#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Senate Debates Voting Legislations; Covid Surges, The Promise Homes Company, $200M Deal

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

1.18.22 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Senate Debates Voting Legislations; Covid Surges, The Promise Homes Company, $200M DealThe showdown has begun in the Senate over voting rights. The debate on the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act took place for the first time. Democrats used a loophole in the 60-vote rule to begin the debate, but there is no such loophole to get that final vote unless Democrats change the rules.  President and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation Melanie Campbell is here to talk about what happened on Capitol Hill.The US government's website for free Covid-19 tests launched a day early, and the country continues to battle a surge in cases driven by Omicron. Tonight we'll talk to Infectious Disease expert Dr. Lane Rolling on what to expect as covid remains a public health threat.The white cop who murdered Laquan McDonald is set to be released next month after serving just about half of his sentence.A Florida cop assaults one of his own as she tries to prevent him from attacking a handcuffed suspect.An investigation reveals a Virginia Police department used forged forensics to get people to confess to crimes.In our Marketplace segment, sponsored by Verizon, we'll talk to John Hope Bryant, the founder, and CEO of The Promise Homes Company, who has closed on a $200 million institutional debt facility from Barings, the global investment management firm.#RolandMartinUnfiltered partners: Verizon | Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, now available in 50+ cities, is the fastest 5G in the world.* That means that downloads that used to take minutes now take seconds. 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3Hvs4V4Nissan | Check out the ALL NEW 2022 Nissan Frontier! As Efficient As It Is Powerful! 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3FqR7bPSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfilteredDownload the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com#RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hey, folks, today is a Monday. Actually, it's actually Tuesday. It feels like a Monday, Tuesday, January 18th, 2022. Coming up, I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. The showdown has begun in the United States Senate over voting rights. The debate on the freedom to vote and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act took place for the first time. Democrats used a loophole in the 60-vote rule to begin the debate.

But there's no such loophole to get the final vote passed without ending the filibuster. We'll talk with Melanie Campbell, President of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation about what's going on on Capitol Hill. Also, the U.S. government's website for free COVID-19 tests launched a day early and the country continues to battle a surge in cases

driven by Omicron. We'll talk with an infectious disease expert after Lane Rowling on what we can expect. And also, is this going to be with us for forever? The white cop who murdered Laquan McDonald is set to be released next month after serving just about half of his sentence. A Florida cop assaults one of his own fellow police officers when she tries to stop him from attacking a handcuffed suspect. An investigation reveals the Virginia Police Department

used forged forensics to get people to confess to crimes. And in our Marketplace segment sponsored by Verizon, we'll talk with John Hope Bryant, founder and CEO of the Promise Homes Company, who was closed on a $200 million institutional debt facility. We'll tell you exactly what that means. Folks, it's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

Let's go. He's got it. Y'all go ahead. Whatever the biz, he's on it. Yeah, we're fine. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland. breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling

Best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's Rolling Martin, yeah Rolling with rolling now Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Roland Martin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rolling with Roland now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Roland Martin now. Martin. The President of the United States will be watching what happens this week in the United States Senate. Just a few days removed from what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 93rd birthday, the Senate has begun the debate on the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act for the first time, the first time in this Congress.

Democrats have tried for months to hold a voting rights debate on the floor, but we have been blocked each time by Republicans. We brought common sense proposals four times on the floor of the Senate, and only once did one senator, Lisa Murkowski to her credit, agree to even begin debate on voting rights. On all three other votes, not a single Republican joined us. Every one of them voted to block even a debate on voting rights. So today we are taking this step by using a message from the House. Now it's just a step but an

important step moving forward in that we will finally debate this one issue that is so central to the American people, to our history, and to our democracy. That was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the floor today in the United States Senate talking about the issue of voting rights. Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Democrats defended the filibuster in the past, so what has changed?

Late last week, our Democrat colleagues briefly paused their quest to destroy the Senate's 60-vote threshold just long enough to use the 60-vote threshold themselves to block a bill. Every Republican supported sanctioning the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will give Russia even more leverage to bully Europe. Most of our Democratic colleagues bowed to the furious lobbying from the Biden administration to protect Putin's pipeline. There were 55 votes to pass the bill that our friends like Ukrainian President Zelensky

desperately wanted passed, but Democrats blocked it by denying 60. Now many of these same colleagues have spent weeks thundering, literally thundering, that the Senate 60-vote threshold is an offensive tool of obstruction, a Jim Crow relic, declaring that simple majorities should always get their way. Ah, but late last week, they literally wielded the 60-vote threshold themselves. A useful reminder of just how fake, fake the hysteria has been. We already knew Washington Democrats don't have any principled opposition to Senate rules. Democrats repeatedly filibustered the CARES Act in March of 2020 while insisting on changes. Democrats filibustered and killed Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill.

You only have to go back a few years to read vigorous defense of the filibuster from our Democratic colleagues and their allies. Oh, talk about a lying fool. First of all, McConnell just said that Democrats scuttled Tim Scott's police reform bill. No, last I recall, it was Vice President Kamala Harris, the United States Senator, who said, why aren't we discussing this bill in committee as opposed to on the floor? That's actually what happened. So McConnell is lying. McConnell also talked about how, oh, they're changing the floor. That's actually what happened. So McConnell is lying. McConnell also talked about how, oh, they're changing the rules.

Didn't McConnell put two Supreme Court justices on for life with just 51 votes? McConnell, you're lying again. And so, folks, not only that, didn't Mitch McConnell forget he voted with the Democrats to change the filibuster requirement, change the filibuster rule to increase the debt ceiling a month ago? See, so what Mitch McConnell wants you to do, and these idiot MAGA people will just run along with it, is to believe that there's a 60-vote threshold for everything. That's a lie. There are exceptions. And the Senate has made an exception 161 times in the last number of years.

So, really, what's the whole deal? Now you have folks, West Virginians, who are weighing in. Prominent West Virginians, such as Alabama head coach Nick Saban, former Lakers GM Jerry West, former NFL quarterback Oliver Luck, and former NFL player Darrell Talley of the Buffalo Bills, former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, signing a letter urging Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to vote for voting rights legislation.

The letter reads, in part, some of us have roots and shaped our lives in West Virginia. Others follow very different paths and some of us have been rivals in sports or business. But we are all certain that democracy is best when voting is open to everyone

on a level playing field. The referees are neutral and at the end of the game the final score is respected and accepted. Guys, please put the letter up. This is the letter right here. Okay? Thank you.

All right? You see right here, these are the signatures on here. All right? So this is exactly what they sent to Manchin. Now, today, several protesters who stood on the Capitol steps demanding the passage of voting rights. They were arrested. This is the video right here, folks. Joining me now to talk about, again, the battle that continues is Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

Of course, Melanie, you've been, of course, a part of this for quite some time. We saw those activists today. We saw the protests that took place yesterday. And so the fight continues to force us in to do what's right when it comes to these bills. Yes, Roland. And one of the things that

we keep saying, that whatever goes down, one of the victories, it's not the win, will be a vote so we know where these senators stand. And so when it comes down to that vote, we will at least be able to know where people stand and know what we've got to work for, work towards when it comes to continue to fight to get this thing passed. And so that's what we're going to have to keep doing. You know, and what's also interesting here is, as I sit here and look at what's going on,

you know, you've got... Look, the Democrats' mansion in Sinema won't even support putting the talking filibuster back. I mean, my goodness! Mm-hmm. This ain't that hard. And so I'm glad to see what you were just showing about that letter

coming from West Virginians. I mean, the people of West Virginia and the people of Arizona want them to do the right thing. So I just know that we have to keep pushing. We need corporate America to weigh in because sometimes if you don't listen to the people, you listen to money. And so every tool in the toolbox we have to keep using and hold. And also and I know I heard you talk about this and also push on the Republicans, at least 10 Republicans at the end of the day ought to be able to figure out how to do the right thing. So we cannot let them off the hook while we continue to push for Sinema and Manchin to do the right thing as well.

And, of course, there are some people who say, look, this is all for naught. Why don't you just simply give up? But the bottom line is you've got to force it because right now we need to know who's on, like, where do people stand? Who's for? who's against? And in the state of Florida, my home state where I grew up, you have the governor who is now trying to accept a separate office to enforce their voter suppression laws. So it's not stopping. And so the more this state legislatures come back into place, we're going to see a whole lot more kinds of voter suppression laws. It's like somebody turned into that dial to see, well, just how far would it let us go? Let's see how far we can go. And so that's what we're going to continue to see. And so, at the end of the day, folks got to make that decision. What side of history are you on? And we cannot afford to stop fighting

for our voting rights. And we've always had to fight. That's the thing I try to tell young people. We have unfortunately always had to fight to protect our voting rights. And we will continue to do that until we get another victory. And then even with that, we have to keep and stay vigilant by making sure that we continue to vote, especially when you get down to state and local elections, especially these days, state elections, because a lot of times the state override what's happening with local political, local elected officials, city councils and mayors anyway.

And I apologize. I know you hear that siren. It's all good. It's all good. And when we talk about and brothers were out there today, you know, putting their bodies on the line. We will continue to do that. We also simultaneously have to make sure that whatever's going on, that we vote this year and continue to engage this administration. They say they're going to stay the course, keep pushing the White House, get with the Justice Department, every tool that we can at the end of the day. And I just think it's a moral imperative.

What we're talking about is what's going to impact our kids, our nephews, my nephews. These kids are going to have a bad way if we have, if this country, it's not just like, okay, win one this week, win another next. No, this is about the whole shifting of this political system that can put our children in a perilous future. When you're talking about pushing us back, not just 365, we talk about reconstruction. When you can do what they're doing, it's not going to stop here.

No, it's not. In fact, when I talked about putting the pressure on, Emily's List has made it clear that they sent a letter to Kristen Sinema that if she chooses re-election, if she keeps on this path, she will not get their endorsement. This is what they sent her. Senator Sinema cannot support a path forward for the passage of this legislation. We believe she undermines the foundations of our democracy, her own path to victory, and also the mission of EMILY's List. And we will be unable to endorse her moving forward. That is, of course, a very powerful fundraising group of the supports that's pro-choice, but also that's all about electing women to Congress. Right. And Sister LaFonza Butler, give her a great shout out. Sister, who's now the head of that, is a black woman who's running Emily's List. So that's history as well.

Absolutely. Melanie Campbell, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you, Roland. All right, folks, go to my panel. Mustafa Sandiagali, former senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA. Teresa Lundy, founder of TML Communications. And we'll be joined in a bit by Demario Solomon Simmons,immons, civil rights attorney and founder for Justice for Greenwood. I want to start with you, Teresa, that EMILY's List decision is important. Last week, they released a statement. People like me said, uh-uh, ain't good enough. Send the signal to Sinema and any other woman who wants their endorsement and their money.

You don't do what's right when it comes to voting rights. You will not be getting our support. Yeah, and I think more organizations actually need to run on the same talking point because, look, Emily's List has been influential in making sure that women are elected and in the right position, but they also have a very, very big contact list of sponsors and donors and those who already are established after their sponsorship. But I think other PACs would also benefit from some of their talking points. So it makes sense. I think it's at the right time that they made the statement and that it made sense. But I also think there is a time for us to really think about, you know, what's next.

So what more can some of these PACs and organizations do? Not just getting us elected, but actually making sure that we, we as in those who are elected, are still hitting some of those same point and those same voting rights that is necessary to move this country forward. Mustafa, what happened to Kenneth Frazier?

