better story in the process. So if you have to pick some group to marginalize, I think it should be the people who are against equality.

That's next on the black table right here. the Black Star Network. They said the quiet part out loud. Black votes are a threat, so they erased them. After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Republican legislatures moved fast. New voter ID laws, polling place shutdowns, purges of black voters from the rolls. Trump's Justice Department didn't stop it.

They joined in. In 2018, his DOJ backed Ohio's voter. purge system, a scheme that disproportionately erased black voters, their goal, erase black votes, and political power. Yeah, that happened. These are the kinds of stories that we cover every day on Roland Martin unfiltered. Subscribe on YouTube and download the Black Star Network app. Support fact-based independent journalism that centers African Americans and the issues that matter

to our community. This week on the other side of change. Book banned anti-intellectualism and Trump's continued war on wisdom. This is a coordinated backlash to progress. At the end of the day, conservatives realized that they couldn't win a debate on facts. They started using our language against us, right? Remember when we were all woke and the woke movement and all that kind of stuff? Now everything is anti-woke, right?

When we're talking about including diversity, equity, inclusion, higher education. Now it's anti-DEI. All this are efforts to suppress the truth because truth empowers people. You're watching the other side of change only on the Black Star Network. If in this country right now, you have people get up in the morning

and the only thing they can think about is how many people they can hurt and they've got the power. That's the time for mourning. For better or worse, what makes America special, it's that legal system that's supposed to protect minorities

from the tyranny of the majority. We are at a point of a moral emergency. We must raise a voice of outrage. We must raise a voice of compassion. And we must raise a voice of unity. We are not in a crisis of party versus party. We are in a crisis of civilization, a human rights crisis,

and a crisis of democracy itself. And guess what? been chosen to make sure that those that would destroy, those that would hate, don't have the final say, and they don't ultimately win. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene. A white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. White people are losing their damn minds. There's an angry pro-Trump storm to the U.S. Capitol.

We're about to see the rise of what I call. white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at every university calls white rage as a backlash. This is the riot of the proud boys and the boogaloo boys, America. There's going to be more of this. the proud boys guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its

attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking out women. This is white fear. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's wealth coach. We talk about the principles of mindset, strategy, and execution. This week, we're adding a fourth. Faith. You're going to hear from a mother and daughter duel who are helping thousands of black women build wealth all through their faith. You are more than you can ever imagine.

Not just obtaining things to show that, but seeing yourself. Making your faith work for you that's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. All right, folks, welcome back to Virginia State University. We've been, of course, broadcasting here, focusing on our vote, our voices. And so now let's hear from some students. Black Star Network correspondent, Brittany Noble, will take it away. Well, hello, everyone, and with me right now, I have members of the Student Government Association. They call themselves the heart of the school right here.

You guys had some big events today registering voters. Jaden, I want you to tell me a little bit more about what happened today. First of foremost, glad to be here today. Today, basically, we had students come out in a fun way just to learn how to register to vote, especially if they don't live in this area at all. So they all came out just to learn how to register, how to put in their ballots and whatnot. How to put in their balance at what? not. There was food, fun, music. Everybody had a good time, but it was also trying to learn

the students, help them learn how to vote, how to put in that ballot, how important it is. So that's what be this today. And you had hundreds of students that signed up to vote today, correct? And tell me, what are some of the things that are in the minds of students here at the university? What are people talking about Sinai? Well, I know from the students' minds, they want better housing, they want parking decals that are not very expensive and they want to be able to feel like their voices are being heard while on campus and not saying, okay, we're going to do it and nothing happens. Isaiah, I know that you work with students here firsthand. Tell me why is it important for students to get involved? Okay, so when it comes to why the reason why students should be getting involved

is because we are the base at the end of the day. We had people that came before us. We had people that fought. We see the progress that they had, but if we don't keep it going, there won't be any more progress. Progress doesn't mean that we're able to keep it. As we see within this new administration that we have, there have been a lot of things that have been stripped away from us. So in order to keep that from continue to happening, and more things going away, we have to be the people that vote and keep those things intact. You know, right now we have people watching all over the country. What is it that you want to tell them, especially young people, inspiring them to get involved go out and vote and especially with those elected officials hold them accountable

because they always have their promises and stuff but sometimes they don't go along with their promises so continue to hold them accountable so your peers to vote always watch the news i know it seems a little bit boring but watch the news see what's going on around your area and you can make a difference eventually hey my show is not boring you say watch the news oh other people okay yeah you've been a Damn, but you better specify who you're talking about. Somebody could be a little boy. Go ahead with the questions. Go ahead.

