#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Trump 2.0's DOJ & Policing, National Security Leaders Endorse VP Harris, Project 2025

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

9.27.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Trump 2.0's DOJ & Policing, National Security Leaders Endorse VP Harris, Project 2025   We saw what the Justice Department looked like under Trump. Tonight, a special panel will examine what a Trump 2.0 DOJ would look like.  The list of those supporting Vice President Kamala Harris is growing. Over 700 National Security Leaders have Endorsed a Harris presidency.  We'll talk to one of the National Security Leaders for America members.   The CEO  Black Economic Alliance will break down the Vice President's economic plan.  New York Mayor Eric Adams makes his first court appearance on federal charges.   A Michigan judge gets demoted after handcuffing a teenage girl for falling asleep in his courtroom during a field trip.  We'll talk to a Law School graduate who breaks Down Project 2025 on social media.  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 platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Folks, Blackstar Network is here. Hold no punches. A real revolutionary right now. Black power. Support this man, Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punching! A real revolutionary right now. Black power. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. I love y'all.

All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Today is Friday, September 27, 2024. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network.

Vice President Kamala Harris is in Arizona paying a visit to the border. Republicans have been complaining about her not going. Now they're complaining that she is going. We'll hear from her live when she speaks there. We also saw what the Justice Department looked like under Donald Trump. I'm going to walk you through what a Trump 2.0 DOJ would look like and how it has a negative impact on black folks. More than 700 national security leaders have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. We'll talk to the leader of the National Security Leaders for America, one of the members.

Also, we'll chat with the CEO of the Black Economic Alliance who breaks down the vice president's economic plan. In New York, Mayor Eric Adams turns himself in. And also, of course, he pleads not guilty. And a Michigan judge. Remember, he was the one who made this young girl put on a jail uniform because she was sleeping in his courtroom. Well, he got demoted. We'll tell you what his new job is. Plus, we'll talk to a lawyer about who's been going viral,

breaking down Project 2025 on social media. You don't want to miss that conversation as well. Folks, it's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Mark on the filter on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss, 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 believe he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Gro-Gro-Yah It's rolling Martin Rolling with rolling now

Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's rolling Martin Now Martin Our town! Thank you. Hey, folks. Roland Martin here. We'll talk with the Black Star Network. Some breaking news literally just came in moments ago. The Justice Department, they are suing Alabama for violating the federal law prohibition on systematic efforts to remove voters within 90 days of an election.

This press release literally just dropped about 10 or 12 minutes ago. They announced today that they have filed a lawsuit against the state of Alabama and the Alabama Secretary of State to challenge a systematic state program aimed at removing voters from its election rolls too close to the November 5th general election in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Quote, the right to vote is one of the most sacred rights in our democracy, said Assistant Attorney General Christian Clark of the Justice Department Civil Rights Division. As Election Day approaches, it is critical that Alabama redress voter confusion resulting from its list maintenance mailings sent in violation of federal law. Officials across the country should take heed of the National Voter Registration Act clear and unequivocal restrictions on systematic list maintenance efforts

that fall within 90 days of an election. The quiet period provision of federal law exists to prevent eligible voters from being removed from the rolls as a result of last-minute error-prone efforts. The Justice Department will continue to use all the tools it has available to ensure that the voting rights of every eligible voter are protected. Now, it said the same press release said on August 13th, Secretary of State of Alabama announced the launch of a process to remove non-citizens registered to vote in

Alabama. This was 84 days before the November 5th general election. The Justice Department's review found that both native-born and naturalized U.S. citizens have received letters stating that their voter record has been made inactive and that they have been placed on a path for removal from Alabama's statewide voter registration list. Now, folks, keep in mind, you now have the creation of a second district that could elect an African-American from Alabama. It's not a majority black district. It is an opportunity district. You have Shalami Figures, who is running for that particular seat.

And so that's one of the reasons why folks are looking at this. Now, you've got to keep in mind, after the Shelby v. Holder decision that basically removed federal oversight or preclearance from many of these southern states, Republicans have been doing these things all across the country. We saw in North Carolina some 700,000 folks were removed. We saw it happening in other states as well. Florida has done it. Texas has done it.

But this is, of course, the federal government suing these states, suing Alabama for what they've done. And so again, this came this dropped literally about 10 minutes ago. And so the federal government suing Alabama to stop them from removing people from the voting rolls inside of 90 days from the election. And so we'll keep you updated on what's happening on that. Last couple of days, I've been talking to you all about what's been happening in terms of what a Donald Trump DOJ would look like.

And I've laid out to you a variety of things. And one of the areas that people need to understand, I keep talking about this over and over and over again, how Donald Trump and Republicans, how they've been attacking all of these efforts to hold police departments accountable. Yesterday, the DOJ, Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clark, they announced what they found against Lexington, Mississippi. Now, I told you all this, and it's still real. The Biden-Harris administration, their DOJ, they have launched 12 patterns and practices investigation against police departments nationwide. It doesn't count the investigation of the juvenile detention centers in Texas and the other efforts. It doesn't even talk about what they've been doing when it comes to redlining and housing discrimination. This is just patterns and practices.

But I want you to put this in perspective. In four years, in four years of Donald Trump's Department of Justice, I told you this yesterday, how many patterns and practices of investigation have they done? One. That was Vial Platt, Louisiana. One. You literally have an attorney general in Jeff Sessions, who was Trump's first attorney general, then Bill Barr, where they said, you know what? We're going to pull back from these consent decrees. We're really

not going to do this because this is hurting police morale. Oh, it's a few bad apples out there, but you know, it's not really that big of a deal. And so we need to pull back because the cops need to be able to do their job. He and Bart complained about in the post George Floyd world. Oh, this was just too much. And, and police were getting criticized and they were being held accountable. And so that just simply wasn't fair. You know, that's real. And so if you think that that's what Donald Trump's Department of Justice looked like the first time,

what the hell do you think it's going to look like the second time? Remember, Baltimore had a consent decree that the federal judge is about to approve. Trump gets in. Sessions tries to get rid of the consent decree that the federal judge is about to approve. Trump gets in, Sessions tries to get rid of the consent decree. And the federal judge in the city of Baltimore said, absolutely not. They didn't like the consent decree that was against the Chicago Police Department. In fact, Jeff Sessions, and I'm going to play it later, literally complained, complained about that, saying, well, this just wasn't right. I mean, we need more police in Chicago. He wasn't standing up for civil rights. He wasn't standing up for regular ordinary people. Jeff Sessions was literally saying we should be doing more to protect the cops as opposed to the citizens,

and he was giving lip service. Now, I'm going to show you several documents and play some video. I'm going to bring in my panel right now. Christy Lopez, a professor at Georgetown Law School. Samuel Simgawi, founder of Mapping Police Violence in Los Angeles. Renee Hall is the national first vice president

for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, NOBLES. She is the former first vice president for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. Noble, she is the former police chief in Dallas. Glad to have all three of y'all are here. Before we start, this is literally what Jeff Sessions had to say about how police, how they've just been undermined all across the country. We've undermined the respect for our police and made oftentimes their job more difficult. And it's not been well received by them.

And we're not seeing the kind of effective community-based, street-based policing that we found to be so effective in reducing crime, I think. And so the Department of Justice has an absolute duty to ensure that police operate within the law. And if they violate the law, they've committed a crime just as much as any other citizen who commits an assault. And we'll do our duty. I've done that as a United States attorney to prosecute police officers who do wrong. But we need, so far as we can, in my view, help police departments get better, not diminish their effectiveness. And I'm afraid we've done some of that.

So we're going to try to pull back on this. And I don't think it's wrong or mean or insensitive to civil rights or human rights. I think it's out of a concern to make the lives of people, and particularly the poor communities minority communities live a safer happier life so that they're able to have their children outside and go to school in safety and they can go to the grocery store in safety and not be accosted by drug dealers and get caught in crossfires or have their children seduced into some gang so we can do better about this. And that is part of what my thoughts are about this whole situation.

Lying the whole time. You know, when he left, three Republican attorney generals put this opinion piece in the Washington Post. Go to my iPad. When you go through this piece right here, it was Bill Barr, Edwin Meese, Michael Bucase. When you go through this piece, they talk about the great job that he

did and his deep commitment to the Department of Justice and how, look at this, he made him a nominee of unexcelled temperament. And it goes on and on. Ah, Sessions took office after the previous administration's policies had undermined police morale with the spreading Ferguson effect, causing officers to shy away from proactive policing out of fear of prosecution. You see how they tried to justify steep declines in the rate of violent crimes from 1992 to 2014

were reversed in the last administration's final two years with violent crime generally up 7%, blah, blah, blah, blah. Many people were concerned that the hard-won progress of earlier years would be lost. Hmm, look at this here. So when you keep going and I, and I was going through it, y'all and something just jumped out at me. I kept going through it and all how he did immigration and he did this and America's freedom of speech and religious.

He, how he protected religious expression. And I just kept going and I kept going. Look at this here. Hezbollah, narco-terrorism. You get to the end. Not a single word about police reform or civil rights in this entire piece. That, folks, is what you need to understand in what you are dealing with. Now, why am I laying all of this out? Because Donald Trump has already talked about his tough talk. In the next hour, we're going to talk about Project 2025 and what it says here. But you need to be mindful that if Donald Trump gets back into the Oval Office, what you heard yesterday,

that ain't happening. You're not going to have patterns and practices investigation. You're not going to have police who are held accountable. You're not going to have a Department of Justice that's aggressive when it comes to prosecuting hate crime laws. You're not going to have a Department of Justice that is aggressive in dealing with racial, first of all, racism in lending, housing discrimination. None of that stuff is happening. All of those things that you've seen the last four years under the Biden-Harris DOJ ain't going to happen. And one area where black folks must be scared to death is if Donald Trump allows police to run amok in this country. I want to start with you, Christie. You wrote a piece in the Marshall Project, why Jeff Sessions should police the police.

Consent decrees can improve law enforcement even in cities that aren't investigated. One of the last acts of Jeff Sessions, Christy, was putting out a memo, literally changing how the DOJ targets and deals with consent decrees. And so we are dealing with a Republican Party that is so hardcore right wing, they despise consent decrees, which are there to protect regular ordinary citizens. Yeah, thanks, Roland. It's exactly right. Consent decrees are hardly radical documents.

All they do, there are documents that say, hey, we found that you're violating the Constitution and violating people's rights and people are getting hurt and killed. And so this is a plan for you to violate or to actually follow the law. You know, it is a pro-rule-of-law document. And one of the things that was so, not ironic, but telling about Jeff Sessions is that he couched much of what he said in this rhetoric of states' rights, which I think is chilling enough, coming from Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. But he was trying to say that the federal government shouldn't be going in and telling police what to do, that the states should do that. And yet, after he insisted that the Civil Rights Division retreat from the consent decree negotiations in Chicago, the Illinois attorney general stepped in to continue those negotiations and to reach a consent decree. And he actually made the Department of Justice file an opposition to what the state was doing.

So this isn't about any sort of, you know, principal or, you know, higher sort of commitment to the rule of law. It's just about not wanting to rein in the police and letting them do. He wants to let them do what they want. And we know that Trump feels the same way. And we can expect that this next administration would be much worse than the last one. Renee, what jumps out here is that the reason the federal government is so important here is because of oversight. In the history of black people in this country, the only place, the last place black people could get justice was because of the federal laws.

Because of what Chrissy just said, how states' rights and how these states operated, black folks looked to the federal government, not just when it comes to policing, not just when it comes to hate crimes, but in education, in housing, in everything, because the U.S. Constitution was totally different than many of these state constitutions.

But when you have individuals who are giving this states' rights rhetoric, who do not want the DOJ to have a firm hand, that should scare to death regular ordinary citizens, because if left to their own devices, we're going to see more Lexington Mississippis all across the country. And we know about the patterns and practices of investigation and the consent decrees that have been in Cleveland, that have been in Chicago, that have been in Philadelphia, that have been in New Orleans, and on and on and on. Thank you, Roland.

What I would like to say is I grew up in the Detroit Police Department, and we had a consent decree for more than 13 years. And what I will tell you about a consent judgment is that it requires a police department to be constitutional. It requires a police department to ensure that the community is thought about. And I think what I need to deny here or refute is the fact that a consent decree somehow limits officers' ability to do their job. And none of that exists. It requires officers to do their jobs constitutionally and make sure that when they do their jobs, that they're taking the consideration of individuals because there is dignity and authority. And that's what a consent decree

actually requires of a police department. What I will say is that under the Trump administration, when you say you're going to unleash law enforcement or give law enforcement total power and authority, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So no one should have absolute authority and no one should be above the law. What the requirement is in this country and leaders in law enforcement want is to make sure that we focus on the safety of our officers and the safety of our community. And they're not mutually exclusive. We want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to to have an encounter. Everyone needs to have the opportunity to call on law enforcement if there is a concern. But they also need to have the right that when law enforcement shows up, that they show up ethically, integral, and with the utmost respect,

even when they're showing up to take someone to jail. And I think that when we continue to perpetuate the thoughts that police officers will have this ultimate authority and that there's some level of corruption in that, we put officers at risk as well. You know, we look at when we, you know, villainize a particular segment of the community, As we would say, Haitians have been identified in this country right now. Haitians are ultimately Black people. So we are victim, we're victimizing these individuals by placing them in harm's way. But we're also victimizing police officers because the perception is when you run across someone who is Haitian or am I Haitian? So the question is a black person in this country, there's a fear. So not only is that

black person, that Haitian person at risk, so is that officer, because now the perception is it's me versus you. So what I think that happens when we unleash these unfettered, untethered voices about what law enforcement should look like or no consent judgment or no holes upon what police are able to do, transparency and accountability, that we're creating an unsafe environment for everyone. See, the thing, Samuel, that and why I'm raising this, because this should be scaring folks to death. And I am specifically speaking to these black men and black women out here. And I see these people just chat, chat, chat, chat, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And I'm like, y'all don't understand what's going on here. This has been, under Biden-Harris, this has been the most aggressive Department of Justice civil rights division since Robert Kennedy.

