#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Sen. Harris talks COVID-19 impact on Blacks; Can small biz survive outbreak; Sam Jackson: Stay home

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

4.2.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: #Coronavirus update; Sen. Kamala Harris discusses COVID-19 impact on Blacks; Sen. Klobuchar discusses mail in voting expansion; Georgia's May primary election is still on despite virus concersn; Can small biz survive outbreak; 7 people test positive for COVID-19 after attending a church conference in Kansas City; fun drinks to make while your shut in at home + Sam Jackson says stay the F* home. #RolandMartinUnfiltered 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Pre-game to greater them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Folks, today's Thursday, March, first of all, it's April 2nd, 2020, and here's what's coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered. The latest information about the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 5,000 Americans have died as a result of this virus. Senator Kamala Harris will talk to us about the impact of the coronavirus on black communities

and why she is staying in D.C. to fight on behalf of all Americans. Also, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar will join us to talk about expanding mail-in voting while in Wisconsin, Republicans are fighting that. And also, in Georgia, a top Republican says, oh, if we do that, that's going to cause all of us Republicans to lose. Hmm.

Those impressions? How do small black businesses get help to stay afloat during this pandemic? We'll talk with John Bryan, who is the founder of Operation Hope and left at least seven people test positive for COVID-19 after attending a Kojic conference in Kansas City. Pastors, y'all need to stop meeting. Smaller churches are in danger of closing without help from their parishioners. We'll tell you how larger churches are trying to help.

And got a little fun on the show. Some people, of course, staying at home. So I've got a friend of mine out of Miami who's a bartender who's gonna have some nice, fun drinks you can make at home while you are social distancing. Plus, Samuel L. Jackson says it's time to stay at home. It's time to bring the funk. I'm rolling the button, I'm filtering. Let's go.

He's got it Whatever the mess, he's on it Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the vibe And when it breaks, he's right on time And it's rollin' Best believe he's knowin' Puttin' it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' to politics with entertainment just for kicks he's rolling he's broke he's fresh's real the best, you know he's rolling Martel.

Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel.

Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel.

Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. 7,497 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States and its three U.S. territories. 5,712 patients with the virus have died. That's 1,103 more than yesterday at this very time. 10,324 patients have recovered. Just a moment ago, Vice President Mike Pence was speaking

at the news conference where he said 1.3 million tests have been administered. More than 200,000 Americans have tested positive for coronavirus. New York, of course, is the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States. Their hospitals are simply being overwhelmed here is new york governor andrew cuomo with his daily update we have about six days of ventilators in our stockpile meaning if the rate of usage the rate of people coming into hospitals who need ventilators, if that rate continues, in our stockpile, we have about six days. Now, if the apex happens within that time frame, if the apex increases, if the apex is longer, we have an issue with ventilators. These numbers, by the way, are also going to be compiled every night.

There's a difference of opinion. How many will you need? We'll need what we need. You know, I have no desire to acquire more ventilators than we need. The way we basically are acquiring ventilators is the state is buying them. They are very expensive and the state is broke. So I have no desire to buy more ventilators than we need. But we need what we need. If a person comes in and needs a ventilator and you don't have a ventilator, the person dies. Folks, what we're hearing of obviously is devastating.

Again, all across the country, all across the country, we are hearing governors talk about the impact of coronavirus. On this show, we've talked to folks in Albany, Georgia, in Mississippi, all across the place. And people, I think, are really getting an understanding of how significant this is and where we are actually headed with this pandemic. Now, the CDC is even suggesting that all Americans may have to wear protective masks. That is a problem because you don't have enough masks.

You still have police officers who are because you don't have enough mask. You still have police officers who are saying they don't have the equipment. In fact, they have shipped masks directly to New York City for police officers to have protective covering here. And so this is I'm going to go in one second. I'm going to pull up a story. This is from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where they are reporting, again, that the CBC may very well call for all Americans to wear face masks, which is, of course, a change from what they previously had been recommending. And so according to this story that is in stat news. And so this is the piece right here. Anthony, go to my iPad, please.

It says White House expected to recommend Americans wear cloth masks to prevent coronavirus spread. The folks with stat got this document. It says the CDC recommended that the public use homemade face coverings when in public, reserving higher grade protective equipment like N95 masks for hospitals and health care workers who have faced severe shortages in personal protection. Protective equipment as the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated through the United States. And so once that actually officially comes down, we will certainly let you know that there's a briefing that is taking place right now at the White House, this daily briefing. As we told you, Don Trump spoke earlier. He's since left. I told you we do not take the news conference live when he is speaking because he frankly has lied far too much at the podium. There is a White House admiral who is speaking right now. So simply let's go to that news conference. Talk about this air bridge,

which you may have heard about. I want to talk about data. As you said, Mr. Kushner is absolutely right. We're trying to be data driven. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about, we're, Mr. Kushner is absolutely right. We're trying to be data-driven. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about how we're trying to expand the industrial base here to meet this challenge. So the first thing I want to talk about is surgical masks. So we've all quickly stated numbers here. So these, I'm about to go through several different slides to give you just scale and magnitude of federal resources that have been plied at the problem. So 27.1 million surgical masks pushed out to state governments. For N95 masks, 19.5 million N95 masks. And so if I was in a local hospital that was running short, I would look upward because the federal government has pushed out resources.

So for protective gloves, 22.4 million, 22.4 million pairs of protective gloves. For face shields, 5.2 million face shields. For ventilators, we have pushed... You just keep showing that so we can actually see it. So go ahead and go to the split screen so you still show me and show the news conference where they can actually see the graphics they're actually using. I do want to go to the phone lines right now. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is on the phone line with us. We're seeing what's happening with these elections.

While we are dealing with a pandemic, you still have elections going on. In Wisconsin, Democrats are desperately trying to stall or push back the primary on Tuesday, on April 7th. But the Democratic governor wants to move forward. A few moments ago, a federal judge actually did not agree with them to stop the election, but did put some procedures into place for people to have more time to get absentee ballots. In some states, they're saying we need to go to a completely mail-in election. Senator Klobuchar, are you with us? Yes, I am, Roland. It's great to be on. I see you, actually, on the video. Okay. All right, then. All right. Didn't realize they had you on video. They told me it was a phoner. This election is a is a huge uh piece because look

the reality is uh people congregate when you vote if you have long lines they're sitting right next to each other we saw that in the states that voted just a couple of weeks ago uh you see people are trying to get this change in uh wisconsin but you also have it was happening in georgia where a whether republican speaker of the house actually said that this would be horrible because this will ensure Republicans lose. And so how in the world do we deal with this when we're trying to deal with a pandemic? But you've got partisan politics here where we have Republicans who do not want to see mail-in balloting because they actually believe that if more people vote, they lose. It's unbelievable. And I really appreciate that you're talking about this long-term problem. We know the short term.

We've got to get the medical equipment out. Despite all these claims by the White House, we know that so many of our frontline workers don't have medical equipment, that this administration screwed up at the beginning when it came to the tests. And that's resulted in actually the need for more medical equipment because we weren't testing people to begin with to figure out who should be quarantined and who shouldn't. And we will have plenty of time to litigate all that.

But right now we're in the middle of a medical crisis. We're in the middle of an economic crisis, getting those unemployment benefits and help out to the people that deserve it. And we all know that African-American community and our minority communities are so much more hurt by this. They can't go over to some big house and try to find a room to isolate in. So we've got that going on. But none of this is going to change unless we don't let our democracy function. And that's why, as you've seen these primary

elections delayed in so many states like New York, for good reasons, we know what's just around the corner, Roland, is the federal election in November. We must allow that to go forward. We voted in the middle of major wars, in the middle of the Depression. We can do this. So that's why I have a bill that's supported by so many major democracy groups. And it would simply allow people to expand vote at home, to expand vote by mail, and to do that by paying for postage, by paying for the envelopes, by getting it out to the people. You are right. We have had some Republican resistance, but we've also had Republican secretary of states and states

like Washington state and Iowa that have said, you know what, we need the funding and we need it yesterday. So that's why in this next group of money, which I think is going to start from the House, Speaker Pelosi is devoted to doing this. We're going to have to need more funding to make it easier to vote. And then for people that still will go to the polls, and there will be people that do that, that's how they're used to voting, we've got to make early voting happen all over the country and happen 20 days in advance so we don't have a massive group of people at the polls at the same time. But the problem that we have, elections are not federal elections. They're actually state elections. And so, doesn't that mean that you can pass a bill in Congress,

but the states don't have to follow it. They can do what they want to do. So what happens if in one state they say, no, we're not going to do mail-in balloting. We don't care. We're not going to extend early voting. What do we do? So you are right, except what our bill would do is basically

demand these states to do these things and to put these reforms in place and then also to get the funding out there to go with the reforms. What we have done so far is in that last big bill that passed, we did get $400 million. We want $2 billion, $400 million to go out to the states. In the next bill, we will do what we can to get more money, and I believe we will be successful, but also to tie some reforms and then to push in individual states to get that done. But I think it is so ironic as you bring up Georgia, you know, Stacey Abrams would be governor of Georgia right now if we didn't have the guy that's there now, who was then Secretary of State, who enforced the laws in a way

that made it impossible for people to vote. And we know we're up against a lot, but that doesn't mean we don't try, Roland. And I don't think you'd be bringing this up on the show if you didn't know that there are Democrats and Republicans that want to be able to vote. We've just got to tear down that roadblock, which are the elected officials in Washington, D.C., and the people across the country. Because I can tell you, a veteran out there,

when seniors are at most risk, he wants to vote. A grandma out there who's voted her whole life, she wants to be able to vote. And so that's what we have to work on, is just everyone's desire to not pick between safety and voting. One of the things that we talk about in terms of the mail-in balloting as well, what's the status of the post office? I mean, I keep seeing these stories that they're talking about they might run out of cash. Will you have workers there? I mean, bottom line is if you're going to do massive mail-in balloting, you got to have

a functioning postal office service to do it. And that is part of the next bill as well, more funding for the post office, because they're set to lose their funding if we don't do anything about it. And so a number of us have been working on that at the same time. I think we can do this. It's one thing. It is still months away. As you know, the Democratic, as you mentioned, Democratic National Convention is now postponed till August in the hopes that we can have some form of a convention. Well, there's every reason to know that we can have an election, but we have to plan ahead. Something that this administration failed to do with this entire

pandemic, including getting the testing out when this started in China and getting things approved, instead, what did they do? They say, oh, the CDC will handle this. We'll have everyone else stand down. That test got delayed, and look where we are now. They didn't get the equipment out. That's why those of us and the loudest of voices have to stand tall and say, we're not going to let them ruin our democracy.

We are going to have an election. So let's talk about this here. So if we do mail-in balloting, how does it, for people who don't do this, how does it work in that, how do I know my ballot was actually counted? So do I receive something? I mean, how do I know? Yeah, well, what this has worked very well in some states like Oregon, Colorado, what you do is you get the ballot by mail and then you sign it. You have your signature and then they send it back and then you get something saying it's been received. It's actually worked incredibly well. But let's not be naive. We're not going to be in eight months changing the whole government so everyone votes that way.