Tell me what's next. When Roland Martin leaves here, what are you guys going to do? How do you keep the momentum going? After this, we've got to continue to mobilize. I feel like somebody like Roland Martin coming to our university, it shows just how important we are. Because some people can feel like we get lost in the sauce, especially considering that we're, I don't want to say we're a lower HBCU,

because obviously we're the best HBCU in the land. But when it comes to the how, the N-Cats, things like that. People always feel like those students are the people that hold the power. But when Roland Martin decides I'm going to come to Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia,

that's when we realize that we hold power and so I hope that we take that momentum and get you to fight for our people. That's because I own it. I can do what I want. All right, so we appreciate we've got the next group of questions, y'all, come on, get up.

Hey, I'm going to call on y'all. Come on, come on. It's your turn. Get on up. You on that call? You're on that big over, on that blue and sweater. Get on up.

Tell us your name. Tell me how to your heart. This is in Cambridge. I'm the Senator for the Honors College. This election is just really crucial and important in Virginia. It's a stepping son to what is going on in the federal government. It's really the blockade. All the issues that we talk about from costs to schooling to the cost to just live. It is very important that we vote in this election and that we really understand the issues and policies that have taken place not only in Richmond but in Washington as well.

Your name? I'm Chan's Beverly. I'm a sophomore. political science here at Virginia State and also serve as Mr. Tapps for the Association of Political Science. And I think my biggest issue, especially with the administration right now, is I feel like we're losing truth in this nation. We're constantly being pumped with misinformation and disinformation, and I think we're losing our sort of objective reality. And I think we need to get back to just defining truth in this nation.

Tell me your name. Antoine Sullivan, a double major political science, mass communications. I am a sophomore as well. I think what's on my heart is to what Zen said, ensuring that we are getting the funding that we need, not just for now, but also after, because a lot of times we talk about funding for schools while we're here. But, you know, when we leave here, we need jobs, we need good jobs. We want good paying jobs. We want to set up lives for our families as well.

And so I think ensuring that we don't just focus on the money now, but also after. as well. Have anything to say to encourage the people at home right now? Your voice. Your voice is your vote. And take that with pride because every single day as we see this week, they are trying to strip it away. And we must truly focus on it.

Whether the news is boring or not or as is entertaining as Mr. Martin, we must focus on it. Smart man. So let's continue to practice the right to vote. Three of y'all students? Y'all needs the females. Get up. Come on. That's right. Y'all tell me y'all, we ain't doing that.

Y'all, come on out. Step on out. Y'all step on out. Come on. Ladies. Tell me your name. Kamaya North Fleet, Junior Political Science Major with a minor in history. Michael Lewis here. My book, The Big Short, tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008.

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Hey, it's Greg Rosenthal, host of NFL Daily. No matter of the day, NFL Daily has fresh content in your feed. Last week's games, we recapped them. The unexpected happened in so many in these games, and I love it. This week was like the defensive line, stepping in getting a stop on fourth and goal, get the old Mo back on your side. It was a lot of good defensive stops,

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Newsflash. It's not going to happen. I think they smoke them. And so much more for all you football sickos. Listen to NFL Daily on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And then what were you, what did you take away from the panels today? Honestly, from all the different panels, I mean, I already knew it. But it really just showed how important it is to vote, especially.

as a student and as a Democrat myself, because you see how pivotal it is to see what happens when you don't vote. Aren't you guys all a part of another organization as well? Tell me a little bit about that organization. Yes, we are. We are part of TAPS, which is the Political Science Association here at Virginia State University.