And if Trump gets back in, all of these civil rights efforts, putting prison guards, wardens in jail for abusing inmates, as I said, the redlining, the mortgage fraud, the housing discrimination, the police and patterns and practice investigation, all of those things are going away if the hard right gets back in because the likes of the Senator Tom Cotton, they want more people in jail. They don't care if people are beaten. They don't care if people are brutalized. And they've shown that.

Absolutely. And one of the big reasons why you see Donald Trump and the right wing so angry and so intent on rolling back this progress that the Biden-Harris administration has made is because these consent decrees are making a difference in cities across the country. We did a, my organization, Mapping Police Violence, did one of the largest data collections around use of force ever conducted in this country. We got data from thousands of different law enforcement agencies across the country, including most of the agencies that are under consent decrees. And what we found was the vast majority of agencies under consent decrees reduced police use of force over time, saw substantial reductions in police use of force,

especially in places like in Baltimore, places like Seattle, even places where the Justice Department stepped up and did an investigation and state AGs had to step in and finish and put those police departments under consent decrees, like in Chicago, where you see a reduction in police use of force about 40 percent over the past several years under that oversight. So these consent decrees are working in protecting communities, especially Black communities, from police violence. And so we can't allow the Trump administration to roll that progress back. That's exactly what they want to do. We need to actually do the opposite and build on the progress that the Biden-Harris

administration has laid out by actually expanding the breadth of police departments that are under that oversight. So currently, going all the way back to the beginning of pattern and practice investigations back in 1994, to the present day, there have been about 80 police departments that have undergone pattern and practice investigations. And not all of those have been put under consent decrees. In a nation with 18,000 different law enforcement agencies, so that's less than 1% of all the law enforcement agencies in the country have been under that level of scrutiny. And we know that the issue of police violence and racism in policing is not limited to only 1% or fewer than 1% of agencies. It is a systemic issue that, in fact, when we look at the data around

use of force, more than 70 percent of all law enforcement agencies are demonstrating racial disparities in police use of force. More than 80 percent of all law enforcement agencies are reporting racial disparities in arrests, including in Lexington, Mississippi, where the DOJ report showed that one in every four residents in the town, a town of 1,200 people, one in every four residents was arrested by the police department. And black people were arrested at more than 17 times the rate of white people. So think about the level of police violence and intervention and oppression and incarceration that people are experiencing, not only in Lexington, but all across the country.

That's why we need the DOJ to step up what it's doing and why we can't go back by putting Donald Trump in the driver's seat. Chrissy, you said something that I thought that was really important when you talked about, you know, and Renee, you also said the same thing, that it's not like it's stopping cops from doing their jobs. Okay? The police who are complaining, they're complaining because they're mad they can't beat folks up.

They can't rough them up. They can't call them the N-word. They can't do the type of things. I mean, cops in Chicago, they admitted of calling using the N-word. They admitted dropping gang members off in rival territories just to make just to see them run and scurry off. Those type of things happen. And go to my iPad. Chrissy, you said this here. You said during the six years I spent investigating police departments and negotiating consent decrees for the Justice Department Civil Rights Division, I cannot remember attending any gathering related to policing when I wasn't approached by someone from a place the Justice Department

had never investigated and probably never would who still said consent decrees had improved policing in their city. That was the earnest lieutenant eager to tell me of changes that his department made to training and use of force reporting. The community leaders who told me how he and others had convinced town officials to change the way fines and fees are collected after pointing them to our Ferguson consent decree. The sergeant telling me she had read every one of our consent decrees and kept her chief apprised to ensure

their department had mechanisms to detect and respond to incidents of officer misconduct. Law enforcement officials sometimes sent me new policies and trainings revised after reviewing our consent decrees. The reality is there are cops, there are commanders, there are chiefs who understand and who want these things. It was the mayor of New Orleans who called DOJ in. And so you've seen these things, but what you really have is you have pretend older police, you've got unions and others, what they cannot stand is the one word that people hate the most, accountability. And that's why they despise consent decrees.

And folks on the right want to go along with them because they don't want to hold them accountable for their actions. Yeah, I think that's really true. They don't want accountability. And, you know, you saw in the Lexington report how much accountability is needed. They have a chief who called people the N-word and before that was calling black people routinely boy, right? So this was their chief of police. So you could imagine the atmosphere in that community. And people don't even want accountability for that kind of department and that kind of chief. But I want to be clear that this is hard. If it was easy to change policing,

you wouldn't need all of these different people, the Department of Justice, civil rights attorneys working on it, right? It's hard. But we have to keep in mind, one of the things I learned at DOJ was that a lot of policing is not about public safety. What you saw in Ferguson is the same thing you saw in the Lexington report, that it's for revenue. You oftentimes see that the police are doing something that other people could be doing, but we've just gotten so used to the police doing it that we, you know, we invest all of our money in policing, like they were doing in Lexington. So I think that is one of the things we really have to be mindful of, is that this is a—we need lots of people, including the Department of Justice, to work on this. And we

need to recognize that it is—it's difficult, but none of it is about, you know, pitting safety against rights. It's really recognition that in order to have safe communities and vibrant communities and healthy communities,

you have to have police that are respecting the rule of law and that are staying in their lane and let everybody else do what they need to do to grow and support

that community. Renee, Renee, I want you to, I want you to jump in with that comment, but I want to put this question first, and that is, you've been a police chief, and a lot of people think, great, new police chief, stuff is gonna change. But the reality is, it is hard as hell when you start drilling down,

because I saw it living in Chicago. Cops who ran superintendents out. I've seen other cities where police officers, oh, hell no, we're going to oppose every single thing. I've talked to police chiefs who have been frustrated that even though they have this lofty title, they actually can't turn this battleship around because of massive resistance of people who do not want to do the right thing by its citizens.

Go ahead. So I wanted to start by saying I would be remiss if I did not tell you that when we speak of law enforcement, it is unfair to speak in generalities and in absolutes. I spent more than two decades in law enforcement in two major cities in Detroit and in Dallas. And I would have been appalled if people felt that I was this racist police officer who was unethical and used unnecessary force on a regular basis. So I just want to say that we're not talking about all police, but we do have individuals in law enforcement that challenge the ethics and the integrity of law enforcement. And it's those individuals that we speak of. And so it's those individuals that if we allow to go unchecked, if we allow there to be no accountability and no transparency, then that is the danger. And what makes our communities unsafe as much as having any level of violence or crime in our communities. But Roland, I do want to hit on the fact that leadership matters,

and it's extremely important. And oftentimes when you have a leader who comes in and wants to address culture in law enforcement, and let's be clear, culture in law enforcement is what creates the Sonia Massys, the George Floyds. When we see these, and I could go on and on and on, but it's the culture of law enforcement that we see that creates that. But oftentimes when you have a leader who wants to challenge the status quo, you do have associations and unions who will do whatever it is that they can. and this level of authority, the financial ability to contribute to coffers of those city managers, mayors, council members, and even other elected officials to have the influence to push out those individuals who are attempting to change the trajectory of law enforcement and make sure that we're holding people accountable, that we are making sure that those 21st century best practices are in place so that we don't have to have a consent judgment. There are patterns and practices that are ideal that have been laid out by 21st century best practices that all agencies can follow to ensure that law enforcement is ethical and transparent and accountable and

community oriented. We teach police how to be police. And if we have general orders and policies and procedures in our police agency that teaches them how to do it ethically, constitutionally, and with the highest level of integrity, then that's what we produce in our agencies. But we have to have the ability to create that without the influence of individuals who have a little bit more power than those leaders who show up to make those changes and who don't get an opportunity because there are forces that are working against them and force them

out of that situation. And Samuel, the reality is politicians, they covet the endorsements of police unions on the local, state, and federal level. They understand the power that they have, what they give in terms of resources. And also the public pays attention to who police unions and fire department unions, who they actually endorse. But what we're seeing here, we're seeing an increasing number, and y'all track this, an increasing number of people who are still being shot by police. The settlements are getting larger and larger as well. And then Donald Trump is on record. He wants to go after, and Sessions said this, and Barr said it, but he's made a clip.

They are going to go after progressive DAs, and they talk about, oh, they're soft on crime. No, they're mad that district attorneys are actually increasing number are prosecuting cops for their actions. Absolutely. And so, you know, as you said, we're seeing increases in deadly police violence year over year. This year is already reaching, is already breaking records that were set the last year, which broke the record that was set the year before. So we can't pour gasoline on this fire and make everything worse by electing Donald Trump. That is exactly what he's promising to do, to leverage the power of the federal government to go after not the police departments that are the ones that have the highest rates of use of force, the ones with the largest racial disparities, the ones with the worst issues. No, he wants to weaponize the Justice Department to go after the prosecutors who are actually stepping up to do things differently and to not lock a whole bunch of people up for low-level, nonviolent issues and arrest a whole bunch of people and charge them for turnstile jumping in the subways. He wants to go after

those prosecutors. He wants to go after the police departments that are deciding to actuallyrees that have have started to make progress. We can start to see what actually works, that other police departments can emulate best practices they can adopt to begin reducing police violence nationwide and finally begin bringing those numbers that we keep seeing going up and up, down over time, so communities can finally see some relief from record levels of police violence that we've been tracking. And it's important to note that while we talk about record levels of people who are being shot and killed by the police, for every person killed by the police, what we've also found is that there are more than 300 additional people who are impacted by nonfatal police use of force and violence. So this issue is way bigger than often gets reported. And for every person who experiences police violence or use of force, there are hundreds more who are arrested, who are disrespected, who are unfairly and unlawfully incarcerated. So this is something that touches so many people's

lives. And so this is where the federal government can really step up and continue to lead in making progress in addressing this issue rather than going back to the types of policies under the Trump administration that was encouraging the worst impulses of law enforcement across the country. Final comment from Christy and Renee. Samuel touched on that. Christy, you first. Are you concerned with what you have heard from Donald Trump that if he beats Vice President Kamala Harris, that that spells doom and gloom for the DOJ Civil Rights Division that you spent so much time working for? Yeah, I wish I was exaggerating, but I really do think it could be, you know, the end of the civil rights division as we know it. And I don't say that lightly. There was great damage done under Sessions and the first time that Trump was president,

but he's vowed to actually move people out of civil rights division, have them do other things. And I don't think he's playing. On the other hand, you have right now DOJ is really learning and building on the lessons they've learned over the years and making these consent decrees better. And so I really, they're just on the verge of really a breakthrough. And to go back to something that could really put us back 50, 100 years is really killing to me. Renee, are you concerned when you hear Trump say, I will give police officers 100 percent immunity so they can do their jobs? Do you so when you when you hear what he has to say, when you look at Project 2025, does that scare you in terms of, hey, this guy is saying I'm going to give free license to rogue cops to go out there and do whatever the hell they want and not face any retribution?

Not only does it give me pause for law enforcement, it gives me pause in this entire country. When I listen to an editor-in-chief use the N-word on a national radio station, when I see a representative in our congressional, in our Congress say, send Haitians back to their dirty, filthy country, when I hear the racist rhetoric that comes out of the individual's mouths, I'm concerned about this entire country in addition to having individuals who violate policies, procedures, law when it comes to policing in our communities, to have unfettered access to, to, to do whatever it is that they want within our communities and not have to answer for it. Anyone would be concerned. And, and like I said before,

I started with power corrupts and absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. Renee Hall, Chrissy Lopez, Samuelson Gawi. I appreciate all three of y' all joining us on the show. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Folks, we're going to break. We'll be right back. Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. He told us who he was. Should abortion be punished? There has to be some form of punishment. Then he showed us. For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated,

and I did it, and I'm proud to have done it. Now Donald Trump wants to go further with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women's pregnancies. We know who Donald Trump is. He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Bob and I both voted for Donald Trump. I voted for him twice. I won't vote for him again. January

6th was a wake-up call for me. Donald Trump divides people. We've already seen what he has to bring. He didn't do anything to help us. Kamala Harris, she cares about the American people. I think she's got the wherewithal to make a difference. I've never voted for a Democrat. Yeah. The choice is very simple. I'm voting for Kamala. I am voting for Kamala Harris. In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House. Now those people have a warning for America. Trump is not fit to be president again. Here's his vice president.

Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. His defense secretary. Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's secrets ever again? No. I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation's security at risk. His national security advisor. Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump.

And the nation's highest ranking military officer. We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. Take it from the people who knew him best, Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can't let him lead our country again. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. IVF is a miracle for us because it allowed us to have our family.

After having my daughter, I wanted more children. But my embryo transfer was canceled eight days before the procedure. Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade stopped us from growing the family that we wanted. I don't want politicians telling me how or when I can have a baby. We need a president that will protect our rights,

and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems. Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, the crowd. This weird obsession with crowd sizes. It just goes on and on and on. America's ready for a new chapter.

We are ready for a President Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. The overturning of Roe almost killed me. I had a blood clot in my uterus that caused my labor to have to be induced because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I wasn't able to get life-saving treatment sooner. I almost died. And that's because of the decision that Donald Trump made. I was able to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I'm proud to have done it.

The doctors and nurses were afraid that if they treated me in the incorrect way that they would be prosecuted for that. And that's appalling. Donald Trump says that women should be punished. Do you believe in punishment for abortion? There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman? Yeah.

I believe that women should have reproductive freedom to make the choices about their own bodies. Four more years of Donald Trump means that women's rights will continue to be taken away one by one by one by one. This has to stop because women are dying. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Kamala Harris has never backed down from a challenge. She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars.

And she will secure our border. Here's her plan. Hire thousands more border agents. Enforce the law and step up technology. And stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking. We need a leader with a real plan to fix the border. And that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message.

Hey, what's up? It's Tammy Roman. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching, Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, I want to bring in my panel right here to talk about the conversation that we just had. Michael Imhotep hosts the African History Network show out of Detroit. Robert Portillo hosts People Passion Politics, News and Talk 1380 WAOK out of Atlanta. And Jolanda Jones, state representative and lawyer out of Houston.

Robert, I'll start with you. You know, I've been talking all the weekends. I've been specifically talking to black men and also these black women out here talking Trump. And I'm like, y'all can be foolish with y'all talk all y'all want to, but it's going to be hell for black folk. It's going to be hell for black folk. It's going to be hell in black communities because he is going to unleash thugs with guns and badges to do whatever they want to and make it clear. Y'all don't have to worry about a thing. We are not going to, we're going to look the other way.

Well, I think it's very clear. If you just look at project 2025, they lay out exactly what they're going to do. This is the first time in history that we don't have to guess what an administration will do. We have a full playbook on it. And just look at what happened with Clay Higgins in Congress yesterday or a couple of days ago. When you're talking about, in this way, about Haitian-Americans, I'm Haitian-American, so I'll take it personally. These people have no respect for Black folks. They can't tell the difference between an African American, a Haitian, a Nigerian, or anything else. They only see Black and only see us as being someone that they need to control and destroy. And when you say you're going to pardon the January 6th protesters, you're going to pardon police

officers who are convicted of excessive force. You're going to withdraw from consent decrees. You're going to make it easier for police officers. Just play the clips of Donald Trump talking to police organizations when he says, I want you to rough them up a little bit as they're getting into the car. Don't cradle their head when you're pushing them down. Use a little bit of extra force. But meanwhile, when he's getting arrested, he's in a black car. He's walked into his own private entrance. He takes a photo. He goes out. He doesn't want the same treatment for himself that he's prescribing for African-American

men around the country. So for the people saying, you know, well, Kamala is a cop or this, that, and the other, just look at Project 2025 and see exactly what they have planned for him. And don't just say you want the lesser of two evils. You have to understand that one side is legitimately evil, that there's a reason that you have white supremacists supporting him. If you want to know who someone is, look at the company they keep. You're going to see a lot of Confederate flags at those Trump rallies that you're not going to see at the Kamala Harris rallies. It's real clear here, Michael, what's going on here. And the reason I think we have to keep raising this point is because we can

remind folk, so many people can be hollering. Oh man, I had money in my pocket. Yeah. You might have money in your pocket, but it was some other folks getting beat upside their head because of this fool.

Absolutely. Roll. I'm glad you talking about this and putting this all together. One of the reasons why you have money in your pocket was because of the 1.9 Absolutely, Roel. I'm glad you're talking about this and putting this all together. One of the reasons why you have money in your pocket was because of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which gave you $1,400 stimulus checks and gave you the child tax credit, which lifted one million black people—one million black children out of poverty. And that was passed by Biden and Harris through a Democratic Congress and Democratic Senate,

and no Republicans in the House or Senate passed that bill. So you need to understand how this actually works, OK? Secondly, I'm glad you mentioned Jefferson Borgar Sessions, because not only did Jeff Sessions do that speech and say they need to take a hands-off approach to policing—and he was Donald Trump's first attorney general—he also, you mentioned him trying to back out of the Baltimore consent decree. He also tried to back out of the Chicago consent decree as well, which was being put in place right when Trump took over, when he won in 2016.

Something else that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions did that does not get talked about a lot is President Obama in 2013 put together the National Commission on Forensic Sciences. And this was designed—he brought together experts in the field, and this was designed to reduce the number of people who were wrongfully convicted based upon bad science, bad forensics, and convicted and also put on death row. Jefferson Borgar Sessions disbanded this commission when he became attorney general because he said it was not necessary, okay? And we know that African Americans disproportionately make up the people on death row, like Marcellus Williams, that we just saw

a few days ago be executed, okay? So, and you talked about the Department of Justice and Project 2025. One of the things that Project 2025 wants to do is to disband the Department of Justice. Right. But the Department of Justice was created in 1870 largely to protect the new rights given to African-Americans. We're actually going to talk in the next hour about Project 2025. Let me quickly go to Jolanda here. Jolanda, again, Donald Trump is a threat to any community because he is going to allow law enforcement to do whatever they want. He said it. And if we thought they only investigated one police department the first time,

they ain't looking at nobody if he wins again. They just let them do whatever they want. Well, and that's true. So that's why we need the Justice Department. That's why we need the Department of Education. But Project 2025 talks about increasing policing. Okay, when we have a whole bunch of police in black neighborhoods, we are getting locked up.

Donald Trump, if you'll recall, was a big supporter of stop and frisk, which before this racist Supreme Court that Donald Trump packed, stop and frisk was determined to be unconstitutional. Donald Trump wants to take away money that would sorry, social programming for, you know, to help put, to help lower black folks not having opportunities to get the police out of their lives is that he wants... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He said, clearly,

he will withhold money from any city that does not institute stop and frisk. But that's, you just made my point for me. Okay? I mean, that's happening in Texas where we won't even expand Medicaid

because it comes from Democrats and they want for people to be suffering health-wise. So it's the same sort of thing that they're doing with denying access to health care with the police. As I said before, some communities have the police who protect and serve in other communities like us, like black people. So we need to just say it where the police harass us, violate our civil rights, over-incarcerate us, sentence us longer than they sentence white

people, kill us for things that they give probation to white people for. And that is what he is going to do. And so I don't care if somebody else has more money in their pocket. And the money they had in their pocket probably came from the Obama administration. But I don't feel like going there right now. And, you know, if I'm fine, that's not OK. I need for all of us to be OK. I'm the mother of a black man. I have black nephews. Not that the police don't kill black women, look at Sandra Bland, but black men are targets. And so if you have black kids, you need to be worried about Donald Trump. Look at what Donald Trump is saying about Haitians.

Right. Because they're black. I mean, we don't need to guess what he's going to do. Project 2045 tells us what he's going to do, and he's exercising it. Actually, last night, I actually played a video from his website where he actually said it himself. So, even when he disavows, even when he disavows Project 2025, he actually said it for himself. Hold tight that, because we're going to just pick up on that in the next

hour when we talk about Project 2025. I do want to talk about this here. The Ukrainian leader, President Zelensky, was in town. He met with Democratic leaders last couple of days. Today he was at Trump Tower meeting with that idiot Donald Trump. But here's the piece here. 741 foreign, first of all, experts on foreign policy have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

Republicans have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Republicans have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris because they understand how critically it's important for America to how we actually lead. Joining us now from D.C. is Dr. Jairus Lewis Taylor Jr. from the National Security Leaders for America. Glad to have you on the show, Jairus. So how did y'all come to this decision and explain to people who the National Security Leaders for America are? What are you comprised of?

Yes, thank you so much, Roland, for this opportunity. National Security Leaders for America is a bipartisan group of senior leaders, admirals, generals, ambassadors, cabinet officials, secretaries that have come together to make this time-honored condition because we all raised our right hand to defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And we believe collectively that Vice President Harris is day one Commander in Chief ready based upon her national security experience, her time in the Oval Office, her time in the Situation Room, and also she has met with over 150 world leaders, traveled to 21 countries,

and she is the most qualified of any former president with experience in the national security realm other than current President Biden? Look, you're dealing with issues all across the globe and you need someone with the right temperament. Donald Trump loves to try to portray he's a strong man in the debate. He actually talked about how a Hungarian dictator endorsed him, and that's the kind of leadership we need. I don't think Americans actually want to have a foreign dictator praising someone running for president of the United States because we don't have dictators in this country, but that's really what Donald Trump wants to be.

He said it on day one. And as Maya Angelou stated, when someone tell you who they are, believe them. And Vice President Harris believes in collaboration. She believes in team building, as evident by the 50 countries that supported Ukraine. And she unequivocally stated that she wants and supports Ukraine to win the war against Russia. That right there should be at the heart of every American. And we as national security leaders believe in freedom. We believe in democracy. And we believe in the rule of law. We, we again have raised our right hand to defend our country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And unfortunately,

former President Trump do not believe in that. He wants to abide by the rules of dictators and be a dictator himself. In terms of this endorsement, are there any plans for these national security leaders to fade out across the country doing radio, doing television, talking her up, talking her candidacy up, and explain to people how critical this is? Yes, we are. We have two bus tours scheduled. First one on the 8th of October, and it's going to go to Pennsylvania and then to Lansing, Michigan. Folks know that here's an opportunity that your foreign leaders, security leaders, national security leaders who have a vested interest in our country. We stand with Vice President Harris and her candidacy. All right, Ben. J.R., we really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. All right, folks, going to a break. We come back. New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Please not guilty. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about also lots of other news today.

Trust me. Stuff we want to cover. Plus, Vice President Kamala Harris is going to be speaking in the next hour live from Arizona. Will be covering that right here in the Black Star Network. Support the work that we do folks. Join our bring the funk fan club. Send your check and money or to PO Box 57196

Washington, D.C. 20037-0196 Cash App. Excuse me. We're still working out Cash App, so we're trying to get them straight. So I'll give you that once we actually have it because they changed their rules, greatly impacting us. PayPal is rmartinunfiltered. Venmo, rm

unfiltered. Zelle, rolling at rolling at smartin.com, rolling at rolling at martinunfil R.M. Unfiltered Zelle. Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back. He told us who he was. Should abortion be punished? There has to be some form of punishment. Then he showed us.

For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated. And I did it. And Iinated, and I did it. And I'm proud to have done it. Now Donald Trump wants to go further with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women's pregnancies. We know who Donald Trump is. He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message.

Bob and I both voted for Donald Trump. I voted for him twice. I won't vote for him again. January 6th was a wake-up call for me. Donald Trump divides people. We've already seen what he has to bring. He didn't do anything to help us. Kamala Harris, she cares about the American people.

I think she's got the wherewithal to make a difference. I've never voted for a Democrat. Yes, we're both lifelong Republicans. The choice is very simple. I'm voting for Kamala. I am voting for Kamala Harris. In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House. Now those people have a warning for America.

Trump is not fit to be president again. Here's his vice president. Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. His defense secretary. Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's secrets ever again? No. I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk,

places our nation's security at risk. His national security advisor. Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump. And the nation's highest-ranking military officer. We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator.

Take it from the people who knew him best. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can't let him lead our country again. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. IVF is a miracle for us, because it allowed us to have our family. After having my daughter, I wanted more children. But my embryo transfer was canceled eight days before the procedure.

Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade stopped us from growing the family that we wanted. I don't want politicians telling me how or when I can have a baby. We need a president that will protect our rights, and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems.

Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, the crowd. This weird obsession with crowd sizes. It just goes on and on and on. America's ready for a new chapter. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. The overturning of Roe almost killed me. I had a blood clot in my uterus

that caused my labor to have to be induced because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I wasn't able to get life-saving treatment sooner. I almost died. And that's because of the decision that Donald Trump made. I was able to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I'm proud to have done it.

The doctors and nurses were afraid that if they treated me in the incorrect way, that they would be prosecuted for that and that's appalling donald trump says that women should be punished do you believe in punishment for abortion there has to be some form of punishment for the woman yeah i believe that women should have reproductive freedom to make the choices about their own bodies four more years of donald trump means that women's rights will continue to be taken away one by one by one by one. This has to stop because women are dying. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Kamala Harris has never backed down from a challenge. She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars and she will secure our border. Here's her plan. Hire thousands more

border agents, enforce the law and step up technology, and stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking. We need a leader with a real plan to fix the border, and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Hey, what's up, y'all? I'm Devon Frank. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Hey, what's up y'all? I'm Devon Franklin. I'm Dr. Robin B, pharmacist and fitness coach, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, black and missing. First of all, yesterday, before I go to that, yesterday, I posted on social media that the granddaughter of Merle Evers-Williams was missing. That was last night.

