#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Trump's Picks & The Black Community, Matt Gaetz Withdraws, Jussie Smollett Conviction Overturned

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

11.21.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Trump's Picks & The Black Community, Matt Gaetz Withdraws, Jussie Smollett Conviction Overturned With every Trump administration appointment, we are seeing Project 2025 taking shape.  Janai Nelson, the president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, is here to explain how Trump's picks may impact the Black community. Matt Gaetz couldn't take the heat!  He withdrew from his nomination to become the next attorney general. We'll share the audio of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comparing Trump to Hitler and calling Trump supporters "belligerent idiots’ and "outright Nazis." The Illinois Supreme Court overturns Jussie Smollett's conviction in his hoax attack. The Justice Department says the Trenton, New Jersey, police department has a pattern of misconduct.  In Georgia, a former cop who shot an unarmed black man wants a judge to throw out his murder charges. The president of Atlanta's NAACP will give us an update on the  Jimmy Atchinson murder case.  A Texas Jury awards nearly $100 Million to the Family of a black man killed by a former Dallas police officer.#BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (link) and Risks (link) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting 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. to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

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

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend.

At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Today is Thursday, November 21st, 2024. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. I'm here in Atlanta.

Folks, with every Trump administration appointment, we're seeing Project 2025 taking shape. Janae Nelson, the president and director counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, will be joining us to explain how Donald Trump's cabinet picks could impact Black America. Matt Gaetz, well, he couldn't take the heat. He has withdrawn his nomination to become the next attorney general. Could it be that second 17-year-old who said he had sex with her, who is also called statutory rape? CNN has uncovered audio of Robert Kennedy Jr. comparing Donald Trump to Hitler and calling his supporters belligerent idiots and outright Nazis. No lies told. The Illinois Supreme Court overturns Jussie Smollett's conviction in his hoax attack trial.

Plus, the Justice Department says the Trenton, New Jersey Police Department has a pattern of misconduct. We'll give you those details. Plus, here in Georgia, a former cop who shot an unarmed black man wants a judge to throw out his murder charges. The president of Atlanta's NAACP will give us an update on the Jenny Atchison murder trial.

Plus, a Texas jury awards more than nearly $100 million to the family of Bothan John, who was killed by a former Dallas police officer. Folks, it's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered, from the Black Star Network. Let's go. Puttin' it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' With Uncle Roro, y'all It's Rollin' Martin Rollin' with Rollin' now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best

You know he's fresh, he's real, the best, you know he's rolling, Martel Martel All right, folks, we talked about Project 2025 and exactly what it means, and it is going to have a devastating impact on black America. But how much? Well, let's talk to Janae Nelson. She, of course, leads the president director council, the Legal Defense Fund, and she joins us right now from New York. Janae, always glad to have you here. You know, we focus a lot on this during the election and trying to get people to understand how real this is. Republicans knew the impacts of what did they do? Oh, no, absolutely not.

I mean, has nothing to do with Donald Trump. He disavows that. He said, I don't want to read it. Oh, he has his own agenda 47. But the reality is we all knew he was lying. They were lying. Project 2025 is absolutely the hard right Republican agenda for America. I dare say it's the Newt Gingrich's contract for America 2.0. You are not wrong, Merlin.

We knew from the very start that whoever picked up this playbook to dismantle democracy would do great harm to this country. And we took Donald Trump at his word. He said this wasn't his playbook. We analyzed it. We said whoever implements this

would be doing a great disservice to the future of our multiracial democracy. And what we did at the Legal Defense Fund was translate Project 2025 into a report that people could digest, because remember, it's 900 plus pages. So we analyzed it, and we wanted specifically to point out what the impact would be for Black communities. Of course, we hope that would never come to pass. But now that we have an administration about to be installed in January, we know that those threats have now become real. And at least we know what they are. And we are prepared to counter them and disrupt them and defend against them with every possible tool in

