#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Signal Houthi chat released, MAGA targets 'race-based' PhD Project, WI Supreme Court race

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

3.26.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Signal Houthi chat released, MAGA targets 'race-based' PhD Project, WI Supreme Court race The Atlantic published the full transcript of text messages showing that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth detailed U.S. military attack plans in Yemen in a Signal group chat that inadvertently included the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.  We'll show you how Democratic lawmakers blasted security officials for lying about the chat's content. The MAGA administration is targeting "race-based" programs meant to diversify the workplace. We'll speak with the CEO of the PHD Project, whose program is at the center of this debate. Wisconsin voters will vote for a new state Supreme Court justice in less than a week. We'll talk to a grassroots organizer about how the most expensive judicial election in the nation's history may shape the state.  I'll talk to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about his calling for Pete Hegseth's firing amid the security breach controversy.  #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hey folks, today is Wednesday, March 26, 2025, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Unbelievable day on Capitol Hill as Donald Trump's intelligence teams, who are not intelligent, continue to get grilled over them

talking about war plans in a signal chat. Also, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic actually released all of the text messages so people could actually see the conversation. And guess what? MAGA is now trying to defend it by saying, oh, this was no big deal. What a joke.

We're going to talk to Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, about this very issue. Also, the attacks on DEI is causing college universities to end their relationship with a program called the PhD Project. We're gonna talk to them about that. This is gonna have a dramatic impact on African-Americans who get their PhDs.

Also on today's show, lots of talk about, got Isaac Hayes III, the founder of Fanbase. We're going to be talking about all of these different encrypted apps and how critically important they are. And so, again, lots to talk about. Y'all, it's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin. I'm Phil Chitton. I'm with Blackstone Network. Let's go.

He's got it. Whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it 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. Yeah, yeah. It's Rolling Martin, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin

Now White conservatives have been on a witch hunt targeting DEI everywhere, in government, in academia, in corporate America as well. And so one of these crazed, deranged folks was talking about the PhD project, which is an initiative to help place African Americans in various PhD programs. They were working with universities to make this happen. Nothing nefarious about it. Many of the universities thought it was great. Well, once these conservatives start complaining about it. Many of the universities thought it was great. Well, once these conservatives

start complaining about it, and then you take Donald Trump trying to cutting off the funding to college universities over the DEI, that changed everything. And many of these universities begin to drop their partnership with the PhD project. Joining us right now to discuss this is Alfonso Alexander. He's the interim president and CEO of the PhD Project. Alfonso, glad to have you on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Look, I'm calling it a witch hunt. I'm calling it exactly what it is. You have these white conservatives who attack DEI and what they want to do is, and I've been saying this here, the desire is to actually defund black America. They want to cut the pathways to education, get rid of affirmative action in education. They want to target contracts as well.

And we're not talking about how they frame it. These are extremely smart and brilliant African-Americans. And so they want to create this whole notion that these people are not there because of merit. And that's totally BS. have always been really the best and brightest. A PhD project recruits individuals who are in business and or excelling in academic areas and have the aptitude and the quality to become PhDs. We then bring them in, teach them what it takes to become a PhD, what the process is like, and then they go out and apply for PhD programs all across the country based on their merit. They are accepted into these PhD programs, and then we then will help provide support for them while they're in the program in terms of mentorship

with other partners, other faculty members that have gone through the process. So when we say that these are the best and the brightest, these are some of the most talented individuals in this country, and they prove it by getting accepted into these schools and then matriculating through the process successfully. So first of all, when did this program, when did the PhD project start? PhD project started 31 years ago and has been doing this work successfully and without any problem up until literally about two months ago. That's when all of the things really started coming out. 31 years ago, is it only been African-Americans or is it African-Americans and other people of color? Other people of color historically, and so not just limited to African-Americans. How many people have come through the PhD project in all of these years? In all of these years, about 1,600 have come through the process. We have about 250 each year that are at varying stages within their Ph.D. program.

But about 1,600 in total have come through the project, some still active teaching and researching on college campuses. So what is the net effect of this? First of all, how many colleges and universities have dropped the partnership and have some remained? So what is the state of these relationships? Sure. So the net effect is evolving, you know, so but at this point, we've lost about 20 percent of the universities that have either just said, hey, we have to completely sever our relationship. And others are saying, hey, we're severing it for now. If there's a possibility that we can come back and work with you again in the future, then we may do that. So that's one piece of it.

The other piece of it, though, is what we've had to do. You know, we've had to evolve. And so we recognize the environment that we're operating in now. So we had to take a posture from a strategic standpoint to be sure that we still able to provide opportunities for the people that we have always served. So we opened up our application, allow other people to participate in the program. So we still— When you say other people, do you mean white?

Anybody who expresses a commitment to helping to expand the pool of talent in corporate America and on academic institutions. Has this had a negative financial situation for the PhD project? We have, you know, and fortunately for us right now, this is towards the end of our fiscal year, so the impact next fiscal year, which starts in the summer, is potentially greater. But we have had about 40, 45 universities to transition in terms of the relationship, as I mentioned earlier, out of about close to 225 that we worked with prior to that. So what is that? First of all, what is that financial hit? And first of all, what did that do? Did that provide resources to the students? And so what's that? So if you have to replace that, if you want to service the same number of students,

you got to replace that money. What's that hit? And then what is your plan to try to raise that to get through this period of attacks on these type of programs? Sure, sure. So today that hit is somewhere around $200,000 of our revenue. We're about a $3 million organization. And in terms of our current situation, it's evolving. You know, we're still having conversations with universities that are having to prove that they can and should stay involved. So we're still trying to make sure that we maintain relationships with universities that have not abandoned the program. We're trying to protect

those faculty members that work at those universities and are teaching and contributing in terms of their research at those universities. But to offset that, we're looking at how we can establish coalitions and collaborations with other organizations that are like-minded. We're looking at how we can establish coalitions and collaborations with other organizations that are like-minded. We're looking to expand our corporate support. And, you know, that's a challenging option for us at this point in time as well. But we're also having conversations with some foundations and looking at other revenue generating options that we have by partnering with some of our faculty members who do research and other things, and how we can collaborate with them to create some revenue generating options. Because we're in a situation, Roland, where it's proven that when you have a diverse set of faculty members that are presenting in front of students and involved in research,

just simply because of diversity of thought alone that comes to the table, all students benefit from that. People who look like those faculty members have a benefit of the role model effect, where they see someone doing something positive, they benefit from that. And so that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to protect those individuals that are in our process, that are members of our organization now, and figure out the most strategic ways for us to grow and expand as we navigate and have to evolve in this current environment. So you guys are 501c3, correct? We are a 501c3 organization. All right.

So, you know, and I would hope, so you said 1,600 some odd people have come through the program in 31 years? Yes. Yes, absolutely. So, you know, again, just doing, you know, quick math. I mean, listen, if 1,000 of those folks decide to give back to your program, and again, I'm not assuming they don't give back, but if a thousand of those people decide to give back at 200 bucks a piece, that raises $200,000. You know, this is one of those moments where, you know, we have to obviously look inward and challenge others. And so, you know, keep us abreast, because if y'all create, in essence, a capital campaign, you know, there's an opportunity, I believe, utilizing Black-owned media, Black-targeted media. If all of a sudden it says, hey, if you know for a fact when you

get to late April or you get to May and you're going to say, hey, listen, we've got to have a quarter of a million dollars. Again, the math is the math. 1,250 people giving 200 bucks each gets you to your goal. But this is the reality that we're now living in that your organization, other Black organizations are going to have to deal with. And this is where we have to encourage our folks to say, hey, when you give, it's a tax write-off. And the reality is there are folks who need tax write-offs. And we've got to be willing to the challenge on that level. Absolutely. I think we, you know, we had our conference last

week and one of the themes coming out of that conference is we need to unify. We're stronger, we're better together. We're in a posture where we're doing a reset. We've come out of that reset, now we're recharging and we're trying to go out and win. And the way we win is working together, using the collective resources that we have, using the collective intellectual horsepower that we have to figure out the best ways to continue to touch these students through these faculty members, to provide great research opportunities so that we all as a society grow and learn and overcome this adversity that's been put before us because of some of these decisions that are being made in the legal environment and the political environment. I will keep us abreast as you as you get closer to have to figure out what that number is. Let us know how we can be of help being able to push that on our social media to our audience.

You know, we do about 30 million views a month. We got almost 5 million social media followers. But it is about the collective action. So, Fonzo, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right. Thank you, Roland. Appreciate you and all you do for us.

Thank you very much. I want to bring in my panel right now. Of course, Rebecca Carruthers, Vice President of Fair Elections Center, joining us out of Washington, D.C. Texas State Representative Yolanda Jones joining us as well from Houston. Joy Cheney, founder of Joy Strategies out of Washington, D.C. The point that I made there, Rebecca, is that something that we have to recognize and understand and accept. We are living in a moment where we are going to have to use our collective power, use our collective resources.

And I know somebody who's listening to me, they're sitting there saying, well, man, you just threw out a thousand people, that's $200 each. Yeah, but the reality is there are people who are making certain amounts of money who need tax write-offs. And the reality is if you give away, I mean, let's just imagine if you say, hey, I'm going to make $5,000 in charitable contributions a year at $200 each. That's 25 separate organizations you can be funding at $200 each. That's what people listen to understand what we're talking about here. I think part of the problem, Rebecca, is that when we talk about fundraising and giving, we always, we think in terms of, well,

can this rich black person, why can't they give a million? They give $500,000. They give $100,000. But again, if you're an individual and you're looking to make charitable contributions, you could say right now that if I give away $5,000 a year, and it may not be five grand. You may say that's 25 separate organizations that I can support with that $5,000, with a $200 donation each. It all matters. We have to be thinking this way because they are attacking, and I keep saying this to black people, they are literally attacking the black civil rights, economic, and educational infrastructure. They want to defund Black America. That is the goal of Christopher Ruffo, of Donald Trump, of MAGA, the GOP, Project 2025.

You know, Roland, what's really interesting is that in America, Black Americans typically get the least when it comes to government contracting, typically get the least when it comes to government resources, typically get the least when it comes to even corporate and private money going into our community. However, we're still able to thrive. So as you're talking about what's happening and Black folks being targeted here, it's because we keep excelling. When you look at the PhD project, understanding that more and more Black Americans are enrolling in these postgraduate programs, and we're over indexing because we're brilliant. We've been doing this with the least amount of resources. So to your point, there is something that we could do as a collective. We did it before. We did it before the Civil Rights Act passed in the 1960s. And we're going to have to return back to that.

After all, we know that over a trillion dollars goes through the Black community when it comes to spending. And so now it's time for us to start to spend and invest in ourselves. For many years, many of us have called for reparations for Black Americans in this country. At this point, we know this current government is not going to deliver on that. Previous, quote-unquote, friendlier governments haven't delivered on that. So it's imperative for us to step in and start to invest in our own communities. Absolutely. And it's being much more decisive and clear, Joy, with the dollars in terms of what we're spending things on. designer purses and shoes, if you want to do bags, if you want to do ties, if you want to do

athletic shoes, all those different things along those lines. But it's also being very cognizant of who is that actually helping? Who is that actually funding? What is it actually going to? I was having a debate with somebody and they were telling me they felt that, this is about three weeks ago, they felt that the boycott against Target would be unaffected, that those things just don't work today, that we need to have a plan of action for the suites and not the streets. And I said to this person, I said, I understand your point. I said, but here's, I think, the point that you're losing out on.

I said, and that is is for the people who are organizing the boycotts against Target, what they also are doing is they are using this in a way to organize and mobilize. I said, see, you still need, and I had to remind, I said, you still need the streets organized and mobilized to impact whatever you're trying to do in the suites. I said, so if you never create something that the streets can get behind, then you're never going to organize and mobilize them. On Saturday, I spoke at the U.S. Students Association Conference that Tiffany Lofton was helping them with. On our show on March 4th, the State of Our Union, it was after midnight when Tiffany mentioned what they were doing

and what they were trying to raise their money for. And I said, we're going to help you. I made a commitment of $20,000 of my own money. And then she hit me back. We raised 84,000 that night for them. And then other groups then gave, then other groups then gave. And so they raised almost 150,000. Last year, they had five students at that conference. This year, they had almost 150. So the point that I need our people to understand is the capacity exists in our communities when we redirect our resources. Correct. I'm all for buying all the fancy things, too. But what you absolutely have to be doing is redirecting those funds. So now we know that the energy that we were spending

shopping at Target, Amazon, all of these stores, we can pull back. That was the first thing. We had to prove to ourselves that we could stop shopping at these places. Now we know that we can. Then we said, okay, we're not just only going to stop shopping at places that don't serve us. We're actually going to shop at the places who do. We saw with Costco today, they have 7 million uptick in memberships. That's amazing. While Target is seeing a decline. Now we're at a different stage. Now we see that we can take the money that we're even spending at places that love us and we got to turn them inward. We have to use black vendors. Rebecca and I know a little bit about that. We're working on our chapter to do that. Only black vendors where we can. We have to be working on investing in products and services

that also benefit us where we're getting some in. And now we know we need to go to our nonprofit organizations. A lot of focus is on philanthropy. The greatest amount of philanthropy is in individual donors, right? So that's me and you. Yes, the wealthy people, but it's actually small dollar donors. We know this because we know that when it's election season, many, many candidates are mainly looking for small dollar donors because they can spread themselves out. They can give multiple times, monthly even, and it means something overall, greater than the sum of its parts. So it is so important that we do these individual amounts,

pick an organization and lay on them. The money that you spent last year on the campaign, shift some of that over and be able to do that for a nonprofit in your community. It really does make a difference on math and the feeling of being successful begets more success. So don't worry about the end. Just get started. We are going to have to take care of ourselves in this season. Yeah. And again, I think people, I think, I just think Jolanda, a lot of people really just don't think through what is going on here. And you heard Alfonso say

it. So if they're losing the universities and then the corporate support is teep it. Then, I mean, and I was talking to somebody, it was a gala last month and literally a week before the event, a financial institution that had agreed to be a sponsor calls like, yo, we're out. And many of those, many, many of those places, a lot of the black folks that work there have been laid off. And so our black nonprofits are losing lots of money because the black folks are getting kicked out of a lot of these companies who are in these diversity jobs, who are in other jobs. And so I need people to understand that there's an economic attack that is happening before our very eyes against black people. And what we need to do is penalize the people who are economically attacking us and redirecting our dollars. Or as Dr. King said on April 3rd, 1968, in his final sermon at Mason Temple, when he said, he said, Jesse, what do you call it? We must redistribute the pain and withdraw our dollars.