We are able to connect students exactly where they are and meet them where they are to understand the importance of voting, not just for now. but for future generations as well. Aren't you having a hard time getting people involved here on campus? Honestly, it's a little hard, especially with my generation, because they believe that elections are rigged. So it's just convincing the students here that your vote matters.

It's not just your vote, it's your voice, how you express yourself to other people with just talking up about politics. You don't have to be Republican and Democrat. It's just about morals, honestly, at the end of the day. There were hundreds of people that signed up to vote today, students. But for those people that did sign up, so many other people did not. Yeah. What do you think is going through their minds? Honestly, like Chanson, there's a lot of misinformation out here about not only voting, but voter registration. I heard the craziest thing from a student. He said

that if he registered the vote, that he would be put on the draft list. And I was just like, well, that's not really how that works. But with the current climate, everybody's willing to believe whatever that discourages them from making a change, it seems like. So that's like our biggest challenge right now with trying to get people out there to vote, especially as college students ourselves. So I know you're on campus

and you spend a lot of time here, but what else are people talking about at home and in your communities? They're definitely talking about the lack of funding here on Virginia State University's campus and how we need more funding to better support them.

It's not just that. It's also financial aid. You have students who aren't getting the proper Pell grants to even attend college. You have students who are getting the Medicaid stripped away as we speak. And it's just it discourages a lot of students, especially like me because I rely heavily on financial aid. So seeing what Donald Trump is doing in his administration trying to strip that away, it's a little bit discouraging. But to me personally, it pushes me to try harder to encourage other students like me as well. But are you explaining to them that the folk who are in office

are the ones who are deciding what gets cut and what gets funded? That's a good question. No, I'm asking you. When you're having these conversations with other students, earlier I said we have to connect the dots. And so those with knowledge have to do that. And so I think part of this thing is you have to connect the dots for those folks who don't understand it and say, hey,

If you're concerned about funding for Virginia State, the House of Delegates votes on funding for Virginia State. So you have to have the person we want. The people in Congress, they're the ones who are cutting Pell Grants. So when you are talking to these students, how are you helping them to understand the intricacies of policy? How are you doing that? What are those conversations like?

Give me an example. Okay, see, y'all going to have to, see, y'all going to have to bring me back here so I can teach a class on, because I'm, I'm serious, the issues that, what you're struggling with right now is, are individuals who don't know. You have to be the one that connects the dots for them. you have to literally walk a person through and say and this is what I tell everybody and this is just for you or any of you students or anyone else out here. You have to ask a person what's the one thing you care about? No party

so what's the one thing you care about? So they say I care about education. Okay, what? College high school, elementary, what do you care about? And then when they say that, then that's when you're able to now say let me connect you the dots. So if you say you can care about Pell grants, that's not coming from the legislature, that's federal government. If you care about financial aid, that's coming from, you have to walk them through so they can understand because the reality is they don't know. And so that's just what you have to do.

So if you are the one who's informed, you have to then inform them because you can't expect them to actually know. Go ahead. I think a lot of the huge issue with this campus, not this campus, but with students in general is that it's hard to get students involved and to care more about politics because when you speak to people like our generation and you say, oh, how do you care about this issue and it's like, oh, politics don't concern me.

So it's just about how do you... It's not right there. So when they say politics doesn't concern me, what's your response? Well, it concerns our everyday life. It's the water you drink or the rent you pay or the cities you walk through. It's everyday life.

So if you say politics doesn't concern you, It really does. Right. So when the person says politics doesn't concern me, that's when you come back, you say, okay, give me the two things you care about. And then when they say, oh, man, I'm about to get dropped for my parents' health care. You go, really, you do know politicians voted on that. You do know.

See, that's what I'm saying. So when a person says that, they really don't actually fully understand the role that politics plays in every aspect of their life. So what we have to do is we actually have to take politics out of the conversation, make it an issue-oriented thing to get them to then go issue first, then politics, not politics first. Cool? Yes. All right.

Any other students want to share their concerns while we're live? Back there, all right, y'all step up. Y'all, come on, step up. Take it away, Brittany. Got the first family up here. I'm doing very well. Tell me your name. And what do you want to say?