Right now, every state has the capability to do this. So we aren't starting from scratch. Right. Those absentee ballots. Many, many people that are watching this right now have sometime filled out those absentee ballots. It's the same idea. It's just that some states make it harder to get those ballots and we want to expand it. But let me emphasize and the civil rights groups are with me, one, on supporting this bill. We just did a call with the NAACP and with Senator Wyden and others and the leadership council of strong, strong support for this bill, because we also have to acknowledge that while we expand at-home voting, we also want to keep the polls and make them safe.

So what does that mean? Number one, as I mentioned, early voting for 20 days, but number two, training a whole generation of poll workers. Funding is in this bill for that. We can't rely on our seniors, if this virus is still out there in November, when they are the most vulnerable to be working at the polls. And so a lot of this is going to get a new generation of poll workers trained to be part of our democracy.

Well, I certainly agree with that. Look, my parents are both 72. They work the polls. Of course they do. And now, does that surprise me at all when you are their son? Well, they've been doing it for years. And so we definitely want to keep them safe and so we'll certainly keep watching this uh first we'll get through the primaries before we even get to uh what happens in november senator amy clubbershop minnesota we appreciate it thanks a lot it was great to be on again roland thank you thank you keep it up all right folks let's go to our pound joining us dr greg carr chair department of afro american studies howard university uh reesey colbert black women's views and also erica savage wilson host of savage politics podcast greg i want to start with you you heard the senator there uh when you hear what this republican in georgia said the speaker of the house he literally

said we can't we should not be doing this because that's going to ensure republicans lose conservatives lose they are scared to death. We played the video yesterday what Donald Trump said on Fox News. Oh, they want to do all these things and Republicans will never get elected. They are admitting that if more people vote, Republicans are going to lose. Absolutely. For those who missed it, I would encourage everyone to go back and look at your discussion with Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from Atlanta yesterday. Near the end of that interview, she said the magic words, elections matter. And that's true. I mean, of course, of course, the majority leader in the state Senate in Georgia, David Ralston, said that because, you know, the beautiful thing about a crisis, and there's nothing beautiful about this at all, but the effective thing about a crisis is it reveals the character. It reveals what's inside you already. These Republicans are about

vote suppression because they can't win the game of demography. They are anti-democratic, small d democratic. And when he said that, he was just saying what they all believe. And in fact, when Senator Klobuchar and Ron Wyden introduced this bill, there was a Republican from Illinois who came out with that old canard of states' rights. You're taking the rights away from states. But as Senator Klobuchar just said, as we heard, states have this capacity and states, primarily states controlled by Republicans, have tried to minimize the effectiveness of mail-in ballots by creating all these preconditions before they will give you an absentee ballot. Finally, I think, again, going back to yesterday, what we see is, and this is for my friends

who argue that all the parties are the same, no. What we saw with Brian Kemp yesterday, who's in the criminal enterprise that happened in Georgia that led to him being the governor, was muted in part by Keisha Lance Bottoms and Black people being in charge of the cities. What you saw in Albany, and I'm sure Erica is going to talk about that in a second, that comes because the state is trying to intervene. And finally, in Mississippi, where this fool wouldn't shut anything down, Chokwe Antalumumba, the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, says, I have the authority. Elections matter, brother. And this is another example of why. Erica?

Oh, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And of course, Albany is my hometown. And one of the things I know for sure about Speaker Walston is that he is through and through Republican. And what he has also done is that he's authored a letter that was signed by 11 people in politics, one of which is the appointed Kelly Loeffler, who was found days after she was appointed to Senator Isakson's seat in December. January 24th started selling stock after sitting on that Senate Health Committee and hearing about coronavirus. And so when we think about the people who are Republicans in the state of Georgia and our politicians, this is of no surprise whatsoever. Speaker Ralston has definitely been in lockstep with Camp Sonny Perdue, who was the previous

governor, and Nathan Deal, both previous governors of the state of Georgia. And so one of the things that they did in that letter that they penned is reach out to the current Secretary of State to say that the delay to May 19th from the March 24th primary day, presidential and general primary, be delayed once again. And so interestingly, the secretary of state, Republican secretary of state, Brad Robinsberger, has said no, they will go forward May 19th. And so they're really pushing for that to be pushed out into the June time frame. Another thing about the absentee ballot that I was thinking about while Republicans push against that is you're thinking about people that are actively on the

voter rolls. Speaking about Stacey Abrams, that was one of the things that she and her nonprofit organization, Fair Fight, was pretty prominent in ensuring that those people that were purged in Georgia around the time that she was running for governor, those 200,000 plus names that were purged be added back. And they got about 50 or 60,000. But this definitely is continued in the vein that I've come to expect with the state of Georgia. Well, Rorisa, it goes beyond Georgia. The fact of the matter is they're fighting this all across the country, and they're just tossing out again, oh, voter fraud, voter fraud. What Asena Klobuchar said, you've got two states who do their entire elections by mail-in, they have a higher voter turnout,

and you don't have all this drama about voter fraud. Yeah, and to be honest, the Republicans are the ones that are engaging in voter fraud. They're the ones that are disproportionately throwing out voter absentee mail-in ballots from black communities and from people of color communities. And so if anybody is engaging in voter fraud, it is the Republicans. They purge black voters. They block access to the ballot box. And so that is who we need to be worried about. But taking it back to Georgia, you know, it's water under the bridge now, but we have to make sure that we don't take our eye off the balls with these secretaries of state. Brian Kemp was able to steal that election because he was secretary of state and running for governor. Even though Stacey Abrams didn't make it to the runoff, there was an opportunity to have a Democratic secretary of state and the voter participation in that December runoff fell off. So we have to make

sure that not only are we getting Democratic governors, but we're also getting Democratic secretaries of state, people that will honor the ballot box. All right, folks, hold tight one second. Got to go to break when we come back. We're going to hear from Senator Kamala Harris, who was talking about why she is staying in D.C. to fight on behalf of African-Americans. And she's encouraging Black businesses to apply for those federal dollars

to make sure we stay in business. We'll also hear from John Hope Bryan, founder of Operation Hope, who is also fighting to make sure that black small businesses are getting our fair share of that $2 trillion bill passed by Congress. Folks, you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered, back in a moment.

You wanna check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And subscribe to our YouTube channel. in a moment. slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans have had the audacity, the unmitigated gall to say Democrats were ignoring the coronavirus because of Trump's impeachment. Yet here's Senator Kamala Harris

in a Senate committee hearing of Homeland Security on February 12th. The American people also, Mr. Chairman, need to hear from the officials who are currently responsible for addressing this. And we need a public hearing with current government officials as soon as possible. It is critical to my state of California. I have spoken with some of the current officials and asked them why they are not here today. And they did not have a they they did not have a good response for why they are not. In fact, they went on to say, well, we have to take time to prepare talking points. The American people deserve them to be here this morning.

Joining us right now is Senator Kamala Harris of California, coming live from Washington, D.C. Senator Harris, always glad to have you back on the show. It's good to be with you, Roland. So, it has been laughable to watch these daily news conferences, which really is Donald Trump's reality show, and to listen to him talk about how everything is great and wonderful and perfect and how great they've been doing, and they get a 10 out of a 10 when, in fact, in February, you and other Democrats were saying what is happening with this?

Senator Chuck Schumer, January 26, called for a national emergency. They were not paying attention. Trump was not paying attention. Right. No, I and I. So but you have the film of that hearing. We also had many closed door hearings, which one I asked, why were they closed door? Because the American people needed to hear what was going on. But there were very few answers then. And still, you know, listen, we just heard a report from the president's own scientists that there is an estimate that up to 200, 250,000 Americans will die

because of this pandemic. And one of the things that we know, we certainly couldn't have avoided it arriving on our shores, but we could have mitigated it. And that would have been by responding immediately to the seriousness

of the crisis and embracing truth, embracing fact, embracing science. But instead, we had a president who was referring to this as a hope. All right, folks, we're going to do this here. We recorded the interview early. We're going to have an issue with our playback. I'm going to go to a break. Anthony, go ahead and play our Pocket square commercial to give us a couple of minutes to buy some time. We're going to get this problem fixed, and then we'll come back with the full interview.

Back on Roller Martin and Filter in a moment. All right, so a lot of y'all are always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I wear. Now, I don't know. Robby don't have one on. Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones. And so I was reading GQ Magazine a number of years ago, and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here, and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square. This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool.

And so I tracked down, it took me a year to find a company that did it. And so they basically have about 47 different colors. And so I love them because, again, as men, we don't have many accessories to wear, so we don't have many options. And so this is really a pretty cool uh pocket screen and what i love about this here is you saw uh when it's uh in in the pocket you know it gives you that flower effect like that but if i wanted to also unlike other because if i flip it and turn it over it actually gives me a different type of texture and so therefore it gives me a different look. So, there you go.

So, if you actually want to get one of these Shibori pocket squares, we have them in 47 different colors. All you got to do is go to rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So, it's rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. All you got to do is go to my website, and you can actually get this. Now, for those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares that's why you also got to be a part of our brain the funk fan club and so that's what we want you to do and so it's pretty cool so if you want to jazz your look up you can do that in addition uh y'all see me

with some of the feather pocket squares my sister sister was a designer. She actually makes these. They're all custom made. So when you also go to the website, you can also order one of the customized feather pocket squares right there at RolandSMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So please do so. And of course, it goes to support the show. And again, if you're a Bring The Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club.

All right, folks. Again, so what we're doing is we are going to have the Senator Kamala Harris interview for you in just one moment. We have some technical issues, but we're going to get that all taken care of. I got to do this for y'all. You talk about just utterly hilarious so today brian kemp said something uh erica that was unbelievable he literally gave a news conference where he said that you know what, I just learned about how coronavirus can be transmitted. First of all, I just want to play this for y'all. So, Anthony, go ahead and play this.

You know, I think it's the reason I'm taking this action. It's like I've continued to tell people I'm following the data. I'm following the advice of Dr to me, her and I both mentioned in our remarks, um, you know, finding out that this virus is now transmitting before people see signs. So the what we've been telling people from directives from the CDC for weeks now that if you start feeling bad, stay home. Those individuals could have been infecting people before they ever felt bad. Well, we didn't know that until the last 24 hours. And as Dr. Toomey told me, she goes, this is a game changer for us.

And I've been listening to her advice. You know, I think it's the reason I'm taking this action. It's like I've continued to tell people. Um, you just learned that in the last 24 hours? Erica, the Centers for Disease Control is down the street. Where? Erica, you from Albany, right? You got Erica there? I right? You guys, Erica there?

I'm here. Okay, Erica, what's the state capital of Georgia? Um, Atlanta. So the state capital of Georgia is in Atlanta. The Centers for Disease Control is located in Atlanta. And Brian Kemp, the dumbass governor of Georgia, just learned in the last 24 hours you could not show symptoms of coronavirus. Lies, lies, lies, lies.