Go ahead. And here's what, I believe in boycott. I know there are people that think boycotts don't work, but boycotts work. Because in order to make rich people pay attention, you have to hit them in the pocketbook. So decide that we're not going to spend at Target and we're going to spend at places that support black people like Costco.

Trust me, Target paid attention, right? Costco paid attention. If they're making $7 million more than they made before. The problem with black folks is we don't always look at the longtime impacts with this PhD project. First of all, if we have black professors, because you generally need a PhD to be a tenured professor at a university, that means we're going to have less people who look like us in academia, and our perspective is not going to be there. And like you said, Roland, at the beginning of this, people are literally attacking the things that have made black people be able to overcome the oppression. And when the PhD project is not sufficiently funded, we have less money to help the PhD

students. PhDs are not cheap, folks. PhDs require research. Research costs money. And then you have people who have PhDs who can help people walk through and practice what they need to do in order to be PhDs. So, and let me tell you something else with this attack on DEI. The black folks that wanted to go to the PWIs that are now not going to get into the PWIs because there's not a space for us, they're going to necessarily end up going to HBCUs, right? And so the question is, are we preparing our HBCUs to receive all these new students that they're inevitably going to get? For example, that's why here I'm trying to get money for Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law, because when these black folks that were beneficiaries of DEI used to get into UT,

used to get into University of Houston, used to get into all these schools, now can't get in there. Texas Southern has to have the capacity to receive these students who need an education. And so boycott, boycott, boycott. And if you remember back to the Montgomery boycott, it wasn't a day-long boycott. We like Black Friday. Let's only do black stuff on one day. Let me tell you something. If you keep money or boycott white businesses one day,

they can withstand that. We need to have sustained boycotts. We need to let people know if you come for us, we're going to mess with your money. And trust and believe. I'm going to say this again. Trust and believe.

If we hit them in the pocketbook over and over and over again, they will pay attention for the same reason they have DEI with athletics, because it makes them a lot of money. So we need to go back to our thoughts during segregation, because at least in segregation, we knew our enemy, and we knew that if we didn't take care of ourselves, we weren't going to be taken care of. The problem is we've gone and got integration, and has been on the scene, white folks feel free to discriminate openly and attack us openly. So, and let me tell you, the courts ain't going to save us because Trump has stacked the courts. The only people that are going to save black people

are black people. Well, and that's why, again, I think folks need to understand what is happening, y'all. It's real. This is not an exercise. It is real. Trump is going to be there for four years. They are trying to hold—they are trying to lock in the power apparatus. And for all y'all folk who say voting don't matter, understand, voting is a part of this conversation. It's not the conversation.

But trust me, we are seeing what happens when we don't show up who gets in control and how they then use that power against us. Got to go to a break. We come back. Speaking of power, critical election in the state of Wisconsin,

a Supreme Court race. Sarah Crawford is a Democratic candidate. She's going up against the Republican candidate who Elon Musk has spent $10 million already trying to get elected. We're going to explain to you what Black groups are doing in Wisconsin to get the vote out

and why this Supreme Court race is a serious, serious one that we all should be paying attention to. Folks, you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment. We begin tonight with the people who are really running the country right now.

Trump is often wrong and misleading about a lot of things, but especially about history. Donald Trump falling in line with President Elon Musk. In the wake of the unsettling news that MSNBC has canceled Joy Ann Reeve's primetime show, The Readout,

Roland Martin and the Black Star Network would like to extend an invitation to all the fans of Joy Ann Reeve's MSNBC show to join us every night to watch Roland Martin unfiltered, streaming on the Black Star Network for news, discussion of the issues that matter to you. And the latest updates on the twice impeached criminally convicted felon in

chief, Donald Trump is unprecedented assault on democracy as well as co-president Elon Musk takeover of the federal government. The black star network stands with joy and read and all folks who understand the power of black voices in media. We must come together and never forget that information is power. Be sure to watch Roland Martin Unfiltered weeknights, 6 p.m. Eastern, at youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin,

or download the Black Star Network app. Question for you. Are you stuck? Do you feel like you're hitting a wall and it's keeping you from achieving prosperity? Well, you're not alone. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, you're going to learn what you need to do to become unstuck and unstoppable. The fabulous author, Janine K. Brown, will be with us sharing with you exactly what you need to do to finally achieve the level of financial success you desire through your career. Because when I talk about being bold in the workplaces, I'm talking about that inner boldness that you have to take a risk, to go after what you want, to speak up when others are not. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. other side of change. Let's talk vote blue no matter who. We need political imagination more

than ever and unfortunately some people on the Democratic side really are discouraging that. We're going to dig into all of it. The Democratic Party needs to remember who they are and who they are responsible to. This is On the Other Side of Change, only on the Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. Succession. We're hearing that word pop up a lot these days as our country continues to fracture and divide. But did you

know that that idea, essentially a breaking up of the USA, has been part of the public debate since long before and long after the Civil War, right up to today. On our next show, you'll meet Richard Crichton, the author of this book, who says breaking up this great experiment called America might not be such a bad thing. That's on the next Black Table, right here on the Black Star Network. This week on A Balanced Life, join us as our resident experts and special guests talk to us about what it means to protect your peace.

I know you say you got it all together, but let me tell you, life be lifin'. So we're going to talk about how do you find who you are? How do you find your lane? How do you stay who you are? How do you find your lane? How do you stay in your lane? And what it means to really date you, to look in the mirror and find out who you are and love the person that you see. When is the last time you said I love you to a loved one? When is the last time you said I love you to yourself? That's next on A Balanced Life

with Dr. Jackie here at Blackstar Network. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. On that soil, you will not regret that. White people are losing their damn lives. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial.

This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at every university calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear. We'll be right back. We're doing an interview, motherfucker. Thank you. Folks, there's a huge election in the state of Wisconsin on April 1st. It pits two candidates, Susan Crawford against Brad Schimel.

Susan Crawford is the Democratic candidate. And why is this a huge race? Right now, Democrats have a 4-3 majority on the Supreme Court. And this is all about who is going to have control when it comes to the ideological direction of the court. In the last decade or so, it has been very much a hard right court. They have stripped the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, a lot of his powers. The Republicans in the legislature, because of political gerrymandering, have been able to do all sorts of things.

But last year, Democrats were able to win a critical seat by 11 points, giving them the 4-3 majority. That changed congressional makeup, state makeup, ballot drop boxes, all of that. And so the black vote in Wisconsin is going to be extremely critical. Danelle Cross joins us right now. She's executive director of Metcalf Park Community Bridges, Inc., a grassroots organization dedicated to ensuring the residents have an informed, active voice in the decisions affecting their community. So, Danielle, exactly what are y'all doing? How are y'all getting people to understand what's going on in this race?

This is a race where Elon Musk has dumped upwards of $10 million trying to elect Brad Schimel. So it's real clear where MAGA stands. Yes, what we're doing, what we always do, is we are a grassroots organization. We go door to door, and it takes time. We talk to people. We start with education because we want people to

know how these races and these positions affect their everyday life. And I think that's what's really been missing is that people think about this in the abstract and not that this could possibly affect my community, my family, my children. And so that's what we do. We educate folks door to door. We use the people in the neighborhood because they already have relationships. And so the community talks to the community. And that way we get people interested in voting. And I believe that in Metcalfe Park, the last election, we was able to increase our voting by 5%. And so it's incremental steps, but we've been doing it for a while. Voting engagement is something that we do every day, not just at election time.

So what are you actually saying to the voters? What are you saying to them to get them focused on turning out in this huge race? Because, look, it's a special election. Oftentimes, you don't see a huge turnout in such races. And so turnout is even more critical. And a big black turnout could be the difference between winning and losing. Well, because we're nonpartisan, we don't tell people the specifics. What we do is give them the information. We help them to learn how to Google these folks and to figure out if the things that they have been a part of in the past is something that benefits them personally, benefits the community. But our main push is that because we're doing work in so many different

areas, we have a land crisis, we have a housing crisis. What we tell our folks is that it is important that our community has political power, that our elected officials know that they will vote them in and vote them out according to how they respond to the concerns of the community. And so what we're trying to do is get the voter turnout. We don't encourage people to go one way or the other, but we do have a primarily black community, 89 percent, and we have a growing Hmong and Latino population. So our community is black and brown. Do you tell them who supports one candidate, who supports the other? Again, MAGA is dumping lots of money in the Brad Schimel race.

Progressives are dumping money in Sarah Crawford. Some $81 million has already been spent solely in this Wisconsin race. And in fact, according to... go to my iPad, Anthony, according to the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Organization, it dropped the poll, this is March 12th, shows that it is a 47-47 tie between former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel

and Judge Susan Crawford. So absolutely every vote is going to matter in this race. We don't, our organization don't tell people what is at stake. But we do partner with other organizations that have the ability to do that. We partner with 501c4s in the community because they have the ability, the legal ability, to make those things clear. Our primary job is to get people to the table so that they can be informed and make their decisions themselves. All right, then. Well, Danelle, keep the work up. Listen, y'all got just a few more days before April 1st.

Again, it is a really, really important race. You can't say it. I can say it. If y'all are in Wisconsin, Susan Crawford, because when you talk about civil rights, voting rights, when you talk about things along those lines,

there's a huge difference between a Supreme Court Justice Crawford and a Supreme Court Justice Schimel. And again, that's me talking, not you, Janelle. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much for having me, Roland. All right, y'all keep up the good work.

Thanks a lot. And look, this is hugely, hugely, hugely important. Jelana, too many people don't pay attention to state Supreme Court races. But if we talk about what happens on the federal level with the non-state Supreme Court, that's what the state Supreme Court races. But if we talk about what happens on the federal level with the non-state Supreme Court, that's what the state Supreme Court does. You're there in Texas. Part of the problem in Texas is you've got

a rabid right-wing MAGA Supreme Court, and if people in Texas would actually vote, they could get voted out. When Beto O'Rourke ran against Greg Abbott for governor, 75% of young people, 30 and under, did not vote in the election. Texas has more eligible African-American voters in any state in the country, and black folks in Texas should be voting, I always say, at that 70 percent level. And again, if black folks in Wisconsin turn out, last year, the Democratic

candidate in Wisconsin won that seat by 11 points. It can happen again. And holding this seat is a huge, huge deal. Oh, as she was speaking about, Roland, she said she tells people what's at stake. So let me tell people from Wisconsin what's at stake. First of all, there's a liberal majority right now, slim, 4-3, as you said. The person that's retiring is a Democrat. So the Republicans literally have the opportunity to take that court back, which is why Elon Musk and his super PACs have contributed $17.5 million to a race, because they know that's where the power is. Soros has given $1 million. So clearly the Republicans have a hard-on for this seat. But let me tell you what's at stake.

Labor rights, you want a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, and you want someone who supports STAKE. LABOR RIGHTS, YOU WANT A FAIR DAY'S PAY FOR A FAIR DAY'S WORK, AND YOU WANT SOMEONE WHO SUPPORTS UNIONS, YOU BETTER SUPPORT CRAWFORD. IF YOU'RE RICH, YOU MIGHT NOT NEED TO GET A FAIR DAY'S PAY FOR A FAIR DAY'S WORK. BUT IF YOU'RE NOT, YOU NEED FAIR LABOR LAWS. IF YOU BELIEVE IN A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CONTROL HER BODY AND HER FAMILY, THEN YOU BETTER PICK CRAWFORD AND NOT THIS PERSON and her family, then you better pick Crawford and not this person, Elon Musk. And we don't need to guess what Elon Musk does when he's in power. All we have to do is look how he's running this country right now, because Donald Trump literally listens to that man. You want to know what else is super, super important? Redistricting is coming up. The Republicans have gerrymandered in every state where they've had

control and made it where we do not have equal representation based on our vote. They marginalize and they dilute our vote. So that's what matters when the Supreme Court is one way or the other. So when you file your little lawsuit in your local court and it gets appealed up to the courts like the Supreme Court, like the courts of appeals, you have a whole bunch of Republicans who are going to rule against you all the time. So if you get in a wreck and somebody injures you, the Republicans don't want for you to get the value of your injuries. If the police kill you, the Republicans are going to always rule against you. So I don't work for a 501 or whatever. Let me tell you, we better vote like our lives depend on it everywhere, but especially in

Wisconsin, because the Supreme Court is as high as it gets. And we need cover. We need people who are going to fight for our issues. And working people issues are dealt better with with Democrats. So that's who are going to fight for our issues. And working people issues are dealt better with with Democrats. So that's what we need to do. And we better get out and vote, because I promise you, even people that voted for Trump, if for some reason they thought that they were in the in crowd there, find out they're losing their jobs, the cost of groceries ain't gone down. Our public schools are being taken over.