our arsenal? So obviously there's a legal front that exists there, but let's also be honest. When he was last there, there were more than 200 federal judges that were appointed. You have a hostile Supreme Court, frankly, a right-wing Supreme Court. You now have Republicans controlling the House, the Senate controlling the presidency. And then, of course, you also have Republicans controlling state legislatures and all the things that are happening there. And I think that what has to happen, from my vantage point, people need to understand the assault on the federal workforce, the assault on programs,

whether it's education, whether it's environmental, the absolute assault on civil rights. We already see in terms of where they stand and what they're talking about when it comes to DEI. They want to get rid of every program. It's not like they've been the greatest in the world for black people. But the programs that have allowed for us to be able to increase economically education in society, they want to wipe all those programs out. And so people need to understand that this is not just a Trump thing. This is literally an effort from that they want

to institute federal, state, county, city, school district. And we're already seeing it happen in Texas colleges, Florida colleges, how they also are going after what's happening in corporate America. This is a wholesale assault on, frankly, the apparatus that has been beneficial to Black folks and other minorities. That's absolutely right. We are going to be battling on every single front at the federal level, which we know they are stacked against us because there's complete control of Congress forthcoming. The next Congress, the 119th, will be an extremist Congress. It will also have, though, the first two Black women senators, Senator Also Brooks and Senator Rochester, who will be serving for the first time. I want to make sure that we don't forget some of the gains that we've made along the way and the power that we can exert.

But the reality is that Congress is locked up by conservative extremists, and we need to recognize that the ability to get the legislation needed passed that will preserve our democracy is now extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, which means that our game at the state level and local levels needs to be aggressive. We need to mobilize. We need to organize. We need to understand every lever of power at state and local levels and not to give up the fight at the federal level. We saw today, for example, that when we push back on extremist, unqualified, sycophantic nominees like the one Matt Gaetz, who was suggested to become the next U.S. Attorney General, that with enough pressure and enough exposure about the weaknesses of these nominees,

we can force their hand and Matt Gaetz withdrew. And that's very important because the bar has been set so very low that President-elect Trump believes he can put almost anyone in charge of our most important federal agencies. And if you had any regrets about the way you went forward with your vote to install a new government that's hostile to democracy, you need to be standing up right now and demanding qualified nominees for our agency cabinet members who care about the rule of law, who will uphold civil rights, and who will uphold the Constitution. I have not seen a single nominee that fits that bill and who is actually qualified to be part of our federal government leadership.

You talked about not giving the fight up on the federal level, but I do want to go back and talk about the state level. And the reason I want to talk about that is because I don't think people really understand why, from a legal standpoint, why these state Supreme Courts matter. So we just saw in this election gains with the Kentucky Supreme Court, the Michigan Supreme Court. Alison Riggs is holding onto her seat on North Carolina Supreme Court. Anita Earls is going to be up for reelection in 2026. But in 2028, there are three Supreme Court seats in North Carolina. If folks focus on that, literally that court could flip back Democrat. Now, how does that now impact it? Well, when the Democrats controlled North Carolina Supreme Court, they ruled against political gerrymandering. It used to be Republicans

had a 10 to 3 advantage on the congressional level. It then went to 7-7. Republicans now control it. It went back to 10-3. That's four seats. That action, those four seats are how the Republicans have the majority, how they control the House. Just that one state. You not go to Wisconsin. We saw what happened when the Democrat won in Wisconsin for the state Supreme Court race. There's another seat.

There's an open seat that's up in April. And so I think while people are sitting here and being, you know, despondent and people are just, mobilizing and organizing around these crucial state races and do pickups here, here, here to understand how you begin to piece this thing back together, if you will. No, you're absolutely right. We have got to be focused on state and local elections and state legislatures matter. Governors matter. All of the elections up and down the ballot at the state and local levels are key. And you're right. The balance of power can tip in any direction. For our purposes at the Legal Defense Fund, we are not partisan, so we are not focused on which party has control. What we care about is Black voters having control of their destiny. And so we want to maximize political power for Black voters, primarily across the South and across the country, when they have an opportunity to build and amass political power, either through