We got word today that she actually has been found and is in a hospital there in Georgia. So thankful for that. So we certainly just wanted to let you all know that. Now let's go to our black and missing for today's show. First and foremost, folks, Malia Bouton has been missing from her new Iberia, Louisiana home since August 16th. The 17-year-old is five feet tall, weighs 120 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Malia Bouton should call the new Iberia, Louisiana Police Department at 337-369-230 Department at 337-369-2306. 337-369-2306. Well, New York City Mayor Eric Adams today played not guilty to federal corruption charges

as the prosecutors accused him of using his power and influence to garner free trips, luxury hotel stays, and questionable campaign donations. Magistrate Judge Catherine Parker released Eric Adams after the hearing, but ruled he could not contact anyone involved in the indictment's allegations. The mayor will continue routine business contacts and communication with family members. The judge also allowed Adams to keep his passport. Adams has denied wrongdoing and said that he doesn't plan to resign. Let's go to Michigan, where a judge who handcuffed a teenage girl

as she fell asleep during a school trip to his courthouse, well, he's been bucked down. Judge Kenneth King was temporarily suspended from courtroom duties in August after ordering 15-year-old Eva Goodman into jail clothes and handcuffs for having a bad attitude and falling asleep while on a visit to his Detroit courtroom. The judge also threatened the girl, whose mother said she was tired because they do not have a permanent address, her juvenile detention. Well, King was ordered to undertake social-emotional training by the chief judge.

He has returned to work, but instead of handling key hearings and major felonies, he's now handling speeding tickets. Sounds fair to me, Michael. Yeah, it does. You know, Roland, this was a big story here in Detroit. A lot of people were furious from all walks of life. WXYZ Channel 7 did a lot of coverage on this. I'm reading an article right now from the Detroit Free Press. And Judge Kenneth Keene was defiant. Even when he was interviewed by Channel 7 and other news outlets, even when more information came out. The child's mother was interviewed and basically was in tears

and talked about the fact that they were in between homes, et cetera, and the child was tired. And it's one thing to try to maybe put somebody on a diversionary track. And this is the argument that just Kenneth King was making. But this just went way too far. Just to have her handcuffed, et cetera, this just went way too far. And I think it was an abuse of power. So he deserves to be demoted. This is what happens when you have arrogant judges who think they can do whatever they want to do. Jolanda? Yeah, so I am a criminal defense

lawyer, so I'm before judges all the time. Just like we need a president with a good temperament, we need the same with judges. The problem I have with him, and let me get to the end of the question first, yes, he should absolutely be demoted, but these kids were there visiting on a field trip. So it's not like the kid was really in court and was defiant when was faced when the kid was facing charges so it was an abuse of power i think the fact that he's being defiant even now scares me that he's on the bench because again this kid didn't do anything i want to get back to eric adams just for a second he absolutely should plead not guilty again i'm a criminal defense lawyer one the government would we know you're a criminal defense lawyer.

You ain't got to keep saying it. First of all- You know that. First of all, you can indict a ham sandwich almost anywhere, right? The government always comes with the most incendiary, strongest words against you. And testimony by a co-conspirator alone is insufficient as a matter of law everywhere to convict you. And as an elected official also, I literally can't take every meeting with everyone that

wants to speak with me, with everyone who wants something from my office. We rely on our staff to talk to people, and we rely on our staff to come back and tell us what happened, what transpired. So even if something did happen, something illegal campaign-wise, and again, the same thing is true on your campaign staff, they can come to you and lie to you and tell you things. And so in any case, I think that he needs to do exactly what he's doing. He needs to let the legal process run itself. And I think the legal process is running itself with Judge King. And I really don't think he should be on the bench because he still doesn't get it.

Got it. Okay. Robert. Well, as somebody who recently ran for judge, I can tell people you need to pay attention to your local judicial elections. We pay a whole lot of attention to Trump versus Kamala on the national level. We absolutely should be doing so. We pay a lot of attention to Trump versus Kamala on the national level. We absolutely should be doing so. We pay a lot of attention to the Senate balance, what's going on, and abortion rights and those sorts of things. But these are the things that happen in your state and local elections. Way

on that back page of the ballot, when your parking meter's about to run out and you're just clicking buttons trying to get through, those are how these types of judges get on the bench. We have to pay more attention to who we are electing on the state and local level, make sure we're putting people there who have a heart towards criminal justice reform, who want to help young people not have their own scared straight program. And if we start doing that, we can start seeing the system reforming itself from the inside out. Criminal justice reform isn't just changing the laws. It's changing the people who are enacting the laws.

All right, folks. Earlier this week, Vice President Kamala Harris laid out her economic policy. Earlier today, I had a chance to catch up with Samantha Tweedy, who is the CEO of the Black Economic Alliance, to talk about how does that policy impact African-Americans. Here's our conversation. Samantha, Vice President Kamala Harris has laid out her economic policy. The Black Economic Alliance has taken a look at it. Speak to this, what she's laid out and how it will specifically benefit African-Americans. Absolutely. So first, Roland, it is good to be on with you today.

And the Black Economic Alliance is a coalition of black business leaders who came together with a singular purpose to leverage the business acumen network influence of the Black business community to advance work wages and wealth across the entire Black community. Earlier this year, BEA Foundation released our policy agenda to advance Black work wages and wealth with the singular focus on identifying the key policy initiatives that would move the needle on Black economic prosperity and wealth building. A testament to the strength of the policy agenda for Black folks was that within weeks of the release, under the leadership of CBC Chairman Stephen Horsford, the CBC in joint resolutions in the House and Senate, excuse me, endorsed with 60,

all 60 members of the CBC as co-sponsors that agenda. I give all of that background to say, when we look at VP Harris's opportunity economy and the agenda behind it, it is clear to us full stop that this is an agenda that is good for black folks. But I wanna get to in a minute is that, while that is true, full stop, that this is an agenda that is good for Black folks. What I want to get to in a minute is that while that is true, full stop, period, it's also an economy, it's also an agenda that is good for growing the entire American economy. So a couple highlights that we saw in her agenda,

which were reflected in our Black Work Wages Wealth Agenda, things like creating more housing to own and to rent, more good paying jobs, lowering costs. We see that she's giving more than 100 million working and middle class Americans a tax cut, including, importantly, $6,000 for new parents during the first year of a child's life, making housing more affordable by building 3 million new homes through a new home buyer tax credit, helping more Americans experience the pride of homeownership by providing up to $25,000 for a down payment on a first home, investing in American entrepreneurship, spurring $25 million new business applications in our first term, expanding the startup expense tax deduction from $5K to $50K for new businesses, and I can go on and on and on. The thing that's important to know here is that in addition to creating the policy agenda, we went out and we asked Black voters what those top economic issues are that matter to them for elected officials to prioritize.

And these top to bottom, homeownership, renting and buying, being able to advance and expand access to capital for Black entrepreneurs, job and workforce development rose to the top every time. Now, as I mentioned, it's important. And I think when we talk about the context of this opportunity agenda and what it means for Black Americans that we also call out that this is good for everyone. We have so much data that shows now that when we have an economic agenda like this, one that addresses the racial economic disparities across housing, access to capital, et cetera, what we see,

and for example, in city data that came out that told us that if we had closed those kinds of economic disparities over just the last two decades, we would have added $16 trillion to the GDP. That's not just the black GDP, right? That's not just the black and brown GDP. That's the United States GDP. So the headline here is that this is an economic agenda that is very good for advancing black economic prosperity and wealth building. that this is an economic agenda that is very good for advancing black economic prosperity and wealth building. And it's an economic agenda that's going to be good for business and grow the entire American economy. But how have you been drilling that down to the regular average ordinary brother or sister? And that's the issue that as I travel the country,

I often hear folks say, hey, that's all great. That sounds all rosy, but I'm not feeling it. I'm not seeing it. It doesn't impact me. And so what are you doing to specifically communicate that to folks who ordinarily are not operating in Washington, D.C., in New York, who are not necessarily consumers of a lot of news? That's right. And that is so important. I mean, you say all the time here, right, Roland, that black voters are not necessarily consumers of a lot of news. That's right. And that is so important. I mean, you say all the time here, right, Roland, that black voters are not a monolith, number one,

and number two, that we are going to and Vice President Harris is going to need to and every elected official is going to need to work for the vote. And that is going to be true so long as we are still at a place in this country where black folks are at the losing end of a six to one racial wealth gap, where we're still looking at housing disparities that are as large as they were during Jim Crow. So we just want to make sure as a starting point that when we are talking to Black voters and with Black voters, that we are starting with that acknowledgement. Now, we just did polling, and important to call out that this polling happened once Vice President Harris was at the top of the ticket.

So this is fresh, and this is relevant. We did polling across the country with a prioritization on the battleground states that showed us that right now, economic issues are still top of mind for Black voters, and that's above immigration, national security, abortion, everything else. The other thing that the data found was that Black business leaders are the most trusted messengers on those economic issues. 13% more trusted than elected officials, 27% more trusted than celebrities. is that BEA, this nonpartisan coalition of Black business leaders and all our network and allies need to be in direct conversation with voters right now around these issues. So in addition to running with the vice president and the campaign, we need to run alongside the vice president in the campaign, speaking directly from Black business leaders to voters. So we next week

are launching for this final stretch until Election Day, a direct voter contact program that's going to include both digital ads and text messages. Again, as you've been talking about here, Roland, the ads are great, but Michigan, where very importantly, the number of infrequent Black voters will be decisive margins of victory, both for Vice President Harris, and we should note too, Hakeem Jeffries becoming the first Black Speaker of the House. And so in all of those states and districts, we'll be having these conversations leveraging the trusted messengership of the Black business community on the economic issues that we know will motivate Black voters most in this final stretch. Where are these digital ads, Ronnie, and how many people are we talking about when you talk about reaching them via text message? It's a perfect question. So we analyze

the infrequent Black voter numbers across states where we know that there are decisive margins of Black voters. So when we look across those five states, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, there are about 1.5 million infrequent Black voters. And from our prior cycles where we've done this kind of engagement with voters, what we know is that we can expect a 45% engagement rate. So what that gets us to is the ability to be in active conversation with 700,000 voters between now and Election Day. So we'll be running those ads, and we'll be doing that direct conversation through text messages

where we can make sure that folks have the information they need to vote, we can respond to their questions, and we can provide them with this economic messaging that we know will mobilize and motivate. So you said the ads are running on platforms or directly in text messages? Digital ads and text messages. So we're going to do both strategies because we know that the impact is greater when we can run both, right? You know, you just think about when you've seen an ad and then you get a message on your phone that's saying the same thing, right? That's reinforcing those messages. They want to go further. And one thing I would say, oh, I'm sorry, Roland, go ahead. So the digital ads are

running where? What platforms are they running on? Oh, what platforms are they going to be running on? They're going to be running on YouTube and a set of other digital platforms that will vary a bit depending on geography by us being able to break down where we know black voters, particularly young male black voters are focused, given what we know is still the work that we need to do there to mobilize that critical voting block to be able to come through for Election Day. And the one other note I was going to make was we're all sitting here, so many of us, you know, watching our phones blow up every day with text message after text message. But for the demographic of voters that we're talking about, that is not

the situation. So we know that the text messages is an incredibly meaningful way to break through and get in that direct conversation with voters. Anything in person, anything on the ground? So we are doing this in alongside organizations that are doing the kind of on the ground mobilization that we know is so critically important, doing what you say, Roland, sort of touching and feeling the voter. At this point, I think what we would all say is that all of it matters and all of it needs to happen. For us, as the Black Economic Alliance, we see our highest and best use as being the messengers of those economic issues in ways that we know will break through. So we will be in all of these battleground states alongside our partners who are doing that on the ground voter reg and we'll be doing the persuasion messaging around the economic issues. there has been tremendous growth over the last three years under Biden-Harris,

but frankly, that has not been articulated enough, explained enough. I've had the head of the SBA on as well. And so to me, I think that's also one of the areas. And one of the perfect example, when the vice president was in Detroit unveiling her economic plan, you plan, I said on the show afterwards that I thought one of the biggest mistakes was not actually having individuals with businesses in the audience at one point even stand up and say, hey, here are people that went out of business during COVID

and brought businesses back. Again, to me, that's also a constant, a missed opportunity in many of these states. I think that's right. And actually, that's why back in the spring, the Black Economic Alliance partnered with VP Harris on her Economic Opportunity Tour, where we went with her to all of these same battleground states. We were with her together in Detroit, in Atlanta, and actually doing just what you're saying, Roland. We were sitting there with audiences of small business owners and local community to be able to do just what you described, which was to help message the successes of the Biden-Harris administration, but also to make

it real for folks. And so outside of all of those auditoriums, there would be fairs where folks could actually go and sign up for these resources, learn more. And it was that economic opportunity tour that really led to the framing for this opportunity agenda that we now see Harris running on. What we said then, though, is that just talking about the track record wasn't enough. At the time, if voters aren't feeling it yet, then we needed that forward-looking, that aspirational, that what is going to come next to make sure that I know that my dollars are going to stay in my wallet, that those dollars are going to grow, that costs are going to go down, that I'm going to have more access. And I think that has been the flip that we've seen with Harris at the top of the ticket,

that it's not just her lauding the track record as significant as that track record truly is for Black economic progress. It's always also this forward-looking vision that folks can see themselves in and can really understand that it's going to get better for me, better for my family and better for my community. How specifically are y'all trying to message to black men? When you look at the data, obviously black women, both were Democrats with the highest rate for a second.