The last 24... I'm sorry. Yeah, and I'm glad you said it the way that you said it. It gave me a moment to just smile because, unfortunately, Georgia, which has the fourth largest black population in the nation, Doherty County, where I'm from, Albany, is leading in coronavirus cases. And what makes this not laughable to me is that of all of the people that have passed away in Doherty County, one of those people that passed away after 24 hours on last Saturday was a great asset to the community and a dear friend, Femi Anderson, who is a proud Albany State University graduate, the unthinkable Albany State University, and that she also was a big influence

in music and culture in the city. And so to have that type of loss from a dear friend, understanding that within that state, this is the same governor who actually stole that title, the same governor who practiced for eight years while I was living there as well, practiced purging folks from off of the rolls. You're talking about millions of Georgians under his tenure were purged from the roll, and not all of those names added back. You're talking about our personal information was lost at least twice. Voter information is supposed to be very much so protected information twice under Brian Kemp's tenure as secretary of state. So when I hear Brian Kemp talk, all I think about is Trump sycophant. He assumed that governorship

under false pretenses. And so to say that he only learned that people were able to be asymptomatic and be carriers of the coronavirus, I don't believe that at all. He's proven himself to not be executive material, to not be a leader. And as you brought up before, and I believe it was Dr. Carr maybe that brought it up before, that were it not for Akisha Lance Bottoms and many of those individuals who are black and who have a very good understanding

that when we talk, when we provide solutions, we're not just providing solutions for our community. It is for the net benefit of all. And so... It's crazy the net benefit of all. And so... It's crazy. You're the governor. I'm trying to figure out all these people we just found out.

We didn't realize these things could happen. Every day we have been talking about how you can get it. You don't have to show symptoms. Every day, oh my goodness, we didn't know that the last 24 hours we just figured out what was going on. Oh, my goodness.

And people will believe that. I don't get it. Recy, it makes no sense. Yeah, I mean, it's bullshit. Let's just be honest. I mean, have you talked to your fellow Republican governors, Governor DeWine in Ohio or Governor Larry Hogan in Maryland, are doing a really good job of responding to this? Are you talking to Donald Trump? I know he's had conference calls with different governors.

Are you paying attention to Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who's doing extraordinary work down there in Atlanta. You have to literally have your head under a rock to not understand that asymptomatic people can transmit the coronavirus. And now today, we're even hearing that you could potentially transmit coronavirus just by simply breathing or talking. And so he, of all people, a person who's responsible for a major state in this country that's having an outbreak needs to be on top of this stuff there is absolutely no reason no excuse for it i think i mean like erica said we all know that he's lying but just the fact that he feels emboldened enough to be that ignorant or to pretend to be that ignorant says a lot about his republican supporters in the republican party

period greg when you when you look at, the reason I find this to be laughable because we already know Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, chief idiot. Then he got moved aside as chief idiot by Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves. With this comment right here,

Brian Kipp is now the chief idiot. Well, they all sing in the same chief idiot choir. If you were making a cartoon and literally drew what an idiot would look like, you've named three living caricatures who would be in that cartoon. These are men who either stole elections, see DeSantis and Kemp, or are in states like the Governor Tate Rees of Mississippi, where people have chosen their whiteness over their life. The fact that you've got to have cease and desist orders sent to companies like Hobby Lobby. Remember Hobby Lobby from the Supreme Court case a couple years ago, where they were fighting not to allow their employees to have contraception and be covered with insurance.

You are talking about ideologues. Brian Kemp is a liar. What we heard Sister Savage Wilson say with the eloquent phrase used in our black American community, lies, lies. He's a liar. And ignorance and deceit are not mutually exclusive. At that same press conference, he threw his chief medical advisor under the bus, and she's standing back there like the same hostages on Donald Trump's daily press conference,

not saying a word. Well, I rely on her. And meanwhile, when you interviewed Mayor Lance Bottoms yesterday, she named the guy at the Emory Medical Center she's in contact with every day, who told her, you've got to the 24th of... Alright, looks like Greg has frozen up. But I want to... Is Greg there?

Did he unfreeze? Greg, finish your point. Go ahead. No, no, no. I was just going to say very quickly that Lance Bottoms, using medical advice, then went on to immediately sequester Atlanta. The bottom line is this, brother. You've named it with Kemp. These are liars, and they're using ignorance as an excuse. But at the end of the day,

people need to understand these rogue ideologues are willing to sacrifice your life to get and maintain power. That's the bottom line. Anthony, I want you to go to my iPad. Folks, this is an interactive map from the New York Times.

You see where the gray is on the far left is no travel. OK, that's no travel. That gray you see on the left, on the left. The darker person, darker stuff is you see is called closer to normal travel. Look at that. Now, remember, they always talk about these elections and they're always talking about, you know, southern states. Look at all those red states.

The dark color and the lighter color. So let me say it again, y'all. The gray area of this New York Times map, that's called no travel. As you see this map, as you see, as you see this map, as you see this map, what is it telling you?

Oh, um, you see New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, D.C., New Jersey, Pennsylvania, most of Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, Wisconsin. Then you go to most places in Colorado, New Mexico.

You see you look at California, Washington State, Oregon State. But look at all those red states, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, Mississippi. Y'all, this is as of last week. That's why this damn thing is spreading. It is spreading because these ignorant governors were so idiotic and did not want to tell people to keep their ass at home. And guess who's now getting sicker? Those same states.

Greg, go ahead. No, I'll just say very quickly, much of that activity in the states where our people are, especially the South, as the Times article kind of goes on to explain, is because our people are at the bottom of the socioeconomic order, which means they are the ones who are in the grocery stores, who are still at the bodegas, who have to travel to work. And also they are also the ones who have to go farther, particularly in the South, and Erica knows this as a Southerner like we are, they have to go farther to get supplies from a grocery store.

So in the red, even in those states where our people are, that red isn't necessarily because they want to be out. That blood red underscores your point. There's still 12 states that haven't shut down. This is, what is driving me crazy here, is that this is death. Recy, this is literally death. These people are putting their lively,

I mean, these governors are playing games. This is no time for games. Recy, go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. And another thing to point out is you have like Governor Ron DeSantis who finally decided to put in a stay-at-home order. But then the things that they classify as essential services, and Brian Kemp is guilty of this as well, basically allows for business as usual. I mean, if you are allowing churches to have these large gatherings where we know from one particular choir rehearsal that happened a couple of weeks ago, where more than half of the people who came just for rehearsal ended up coming down with coronavirus, that, you know, you cannot allow large gatherings, whether it's for church. And we love the Lord, but you need to see the Lord on Skype or on these online programs instead know, programs instead of going into church and

infecting other people. So even with these stay-at-home orders, they're not equal stay-at-home orders, stay-at-home orders. And I think that some Republicans are kind of putting in such lenient stay-at-home orders that they're not going to be effective. And even today, I saw on CNN earlier that the death projections that, you know, Donald Trump and his folks have been trying to socialize or normalize us at 100,000 plus people will die. Even that has been, you know, revised upwards because the social distancing and the stay at home orders have not been effective enough and they have not been widespread enough. Well, they're not effective, Erica, because unless you go hard, like they did in California,

and force people to stay inside, they're not going to do it. And I'm telling you right now, and we're going to discuss it a little bit later, these churches, Reverend Jackson had a phone call today, Erica, more than 1,000 churches trying to get these black pastors to keep they behind at home. Your home city, Albany, somebody that was infected, went to a funeral in Albany, Georgia a couple of weeks ago,

infected a number of people. 30 people in Albany have now died. As a result, people need to understand this thing does not discriminate, and we're going to be the ones who really get hurt by it the most. Erica, final comment before I go to a break and come back with the Kamala Harris interview. Right, and so faith without works really is truly dead. So I think what people in recent mentioned it, I mean, as a believer,

we actually have to employ faith in action. And as a person who believes in what that means, that means your tithes and your offerings treated like a monthly bill, but so into wherever you are fed. And just on the Albany piece, I just want to mention, because I don't think that there was mention of this right before those funerals, Albany had a marathon and a half marathon that drew upwards of 1,200 people from 34 states and seven foreign countries to help qualify for the Boston Marathon, the Snickers Marathon. They've been doing it for 14 years. So that coupled with being a couple of days later, you have this funeral gathering really did make Albany a hot spot for coronavirus in the state of Georgia, unfortunately. Well, that is quite unfortunate. All right,

folks, we figured out our technical issues. And so here is the interview that I promised earlier with Senator Kamala Harris. The coronavirus because of Trump's impeachment. Yet here is Senator Kamala Harris in a Senate committee hearing of Homeland Security on February 12th. The American people also, Mr. Chairman, need to hear from the officials who are currently responsible for addressing this. And we need a public hearing with current government officials as soon as possible. It is critical to my state of California. I have spoken with some of the current officials and asked them why they are not here today. And they did not have a good response for why they are not. In fact, they went on to say, well, we have to take time to prepare talking points.

The American people deserve them to be here this morning. Joining us right now is Senator Kamala Harris of California, coming live from Washington, D.C. Senator Harris, always glad to have you back on the show. It's good to be with you, Roman. So it has been laughable to watch these daily news conferences, which really is Donald Trump's reality show, and to listen to him talk about how everything is great and wonderful and perfect and how great they've been doing. And they get a 10 out of a 10 when, in fact, in February February you and other Democrats were saying what is happening with this Senator Chuck Schumer January 26th called for a national emergency they were not paying attention Trump was not paying attention right no I and I so but you have the the film of

that hearing we also had many closed door hearings which which one I asked, why were they closed door? Because the American people needed to hear what was going on. But there were very few answers then. And still, you know, listen, we just heard a report from the president's own scientists that there is an estimate that that up to 200, 250,000 Americans will die because of this pandemic. And one of the things that we know, we certainly couldn't have avoided it arriving on our shores, but we could have mitigated it. And that would have been by responding immediately to the seriousness of the crisis and embracing truth, embracing fact, embracing science. But instead we had a president

who was referring to this as a hoax, a president who was being, I would actually argue, quite frivolous in the way he was approaching this. And because he was interpreting everything that was happening through the lens of his life and his priorities, as opposed to the American people. You know, Roland, this is one of those moments where the people deserve their government to work. The government has three essential functions, public safety, public education and public health. But part of the problem with Donald Trump is he has never fully embraced what it means to be president of the United States. He does not believe in government. And so at this moment where the people need their government to work and need their president to take on a sense of responsibility for the public health of the nation, he has fallen short. And what has happened instead,

thankfully, is we have leaders at a local level, at a state level, who have been shouldering on broad shoulders the responsibility for taking this on. London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, was the first mayor in the country to say, you know what, we're locking this down. We're going to have people stay at home. And the most recent reports I've heard is that her hospitals are therefore not yet at capacity because she took the issue very seriously at its early stages. Well, and it's also shameful to watch somebody. And I do understand. I said this on ABC in in 2017 i cannot call him president

because he doesn't respect the office i prefer to respect the office but until he respects it i can't call him by that title and what he has consistently done um he doesn't want to fully maximize the national defense uh production act uh this well, no, we got this whole thing worked out. Then to question whether or not hospitals actually need as much protection. Do they need the gowns? Do they need the masks? I'm reading these stories. I'm talking to people I know who have loved ones in New York die, and they're talking

about the ventilators. Now, I read a story the other night where, hey, if you have a heart attack in New York, if they can't revive you on the scene, they don't even take you to the hospital because of coronavirus. And what we're seeing are daily news conferences about, hey, I'm number one on Facebook. Everything is great and wonderful.