What happened to, of course, these other black business leaders who are supposedly rallying these companies to stand for voting rights? You notice they're gone? I mean, well, what happened? Ken Chenault, matter of fact, I'm going to send him an email in a second. I'm like, where'd y'all go? Exactly. Their silence is as deafening as many of the others who are supposedly going to help and be supportive and to push to make sure that voting rights and a number of other issues that have been impacting our communities were going to be stood up. But because of their silence, there are a lot of folks who think that they get a pass. It's almost like some of the senators

and others who are on Capitol Hill that because we have rightly been placing attention on a couple of members, primarily Sinema and Manchin, that others have been able to kind of be silent also. So that's why it's so important that this vote, hopefully that comes up where we see where people stand. But we got to also focus on the left. I appreciate what Theresa just shared, and I appreciate what Emily's List is doing.

And we have a number of companies and corporations, and we've talked about this before, that when the Black Lives Matter movement was garnering all that attention, that folks were saying, we're going to do right. We're going to make sure that we stand with you. We're going to make sure that those elements inside of your community that need to be protected, that we're there for you,

that we're going to be authentic allies. But now we still don't see a whole bunch of them showing up. So that dynamic has to change, and we have to hold those accountable who are not willing to stand with us in these very, very serious and significant times. Indeed. Indeed.

Let's go to the floor of the United States Senate where they are debating this very issue right now. And let's hear what is being discussed. support the Freedom to Vote Act, which are designed to safeguard Americans' right to vote and secure the sanctity of our election. And today, just as Ukraine faces a threat to its independence and freedom, we too in America face a threat. Not from Vladimir Putin directly, although he has sought to destabilize and degrade our democracy

and continues to do so through cyber attacks and misinformation. Certainly, 2016's interference in our elections is a warning bell, an alarm that we need to be stronger against foreign interference. But within, the threat is equally, if not more alarming. Because what we are seeing across this great country in state after state are efforts to suppress the vote and restrict the franchise. Last year, more than 440 restriction bills were introduced in 49 states, and 19 of those states successfully enacted 34 laws that made it harder for people to vote. These laws make mail voting and early voting more difficult. They manipulate the boundaries of districts to reduce minority representation.

They've led to a purge of 3.1 million voters from the rolls in areas that were once covered by the voting rights preclearance requirement. We are seeing a tidal wave of voter suppression that continues even as we speak today on this floor. The vote today comes in a week where we celebrate the legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For the first time in my memory, I was out of the country on that day. But it was ever present in my mind in part, and it should animate us today. That memory and legacy, which were so powerfully expressed on August 6, 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. He called it a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.

A triumph for freedom. And it followed a mere seven months after Dr. King launched a Southern Christian Leadership Conference campaign based in Selma, Alabama, with the aim of supporting voting rights legislation. It was a great day for America. It is one that has rightly received a paramount place in our history.

It's taught to our children. The Voting Rights Act represents the best of America. And its commitment to guaranteeing that members of every racial group would have equal voting opportunities stands as one of the best days in this country. But it was no layup for the civil rights movement. It culminated a hard-fought campaign, and it was a hard-won victory of civil rights leaders like dr. King and John Lewis who committed themselves literally

committed their bodies their physical well-being to advance the rights of others in the face of violent opposition. They were beaten, sometimes near death. And for decades, the Voting Rights Act remained a crucial bulwark. It was retained and defended against insidious efforts to roll back the clock until the United States Supreme Court did that work for opponents. In 2013, in Shelby County, the United States Supreme Court gutted the highly effective preclearance regime, thereby jeopardizing the progress that the Voting Rights Act made over the course of half a century in protecting against those voter suppression efforts throughout

the country. Justice Ginsburg said it best in her powerful dissent in Shelby County when she wrote that Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act preclearance requirement to cope with a vile infection of racial discrimination which, quote, resembled battling the hydra. Whenever one form of voting discrimination was identified and prohibited, others sprang up in its place, end quote. And the time to protect those voting rights is before they are restricted. And that's why preclearance was so important and why the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act now must be enacted into law.

DeMario, I want to go to you. So check this out. To understand how Republicans operate, so last week in Virginia, they swore in new governor, new leadership. Hmm. MLK birthday was yesterday. Go to my computer, please. Virginia Republicans filed 20 bills to restrict or limit absentee voting. They want to get rid of no-excuse voting. They want to get rid of ballot drop boxes.

One of the first actions. Now, the only reason that's not going to fly is because, now, granted, they control now the Virginia House. They control the governor. They don't control the Virginia Senate. Democrats still control that. That's the only reason it's not going to get passed. People need to understand. Now, mind you, it just got in.

Not bills dealing with education. Not bills dealing with the economy. Not bills dealing with housing. Voting. The first bills they put up. Yeah, because they understand

power. And thanks, Roland. Good to see you and see the panel, esteemed guests. I appreciate being on this with you guys tonight. They understand power. They understand to vote. They can get everything else accomplished if they shut down the voting. So Democrats came in and did the exact opposite, focused on other things. And I mean, unfortunately, I'm still not convinced that the Democrats are going to be strong enough to make this happen. I'm praying for it. I'm pushing it. I'm sending my emails. I'm calling the folks I know trying to make this happen. But I don't think they really understand the urgency still at this point. You know, Roland, at this time,

I mean, we look at the Biden administration. We all want it to be very successful. I was hoping the Biden administration would be transformational, like LBJ's, Lyndon Baines Johnson's administration. Up until this point, they've gotten a really bad grade. I almost say they're probably down there with a D or an F when you think about the things that are most important to Black people in this nation, that's police reform, voting rights, getting COVID under control, and reparations. Police reform, voting rights, getting COVID under control, and reparations. I mean, they get zeros on all of those at this time.

Well, look, I get that. But frankly, you can't make a comparison to this Congress and LBJ. You can't. So here's a perfect example. I'm going to show you this right here, Mustafa. And I get folks using the comparison, but. That was in the House. 333 to 85. So let's go Senate.

Okay? I'm going to pull this up in a second in terms of the actual vote. People understand. Second of all, let me remind people, under LBJ, you could pull projects. They already got rid of pork barrel projects. You can't do it. Now. They could have brought it back.

No, no, no, no. Follow me here. This is the number in the Senate, bro. 77 of 19. 77 of 19. 7 of 19. You literally can't compare LBJ to Biden then and now because

it's literally 50-50. So it's, and folks say figure out what Sinema and Manchin want and don't give it to them. The problem is that those rules have been changed. The old rules, and here's the other deal,

and I totally get what everybody's saying, and I'm right there as well. Here's the problem, Mustafa. If Manchin or Sinema says, I'm no longer, let me repeat this. If Manchin or Sinema says I'm no longer a Democrat, not become a Republican, and now I'm an independent and choose not to caucus with the Democrats,

Chuck Schumer is the minority leader and Republicans control all committees. That's how tenuous this situation is right now in the United States Senate. It's a tightrope. And you know, most folks haven't spent any time on Capitol Hill, so they don't really understand, unfortunately, how the numbers work

and also how difficult it can be to be able to move the legislation, especially if you're trying to court someone to actually get the vote. That's why when you look at things like the Build Back Better, as an example, it shrunk from $3.5 trillion down to like $1.7 trillion, $1.9 trillion, and it still couldn't get folks to move forward and do the right thing. So there is this tightrope that, you know, Schumer, that the president and others are currently walking to be able to, you know, just get voting rights,

just to be able to get folks to come to the floor and be able to debate this very, very... And Mustafa, and Mustafa, let me go back, let me go back, pull it up. It was 333 to 85 in the House, 77-19 in the Senate. Republicans voted for it.

The problem right now is there are zero, zero Republicans voting in the House. Zero are going to vote in the Senate. Zero Republicans voted in the House. Zero are going to vote in the Senate. Zero Republicans voted for the COVID relief bill. Zero. That is the reality.

Even the infrastructure bill. dealing with is what LBJ had to do was to simply get through the barricades of the filibuster because then the committees were even more powerful where you couldn't advance anything to the floor without going through the committee. So everything died in committee. The problem now is you can take it to the floor. If you ain't got 60 votes, you're still screwed. So what we're dealing with, and I'm going to also give people a reminder. Democrats had 60 votes when Obama was president. And why didn't they pass health care with 60 votes?

Because all it took was one senator who wanted other changes. Remember Lieberman? Remember your senator from Nebraska? Remember the Cornhusker deal? All the training they had to go on? So even when Democrats had 60 votes, they didn't have a hardcore 60 because of different interests. And that is the fundamental problem that we're dealing with.

And I keep saying this. Republicans, they write hard right. Democrats, centrists, liberals, progressives, far left. They tent so big, you got to sit here and juggle, Teresa, to satisfy all these different interests on the Democratic side just to be able to get the bill to the floor. I see there's two different components here. One is the division. I think, you know, I think after, you know, towards the end of Obama's administration,

there was a lot of division as it relates to how we start to look towards the future when it comes to future legislation. And so we are at this undeciding point where, you know, now we have Democrats trying to figure out they're going to be independent. And now we have Republicans now thinking about the working family. And so all of these interesting developments that have been happening over time has been something that I believe the Republican Party has decided, you know, we're just going to cause division. And so most of it is, is picking apart different legislation, different, you know, we're just going to cause division. And so most of it is, is picking apart different legislation, different, you know, finding their, you know, new outlets of airing their views and also buying new platforms. I believe Trump now has a new platform that's going to

apparently be, you know, comparative to Twitter. And it's an interesting, you know, rollout strategy that they've been doing. And thus, we can't get anything done. And it's an interesting, you know, rollout strategy that they've been doing. And thus, we can't get anything done. And so I think that's where we are in terms of where our priorities really lie. And Roland, to your point of all the special interests that ultimately come into play is that we don't have a foundation of people trusting each other in Congress or in the Senate. And so, again, when we can get those votes back in 1965, and it seems like we just can't get these votes today, we are at this very fine line of, you know, those we are getting elected, are they going to be aligned with the other senators and their other colleagues? And that's where

the division is actually aligned because it seems like no one is trusting each other to get things past the finish line. And here we are, the American people suffering. But also, I think what we have to also really deal with is that we are seeing

what happens when you do not ignore state politics. Here's what we're up against right now, DeMario. We're up against trying to pass a federal bill to stop what's happening on the state level because they control that. And so, as I talked about last week, when we have to understand how geography plays a role in all of this,

the importance of these rural areas and who lives there and the power that they are wielding in these various states. So this is a much more complicated issue, but it also goes to show, look, in the last election, you know, Democrats were anywhere from five to eight seats away from taking control of the Texas House. Guess what? If you control just one of the chambers, they can't pass anything. See, so we also got to talk about that. Okay, how do we now look at the map?

But what are we now dealing with? Well, damn, you kind of need the federal bill because the Supreme Court has already weighed. They're not going to weigh in on partisan gerrymandering. So you need the federal bill to stop partisan gerrymandering so Republicans aren't able to gerrymander themselves into veto-proof majorities on the state level. So this is, they are working a multi-prong

strategy to maintain and wield power. Right, Roland, and this is why I continue to argue that the Democrats have been short-sighted and weak on this. I mean, they should have saw this coming. The first thing that should have happened when President Biden, from my opinion, when he got in office, was push these bills through.

Push through the Supreme Court to be expanded. Push through the bills that's necessary. Man, you know they scared. Listen. The Supreme. Listen, just. They ain't. The expanded Supreme Court. Man,'t. The expanded Supreme Court.