mobilizing and organizing or through changing the lines to make them fairer, as we did at the congressional level in the state of Alabama, where we secured a second Black Opportunity District two years ago in the Supreme Court. And I'm so delighted to say that Black voters in Alabama voted in that congressional district and they elected a candidate of their choice, Shamari Figures. That shows real power. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be

covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. We resist partisan and racial gerrymandering or partisan gerrymandering that uses race as a vehicle, that's happening across the country. And we were successful in being able to push back against that at the Supreme Court. And that actually led to a second Black Opportunity District in the state of Louisiana as well. So another Black congressperson, Cleo Fields, was elected as a result.

And now I've been talking about the congressional level, but as you point out, state legislative districts matter as much. They matter as much. And in fact, sometimes they can affect laws that impact our day-to-day life in ways that we feel more acutely than even the people in Congress or even who's president. And so we are actually at the Legal Defense Fund at trial this week as we speak, working to challenge the legislative districts in the state of Alabama. And so we've used our win, our Supreme Court win at the congressional level, to push for change in Arkansas, in Alabama, in Louisiana, in places across the South where there is burgeoning political power that just needs to be released and tapped through fair maps and the mobilizing of the vote.

And so that is our focus. As well as the federal game, we have always got to focus on state and local elections because there's real power there. So, look, you're absolutely right, being nonpartisan. But, look, you want judges, though, who believe in civil rights, judges who don't fall for the okey-dokey when it comes to political gerrymandering. about the work that y'all do, it's a lot different when you have a judge, typically a Democrat elected or appointed judge, who is going to consider point of view, perspective, versus someone who goes, nope, political gerrymandering is great. Racial gerrymandering, we don't believe in it. We don't believe in systematic racism. So who sits in that seat

determines how the law is applied. No question about that. And we often talk about the federal judiciary, which is extremely important, but there is so much work happening in state courts. Your criminal courts, most prisoners, most people who are incarcerated, who deal with the criminal legal system are dealing with it at the state level. Most people who are sentenced to capital punishment are sentenced at the state level. So many small claims and business claims and important state rights issues are litigated at the state level. So you are absolutely right that state courts matter. Those judges that you see on your ballot and you may not know the names of those individuals,

you need to look at them with as much care and consideration as you do the members of the Supreme Court. Because in your state, it's those trial court judges, it's those appellate judges and Supreme Court judges at the state level who will determine much of the issues that you will encounter as a resident of your state. And remember, most cases actually are adjudicated there. Very few cases go to the Supreme Court. In fact, the docket at the Supreme Court has been dwindling year to year for over a decade. So when we're talking about who's actually deciding issues to affect everyday life, we are talking about state judiciaries or federal judges are focused on the federal government. And we want to make sure that in the time we have left with the Biden administration that we do not leave vacancies on

the federal court, that we move forward the 23 pending nominees with as much swiftness as possible. We're very alarmed at the idea that there may be deals struck to suggest that we're going to give up any of those positions. We have no room to cede any bit of power in this moment, because we need to preserve our democracy in order to advance and protect Black communities. That is the mandate. And anyone who stands in the way of that needs to be called to account. You made this point earlier, and I go back in terms of this war that we're in, 2009, which when I really began to focus on my, which is my book, White Fear, how the browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. I said,

we are the beginning stages of white minority resistance. And we're actually seeing that. We're seeing these election results. And I kept saying in speeches all across the country, folks, prepare yourself. We are about to be engaged in a 50-year war. And people were kind of like, yeah, OK, well, I hear you. I'm like, no, no, I don't think you understand. But that was 2009. That was 15 years ago.