My name is Bryson Ruff, a senior computer science major from Chesapeake, Virginia. Just happy to be here today. And my biggest concern is, how do we get people around our age ranges to show the importance of what we're doing and how it matters to the world? What else? What were you thinking? I was thinking, how can we keep students engaged on campus about voting after election? Well, you guys had an event today. Do you guys plan to have another event?

Tell me your name. Yes, ma'am. I'm Ernest Remember the third junior mass communication major, and we do plan on having more events like this. The main is of the Beta Gamma chapter of Alfa fraternity corporate take vote in very serious. It is all right. When you're having conversations with folks on campus, what are they saying? I am Dante Clark. I am a senior computer engineering major, and when we're having conversations with people on campus, they're saying a lot how they're just unaware, kind of like how he was saying about. They don't really know the true meaning of what they're voting for. So that's where we come in with our voter registration programs,

and we try and break it down to the smallest point so they can understand the little thing. So when you do that, how do you do it? Give me an example. It goes back to basically people on our campus, they think the presidential election is what matters the most, and we have to explain to them how local elections really are the most important. Right. So you have state elections coming up. You've got somebody who's concerned.

How are you explaining to them that, hey, this is why you need to vote in this race? How I do it personally, you've seen what's been happening over the last few years and what's happening in our government. You don't want that to continue. You need to get involved. You need to show up and represent so we can better ourselves and better our world. Nope. Here's how you do it.

You see that old building? whoever will determines how much state funding we get. You want new dormitories? Students are going to say, yeah. You want better technology on campus? Yes. Do you want better food services on campus? Yes.

You take all the things that say they want and say, you do and that every single thing that you say that you want is determined by state funding. State funding is determined by who's in power. So, if you want these things for Virginia State, if you want a better four years here, then you should be voting because that's who's going to fund the very things that you say you need to improve. The late Joe Madison, God rest his soul, always you say you're going to put it where the ghost can get it. So if you talk to people up here, they have no idea.

So you have to take that very simple thing and say, that's why I keep asking, what's the one thing you care about? and then say, you do know that that person is one who votes on that. Oh, damn, I ain't know that. That person. So House of Delegates, the Senate. So if you want these things for your campus, this is why you have to vote. And then you have to say, do you know that the sister who ran two years ago, she lost by 53 votes? And then you can say, so if 55 students, if it happens again, if 55 more students like yourself or you and 54 others

vote, she would have won. That's how you make it playing. Go ahead. Basically, because I'm from Virginia, born and raised, New Jersey and California. It's all the same. How do you appeal to those people that are not from our state, but they still care about

it? First question is, you have to ask them, are you registered? They say, yes, where are you registered? Because their student here, they can register here. And they can't vote in both places, they can actually be registered here. That's the first thing.

And then when that then happens, you still take the exact same issues and still apply to them. So if a student says, hey, I'm concerned about a loss of financial aid and Pell Grant. You say, you know that's members of Congress. So if you didn't vote in the last election, then you can't complain about who got stuff cut because you didn't vote. So there's a midterm elections next year, 2026. So if you care about Pell Grants being cut, you should be voting for folks who want to expand Pell Grants. that's members of Congress. That's how you have to make the connection with somebody.

You have to tie the issue to the political office. Cool. All right. Many of the questions, you got it? Folks, that is it for us. Let me give it up for all of our students. So, Tuesday, we're going to be in Fredericksburg. broadcasting as well and then we're in Virginia Beach on November 3rd the day before the

election and for the folks who watch this show if you're new to watching the show you'll know we try to make this thing as simple and plain as possible so I can folks can understand what these issues are because here's the reality the folk who vote are the ones who are benefiting and part of the problem here is when you check out of a political process you're letting somebody else control your future. Somebody else control your destiny. That's what's going on. Right now, it's a whole lot of MAGA farmers who are crying

their eyes out because USAID got cut at $35 billion program because of tears. And I'm like, but that's what you voted for. And then they say, well, I didn't vote for that. Yes, you did, because it all came together. So they're out here crying. You got other people who are sitting here complaining about different things that.

are being cut. And what I need all folks to understand, and I'm going to say this until I am red, blue, yellow, in the face. Folks, we have to be maximizing our capacity. Let me say it again. We are leaving our power unused. If these lights were not plugged in, guess what? It would be dark in here. You've got to plug it into a power. source to get light.