Man, what did they announce? Was it a study? It didn't finish. Was it a blue ribbon panel? It just finished. Yesterday, we celebrated your frat brother, Dr. King, rightfully so. And one of the things he said. Go ahead and repeat that again.

I know that paying you to say your frat brotherne, you just said you're a frat brother, but go ahead. It's your frat brother. That's right. It's your frat brother. Absolutely. Hold up. And Mustafa. Just want to let you know that too. Go ahead. Radical change in structure.

Everything you talked about was structural. And we didn't do it necessarily structurally. So now we've allowed, we, the Democrats, have allowed all of these state houses to gerrymander. That should have been number one on the agenda.

Getting the voting together, getting the Supreme Court together. Because as you just stated, what people don't understand is that white people from around the world are okay with being in the minority and having all the power. That is what apartheid was about. They don't mind that. They don't care about the numbers being, oh, going to be more black people and more brown people by 2023 or 2034.

They don't care about that. They care about the power. And our people on our side have been short-sighted, even when Obama was in there. We all love Obama, but they had 60 votes, and they allowed that to stop them. It should have been more foresighted like the Republicans have been. We need this. This is a matter of life and death for our community.

You stated it, Roland. They can lock in super majorities that will be there for decades to come. They already have a majority on the Supreme Court, six to three. Why the heck is our Kennedy not moving off the court yet? These are the things that the Democrats just don't play politics as well as the Republicans. Point blank.

Well, it stems also, Mustafa, from the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I mean, we... Look, we always say on this show black success has always been followed by white backlash.

And what we are talking about right now has literally been the war, the political and judicial war that is a direct result of 13 years of the black freedom movement from conservatives they were angry that the courts took brown versus board of education one and two and they use and and though african-americans and liberals democrats whatever you want to call it, used the courts to change. Those Southern Dixiecrats, those racists, those Confederates were pissed off.

Many of them became Republicans. And the reality is the system that we're talking about right now is built on race. And that is what we have been battling. Let me also remind people of this, and I think it's very hard for people to acknowledge this, Mustafa, and it's real. 72 to 74% of the total electorate in 2020 were white. We talk about African-Americans voting,

absolutely important, but we have to vote to the edge of our capacity. We have to completely maximize our numbers. Then we got to look over here at Latinos and say, man, what y'all doing? Is it going to be 70-30? 65-35? 60-40?

And so it's also a numbers game. Many of us thought because of the white folks dying off, numbers shifting, that the 2020 election was going to be the first election in American history where less than 70% of the total electorate was going to be white. It was 72-74. We're still dealing with white politics. White politics. We're still dealing with Mustafa, trying to deal with white Democrats

who were appealed by Trump's message of make America great again. He beat Hillary Clinton by 450,000 votes in Ohio. The same white workers who picked Obama over McCain. So we are still, so for all of what we're laying out, and then when you talk about Latinos, you got to deal with white Hispanics who identify more white than brown. So what we are, so which is why the only way this happens

is if you're dealing with a multicultural coalition. It cannot be black only. You have to have a multicultural coalition to win and beat back what is going on with the Republican Party. Well, that's been the message. Dr. King shared that message, that we needed a multicultural set of actions and individuals coming together. You know, our brother Jesse Jackson, the same thing. And then even Reverend Barber has all been focusing on and helping us to understand, you know, our sets of commonalities. Um, and that if we come together, we can actually begin to move the needle and we can begin to win on many of these issues.

This set of strategic plans that Republicans have put in place has been going on for over 60 years now. The set of steps that they understood that they needed to move forward on. And they've been very methodical about it, but they've also been very laser-focused. If you come up through the Reagan administration and the Bush administration,

you see individuals who have been working both on the federal and the state level to get these types of things in place that we see that are playing out now. Trump just hyperized it. Trump did, uh, you know, he began to take, not only as folks did before, the Willie Horton ads and those types of things, he began to utilize it in a much broader

fashion. And then he also began to emphasize for folks that, you know, you're losing something and that we have an opportunity to actually make the country great again and take it back to the 40s and 50s as the paradigm that he was operating from. So folks have got to realize that we have got to come together to be able to make these changes happen, but that doesn't mean that we have to lose focus on the fact that Black folks are still the most disproportionately impacted

in almost every category that there's out there. So if we're not willing to do that, then we're going to continue to see these dynamics play out. And what they hope is, and we've talked about this on the show a number of times, is that they're not trying to stop every black person from going out there and voting. They know that they can begin to just carve off certain percentages across the states that they can win. And once they win, then they begin to further institutionalize these sets of actions that further weaken us, both economically and a number of other dynamics. So once you know the game, then we just have to continue to work the strategy to make change happen.

Let's go back to the U.S. Senate floor, where Senator Casey of Pennsylvania is now speaking. Occurred every four years. Some years it would go up a little higher, other years it would go back down. But it never, we never got in 60 years to that level again. So, for example, just the most recent two elections before 2020 in Pennsylvania, the 2012 election, 5.74 million people voted. That was 57% of the voting age population.

So down from that high water mark of 70% in 1960. 2016 was a big turnout in our state. We had more voters than 2012. It was 6.1 million voters. And it went from 57 in 2012 to 61. So it got over that 60 mark, but of course 61 is not 70. So we got nowhere near even in 2016 when you look at the percent of the voting age population. So that's the backdrop of 2016.

Big turnout, but not the turnout level we saw in 1960 or 64 or a few other years. Then in October of 2019... I'm going to pick up on that point right there, Teresa, Mustafa, and DeMario, because I'm going to go to North Carolina. 2008, then Senator Barack Obama wins North Carolina by 14,100 votes. I mean, black folks were turning out in droves. If you read Reverend Dr. William Barber's book, The Third Reconstruction, he talks about how low turnout was in North Carolina. They then began to make changes there. And then in 2008, I believe it was at 78%, the highest they had seen. And it put them in the top percentile in America of voter turnout.

2010, Republicans took control of the legislature. Voting laws put into place. So the data is very clear. When you begin to see large turnout, but in terms of the percentage going up, then you see Democrats winning. Let's talk about this here, because we're dealing with this right now.

Teresa, I want to start with you. U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania. Because to me, it's retiring. U.S. Senate race in North Carolina. U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin. U.S. Senate race in Ohio. U.S. Senate race in Florida. So now all of a sudden, those are five critical states. You also got U.S. Senate race, obviously, Charles Booker running

against Rand Paul in Florida. So now all of a sudden, those are five critical states. You also got a U.S. Senate race, obviously, Charles Booker running against Rand Paul in Kentucky. But really, you got those critical five states. Obviously, Warnock is running for re-election. So when I hear people, so when I think about, when I hear black folks say, hey, look, man, we turned out in 2020, it didn't happen. What I keep saying is, you pick up three of those five, you're now up 53-47. You now can negate cinema and mansion. And so what should the messaging be, Teresa,

you're in communications, to black folks to say in Pennsylvania why we must try to max out our numbers, not be happy with 55% black turnout. No. Say, we need 75, 80, 85%

black turnout in Pennsylvania to keep a Dr. Oz or whoever the hell other crazy-ass Republican they're going to try to nominate? Well, one, you're absolutely right. You know, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a very interesting space to do politics. You have the West Ring sphere, and then you have the middle, you know, 67 counties. So you have the middle counties that are very, you know, different when you come to Philadelphia. Okay, Teresa, stop dancing.

Just say it. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh is America. The rest of Pennsylvania is Alabama. Absolutely. So if you're a traveling... All that bullshit you talk about, oh, the middle states and these, just go ahead and say it.

Okay? Outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and the suburbs of those two cities, the rest of Pennsylvania is Alabama. Absolutely. And you know what? They show their flags very proudly. You'll see the Confederate flags.

You'll see the Trump flags. But here's the messaging that needs to happen. I see Roland is honing me in on what it is. So African-Americans and black-brown communities, one, they need to be funded. We currently have one African-American male. You know, he's young. That's Malcolm Quijada. And he's running, you know, as the African-American candidate for You know, he's young. That's Malcolm Keata. And he's running, you know,

as the African-American candidate for U.S. Senate. But then we also have a whole slew of GOP Republicans. And I believe they're going after the black vote. They are consciously thinking about the working families. They're thinking about blue collar. And so they are trying to spend dollars and cents to make sure that their message is clear, which is if you're tired of dysfunction, get with us. And I think that message is obviously not resonating, but obviously the Democratic Party needs to choose a candidate that they actually stand behind. And so what we have currently is a Pennsylvania Democratic Party that is kind of on eggshells on who they're actually going with. They have not picked a nominee.

And so we are getting, you know, the best of both sides. The GOP has already had a debate here in the Commonwealth, and the Democrats have not, because they're still trying to figure out the numbers and the lay of the land. But I think if they really want to get on message and that they really want to speak to black and brown communities, one, they need to financially make sure it happens. Two, they need to make sure that the effort actually takes place. And then three, also realize that we are still, as much as we're thinking about the U.S. Senate race, we're also still thinking about the maps and how they're being drawn. And so everybody is kind of at an unease

feeling. Well, keep in mind, the maps are no big deal for Senate races because they're statewide. So the maps matter for congressional races, state rep, and state Senate. For United States Senate,

it's statewide. Maps don't matter and so yes that doesn't matter but then you still have those candidates who are still trying to figure out who are they supporting within that so there's still a divide and i don't think the democratic party has really gotten on the same page but i think republicans are making an assertive effort to reach into black and brown communities. Now, we haven't seen it yet. We haven't seen some of these resources. But they are absolutely, you know, trying to use the talk at points of, you know, gun violence and, you know, poverty and trying to figure out nuances that will definitely be appeal, but also not too much. So, you know, I think there's a lot that they can do,

but there's nothing that really has been shown. It's really them trying to find unification within their own party right now. Obviously, it means laying out what it is that we want. See, DeMario, when people yell, tangibles, let me remind you, one United States senator cannot deliver what you want. You got to get the votes.

Got to get the votes. But it does mean if you're in Pennsylvania and you black folks, you're establishing this is an agenda that these are the things that we want to see get done. And so I think if you say we want the George Floyd Justice Act, whoever is running for these U.S. Senate races, they have to be asked that question. In the primary,

in general, do you support the George Floyd Justice Act? Will you vote yes if you are elected to the United States Senate? Do you support for the People Act, John Lewis Act? Do you support me? You see, you go down the whole line. But what, and I'm going to say this, and people, again, I don't give a damn what they say. I don't care about these people, man, rollerball, you're always

trying to get us, vote Democrat. No, I'm trying to get you to vote for life or death. I'm trying to get you to understand that Medicaid expansion leads to hospitals not shutting down. I'm trying to get you to understand that when rural hospitals shut down, we die. I'm trying to get you to understand that Republicans don't want to expand Medicaid in these states, even though the money was provided by Congress to do so. They still said no. So at some point, we also have to say, here are the real things that are happening. But what we can ill afford, I understand being pissed off, mad, angry, upset. But the quickest way to Mario to guarantee we will get screwed is if we sit at home.

So the question is, what do you say to that person who's like, I ain't going to vote? What do you say to the people, the campaigns, folks who are running, what they must be saying to African-Americans? Well, Roland, as you know, I'm just a country lawyer down here in Oklahoma and represent people who are injured and discriminated. Now, you're right. You're country. You're right. That's all right. So I understand how to talk to regular people. I understand to come hang out

with you real highfalutin folks, as we would say. I understand these big words and big issues. Even though when I went to Tulsa, even though I went to Tulsa, you had all that vegetarian food. But go ahead with your country self. Go ahead. I swore I was in California

at Cal Berkeley with the food y'all was serving at that Tulsa reception. But go ahead, tell your list story. I'm trying to eat to live, brother. Go ahead and tell your list story. I want to look like Mustafa, man. Maybe I can get my pink on. You know what I'm saying? That's all I'm trying to do.