We're now 15 years in, and we are in a war. We are in a battle. Biden kept talking about fighting for the soul of America. We are in a battle against people who literally want to repeal

the legislative and civil rights gains of the past 60 years. That is their absolute focus. The Fairless Society, when you look at a lot of these right-wing conservative think tanks, they have hated civil rights advances, legal advances, which is why they are so focused on these federal judicial appointments, because it was the federal courts, Brown I, Brown II, that really, not the Supreme Court, the lower courts, especially that Fifth Circuit, that really defined the reading and the understanding of Brown v. Board of Education. And so our folks cannot, I just keep saying we cannot tread lightly here and play games because there is a well-funded adversary, Lieutenant Leo and these folks, who want to destroy all of the work of Thurgood Marshall and the LDF and the Lawyers Committee and all of these civil rights groups. That is their aim. Yeah, there's no question about that. And, you know, Roland, I want to go back to something you said earlier. This year, we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of Brown versus Board of Education, which should remind everyone that it has only been a mere three

generations that we have come out of the separate but equal doctrine, meaning state-sponsored segregation, Jim Crow, subjugation of Black people by state, local, and federal governments. That means in the lifetime of many people living, we were in an apartheid state. And as you said, we are now at war about the future of our democracy and whether we're going to retrogress or advance this multiracial democracy to fulfill its promise. And we cannot be in any way discouraged from that pursuit because certain things were not perfect or fulfilled. We know that the promise of Brown has not yet been fulfilled, but we don't want to go back to separate but equal, not at all.

We have work to do to perfect the promise of Brown. And like you said, DEI may not have been a perfect tool to give us the true equity, reparations, remediation that we deserve, but it was an important way of creating a pipeline to leadership, ensuring that we had an expansive view of merit, and to make sure that there was more of a level playing field on which to compete for opportunity and education and advancement. And we can't afford to say that those were not necessary and important tools that we must fight for simply because they were imperfect. The job is to perfect them. The job is to recognize where our frailties are, what more protections we need, what more opportunities we need to create and build

upon that progress, not allow extremists to take us back. And I want to commend to you, if you haven't seen it yet, some very powerful testimony from Representative Summer Lee that I saw earlier today where she dissected the fear that you talk about, the fear of playing on a level playing field with people who have been historically marginalized. Yeah, we ran it yesterday. We ran the whole video yesterday, her and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Excellent. She was fired. And it's important for people to recognize what that is. There are some who are so addicted to privilege. They're so addicted to prerogative. They don't realize that they have not been competing on merit for generations.

And we're trying to change that. You take off the shackles, you remove the barriers and the impediments to opportunity. And there's no question in my mind that you will see diverse leadership. You will see the advancement of people of color, Black people and other marginalized groups in this country in unprecedented ways. All we need is the opportunity to do it. And what we're seeing right now is a fear, and therefore there's a denial of the ability to continue this progress. But we're not going to let that happen. We're going to continue to push back at every possible level and using every possible lever.

All right. Janine Nelson of the L.A. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business,

taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be

no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves.

We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself self-love made me a better dad because i realized my worth never stop being a dad that's dedication find out more at fatherhood.gov brought to you by the u.s department of health and human services and the ad council yeah we appreciate it thanks a lot thank you roland

folks gonna go to break we come back we'll talk to our panel and lots more to discuss Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland. Folks, going to go to break. When we come back, we'll talk to our panel. And lots more to discuss right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Hatred on the streets. A horrific scene. A white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. You will not replace us. White people are losing their damn lives.

There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson

at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. There's all the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is Whitefield.

Hi, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. Fanbase is a free-to-download, free to download, free to use next generation social media platform that allows anyone to have followers and subscribers on the same page. Fanbase was built through investment dollars from equity crowdfunding from the Jobs Act. People just like you help build Fanbase. And we're looking for more people to help build Fanbase. We are currently raising $17 million in a regulation, a crowdfund on start engine. We've already crossed $2.1 million, but we're looking to raise more capital from people just like you that deserve the opportunity to invest in early stage startups without having to be accredited investors. So right now I'd like you to go to start engine.com slash fanbase and invest the minimum to invest is 399 dollars

that gets you 60 shares of stock in fanbase right now today and then use fanbase to connect with friends grow your audience and be you without limits Now that Roland Martin is willing to give me the blueprint. Hey, Saraz. I need to go to Tyler Perry and get another blueprint because I need some green money. The only way I can do what I'm doing, I need to make some money. So you'll see me working with Roland. Matter of fact, it's the Roland Martin and Sheryl Lundgren show. Well, it should be the Sheryl Lamar show and the Roland Martin show?