We're doing a great job. I mean, it is, it does nothing but anger you to watch the failure of Donald Trump and the federal government respond to this coronavirus. No, I mean, to add to the points that you're making, the hospital workers, you know, so many of our health care workers are women of color who are going to work every day, leaving their babies at home because they believe in their mission, which is to help save lives. And they are going to these public health facilities, hospitals and clinics, and they are doing their work without the appropriate protective equipment. They are coming home knowing that there is a potential for them to infect their family, and they're doing it because they believe in their mission.

Some of the heroes coming out of this, clearly one of them is not the president of the United States, but some of the heroes are these health care workers who are not just doctors and nurses, but the folks who are working in the hospitals every day helping to bring aid to the people who need relief. And that's why I'm fighting for them. And that's why I actually stayed in D.C. instead of going home to California.

We need to make sure that we are fighting to get the resources to the hospitals. This last two trillion dollar bill that we passed granted one hundred and fifty billion dollars to hospitals. But it's a good start. But it is so not enough. I yesterday was in a phone conference with the 13 biggest mayors in California talking about the needs that they have for tests, for masks. You talk about the Defense Production Act. So here's the thing. Donald Trump doesn't get what it means to be president United States, because if he did, he would understand the president. United States has been equipped with certain tools to use at a time of a national crisis. One of them is the Defense Production Act, which simply gives the president the authority to say to the private

sector, you need to produce this, you need to manufacture this in the best interest of the well-being of the nation in a crisis. So he just sat there having that tool at his disposal and not using it. And now just in the last few days he has to encourage the production of ventilators. But let's be clear about this, the production, they've not yet been produced. It takes a while to produce the numbers that we need and then get them to the streets. And so I'm saying, okay, good, do that. But also let's get the production going of masks. Let's get the production going of tests. People are dying every day in this country. And had that taken place in early

February, here we are now in April, they would have been ramped up, would have been able to get all of the equipment needed, would have been rolling up the assembly lines. But instead, they're saying, oh, no, no, here we go. And the same thing with the test, the exact same thing. I mean, you got people who are sick, but they can't get tested because they're not sick enough. So here's the thing we have to do. First of all, we've got to make sure that, you know, there's a lot of misinformation out there. And we need to make sure that folks understand what is available to them. And that's about, I've got all the numbers in the website information to give you so you can post that on your show. But the part of

it also that concerns me is that the very nature of this virus is it is predatory and it preys in particular on people who have pre-existing health conditions. So what I've been looking at is when you look at the fact that black children are 20% more likely than other children to have asthma, when you look at the fact that black families are 40% more likely to have high blood pressure than others, when you look at the fact that black women are three times more likely to have lupus than white women, when you look at the fact that those who have sickle cell anemia are very vulnerable to respiratory viruses. We've got to make sure that our folks know

where their vulnerabilities are and encourage folks to seek treatment. Because compounded on all of this is what we know. You know, I've talked to you about this so many times, my work on Black maternal mortality. We know the racial bias that exists in the healthcare system. And so we've got to do what we can

to try and overcompensate for that and encourage folks to seek out help and to know where their vulnerabilities are so that we can make sure that they are taking extra cautions to be safe. It's very interesting. I was this guy, this conservative who I follow, and he was he is constantly complaining that California Governor Gavin Newsom put the state on lockdown, as you said, following

London and Breeden, San Francisco and some of the other mayors and then went statewide. And I'm going and all he's done for two weeks is complain, but this is too much. You've got Devin Nunes, Congressman, Republican Congressman of California. Oh, why aren't the kids being back in school? And I'm literally sitting here going, idiots, do you not see what's happening in New York? Look what happened in Florida, Mississippi. Republican governors totally ignored what was happening. And now it's going through the roof in terms of what's happening in their hospitals now. And so what I don't seem to understand are these people who have this belief that, hey, you know what, we can still just keep going to places and going to church and being in groups.

This is really not going to be a big deal. This thing is a killer. And we still don't understand what, how, we haven't even understand really how the depths of this, because you haven't had really widespread testing. But let's, so let's, let's, I couldn't agree with you more. We have so many people who are examples of examples of an utter failure of leadership.

You know, crisis brings out the best and the worst. You know, back to those health care workers who are going to work every day. Heroes. Heroes. Because here's the thing. Unlike if they were called to do their profession and their skill of saving lives in a time of war, where they would have to go and deal with the trauma every day, these healthcare professionals, all of them are going to work every day, not only dealing with extreme trauma, but knowing that they're exposing themselves and their families by extension to harm heroes. Let's talk about what we need to do to have legislation, which is part of the reason I'm fighting here in DC to get paid sick leave.

Workers deserve to have the time to be home and get better when they are sick without worrying about whether they can put food on the table to feed their babies or have a roof over their head. Part of what I'm fighting for is to say that we need to protect consumers. April 1st was yesterday. So bills got to be paid. The rent needs to be paid. Well, 3.3 million people plus an additional 6 million people in the last two weeks have filed for unemployment, which means they're not going to get another paycheck, which means that by the end of the month, they are going

to probably also lose their health care coverage. So what we need to do is make sure, and I'm saying suspend penalties for late charges on credit cards because people are going to start paying for food on their credit cards. I'm saying that we should suspend reporting to the credit bureau in terms of credit scores, because people are going to be late paying their bills during this pandemic. And we want to make sure they won't suffer their entire lives for having that blemish on their credit score to the point that they'll never be able to get back up on their feet. We've got to fight to make sure that we are also dealing with the fact of social isolation. Roland, I'm so concerned about the mental health implications of this. You know, for the folks who

go to AA every day or NA, and now they are at home alone. So many of our seniors who their entire social life is around church and they can't go to church. Well, we have said we had domestic violence expert of how we were seeing an increase in that all across the world. I'm very concerned about that. I'm very concerned about, you know, I specialized for a long time in my career as a prosecutor. It's an uncomfortable subject for many, but child sexual assault, you know, the number of children who are in abusive homes where for those children, the only safe place to go was school. And now they can't leave home. So there's a lot of work we need to do right now. And I'm just frankly, I'm so sick of these

folks in D.C. who are supposed to be leaders and are in a state of denial and in a state of political manipulation. Let's just focus on what we all collectively know needs to get done. We need to advocate for the least of these. This is that moment. This is a moment where we have got to be strong for each other. We've got to be patient with ourselves and each other. We've got to reach out to folks. I'm saying, you know, yes, social distancing, but not emotional distancing. This is a time for every one of us to really to express all that we have and are capable of showing in terms of leadership and stability, because this is a crisis that we are in, unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes, you know.

And to that point, we lived through 9-11, most of us. It was, by its nature, it was a national security crisis. We experienced and lived through the Great Recession, which was a financial and economic crisis. Wall Street crashed. People lost their homes and their jobs. This year is a public health crisis at its core, which has resulted in an economic crisis. But the public health piece of this is going to require a lot of attention. So that's about our advocacy for masks and ventilators and protective equipment for those health care workers. It's about advocating for our children, three million children, three million students in the United States don't have access to broadband. So while

we're talking about, oh, children are at home, kids are at home, and they're supposed to be educated online. Well, not three million of them. I spent, as you know, an entire year campaigning for president of the United States. I spent a lot of time in South Carolina and in rural South Carolina. There's no broadband there. In Camden, New Jersey, in a school district of 6,000 students, 30 percent only have access to internet or access to technical equipment. So these are the things we need to deal with right now.

And this really is about each one of us reaching out to our friends, to our neighbors, letting them know they are not alone and advocating and helping to support them and weather the storm. Last question is not even a question. It's really a statement. Could you please implore the small black business owners who are watching that they have to apply for a $200 plan. Look, this is a small business, okay?

I started this show two years ago. You know, look, we did $700,000 in revenue our first year. We've got 10 employees. This thing has decimated us advertisers have are fleeing and what often happens for african americans what we do is we want we want to shoulder it we don't want to sit here and and file but the money is there for small businesses

black folks have blacks entrepreneurs have got to fill that paperwork out to save their businesses because it's also saving your employees. That's exactly right. So, Roland, to your very point, and as we know, small businesses have always been part of the economic heart and lifeblood of our community. And our small business leaders like you are not only business leaders, but civic leaders and role models and mentors in the community. Black women are the fastest growing small business owners in America. So you are absolutely right, because that $2 trillion bill gives grants, which means that folks don't have to pay them back of at least $10,000, but also is going to give folks the ability, and this is part of what I'm fighting for, to be able to rehire the folks that you've had to let go. So let's make sure that everyone takes advantage of this because it is meant to help you stay alive as a business,

and we know that that is so critical to the well-being of our community. Well, you're absolutely right. One of the things that we made here, let me look. Unfortunately, when I watch these network tell, I swear you don't see any black experts. I mean, it's like, Lord, we don't. But what we've done is we've had black microbiologists, virologists, infectious disease experts.

And I keep saying, this is why we matter. And so certainly we've got to be here. Senator, we certainly appreciate it. Keep giving them hell. And you're right, Tampa folks in D.C. do their job. That's what they get paid to do. Yes. Thank you, Ron. Thanks a bunch. Take care. Take care. Be safe.

All right, folks. Recy, that sounded like a vice presidential candidate to me. You know, this is why I go so hard for Kamala Harris, Senator Kamala Harris, because she puts in the work. You know, Roland, this show is so important because it does talk about black issues in a way that no other show is talking about. Senator Kamala Harris is the only black woman sitting U.S. Senator. She is one of three black sitting U.S. Senators. One of them is a Republican, Tim Scott, and he is definitely on the opposition.