Listen, roll it. People got to speak very clearly to our community. You know, I hear these talking points of we got to save democracy. Democracy has never worked for black people. You got to talk about how we're going to save grandma, how we're going to save these houses, how we're going to save lives like you talked about with the Medicaid expansion, but be very clear about what that means. And I use a very example. I was just

talking about this last week at a lunch. It was a young man named Demonte Driver. You can Google this. There's a foundation in his name. This young man, back in 2007, I was coming back from a conference in D.C., actually working on reparations for the massacre with Dr. Charles Ogletree, and I was reading a paper about DeMonte Driver. He was 12 years old at the time, and he died because he had a cavity, and it turned into an abscess.

And the reason, and it went to his brain and killed him. Yep. And the reason he was not able to get that cavity, that tooth out, because no one would accept the Medicaid because the rates had been cut so low. And they were trying to utilize that story to be able to put more money into health care for children. This is 2007. We still deal with the same thing today. And who are those people that have been impacted by it? A lot of our people have been impacted by that. I certainly was the one that grew up on SSI, grew up on state benefits. I had speech impediments state paid for. I needed

braces state paid for. I almost died several times from asthma in an emergency room in ICU for days upon days. The state paid for it. Those things are very, very important, but we have to be very clear about it. Clearly state how it's going to help our lives. Don't talk about these saving democracy and all that. We don't care about that. We care to help our lives. Don't talk about these saving democracy and all that. We don't care about that. We care about paying our bills. We care about our kids being educated correctly. We care about stop being brutalized by the police.

We care about our communities looking the same as the white communities. We care about making sure the streetlights work. We care about being treated as absolute first-class citizens. Don't come talking to us just because it's time for primary. Spend time, as the sister said, put resources behind our organizations, resources behind our leaders that we pick to

help us understand what's going on. Those are the things I think Democrats need to say. And I'll say one more thing to that, Roland. You're absolutely right. It's not about, you know, I'm not trying to say Democrat, Democrat. The reality is the Republicans are a white supremacist party, period. They're not about ideas.

They're not about anything. They're going to pull out of debates. They don't have a platform. They're letting you know the only thing we care about is maintaining power for the minority of folks that we wanted to have power for, period. So when you understand that, the only game in town really for us, unfortunately, is the Democratic Party. It's a terrible position to be in, but that's what we are. That's the reality of it. Mustafa.

Housing, health care, jobs, and education. That's what folks care about in Cannonsburg. That's what people care about in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. That's what folks in the Hill District in Pittsburgh care about. And my sister, Teresa, got Philly on lock,

so she knows what folks are talking about there. And you got to tie it into the real world things that are going on in people's lives. And that means that if you're serious about winning this next set of elections, all the way up and down the ballot, then you got to be making the investments now, in this moment, in those areas, with those trusted voices that are in those communities who've been trying to hold it down for years. You can't wait until we get to July and August and then try and ramp things up. Support those Black organizations that are on the ground right now and those leaders in those communities and make sure that you have these core elements that folks care about and show them how you are going to be able to make it become a reality.

And let them know we just need one more. We used to talk about that all the time. You know, I got some, but I need one more. We need one more senator in each one of these respective states to be able to make change happen and to be able to make your life have, you know, the things that are necessary for you to be able to not just survive, but to thrive. Well, absolutely. All right, folks, I got to go to a break. We come back. COVID is still impacting us. Now it's the Omicron variant. The question is, what can we do? Are we just going to have to live with this? And if so, how do we do it? What else is going to disrupt? We'll talk with an expert about that. And y'all know how we roll. I don't talk to people who read about COVID

or medicine or science. I talk to those who actually study it, live it, because they're experts. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Norske Kulturskapet Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. Back out!

We support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN.

You can't be Black-owned media and be scary. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? I'm Chrisette Michelle. Hi, I'm Chris at Michelle. Hi, I'm chaley rose. And you're watching roland martin unfiltered. The family of 17-year-old Zion Foster needs your help finding the teen who has been missing since January 4th from East Point, Michigan. She is 5 feet 1 inches tall, weighs 120 pounds, with black and blonde hair and brown eyes.

Her family believes she is being held against her will. Zion was last seen wearing her Detroit Wing Company uniform. Anyone who has seen Foster or has information on whereabouts, please call the East Point Police Department at 586-777-6700. 586-777-6700. All right, folks, we are truly living in an international pandemic. We are seeing how COVID is still impacting us on a daily basis. Now the Omicron variant, it is extremely infectious.

332 million cases of COVID in the United States. Worldwide, excuse me, worldwide, 5.5 million people have died from the virus in the United States. The death toll is nearing 900,000 cases, and we're still seeing numbers. Now we're seeing reports of things tapering off, what's happening.

So the question is, is it tapering off, or are we simply going to have to live with this? And when we say live with this, what does that mean? Always wearing masks? Always doing social distancing? Are we ever going to be able to go back to events? The Grammys had gotten postponed. They now moved it to Las Vegas.

The NAACP Image Awards, they announced the nominations today. They announced that it will be in-person. It will be an in-person ceremony, but there will be no audience. And so basically no one's going to be there. Will there be an Essence Festival this summer? What does this all impact? Will we see conventions actually take place? All of those questions we're still with two years after.

Two years after COVID hit the United States, hit the world in such a huge way. And so our goal has been to talk to people who live this. This is what they live. This is what they do. This is what they study. This is what they've been going through. And so joining us right now is one of those very experts joining us from Baja, California, Dr. Rowling. Of course, you've been seeing, of course, him on social media. You've been seeing him talk about this with his videos. And so, again, Lane Rowling is the Director of Clinical Education and Research, Tropical Pathology, and Infectious Disease Association. So that means, Doc, you got credentials. First and foremost, I want to start there.

It has to drive you crazy to watch these TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook doctors, folks who never studied, never practiced, but because they read a medical journal or because they saw something else and they're just repeating stuff at, you know, ad nauseum as if they're actual experts. Absolutely. And Roland, thank you for having me on your program. But you're absolutely right. This has been a hell of an exercise over the last two years, trying to educate people about real infectious diseases. I mean, I've been doing this for 30 years, real-life type of stuff, and you're absolutely correct. The reason why we're in this situation,

you got people that jumped into a lane they're not trained in. I've never seen any of these guys in the jungles of the Amazon doing Ebola, dengue, malaria, putting babies in body bags, seeing some of the worst diseases in the world that will eat your face away, looking at live viruses on their laboratories, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you're right. They missed the boat. They got almost a million people cured in the United States. And the virus is out of control. It's going to be out of control for a long time

until we reset the clock back with people that actually do this stuff every day. I'm an infectious disease guy. I'm a stuff every day. I'm a infectious disease guy. I'm a virologist. I'm a chemical and biological warfare expert. I'm not a mechanic. I stay in my lane. And so when you say it's going to be with us unless we do a reset, what does that mean?

Well, a reset is that we should have had that big mama conversation two years ago, like I have tried to do on all the different platforms I have been on, from MSNBC to Congressional Black Caucus, et cetera. Urban League is trying to educate people about the virus. You have to understand, folks, this is an RNA virus, coronavirus, largest mutagenic virus on the planet, capable of changing in a heartbeat, and it's transmitted by three ways, respiratory, secretions, fecal contamination. It came from an animal. This is how you protect yourself. We didn't do that. It became a political narrative.

People got into a lane. They got a lot of people killed. So we have to set the clock back, educate people about the virus, transmission, how do you protect yourself. Dr. Rowland, you're an infectious disease specialist. How do you function in a world where you're dealing with some of the most dangerous pathogens on the planet, and you don't get infected? Or, if you do get infected, you survive? That is the big reset. And the problem that we have, because of the misinformation and disinformation, that is why Black America and people of minorities around the world

are in a bad situation. So, this... And you're absolutely right about the whole political point. And I've said this here, that I think the biggest problem that we face in the United States is that we literally had an idiot who was in the White House. And so let me explain that.

Because he was so hell-bent on nothing impacting the economy, he was praising China while other people were like, yo, man, they're hiding stuff from us. And so we were getting these nutty news conferences.

No, no, no, no. We got, no, don't worry. We got 13 cases. It's that one, we got that one Chinese guy. We're good. We're going to have, everything's going to be fine. Then it was, oh, no, no, no. Don't let those people off that cruise ship in Florida

because that's going to cause our count to go up. Or, hey, hey, the reason we're not testing a lot of people because we test a lot of people, we're going to have more cases. And so I think what it did was it gave people who already, I mean, look, you've got 10 to 15% of people who are already nuts, okay? But that thing just then began to take off. And then I think also what you saw is you just saw this constant,, I don't want to say don't give them the true information the whole battle with Fauci and Birx No, you can't talk the chemical stuff And so and so what's hard is when the people who you want to trust in a national

Emergency are not actually trying to really deal with it because, oh, it might cost me the election. And so when you say the reset, the problem now is it's people like, oh, now you can't trust the government, can't trust Fauci, can't trust Biden. So the sources that we normally would want to trust, bruh, I got black

people like, no, bruh, you can't trust them doctors. And I go, we got black doctors. Well, they bought off by the pharmaceuticals. I'm like, well, who the hell are you listening to then? I'm like, if your ass gets sick, you're going to listen to that black doctor. Well, I agree with you on that. But the point is that there's a guy named Dr. Lane Rowland that's been doing this real time for 30 years.

I just happened to be in the jungles. And the reality is, you're right. It became a political narrative. Fauci made critical mistakes. This is a respiratory disease. She wore a dental mask. Bree, whatever her name was, she was not out in rural Arkansas, Louisiana, talking to Big Mama in a trailer house about how to decrease transmission. You're right. That narrative is gone. The virus is out of control. The vaccine was supposed to be one solution. It's not going to work. Different mutations. The reality, we have to set the clock back and get back to basic understanding of infectious disease control,

biosafety security protocol. What is the function of testing? Explain to people what testing can do. Explain to people what quarantine means. Explain to people how long transmission is, how long you're infected. Understanding the role of viruses in this new world and how, if we continue in this pace we're going, we're going to have thousands of more mutations

coming down the road. Make no mistake about it. Omicron is just the beginning. All right. Now, we had an expert from North Carolina A&T on who made that clear back in April 2020. We're trying to warn people as well. And so here's a perfect example. Okay. So Phyllis Brown on YouTube.

Bill Gates been pushing the vaccine. This virus isn't going away. Is population control? No, not at all. You have to realize that the reality is that you cannot vaccinate yourself out of this, Roland, because this virus has an animal model. This virus has found coronavirus in almost every animal,

from bats, dogs, cats, bears, tigers, etc. Okay, hold on, hold on. Doc, stop right there. Stop right there. So, are you... So, then you got the people who are going, nah, this wasn't no animal thing. This was... The Chinese created this in a lab

and it just escaped the lab. No, it did not because I'm certified in chemical and biological warfare. I have six degrees. I look at genetic sequence. I believe in facts, science, and medicine. I'm not in a feel-good thing. True, do we do gain of function on different diseases?

Absolutely. But you have to realize the virus is doing its own gain of function by doing mutations to cell to survive natural periods of selection. So when you actually look at the genetic pattern of the actual Wuhan and alpha strain, it has not been manipulated. We can look at your genetic sequence and tell if we manipulated the gene, amino acid, point mutation, et cetera. So the reality is that that is debunked.