Well, whatever show it's going to be, it's going to be good. All right, folks, our panel, Derek Jackson, he is a state representative here in Georgia. Joining us from Atlanta, Lon Victoria Burke with Black Virginia News out of Allentown, Virginia, and Joy Chaney, founder of Joy Strategies out of D.C. Glad to have all three of you here. Derek, I'll start with you. What I was saying there with Jenea, we really need to understand, and I think people need to understand, that what we are seeing, this is real. You've got billionaires, not just Elon Musk, but you've got a billionaire who gave Leonard Leo $1.3 billion to spend however he wishes. And he is funding,

they are literally funding this infrastructure changes. This goes beyond the feminist society. And so we can't be willy nilly about what is happening all around us, there is a clear and present danger of the right wing who wants to attack anything and everything that Black folks have benefited from. It's right there in our faces. Roland, it's amazing how you have been sounding the alarm since Taraji mentioned Project 2025 back in June. And now we're starting to see their game plan with all the Trump picks. I mean, these are unqualified individuals. And so it's not going to just impact black people. It's going to impact America.

I mean, you know, just listening to you and Janai Nelson, I started writing down some notes on just the Supreme Court. Let's just take the Supreme Court, for example. Citizens United, the Chevron case, Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, Voting Rights Act are just a few that the Supreme Court started to unravel before the implementation of Project 2025. Then I started writing down some other things, Roland, as you were talking and you mentioned in your book 15 years ago, Brown versus Board of Education, Loving versus Virginia, Miranda rights. I mean, if you think about this, if we don't have Miranda rights rolling, that's going to impact every black person that is profiled that they want to give police officer sovereign immunity. And so when you start to look at where we're about to head into starting January, the gravity of this is not just the unbalance of checks and balance in our government system. This is going to be billionaires running wild, Trump running wild.

And let me make this last point, Roland, is this. All these individuals that voted for Trump, these picks, Roland, they're not for them. It's not going to solve their problems. It's not going to solve their kitchen topic, table topic issues. These things are solely for Trump. It has nothing to do with the 74 million people that say, yes, he's our guy. We voted for him. They're about to see the unraveling of this, the protections that America have for them. You know, Lauren, I listen to a lot of these brothers and sisters, black folks who are true, a MAGA Trump supporters.

They talk about, oh, what they want to get financially and how things are going to happen. And I'm sitting here going, do y'all understand? They are not trying to help you financially. They are not trying to help you launch businesses. They're not looking to expand SBA loans to black entrepreneurs. And all of these people, they don't even realize that the programs that have been created, that they have been able to take advantage of, they want to get rid of them. And I'm like, I don't know what world y'all living in, but that's exactly what a Project 2025 and Republican agenda is all about. Yeah. And they couldn't even be bothered to even hire like Byron Donalds or Tim Scott into the cabinet on a very insular and individual level. You don't even see them, you know, helping anybody that

actually helped Trump's campaign, you know, to this point, much less a group think about African-Americans in general. Typically in a Republican administration, there is a group of black Republicans who does see some benefit. We've yet to see what group of Republicans that's going to be. We haven't seen anybody yet. I happened to see Byron Donalds yesterday on Capitol Hill, and he kind of looked sort of glum. And then he did an interview last night where it seems like he's sort of left out in the cold with regard to a administration appointment. But obviously, this is a culmination of really the Southern strategy that started in the late 60s. It's a culmination of Roger Ailes being an aide to Richard Nixon and then, of course, going on to start Fox News.