And the other is Senator Cory Booker. But she is truly, truly an advocate for not just black communities, but people of color, Native American communities, for U.S. territories like Puerto Rico, ensuring that they get their treatment, the District of Columbia as well, for LGBTQ communities, for children. I can go on and on and on. We just saw the interview where Senator Kamala Harris can tick off so many things. Her advocacy is so important. And I'm really, really heartened that she is sticking around in D.C. because, you know, she's part of these really important committee hearings. There's a lot of work that's done behind the scenes. She's doing conference calls. She's writing letters. She's putting pressures on different agencies. We're seeing some of the fruits of that with, you know, the DOJ, for instance, starting to release prisoners. And throughout the country,

people are starting to do that. That's some of the advocacy that she's led on. So absolutely, it's not about just having a black person there for the sake of having a black person. It's not just about symbolism. It's about the person who is calling the shots, who has a seat at the table, who has our interest at heart and who's going to do the work and not just talk the talk. Greg Carl, when you heard her say she is staying in D.C. for a reason, that is the point. I remember there were people who got a lot of Bernie Sanders people got mad at me when they had that procedural vote and he was still in Vermont and he came back the next day. I said, no, if you're trying to actually make a difference,

you need to be in D.C. You need to be meeting with other United States senators. I mean, this is where you've got to have your elected representatives, frankly, on deck. They're doing the work, on the wall, whatever phrase you want to use, because what's coming out of the White House is pure just ignorance.

No, it is pure ignorance. I mean, I'm a little, I'm not conflicted. I think it's kind of complicated. I mean, in Sanders' case, you mentioned it was a procedural vote. And last I checked, Medicare for all is looking better and better every day as people get sicker and sicker. So, but to your larger point, I think Senator Harris is setting an example and she's consistently done that. You know, it's interesting. I'm on the phone every day or in Zoom meetings with educators, K-12 educators. The point she made about broadband access and Internet access is very important. I was talking with a bunch of Philadelphia school folks on Wednesday, our Philadelphia Freedom Schools meeting, and the young people are reporting out that it's very difficult for them. On the college level, I'm really worried

about the HBCUs, particularly the smaller schools, where you see this whole online shift could take them out of the game forever. And so, yes, you were right to emphasize that our tax dollars are being given back to us now because of the work of Senator Harris and others so that we must now get that money, those small businesses. The thing I want to zero in on just for a second, though, is the tone that Senator Harris took. She was very keen to emphasize the mental, the emotional challenges we're facing. One of my elders who's in Chicago was talking to her about some of the issues going on there. And she said, you know, people just aren't in that frame of mind to conduct business as usual. So if you are a federal legislator and you've gone home because of family circumstances or you're trying to do work politically on the ground there,

you must remain intimately connected with D.C. If you've done as Senator Harris done, you've given an example of being physically present. But we have to remember whether it's administrators scheduling Zoom conferences every two hours without regard to the fact that people are just trying to get from sunrise to sunset or other people thinking, well, it's just now all online. We can make that shift. Please follow what Senator Harris is saying and how she said it. Let's have some compassion for each other because this thing is not going to get better before it gets worse. Erica, again, this is where, as she said, you've got to have people at the table. And we've got to ensure there are African-Americans.

Look, even though crazy man is in the White House, you've got to have African-Americans who are there fighting for black businesses, fighting for HBCUs, fighting for our people, because we are still constituents of this country. We're still taxpayers. Right. And listening to Senator Harris, you immediately understand why it is so very important for us to have a seat at the table. Because, again, going back to what we do when black people enter the picture, specifically black women into a place of leadership, having a voice, we lift up all people. Think about the myriad of issues that she rolled out, some things that had not been thought about. I listened to her on an MSNBC interview a couple of weeks ago, and when she was rolling out how we should treat this and the things that are important, that third piece that she brought in, and she's one of the

only people that I've heard say this, is she's approaching, the approach should be from a public health approach, a public health standpoint, and that it does have economic and all these other implications. And so when you think about the whole person and how that impacts making this really, really serious shift, a shift that when you think about the census,

there had to be preparation for that going to digital, going pretty much all digital. We have in the United States, everybody doesn't have access to broadband. So you have nonprofit organizations like Fair Count that have partnered with other folks to say that, listen, in these rural areas, we're going to be able to provide kind of like internet cafes and hotspots so that people can complete their census. And National Census Day was yesterday. So that is why it is ever important that black folks, communities of color are at the table

because we are thinking about the whole community because that's where we are. Well, folks, you heard me talk to Senator Kamala Harris about that very issue in terms of African-Americans getting these dollars from the federal government. Joining us right now is John Hope Bryant. He is the founder of Operation Hope. He has been one of the folks out there, again, making that possible, trying to make that thing possible as well. John, how you doing? All right. Is John there? Hey, Roland. Hey, John. How you doing? How you doing? All right.

I'm well. Thanks for advocating on behalf of our people. Well, I certainly appreciate it, sir. Glad to have you here. And also, y'all see that water bottle sitting right next to John? Just so y'all know, yeah, he sent me one, too. So this is a huge water bottle, so I keep it right here. It's not cheap.

This is not the cheap one. No, this ain't cheap. This ain't cheap. So nice big 25-ounce bottle. And so, Anthony, what are you doing? Go to Split Shot. And so just want you all to know, I stay hydrated doing this two-hour show, and so we're certainly glad to be here.

John, first and foremost, talk about, again, the work that you have been doing to make sure that we are getting our fair share of this two trillion dollars deal Congress passed. Yeah. So let's keep it real clean here. We can play, you know, we can get into political partisanship at another time. The color now is green. It's not red or blue. It's not black or white. It's green, as in the color of U.S. currency and sustainability of the environment. It's all hands on deck. I'll explain why, in my opinion, in a second. But as you know, Roland, I've worked with successive administrations, Obama, Clinton, Bush, et cetera, because the color's green and we don't get enough of it, as you've been saying on your show. And thanks to the senator and others for working on a bipartisan basis, good old days, bipartisan basis to get this legislation through in record time.

About 10 days ago, I got a call on a Saturday morning from the Treasury Department asking for my help. I said, of course, what? They said we need creativity around a $300 billion small business liquidity program. Should it be equity? Should it be debt? Should it be a grant? So on and so forth. So I put out my iPad and sketched some stuff out and sent it to them.

And a couple of days later, somehow it found its way, a draft of it in the Senate bill. And it's going to be live, I think, this weekend and accessible to all Americans. I'm concerned that African Americans, for a range of reasons, African American small business won't get their fair share. Even nonprofits, by the way, listen now, everybody listening and watching this can get access to this. In other words, you get funding too. Individuals have access, companies have access, nonprofits and faith-based organizations should get liquidity. And again, independent contractors. So for instance, if you're a freelancer,

you're a freelancer. If you're somebody out there, you're a consultant, so you don't actually have a business set up, but you're just an independent contractor. Mnuchin today at the press briefing said that they can also apply for this. Business owners can now apply for up to $10,000

cash advance grant through the Small Business Administration. Then you can get working capital up to $2 million. And one of the things that also jumps out, there's a loan forgiveness in that if you keep your employees. Right, John? Yeah. This is employee-centric. First of all, it's unprecedented.

There's never been a windfall like this of opportunity for our people if we take it ever in 100 years of modern government. This even going back to the Great Depression, never been anything like this before. And so, yes, if you keep your employees on, you don't pay that portion of the loan back. That's the grant piece that was built in to it. So it functions like a loan, but if you furlough your employees versus firing them, bring them back and or hire, you get to keep that money in order to pay it back. It becomes equity in your business without having the government be your partner. Roland, let me give some little context for how big this is. People throw around these numbers and nobody really thinks about it. When we bailed out the automotive industry, everybody got all worked up about that. It was

a couple billion dollars. When we had the mortgage crisis, of course, that was the worst thing since, as you know, the Great Depression. That was $187 billion, give or take. Two weeks ago, it was a trillion dollars, a T, went through the Federal Reserve, through the Fed window to banks to keep them liquid. Then there was a $2.5 trillion, this package, that just passed through. That's $3.5 trillion. There's probably another trillion that will come through as part of this whole stimulus. That's $4.5 trillion. That is 20 times larger than the last stimulus in the history of this country. And it's literally a quarter of the GDP of this country, $4.5 trillion. They're literally taking $4.5 trillion worth of cash and plugging a hole in the economy covering

90 days. It's unprecedented. And the banking regulators have signaled to the banks, do not put undue pressure on borrowers, read black and brown folks in this example, who are good people. In other words, you paid before, but because you were laid off, because you have some trauma now, you can't pay right now. Back off of them, give them 30, 90 days to reset themselves. Do not penalize them. And you can restructure that mortgage. Unprecedented, Roland. The reason this is so important, the reason I'm spending this amount of time on it, and to my panelists, if y'all have a question for John about this, get your questions ready,

because I'm going to go to you next on this. Because, John, and I'm just going to go back to when in 2004 when I filed for personal bankruptcy because of health, because my appendix ruptured. And by the way, so proud, Roland, that you have no shame mentioning that. People should have no shame in their game about mentioning what's going on. It's just something that happened. I'm so glad you said that. A dude in the White House that filed bankruptcy four or five times. So I'm just, come on.

And so the reason, here's why I'm saying that. And you can speak to this because you've seen it. African-Americans, we have been raised, we have been taught, our whole thing has been, you got to bootstrap everything. And so then what happens is we put all this pressure on our shoulder.

How are we going to meet our obligations? How are we going to pay it? And I've talked to people and they like, man, I couldn't believe you filed for bankruptcy. I was like, yeah, white folks created this system. I'm just using the system they created. And I remember and I never forget. I remember sitting in the room and I just, I look at the faces of all the black people, man it was just it was pain, it was pressure I saw all these white folks who were perfectly fine, so I'm talking to this one dude

and he's telling me, man this is the third time I filed wasn't no big deal so last night, just so everybody understand, I ain't got a problem saying it so when I got a phone call from my CFO and she said look, what we gonna do about the show, I ain't got a problem saying it. So when I got a phone call from my CFO and she said, look, what are we going to do about the show? I said, what do you mean? She said, well, you're not paying yourself from the show. You're living off of your speeches. Your speeches have all been canceled. Right. She said, advertisers are not spent. They're

not spending money. What are we going to do? So I'm sitting here. I'm looking at all. I'm looking at all the financials I'm going through. OK, how much are we getting from YouTube? How much are we getting from our followers? How much more aggressive can we get to ask them to give? And I'm and I'm going through everything. And then I'm also looking at all these news stories. And I'm seeing that this initiative begins tomorrow. She got an email at 4.30 this morning because I was up. I said, y'all applying for this tomorrow. I wasn't going to sit there as a small business owner with 10 employees, watch something that we launch in because, oh my God, I don't know what to do. That's $2 trillion. Black people, let me be real clear. White folks, the moment this bill got passed

was focused on this. I need black people, black women start a business that's faster than anybody else. There are 2.6 million black-owned businesses. 2.5 million have one employee doing an average revenue of $54,000. Here's the federal government saying, hey, you can apply for this thing and immediately get a $10,000 cash grant. And then we can help you when it comes to, when it comes to, because what I saw was, hold up, if I keep my employees, don't lay anybody off, how much, oh, loan forgiveness? Loan forgiveness mean you ain't got to pay it back. And no credit score requirement for the first time ever, Roland.

No, the traditional requirements have been set aside. This has never happened before. Two things need to happen in our community. Young folks need to, and our elderly people, my auntie, 82 years old, called me and said she was going to a funeral. I said, please allow me to be blunt with you. Sit down. You ain't going nowhere. If you go to a funeral, you're going to end up being in one. We need to tell our folks to go sit down somewhere for 30 days so this crisis of the virus will flatten. Then we need the small business owners to stand up.