Okay. Okay. So what we have been saying on here with, again, experts, is that the more people who are unvaxxed, the more people who refuse to take precautions, that virus is like, who can I jump into next? And you said the virus is altering, is changing. So explain that, what that means.

Well, the reality is this, Martin, is that the virus, when it feels pressure, and I've talked about this on the Larry Bennett show, Little Rock, et cetera, is that if a virus or a microorganism feels a pressure, it's going to change. It's the natural theories of selection. So, for example, you create a vaccine for this virus, and you never create a vaccine in the middle of a pandemic because you're to create supermutations. That means that your vaccine has to be 100 percent effective. What does that mean? I'm talking about vaccine effectiveness. If 1 percent of a virus population lives, it's going to change automatically. And that 1 percent is going to be billions within a couple of hours. And so that is the reality, is that the virus will change. It will mutate. When we look at the Omicron mutation, we have 50-plus mutations in an HIV-positive patient

that had ineffective antiretroviral medication. We have a new mutation from another patient out of France, 75-year-old white male, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, same thing. Chemotherapy, immunosuppressed, the virus is in the body for a long time. The virus sees it, is treated with monoclonal antibodies, is treated with a vaccine, the virus is going to change. And so the vaccines are creating these new mutations. So you can imagine somebody vaccinated with a mutation, somebody unvaccinated, and the virus mixed together. You get Omicron plus beta, or you get a combo infection. These ineffective treatments is driving this RNA mutation to a whole different level.

And so do not be surprised. In one month, we have a virus that has 75 mutations in it. Okay, so basic question. Should people be vaccinated? Okay. So, basic question. Should people be vaccinated? The question I would tell everybody, you have to make that decision yourself. If I look at the medicine... Okay, hold up, hold up, hold up.

Before you go there, are you vaccinated? No, I am not. And why is that? Because, in my opinion, the vaccine has no vaccine effectiveness. That's the reality. So even though you have Moderna, Pfizer, who say 91, 85, 81, even though you hear from NIH, CDC, you say? That is a complete lie.

Let me make sure everybody understands this. There's two words that people need to understand in the vaccine world, especially virology. We to about 45 percent vaccine effectiveness. Johnson & Johnson is down to 13 percent. Moderna is down to 54 percent. Ineffective. Then when you play it against these new mutations, the Omicron is probably zero. And this is reality, because you cannot have a vaccine that has multiple capabilities. You have to have a vaccine for the alpha strain, beta strain, gamma strain, delta, Omicron, IHU. And they're not going to do that. So when we put it in the real world, when you test everybody, the big mamas, the diabetics, the kids with autism,

the women in their first trimester, that number's not going to exist. And that is what's driving this mutation, global endemic infection, that's going to be with us for the next 50 years plus. So with that in mind, but of course, there are other doctors, other infectious disease experts who say we should get vaccinated. Now, if that's the case, then how are you protecting yourself? What are you saying to others how they should protect themselves from COVID?

Well, let's start before I answer that question. If you believe in a vaccine, and I'm on the Black AIDS Institute, and we have a thing called CD4 market for HIV patients. That measures somebody's health. I've been telling people from day one, I helped write the vaccine platform for the Vatican.

If you're going to do a vaccine, you have to know what your neutralizing antibodies are. What are they? You get injected, you create antibodies. You measure that. You measure that at zero day, 30 day, 60 days, 90 days, one year. And then you know what your level is. So that's the reality. Neutralizing antibodies is your marker for vaccines. That is the way it is. That's how simple it is. And you have to entomb that

into the equation. The way Dr. Rowland has always said is that you have to have great biosafety security protocols. Folks, I don't care if you're vaccinated, unvaccinated, wear a mask. Folks, make sure you wash your hands with antiseptic hand wash. Make sure you don't care if you're vaccinated, unvaccinated, wear a mask. Folks, make sure you wash your hands with antiseptic hand wash. Make sure you don't wear your shoes in your house. And least of all, when you're out in the public arena, do not touch the kiosk at the bank machine. Do not touch the P.M. machine at Walmart. They're contaminated with feces. You make sure you protect your hands and sterilize the environment you're in.

Create that bubble. Make sure you have an air purification in your home. If you're at a job and the job is forcing you to be at work with 24 people in a room, you better have great air purification because we know that you can be infected within five minutes to five seconds of being exposed to the virus. So these little nuggets that Big Mama talked about many years ago, what we use in the world of bio-infectious disease control as an infectious disease specialist is the same concept that

people have to use every day. Social distancing, making sure you, when you go in the public bathroom, be careful, especially at O'Hara Airport, where there's no toilet list, and you flush the toilet, and there's feces everywhere with viruses. People don't think about that. Even going to the grocery store and you watch people go to a grocery store, they pick their nose, they spit, they cough, they scratch, they squeeze the avocados and they're infected. And you bring that home and your family touches that. So these biosafety security

protocols are true, try and blue. And at the end of the day, Roland, the reality is natural immunity is always going to win. We know for a fact, you get infected, you're going to have neutralizing antibodies for six months. If you go down the vaccine road, you will be getting booster shots four or five for the next 50 years.

And that's going to be a whole different story, too. So, again, so walking through that, because, again, we've had that, walking through that, because, again, we've had infectious disease experts like Dr. Tyson Bell on who says absolutely get vaccinated. Stephen A. Smith just talked about his COVID battle. Doctors told him had he not been vaccinated, he would have died from COVID. But one of the things that he said in talking about that, he said how different people react different ways.

He said his sister smokes multiple packs a day. He said she had COVID for three or four days. She was fine. He had to be hospitalized and almost died. So if we're sitting here, if we're talking about the African Americans to protect themselves, and we're having different, again,

different infectious disease experts who are black. One is saying get vaccinated. One is saying don't get vaccinated. There are people who are saying, well, what in the hell are we supposed to do? Who the hell are we supposed to believe? Well, in reality, Roland, you have to really understand virology.

You have to have really been in that world and that space. Right. I mean, we've had virologists, other virologists on who said, get vaccinated. Well, let me explain. Let me explain the terms. We have a word called trophism in virology. Trophism means the ability of an organism causing infection, i.e. you get the flu. Guess what happens?

It affects your lungs. Well, this virus is completely different. This virus has what we have, multitrophism, which means it can affect every cell in your body from your eyes, nose, lungs, hearts, et cetera. So you can have all types of different reaction. Yeah, there's going to be people that are going to have different reaction because they might have a different viral load. Maybe they got more viruses in their nose. Maybe they breathe more in their lungs, et cetera. But the reality is that if you look at the vaccines down this line, what is your neutralizing antibodies?

Simple question. That's your test. You know, you don't... And CD4 is very important in HIV patients. Your neutralizing antibodies is very important. So what... what test? PCR test? Home kits? No. No, we're talking about neutralizing antibodies. Got it. Which is not...

I inject you, your body produces IgG, neutralizing antibodies that are supposed to eradicate the infection. What is that number? When I told people two years ago, before the vaccine was in, you will be getting booster shots the rest of your life.

And we're going to be getting Alpha,, beta, megatron, deltron, planet apes. They're going to keep going down because there is no long-term immunity to any coronavirus. I teach this stuff. I'm a professor of virology. On my exams, there's no long-term immunity to coronavirus, period. What book are they reading? They're damn sure not reading Dr. Rowling's clinical virology or clinical immunology, and they're damn sure not taking my master's course, virology. So I don't know where they're coming up with this information, but it's not correct, not based on any medical books.

I've got six degrees. Okay, so the question is, in terms of moving forward, because see, what we get from our audience is folks want to know what to do. And so when you have competing experts saying

one thing or another, what in the heck are y'all talking about when y'all in the room? Because the public damn sure don't know. Well, I can tell you right now, they're not on the stage I'm on, but I can tell you about the ones that you've talked to, the people that are supposed to be,

I guess they got an F because almost a million Americans have died and the infection rate's still out of control. So that tells you their record. That's the grade you really want to... Okay, so you talked about social distancing, washing your hands. Okay, so conferences, football games, basketball games.

You're not social distancing. You're literally sitting right next to somebody. So do those no longer exist? Do we not have those events? You also talked about going out, don't touch kiosks, things along those lines. Okay, do we not have those events you also talked about going out don't touch kiosk things along those lines Okay, do we put on the gloves some say not gloves are ineffective. So alright, so if I'm at the kiosk What about pressing do I put on some do I put on some sanitizer press and then put it on afterwards or don't put on?

Some gloves I mean so because the point I'm making is, folks want to know, they want to know down to granular, what are the practical things one has to do? Saying don't touch something is one thing, okay, but what do they do? Well, that is why you followed Dr. Rowland to get the biosafety and how to navigate into the new world. You have to understand, Rowland, this disease, this virus is out of control.

We have to have, we have to get kids back in school. That is one of my main missions, getting schools open, getting people back into the... Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on, I want you to hold that point because my pal's going to ask some questions. I want you to answer that, but I'm going back to answer my question.

That is, if I'm going to the bank, if I'm going to the grocery store, do I have gloves? Do I don't have gloves? Do I put on hand sanitizer and pick up something, then put it back on? What do I do? What you do is you get your hydrosol viral spray,

and you spray that area before you're going to touch it. And absolutely protect your hands, protect your fingers and stuff, even touching a gas pump handle. Anything that you have to do in this physical world that we are in now, you have to navigate. You wear gloves? Do you wear latex gloves? Do you?

You can wear, you can use hybrisol spray, antiviral spray. You can use hand sanitizer. You can wear disposable gloves. Anything that protects your hands from being in contact for a transmission of that disease, you have to do that. So what I'm saying is, if I'm going to pump gas, do I put on some hand sanitizer, pump my gas, and then when I'm done,

put something back on, and am I good? Hell, I would put that and also grab a paper towel for extra protection. Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Now, again, events, conferences, football games, basketball games, concerts. I can't social distance. They're literally sitting right there.

I don't know who they are. And they're sitting in front of me and behind me. It's impossible to social distance on an airplane. But this is the new world that you have to navigate. Right. That's what I'm asking. What do we do? You're going to have to get an upgrade mask or you're going to have to do some serious, you know,

situational changes because these events are super spread. Okay, so the mask. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. No, hold up. The upgrade mask. So, is it the N95 mask? All right. They're a better mask.

You can get an antiviral mask. Okay, antiviral mask. But what about the N95 mask? They're better masks. You can get an antiviral mask. Okay, antiviral mask. But what about the N95 mask? CDC is now recommending that as opposed to cloth mask. Sufficient. It's sufficient. Any type of barrier is sufficient. Okay. Am I also wearing... I don't wear glasses. Am I wearing goggles?

Am I covering my eyes? Some doctors also say, look, you need to cover your eyes to protect you from COVID. In this environment, because the density of viruses is so concentrated, you go to Walmart, you better wear some glasses. You better wear some glasses on an airplane because you can't contract the virus to your eyes. Am I covering up my ears?

Because I've heard that, too. Do you cover your ears up? No, I don't cover my ears up. Eyes is one thing. Mouth and nose is the major. So you're suggesting, look, when you, so, okay, so again, I'm going back. If it's a concert, if it's anything along those lines, and I'm around a bunch of people, I should have my eyes covered, I should have my mouth covered.

Absolutely. Let me finish my thought. Now, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, I want, because people, again, are in the chat, and they're speaking to that. I want to make sure we got that answer. Now, go ahead. Okay, well, when you start talking and they're speaking to that. I want to make sure we got that answer. Now go ahead. Okay. When you start talking about super-spirited events, the ideal super-spirited event is the cruise ships.