Our kids aren't being educated. And if you think it can't get worse, it can. So let me walk people through this here, Rebecca. And here's the whole deal. So incumbent Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is retiring. Races in Wisconsin are nonpartisan. But Sarah Crawford has been endorsed by the state Democratic Party. Brad Schimel is the former Republican attorney general.

As Jolanda said, Elon Musk and his PACs have dumped a ton of money into this particular race. And as you see here, the 2025 race will determine whether the liberals will retain their 4-3 majority or if there will be a 3-3 split because Justice Brian Hagedorn is a conservative leaning swing vote. he in 61 cases Hagedorn

was in the majority of 50 of those cases more than any other justice. He voted with liberals and conservatives 24 times each. But the key here is controlling the court, not hoping and waiting to see how one person votes. We know for a fact that ballot drop boxes

are going to be critical in the 2026 midterm elections as well as 2028. Republican legislature wants to get rid of those. Democrats say no. It's a good idea to expand access to the ballot. Partisan gerrymandering is also an issue. Racial gerrymandering is an issue. Restoring the rights of the governor, the secretary of state, and the attorney general,

all Democrat, Republicans stripped them of that right. Republicans control the legislature because they have been able to have a lot through partisan gerrymandering. And so that's why this Supreme Court race is huge. You know, Jolanda gave the partisan take of this. I'm going to give the C3 take on this. One thing that we saw, especially in light of President Trump's unconstitutional elections executive order that he issued yesterday is that state Supreme Courts are going to matter more than ever when it comes to making sure that there's actual voting rights. As 46 states go to the ballot box this year, 100,000 seats are on the line. Next year, even all 50 states are going to have elections. Plus, you know, there's more

consequential elections. But one thing that's really interesting, specifically in Wisconsin, is that the current court supports voting rights. If the makeup of this current court changes, then it's going to be a court that does not support voting rights in Wisconsin. The other thing that's important to note about the Wisconsin Supreme Court, every year between now and 2030, there is a Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin that is on the ballot, because the terms—because over the next six years, starting this year, there are six terms that are up, because there's a staggered expiration of justices on the court. So my question, especially for community groups in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, groups like BLOC, how do we make sure in communities, Black communities

in Milwaukee, that there's a sustained effort for folks to really understand the importance of the Supreme Court in Wisconsin? Because every single year between now and 2030, there is going to be a Wisconsin Supreme Court race. And that's something that I really need people in Wisconsin to pay attention to, because every single year between now and 2030, there's going to be millions of dollars being spent to determine whether or not the Supreme Court is going to support democracy or not support democracy. Joy? I'll just give the civic engagement take.

Every little bit counts. We just talked about that in terms of money. Do not believe that you have two years to the next election. Literally, if it's Tuesday, it's an election somewhere. We're just talking about the election now in Wisconsin. It is very important. The protests are great. The marches are great. The boycotts are great. The buy-ins are great. We want that. But you also have to vote every single time. That's number one. Number two, because this is being so watched at the national level, because so much money from the other side is being poured in—we'll talk about later—the dearth of money from the progressive side, that's a real shame. But because the Republicans, because the conservatives are so looking at this race, if we can get a win here,

it will be reported and it will be amplified and it will beget other wins. They make decisions on what they can and can't do based on how they do early on. So if they can see post-Juke Trump's election that we were able to beat him despite all the money they put into it in a state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, that will bode well for us and our side in the future. So do it, do it, do it. And if you're on this call and you're not from the state, call your friends and say, if you're in Wisconsin, we need you to vote in this race. And if you can give, we need you to do that, too.

And to emphasize that point, folks, this would happen. This is what happened in Pennsylvania. Democrats flipped a Pennsylvania state Senate race that Trump won the district by 15 points. And it was won by East Petersburg Mayor James Malone. It was a special election, and he beat the Republicans there. So that says a whole lot when you're able to flip a district that Trump won by 15 points. Yeah, that's a sign. When you win elections like this, it shows you where the voters are and what he campaigned on. He didn't run away from anything.

He campaigned on attacking Trump, Elon Musk and Doge. Democrats had better wake up and pay attention. Gotta go to a break when we come back. We're gonna talk about that. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Boy, the right keeps calling her ghetto and trashing her

because she's been giving them hell. Now they're trying to go after her because she said something, criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Well, guess what? She didn't mind them. She went to the halls of Congress and did her job. And wait till we show you what happened in a hearing today on Capitol Hill. Speaking on Capitol Hill, more contentious hearings regarding these Republicans and these Trump folks when it comes to the signal gate. They keep lying by saying this was no big

deal. Now they're trying to attack Jeffrey Goldberg with the Atlantic. Hmm. Y'all just lying. So y'all might want to slow down, slow your roll. We'll be joined the next hour by Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries on the show as well. So lots more to break down. Don't forget, support the work that we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks each a year.

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RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. Succession. We're hearing that word pop up a lot these days as our country continues to fracture and divide. But did you know that that idea,

essentially a breaking up of the USA, has been part of the public debate since long before and long after the Civil War, right up to today. On our next show, you'll meet Richard Crichton, the author of this book, who says breaking up this great experiment called America might not be such a bad thing.

That's on the next Black Table, right here on the Black Star Network. This week on A Balanced Life, join us as our resident experts and special guests talk to us about what it means to protect your peace. I know you say you got it all together, but let me tell you, life be lifin'. So we're going to talk about how do you find who you are? How do you find your lane? How do you stay in your lane? And what it means to really date you, to look in the mirror and find out who you are and love the

person that you see. When is the last time you said I love you to a loved one? When is the last time you said I love you to yourself? That's next on A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie here at Blackstar Network. Farquhar, executive producer of Proud Family. Bruce Smith, creator and executive producer of The Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. You're watching Roland Martin. I'm Phil. Oh, the right wing

really upset because Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, during a speech at the Human Rights Watch, ripped Texas Governor Greg Abbott. She made a comment that they claimed was being insensitive because he is in a wheelchair. And so

what has resulted is that you've got some Republicans who are demanding that she be censured for her comments. Hmm. Okay. Quite interesting. Then, of course, what you have is, and they've been doing this really since she got to Congress, many of them don't like

what she has to say. They don't like the style that she has to say, so they've decided that, you know what, we're going to call Jasmine Crockett, we're going to call her ghetto. They use all kind of other racist language to describe her. They are angry and upset. They don't like her vernacular. They criticize her about her eyelashes.

All they do is attack, attack, attack. So I'm going to show, So this is why they are upset. And I'm going to show you again some of the racist language so you can understand what it is these folks are all about. So listen to this. We in these hot-ass Texas streets, honey. Y'all know we got Governor Hot Wheels down there. Come on now. And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot-ass mess, honey. So, um, so yes.

Yes, yes, yes. Oh, my God, the right has been losing their minds, just angry and upset with her because of what she had to say. Here's a couple of tweets. So here's Matt Walsh. Now, we all know Matt Walsh is an absolute asshole racist. I mean, that's not even up for debate at all. He is real quick to show his racist ways. And so this right here is his statement. Now,

I keep telling y'all, and they've been doing this. Go ahead and leave it up. But they've been attacking her. They have been making these comments ever since she got there. Oh, she's ghetto. She's ghetto. She's ghetto. That's what they use. Now, when they use ghetto, they are being very racist. Matt Walsh, it's not remarkable that a trashy ghetto dimwit like Jasmine Crockett would make fun of disabled people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So anytime you hear whiteists call somebody black ghetto, we know exactly what it is that they're doing. Then you've got a conservative Dana Lash. Now, first of all, she ain't even from Texas. She's now in Texas. So this is she's from St. Louis.

So she goes, except she's not ghetto, though. I grew up in St. Louis. She went to the most exclusive and expensive private school in the area, if not the state, MICDS. She was born into privilege, educated in privilege, and grew as an adult into privilege. Her attitude is cosplay. So that's what they say. So I guess for them, if you're black and you've gone to a private school and you've attended college and you've got your law degree, then this is how you should always talk. You should always have a clear command of the king's English in order to show you who they are so these white people are far more comfortable with how you talk. See what these racist white folks like poor Matt Walsh and Dana Lash don't seem to understand

is black people, we're bilingual. Black people, we're bilingual black people were trilingual we have the ability to speak in multiple ways in multiple settings at any given time and we guess what give zero fucks what y'all think. We really don't care. And so the reality is anybody watching Jasmine Crockett, nobody is sitting there going, oh my God, I'm offended that she said out here in these streets. Well, guess what? Black people who go to private schools use such phrases.

Oh, I'm sorry, your delicate sensibilities would call that Ebonics. No, because you know what? Y'all white ass hip hop listening kids say the same thing. You know why? Because y'all desperately want to be black. You sit your asses in the sun all goddamn day and night trying to be as crisp as you possibly can.

You listen to our music. You salute the sports stars that we have as well. You wish your ass could be rich like Oprah. You wish you could sit here and ball like LeBron. You would love to be Russell Williams married to Ciara. And guess what? Y'all love our clothes, our styles, and every damn thing else. But now y'all upset because a private school educated black woman,

y'all like she's come from privilege. She shouldn't be talking like that. I don't understand how y'all have the audacity and the unmitigated gall to sit here and criticize Jasmine Crockett by using your, oh my God, oh my God, she is trash. Oh my God, she is, she's this. Y'all criticize her eyelashes. And then y'all salute

bleach, blonde, bad, built, butch, body, ignorant ass Marjorie Taylor Greene. Listen what this dumbass actually said today to a UK reporter. Matt Walsh, if you want to call

somebody trash, here is Exhibit A. Yep. Anybody else? What country are you? Wait, what country are you from? Okay, we don't give a crap about your opinion and your reporting. Why don't you go back to your country where you have a major migrant problem? No, no, no, no, no. You should care about your own borders. No, no, no. Let me tell you something. Do you care about people from your country? What about all the women that are raped by migrants? Do you care about American lives being put at risk?

Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't care about service members fighting for your country. I don't care about your fake news. Do you have a relevant question? Yeah, this is an American journalist. Thank you. I'm an American, and I you. I'm not answering her question because I don't care about her network. If you would like to ask, I can answer.

Any concerns whatsoever about the complete disregard of operational security from the top level of this administration? You want to know about complete disregard about Matt Walsh and Dana Lash? If y'all want to see trash, this is trash. If y'all want to see trash. But see, y'all love to sit here and run your mouths and you want to sit here and

talk about other folk. And I just want y'all to know, Jasmine Crockett don't really give a damn what y'all think. Just want to let y'all know that. But y'all are real good with the BS. And see, y'all got to understand, so all the conservative media, see, they were all yesterday, they were all yesterday trying to attack Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett because

they wanted to get away from Signalgate. They wanted to get away from what was really going down with all the lies from these Republicans. So they thought, oh, well, let's just sit here and, you know, let's just change the subject. You know, but then you got... I mean, y'all do remember Bobbitt, little Bobert. Y'all remember, you know, that's the one who was in the movie theater?

Come on, move. Thank you. Y'all remember this one here? Y'all remember right there? You know, then she lied about it. Yeah, that's... Y'all want to call somebody trash and ghetto? Right there.

This fool right here. That's trash and ghetto right there all day, every day. And she might want to be concerned about her little crazy-ass kids who got some issues as well. Then you got this fool... Then you got this fool here. Now the this fool here, now the same Boebert,

now she trying to threaten D.C. She don't like the fact that Democrats with the Gulf of America, which is stupid, it's called the Gulf of Mexico. And so now she trying to say, we might change the District of America. Listen to this fool. I would caution my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to refrain from making fun of the Gulf of America because next up, you know, may end up be the District of America that we're

working on. So, um, just, you know, keep the jokes at bay and, you know, maybe we'll just stick with the Gulf of America for now. No, we ain't sticking with nothing. We're gonna call you what you are, dumbass fool. That's actually what you are, and so I'm just going to call it what it is. But I just want y'all to understand,

the racist, they can't use the N-word. Well, then, not really, because Trump and Elon will give them approval. So what they want to do is, damn, we can't call you the N-word. We can call you ghetto. See, they got all these different euphemisms and different names of what they want to call you.. See, they got all these different euphemisms and different

names when they want to call you. But since they want to say she's ghetto, well, let's just go ahead and see how she broke it down today in the Crockett Chronicles. Go ahead, roll the stinger, the Crockett Chronicles stinger. All right. So they've been demanding the congresswoman apologize.

She's like, no, that ain't happening. And she lit that ass up today and had some choice words for Fox News. And, damn, if I had some tea I'm here for it it should not be surprising that the president is doing everything possible to make it more difficult for the media to hold him accountable and for the public to be informed about his reckless and illegal behavior yet here we are the Republicans have actually organized this goofy hearing to try to convince the American people that PBS and NPR are, quote, domestic terrorists or domestic threats. My apologies. Not the incompetent, unqualified secretary of defense who's texting war plant, who's texting war plans to journalists. But it's it's y'all PBS and NPR. The American people are supposed to be worried about.