Our power source is our actual vote. And so if we use it, if we maximize it, if we organize it, if we organize and mobilize us, so what does that mean? That means that every single person who's in this room should say when I leave here, I'm gonna go back to Kimberly losing my 53 votes. If every person who was in this room tonight said, my mission leaving here is I am going to talk to five people. five people. That means that you've had more than 100 people here. That means that the people

in this room can literally go talk to 500 people. That's all I asked y'all to do is talk to five people. So between now and November 4th, go talk to five people. That means that you literally could determine who wins and who loses. If just each person said, I'm going to talk to five people. And so that's how we have to be thinking. We keep talking broad, we keep talking macro. I keep saying we have to be talking micro, we have to be talking on a lower level. We are close to having two million subscribers on our YouTube channel. But we started in August of 2017, we had 72,000.

With 157,000 when we launched in September 4th, 2018. Over seven years, we've gone from 157,000 to 1.8,7. million. Why? Because I didn't focus on, oh, I'm trying to hit three. No, it's, how can we go? One person added every single day. It's a micro game. And so we have to be the ones. So if we're watching the news and we're learning and we know what's going on, we got to share the information. We've got to talk to people, share it with them because people literally do not know. And so if we as African-Americans, If we all of a sudden are hitting 65, 70, 75, 80%, I can guarantee you we are sweeping statewide elections. We're sweeping county elections.

We're sweeping House and Senate races. But the guaranteed way for us never to have our issues addressed is that we do not use the power of the vote. And so the election is November 4th in this state where you are. There are going to be local elections as well. You've got different elections. You've got a narrow election in Detroit happening of that same day. You've got, of course, the Amendment Prop 50 in California. And so depending upon where you live, you right now should be asking yourself what elections are happening where I live.

And you should be saying, let me get caught up on the issues and the people who are running so I can maximize my role. Let me thank the folks in Virginia State. Let me thank the Virginia Democrats. Let me think the Virginia legislative black caucus. We think everybody who made this possible. And so glad to be back on campus. I look forward to coming back and again. We'll be live in Fredericksburg on Tuesday.

We'll be live in Virginia Beach on November 3rd. That's it. Don't forget support of the work that we do. Folks, we're the only black daily news show in the country. Nobody else is doing what we doing. And not only that, we're not sitting there on stream yard or on substance. We're literally live in person here broadcasting. And look, I'm very frank. I tell folks all the time, every single one of these cameras,

every single one of these microphones, all the stuff that we roll with, all that stuff costs money, a crew as well. And so this is what we have to be able to have where we are covering our stuff because you know what happens. MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox News, they will happily go to Virginia or go to Virginia Tech or go to any PWI. They never even consider coming to HBCU. We always consider

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are Blackowned companies, and so support them as well. And don't forget, download the app fan base. Isaac Hayes III is the founder. That's a Black-owned social media app. Got audio rooms, you've got photos, you got videos, you got live streaming, you got subscriptions, all that stuff. Download the app fan base.

If you want to invest, they've already raised $13.4 million. The goal is to raise $17 million in the Series A fundraise. To get more information in StartEngin.com, I'm 4 slash fan base. Folks, that's it. I'll see y'all tomorrow right here, Roll the Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

Ha! Michael Lewis here. My best-selling book The Big Short tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. ago, the Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie. And now I'm bringing it to you for the first time as an audiobook narrated by yours truly. The Big Short story, what it means to bet against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been. Get the Big Short now at Pushkin.fm. slash audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold. Talking about guns with others might not always feel comfortable, but it could save a life. Here's a way to start a conversation. Your family is going over to your neighbor's home

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Join me, Greg Rosenthal, in an all-star cast of co-hosts for previews and recaps of every single game. NFL Daily will keep you up to date with everything you need to know so you can sound smarter than all your friends. Listen to NFL Daily on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

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