We all know what's happening with the cruise ships. Everybody's negative to get on the boat. Everybody's vaccinated. And, man, you got outbreaks out of the world. These are super-spirited events. Even in a controlled petri dish environment like that. So if you imagine being on a cruise ship, imagine being in a football game,

imagine being in a concert, absolutely you have a very high probability of getting infected. If you're going to navigate into that world, you have to have the best technology. It might be a respiratory mask. It might be having hand gloves. It might be having your own. It might be, you know, having your own

air purification unit around your neck to create a bubble for you to breathe. All of these things are in play, Roland. There's no one answer to the solution. It is a holistic approach. And this is a new world that you, everybody, Big Mama is going to be navigating in for the next 50 years. So you don't believe that we are going to so-called have a post-COVID world? No, not in my lifetime. That's not going to happen. Or yours. Questions from our panel.

I'll start with you, Mustafa. Well, Dr. Martin, thank you for being on the show today. I'm curious, how do we get the science to the place that we need? Because the science is supposed to be playing a role with policy, at least underneath of this administration. And if we can't get the science right, then I'm not sure how we get the policy right. Well, I'm sorry, brother. The reality is they lost the science. It became a political issue. You know, I mean, I'm trying to be, you know, the straight shooter, always have been. I believe in science and medicine, and that's why people can't shoot me down, because it's based off the books.

The reality is that the science got played. The reality is that people really didn't understand RNA viruses, especially coronavirus. People don't that people really didn't understand RNA viruses, especially coronavirus. People don't realize that when it comes to RNA viruses, they're very difficult to treat. Ebola, dengue, I can go down the line, and what happens is that when you put a political element into a science

realm, you get a bad outcome. This is where we're at today. You can't have people in the government tell you that you see mutations coming two years ago. I mean, that's basic science with RNA virus. But it shows you there's a significant disconnect and people are not really living the real world. But folks are living it now because the Omicron is changing everything. Ballgame over, done.

Teresa. Yes, thank you so much for coming on and giving that different perspective. So I'm curious because, you know, I live in Philadelphia. It's the city, you know, highest, largest metropolitan city, but largest in poverty rate. So what do we tell poor people who don't have access to some of the sanitations, the masking, the gear that is necessary if they choose not to get the vaccine? Wouldn't the easiest way to protecting and moving forward is to get the vaccine? No, not the vaccine. The reality is that when I was put on the COVID healthcare task force for the Black Congressional Caucus and also working with the Urban to these folks the same amount of effort that we provide for everybody else. And you have to understand the impacts of diseases. It's not just about the physical impact. It's the emotional impact. We've lost a whole generation of children

to school. We're going to lose more generations of kids to school because of the Omicron situation. So we have to get back in the community, roll them sleeves up, get, like we say in the military, boost on the ground. We have to start all over and educate people about the reality of this virus, what our capabilities are, what the treatment is. And people are going to have to really put money into this effort, not because it's a moment. I mean, we've always had health care disparities. The reality is that now we really know we really have health care disparities, and we have to put the money where our mouths is, because this disease, this virus is out of control. It's going to stay out of control, and we're going to have significant problems,

especially in urban areas where kids are not going to school, kids are not getting their lunch, violence, et cetera. So we have to think, we have to get back to not getting their lunch, violence, etc. So we have to change. We have to get back to humanity as like they always say, we're supposed to be in all this together, but we know that's a bunch of crap. We're going to have to do it ourselves. Mario. Hey, doc, a couple questions.

One, what, where do you teach? I teach in the Heinrich Patek Institute in Germany. I'm the director of clinical and tropical medicine in Peru for the last 25 years. I train all over the world. I train students in the jungles of tropical diseases. Everything deals with diseases. I'm in the jungles, real jungles. Yeah, and I heard you say Arkansas.

That's pretty close to me in Oklahoma. Are you from Arkansas? Are you working? You was working with the Urban League in Arkansas. How did that connection happen? Well, I'm my people from Hayes in Arkansas, and I'm very fortunate to be able to hook up with Scott Hamilton in Urban League

because they wanted me to help them out because of the COVID situation among minorities and rural communities and Urban Leagues in Arkansas. That's my connection. So me and the Urban League of Arkansas hooked up about almost a year ago, and I've been doing lectures, town halls, giving people food, educating the poor people in the rural areas, giving out free masks for poor folks to help them fight the COVID situation. So that's my connection to Little Rock, Arkansas. Okay, cool. One last question, Roland. So, Doc, what is your, you said, how we treat this.

Now, where we are now, you said it's an elephant. I think the proof is in the pudding. Things are out of control. If you were Dr. Fauci's position or had control over the policy for COVID, what specifically would you do to get it under

control? Well, the first thing he should have did, if you're going to be, if you're in this business to save people's lives... I'm saying, what would you do? What would you do? Right? I'll just tell you that. My reality, what I would have done was get on a national platform worldwide. Not what you would have done.

Like, what would you do, like, now, from today? Okay. I would set the clock back. I would tell everybody, sit down. We got a national press conference. We're going to talk about the virus. How are we going to get through this? Where do we find the virus at? We find it in feces. What do we need to do?

How do we treat it? What happens if you get a head cold? Tell me about all the different things I will tell you about how to create that bubble for yourself and how we navigate. I will tell you how, what does testing really tell us? How accurate is testing? I would tell you about the bars. I would tell you about solutions from air purification units to the best antiseptic hand wash. I would tell you how to navigate in this new world. I would teach you how to keep your business open in real time because we have to have the economy going. This is what I would do. But I heard you saying, Doc, I heard you saying you would tell me, but I'm asking you to tell me. Like, how would I keep my business open? How would you keep me safe?

I want you to give me a specific, not me, but the audience. I think people, you know, you come away, you have a very, you know, compelling personality. You have a lot of confidence. I think people want to hear from you. Specifically, what would you do differently from this day moving forward? Because as you stated, kids out of school, my nephews and nieces are out of school. People want to figure out how to move forward. People are afraid to go back to work.

I think Roland is giving you an extended period of time to give your perspective. So what I'm asking specifically, specifically, what would you do today to stop this out-of-control virus? For example, your people's school, you call me up. I would come there. We would evaluate the situation. I would look at your weak points. I would create that biosafety security protocols at your individual institution, i.e., as is foot mats. What do you have in your doors? What's your air purification unit? Are you spraying your school buses? What are you using to control your bathroom? Because the infectious disease rate is high in the bathroom. How are kids going to be able to eat with their mask? I will come there and my team, we will self-assess, and then we will implement

the best biosafety security protocol based off of what we call situation awareness. Maybe you guys are doing it 50 percent. Maybe it might not be doing it at all, but we will implement that to make it happen. With that, we will also add the famous thing that a lot of people forget is that we would test. We would test the individual institution to find out if the virus is in the building. I've tested schools in the United States, and we found the virus on vacuum handles, cleaners. The janitor was spreading the virus in the school. So this is a type of high-tech biosafety security protocols

that Tepeda, my company, and myself will provide to save people's lives and be able to navigate into this new world. All right. So, Mustafa, you had an additional question. Dr. Martin, I was just, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, everyone talked about- Dr. Rowling, Dr. Rowling. Dr. Rowling, I'm sorry. Everyone at the beginning talked about the 1918 flu, the H1N1 influenza, and we know that it went

through a number of sets of mutations and is even still around today. But of course, it's not as impactful as it once was. Do you see COVID-19 following a similar track or do you think that it's completely different? I mean, I understand sort of the overall structure of it, but for the audience, what should they expect? Well, the reality is that the coronavirus pandemic, this is not the first time this has occurred. This occurred 20,000 years ago. The 1918 pandemic is a baby to the coronavirus. You have to understand that the 1918 pandemic didn't go on for two years. It started in 1912 in China and went until 2022. It changed the world, but it was really only one serotype.

The problem with the coronavirus is that we have so many different mutations, alpha, beta, gamma, delta, mu1, Omicron, IHU, and more that are coming, and this is driving the different narrative. So it's going to be very hard unless we come up with a multi-awesome vaccine that can carry every, cover every different mutation that's going to eradicate that. And we all have to be in this together. You can't have half the people wearing masks, not wearing masks. This is our reality. But the reality at the end of the day, I'm sorry, I deal with death on a daily basis. I've seen stuff that will blow your mind away.

I deal with reality. And, folks, this is your new reality, and you're going to have to live in this new world, navigate in this new world. This is the COVID time of your life. Doc, multiple folks are asking in our various chat rooms, they want to know where were you educated, and what is your experience?

My experience, my BS was B. for State, microbiology and chemistry, minor in military science, master's degree in cellular molecular genetics, University of Nevada, Reno Medical School, MD, University of Health Science. You said University of Nevada, Reno? Reno, yeah.

Okay, University of Nevada, Reno? Reno, yeah. Okay. University of Health Science, Antigua, San Francisco Medical School, residency training in Honolulu, Hawaii. Six degrees. Okay. No, look, here's the deal. We got a totally interactive show, and so when we have folks who have questions, we go ahead and ask the question because they want answers.

You can always go to my website. It has all my CV credentials on there and stuff like that. Military trained, military officer, airborne, all that stuff. Okay. All right, Doc. We certainly appreciate you coming on. Like I said, we've had numerous. We've probably now done more than 150 plus

COVID segments. We've had HBCU professors, we've had virologists, we've had infectious disease experts, ER physicians, numerous people who've been on and so offering their perspective. And so we're glad that you're here

to offer yours. And I've even actually had a couple of people a couple of doctors have already said that they want to come on to refute some what you had to say so again we'll let the experts do what they do. I've been following you for about a year and a half on this space too. And I look forward to doing a part two and this make it happen and go out and save lives. That's what it's all about. I appreciate it. Thanks so very much. So it's very it's very interesting when we have these conversations. I love some of these folks who who talk like, oh, my goodness. Why have a conversation? Because, again, that's why we talk to the folks who actually have the training and the experience. Now, if you disagree with that, you disagree with it. Like I said, I've had some doctors who've reached out who've said, absolutely, I disagree with him.

He's wrong. Absolutely get vaccinated. And so, again, we're going to have that conversation, but I'm telling y'all what we not going to do. We're not going to have people who don't have any expertise in any area, have no training whatsoever, having these conversations because we need to hear from folks who do have that training. So you've got epidemiologists, you've got infectious disease experts, you've got virologists, you've got all of that. That's why we have the conversations.

I told you, if we're talking about the issue of the law, we're going to have legal experts. I'm not going to have somebody who ain't a lawyer sitting here breaking down the law. Same thing, you're not going to have somebody working on your car who don't know how to fix a damn car, who has no expertise at fixing a car, and reading a manual ain't it.

And so, again, that's why we do what we do. Coming up next, we're about to have a conversation about John Hope Bryant, a company he's working with, what they're working on when it comes to in the area of housing, economic development. We talk about again black folks in business i like to talk to black people who are actually in business to talk about black black people doing business folks you want to support what we do of course download the black star network app you can do so on all available platforms, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Xbox One, Xbox One and Samsung Smart TV.

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Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Folks, I'll be back in a moment. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА You know how some carriers give you so little for your old or busted phone, you just end up living with it? I don't think so. Verizon lets you trade in your broken phone for a shiny new one.

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ALL RIGHT, FOLKS. EVERY TUESDAY ON THE SHOW, All right, folks. Every Tuesday on the show, our Marketplace segment sponsored by Verizon focuses on the issue of business. You know, folks who do business, who are in business. That's why we have this segment. because what it does is it allows for us to be able to give you some practical insight into how folks are operating in this world when it comes to so many different areas. The nation's largest black-owned single-family rental company in the United States.