You can't make this up. It's as stupidall, PBS and NPR, the American people are supposed to be worried about. You can't make this up. It's as stupid as it sounds. The American people should be worried about the president threatening to investigate NBC for treason for reporting on his felony convictions or arresting reporters and stripping networks of their licenses for not saying nice things about him or not using Gulf of America. The Republicans' witness, Mr. Gonzalez, went so far as to suggest that because NPR and PBS reported on the murder of George Floyd, they, quote, represent a danger to our physical health as well as to civic health of our body politics. Ms. Mayer, do you think reporting on the murder of George Floyd and highlighting instances of systemic racism is a domestic threat

to America? Thank you, Congresswoman. I believe it's our responsibility to report on all issues of interest to the American public. Thank you so much. Ms. Karger, what about you? I agree. I think it's important for us to report on the important news of the day.

So let's talk about the critical role of public media. During his first term, President Trump's own Department of Homeland Security highlighted the television stations play a crucial role in protecting communities by delivering essential information to individuals and first responders. These benefits are all made possible by public broadcasting stations, unique reach, reliability and role across America and are especially vital in rural and underserved areas. Madam Chairwoman, I would ask unanimous consent. I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record the 2018 report. Without objection, so ordered. And Madam Chair, I also seek unanimous consent to enter into the record the 2019 report titled Modernizing the Nation's Public Alert and Warning System from Trump's...

Without objection, so ordered. In the report report FEMA encouraged quote the use of public broadcast capabilities to expand alert warning and communication capabilities to fill gaps in rural and underserved areas Mr. Ullman what's a more significant domestic threat reporting the murder of George Floyd or dismantling most of America's emergency communication systems can you please repeat the question for me, Congresswoman? Dismantling the emergency systems. that in Alaska, Borough, Alaska is the only, I'm sorry. And isn't it true that KBRWAM in Borough, Alaska is the only broadcast service available

in an area of more than 90,000 square miles? That is correct. It's also the North Slope where the majority of all the oil production that comes from Alaska takes place. Thank you so much. And isn't it true that without these stations broadcast, Americans in rural communities would lack access to life-saving information and public safety alerts? That is correct. So in your opinion, would eliminating

funding for stations in rural America like WNGH Channel 18 in the Chairwoman's District hurt Americans? It would hurt Americans, yes. In fact, Georgia Public Broadcasting serves as the official distributor of evacuation route information during state-ordered evacuations, and the chairwoman is here advocating to strip their funding. Look, the Doge agenda isn't about government efficiency.

It's about breeding corruption at the expense of the safety of the American people, particularly Americans living in rural or remote parts of the country. They don't care about public safety. They don't care about of the country. They don't care about public safety. They don't care about emergency management. And they don't care about free speech, all of which are harming American people. In fact, I'm going to skip off real quick because they have tried to come for you, Ms.

Mayor. And I just want to clarify, you did not work for NPR when those statements were made, did you? That is correct, Madam Chair. And to be clear, free speech is not about whatever it is that y'all want somebody to say. And the idea that you want to shut down everybody that is not Fox News is bullshit. We need to stop playing because that's what y'all are doing in here. You don't want to hear the opinions of anybody else and the Constitution says Congress shall make no law respecting or establishing

of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the free exercise thereof or express. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Well, shit. How in your business, Jasmine?

I'm so sick and tired of these damn racist, Joy. And that's what they are. They racist. All of you get out. You get out. That's all it is. They want to say the N-word so bad. And guess what?

Y'all can go to hell with your censure because if you got that fool Green, you got that fool Andy Ogles who lied on his campaign finance Ogles who loaned his, who lied on his campaign finance reports about a loan he got. You got the racist congressman

there from Arizona. They could all go straight to hell. And so you're going to come for Jasmine Crockett. You coming for all of us. Absolutely. And I mean, nobody is worried about them censoring her. They are completely illegitimate. They are a joke.

And frankly, if you do that, it's only going to mean more people are going to give to her. It's only going to increase her popularity. It's only going to make sure more people are listening to her and receiving her message. So do what you will. This woman is not worried about you calling her names, and neither are the rest of us. We are no longer falling for your ridiculous, racist, misogynist, misogynoir arguments. And by the way, the greatest threat to people with disabilities has been and continues to be now Donald Trump

and the policies he advocates for. And that includes Greg Abbott and the things that he has done in the state of Texas. They are an existential threat to people with disabilities. So keep people with disabilities out of your mouth. When Donald Trump is eliminating DEI programs, what they forget to mention is that these are usually DEIA. A stands for accessibility programs. Donald Trump has actively stood up with his own mouth and disparaged people with disabilities, including around the time when we were talking about that plane crash in Washington, D.C., suggesting that you can't work if you are a person with disabilities.

These people are ridiculous. No one is falling for it. And frankly, at this point, if you are complimented, they are complimenting you. That means you're not doing anything. You're doing their bidding. The only safe place, the only moral place to be in this moment is part of the resistance. And if they are attacking you, then that is the best sign that you are right where the Lord means you to be. And then, of course, you always got these loudmouth folk

who showed their asses, such as Michael Rappaport, Jolanda. And so he responded to my tweet where he called her a race hustler. And so this is what he posted. And let's be real clear. Michael Rappaport, you not funny. You not an interesting comedian. Nowhere in the hill I would even go see one of your shows.

He goes, she's a lowlife for that alone besides the list of all of her other race hustling con work. But that comment puts her in the Michael Rapaport official shitbag list. Michael Rapaport, you ain't even relevant enough to have a list. But who is Michael Rappaport? And there you go.

You've been in sports, and people say, like, who's he? Well, that's what I have to say to him, first of all. Second of all, I have to say that sometimes you have to speak non-Queens English in order to make your point. Third of all, they're jealous of her. They're jealous of the attention she gets. And since their intelligence doesn't afford them a grand vocabulary, then they have to try to

do put downs like they're doing with her. I can't help it that the woman speaks in soundbites. I can't help it that the woman connects with people with our most base fears. I can't help it if she is not afraid to say what most people are terrified to say. And I know with older black people who experienced Jim Crow and segregation and lynchings, they appreciate that a black woman is in the halls of Congress and can talk back to these white folks that were oppressing us. And guess what? They're saying, keep on doing it, Jasmine. And you know what? If she didn't have the ball, they wouldn't be coming for her.

Trust and believe that. Y'all mad. So first of all, is she too ghetto or is she too educated? I don't understand. Right. And why? And why? If I have the ability to, or the talent, like the qualifications, to go to an elite school now is used against me.

And you're telling me because I go to the best schools and I get an undergraduate degree and I get a law degree that I have to disassociate from where I'm from? I have to lose my blackness? Why? That's actually believing that in order to be smart, you have to be white or you have to do white stuff. And like you said, Roland, and this is what you left out. How many of these people want babies with black men because they're trying to be us, right? And they buy fake hair. Somebody got fake hair, but we can't do it. They buy fake lashes.

They put on fake hair. Somebody got fake hair, but we can't do it. They buy fake lashes. They put on fake lips. And when you have a person in Congress literally being disrespectful, who's representing the United States of America in another country, telling another country, you are not important. I ain't listening to what you got to say. Then that's craziness. It's embarrassing. Hell, they should be saying I'm embarrassed to be an American with what she's doing. And here's what's important about what Congresswoman Crockett does. She might get you because she is probably one of the best with comebacks, but she's talking about policy failures for them. I can't help it that she says it in a way that people believe it. And when you speak, it's falling on deaf ears. Something else,

she's fighting for the vulnerable. She was at the HRC, which is an advocacy group for LGBT people. Trump and Governor Abbott come for gay people, so she fighting for them. And it's Republican hypocrisy. When they stand up, they disrespect the President Obama, they disrespect the Joe Biden, and Jasmine says something. It's an act of war. Listen, Trump called every governor names. He said here, you know, he called Gavin Newsom scum. He used all kinds of names, Rebecca.

That's who these people are. So they ain't got no room to lecture nobody. Nobody. Rebecca, go ahead. Jasmine's not ghetto. She grew up in St. Louis with my cousin Bobby. She's not ghetto at all. Here's the thing. I'd rather be Jasmine Crockett

than Chuck Schumer. Someone who's appearing to be feckless when it comes to protecting the rights of Americans and not properly standing up as a minority leader or as the opposition leader in the Senate. I'd rather be Jasmine Crockett than an American idol reject like Marjorie Taylor Greene. So, I mean, there's so many, like, they say it as if it's not a badge of honor. All of us on this panel here, all three of us on this panel,

we're attorneys, we're Black women. I'm sure all sorts of our classmates want to call us ghetto, the N-word, and all sorts of other names because we're brilliant in how we show up. And so is Jasmine Crockett. I think it's great that she's being an effective voice that's cutting through the noise,

because we're not seeing enough of that in what should be the opposition party against this administration. So good for Jasmine. Well, it's real simple. We got some other stuff we got to get to, but listen, King Wallonius made it plain. I posted this on Instagram yesterday.

Instagram removed the audio. I don't know why they did it, but I'm just saying I'm in the mood for this here when it comes to just describing Marjorie Taylor Greene. So y'all keep the panel up. Turn the audio up. So I just simply can't help myself for this King Wallonius hit song right here that I think is a banger.

Choir. Choir. She built like a hoot. This is by Mars Taylor Greene, y'all. She built like a hoot. Thank you. One more time for the people in the back. Be blonde. Fair deal. But body. Ah. Don't. Don't come for me.

Yeah. Big back. Oh. I on me. Yeah. Give me back. Oh. Ooh. I got time. Ooh. To take a lap back. Lap back.

You crossed the line. Give me back. Oh, you're a big dog. Yo. MTG. Oh. I don't want you. Don't you play with me.

Oh. Big dog. Mm-hmm. Oh, I don't want you. Don't play with me. Oh, he's gone. Bad guilt. Put your body. Say it again now. He's gone. Bad guilt. Put your body. One more time for the people in the back.

Oh, oh, yeah. I'm just saying, y'all want to keep it up. It's all good. We can go there if y'all want to go there. I'm just saying. We'll go there if you want to. You can't outdo black people. No, we will be petty as hell.

That's why they can't stand Jasmine. So it's all good. So we don't really give a damn of what y'all gotta say. And if y'all wanna play that censure game, guess what? We gonna come after every single one of y'all for the racist comments. And so, data lash, matte wash, all y'all can holler about her eyelashes,

how she's ghetto. But in the words of Della Reese from Hall of Knights, you can kiss our entire black ass. I'll be right back. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. Succession. We're hearing that word pop up a lot these days as our country continues to fracture and divide.

But did you know that that idea, essentially a breaking up of the USA, has been part of the public debate since long before and long after the Civil War, right up to today. On our next show, you'll meet Richard Crichton, the author of this book, who says breaking up this great experiment called America might not be such a bad thing. That's on the next Black Table right here on the Black Star Network.

What's up, y'all? Look, Fanbase is more than a platform. It's a movement to empower creators, offering a unique opportunity for everyday people to invest in Black-owned tech, infrastructure, and help shape the future of social media. Investing in technology is essential for creating long-term wealth and influence in the digital age. The Black community must not only consume tech, we must own it. How equity crowdfunding can serve as a powerful tool for funding black businesses, allowing entrepreneurs to raise capital directly to rule their community through the jobs act. This is Essence Atkins. Celeb King of R&B, Raheem Devon. Me, Sherri Shebron. And you know what you watch.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. I told y'all those Republicans in Tennessee are just beyond stuck on stupid. They act a fool all the damn time. Well, guess what? My man,

State Representative Justin Pearson, was not having it. Tennessee Holler dropped this video here where they went at it because this one Republican was criticizing Justin for not being at the Capitol when he was mourning the death of his brother who took his own life. And things got a little heated on the floor.

Justin, talk your shit. We need to do something about the gun violence epidemic, and now is the time to do it. And I will continue to advocate for that because I believe in it, personally, from our family's own experience to the experiences of too many people in our district and in our community

who are suffering from the lack of good laws and good regulation. You don't have to throw out responsible gun ownership on behalf of the Second Amendment. I know every member in this committee has been here this year working during committee, during session, voting on bills. Yes, sir. And I know you may have some things going on, but you have not. So I don't think it's fair for you to come in front of this committee and lecture us on hard work and convictions. We've been here working. Thank you, Chair Farmer, for your comments.

They incense me. They make me very, very angry, not just because of the lack of regard, but the disrespect and the same denigrating tone that you used on the State House floor when the vote to expel me happened. It's disrespectful. It's unbecoming, and it's beneath the standard of a person who's supposed to represent in the Tennessee House of Representatives. It is a pathetic excuse for you to not answer the question of why we are, passed away from gun suicide on December 1st of 2024. Shattered my family like gun violence has shattered so many families. Shattered my nephew's life, my mother, my father, my other brothers who are remaining. I buried my brother.

I planned for his entire funeral. My fiance made his obituary. I made sure that he was taken care of even in death. That's what I've been doing. But also, not just that. I went to all of my nephew's schools. I met with their principals and their teachers to ensure that they are okay. I made sure that they had grief counseling and that they're seeing a psychiatrist.

That's what I've been doing. And while you're talking about hard work, you need to realize that our job is not just in this statehouse with these marble floors. Our jobs are on the streets and in the communities that we serve. And so while you've been here passing bills that have been hurting transgender children, while you've been here passing bills that have been hurting the poor, hurting the marginalized, hurting the disenfranchised, while you've been here passing bills that have not ended poverty, while you've been here passing bills that have not helped people who need Medicaid expansion, while you've been here doing the hard work of making sure that our state is not the state that it can be because you have to sign it.

Representative Pearson. I've been in my community meeting with seniors, meeting with young people. That's what I've been doing. Hard work doesn't just happen with this legislation. It happens in our communities. Representative Pearson. While you've been here doing that, I've been in my community. And it's taking your grief and your pain and your heartache and it's standing in front of people who you know may not like you.