It's the culmination of the planning of Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. And you can see that the Republicans play a long, long, long game. And the Democrats are nowhere near catching up to that, nowhere near catching up to that, not even figuring out on a basic level maybe a four- or five-year strategy. And that's been a huge problem. And I'm not sure what is in store for the DNC or the Democratic Party in general with regard to leadership, but their leadership is not strong enough and not modern enough at this moment to go up against what they're going up against, which is a system of lying and disinformation and deliberate misleading of the public, which works in this media environment with a media that is very not up to the job of keeping up with misinfo and disinfo and lying and everything else.

And so what this is to me is a moment where they are now going to control, of course, all three levels of government. And I think they're going to use that control to the maximum, to the absolute maximum. I mean, this is a group that returns again. And we see certain players who I actually think are worse than the first group that came in during Trump's first term. Absolutely. And, you know, Joy, again, I just, you know, people need to understand that when you start talking about massive cuts to federal programs, and I love these people who think, oh, yeah, let's do all of that, because what they're thinking is, oh, that's for them. No, no, no, no, no. That's also going to be for you. That's right. It's for you. And a lot of those poor white people who voted for Donald Trump, it's for you, too. A lot of them are dependent on Medicaid. A lot of them are dependent on all the same social services programs that they think are for people of color, but it's also for them.

The cuts to Medicaid to fund tax breaks, tax cuts that they are not going to get. Cuts to Medicare to fund tax breaks that they are not going to get. That's what they will feel in their pockets. But look, I want to make sure that we're talking, we're giving a message for those who are out there, who if they're watching your program, they know. The question is, what do we do now? Right now, as the DNC regroups, et cetera, we need to be as an individual to person to person, talking to the people in our families,

talking to our so-called white friends, talking to our white family members. We have a very integrated culture. Talking to the people who are in our lives and explaining to them what they're going to see, explaining to them the consequences of a vote for Trump or a non-vote, and really, as he disappoints them, underscoring what level of mistake this was. Donald Trump is a cult leader. Part of that is there too.

There is no logic here. And I think we keep trying to understand it with logical terms. But the fact of the matter is he is a cult leader that is feeding white supremacy a feeling of anger that the world isn't what it was promised. And therefore, you know, they're taken in by him. This is classic, we understand this. We need to be talking to our own people and trying to deprogram them through loving communication and direct communication. And I know that's not always what we do here,

but I hope, I'm talking to everyone in my life who may be on the fence. When people come talk to me about transgender people and stuff like that and distractions, I correct them lovingly and I walk them through it because that's the work

that we've got to be doing in the next couple of years. Yep. All right, folks. Hold tight one second. We come back. I'm going to play for you. We played yesterday. Congresswoman Summer Lee, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, when they went off on these Republicans who say, oh, they are oppressed because they're white men. Well, Congresswoman Yana Presley, she also weighed in. I'm going to have that for you next right here on Rolling Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Don't forget, support the work that we do, folks. The show that we do, nobody else is doing. There's nobody else in black-owned media

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The Black Tape. With me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering in weight and pressure? A lot of times, the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways.

Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters,

and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull, we'll take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing.

So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really really really bad listen to new episodes of absolute season one taser incorporated on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you

get your podcasts binge episodes one two and three on may 21st and episodes four five and six on june 4th ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new

episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care.

Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. The world is consistently on your shoulders. Let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie.

We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture,ing these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people-powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it.

And you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month weighs $100,000. We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit that. Y'all money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. PayPal is rmartinunfiltered.

Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. This is Reggie Rod F You're watching Roland Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamned believable. You hear me? Folks, black women on the House Oversight Panel have been giving the heat, talking about DEI Republicans doing their usual nonsense. Well, here's Congressman Ayanna Pressley giving her five cents in five minutes. Of course, Summer Lee and Jasmine Crockett did the same yesterday. I wanted to show you what Presley had to say.

Check this out. This bill titled the Dismantling DEI Act is an utter disgrace. Having sat and read the text in preparation for today's markup, I have yet another example to tell my constituents about the unserious work of the Republican Party. Now, I'll work with anyone serious about progress who wants to center the people who

call this country home. This isn't it. The Committee on Oversight has the broadest jurisdiction in the entire House of Representatives to investigate any topic it chooses, but we are debating legislation that denies the sky is blue, water is wet, and racism is real. The major provision of the bill says to ban anything that acknowledges racism. And a few pages later, in the exact same bill, there are multiple provisions discussing the presence of racism. This Republican approach is as predictable as it is nonsensical.