They've secured a $200 million debt facility from the global investment management firm Barings. Now last week, the Promise Homes Company announced the transaction representing one of the 10 million dollars in debt from the global investment management firm Barings. Now, last week, the Promise Homes Company announced the transaction representing one of the 10 largest capital raises for a black-owned company over the last decade. Joining me now is John Hope Bryant, the founder and chairman and CEO of Promise Homes. He also, of course, founder of Operation Hope.

You've seen John on the show before. Glad to have him back. So, John, explain to folks who don't know what this $200 million debt facility is. What is it? What does it mean? How significant is it? It's a lot of hard work is what it is, just like what you do over there.

But before we get into that, would you mind briefly, Roland, if I segue into your last segment? Sure, go ahead. Go ahead. You know, it always bothers me when someone who doesn't raise kids is going to tell you how to raise your kids or somebody who's not subject to your decision is going to make a decision for your wallet or for your life. You know, if somebody says you don't need a vaccine and then you end up in the hospital taking their advice, what are they going to tell you when you're on the ventilator? Sorry? Oops? Well,

wish they had worked out differently for you? My wife, as you know, is a wellness expert. She lives on nature of the earth, and she's made me healthier. But she got the vaccine, and she got COVID because she was overconfident. These are her words. Went to Miami, hard basil, and got COVID because she thought it was a complete, she assumed that she wasn't going to get it. She got COVID, but it hit her like the flu, Roland, because she was double vaccinated. And I didn't get it because I had the booster and I was with her. Okay. Then I got overconfident. And about three weeks later, I got COVID. And just got, I got it diagnosed last Tuesday and was free.

In other words, had a negative reading by Friday because I had three shots. The booster, like you, I believe. It hit me like a common cold. There's no doubt in my mind, Roland, I'm in great shape, that if I had not gotten that booster, I'd be in the hospital. There's no doubt in my mind that my wife would be in the hospital. And 99.4% of everybody who's in the hospital, the tube in their throat or dead are unvaccinated. I think this is a very dangerous thing

we're floating around here. We need to knock it off. We've been taking vaccines since we were born, right? What's wrong with this one, right? The flu used to kill millions of people all around the world. Millions of, sorry, 100 million people, my bad. It's still killing 32 million a year.

But this thing is killing, it's killing, I'm sorry, sorry, 100 million people, my bad, is still killing 32 million a year. But this thing is killing, it's killed, I'm sorry, 32,000 a year, I think the number is, I'm sorry. This thing is killing, it's killed 800,000 people in less than two years, and it ain't stopping. And there's no cure for it. We need to knock it off. We need to stop playing with this. You know, people know less and less about their Tylenol

than they knew about this vaccine. I mean, about about this approach of being unvaccinated. The problem is that this was created in a political environment. And as a result of it being created in a presidency of a near crazy person, I guess nobody trusts it. But as you know, one of the people who created one of the primary vaccines and one I took is a black woman. I mean, we just need to root ourselves in some facts and some science and go to the CDC website. I mean, they're not crazy. Well, I can tell you right now,

I took the vaccine, had no problem taking it. And if I hadn't taken it, I would be taking it today or tomorrow. Simple as that. And like I say, I've had enough doctors and experts on this show that we've been breaking this thing down since February of 2020. And so I have absolutely no problem whatsoever taking that vaccine. Yeah, I got COVID. Really was sick, max tops three days.

Fever. Fever, chills for a couple days. And then that was it, came out of it. But, yeah, that's just where I would be. And, look, like I said to people, I've had other doctors who've reached out to us who say they would love to come on the show tomorrow to refute everything that Dr. Rowling just said. I said, not a problem. That's why we talk to those very people. And so that's why people ask, what are your credentials? Where did you go to school?

There are some people who are saying, oh, you know what? He went to a medical school in Antigua. I'm not trusting that. Or went to this school. I'm not trusting that. Okay. That's why people make those decisions. But we are going to present to you African- Americans, black folks who are experts in areas.

And again, if you want to believe them, that's fine. But that's why we have numerous segments. We're not just talking to one folks. The problem I have is when people want me to talk to people who have no credentials whatsoever on anything in that area, but somehow you're an expert. So let's talk about... Internet doctors.

Oh, yeah, that's what I said. TikTok, YouTube doctors, and I'm not listening to them. All right, so let's go right to it. What is this $200 million debt facility? What does it mean? What does it do? So Ambassador Andrew Young would say to live in a system of free enterprise and not to understand the rules of free enterprise must be the very definition of slavery. We just finished celebrating Dr. King's formal holiday yesterday. And I think if Dr. King was alive today, the work of what I call social justice through an economic lens is the work he'd be doing. That's what this is about, really, beyond the business deal for me, is this is creating a whole new lane and hopefully an

expressway and then a freeway of economic opportunity for all of us, because I think the new color is green. But to answer your question, according to Black Enterprise, this transaction. And we didn't know this when we were doing it. We were just doing it. But according to Black Enterprise, this is the largest transaction in real estate involving African-Americans. Sorry. It's one of the top 10 largest transactions, period, of access to capital. That's what this is. Regarding an African-American entrepreneur, they would like to say ever, but being conservative, they'll say in the last decade, there's just not a lot of data around it. It's certainly the largest in real estate in recent history. There are other people who are bigger in real estate russell and company and there's a bunch of folks not bunches two or three

companies that are larger than me in real estate who are black but in single family residential space i'm the largest single family residential rental space um and this acts as a capital deal it's really about i mean you get your you know you're for somebody watching this the analogous analogy would be you got approved for a credit card. You got $25,000 limit. God bless you. Fantastic. You got approved for a mortgage for a home, $500,000.

Fantastic. You got a line of credit approved for $100,000 for your business. The analogy here is that this is a $200 million debt facility from Bering. So it's a line of credit for $200 million. And I used $85 million of debt and about $45 million of equity to recapitalize my Promise Homes company, pay off Freddie Mac, pay off City National Bank. I don't mind getting into details if you want to, by the way, Roman, you're the first person I'm going into this level of detail on. This was just announced last week.

So, you know, you tell me, you ask me what you want. I'll go into as much detail as you want. And paid off my investors. So I ended up as a sole owner of the company and then did a recapitalization and rolled that former company into a joint venture, a new company where I own half of the joint venture, the new Promise Home Company called that. And we're basically going to try to grow the company, what's called 10X. So the company was $150 million worth of real estate. We want to grow that to more like $2 billion worth of real estate. This debt facility does two things. Clears the deck on the past and moves us from a small business to an institution.

So now it's like talking about Steve Jobs one day and Apple Inc. the next. This is now beyond me. But the most magical part about this, Roland, is the renewable philanthropy underneath this, which is all of the minority vendors that we put in business. That's millions of dollars of business every year that gets to grow. So the thing that a lot of people may not realize is that when we went through the financial crisis in 2008, all we kept hearing about was toxic assets, toxic assets. And the initial idea was to get those toxic assets off the books, and then for the banks to simply, you know, sell them off. Well, what happened?

We bailed them out. They used that money to settle their balance sheet. They held on to those homes, and then, of course, after the crisis, we then found out that they were selling off blocks of homes, $25,000 to $30,000 to hedge funds, things along those lines. And so people out there who were desiring to own homes, $25,000 to $30,000 to hedge funds, things along those lines. And so people out there who were desiring to own homes, some you couldn't frankly afford to buy them. This is a case where, again, what these companies were created. And so this is a black owned company owning

single family units that you're renting out to other people. Yes. So that's the back. So that's really the front end of this. I just answered the back end, which is what's this $200 million debt facility from, let me give credit to Barings, international finance company. So this wasn't the homeboy shopping network financing this or Joe's, you know, Joe's finance company. This is, you know, Barings International.

And they did it at, you know, I don't want to get into too much detail, but let's just say it was very cheap money. So I was treated like any other major borrower. That's the nature of having good credit and having a good credit profile. But the front end of this business is what you said, free financial literacy for every resident. So I own, at this pick this particular watch, 663 homes, but rounded up approximately 700 homes in Atlanta and North Florida. I'm the largest owner of single-family rental homes who's Black in America. I want to grow that, as I've said, to 10,000 homes or more.

We're providing affordable housing to people who mostly look like us. So average rent at $1,200, $1,300, $1,400 a month for an 1,800-square-foot home with no deferred maintenance, front yard, backyard. We can raise your children for a range of reasons before people rent. We can get into that, but you just mentioned one of them, which was some people lost their homes in an economic crisis and are trying to recover. Other people are trying to build that down payment. Some people just like to rent. I think everybody, one of us, should want to own a home, which means I want you out of my house and move into home ownership as soon as you can. That's part of our model. But the first part of this is we've contracted with Operation Hope, which I founded. We pay, arm's length, Operation Hope, a partner fee to do free

financial counseling, financial literacy counseling to the residents. Get your credit score up. If you raise your credit score to 700, by the way, we'll reduce your rent by 10% as long as you keep it above 700, because we think you're a lower risk. And we want to reward you. And every time you raise your credit score 25 points, we reward you. You pay on time, we reward you. Now, you got to pay your rent. So it's not a freebie. But for those who are ride or die with us, we ride or die for them. Number two, this is my favorite part. Roll it. 65% of all of our vendors are minority and women.

So plumbing, electrical, lighting, roofing, landscaping. I'm sure I missed some categories. But these are folks who have a high school education or you can't have a high school education, that's a little highly educated, skilled labor, though, who do a good job. They're being paid either a living wage or building wealth through contracts. And I'm literally, I have one vendor I know in particular, I know that one vendor's made a million dollars plus on me last year alone, maybe more than that. I know it's like $100,000 a month. Just one vendor, minority vendor. And that's transformed their business. They're putting people to work. They're sending kids to college.

They're paying their dental bill. They're going on vacations to Europe or wherever, Africa. The third thing we're doing, and the bigger the company gets rolling, the more we can grow that minority vendor pool. That's what I call renewable philanthropy. The third thing we're doing, and the bigger the company gets rolling, the more we can grow that minority vendor pool. That's what I call renewable philanthropy. The third thing we're doing is moving people from rent to home. So you prove you're a good tenant with us. We'll give you a shot to own a home. You can buy one from us, or we'll help you by giving you, we'll sort of vouch for you with a lender.

And there's a Wall Street Journal article people can read about how we made people who look like us homeowners. That's, in short, the business model. It's not really complicated. You know, 41% of us own a home, so we've got to fix that. And far too many of us are renting uptown in a place that doesn't want us with a place we can't afford in an environment that we don't know, with money we don't have, to buy things we don't need. You should be doing is renting in your own neighborhood, in my view, and trying to find a way to buy the worst house on the best block and come up, just like I did.

Questions from our panel. I'll start with you, Mario. Matt, thank you for starting with me because I don't have much time here. Brother Hope, John Hope Bryant, I'm a big fan of your work. I appreciate what you're doing. I'm very impressed. I read about this deal a couple days ago. And so how did you start going from Operation Hope and your books with civil rights and all

those things that you were pushing? How did you get into this real estate game to go from that to almost 700 homes? Very impressive. But I'd like you to talk about that real succinctly. I mean, details of other people that's listening to this. Not only can they rent from you or maybe buy from you, but maybe we can emulate and become more people like you. Yeah, well, thank you, and much respect for you too, brother. I want to do a master class with this at some point, so maybe I'll conspire with Roland at some point to try to sort of break this down and get into a level of detail. But for the sake of this brevity of this conversation, I've always been an entrepreneur. I mean, I was an entrepreneur before I founded Operation Hope. I started my first business when I was 10 years old. I'll

save you the story. People can look at it online. I got a financial literacy course when I was nine years old. I remember asking the banker, what do you do for a living? Banker was teaching a class on financial literacy. What do you do for a living and how do you get rich legally? And he said, I'm a banker and I finance entrepreneurs. And I said, I don't know what an entrepreneur is, but if you're financing one, it is legal. I'm going to be one. And that's who I am today. Fast forward.