Standing in front of people who you know will disrespect you. We need to pass better laws, better legislation and fight for a state where everybody is able to live more freely from the pain of gun violence that me and my family are experiencing. That's what you need to think about, Chair McCall. And if you can't take that, learn to shut up. Learn to shut up. Ladies and gentlemen, Representative Pearson, it seems that it's very common in your party when you disagree with a comment. Now, let's not disrespect all of you.

I have a family. I've made sacrifices every year. Representative Pearson, I know this is a very difficult time for you to be back up here. I'm sorry for all the things that you've experienced. You've been a great uncle. You've done the things that you were supposed to do to help your family. If I was in the same situation you were in, I would be doing the same thing. I understand that. Okay. I know tensions are high. Disrespect is high, Chairman. We are now voting House Bill 1392 on the full judiciary. Mr. Chairman, you have two ayes, seven nays.

The noes prevail. House Bill 1392 fails. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. Hey, reference to the person. No, sir. No, no, no, sir. Don't touch him. Do not touch him. No, do not touch him. No, do not touch him. Yo, this is real simple, Rebecca.

We ain't tolerating this nonsense. Like, these folks actually think that the black folks today are the ones who will fall on bended knee and will keep their head down. Yes, boss. Yes, boss. Yes, boss. No, no, no, no. Hell no. I don't give a damn if you got that racist in the White House. I don't give a damn if you got that racist in the White House.

I don't give a damn if you got that apartheid-loving Elon Musk. No, ain't no way in the hell they think they gonna keep disrespecting black folk and we not gonna respond accordingly. You know, that was really, um, hard to watch and condolences, um, to the representative. But here's a warning. Y'all better leave black people alone. We are sick and tired. Y'all better leave Black people alone.

We are sick and tired. Y'all trying to take everything away from us. You're trying to call us stupid. You're trying to call us ghetto. You're saying that you're going to remove DEI because we're unqualified. Y'all better leave us the F alone. Because at this point, here's the thing, we built this country, which means we know the ins and the outs and exactly how this country operates. Y'all better leave us alone. Let us just mind our own business and don't come for us, because y'all are going to keep pushing, and it's going to reach a point where Black America is like, OK, cool. Since we built this house, we can also unbuild it.

So leave us alone. Joy? That is correct. Look, do not let Elon Musk and whoever this other representative was and Donald Trump cash with their mouths something that your butt cannot cash in, cannot pay. leave us alone we are not the ones and that's for people who you know you might think look you know nice and quiet and who aren't gonna give you your business handed to you and those who you think might nobody is tolerating it not the people at your job not the people in your neighborhood not the people that you you know think you can get things away with. We're not tolerating it anymore. And we're not being nice about it. And we're also letting you

know where you stand with us. So much of this country is about what white people think. We care about what we think. And we're going to start telling you. And I think sometimes we held back in part for survival, in part because we were trying to go along to get along. But you have shown that that does not work. So the gloves are off. So now we're going to start telling you the truth. And what he did was he married

policy with the fury, the righteous fury that he had with personal experience. You cannot beat that. And that is why that representative looked silly, why his wife

and his children are embarrassed tonight to know him. Because the whole world sees who he is. And he ain't you know what. And that's one of the reasons right there Jolanda why that Republican chair had the proper tone and respect. Yes.

So go ahead. And I've got to tell you, so I don't know if you know this, but my condolences go off to Representative Pearson. My father killed himself. I was with my dad when he killed himself. Two of my uncles killed themselves. And we need time to grieve. And if he's so insensitive to not understand why that representative, Pearson, might be at home with his family during that time of grief, he don't need to be elected, first of all. Second of all, at this moment in time in history,

and trust me, there's a fork in the road right now. And we either better fight back or we're going to be destroyed. We're going to be taken back to before Jim Crow, that every single solitary time we see racism and disrespect, we absolutely better point it out, right? And if you come at him disrespectfully like that, black people right now need strong leadership. And what they did back in slavery times is they would take our strongest black men and they were drawing a quarter of them to get every other Negro in line, every other slave in line. So guess what? We cannot allow that to happen. We need to fortify him. We need to, I'll say, we ain't got no place. Like, that's what they think that we're supposed to be, except for we are more intelligent,

we've tasted some freedom, and we're going to fight for it. And we're not going to let you just disrespect us. And if you grew up in the hood like I grew up in the hood, I'm going to say that again, if you grew up in the hood like I grew up in the hood, if you let a bully bully you, they will continue to bully you. Sometimes you need to bust them in the face and make them think twice. And I bet you what, when Representative Pearson was over there by him, he was sitting real quiet, wasn't he?

Got it. Because he had real big nuts when he was there trying to put him down, except for he effed around and found out that you can't come for him like that. And I'm thankful that the chair got the appropriate tone, because if you can't go support your family in a time of death, I mean, that's unacceptable. And I'm angry about it, my damn self. Folks, lots of anger has been expressed on Capitol Hill as Republicans continue to lie repeatedly over and over and over again about this signal chat where they were sharing classified information. text messages today showing you the conversation. And instead of them just admitting to it, now they try to, oh, well, let's dance around it.

And, oh, well, no, now shift blame. And Democrats were giving them hell. Peter Heck said he's out here still trying to defend it. And it's like, y'all screwed up. They don't want to own up to the screw up. What they want to do is they want to keep trying to shift it and shift the blame over and over and over again. There's also a story that says here that a Department of Defense official

allowed them to install Signal because they've been having these open chats because, again, you're not keeping a record when you're supposed to actually be keeping a record. And listen, there are some folk who are not having it. And one of those, of course, is veteran Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth. She lost several of her limbs fighting for this country. She went on Fox News. She just let them know exactly how she stood about lying as Pete Hegseth.

Watch this. You said Pete Hegseth is an effing liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could have gotten our pilots killed. You say he needs to resign. Here is Secretary Hegseth dealing with those questions today. Nobody's texting war plants. There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information. You know who sees war plans? I see them. Every single day. So you think he should step down? I do, because what he texted was, the drones are going to hit, then the second sortie of F-18s will be on target. That tells the enemy exactly when the drones hit

in that spot, 30 minutes later, the F-18s are going to be there. That is my concern. That's why I'm so upset as a former pilot. You know, I have a special affinity for pilots who are out there. And these men and women, thank goodness we're not, you know, we're not injured on this mission. And I worry about future missions. I worry that our allies might not share information with us if they feel that we do not know how to safeguard. Hey, she cut right to the chase, y'all, on that one. And so, but you got these folks out here who just continue their BS. You know, Will Cain, you know, who is just one of the biggest MAGA ass kissers that exist. I mean, he

got into it today with Congressman Jim Crow over this whole issue. And here's Will Cain, who ain't served a day in the military going against a member of Congress who did serve in the military. Watch this exchange. Two more questions. Was the location of those

strikes in that messaging? I don't believe the locations were, but that doesn't matter. Were the targets, were the targets, were the targets listed in that? Will, these are regional air defense systems. These are regional air defense systems. Let me explain how this works. Will the targets listed in that? Will, these are regional air defense systems. These are regional air defense systems. Let me explain how an SA-3 and an SA-6 works. These are the two systems that the Houthis have that they got from the Russians. If they know that aircraft are flying over a region or an area, not even a specific target, they can launch an SA-3 and an SA-6, much like they did when they shot down the MQ-9 Reaper drone last year. So they don't need to know the exact location. So here you have people on this signal text chain, one of whom, by the way, was sitting in Moscow when this happened, but was

sitting in Moscow, the most dangerous environment in the world for a cell phone. And they were saying that we are launching strikes. So if the Houthis knew about that, they could have shot him down. Will Kane, I know the details. You know what I'm saying, serving in the military? That man's trying to tell you. This is why I dropped this

Black Star Network inaugural award last night on Will Kane. The Golden Trump MAGA Ask Kissing Award, honoring a lifetime of exceptional flattery and unwavering dedication to Ask Kissing excellence, awarded to Fox News' Will Kane. For unparalleled commitment to the fine art of sycophancy, this prestigious honor recognizes those who have bent over backward, perfected the art of empty praise, and elevated brown nosing to an Olympic-level sport.

From his relentless nodding in agreement to his uncanny ability to compliment even the most questionable decisions, Will Kane has demonstrated an unwavering devotion to the craft of kissing ass. His lips have graced the ass of twice-impeached, criminally convicted felon-in-chief Don the Con Trump with such finesse that even history itself must pause in admiration. May this golden Trump manga as kissing award serve as a symbol of Will Kane's lifelong achievement

of puckering up and kissing the ass of a wannabe dictator and ensuring his legacy of loyalty remains forever unchecked. Well earned. Today on Capitol Hill, you had, of course, Tulsi Gabbard lying before Congress and Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas, he wasn't having none of it. Tulsi, you and I came into the Congress together in 2013. Congressman Jeffers, ready? And Cash, you and I, I was serving on the Intelligence Committee when you worked on the Intelligence Committee, and John, you and I are both from Texas, and we both served

together on the Intelligence Committee. Y'all, the idea that this information, if it was presented to our committee, would not be classified, y'all know is a lie. That's ridiculous. I've seen things much less sensitive be presented to us with high classification.

And to say that it isn't is a lie to the country. I want to ask the generals now. The NSA is principally in charge of intercepting things like signals intelligence from other countries. General, I want to ask you, if your organization, your agency, intercepted something like this from Russia or China or some other country, would you consider this classified? Folks, the amount of lying that we are seeing today, they are attacking everybody. They're attacking Jeffrey Goldberg.

Now they're claiming, oh, Elon Musk and Doge are going to be investigating how he got into a signal chat. Y'all, I got signal. You add somebody from your phone. I'm sorry. This is not hard for us. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic leader, dropped a letter yesterday calling on Pete Hegseth to resign. He joins us right now. Democratic leader Jeffries, glad to have you here. Let's just be real clear. Peter Hegseth replaced a retired four star general,

a man whose resume that Peter Hegs said couldn't even carry. This man is an embarrassment, and now he's trying to say, oh, no, there were no warplanes, things along those lines. If you are the defense secretary, and you have a group chat, and the secretary states on it, and you have a national security advisor, director of national intelligence, and a CIA, it is not hard to click and check to see who is all on this chat before you're having sensitive national security conversations. That's absolutely correct. Hegseth is a complete and total fraud, which is exactly why I called upon Donald Trump directly to fire Pete Hegseth if Hegseth doesn't have the courage

to resign in disgrace and own up to the fact that he's way in over his head. He was never qualified for this position. In fact, he's the most unqualified person ever to hold the position of Secretary of Defense, one of the most important positions in the entire United States government, in fact, in the free world. I mean, this is not hard. They sort of did it yesterday. Made a mistake, move on.

No, now you want to double down. Now you want to attack. Then you want to claim what's classified. Then you want to claim what's not classified. Then you want to attack the reporter. You want to attack the media. You want to attack Democrats. They screwed up. They screwed up. And now they all know, yeah, the signal was loaded. Now one reporter is suggesting that they gave a waiver to allow signal, which means that if that's the case, they are purposely trying to skirt Freedom of Information Act.

They also do not want those records to be kept. They are purposely trying to break the law. It appears that several laws have been violated, including the Espionage Act, and that's one of the things that Democrats are going to continue to press forward on as it relates to this investigation and the unfolding scandal. We're going to make sure people are held accountable. And there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. And what we saw over the last few days was just lies and evasion and attempts to deflect. This is the pattern that this administration has continued to engage in.

We ain't going to let them get away with it. We are going to keep pressing the case on this. This is only the beginning. Here's the other thing, Roland. Pete Hegseth is the poster child for mediocrity. But at the same time, this dude wants to lecture the country about meritocracy. Are you kidding? Like, it's a laughable situation.

He wants to erase and cancel Jackie Robinson's military history and record. the bravery and heroism of the Tuskegee Airmen, who were so skilled and gifted that other fighter pilots and bombers only wanted them to have their back when they were flying over Nazi Germany. He wants to erase that history. They want to claim that it's all about merit. It ain't all about merit. We believe in merit. Merit should be based on what you know.

But instead, they want merit based on who you know. And because they think Pete Hexeth looks the part, whatever that means, they put this woefully unqualified person into the position, and now they're failing in real time. We talk about unqualified. Here we got four United States soldiers missing for 14 hours. NATO says they were found dead. Hasn't been confirmed by the U.S. military. We literally have not heard from the U.S. military. And here is the twice impeached, criminally convicted felon con man, Donald Trump. This is when he was asked in the Oval Office about this. Listen. Have you been briefed about the soldiers in Lithuania who are missing? No, I haven't. Mr. President, I haven't spoken, sir, with the big...

Confused. If President Joe Biden had answered a question that he wasn't being briefed, they would say, who's running the White House? Who's doing what? This man is not working. How is it that you have sold four United States soldiers missing for 14 hours, and he's like, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Nobody's talked to me. And yesterday, he wasn't aware of the signal as well. I'm sorry.

Who's running the country? Perhaps Elon Musk, which is disturbing in and of itself. The whole thing is a malignant clown show. Emphasis on the word malignant because it's very dangerous. And what we're seeing is that the health, the safety, the national security, the well-being of the American people are at risk. The well-being of our troops are at risk. And this is extraordinary, but it was bound to catch up to these people and it's catching up to them with record speed.