We need our people to sit down. We need small business owners to stand up and apply immediately as if your next breath depends on it. There's never been, as you just said, an opportunity that I have witnessed ever like this. This is the federal government telling the bank regulators to tell the banks to go easy, temporarily, on a black business. By the way, this is not a license for fraud. It's not a license

for Cousin Boo Boo to be a flake. I'm talking about responsible people. Most of our people are responsible people who could pay their bills if they could. If you're having a situation, you're going to get a 60- to 90-day pause in your financial life. Never happened. That's on the debt side.

Now you can sit around and roll in the dust and reimagine your business plan without financial stress of new debt. Then you get to flip and have this new capital, call it equity, because we don't get equity in our communities, coming in from the, hold on, federal government, through banks, directly to you, within 30 days or less. So, John, I got people, I got... We're not going to get this, Roland, because we're not going to pay attention,

and by the time we do, the money's gone. Go ahead. Reece, you're going to be first up with your question, but I got a couple of people on YouTube, and they're like, yeah, but you've got to do this thing through a bank. Well, most business, most business owners. First of all, if you're a business owner, you likely have a business bank account. So you probably already doing business with a bank.

So, John, go ahead. Just explain that. Yeah, we just need to stop it. Like we kill ourselves before we even get out of the blocks. Just stop it. Stop with the cynicism. Stop with the complaining. Like, complaining don't pay a bill. Like, this is serious, people. Go to the bank. The bank is just simply a conduit for this. This has been guaranteed by the U.S. Treasury Department. Again, I was part of the design process. I'm telling you, this is an unprecedented opportunity. Wait to get some bad news before you create something for yourself, okay? Go to the bank and go to the SBA and apply.

You go through the bank, there's SBA guaranteed, and apply, as most banks in America, and see what happens. If you want some help, go to Hope Inside Coach. I'm in 22 states. I have clients in 40 states. My services are free. Talk to a Hope Inside Coach, a Hope Financial Coach. We will help you package this.

Go to the Urban League or whoever. Go to the NAACP Empowerment Offices or whoever you have a relationship with and let us walk you through the process and you trust us versus trust the bank and at the bank it's literally a conduit because the loan is guaranteed by the treasury department so the banks are cool with it uh reesey you got a question for john hope brian yeah yeah um i just want to you said something about by the time people apply the money is gone Is this something that is time sensitive or is it first come first serve? What is the criteria for how this money is being shelled out? Is it something that if you apply and you meet the criteria, you'll get it? Or do people have to worry about some sort of racking and stacking of the different applicants? It's a great question. It's a double hit, by the way. Your answer is yes and no to that question. I'll answer that in a second. First of all, you should get a check as a citizen. So if you filed a tax return, I hope everybody paid taxes or at least filed a return. You filed a tax return in 18, 19,

they know where you are. If you make $75,000 or less, translation, most black people, you're going to get a check for $1,000, $1,500. If you have two parents in that household, two people in that household, and it's less than $150,000, you're going to get two checks. If you have a child in that household, you're going to get three checks. And that's going to happen in the next 15 days. Set that aside for a moment. Then you have unemployment insurance that you can

apply for if you've been laid off. Now, as a business owner, there is a deadline. Again, I don't want to speak specifically until I see the new regs that they just did today. But my last check was June 1. But the problem's not that. The problem is that it's $350 billion, give or take, for the small business program. And that sounds like a lot of money, but it's a big country, and the mainstream folks are going to the window first. And I'm concerned that by the time we get there, the money will be gone, even though the deadline will still be out in front of us. You need to apply like your last breath, depending on it, as in next week, over the weekend. Just keep trying to that website until you can apply or go through one of the conduits. Erica, your question for John O'Brien.

Yes. Thanks, John. My question is, will there be virtual sessions? You spoke about people going to urbanly end of lacy people so they have relationships with so I'm thinking about barbers and thinking about hairstylist will there be some type of virtual session where they can get guidance on how they need to walk go through the process of obtaining these grants and loans so I know I know Derek I knowWCP. I assume they're focusing on this. If not, hopefully through this video, they will pivot, but they're very smart guys. I can't speak for them.

I can tell you at Operation Hope, we are doing virtual sessions right now. So all of my offices, go to operationhope.org, it's all free, are doing virtual sessions right now. By April 15th, we'll have a app out called Hope in Hand. It'll be on, you know, whether you have an Apple device or another device, Android, you'll be able to download it free again. And that will help you. You can go through the app to navigate to get to one of the coaches. So you go through a coach, go through MBDA, go through SBA, or go through a bank that you have a relationship with, and through their SBA department.

Greg Carr, your question for John Hope Bryant. Thank you, Roland, and thank you, Brother Bryant, for this work, and especially now. A couple of very quick questions. One, do you anticipate another round of this type of funding when Congress gets around to passing its next iteration of relief? And then the very specific question I want to ask. I was on a conference call a couple of weeks ago with a number of black booksellers and bookstores. Most of them, 10 employees or lower. Taking advantage of this. How long do you think these smaller businesses, how long would it carry, for example, a small business who successfully applies for and receives the grants or the loans allowing them to keep their employees on? That's a very good question. So I'm going to say something a little unorthodox.

And, Roland, this is the first time I'm going to say this. I'm going to say it on your show. And I hope that you take it in the spirit that I'm saying. Ashley, this is an opportunity for you. It's an opportunity for those small bookstores that you just mentioned. So they have channeled, they've calendared enough money to actually carry you well into the fall based on what I've seen in the program. The crisis is scheduled to go no more than 90 days. If we do our jobs right as Americans

and shelter inside for 30 days, then within 60 days, they'll be trying to find a way, the government, to let you back into your normal flow of life. And then with that, we're gonna, all of us are gonna find it a national point of honor to go shopping. Every person I know is gonna to go get out the house with all the family they love and go to restaurants,

shopping malls, bookstores, any place but home. That's going to create a second surge or stimulus, a consumer stimulus. You're going to have $4.5 trillion of stimulus from the government. Another stimulus from the consumers, that's going to pop third and fourth quarter GDP, gross domestic product. And so you may actually end up having a savings account or an equity investment that actually

exceeds what you need to get over this period. And listen to me now. You've also had a delay in your payments to mainstream institutions, regulated banks, because the banks have sold their customers, if you've got a federally insured loan, regulated banks, because the banks have told their customers if you've got a federally insured loan, FHA, Ginnie Mae, whatever, or a proper bank, they're going to delay your payments and they're going to modify your loan. The payment's going to go back on the back end of your current agreement. You get 30 days of a window of low payments or no payments, plus you get some new equity that will last you

a period of time, let's call it six to eight months, but you're gonna hopefully only be in this window of challenge for two to three months where you'll be able to surge back into your life. I'll say one last thing. Let me take it in the spirit that I'm saying it. It's gonna be a fire sale on everything post-crisis. You want to buy a home? Discount.

You want to merge with a business? Buy a business, you'll be finding a bunch of folks who need to merge. You want to grow? It's going to be a fire sale of things. Stop. You'll be able to buy stocks at a discount and ride the

wave back up, provided we shelter and wait, provided the economy comes back in the natural arc. Roland, this is a very important point. Please, people need to understand, this was not an example of rich people, crooks, poor people. This wasn't a subprime war crisis. So this is not an economic crisis. This is an act of God. It's an act

of nature. There's nothing wrong with the economy. If we can get through this quickly, if it takes too long, then it's a whole other conversation, Roland, of a broken economy. If we can get through this in 60 days, I prefer about 45 days, the economy comes back, we repair the damage, it surges, and you have opportunity on all levels. Was that clear? So let me just add to that, which goes with what Greg just said. So I'm going to use myself as an example. Okay. So there were some different deals that we were very close to locking down that were six figure deals, advertising deals.

Everything right now stops. So the approach that what how I'm looking at this, Greg, is I'm looking at the fact that first of all, I don't I don't have I don't have business loans. So I don't I don't I don't owe anybody. This is this page we go. So so so my whole deal is here are expenses. This is what we know for rent, for staff, for us to be able to do this show every single day to give this kind of information, which no other black Web site or digital platform is doing for our people. So my whole deal is, okay, if I can apply for this money, and then what it does, it basically serves,

and John, you can just jump in if you want to, it basically serves as a venture capitalist for me. The money that I would have been getting from advertisers, in essence, I'm getting this money from the federal government to be able to keep paying my employees so I don't have to lay them off. So now they still have a job and we still doing the show.

I don't have to go from 10 to 7 to 5. And then what it does is allows me to go, okay, to next 60, 90 days. And here's the piece. If the coronavirus deal is not under control in 60, 90 days, Congress has to go back and do it again. Because what they can't afford, John, and this will be the final comment

from John, what they can't afford, they can't afford, as the head of the SBA said at the news conference today, small businesses account for half of America's GDP. They can't afford for guys like me to go out of business because you ain't got enough large businesses.

America is actually run through small businesses. So here's the numbers. Roland's correct. 50% of all jobs in America are small businesses. 20% of all jobs in America, of all small business in america sort of our job in america the companies with twenty employees or less companies like roland martin's seventy percent of this economy

this consumer spending the people who work for these companies ninety percent businesses in atlanta l a our company's of a hundred employees or less in l a is the 12th largest economy in the world. You see how this all connects together?

So Roland is literally correct. I'll give you one other thing. No one can afford for this not to work. Why? Because this is not a crisis of poor people in New Orleans or poor people in South Central L.A. or we're so sad about the state of Texas. This is a global crisis, and rich folks, and I hope there's rich folks watching. When I say rich folks, I don't mean white people.

I hope you are rich. Wealthy and rich folks, difference, but rich folks and wealthy folks need for this to succeed. Otherwise, their stocks don't come back. Their network doesn't come back. They don't have customers. They don't have workers. Literally, literally, this is a reset. It's so beautiful in some ways because now it's a chance, it's a great leveler. We literally are all in this together and now everybody's

intertwined with everybody else's destiny. The wealthiest in this world, in this country needs Roland to succeed, needs you now to succeed. The color literally now is green. And Paul? Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I'm just saying, and we got to guard. No different than we say to people, I need you to social distance because you may feel good,

but I haven't seen my mother physically in three weeks. I see her on FaceTime because I maybe feel great. I might have it, but if I get close to my mother, I could kill her. I could hurt her. But if I get close to my mother, I could kill her. I could hurt her. So no different than we need to make sure we're all practicing social distancing and tell our friends to go sit down somewhere. That needs to be the new social movement in black America.

Conversely, we need to make sure there's no fraud in this program. There's no game plan. Tell people who are fraudsters to go play someplace else. We need legitimate businesses to step up, which is 99% of us, and take advantage of this right now and make ourselves proud. I mean, we've been asking for equity. Here you go.