You know, as you know, most millionaires have real estate in their portfolio. There's really three ways to get rich in America. So you do it well. Real estate, stock market, and owning your business. And owning your own business. And unfortunately, black folks are not doing enough of all three of those things. So fast forward, I started this company in 2017, so not that long ago, less than five years ago.

Again, I'll say the story. I own a couple of homes in LA, then I own four homes in LA. I sold one, bought a home in Atlanta where I thought there was a lot of upside. Then I saw a lot of potential in Atlanta where I thought there was a lot of upside. Then I saw a lot of potential in Atlanta. I put some of my money up and my own seed corn, but I also got a couple of my billionaire friends to also back me with what was then a couple

million bucks. It was pennies for them. Maybe they just did it out of charity. I don't know. But I took it seriously. And that was like just a few homes. And I just built my model and proved it and just kept doubling down, doubling down. And as people were trying to, as people were selling no homes in my neighborhood, I was buying. Buy, rehab, and between 2019 and last year, went up 41%. Atlanta went up 41%. Just think about this. Atlanta, a black neighborhood, went up 41% in appreciation and value in our neighborhoods from 2019 to 2021.

And that's really the story. You can make a story, build a business on income, or you can build a business based on wealth appreciation. You build wealth in your sleep. Make money during the day. You build wealth when you sleep. It's compounding. We don't know enough about building wealth. We really obsess too much on what I call lifestyle riches, making money.

But those are two different things. DeMauro, thanks for your question. I appreciate it. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Brother Brian, I'd love to get you down here in Tulsa with our Justice for Greenwood Foundation and things we're trying to do. We have some real estate holdings and some developments we're trying to do. We would love to talk to you about maybe partnering with us.

Absolutely. And I'll show you how I accessed $40 million from Freddie Mac and $15 million from City National Bank. And, you know, there's new – I mean, I'll break it down how I did it. It's not magical. And it didn't matter. I mean, there was no tax. Not only was there no tax that I was black, actually, I used it to my advantage without any government programs or anything like that.

But I use it, I use my race as an advantage in my community, my understanding of my community as an advantage, as an asset. And, you know, you have to ask yourself a question when you're watching this. Do you believe in yourself? I mean, is the glass half full or is it half empty? If you think it's half empty, just turn off the TV set. But if you believe it's half full, then you need to say to yourself,

how can being black and knowing my neighborhood and being astute and focused and never giving it up, how can that be an asset? Our neighborhood is undervalued. You know, an inner city in France is called Paris. An inner city in the UK is called London. Only in America do we throw away inner cities and try to move out of them,

and everybody else is moving into them. All right. Teresa, your question. Yes, absolutely. I am, one, I am just taking back. I was actually looking at your website for a little bit more detail. I'm here in the city of Philadelphia and, you know, the amount of properties that are going up either for share sale or some that, you know, where affordable housing is is no longer the language of the land in terms of, you know, the gentrification and what's happening here. I'm wondering, one, if you are interested in coming to Philadelphia, and then two,

definitely when you get that masterclass up and running, please, you know, let me know for that. But really particularly interested on the market of how are you maybe helping individuals who may be looking at, you know, some of the stuff that's going on through share sales right now? Yeah. So I don't want to get into sharing anything on this short conversation. It's a great concept. But keep in mind, nobody washes rental cars. Keep in mind that if you want to distribute money like a socialist, you're first collecting like a capitalist, and no one's going to care about your asset more than you. I'd much rather you take, you know, somebody's watching this, and they make $35,000.

They have three children. The governor owes you, if you ever file for an EITC, the governor owes you about $18,000. Combine that with a child tax credit from the federal government under this new stimulus package of $9,000. You've got $30,000. Take that $30,000, put it as a down payment. Take 15 grand, buy a rehab home in Philadelphia, a torn down, a teardown home. Buy it for almost next to nothing.

Get a construction loan to rehab it. Put, you know, 15, $20,000. Put five grand in a reserve account. And you'll now end up with an asset worth, I'm guessing, you know, 70 to $100,000. And then rent it out. And then let that stabilize for a minute. And then use the equity from that one to then buy a second one.

And then once you've done that three times, you've got sustainability, and that real estate will only go up in value. Real estate has never gone down. Somebody's going to watch this and go, John, you're wrong. That's actually not true. I'm not wrong. Here's what's happened. This is what real estate's done.

Stock market, too. It's gone up. Then there's a crisis. It dips. What do black folk do? We sell on the dip. And then what happens? It then corrects above the line every time. Then another crisis 10, 20 years later, it goes down. What do we do? We sell on the dip. We get all wigged out. Somebody else buys it and goes up to the next level. We need to buy, rent, and hold. And I just gave you an example of how somebody making $35,000 can do that. And go to Opry Shop, get your credit score up. We're raising credit scores 120 points in 24 months. We do that for free.

So that's a little business plan right there for somebody not even as sophisticated as you. So, yeah, you know, share this, share that. That's all cool. I'd much rather you do something on your own where you control the hustle and you control the outcome and then partner with somebody else in time. All right. Mustafa, final question for John O'Brien. Yes, Brother O'Brien, it's always inspirational and aspirational every time that you come on.

You know, as you talked about, you know, many of the adults who go through the program and learn, you know, a number of different types of things, is there also opportunities for younger people also on that journey? Absolutely. We've got Hope Business in a Box Academy. I'm mixing metaphors now. This is Operation Hope, my nonprofit. We put thousands of young people in business through the One Million Black Business Initiative as well. You can go and watch prior stories, shows of me enrolling about 1MBB

and our Hope Business of Box Academies where we're putting kids that were my age coming up, 10 years, 12 years, 15 years old in business. And there's hundreds of stories and videos people can watch on young people starting businesses and owning real estate. So yeah, we should start early. Look, you farm club.

If you're in Canada, they'll tell you who the NHL players, hockey league players are in elementary school, the pros, because they identify them. Where do we find our football players, our basketball players? We farm club them in middle school. And then by the time they get to college, they're already destined for the pros. What do we do with entrepreneurs, small business owners, real estate investors,

securities lawyers? Nothing. There's no farm club system in our neighborhood. Now, we are experts at social justice. We'll tell you discrimination, Black people, you know, a mile away. We'll tell you police brutality five miles away. But we can't identify a stock or a bond or real estate investment in our own neighborhood the way we should. This has to become the new movement. Social justice through an economic lens, that starts early, as you said, with young people.

All right. John Hope Bryant, I appreciate it, man. Thank you so very much. Good luck with it. And like I keep saying over and over again, people love saying, hey, we need more black-owned businesses. I say, no very much. Good luck with it. And like I keep saying over and over again, people love saying, hey, we need more black-owned businesses. I say, no, we need black businesses with capacity. Building capacity.

This is only the beginning, Roland. Just like with what you're doing with your content. Only the beginning. John, thanks a lot. God bless you. Demario, Mustafa, Teresa, I really appreciate y'all joining us today on the show. Thank you so very much.

I'm going to go to a break. When we come back, I'm going to have a few more headlines, folks, and then we're done. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА Hi, I'm Eric Nolan. I'm Shantae Moore. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks. The former Chicago police officer convicted in the fatal shoot of Laquan McDonald is getting out of prison next month.

A jury convicted Jason Van Dyke in 2018 of second degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery. Now when Van Dyke gets released on February 3rd, he would have served six years and nine months. That's about half of his sentence. He would be on parole for at least two years. All right, folks. An investigation is underway after body cam footage shows a Florida male cop grabbing a female officer

by the throat after she tries to pull him away from an alleged suspect. Y'all, watch this video. It's crazy. I got it, folks. The footage shows Sergeant Christopher Police, the Sunrise Police Department, okay, leaning into a police

car and hovering over a handcuffed black male suspect while holding pepper spray. A 28-year-old unidentified female officer approaches him and pulls him away by tugging on the back of his belt in response. He then confronts the subordinate and grabs her by her throat. The incident took place in November. The 21-year veteran has been assigned to desk duty while the department investigates the incident.

Man, see, we talk all the time about officers stepping in when the right thing. Here he sits here and basically attacks his own fellow officer. Folks, Virginia's outgoing attorney general says police in Virginia Beach used forged documents linking people's DNA to crimes to get them to confess. According to the state's attorney general's office of civil rights that led the investigation, Virginia Beach's police department used fake reports from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science in at least five cases between March 2016 and February 2020. The city's police department has changed its policy in the wake of the probe as city spokesperson maintains the practice, hmm, no shock, was legal.

Folks, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin wasted no time signing several executive orders after being sworn into office over the weekend. The newly elected governor was sworn in on Saturday and followed his ceremony by signing executive orders and two executive directives. Well, some of these actions include to restore excellence in education by ending the divisive concepts, y'all, like critical race theory, which actually isn't being taught in the schools, to empower Virginia parents and their children's education, upbringing, put graphic back, please.

Thank you. By allowing parents to check whether their child wears a mask in school to restore integrity and confidence in the parole board of the Commonwealth of Virginia to investigate wrongdoing in Loudoun County to make government work for Virginians by creating the Commonwealth Chief Transportation Officer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is, y'all, we know exactly what he was doing.

And so, he won. He ran on critical race theory which actually didn't even exist. But that's just one of the things that you see. So, and like I said earlier, we see republicans doing all they can to move forward with trying to use this to impact people, again, to vote in the midterms. The oldest living Tuskegee Airman folks,

retired Brigadier General Charles McGee has passed away. He died suddenly at the age of 102. McGee flew in over 400 combat missions and was awarded numerous accolades for his service. While in the Air Force, he battled segregation and racism. Tuskegee Airmen were a primarily African-American group of military pilots. An airman who served in World War II, McGee celebrated his 102nd birthday just last month.

Got to give a shout-out to that alpha man. All right, certainly we mourn his passing, folks. Historically, black churches across the country will be receiving help. $20 million worth of support, the Lilly Endowment donated the funds to the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund to support preserving a black church's project. St. James AME Church will be the first to benefit from the significant donation. The church was founded in 1868 and will receive $100,000 to repair damage from the Kentucky tornado.

More than 50 churches will receive funds from the Preserving Black Churches Project over the next three years. So certainly glad to actually hear that. And also, folks, tonight in Boston, go to my computer please, the first black NHL player, Willie Oree, had his jersey retired. And he, folks, tonight in Boston, go to my computer, please, the first black NHL player, Willie O'Ree,

had his jersey retired. He's number 22 of the Boston Bruins, will hang in the rafters after that ceremony took place, again, just a few moments ago. Again, Willie O'Ree, the first African-American to play in the National Hockey

League. He, of course, is in the Hall of Fame as well. So big congratulations go out to Willie O'Ree. Folks, that is it for Roland Martin Unfiltered. Again, if you want to support what we do, please download our Black Star Network app. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, X-Box One, Samsung Smart TV.

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We'll see you tomorrow right here. Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Holla! This is an iHeart Podcast.