This is the excuse making to me is beyond belief. And let's just be clear. Your counterpart, House Speaker Mike Johnson, oh, my God. Talk about gutless. I mean, so it's just more excuses. The reality is that you do not have a party across the aisle that wants to keep this man in check. Thank goodness Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi said they got a bipartisan call for an inspector general to do a report on what happened here. But the reality is Republicans in the House, in the Senate, they don't care. They want this man to do whatever he wants. There will be no accountability.

And all they offer is a slew of excuses over and over and over. That's right. By the way, it tried to fire all of the inspector generals we had to sue and judges had to reverse it because it was an unlawful action. And it's my sense, certainly

I mean, the House Republican Conference, forget about them. They continue to bury their heads in the sand. They think they work for Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Congress works for the American people. And so their sycophantic behavior, we expect that that's going to continue. But we will press the case. We're going to use every lever available to us to make sure that we follow the facts,

we apply the law, we're guided by the Constitution, we expose these frauds for who they are and then make sure that there is some accountability. Here's the thing. What the House Republicans are interested in at the end of the day, they've done nothing to make life more affordable, nothing to lower costs. Costs are going up. They're not going down. Inflation is going up. What's going down are the retirement savings of the American people. They're trying to gut Social Security, gut Medicare, gut Medicaid, gut veterans benefits, gut nutritional assistance for children and families. Literally, they want to take food out of the mouths of babies. Why are they doing all of this? So they can pass the GOP tax scam and give massive tax cuts to their

billionaire puppet masters like Elon Musk. So we have to continue to expose what's happening on the Hill, push back into Congress, push back into courts, push back in communities all across the country so we can win the hearts and minds of the American people and end this national nightmare as soon as possible. On that particular point there, obviously midterm elections are not happening until next year. What we have going on,

you've got some gubernatorial races this year. You've got some constitutional amendments on the ballot in Louisiana this Saturday. The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is taking place on April 1st. You also, of course, just had a special election where a Democrat won a state Senate race in Pennsylvania in the district that Trump won by 15 points.

You got people who are still sitting here saying, oh, my God, Democrats are not doing enough. What are you and others doing? On Monday, we live-streamed the conversation between you and Ken Martin. That was moderated by Recy Colbert. We live streamed that right here on the Black Star Network. Democrats are winning in these places.

So this idea, and also you're only down three in the House. You've got two special elections in Florida and some red districts. You've got one in New York State. So I'm confused. This doom and gloom, everything is over. Democrats polling is at 29%. Uh, but what are you seeing? What are you hearing? And, uh, um, and what do you say to those who just think that the world has ended, uh, and Democrats will keep losing elections for forever? Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up, Roland, because the reality is, in all of these different arenas,

we actually are winning. House Democrats outraised House Republicans in January. In fact, House Democrats had a record January in terms of our history in an off year. We outraised them by $4 million. Then in February, we outraised outraised them by $4 million. Then in February, we outraised House Republicans again by $2 million. In fact, House Democrats outraised Senate Republicans as well, which almost never happens. At the same period of time, we won a special election in Iowa,

a state Senate race. In January, that was a race in a district that Trump had won by 21 points and a Democrat won by four. That was a 25-point turnaround. Trump had literally just won that district by 21 points in November, just two months before. Then in February, an African-American won a special election for county executive in Westchester County, one of the suburban counties, swing counties, represented by a Republican in Congress, Mike Lawler. We did our thing there. Then, as you pointed out, Roland, we just had another special election in Pennsylvania, a district that Trump had won by 15 points, and a Democrat turned around and won it.

And so the American people are rising up. Democrats are actually energized and turning out to vote. Republicans are the ones who are apparently demoralized. They're not turning out. And then swing voters, independent voters in these races, are actually voting for the Democratic candidate, because they know that we have a vision to build an economy that works for everyday Americans and to push back against these attacks on our democracy. And Republicans are trying to create a country

of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. And that's a totally unacceptable vision. In addition to that, we're now seeing these news stories come out how Donald Trump is having food delivery trucks turned around. You've got food banks in Ohio and other places that are not getting food. I thought these people were pro-life.

Yeah, it's extraordinary. It's all phony. I mean, it's all phony. At the end of the day, what drives them is massive tax breaks for billionaires and wealthy corporations. All this talk about trying to make life better for working class Americans, that went out the door the day after they won. And now it's just an extreme agenda dismantling the Social Security Administration in real time. Why would they go after our parents and our grandparents, who rely upon Social Security to live?

On average, $65 a day, but they're leaving Elon Musk alone, who's got $8 million a day in federal contracts? They're going to send out their check. It's insane. Well, I'm glad you brought up Social Security. There's been a lot of conversation. We covered this the other day. You had the Commerce Secretary, billionaire, worth $4 billion doing a show where he brought up if Social Security checks were late for his mother-in-law. This is what he had to say.

This is Howard Lutnick. Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She'd think something got messed up, and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling, and complaining. Okay, I'm sorry. This man is worth $4 billion. Okay, let's be real clear.

If I got $4 billion, my mother-in-law, unfortunately mine is deceased. She ain't waiting on a Social Security check. Let's just be real clear. But this idea that, oh, she wouldn't say anything. She was waiting for it next month. The millions of people that depend on that check being on time. How arrogant is this billionaire making a claim like that? And basically, he's saying, if you're upset that your Social Security check is late, you're a fraudster.

My mother relies on her Social Security check. Her son is not a billionaire, and I can tell you that if that Social Security check is late, even a day late, she's on the phone with her congressman's son trying to figure out what happens, open up a constituent case. Why? Because she needs it, just like millions and millions of others all across the country. And by the way, Social Security is an earned benefit. People have paid into Social Security and Medicare throughout their entire lives.

This isn't charity. These are benefits that they've earned and that they deserve. They've worked hard for their entire lives. And it is arrogance, as you've indicated. But what we've seen from this administration and the Pete Hegseth Signalgate scandal, national security scandal, is evidence of this. It's a combination of arrogance and incompetence. That's a toxic combination, and the American people are paying the price. Absolutely. Last question I have for you, Congressman. A lot of folks have been paying attention to when it came to the CR bill. You and the Democrats held strong against that.

Senator Chuck Schumer voted for that. Folks were speculating, you know, and we've heard others say there needs to be a change. What is the state of your relationship with Senator Chuck Schumer? And can people expect to see that Democrats are going to vigorously fight this administration? I made the point,

the guy who won the race in Pennsylvania last night, he ran a campaign where he went hard against Trump, against Elon Musk. People out there want to see Democrats fighting for what's right, fighting for the values. Is Senator Chuck Schumer up for this battle? Yes, I believe so. We had a strong disagreement. And there's no sugarcoating that and a different view about how to approach what we as House Democrats viewed as a reckless Republican spending bill that would hurt children, hurt families, hurt seniors, hurt veterans. totally unacceptable, and we were ready to aggressively push back and have that kind of public debate, discussion, fight, battle on behalf of the American people. Now subsequent to that disagreement, Chuck Schumer and I sat down. I've known him for a long period of time. We both live in Brooklyn.

We had an open and honest and candid conversation about the way forward. And though we disagreed about the spending issue, we do agree on the overwhelming majority of issues. And I think we're going to be in alignment on the fights to come, particularly as it relates to the need to save the health care of the American people and push back against and stop the Republican effort to visit upon the American people the largest Medicaid cut in American history, which is outrageous and disgusting and needs to be stopped. All right, then. Well, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, we appreciate it. And, hey, again, you and Ken Martin sat down, and I'll throw this out. I would love to host in our studio, y'all just tell me how much time y'all want to do it,

you, Senator Schumer, and Ken Martin to have a conversation about the future forward of the Democratic Party. You guys let me know when we can make it happen. Count me in. I look forward to making that happen. All right. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Okay, man. Folks, bringing my panel

here, bringing in, of course, Rebecca, Joy, and Jolanda. I'll start with you. Rebecca, I'll start with you. They want to see you fighting. One of the reasons why we discussed this earlier,

why people gravitate towards Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. One of the reasons why, when it comes to the view in other shows, why her numbers are so high, because the audience says, yo, somebody's showing some spirit. We're seeing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We're seeing these rallies she's doing across the country with Senator Bernie Sanders. We're seeing this happen with so many different people. They want to see a fight. And what has happened this week with these signal chats, they have got a chance to see on television, on social media,

in digital spaces, Senator Mark Warner and others and House members really going hard. That has to be happening every single day on critical issues. You know, absolutely, Roland, this country, the house is on fire. We don't need people to have a committee hearing figuring out what caused the fire. We need people to step up and immediately put the fire out. I put in the YouTube chat a quick explanation of why the signal chat, why these text messages are such a big deal. People have to understand that the text messages that were shared are both top secret and secret. What's the how? The classification standards are, if it is information that's explaining the why, the rationale of our operation that the United States government is doing, then that's at the secret level.

When it's starting to explain the how we operate, how we do the thing, then that becomes top secret. The reason why people should care about that particular story is as soon as our enemies understand the how and the why in which we're carrying out operations around the world, immediately that whole chain of operations, the how we're doing the particular type of operation, immediately goes on a burn notice. It gets burned because there are thousands of people around the world who could be implicated. So even the innocuous part of the conversation, talking about the weather is clear, so this is even the innocuous part of the conversation, talking about the weather is clear, so this is a good time to carry out the operations, that provides our enemies with actual factual information on our satellite positioning. Because in order to

understand some of these text messages, like once again, Hexaf, the rest of them, they're trying to downplay it. But to our enemies, when they're gathering intelligence on us, they have a blank sheet of paper. So what those text messages did is start to fill out the pieces of the paper, the pieces of the puzzle for them to understand the inner workings of how our government is functioning when it comes to international operations. So people have to understand we're not just on fire domestically, we're on fire globally around the world. And we need the opposition party to stand up and do something about it, which is why when you're seeing AOC, when you see Jasmine Crockett, when you see Bernie Sanders going across the country and speaking ghetto or in plain language, it means that they're

actually breaking through local media, breaking through a lot of the Fox and the Sinclair news channels, and people are starting to get clued in. Hey, the country is on fire. Something needs to be done about it. And again, the reason I sat there and put that request in, Jolanda, to Congressman Jeffries,, look, on the night that we had the State of Our

Union, hey, when Trump started speaking in our studios, we had Bishop William Barber. Listen, we were right there with national broadcasters. We had 250,000 folks watching live. And I've been

saying to CBC members, hey, don't just be waiting on invites from, you know, MSNBC. Y'all should be maximizing black-owned media. I've said it point blank. I will have a CBC member on this show every single day, five days a week. All they got to do is pick which one of the day they want to come on, and there are CBC members who are out there fighting.

Stacey Plaskett, Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands. I mean, again, this is her last week talking about the battle over Social Security. Why are they keeping this information and what is the purpose of it? Make no mistake, the Trump administration's actions are to devastate the Social Security administration's ability to serve the public

and deliver Social Security payments so that they can then have access to $2.7 trillion for Wall Street to be able to play with. They need more money because you know what? We're not addicted to spending as my colleague said many people are addicted to greed that's what this is about and the greed happens to be not from themselves but for the american people they that's the ponzi scheme is them taking your damn money and using it for them own self to to enrich themself more than they already... Call it fight. It's called a fight, Jolanda. And people want to see you fight.

Of course they want to see us fight. And that's why people didn't fight for Democrats to win in these last elections, because we, we as a party, aren't fighting. And I can tell you what, when you're used to being oppressed, you at least want to fight. Don't nobody want to like go down and get whooped without a fight. And I told my son, if somebody tries to fight you, you better fight so hard. Either number one,

you win or number two, you fought so hard. They ain't want to get no more of your stuff. And they're going to go to somebody else. And, and, and what we need is we need people speaking in, in plain language, like she was talking about. What she was talking about, they want to take the money that you paid in. Oh, by the way, when the guy was talking about getting paid late that you're a fraudster, no, sir, they took the money timely out of every paycheck we made. We didn't get to pay them when we felt like it. And we paid into that.

But American people, sometimes I fear that we speak over their heads, right? And they may not understand international stuff, because why are you worried about what's going on overseas? You're struggling at home. So these are some things that maybe regular people can understand and make you understand why the defense secretary being incompetent is—you should really care about it, because many of us have our relatives who are in the military, and they're the ones who are sent to the front lines.

So they're the ones, the first ones to go to war. And if some stuff don't go right with how we run the military, our loved ones are the ones that are going to be coming home. So we need to worry about that. When your defense secretary can't even defend his own group chat, that's a problem. How are you going to defend this country? You can't run national defense like a frat house group chat. That's irresponsible. When you're so incompetent, like you said, Roland, that you're sending something on signal to reporters, if somebody knows how I'm doing stuff, then they are more

likely to be able to defend against it. It's no different than if you're an athlete and you scout the other team, right? Before you play, you go see what they good at, what they bad at, look at your weaknesses and your strengths, and figure out how to beat them because you have information. That's exactly what it takes to defend against this country. And as much as this country has disrespected the world and caused people in other countries to die, trust and believe that if that information gets in the wrong hands, the people that are going to be hurt are us. The people that are going to be hurt are our military.

So it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And the thing— I just—I just—I just need folk to understand that—and we kept saying this, Joy, we preached this, we preached this hard, that Project 2025 was real. What these people want to do, listen, this executive order he signed yesterday, Donald Trump wants to give Elon Musk and Doge access to the voter data of every state. Georgia is about to do a purge of 500,000 voters. These people are preparing to steal the 2026 and the 2028 election. Absolutely. Let's be clear. We are at a very vulnerable state as a country. If you were

another country and you were evaluating when to make an attack on the United States, these are the signs that you would look for. We are vulnerable in our elections. We are vulnerable because we are very divided as a nation. We are vulnerable because we have incompetent people in power. And what's worse than them being incompetent is the way that they tried to solve it. So instead of just saying a mistake happened, that's obviously the case. We can obviously see it. Top secret information was shared. It was potentially damaging. Thank God it didn't happen. Let's figure out who's to blame. Let's fix it or let's get rid of the person in Pete Hex's app.