But when you look at polls out there, when you look at data out there, a lot of these young African-American men, 35, say they are they are potentially looking looking at Donald Trump. But it's not like he's laying out an economic agenda. And so so how are you messaging to them and who specifically are you positioning to talk to them? Yes. So we disaggregated all of our data so that we were looking not just at black voters, but we were looking by gender and by age as well. And for young black voters, economic issues, again, rose completely to the top. And Black business leaders as those messengers rose to the top. Then there were really helpful nuances once we looked, Roland, at the messaging and how you talk about these issues. So for example, when you talk about lowering costs, which is important

to all Black folks, what we saw with men was that talking about this within the context of wages was most persuasive, whereas when you looked at black women, it said jump straight to lowering costs. And so we were able to learn those kinds of messaging nuances that are going to inform everything that we are saying as we're going out as this coalition of black business leaders talking specifically to young black men. And that's what we have to do. We also have to know that our starting point needs to be to acknowledge the realities, right? If we just jump in, whether it's VP Harris or whether it's us as business leaders running alongside the VP in the campaign, and we start talking about what's coming next without talking about the current

state, the pain, the structures, the actual issues that have been holding Black folks back when it comes to economic progress, then our messaging is going to fall on deaf ears. And so that starting point, that acknowledgement has to be the way to open up the door to every conversation when we are engaging young black voters. Last point, there are, what, 39 days left in terms of before Election Day. Early voting is already starting in some of these places. And it is going to be an election by the margins. You look at 2020, Georgia, Arizona. And if you look at even Michigan, you can throw in Pennsylvania, very slim margins. Obama won North Carolina by 14,100 votes in 2008.

North Carolina potentially is a state that is in play for the vice president this year as well. Rural voters, you talked about your text messaging campaign. Have you broken down the data in terms of those voters and what they want to hear? Because their concerns in rural North Carolina and rural Georgia are different than what's happening in larger cities. So speak to that. Yeah, that's right. And that's why it's exciting for us to do this as this national coalition, because we have business leaders in Georgia, we have business leaders in North Carolina. And so this isn't just, as you said, you know, D.C., New York messaging that's coming to the forefront. What we're excited to do in the first week of this program is to do A.B.

testing where we can take all that messaging and framing, and we can put a couple different versions of it out so that we can see within those very first days, does this message work better in Atlanta? And that message look better when we're speaking to rural voters. And then we'll be able to share that out with all of the community of partners that we're in this work with. So that messaging is influencing everyone. You made the point that's the most important one now is that we are in a race to the finish line. And so we have to be moving urgently. We have to be learning as we go and we have to be connected and sharing all this information

with the group of partners who are all in it in this push, understanding that the Black vote will be decisive and that we collectively have the power to have deep influence

over what that vote looks like come election day. All right. Sabela Tweedy, Black Economic Lab. We appreciate it. Thanks a. Sabela Tweedie, Black Economic Alliance. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for your leadership, Roland.

I'll talk to you soon. All right, folks, real quick to our panel here. I'll start with you, Robert, that economic message. You look at the polling data, you see how Vice President Kamala Harris is gaining ground against Donald Trump and people closing that gap in terms of her commitment to the economy. And so I think that's one of the reasons why you're seeing it play out in these polls that are showing an incremental lead expanding for Harris. You know, you're absolutely correct. I was with Congressman Jonathan Jackson, who was up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, yesterday, speaking to a group of voters, primarily African-Americans.

And the benefit that Vice President Harris has is that she has a team behind her. She has a roster behind her where you can employ people across the country to do just as was said, speak to small groups of African-American voters, answer the questions, put aside some of the concerns that are being spread by Russian disinformation and COINTELPRO operations online and tell people exactly what the real economic message is and how it will benefit them. Donald Trump doesn't have that. George Bush isn't supporting Donald Trump.

Dick Cheney isn't supporting Donald Trump. Mitt Romney isn't supporting Donald Trump. It really is just him. And by not having that team around him, it's clear that he is the only person that can carry his messaging. And Kamala Harris very much shows what happens when you have a unified government and a unified party that seeks to push these ideals forward. And all you have to do is dive into the analysis of these facts. Every economic analysis has said that Donald Trump's plan to govern through tariffs somehow

is complete nonsense. It does not work mathematically. The numbers don't math. The math don't math. If you look at Kamala Harris's plan, you're going to see something that's going to help the middle class. It's just a matter of translating that to where people can understand it. The reality here, Michael, is that, again, I think people need to calm the hell down and look at this election, because I hate when people say,

if the election was held today, it's not. Right. It's not. And so what you're seeing is you're seeing a candidate in a campaign, again, methodically build. The vice presidential debate will be carrying right here on the Blackstone Network, taking place on Tuesday. I doubt there's gonna be a second debate between her and Trump. But again, this thing is building, building, building.

That's what you're seeing. Absolutely. And, you know, I've been going through her economic plan that was just released that you just discussed. Black Enterprise has a good article dealing with how this plan would help black people. And one of the things they talk about is dealing with food costs, groceries, and they talk about how black families spend 1.5 times more on food than white families. So Kamala Harris as president introducing a federal ban on price gouging for groceries

would disproportionately benefit African-Americans, black people. It talks about directing 33 percent of federal contracts to black and Latino-owned small businesses. That's huge. OK, millionaires are created by federal contracts. OK, so and I've managed two black-owned companies that had contracts with local and state government. Federal is huge. And you have people who say, oh, well, this is not specifically for black people. Right. Race-based policies are illegal based upon Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Section 601,

non-discrimination and federally assisted programs. So people have to understand law. But you can write policies that disproportionately positively benefit. Yeah. African-American. And we see we see that in Jelani. I love these people who say Vice President Kamala Harris, she's copy and pasting Biden's economic plan. Well, it is the Biden Harris agenda. So I would think that if you the Harris in the Biden Harris agenda and it's going well, that you ain't got a problem doing it. Well, I agree with you there, team. But I think

that what's important about Vice President Harris's plan, her economic plan, one, we got to remember she hadn't had all this time to get her message out. She literally took over at the top of the Democratic ticket in July or August. So for people to expect for her to have explained everything like Donald Trump could have because he's still conceptualizing shit is wrong.

But I think she's doing a good job. And what I think is really important about what she's doing is she's taking into consideration, and I want to make sure I don't mix this, that she's tackling racial and gender disparities by investing in communities of color and promoting economic justice. Why is that important? Because in this climate of Republicans and Trump getting rid of DEI, talking about critical race theory, where you want to just

erase where we are today and why we are where we are today. We've got to have policies that address why and where we are today. Also, insofar as affordable housing, we need affordable rental. We talked about affordable home ownership if you want. But also we have a homelessness problem, and there are a lot of kids who are homeless. And I will tell you that Vice President Harris's economic plan addresses homelessness. You can go to any city and you will see where the mayors in those big cities are trying to move out the homeless population with their conventions and things coming. If you don't have a stable place to stay, you can't get a job, you can't get rest,

you don't have a place to keep your food. She also... Hold on, hold on. I got a reason I got to cut you off there. Here's why. I got to get to my next guest. Vice President Kamala Harris is going to be speaking in about 10 minutes. So I got to get this in before we do that. Daria Lewis, Daria Rose, I'm sorry.

She's been, she's a lawyer. She's also been all over social media, breaking down Project 2025. I saw some of her videos and I said, look, we got to get her on the show. And I ran to her at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, ALC, and I was like, all right, let's do this. And so she joins us right now. First and foremost, glad to have you here. You've really been just walking people through. Joe Madison, the late, great Joe Madison would always say, you got to put it where the goats can get it. And that's what you've been doing. So what, what inspired you to start these series of Project 2025 videos on TikTok and other platforms?

Well, thank you so much for having me, Roland. I'm excited to be on this platform. You've created such an audience and a place for black people to come and get their news. And sometimes we don't really have that. And part of what inspired me, after I graduated from Yale in 2022, I went to work in a big law environment and I was always on social media. And I noticed that my friends weren't talking about the election.

They weren't talking about politics, but I knew that they cared about it. There just wasn't a big outlet for it. For things like Project 2025 and Chevron deference and all the Supreme Court decisions that continue to come out, people don't really know about them. And the news doesn't do a great job at talking about them. I know my friends don't really have cable. So I decided I wanted to make videos on TikTok, on Instagram, where we spend so much of our time, too much of our time

sometimes. And yeah, it's just been really great to see the response. And I've built an amazing audience and we can converse back and forth and we talk about issues. And there's so many people every day who tell me, I didn't even know about this. I haven't heard about Project 2025. And have you been surprised? Because first of all, when Taraji Henson mentioned it on the BET Awards, it actually just blew it up. But look, the average person ain't going to go through 921 pages. And so, one, how long did it take you to go through all of that? And two, what are two or three things that just jump out at you where you are reading going, these folks are nuts? Well, I had heard about Project 2025 way before. People had been

talking about it for months. And then when Taraji came out and said it, I was like, okay, it's go time. People are going to be looking this up. They're going to get discouraged when they see the 900 pages. It took me about a few weeks, you know, of learning it and talking to my friends about it. And then to sit down and really go through what are the most important things. I say the three things that really jumped out to me, one, the issue on abortion. They want to completely get rid of abortion access. They also mentioned this thing called the Comstock Act that a lot of people don't know about, but it's a law that basically made the shipping of birth control pills illegal. So we're talking about not just abortion, but now

we're talking about birth control. So it's just running the gamut. And remember, it was it was Justice Clarence Thomas who made that point in the Dobbs decision where, oh, yeah, contraception. And so folks were saying, hey, y'all, they ain't stopping an abortion. No, they're no, they're not. They're trying to expand it. The second thing that was absolutely crazy to me is dismantling the Department of Education. The Department of Education has been around over 50 years. And before that, we've always had some form of regulation for education system. I think this is their move to the Christian nationalist thing. They believe that professors and institutions are radicalizing children. They don't believe in DEI. They're believing in banning books. So getting rid of the Department of Education is one huge step in that. I think

the third and most concerning one is their plan for Schedule F, and that's to reclassify a bunch of federal employees and make them at will, essentially being able to fire them. They'd be able to fire the scientists at NASA from the people who work on the Food and Drug Administration and the FDA and replace them with DJT loyalists who will do his bidding. So those were the three huge ones. There's so much other stuff in there. They want to get rid of porn, make it illegal for anyone distributing it. They want to, there's, there's a lot, a lot. First of all, first of all, which is hilarious because the CEO of Grindr said the Republican National Convention is literally the Super Bowl for Grindr for people who are on their app. Yes, I heard that, too.

And I heard they had to, like, get rid of traffic during it. So it's yeah, I remember I was in Tampin 2012 and the strip club owner said, oh, we prefer Republicans, Republican National Convention of the Democrat National one of the things that we talked about at the top of the show is the Department of Justice and how they want to weaponize it. And the point that you also made that folks don't really understand, they want, product 2025, they want loyalty oaths from all federal workers. And normally there are appointed positions the administration has. No, they are appointed positions the administration has. No, they want to gut the federal government of the deep state, all these bureaucrats,

and they want to say you must pledge fealty to the MAGA agenda. And we all know that African Americans over index in government jobs. Exactly. They've created this whole conservative LinkedIn platform. So on the first day, if he was to get elected and be in office, he would have 10,000 workers ready at his disposal who have taken this sort of oath, like you say, to be loyal to him. The first time around in 2016, he didn't have this because they didn't think he was going to win. A lot of conservatives didn't take him seriously. So this time around, he has the plan. He has the playbook. He's ready to go. As far as the DOJ and what he wants to do there, there's so many things. I mean,

Donald Trump has said at his rallies multiple times he wants to give officers complete federal immunity from prosecution. And we've seen, you know, police brutality in these most recent months with Sonia Massey's killing. We've seen it with George Floyd, which they're still trying to pass the George Floyd Policing Act. We could forget about that if he's elected. The second huge major part of his plan with the DOJ is weaponizing them to do mass deportations. They want to round up 30 million people. Some of them they want to put in camp. Some of them they want to send back to their home countries. That's not what the Justice Department is supposed to be used for. And the third one is he wants to dismantle the FBI.