You've been asking for creative debt. Here you go. You've been asking for somebody to give you a break. Here you go. You've been asking for a time to reset your mind. It boggles my mind, Roland. Folks are like, I need a break. Can somebody just give me a few days? You've been given a month. Pull your dream board out.

Figure out what you want to do when you grow up. Reimagine your life. You've been given creative flexibility on debt. You've been given flexibility on planning your life, time with your family, time with yourself, and some capital to start or move your life forward.

What are we waiting for? Folks, this is, and for everybody, and John has been a huge supporter of this show, and I greatly appreciate that. Just like our panelists. This, y'all keep hearing me say this, and y'all may think I'm crazy. This is why you

have to have black-owned platforms, because John's on CNBC. They ain't going to have a segment with John that long. That's right. Breaking this whole breaking this down and not this block. Right. We this is the stuff that we need because trust me, we're not getting it on these mainstream networks, which is also why we need folks to support. A lot of y'all on YouTube have been giving. I appreciate it. And y'all been hearing me for a year and a half now talk about why we need 20,000 followers, giving $50 each, $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day for this kind of information. Because this is what we have to get.

John, there's a conference call tomorrow that's specific to these issues in black businesses. You're going to be on that call when it's done. Hopefully it's not going to be a five-hour call. No, one hour. Perfect. So when it's done, we want you back on the show tomorrow so we can keep pushing this information out

so our people are not locked out. And if I'm correct when you talk about so the website we're gonna um that uh do you have the where they can go because i think it opens tomorrow to the beginning yeah um so i don't want to give you the wrong information i know if you go to i know if you go to sba.gov they'll have everything there but i don't want to give you the wrong information on the website so folks go go to sba.gov, sba.gov. And Operation Hope will have it as well, operationhope.org. And so let me say a couple of things in closing, Roland.

One, I'm a member of your program. Yes, sir. Because we got, we got to walk our talk. PhDs are good, but PhDs are better. So I wrote a check and, and I'm encouraging everybody else here to write a check. You can't afford not to do it. If you believe in it, then back it up.

So that's the first thing. Second thing is, there is a call at the White House tomorrow, and I'm happy to come back on, but you also can get, on that call will be Ambassador Andrew Young, Dr. Bernice A. King, CEO of the King Center, Tommy Dortch, Chairman of 100 Black Men, the Russell family. I don't know if you want somebody from the Russell family.

Cassius Butts, Lisa Borders, who is a brilliant former chairman of the Coca-Cola Foundation. There'll be a lot of luminaries, Reverend C.T. Vivian, who will be joining this call around this focus at the White House around black businesses accessing the CARE Act. So we're going to come out of that with information that is useful to your audience. I'm happy to come back on. Well, we will have you on and we will have all of them on as well because we're here five days a week and we're going to hammer this thing every single day. So we are not left out. John Hope Bryant, founder of Operation Hope. And I appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Peace of life. All right. Thanks a lot, folks. Great information there. And again, that's why we do what we do. Let's go to this next story. At least seven people who attended a conference, a COGIC conference in Kansas City had been diagnosed with COVID-19. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment issued a statement this week saying, people who attended Kansas East Jurisdiction's Ministers and Workers Conference at the Miracle Temple Church of God and Christ may have been exposed to the coronavirus

that causes COVID-19. Now folks, not having church services during this outbreak certainly creates a problem for a lot of churches. Now here's the deal. People love talking about megachurches, but the reality is this here. Megachurches only comprise 4% of all churches in America. Megachurches comprise 4% of all churches in America. 96% of churches in America are small churches. And so what has happened is many of these churches are struggling

to keep their churches strong until the parishioners return. And that's where larger churches are stepping in. Joining me now to talk about this is Justin Gibney, attorney and political strategist and Bishop Vincent Matthews Jr., mission president for the Church of God in Christ. Bishop Matthews, how you doing? Bishop Matthews? I am here. All right. How are you, sir uh doing great uh all right pull up bishop uh so so bishop um what are the churches doing for these smaller churches uh because a lot of these smaller church pastors uh are you know don't see what's happening they're concerned they're thinking about will they

lose members will they lose their churches will they lose their churches, will they lose their buildings? What's happening? A lot of churches are in trouble. You know, the narrative that's out there is that churches are mega churches with big money. But as you know, Roland, first of all, thank you for having me on your show. The average church is under 100 members. And black churches in particular in urban and rural areas, many of their people have been laid off. Many churches are finding themselves in challenges. And so we've linked with the

AND Network and the churches raising money, infused money to assist these churches so that they can continue to serve their communities. So that's a huge challenge because our communities are in need of help right now. Is Justin there? Is Justin there? Is Justin there? All right, well, pull him up, y'all. Pull him up. Justin, please, what assistance do these churches need? What is being offered to assist them?

Yeah, so what we've done, as Bishop was saying, is we've created what we're calling the Churches Helping Churches Challenge. And as you know, the Barna group came out, I think on Tuesday, with research that showed that tens of thousands of pastors around the nation do not believe their church or are not sure that their church is going to make it through this crisis. So what we've done, we've gone to majority churches, majority faith organizations and others and said, hey, this is the time to show what the church is really supposed to be about. We need to help these small at-risk churches by giving them grants to get them through this period. So we have the Churches Helping Churches Challenge, and we also created the COVID-19 Church Relief Fund. We'll be raising upwards of $500,000 to give small grants, about $3,000 grants, to churches that are in need.

And, Roland, you know if you get the number saying that tens of thousands of churches don't know if they can make it, that means it's even worse in our community and that our community is getting hit really, really hard. So a lot of these churches who they're in a bad position or they have a lot of people in their area are just out of work and can't give or they have an older congregation that doesn't give online. They're really just stuck. Well, it's time for us to come together, whether you're a white church, Hispanic church, black church. If you have more financial stability, it's time for all of us to step up and help these smaller churches. So we're going to launch tomorrow. We'll have open applications on churchrelief.org for folks to apply, for small churches to apply

to get this money just to make it through the crisis. The worst thing that could happen is for us to get through this crisis. And then you have a bunch of small churches who were serving their communities that can no longer do so now because they didn't make it through the crisis. Bishop Matthews, what the churches are also dealing with, look, most of them don't even have infrastructure to be able to do online. I did a video last week showing some different cameras, how they can use to be able to go online. But one of the things that we have to also recognize is that

they got to deal with these older members who, they love church, they want to go online. But one of the things that we have to also recognize is that they got to deal with these older members who, they love church, they want to go to Bible study. But this is the moment, as far as I'm concerned, this is the moment where black churches have to seize the moment to say, look, as Jamal Bryan says, typically churches are 10 years behind where the country is.

This is the opportunity to say, hey, we got to now operate in the 21st century as well. And so while helping them stay afloat and survive, they also have to be in a thrive state of mind. You're exactly right, Roland. our presiding bishop, Bishop Charles Blake, has continually asked the church to follow all protocols and all guidelines to protect our citizens. I talked to one of our pastors today in Brooklyn, New York, Pastor Taylor of the Open Door Church in Brooklyn. They're serving 420 families a week this week, last week and every week for the last 35 years, giving groceries and doing things. They don't have PPEs. They don't have other things. This kind of money will help this small church who's helping their community with infrastructure. And you're right. They have to be careful. But without the infrastructure, it's very important to catch up and to be a part

of their communities to serve. Justin, again, give us that website where people can go to get more information. Churchrelief.org. Churchrelief.org. All right, then. Justin Gibney, Attorney in Political Strategies, Bishop Vincent Matthews, Jr. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.

Tell Bishop Blake I said what's up. I will. All right, gentlemen, thank you so very much. Final comments from our panelists. We're going to close the show with some fun stuff. It's been a little heavy, but we're going to do that. So I'm going to start with Erica. Final comment for that. I am imploring and asking everyone that's watching this broadcast to please whip out your phone now. Utilize Cash App. I understand that we are really in unprecedented times. But if you do have

something extra and believe in the show, believe in the program to please go ahead and send off to Roland Martin Unfiltered. This is an important platform that we need. It continues to teach and build us every day. And it's just something that we, especially in these times, need also informing everyone to stay safe, take care of yourself, love on yourself when you get up first thing in the morning and make sure you check on people that you might not ordinarily check on. Recy, people always talk about,

man, we need this, we need that. Guess what? But we need information. When you hear the phrase, information is power, it is power. What John O'Brien laid out, all of? But we need information. When you hear the phrase information is power, it is power. What John O'Brien laid out all about black businesses need. Absolutely. And I think the most important thing that he said is don't give yourself bad news before you've even looked into it. So many people are so intimidated by the prospect of so much as

even looking into it. It's free to go to sba.gov and find out the information. Find out if you apply. Time is of the essence. Do not let this go by. We've heard a lot of people make justifiable complaints about how $1,200 is not enough for a stimulus and all those other things. But the stimulus check is not the only thing on the table. You have unemployment if you've lost your job. And if you are a small business owner, you have this block or this grant program. Take advantage. These are tough times,

but most of us are at home and we do have a little bit of time on our hands. So make sure at a minimum, look into it. And if you don't have a small business, but you know, a small business owner, maybe they're not watching the show, look into it for them and make sure that they get that information. Greg, I did the Instagram live last night with a comedian Ali Sadiq, and we were talking about the show, and we were on until like three, four o'clock in the morning. And one of the things that I said to him then is that when Robert Abbott created the Chicago Defender in 1905, it didn't just become, it wasn't a Chicago newspaper. Their readership actually was more outside Chicago

than it was inside Chicago. And the thing that I need people to understand is that when you hear the phrase, ain't nobody going to save us but us, what this moment is revealing to us, Greg, and I'm just going to go ahead and say it. What this moment is revealing to us, all of those black websites

that are focused on entertainment ain't covering no entertainment because the entertainers, they all at home. This is what I've been saying about why you got to have news and information.

What John Hope Bryant laid out, people were on YouTube and Facebook were like, oh my god, y'all, he helped write the legislation and the regulations. The point of this is to bring you people

who are at the table. Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Amy Klobuchar. That's why we do this. We ain't got time for games. Now is the time, Greg, and all those books behind you, where we've got to be feeding our minds because we can't just bitch and moan our way through this pandemic. We got to be prepared. You know what I reach for. You know my man Gerald Horne, he wrote about 30 books and they're back there, but this is the one you're always talking about, Roland's Book Club,

the rise and fall of the Associated Negro Press. Claude Burnett. Yes, sir. When we control our institutions, we win. Everything, I echo everything my sister Erica said. Y'all put two, three, four, five, 10, 15, 20, $30 on this and keep this going. I echo everything that Recy just said. Y'all have to understand now, we, not y'all, we have to understand it's time to be smart.