Instead of doing that, they have tried to make, they have tried to say that the journalist was a liar. They have tried to suggest that maybe there was some illegality going on, and how they got in the text chain, they added him to the text chain. OK, that's how it happened, which then required The Atlantic to say, let me just release what was said, so we can stop saying that this didn't happen. It's that they're trying to also blame signals somehow, that it's somehow signals' fault. That is what ruins a country, when you can't even say you made a mistake, you got it wrong, you're bad. It makes people not trust you. It makes you more vulnerable. It means that other

countries now are also saying, what the hell happened? And they're saying, you know what, until we get a full accounting of what happened, we're not going to do business with you. We're not going to share secrets with you. We may share part of it with you, but we're not going to share the whole thing with you because you're not to be trusted. We already have other countries deciding to figure out what's happening in Ukraine and Rwanda, separate and apart from the United States. We are not in the coalition of good people in the world. We are being aligned with the authoritarian regimes. We are in trouble as a nation. We are in trouble.

And it is unruble that Russia has interfered with our elections and brought us here. Well, again, you've got to stay engaged. You've got to be able to say fight. That's one of the reasons why I love this prayer from George Lucas' film Red Tails, because

that's what it was about, fight. Nothing's difficult. Everything's a challenge. Through adversity to the stars. From the last plane to the last bullet to the last minute to the last man, we fight. We fight. We fight.

We fight. We fight. We fight. It's called Fight Time. Quick break. We come back. We're going to chat with Isaac Hayes III, the founder of Fanbase. Everybody's talking about encrypted a

the only one that's out t right back. You're watchi the Black Star Network. H the third founder and ceo to what I'm about to tell invest in fan base is clo over 10.6 million of our $17 million goal. That means there's room for less than 6,370 people to invest in Fanbase for the average

amount. The minimum to invest in Fanbase right now is $399. That makes you an owner in Fanbase today. Go to startengine.com slash fanbase to invest. Why? Because current social apps have taken advantage of users for far too long, with content suppression, shadow banning, harmful racist content, and no real tools for monetization and equity. Fanbase has over 1.4 million users and counting,

allowing anyone to reach all their following and monetize their content from day one. Social media is the new TV, and whoever owns the apps that distribute that content have the opportunity to own potential billion-dollar companies. While big platforms with uncertain futures are failing to serve their users, Fanbase is stepping up to fill the gap.

Don't wait until it's too late. Invest now, invest for yourself and your future. Go to startengine.com slash fanbase and own the next generation of social media. It's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherry Shepard Talk Show. This is your boy, Herb Quaid. And you're tuned in to... Roland Martin, Unfiltered.

All right, folks, encrypted apps are now all everybody's talking about because of all this drama in D.C. over Signalgate. But Signal, of course, is a dominant force in this marketplace. A lot of people, a lot of people have a utilizing Signal, which is an American app. But guess what? It's not the only encrypted app out there. Isaac Hayes III is the founder of the app fan base. He joins us right now. And Isaac, again, folks are talking about it, but this is from PCMag.

They listed some of the top apps. Go to my iPad, Anthony. So we see Signal. They rated the best overall. Signal Private Messenger, biggest user base is WhatsApp. Best for social networking, Telegram. Best for anonymous texting, Session. I never heard of Session. Best for avoiding surveillance, Briar. I never heard of Briar.

And there's one app that I was made aware of. I think it's out of Switzerland. It's called Wire. And so a lot of people are now understanding why these encrypted apps are so important. Yeah, they are. I mean, encrypted apps are important, but they're not bulletproof. They're not, you know, safe from human error. So an encrypted message is secure from transmission to transmission. So I would send a message to you. Meaning phone to transmission. So if I was sending a message to you... Meaning phone to phone.

Yes. So the message is secure from one device to another device. That does not prevent the person on the other end screenshotting that image. It does not prevent metadata collection. And it doesn't prevent someone actually sending the wrong message, like user error. So what Hexeth did is exactly why encryption

is not bulletproof because the sender can actually send the message to the wrong person or the wrong individual. Now encryption is good when it's trusted, but again, screenshots, metadata collection, all those things are harmful. So even when you're using encrypted devices, you have to trust the individuals

that you're sending that information to on the other end. So it's always the trusted source in which you share this information. Well, in fact, this happened last month. Go to my iPad, where the FBI actually urged Americans to begin using encrypted apps because they said that Russia, China, and others, they had invaded the telecoms. It says right here, an unprecedented cyber attack on telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Verizon. U.S. officials have recommended that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure that communications stay hidden from foreign hackers. And they literally say, Isaac, that these hackers were literally inside of these telecoms waiting to unleash, meaning they could see your text messages, your emails,

excuse me, your videos or photos that you posted. And so that's why they were encouraging people to actually begin to use the encrypted apps. Yeah, iMessage on Apple is actually encrypted, even when you do like FaceTime video calls. Again, that's encrypted from sender to receiver and back and forth. But these apps are not built for government-level security. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

I want you to hold there. But even though you use iMessage, if your iMessage is connected to the cloud and all of your messages, so somebody breaks into your cloud account, they can see your text messages with iMessage. So it's not the same because with Signal, it's not like I have two different phones, but I have to actually connect to an account with each phone. It can't be like, well, I connect it on one phone phone it automatically transfers to the other phone correct you have to sign in from device to device um i myself personally do not use icloud i do not store my photos any of my contacts or any of my information on the cloud i i secure that data on actually my laptop yep you know i have a backup there because i've never really trusted the cloud

i don't think a lot of people should always trust the cloud because those types of systems can be hacked and people can see that information. But again, these platforms are not built for government level security to actually serve classified information between parties. And so that's a big error that was made here. You know, there's encrypted securities for, you know, civilian transmission of, you know, normal everyday conversations, companies, things like that. But the government has government level encryption, encrypted devices. And I'm wondering why those devices were not used in conjunction with the secrets and the information that was distributed amongst the people, because this would not have happened if they were using the protocols in place

that we have that have existed before, you know, this new administration. But again, so that's I mean, that's government, that's administration. But the reason it is important for regular ordinary people, understand, is to let you take signal. People don't realize with signal, you can actually send text messages, send photos, PhDs, audio files, video files. You can do phone calls. You can also do video conferencing. And so, by doing that, listen, it was like,

the government whistleblowers actually turned me on the signal because how they wanted to communicate. Because it doesn't leave a record the same way your phone log does and your text message as well. So again, people need to understand that there are pros and cons to this. And when you hear it's safe, that's an oxymoron.

It's not 100% safe. Because as you said, you have to trust the person on the other end when it comes to that data. Ask Eric Adams. They were using WhatsApp, but they were able to recover those WhatsApp messages because on your end, you might have them set to disappear, but they were able to recover those WhatsApp messages because on your end, you

might have them set to disappear, but then somebody else, they may be screenshotting them or saving them. Yeah. If any of the individuals that received that classified information had lost their device and that device is accessible by someone that may find that device. So that's why I said between who you're sending that information to, and it shouldn't be on a platform like Signal because, again, this is classified information. And so we have to be very, very careful about that type of situation. Even, like I said, even civilians, even myself, the information that we send, we use other encrypted devices to send that information. So anybody out there in the world that has a device, it is okay and it's very recommended that you use platforms like WhatsApp, like Telegram.

And Telegram really actually has, Telegram is not always encrypted. That's one that's not always encrypted, but iMessage is another one, and WhatsApp, those are safer platforms that you can actually send messaging information. Well, actually, I told someone they were communicating with their accountant, text message,

I was like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, no, no. If you're communicating with your accountant, you message, I'm like, what are you doing? I'm like, no, no. If you're communicating with your accountant, you need to be on Signal or some encrypted app. Questions from the panel. Jelani, you're first. Well, what I'd like to know, I mean, I use Signal, but what do you think the best is out there?

Again, I think WhatsApp and iMessage are, and I had to ask this question before. I've actually researched this information. I hate WhatsApp and iMessage are, and I had to ask this question before. I've actually researched this information. I hate WhatsApp. I'm sorry, go ahead. Even with FaceTime calls on Apple and messaging. So if you have those devices, again, on Android, I would recommend using WhatsApp. And Roland, why do you hate WhatsApp?

Because, first of all, WhatsApp, its default is automatically for photos and videos, automatically saves in your photo album. Like, that's stupid. Like, why would you be on an encrypted app and you're automatically saving that? That's just dumb. Also, what I hate about WhatsApp, and Ozzy and I don't know if you've had this experience, people can just add you to groups. I've had Bitcoin folks, whatever the hell, and I'm like, who the hell is this? And so it's just way, it's, I just, I don't believe from, I don't believe from I don't believe that WhatsApp is as safe frankly as Signal is. Also Facebook owns WhatsApp. They bought WhatsApp. So I'm not a particular fan of WhatsApp. Now a lot of people

the only reason I utilize WhatsApp because they're because when I travel internationally a lot of people who live overseas, they just rely on WhatsApp. That's the only reason I have it. But if I'm communicating, nah, I just don't particularly like WhatsApp at all. I 100% prefer Signal or, again, I prefer Wire. Go to my iPad. This is one of the websites. I'm not sure if this is it. I'll actually come back. I'm going to try to my iPad. You know, this is one of the websites. I'm not sure if this is it.

Actually, come back. I'm going to try to find it. But there's an encrypted app that's called Wire. I like Wire secure messaging. And, again, it's from the Swiss. And the Swiss, this is Wire right here on Google Play. And they know a little bit about secure protections. That's why people have Swiss bank accounts. So I would prefer Signal or Wire. I don't particularly like WhatsApp. Again, international calls, that's different. Joy.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I did Signal for more secure communications. WhatsApp, because, frankly, it's so good. If you're a person overseas, you can also have people call you. But, yes, I hate that I get calls unsolicited, in part because of being on this show. I get lots of calls via WhatsApp. looking for, what's the plan for there to be a Black-owned, person of color-owned, woman-owned app of this kind? We want to have our own. Whether we use it all or not, we want to know that there are some alternatives. What is it? DERRICK THOMPSON, Former President, Black Lives Matter Association of the United States of America, Currently, I don't know of any that exists that are Black-owned. I mean, this space is so

void of full Black ownership or black participation. We are building other arms and programs involved with Fanbase, but nothing in the messaging space. But encryption is definitely something that's part of what we do with logging in and securing data on Fanbase itself. I don't know, that's a great question. And I'm pretty sure that there are some

founders out there that want to build that. I think in this space, we need more people to build alternatives that can strictly focus towards the African-American community. Also keep in mind, when you talk about these apps, I mean, you're talking about cybersecurity, technology,

it's a whole different field. And Signal is actually a crowd-supported app, right, Isaac? I mean, in terms of how they seek donations to keep it going. Now, that I'm not aware of. I don't know if they've done equity crowdfunding, but I think they do receive donations. I'm not a Signal. And you know what's so funny? Actually, Signal is something that I became aware of as of maybe the last year, year or two. It became very, very popular because once I joined Signal, I started seeing people that I know were using Signal. It's kind of the same way with Telegram.

I think every now and then, like WhatsApp was the first one. Then people started using Telegram. And then Telegram is not encrypted only through secret chats. So only the secret chats are encrypted on Telegram, not the regular messages. That's why I didn't recommend Telegram because those messages aren't encrypted. Yeah, if you go to my iPad,

so Signal is run by a nonprofit, the Signal Technology Foundation. And yeah, so there are people who actually, so Signal is not, they don't charge you, people donate to Signal to be able for tech updates and things along those lines. Rebecca. Thanks, Isaac, for being here tonight. I've used Signal for years from doing campaign work, especially with sending very sensitive information on the opposition and those things.

But this news story has made me think more about my social media apps. So can you walk us through some of the security protocols with users for Fanbase? Well, we actually, most of what we have is encrypted in store for users' data. We're actually launching SSO, single sign-on tomorrow, which is actually authenticated through a user's email per device. So that's another level. It actually helps us with logging people in.

So it's more along the lines of not just creating an email account and then logging into your device. So now you'll be able to log in through your Google or your Apple account, your iCloud account. And what's important about that is even when you log into Apple, it actually hides your email. It creates a unique kind of like email per login that you use when you sign in. So you're never logging in with your actual Apple ID.

And we are glad to be able to offer that. It actually launches tomorrow. We bring that out. So that's one of those things that I think were important. We also have screen recording technology. Excuse me? No, go ahead. Yeah, we have screen recording technology that's actually anti-screen record technology

on any of the exclusive content that you put on Fanbase. So that could be a live or that could be long-form content. So people cannot screen record that content on a device. All right, then. So, Isaac, also, give us an update on the raise for Fanbase. What's up? We are pulling up on $11 million. We are going to $17 million.

We've raised about $7 million in the last three months. And so once we close this round, and I'm going to say this again, and I know you've seen me talk about this before, but we really want to bring Spark available, which is our form of microblogging. So if you don't like Blue Sky or you don't like X, we're going to build that in 2025. But the fast we close this round, we do that. So we're going all the way to $17 million. We're about to cross $10.8 million and head all the way to 17 million. We're about to cross 10.8 million and head all the way to 17 million.