And a lot of people don't know the FBI is mainly responsible for investigating cases that deal with race-based discrimination, assault cases, any cases where it's—anything really related to police brutality. The FBI really takes a big hand in that. He wants to get rid of that. So both, all three prongs of those are very, very concerning, especially for black and brown communities that are already over-policed and over-indexed. Well, you know, again, going through this is critically important because as you said, folk don't actually read it. That's why yesterday when I broke down how in 60 years there have been three executions on the federal level,

but prior to Trump there were three, none under Obama and Biden. Trump executed 13 people in six months. This man is sadistic. He is crazy. So it's about two and a half minutes before the vice president speaks. So quickly to the panel. So first, Michael, your question for Daria quick. Daria, thanks for coming on. Man, ask your question. I'm asking. I said quick, damn it. I'm asking. I don't need all that. Thank you for coming on. get to your question. Comstock Act 1873. Connect the Comstock Act to the banning nationwide of contraceptives as well as pornography

because all that is connected dealing with abortion as well. Connect those together, please. Stop rushing, Ro. Hell no! I want Daria to be able to answer, but we also want to cover the vice president's speech. Now, damn it, ask a quick question. Daria to be able to answer. We also want to cover the vice president's speech. Now, damn it, ask a quick question.

Daria, go ahead and answer. Yes, go ahead. I'll answer this in the short way. You're fine, but go ahead. All of these are really related to the privacy laws that we see and really about how much you want the government to be in your bedroom and in your home. And over the years, that has shifted, both as we've seen with contraceptives, as we've seen with—related to abortion, by the way.

Abortion is health care, talking about reproductive health and justice, again, disproportionately affecting Black and brown women in this country. And then we have—we've seen with gay marriage. So all three of those are intertwined when we think about the right to privacy. And the Comstock Act was something that they thought of when the government was way more involved in that, when we were way more connected to this Christian nationalism idea. And the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 want to revert to this. Clarence Thomas also talked about it in the Dobbs decision, which is the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. They want to repeal many of these efforts. So it's going to make it a lot harder to get access to contraceptives, to get access to abortion care and reproductive

health care. Jolanda. My very simple question, what is the scariest consequence that black men need to be afraid of related to criminal justice with Project 2025? Honestly, I would say DJT himself has shown that he is way supportive of police officers more so than anyone I've seen before in terms of trying to give them a full immunity. The reason why we have body cameras is because of the efforts of many Democratic politicians throughout the years that said, we need to get this stuff on camera. We have to see it. We have to believe it. The instances like George Floyd being recorded, the instances of Sonia Massey, we even have, this wasn't a police case, but Ahmaud Arbery. We've seen so many time and time again prosecutors reluctant to persecute these police officers for their killings.

And it's not until, you know, the public gets involved in this. DJT wants to eliminate that completely, which would make police officers way more emboldened. We're talking about stop and frisk on a different level that we've never seen. We're talking about illegal searches in your car. Just so many things that would embolden them to act in ways where they know that they're not going to have to answer to anyone. They're not going to have to be held accountable. So black and brown men should be, yes. With complete immunity, effectively, that could kill us. It could all be recorded. And it doesn't matter because complete immunity means complete immunity. Would you agree with that? Complete immunity means complete immunity, period. It's a full stop. They cannot be

prosecuted for it at any time. It doesn't matter how much rallying goes on. It doesn't matter how much protesting. That's it. And that's not to mention also the settlements that some of these families get that put them in positions to say not to mention also the settlements that some of these families get that put them in positions to say, not just the police officers, but the city. The city has a duty to answer. That would eliminate everyone's accountability and liability for these terrible murders and killings,

and it would just over-police a state that's already policed. So, you know, Black and brown men obviously are the main ones incarcerated in terms of ratio and disproportionately represented in the mass incarceration system. So it is a lot to be scared about. It really is. Robert, your question. Let me give you an update. So the vice president was supposed to speak at 745 p.m. Eastern. They've now pushed it back to 8 p.m. Eastern. But still be quick with your damn question. Robert.

I think many people don't understand that the part of Project 2025 that talks about the deportation of upwards of 20 million people who are here undocumented, according to the document. Can you talk about what that would actually mean to communities when you have to send in ostensibly stormtroopers to drag families out of their houses, put them on trucks, put them into concentration camps while you sort them out, and then basically taking, you know, 10 percent of the country and pushing them out? Can you talk about what the effects of that will be? Definitely. I don't know if you've ever seen Handmaid's Tale with Margaret Atwood, but it would be similar to that. It would involve these troopers in massive gear coming into communities, coming into people's homes where they have children and terrorizing them, essentially,

and ripping them apart. There's a lot of undocumented immigrants and undocumented families that sometimes they're married to a citizen. Under this, they wouldn't care. They would come in, they would rip those families apart. There's a part where they said they would put them in camps. These sound like internment camps that we had back in the days of World War II and the Japanese, which we've since apologized for.

So it would unleash a whole level of brutality like we've never seen before. The effects on the mental health of the citizens watching this, not just the undocumented citizens, but the people who they have their neighbor, they saw, they saw their neighbor just being dragged out of their home. It would, it would be really, really terrible and unfortunate for everyone involved. So I there's really there's really no words for it. We've never seen anything like it. It would be a mass rounding up of 30 million people, people in a lot of cases who are vital to our economy, who work alongside us, who live alongside us, who eat alongside us. And Daria, the thing that people really need to understand, first of all, anytime the Trump people say,

oh, we disavow this, they're lying. They're lying. A bunch of Trump officials wrote it. They are in lockstep. We already know, which you know well, he followed everything the Federalist Society wanted to do in naming Supreme Court justices.

And so all he's going to say is, okay, here you go, Heritage Foundation. Y'all do what the hell y'all want. I'm just here for the pomp and circumstance. So people need to understand, this is a working document. This is real. This is literally the hardcore right-wing blueprint master plan for completely decimating the federal government.

That is their absolute goal. This is not a theoretical exercise or a hypothetical exercise. It is real. It's very real. It's very real. And they want to dismantle the administrative state, which they've already started doing with the decision that came down in June, which is Chevron deference. So they completely gutted Chevron, which was part of the administrative state, which gave deference to these agencies like the EPA, like NOAA, like the FDA, who they have experts who are allowed to make decisions on very vital aspects of the day-to-day lives of average Americans. And they said, no, we're taking that power back and we're putting it into our hands. Putting DJT back in office, again, would allow the power to be back in his hands because he would eliminate large sections of the administrative state that kind of act as insular barriers to keep

him from doing this. And people really don't understand that because they never had to interact with it before. But if he comes into office and he works with the Heritage Foundation, who, by the way, some of them I went to school with, they're not dummies. They know what they're doing. They've read the Constitution. They understand the things that are in there and they can implement them in ways that are legal. Absolutely. Absolutely. Daria Rose, we appreciate it. We're going to have you back. So just let us know when, because then what we do is just like I've been doing, taking these segments, driving them on social because, I mean, look, you know, you've got you're approaching 200,000 followers on TikTok by 25,000 Instagram.

That's important because the data shows that folks 18 to 35, more than 50 percent are getting their information from TikTok and Instagram. So if we're not feeding real information into those platforms, then folks are seeing a bunch of misinformation, a bunch of lies, a bunch of BS. And so you got to have folks who are breaking this stuff down in bite sized ways for people to understand. Exactly. Keep it simple. Keep it accessible. And that's the way we're going to keep the public informed. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. We'll have you back. Thank you so very much. Going to go to a quick break. We come back more. We are about nine minutes away from the vice president speaking in arizona you're watching roland martin unfiltered on the black star network don't forget to support the work that we do our goal is to get 20 000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks each that's four dollars and 19 cents a month 13 cents a day um i hate the fact that uh that cash app has

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We'll be right back. He told us who he was. Should abortion be punished? There has to be some form of punishment. Then he showed us. For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v Wade terminated and I did it and I'm proud to have done it. Now Donald Trump wants to go further with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women's pregnancies. We know who

Donald Trump is. He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Bob and I both voted for Donald Trump. I voted for him twice. I won't vote for him again. January 6th was a wake-up call for me. Donald Trump divides people. We've already seen what he has to bring. He didn't do anything to help us. Kamala Harris, she cares about the American people. I think she's got the wherewithal to make a difference. I've never voted for a Democrat. Yes, we're both lifelong Republicans. The choice is very simple. I'm voting for Kamala. I am voting for Kamala Harris. In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House. Now those people have a warning for America. Trump is not fit to be president again. Here's his vice president.

Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. His defense secretary. Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's secrets ever again? No. I mean, it's just irresponsible action

that places our service members at risk, places our nation's security at risk. His national security advisor. Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump. And the nation's highest-ranking military officer. We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator.

Take it from the people who knew him best. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can't let him lead our country again. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. IVF is a miracle for us because it allowed us to have our family. After having my daughter, I wanted more children, but my embryo transfer was canceled eight days before the procedure.

Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade stopped us from growing the family that we wanted. I don't want politicians telling me how or when I can have a baby. We need a president that will protect our rights, and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Here's a 78-year-old billionaire And that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message.

Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems. Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, the crowd. This weird obsession with crowd sizes. It just goes on and on and on. America's ready for a new chapter. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. The overturning of Roe almost killed me.

I had a blood clot in my uterus that caused my labor to have to be induced because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I wasn't able to get life-saving treatment sooner. I almost died. And that's because of the decision that Donald Trump made. I was able to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I'm proud to have done it. The doctors and nurses were afraid that if they treated me in the incorrect way that they would be prosecuted for that. And that's appalling.

Donald Trump says that women should be punished. Do you believe in punishment for abortion? There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman? Yeah. I believe that women should have reproductive freedom to make the choices about their own bodies. Four more years of Donald Trump means that women's rights will continue to be taken away one by one by one by one. This has to stop

because women are dying. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Kamala Harris has never backed down from a challenge. She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars. And she will secure our border. Here's her plan. Hire thousands more border agents. Enforce the law and step up technology. And stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking. We need a leader with a real plan to fix the border. And that's Kamala Harris.

I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Hello, we're the Critter Fixers. I'm Dr. Bernard Hodges. And I'm Dr. Terrence Ferguson. And you're tuning in to... Roland Martin Unfiltered. Oh, I love all the viral ads that laid all out what's going on. The folks at VoteVets dropped this one, and they did not hold any punches.

Donald Trump was commander-in-chief when he was trusted with our top-secret information on our military plans and on our enemies. Documents so highly classified that if they fell into the wrong hands, could risk American missions and end American lives. Documents he had no right to have once he left office. He showed them off to friends and tried to hide them when he got caught, where enemies could have easily accessed them. If I mishandled classified secrets the way Trump did, I'd be locked up in Leavenworth

for life. He's been arrested and will be put on trial as he should be. But never again should Donald Trump be trusted with national security clearance. Never again should Donald Trump be in command of our armed forces. And never again should anyone serving our country in uniform have to salute a walking, talking, national security threat like Donald Trump. Damn, that's a good one, VoteVets. The Lincoln Project dropped this one about three hours ago against that idiot J.D. Vance. We'll check this out. A lot of moms and dads saw marriage as a basic contract, right? Like any other business deal.

Once it becomes no longer good for one of the parties or both of the parties, you just dissolve it and go on to a new business relationship. And this is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is this idea that like, well, okay, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier

for people to shift spouses, like they changed their underwear, that's gonna make people happier in the long term. And what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that's making our kids unhappy. Pretty, pretty good. Pretty, pretty good. I was checking out last night another different ad, and the white dudes for Kamala dropped this one right here. Check it out.

White dudes. So I think we're all pretty sick of hearing how much we suck. Every time you go online, it's the same story. We're the problem. And yeah, some white dudes are. Trump and all his MAGA buddies are out there making it worse. Shouting nonsense in their stupid red hats and acting like they speak for us when they don't.

All they've ever done is screw us over. But if you're not on the MAGA train, where do you go? Isn't it just swapping out one crappy option for another? Then it hit me. This isn't about picking teams. It's about who's got a plan that's going to make life better for me and my family. So I've been doing my own research and decided to check out Kamala Harris and Tim Walls. And before you jump down my throat, they're actually talking to guys like us.

No lectures, no BS. Just real solutions that protect our freedoms and help us take care of the people who matter. And honestly, I think Harrison Walls is the one to make that happen. End of the day, you're your own man. It's your call. But if anyone gives you crap about it, tell them it's none of their damn business. All right. What do you think, Robert? I think they're doing a great job now because

what they're doing is appealing directly to the American people and directly to people who are normally a weakness for them. The fact that Kamala Harris, who ran in 2020 as being one of the most progressive members of that race, and now to see her appealing to middle class, white male voters, seeing her appealing to veterans, to military voters, it shows that the Democratic Party is a big enough tent that they can bring in everybody from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to be on the same side of things, versus the MAGA movement, which is continuing to shrink, and just is MAGA or nothing. That if you're not part of that, you're a rhino, we don't want you part of that. I think that shows how big the American body politic can be

when you unite around one candidate. Well, I think what you also are seeing, you are seeing, Jelanda, a far more aggressive campaign from Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket than you saw when Biden was at the top of the ticket. You look at the press releases they sent out. You look at how they are very quick with their viral ads. I mean, they're not wasting time trying to be above the freight. They're saying, oh, you go you go low. Yeah, we're going to punch you down there, too. Well, you know, again, I don't agree with Michelle Obama. When you go low, I'm going to get in the gutter. One, two, it also shows that she I don't agree with Michelle Obama. When you go low, I'm going to get in the gutter. One. Two, it also shows that she's not conceding white men.