Charles Blow wrote something today. He said, you know, you have to understand that when candidates were calling for broad structural change and moderates were kind of like, oh, the country isn't ready for broad structural change. Brother Blow said we are now experiencing broad structural change, whether we like it or not. What you've done, Roland, since this crisis came out in full bloom, anybody watching this, tell your friends, go back and look at the last two weeks, especially of Roland Martin unfiltered. I mean, hell, go back and look at the last two days. You've had sitting United States senators today, Klobuchar and Harris. You had the mayors, the black mayors around the country. You've got policymakers. What we just

heard from Brother Hope Bryant a minute ago, John Hope Bryant, is worth its weight in gold. And as he said, he's not going to say that on MSNBC. And to conclude, as you said, he wouldn't be allowed to go on that long anyway. This is the greatest evidence in a moment when everything is about to change that number one, this is the most important news show on television of any racial background or any cultural background. All you got to do is switch to another channel and realize how worthless all that stuff is. It's sensationalist entertainment. And number two, whatever you have that you have, you can bring to Roland Martin unfiltered to support it,

please do because this information may literally save your life. Greg Carr, Recy Colbert, Colbert. Erica Savage. Erica Savage-Wilson. I appreciate it, folks. Thanks a bunch for sticking with us the full two hours.

Again, lots of information there, but I got a couple of things left. I want to thank y'all. I appreciate it, folks. Thanks a bunch for sticking with us the full two hours. Again, lots of information there, but I got a couple of things left. I want to thank y'all. I appreciate it. Bless you. Thank you. See y'all next week. All right, y'all. Sam Jackson, he's back and he wants y'all to keep y'all ass at home. Roll it. Stay the

at home. The runner is spreading. The s*** is no joke. It's no time to work or roam. The way you can fight it is simple, my friends. Just stay the f*** at home. Now, technically, I'm not a doctor. But motherf***ers listen when I read a poem.

So here I am, Sam f***ing Jackson, imploring you, keep your ass at home. If you want things to get back to normal, don't panic. Just use your dome. Wash your hands, stop touching your face, and stay the f*** at home. Motherf***er, it's no time to gamble. Look around. You're not at a casino. Just stay the f*** home as if your name was Trenton Quarantino. Sure, you can still see your friends. Use the motherf***ing app on your phone.

But unless you just ran out of groceries, stay the at home thank you for doing your part to flatten the curve because that is steep and now that you're home please feel free to go the to sleep. I thought we had the original version versus the one that's all bleeped out. So I just sent Sam Jackson a text message saying, Sam, send me the original because this is Roland Martin unfiltered and we ain't got to use the bleeped out version. But

great advice from Sam Jackson. All right, y'all. Look, a lot of y'all at home. Y'all watching my man DJ D-Nice in club quarantine. He wasn't supposed to DJ last night. He went more than four hours last night. I was up with him. But he's going to be back on Saturday. So what if you're at home and decide to say, you know what?

I want to make me some fun drinks since I'm at the house. So I called my homegirl, Laura Mora, a bartender, a dancer out of Miami, and said, let's go it on. So, Laura, what you got for us? I don't drink, but a lot of my folk do. So what you got for us? Well, today, since we are in quarantine right now, I just try to pick some things that, you know,

usually people have in their house. At the bar, when I'm working, by the way, I work at Bar Idle in South Beach. The Lickin' is known as The Lickin'. I'm a bartender there. And a lot of people, when they order bourbon, they order bullet bourbon. So I figured this is something that's inexpensive and everybody will have it at their house. So let me just make a really nice peach lemon drink with that um that's easy to make and then i also purchase limoncello i'm not sure who has limoncello but i

use this all the time anytime i make a drink with some type of lemon i put this in it it's a lemon liqueur from italy it is amazing you can drink it by itself with ice it's like a dessert liqueur but that goes great with vodka hennessy um anything do say cognac any bourbon whiskey it goes amazing because lemon goes with anything so i have those and then i have a my recommendation for a pre-made drink is the best margarita pre-made drink i i feel like usually i don't like pre-made drinks but this this margarita is really, really good. So I'm going to also introduce that. All right. So let's go.

What we got? So this is my little mini last minute bar setup. So what I'm going to do is first, I have my shaker. I'm pretty sure everybody has it. You can use anything in the house, but as long as you can shake it, cover it, you can use anything. So I'm going to as you can you know shake it cover it you can use anything so

I'm gonna go ahead and put the ice I'm gonna go ahead and add I'm gonna make first it's called the very cello rock martini that's one of my signature drinks so I go ahead I don't have four spouts that's the best thing about pouring at home. So I count, one, two, three, four for me. You can do whatever count you like. Then I go ahead and I add my limoncello. I put about two counts of this. One, two. And normally, you can purchase strawberry puree, but I made my own puree basically all I did

was I muddled fresh strawberries I added some limoncello also regular fresh lime I squeezed that in there and I muddled the strawberries to get a fresh strawberry puree of my own and I'm gonna go ahead and pour that in here. Gonna shake it. I have martini glass, if you don't have martini glass, you can use anything you want, but I use martini glass. You can get these at Dollar Tree for a dollar. And I'll go ahead and, this is what I'm doing now, is I'm putting sugar rimmed with lemon zest.

That's easy to do as well. And I have my first drink. All right. The Very Trello Rock. The reason I'm calling it Vericello Rock because it's pretty much a strawberry lemon drop. And what I used was syrup and limoncello. So Vericello Rock.

All right, then. Pretty cool, pretty cool drink there. All right, so that's the first drink. What's that lemon drink you were talking about? All right, so this is the first drink. Well, this is the lemon drink. This is the strawberry drink. Okay, strawberry.

Guys, strawberry lemon. Okay, got it. So what you want to know about is the bourbon drink. There you go. Each drink, but it also has lemon in it. Rolling the non-drinker wants to know about the next drink. It's okay. You have a lot of friends that drink.

It's okay, like me. So, I'm going to go ahead and pour this one out. Give me just a second. So, I'm going to go ahead and pour this out and I'm going to go ahead and put the rest of the ice. I'm sorry, guys. My machine stopped running. So, I had to go out and get some ice.

So I go ahead and I pour the bourbon. So you're now the drinker. Did you drink before rolling? I've never drank in my life. Never have. I've never drank anything. I've never drank alcohol. Not when I pledged. Not when I went over.

Not when I got mad. The first or the second time. 18th, 21st, 40th, 50th, never drank in my life. Look, I'm crazy enough. I don't need no alcohol. You know what? Okay. I get you. I get you.

I mean, I don't know how. You made it, but I all popped. Listen, everything. I ain't never even had an energy drink. I don't even drink coffee. So, look, I don't need no help. I drink coffee. I started drinking coffee when I was working at my job.

No, I'm good. Those things are addictive. I'm good. Now, what's this? What's this? So, what I'm doing is I put the bourbon. I put four counts of bourbon, and then I put two counts of the lemon shallow. I have here a strawberry peach juice. It's made by Tropicana.

Again, something easy that you can find and you probably always have in the fridge. All right. Five count of that. I go ahead and shake it. Put some more ice in my cup. And you have an amazing lemon peach bourbon drink. All right, then.

Look at you showing your skills. This is called ATL. Since this is a peach bourbon drink, I'm going to call it ATL. All right. Well, you you showing your skills atl since it's a peach bourbon drink atl all right well you're showing your skills all right and you got one more drink for us right yeah the easiest drink okay all right the the closing drink bring it home so my pre-made drink is the margarita i know everybody likes margarita This is a pre-made margarita. It's from Rancho La Gloria. This is something that I just happened to pick up at the grocery store. I wanted to drink again. I really don't like pre-made drinks. I didn't feel like making a margarita. I don't know why margaritas are my least favorite drinks to make, but I like them.

But this is amazing. You can put this over some ice and put it in a blender and make it like a slushy. And you can just make it with ice in a cup. You can go ahead and rim your cup the same way I did the martini gas. You just go ahead and rim it. Put the rim, the ice on the rim. Sorry, the rim on the cup.

You go ahead and put your ice. You just pour it. This is the easiest one because it's not, you know, a drink I made up. Oh, yeah, there you go. Yeah, you ain't got to mix nothing. So you just shake it up and pour. Exactly. But this is a brand that I do recommend for a pre-made tequila.

Well, trust me, my parents, they do drink, and they love visiting me because people give me alcohol for some damn reason, and they love drinking, and so they can't visit me, obviously, because of coronavirus, so they are watching right now. Trust me. My dad probably will be sending my sister out to buy that probably tonight.

It's Rancho La Gloria. You can find it anywhere you can find it at walmart target um any liquor store but usually they have it like at walmart and target and things like that and it's no more than ten dollars this bottle cost me um well actually this size bottle is like twenty dollars but the smaller bottles are like eight ten dollars very you know, economical. So I suggest you go ahead and get it, definitely. All right, peeps.

Pour it, and you have your margarita. All right. Well, Laura, I appreciate it, folks. I want y'all to follow Laura on Instagram at M-S-L-A-U-R-A-M-O-R-A, Miss Laura Mora. Her cash app is $, Miss Laura Mora. Her cash app is $MissLauraMora number one. M-S-L-A-U-R-A-M-O-R-A

one. And I have encouraged Laura to do some bartending videos and some live stuff. So I'll be pushing some of her stuff out on social media so she can give some of his advice. Because again, look, people, look, I don't know how to make no

drink. I don't know how to make no drink at all. I can't make, look, I'll buy the alcohol for a party. Yes, somebody else do it. But I want y'all to... Aren't you a person now? Nah, I ain't about to. Baby, look, you don't want me buying, you do not

want me mixing nothing because that ain't what i do but laura i appreciate it folks follow her on instagram i'll share the cash app laura thanks for the drinks and again people are at home thank you so much for giving me this opportunity i know we all out here without jobs there's things that we can do roland thank you so much for pushing me and motivating me to do this after we get off i'm making my first video and you'll see it all right and i'll share thanks a bunch thank you have a good one thank you i want to thank everybody who's watched today's show a lot of y'all have given uh on youtube also people been sending via cash out and paypal again folks our goal is to keep this show going we got great

information for you y'all to have senator kamala harris, Senator Amy Klobuchar, to have Justin and a Bishop, John Hope Bryant, plus our panelists. I mean, phenomenal. Y'all, we got a great show lined up for you tomorrow as well. We're going to keep driving this thing to make sure our people are fully aware, safe, protected from coronavirus. You're getting the top medical experts, the top business experts, top political experts, top religious experts. And, yo, we putting together this promotion, a promo right now, yo, that's going to show all the black experts we've had discussing coronavirus, because that's why we do what we do, unapologetically and unfiltered.

Support us at RollerMart Unfiltered. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. And I'm telling you, I got 2.6 million followers. If 20,000 of my fans did 50 bucks each, yo, show's completely paid for. Everybody's paid. And we're gonna do, last year, we did 350 hours

of original content last year. We're gonna do 400 hours this year. Ain't nobody else in the black media space doing what we do. We appreciate y'all's support. I gotta we do. We appreciate y'all support. I got to go. I'll see y'all tomorrow.

And shout out to my man who made my outfit. He's from Nigeria. I appreciate that. Ha! I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war.

This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback.

Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.