So if you want to invest in Fanbase, I tell everybody, go to startengine.com slash fanbase to invest. Roland has been an enormous ally and supporter. And being on platforms like these help us raise that capital. And the window is absolutely shrinking. There's probably less than maybe 6,000 or so people that can invest in fan base at the average investment amount. And 6,000 people watch this program every 10, 15 minutes. And it's really an opportunity for us to actually have equity and ownership in these startups that manage media. And my warning, or not warning, but my message to individuals is that most media is going to be distributed through large social networks in the future.

They're not going to be standoff websites or they're not going to be on Apple TV devices. And so whoever owns the infrastructure of those devices, infrastructure of those platforms that distribute that content and that media, have the opportunity to be billion, trillion dollar companies. And we've never been in that space. And so if you want to invest and have equity in a platform that is emerging we have over 1.4 million users 600,000 plus MAU we don't know what's going to happen with Twitter coming up I'm sorry we don't know what's going to happen with TikTok on April 5th they may strike a deal they may not Twitter TikTok may go dark again

and we got about 400,000 users in less than a week when we did that. This is the right time to actually invest in Fanbase. The minimum to invest is $399. Go right now, startengine.com slash Fanbase and invest. I can't wait for Spark

to come about, the ability to be able to, like a Twitter-like Blue Sky function, to have an all-in-one. Isaac, we appreciate it. like a Twitter, like blue sky function, uh, to have an all in one. So I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you folks. That is it for us. Let me thank,

uh, Jolanda. Let me thank, uh, joy. Let me thank Rebecca as well for joining us on today's panel for a great conversation. Thank you so very much folks.

Surely appreciate it. Um, all of y'all who are watching, don't forget support the work that we do. I'm telling y'all, we got some great things coming down the pipe. We launched our new show, of course, with Bria Baker and Jameer Burley. I am looking for a Gen Z host for a show. I'm looking at doing a business show, a health show.

We're actually, I agree, today worked with a black-owned technology company. We are redesigning BlackstarNetwork.com. So we're looking at having that into a news portal to be able to cover a lot more stories. So that's going on. I was on the phone just the other day. And hold on. Do I want to show it? Yeah, I could go ahead.

I just want to let y'all know. Because some of y'all have been asking me, what's going on? What's up with the Roro Mobile? What's happening? And things are moving. And so we're just you know constantly you know building over and over and over again y'all know how we do it making this thing happen and so a lot of things are happening and so we really are hold up I gotta take

this off one second let me stop this mirror right now let me now send it this way okay now send it this way now I click accept so that's coming in and so we appreciate that and so how do I want to save this give me one second let me see how I want to save this. So we have been, like I said, real busy. So it's a lot of things that we have going on, a lot of stuff that we are doing, how we are operating, pieces that we're adding, being able to have more content, being able to service more ideas.

And so when you support what we're doing, you are really and truly helping build this black news and information network. You know, I had some people, they were asking me, they were like, well, you know, somebody asked me, they were like, hey, are you going to do entertainment? What about sports? And I said, I got to be, I got to be perfectly honest with y'all. We have a ton of that already. There is a we have a ton of sports. We have a ton of those things.

And I said, is that is that really what we need? Do we need more of that? And for me, the answer is no. I'm just being perfectly honest because I think we have too much of that. What I mean by that is, I don't mind. If you want to do sports, that's cool with me. If you want to focus on that, I got no problem with that. I just think that we are so inundated. We are so inundated with sports and things along those lines that it reaches a point in entertainment and gossip and stuff like that. And I just said, nah, I just can't. That's just not my cup of tea. And I just think that it's so much of that out here that what we want to do is focus just solely on what we do, which is what we want to do well. And that's happening. And so, like I say, we're building.

People thought we would not be here. They thought, oh, no. They were like, well, this is going to happen. It's going to happen. They're shocked that we're still standing. They're shocked that we're still progressing. And we're here. So let me do this here.

So y'all remember, y'all remember in, actually, gonna do a couple of things. Hold on one second. I need to airdrop a couple of things to my iPads. I want I really want to show y'all this year because y'all have been very patient in what we are doing. You know, you know, we spent our time on the road a lot, y'all, covering news and covering the things that happen out there. And it's not easy when you are, when you're going out there, when you're, when you're on the road and when you're traveling. And, you know, we've had, remember, we had some issues with our Sprinter in 2022. We were coming back from Essence. And what happened was, so this is, this right here, give me one second. I'm showing you this for the, some of y'all have seen this. So this is, of course, the Sprinter that we had. This was our road mobile. This is how we traveled all around the country uh this is in terms of how we covered

stories we had marches that we covered and we you know we had the cameras mounted on the back of the back of the camera this is what it looked like on the inside and so uh we did we did things on the inside of this with all kinds of different stuff like that. And again, we slept in it. We travel, all that sort of stuff like that. But we were coming back from Essence and Deshaun was driving. And this guy cut him off in Alabama, just outside of Birmingham. And this was the result, completely total.

Our sprinter, he walked through the front windshield. Praise the Lord. That was the case. And so then and so we were trying to get a new one. That was a black owned company I was working with. That person screwed us over big time. We are dealing with her as we speak. Trust me, my lawyer is on top of that.

And so I'll let y'all know when that lawsuit is filed because it will be filed uh and so uh i got this uh so this here uh is the um drawing this is the drawing of our uh new uh vehicle here so you going to see in the back, we're going to have a 48 inches of space. We're going to have these two captain's chairs right here, right above that's going to be a television monitor. So we're going to be in a position to where we can mount cameras in there as well. We can do interviews from here. And so you see here, this will be a bench here. This will seat 11 people. You see, this is a bathroom here as well. This is where the fridge and the microwave is going to go as well. All those things are going to be there. And so this is our control center, control everything. And of course, the front of the vehicle as well and so I just got these

drawings this week I just got them this week literally two days ago so y'all are seeing it for the first time and this will be done next month next month I'm excited by that by that an opportunity for y'all to actually see it let me this here. I'm going to airdrop some photos. Give me one second. Let me do this here. So you can see some actual real life photos. This is not going to be our color scheme. Our color scheme is going to be similar to our previous Rororo mobile and so we look forward to that let me see if i can pull this up give me one second and so uh this is give me one second and so let me tell you why i do this here because we're transparent when we get a new piece of equipment we need something we share it with them so you understand uh that we i don't play when it comes to the resources.

So this is what this is what's going to look like for us going into the vehicle in terms of the door. The table won't be there, but this is just an example of it. And so then when we go so this is the inside. So you see the benches here, how it works. You see up front here how you have that's where you see the refrigerator and the microwave and the bar that's right there you see that lighting it takes place right there I don't know if that television is going to be right there it might be on another wall this here is now I was going to get this awning. The problem is it wasn't manual. You actually have to, it automatically, if the wind kicks up, it automatically retracted. And so I was like, I don't want that to happen automatically.

So no manual. So that's why I did not get the awning. But, you know, that was one of the issues that we had there. Then this is actually what the Ford F-550 looks like. It's 35 feet. It's larger than the previous Sprinter because I didn't want that fiberglass trunk on the back. We want to have our luggage compartment and our seating compartment all in one vehicle for it to be much sturdier. And so this is what another shot of it, what it looks like.

And then this is just another shot. So you see, you have this. So we're not going to have this curtain here. Matter of fact, I think a TV is going to be on this wall. That's going to actually be a wall. This vehicle here, this is a curtain where you can just walk right up to where the driver is. But I want that walled um for privacy for the driver and also we're communicating and we're doing something in the back um then he could still

be talking up front while we're communicating uh in the back or shooting something in the back so that's what that's all about right there so y'all that's it that's what uh we are doing so uh we are making this thing happen uh this is a look uh so this is what look this is i think what the refrigerator counter will look like. You see it right here. It was something like this here. This is what the bathroom will be looking like as well. So just giving you all a peek there.

So, again, it will be done next month. So really, really, really looking forward to that so um this will allow us to now when we're traveling broadcasting it will serve as our broadcast uh center uh because when we're out there on the road y'all it's a whole different ball game when you have an suv and you're trying to sit here and do stuff versus all everything is all in one vehicle where we can actually be inside of that vehicle uh we can have all of our equipment broadcasting um and just so you understand what i'm talking about um you know how things um work um in the uh go get uh uhrell, get me, or Anthony,

give me a fly pack, one of y'all, give me a fly pack. I just want to show people, because y'all need to understand in terms of how things have changed for us and how we operate. So this here is, so just so we can talk about, give me one second, I'm gonna air drop this video. Cause when I tell y'all, again, other folk don't do this, and I've actually told other people

how you need to be very transparent in what we're doing. So we talk about how we raise money. So I give it right here. So here's a perfect example, all right? So when we were in Tulsa covering the, we were in Tulsa covering the 100th anniversary of the race mask, y'all might remember they had a march, and we were live streaming the march. And so this is when we were in the other sprinter, and man, we had all this equipment that was packed in here. And actually, I narrated this, so cue the music, pull the audio up so that y'all can hear me describing

what's going on here. Rolla Martin here, so we... Hey folks, Rolla Martin here. So we are in Tulsa doing our live streaming. I just wanna give y'all a sense of how we roll, how we flip the Roro Mobile into our live truck unit. Henry is directing, Anthony is on the camera. You see we got that television monitor that's back there.

We got a television monitor that's up here. And then we're able to have our multi-view shot. We got a multi-view shot right here. And so Henry was able to see up to eight cameras. So when we were live streaming the march, we had the cameras on the back. We had the drone and we had Anthony's camera all going through. Henry was able to switch right here

the entire time, monitoring the audio feeds and going back. So you see right there, we just lost our feed right there. So I'll be right back, folks. I see all that stuff. Y'all see all that stuff on the table. It was like, take the shot.

That's like, you see all of that. on a table it was like take the shot like that's like you see all of that so you see the switcher and you see the monitor and all that sort of stuff like that so that's a whole lot y'all uh to pack and unpack and it's all over the place uh well uh because of our viewers we were able to uh with a company out of florida uh built this, what is called a fly kit. We actually have two of these here. So literally everything that you just saw there, everything that you just saw there is literally all right here. So you see here, you've got the monitor.

We've got this full ATM mini switcher that's right here as well you heard me talking about the eight inputs well guess what this thing here all of that is built in you saw go back to the photo so you see on here you see a little silk that gray thing right there that's that's like a um a converter and we have all these different converters well with this right here y'all this thing has converters already built in eight camera inputs so literally all of that stuff you see uh on on that table all that stuff you see and and the monitor and the cables and the laptop and all that sort of

stuff, all that stuff is right here. And this was like $5,000. We got two of these. So this allows for us to be able to now be a lot more clean and efficient when we broadcast. And so when we get Robomobile 2.0,0 allows for us to just really expand the type of mobile broadcasting we do. And as I said, it will allow us to be able to have that monitor, just like I have a monitor behind me. We're going to be able to have those two captain's chairs,

the monitor behind me, and we can literally light it and do interviews right in the vehicle when we're on the road. And so what I'm laying out, there's nobody else in black-owned media who's doing this. And so when I say we are so far ahead of where everybody else is, that's really what it's all about. And so it puts us in a position. So when we're going to be traveling later this year, doing some shows here in Virginia, covering the Virginia legislative races.

Again, now you're in a situation where it becomes your mobile vehicle. Now we're talking about when we're covering these marches and protests and all kind of stuff. We roll up. We have full capacity now to be able to do it. We're limited right now. We roll up in the SUV. That's not going to be the case beginning next month or beginning the 1st of May. So we're really looking forward to that. So when you support this show, that's what you also are supporting. I told y'all this is $5,000 right here. We got two of them. The reality is that vehicle is about $275,000 or $280,000. That's what that vehicle is.

And so this simply expands our capability. So when you are a Bring the Funk fan club member, you can say, yo, we made that happen. We made that possible. And when we travel, folk want to take photos and stuff like that. And y'all know how we do. All right, we'll check your name on the roster. If your name was on there, you can get a photo in the vehicle. But it's really about us being able to expand

what we're doing here at the Black Star Network to cover more things and provide you with way more than what anybody else is doing. And so those are the plans that I have for 2025, 2026. And so I watch every dollar like a hawk so we can be able to do these things and be able. And I'm tell you right now, we launched this show six and a half years ago. Y'all, there's not a single time the staff get paid late. Folks didn't get paid late because we are also about supporting black vendors and supporting folks as well. So if you want to join our Bring the Funk fan club, you want to help us continue to build the vision, the Black Star Network, here's a QR code for Stripe. It's right here. You click the Cash App button to continue to contribute.

You can also pay with credit cards via Stripe as well. You can see your checking money over at Appeal Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 2003-7-0196. PayPal is rmartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zale, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Download the Black Star Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Be sure to get our Roland Martin Unfiltered Black Star Network gear.

We've got wall art, hoodies, T-shirts, mugs, you name it. Go to RolandMartin.Creator-Spring.com. RolandMartin.Creator-Spring.com. Or go to the Black Star Network.com. Then, of course, you can also get my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. Available at bookstores nationwide. Get the audio version I read on Audible. And you can also, of course, as we said, Isaac Hayes, download the app fan base,

get the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Or if you want to join the revolution, become an investor, go to startengine.com forward slash fan base. Y'all, that's it. I'll see y'all tomorrow right here. Rolling Mark Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Black-owned. That's the only way we roll. Howl! Blackstar Network is here.

Oh, no punch! A real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart.

Bring your eyeballs home. You dig?