Three, I believe that the ad that we just looked at shows where white men are saying, hey, we're not all like Donald Trump. We actually support y'all. So I like the ad. I think it's helpful, and I think that when you have an aggressive racist like Donald Trump, we need an aggressive, black, fighting, smart-ass woman fighting back and hitting hard and letting people know that she can go with the best of them and even the craziest of them, and she can still handle our business. And, Michael, we're actually seeing that play out in North Carolina. Some polling shows she's pulling anywhere from 40 to 45 percent of the white vote.

I've been trying to explain to people Donald Trump got 53 percent of the white female vote. If she's able to take that from 53 to 50, that's the election. Yeah, absolutely. Governor Roy Cooper said that North Carolina is definitely winnable. These are fantastic ads coming from the Lincoln Project and VoteVets, things like this. One ad that I want to see the campaign do, and it may come from a super PAC, may come from the campaign, is attacking this ad where you have a former Minneapolis police officer who shows Minneapolis burning after the killing of George Floyd, and he says that Kamala Harris supported the people who were setting the police department on fire, and she supported defunding the police

and things like this. And what he doesn't talk about is the January 6, 2021, insurrection that Donald Trump incited and sent those domestic terrorists to the U.S. Capitol, and they assaulted 140 police officers, OK? So I want to see an ad that really refutes this nonsense out here, because this is one of the lines that's being told. She never supported—really defund the police. Maybe some aspects, but never supported defund the police.

She co-wrote the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, but the Fraternal Order of Police supported the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act as well. So that's one ad that I want to see coming. You talked about what you want to actually see from these packs. Part of the issue we are still seeing is we're seeing these packs not step up. Guys, pull up Guy Cecil's tweet that we had the other day showing what they've been spending on digital ads. Let me tell y'all something. Go to my iPad. I have sent emails to these four packs 10 days ago, at least five emails. And I specifically have been asking them for their black plan. No response to any of the emails.

You got Future Forward, American Bridge, 21st Century, sitting on millions and millions of dollars. The DSCC, the DCCC. I sent emails to the House Majority Pack, the Senate Majority Pack. The Senate Majority, the House Majority Pack responded to my email. The Senate Majority Pack has not. And I made it perfectly clear. I'm going to call these folks out. We pulled this up earlier. This is cash on hand. You see right here, House Majority PAC, $80 million. The DCCC, $92 million. Senate Majority PAC, $90 million. That's Chuck Schumer. Democracy PAC had a great conversation with them. They are doing some work and they are funding various initiatives regarding African-Americans doing great. The SEIU PAC, $50 million. They're going to be spending the money going door to door.

But look at American Bridge, $32 million. Fair Shake PAC, that's dealing with crypto, $90 million. I need to pull up what Future Forward has. But again, folks, I don't know what the hell they're spending it on. And let me tell you something. American Bridge, 21st century, perfect example. You go to their website. They got a Google phone number like you can't even you can't even future forward. You can't even call them. You can't even call them. And and listen, they've got some black consultants who who they have been working with.

And when I say no response, I literally mean no response. And so Chauncey McLean with the future for it, when are you going to respond to an email? When are you going to explain to black-owned media what is your black plan? Are y'all using black-owned media? Are y'all investing in groups on the ground? Are you doing independent expenditures?

Y'all, I've been asking all of these questions. And when I say they don't respond, they don't respond at all, at all. And so I've sent email after email after email. You've got Christy Roberts, who leads the D-triple DSCC. Nothing. No response. You've got Brad Baychock with American Bridge. No response whatsoever.

And so, matter of fact, so there's a brother with one of the PACs. Again, I don't know why he can't respond. I've sent, you know, multiple emails. Let me see. Hold on one second. Let me pull this up. And, again, my whole point is we're now 40 days out. What are you doing?

Adisu Demissi, A-D-D-I-S-U, last, D-E-M-I-S-S-I-E. Hey, bruh, you need to respond to an email as well. So I'm going to keep calling y'all out every day until y'all answer, where's the money for black folks? Let's go live to Douglas, Arizona. Vice President Kamala Harris is now at the podium.

Can you hear for Teresa, please? Good afternoon. Hi, everyone. Hi. Good afternoon. Can we please applaud Theresa and her extraordinary courage? Please, can we applaud her extraordinary courage? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please have a seat over there. Extraordinary courage. Please, can we applaud? Extraordinary courage. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Please have a seat, everyone. Thank you. It's good to be back in Arizona. It is good to be back in Arizona. Thank you all. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you so very much. I just wanted for a moment to speak about Teresa. We had some time together backstage. And, you know, I think that in moments of crisis, such as the fentanyl crisis, there are people who, through their suffering and their pain, rise with courage in such a selfless way to be a voice for others with the anticipation and the hope and the hard work of hoping that their story will be the reason other people don't have that story. And you sharing your story about Jacob and your advocacy on why we have to stop this

scourge is so incredibly important. And again, I applaud Theresa, and I know we all do. And our need to stop this issue is one of the reasons that we are all here together today. I also want to thank the extraordinary elected officials who are here. Senator Mark Kelly came with me. He had, and his extraordinary wife, Gabby Giffords, traveled with me from Washington, D.C. to be here. And Senator Kelly has been talking with me for quite some time about the importance of this visit.

And so I thank you in front of all of our friends for your work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Attorney General Chris Mays, who just tore up the floor. She is, you know, one of, I'm going to talk a bit about it in a minute, but some of the work that I have done in my career as Attorney General and watching her do the work that she has done as Attorney General

really does emphasize the importance of having the right leader at the right time in the right place. And that's who she is. Mayor Hewish, I thank you for the warm welcome. We've spent some time together. You've shared with me the needs of your community. And I thank you for your leadership as well. And to all the elected and community leaders here today, thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to be here this afternoon. Before I begin, I do want to say a few words about Hurricane Helene.

I spoke this morning with our FEMA Administrator, Chris Well, and President Biden and I, of course, will continue to monitor the situation closely. We have mobilized more than 1,500 federal personnel to support those communities that have been impacted. We have food, water, and generators that are ready for deployment. And we are working to restore power for millions of people who currently are experiencing outages. And I just want to stress and for the the press that is here to those who are watching the storm continues to be dangerous and deadly and lives have been lost and the risk of flooding still remains high so I continue to urge everyone to please

continue to follow guidance from your local officials until we get past this moment. So thank you all. And now I'll speak about, in particular, the people who are here today and why we are gathered here together today. So Arizona, I think you all know, and this is why you are here, there are consequential issues at stake in this election. One is the security of our border. The United States is a sovereign nation. I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them. I take that responsibility very seriously.

We are also a nation of immigrants. The United States has been enriched by generations of people who have come from every corner of the world to contribute to our country and to become part of the American story. And so we must reform our immigration system to ensure that it works in an orderly way, that it is humane, and that it makes our country stronger. So I've just come from visiting the border and the Port of Entry in Douglas. I spoke with dedicated agents from Border Patrol and Customs Officers who every day see the overflow of commercial traffic through the port.

These men and women who work there and at other places along our southern border help keep our nation secure. And they need more resources to do their jobs, which is why we have and are in the process of investing half a billion dollars to modernize and expand the port of entry here in Douglas. And why last December I helped raise the rate of overtime pay for border agents. And also why I strongly supported the comprehensive border security bill. Written last year, written last year as you know, by a bipartisan group of senators, including one of the most conservative members of the United States Congress.

That bill would have hired 1,500 more border agents and officers. It would have paid for 100 inspection machines to detect fentanyl that is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year. It would have allowed us to more quickly and effectively remove those who come here illegally and it would have increased the number of immigration judges and asylum officers. It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades. It was endorsed by the Border Patrol Union. And it should be in effect today, producing results in real time right now for our country.

But Donald Trump tanked it. He picked up the phone and called some friends in Congress and said, stop the bill. Because you see, he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. And the American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and their personal political future. And so even though Donald Trump tried to sabotage the border security bill, it is my pledge

to you that as President of the United States, I will bring it back up and proudly sign it into law. And let me say, the issue of border security is not a new issue to me. I was Attorney General of a border state for two terms. I saw the violence and chaos that transnational criminal organizations cause and the heartbreak and loss from the spread of their illicit drugs. I walked through tunnels that traffickers used to smuggle contraband into the United States. I've seen tunnels with walls as smooth as the walls of your living room, complete with lighting and air conditioning, making very clear that it is about an enterprise

that is making a whole lot of money in the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings. And my knowledge on how they work comes from the fact that I have prosecuted transnational criminal organizations who traffic in guns, drugs, and human beings. My team and I broke up a heroin trafficking ring in the Bay Area with ties to Mexican cartels. We took down a gang working with the Sinaloa cartel to traffic methamphetamine into the

United States. We seized millions of dollars worth of cocaine from the Guadalajara cartel and broke up a drug trafficking operation including pill mills and so-called recovery centers that were pushing opioids with deadly results. As Attorney General of California, it was ten years ago that I brought a bipartisan group of American attorneys general and led that group to travel to Mexico City to meet with Mexican attorneys general to address this issue and in particular to increase intelligence sharing on gang activity

all of which allowed us to prosecute more human traffickers and I started as Attorney General the first comprehensive report in the state of California analyzing transnational criminal organizations and the threats they pose to public safety and to the economy. So stopping transnational criminal organizations and strengthening our border is not new to me, and it is a long-standing priority of mine. I have done that work and I will continue to treat it as a priority when I am elected President of the United States. And it is my pledge to you, understanding how solutions get formed, that I will reach across the aisle and I will embrace common sense approaches and new technologies to get the job done. Because I know transnational gangs coming across the border, trafficking

in guns, drugs, and human beings could care less who somebody voted for in the last election. They could care less. They've got one goal in mind. And it is therefore critically important that anybody who calls themselves a leader would work with other leaders for common sense solutions, understanding the pain and the suffering that Americans are experiencing if we don't work together to fix these problems. And look, transnational gangs, one of the things I know about them, they are always innovating. So to disrupt them, we must do the same. And that means, again, working together in real time, grounded on finding common sense approaches, not just about some rhetoric at a rally, but

actually doing the work of fixing a problem. And as president, I won't only bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump tanked. I will do more to secure our border. To reduce illegal border crossings, I will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry. Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from re-entering for five years. We will pursue more severe criminal charges

against repeat violators. And if someone does not make an asylum request at a legal point of entry and instead crosses our border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum. While we understand that many people are desperate to migrate to the United States, our system must be orderly and secure. And that is my goal. And that is my goal. Securing our border also means addressing the flow of fentanyl into our communities. Fentanyl is a scourge on our country. The nature of it as a drug is such that it is highly addictive,

and it is highly lethal, so much so that using it one time only can be fatal. I have met far too many families, parents, loved ones, who have lost a family member, a child, to fentanyl. And their grief is heartbreaking. And the devastation caused by fentanyl is being felt from rural communities to big cities. It's impacting communities across our country regardless of where they are geographically, politically or any other demographic you choose to talk about. It's a scourge in our country and we have to take it seriously.

And as president, I will make it a top priority to disrupt the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States. And I know everyone here understands that most of the fentanyl in America comes from two cartels based in Mexico. Most often, they are smuggling it through vehicles at legal ports of entry like the one I visited today. The fact is border officers don't have enough resources and are only able to search a fraction of the vehicles that pass through their checkpoints. This is unacceptable. They need the resources to do their jobs.

And as we could have done with that border security bill, This is unacceptable. They need the resources to do their jobs. And as we could have done with that border security bill, I will surge support to law enforcement agencies on the front lines, more personnel, more training, and more technology, including 100 new inspection systems that can detect fentanyl hidden in vehicles, and we will make sure that our ports of entry, including airports and seaports, have additional state-of-the-art technology to detect fentanyl and the chemical tools used to make it. I will also double the

resources for the Department of Justice to extradite and prosecute transnational criminal organizations and the cartels. Yes. Yes. target the entire global fentanyl supply chain because we must materially and sustainably disrupt the flow of illicit fentanyl coming into our country. My approach takes into account also that the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl are by and large made in China and then shipped to Mexican cartels and trafficked right here into the United States. Our administration demanded that China crack down on the companies that make those chemicals,

and it has started to happen. But they need to do more. And as president, I will hold them to their commitment to significantly reduce the flow of precursor chemicals coming from China. say we must tackle this issue from every angle because our highest charge must be to protect the lives of our people. It must be to understand the pain and to have the courage to know that solutions are at hand if we focus on fixing a problem instead of running on a problem. And on this issue writ large, we must ensure that our country remains strong and competitive, which includes fixing our broken immigration system. And let me be clear.

I reject the false choice. I reject the false choice that suggests we must either choose between securing our border or creating a system of immigration that is safe, orderly, and humane. We can and we must do both. We must do both. And we need clear legal pathways for people seeking to come into our country. And we must make our current system work better.

For example, it can take years for asylum claims to be decided. Well, this is a problem we can solve, including by hiring more asylum officers and expanding processing centers in people's home countries. And as president, I will work with Congress to create, at long last, a pathway to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who have been here for years. For years. hardworking immigrants who have been here for years, for years, and deserve to have a system that works. I also have in mind our Dreamers. I have met with so many of our dreamers throughout my career. They who have grown up in the United States, were educated here, pay taxes here, serve in our military, and contribute to our communities every day.

They are American in every way. But still, they do not have an earned pathway to citizenship. And this problem has gone unsolved at this point now for decades. The same goes for farm workers, who ensure that we have food on our tables and who sustain our agricultural industry, and they too have been in legal limbo for years because politicians have refused to come together to fix our broken immigration system. Well, as president, I will put politics aside to fix our immigration system and find solutions, solutions to problems which have persisted for far too long. For far too long, we have all known this is not working as it can and as it should. And so as I said at the beginning, these issues are highly consequential for our nation.

And the contrast in this election is clear. It is a choice between common sense solutions and the same old political games. In the four years that Donald Trump was president, he did nothing to fix our broken immigration system. He did not solve fix our broken immigration system. He did not solve the shortage of immigration judges. He did not solve the shortage of border agents. He did not create lawful pathways into our nation. He did nothing to address an outdated asylum system and did not work with other governments in our hemisphere to deal with what clearly is also a regional challenge.

As overdoses went up during his presidency, he fought to slash funding for the fight against fentanyl. And what did he do instead? Well, let's talk about that. He separated families. He ripped toddlers out of their mothers' arms, put children in cages, and tried to end protections for DREAMers. He made the challenges at the border worse. And he is still, and he is

still fanning the flames of fear and division. And let me be clear, that is not the work of a leader. That is not the work of a leader. And that is, in fact, I think we all believe, an abdication of leadership. And so on behalf of all across our nation who want to see these problems solved. I say we cannot accept Donald Trump's failure to lead. We should not permit scapegoating instead of solutions. And let's see what's happening. Let's not permit scapegoating instead of solutions or rhetoric instead of results. As your president, I will protect our nation's sovereignty, secure our border, and work to fix our broken system of immigration. And I will partner with Democrats, Republicans, and for us to turn the page on the ugly battles that have characterized our politics. And it is time to move forward together to achieve real solutions that make our country stronger.

And I know we can get this done. I know we have the will. I know we have the courage. I know the solutions are at hand. And I know we are ready. And so with all of that, I say thank you, may God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, folks, that was Vice President Kamala Harris speaking in Arizona. I want to quickly go to my panel to close this out. Robert, what you continue to see her do is remind people that it was Donald Trump who killed a bipartisan bill to deal with the border. Republicans, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, he also said they killed it, they owned up to it. And so she is just pounding and pounding, pounding. So basically saying, don't give me this crap when you care about the border, when you killed the bill because you said, I need to run on it. You're absolutely correct. This is a clear attempt to attract those swing voters, those immigration voters.

After the issue of abortion, immigration was very high on every poll on what people care about, immigration, economy, individual liberty. So she's trying to put to rest some of those fears that people have about being, quote-unquote, soft on immigration. It was a very hawkish speech. It was very much a return to Obama 2008 almost immigration policies. And I think she tried to come off very forcefully on this. She could have actually dug even deeper and talk about the fact that for the last 25 years, Republicans have killed every single immigration bill. You can talk about the fact that Donald Trump had to pay $1.5 million for hiring illegal immigrants to work at his resorts. So I think Democrats are going to go on the offensive on immigration this last 30 plus days until Election Day and take away one of Donald Trump's

primary strengths. Absolutely. Jelani, you're there in Texas. You're a Texas state representative. You've got Governor Greg Abbott, who's wasted billions of dollars of taxpayer money in Texas. He spent millions flying migrants across the country as well. And all these folks are, you know, they talk loud. But the reality is they don't want to really confront the problem. And he stands solidly with Donald Trump by ignoring that particular bill. Shame on all of them. You're on mute. Well, I'm sorry. What I thought the vice president did brilliantly was she explained how she understands about immigration, how she knows how they smuggle people and products into the country, and

how she can fix it, because if you don't know what the problem is, then you can't fix it. She reminded us that when he was president, he had these same problems and fentanyl deaths went up. I know that fentanyl is a really big problem, especially in these border states, especially with people who don't look like us. I'll just say that. So I think she's hitting on voters that she needs to get on her side and take from Donald Trump. I thought she was brilliant when she talked about the broken asylum system. Now, you know, and I'll say this quickly, you know this, Rola, you had Judge Hughes on here when they were trying to take her off the ballot here in Houston. And she was a former immigration judge.

So I actually called her while I was listening to the vice president and said, hey, how long does it take for the asylum cases? She said it took six to ten years from the time you come into this country until the time you actually see a judge. So you're here without asylum and you're working and then you could be kicked out and you've had kids born here. She came up with common sense ideas to fix that system. And I thought Vice President Harris did that. So I think she was strong. I think she spoke exactly to the issues that she needs to speak to in Arizona. And I think that she's going to she's going to be a pleasant surprise for us.

She's going to do remarkably well in Arizona. What you're dealing with, Michael, here, this is a photo that she posted on her page here. I'm on my way back to Arizona for official briefings on the latest work to secure the southern border and operations to stop the flow of illegal fentanyl into our country. Michael, Republicans keep talking about fentanyl, but you heard her say it. She laid out how it actually is coming into the country. You know, so all these people, they love you. Oh, no, no. It's killing. She's like, no, this is actually how it's coming in.

And you've had these massive fentanyl drug busts and they go, see, see, it's failing. And they're like, no, actually, if it's a bust, it's actually working. Right. Absolutely. Well, she knows what she's talking about because she was state's attorney general for the state of California, going after transnational organizations like this. This is a real change in strategy for Democrats, because usually what was perceived as a weakness, they would not take on head-on like this. So she's doing the right thing from the border and then laying out her plan as well. And immigration, partly because of Trump blocking the border bill, OK, it has become arrest economic growth in this country and spur inflation and probably bring about a recession as well.

OK? And as I say always, if you want to bring down undocumented immigrants and undocumented immigrants to this country, stop eating foods you did not grow yourself. And a lot of people don't want to do that. OK? Because—so this is excellent excellent what she's doing. She needs to keep this up. All right. Then Jolanda and Michael, we appreciate it. Thank Robert as well. Folks, today in Philadelphia, Reverend Al Sharpton and the exonerated five actually took time out to hit a couple of places there.

Our cameras, our Black Star Network cameras were there in Philadelphia to record that. And so we want to just share some of what we heard. You get Exonerated 5, you remember Nell Sharpton, you had State Senator Vincent Hughes, Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes as well. So let's just play some of what took place for with bloodshed, with nights in jail, with whatever house bombings occurred, to come this far now and lose our right to vote, lose our rights to our affirmative action, all of that is on the ballot. Now, how do you say that's on the ballot, Reverend?

Because whoever is the president assigns the Supreme Court or nominates the Supreme Court, and whosoever is in the Senate, they confirm. That's how come they could delay Obama's nomination for a year and then confirm three right-wingers that took back affirmative action, heard voting rights, took away women's right to choose. So we're doing these stops. We're going to go to Pittsburgh next week. We're stopping here. And I brought a busload and, well, two, really, a minibus and a busload with me.

It's going to move around the city today. But I wanted to be here for the kickoff. Since there is a rumor that some black men are being persuaded another way, we're not telling you to vote for them, but we want you to have the information. I brought two young men that know one of the candidates well, Donald Trump. And they know him because when they were falsely accused of raping and battering a white woman in Central Park, he took out an ad and paid $85,000, calling for them to have the death penalty. They went to jail for years, one of them seven, the other 13. But they're free today and they're in Philadelphia. I remember what Donald Trump did to us. We can never forget. And just to make it plain, when Donald Trump wrote those full-page ads in New York City's newspapers calling for the state to kill us, in big, bold headlines, it said, bring back the death penalty.

Bring back our police. This was two weeks after we were accused, not two weeks after we had gone to trial. Two weeks they wanted people to believe the worst of us and not believe what the country says that you're innocent until proven guilty. They looked at the color of our skin and not the content of our character and deemed us guilty. But those ads were something more. Those ads were a whisper into the darkest enclaves of society for them to do to us what they had done to Emmett Till. I want you to remember, I want you to remember, they put our phone numbers, our addresses, all of that stuff was inside New York City's newspapers. People could just show up at our door. And if you remember what they did to Emmett Till,

they showed up at his door, drug him from his bed, beat him to death, and then they tied a cotton gin around his neck and put him in the bottom of the river. Imagine if Corey didn't survive. We could have all, if Corey didn't survive, we would have all been rolling around as if we were mistakes, hiding in plain sight,

never realizing the true potential that we are our ancestors' wildest dreams. We were built for times like this. So we raise our daughters to be strong. We raise our daughters to be loving, right? Loving and empathy. That laughter that you see from her, that's real. That's real. My wife and I have had the blessings to be up close and personal, okay, with her. That's not fake. That's real. Y'all can see it. Y'all can feel it. Okay? You know, does the smile end as soon as the embrace walks away?

Or does it keep going? Or does she enter the conversation? Does she embrace young people? All right? Raise our daughters to be smart, strong, loving, to be resilient. She ran for president. She lost. It started off on a high. Y'all remember that? It started off on a high y'all remember that it started off on a big

high raised 20 million dollars as soon as she she launched her campaign but then things just didn't work out I believe there's a sermon there as well all right I mean come on things just didn't work out and so so she had to step back. But next thing you know, she's vice president, and we raise our daughters to be resilient. We raise our daughters to have all of those qualities that she has. And we say to young women, young girls, this is how you should be. They need to see that. There it is. Now, you compare that to him?

There are, he has none of those qualities at all. So to the men especially, but to everyone, but to the men especially, think about the message we communicate to our daughters who are paying attention to what we do, what we say, how we behave. When you say, Daddy, you say we should do this this this and this is this isn't that what and you say daddy we should not whine or complain but dust yourself off and get back in it and fight some more to get what it is that you want to get but he's always crying daddy he's always crying, daddy. Everything else with him is someone else's fault. Okay? Think about that as we enter into this space.

Those of us who've been around for a while, and I really will finish here. Those of us who've been around for a while, remember 1984 with Reverend Jackson. Remember that journey. Remember 1984. Remember 1988 when after Super Tuesday, he was leading, leading in opposing the cover of Time Magazine was, what does Jesse want? I have it. I still have it, so I'm not making that up.

Newsweek, Jesse Jackson, president? Okay. All of this moment that we're in right now is a manifestation of that. It is all of that growth, all of that transformation, all of that strength of us as a people asserting ourselves to this moment. We can do this, family. We can do this. Somebody just said, yes, we can. We can do this, family.

We can get this accomplished, this mission. We know what the mission is. Let's go out and do this. Let's go out and do this. Let's get this done. Thank you all very much. All right, folks, that is it for us. Let me say this here. Tomorrow, I'm going to be in Cincinnati. Give me one second. I'll be in Cincinnati tomorrow for the STEMI Awards, the six annual STEMI Awards. And so I look forward to being there. And of course, be back in the saddle here on Monday. On Tuesday, we have our special coverage. The vice presidential debate between Senator J.D. Vance, Republican and, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democrat. We'll be live, actually.

We're going to go live at 7.30 p.m., okay? So that's going to be on Tuesday. We'll go live at 7.30 p.m. The debate's at 9 p.m. Then we have our pre- and post-analysis of the debate as well. So look forward to a great conversation here in studio. All the folks on YouTube, y'all should be hitting the Like button, y'all. So we should easily be at 2,000 likes. I don't know what the problem is.

So before I finish, y'all hurry up and hit the Like button. If y'all want to hitting the like button, y'all. So we should easily be at 2,000 likes. I don't know what the problem is. So before I finish, y'all hurry up and hit the like button. If y'all want to support the show, please do so. Please join our Bring the Fuck fan club. Your dollars make it possible to do the work that we do. We're going to be coming up. We're going to do a tour through the Black Belt in North Carolina. We're organizing dates in Milwaukee, organizing dates in Georgia, as well as Michigan and possibly Philadelphia when it comes to this election.

So look forward to taking the show on the road. Hashtag Roland with Roland. We're ready to go. And so you can support our work. Send your check and money over to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. PayPal is paypal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered. Venmo is venmo.com forward slash rmunfiltered. Zale, Roland at RolandSMartin.com.

Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Hopefully by next week, we'll have this whole cash app thing sorted out. It's a huge headache, but they've changed their rules. They're capping daily transactions, so we've got to deal with that. Also, download the Black Star Network app. Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV.

Be sure to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. Available on bookstores nationwide. Download the audio version on Audible. And also, we want to say our prayers for the folks impacted by Hurricane Helene. Folks in Florida, in North Carolinaene. Folks in Florida in North Carolina

is massive flooding in North Carolina, Georgia as well. So rain is all across the eastern seaboard. So please pray for the families. Again, up to 40 people have died already as a result of Hurricane Helene folks. That's it. I'll see you guys on Monday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm out. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. this is an iHeart podcast