On one hand, they're saying that racism does not exist. On the other hand, they are saying there is rampant reverse racism. Well, how do you reverse something that never existed in the first place? Riddle me that. While this Republican policy may have a new name, it's the same old tired game. Look, y'all are entitled to your opinions, but not a denial of the facts. Do you all know your history? Do you know American history? The original Constitution counted enslaved individuals as three-fifths of a person. During World War II, the federal government forcibly relocated and incarcerated 110,000 Japanese Americans. The FHA practiced redlining in the 1930s and 60s to deny mortgages to black Americans, which is why we have a racial wealth gap today.

I could go on. The GI Bill, which is supposed to be race neutral, denied access to black Americans, denying them equal access to education and housing benefits, which is why we do not have generational wealth. Don't talk to me about merit when those black servicemen fought for our freedoms. And I'd also just like to take a personal note of privilege to say please keep Dr. Martin

Luther King, Jr.'s name out of your mouths. Your perversion of his words and his mission when his children have asked you to stop invoking his name and perverting his work when he was a proud and unapologetic black man fighting for equality for black Americans and all marginalized people. So you all are entitled to your opinions, but not a denial of the facts. But I'm not surprised that you would deny American history. What I am, though, is committed. Committed to speaking truth to power.

Committed to standing up for marginalized communities and vulnerable people. Committed to ensuring that everyone has equal opportunity to buy a house, to work a job, to pursue higher education, and to live in a society that is fair and just. A colleague across the aisle invoked the phrase of, we must do everything to stop government-sponsored oppression. Well, I've just enumerated numerous examples, which is exactly why we have legislation and an executive order to reverse this harm. And that is why I'm committed to opposing this bill and urge my colleagues to do the same. All right, folks.

That was Congressman Ayanna Pressley. Look, what we are seeing here, Joy, when I talk about these programs, you're already seeing it. But they've all, oh, they're the victims. These white men are so oppressed. These white men, we can't get jobs. I mean, it is so nonsensical. But here's the other thing.

The people who are so pathetic, which is one of the reasons why Vice President Kamala Harris is not president, white women. White women are the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action and DEI in this country. There are white folks walking around today whose mamas and aunts and sisters and cousins who have got grandmamas,

who've gotten contracts and built businesses off of MWBE. And what people don't understand is if you are a black woman, they don't count you in the women category. You're counted in the black category. If you are Latina, you're not counted in the women category. You're counted in the Latino Hispanic category.

And so that's just a fact. And so it's amazing to me to listen to these white folks. Then they get mad. They're on social media calling Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Oh, my God, she's so ghetto. She's so ghetto. And how dare she? I saw it was, I think, Jonah Goldberg or someone else said, oh, see, this is the problem right here. This is what this is why Democrats lost, you know, people like this. And maybe not, maybe not. Maybe it wasn't someone else, but they were complaining about it.

And I'm sitting there going, oh, so y'all mad that black folk are calling y'all out on your sheer stupidity. That's literally what's going on. Yeah. I mean, what we love about Jasmine Crockett, what we love about Congresswoman Presley is they're telling the truth. Look, the fact of the matter is there are white men out there who can't get jobs, right? We know that salaries have been reducing for American workers over decades. This is why we had an agenda with the Biden-Harris and then hopefully the Harris-Waltz administration that would have been working to solve those problems, to restore the American dream. But people's ignorance, their cult following, their, let's face it, racism and misogyny

cheated them out of a future in which we all could have shared. We could have seen improvements. Democrats have made mistakes. You're not going to see me defend any of them on tonight. But the fact of the matter is the American people back the wrong horse. These folks do not care about them. And I don't want to make it just about African-Americans, because the fact of the matter is a lot of white people and a lot of women, white women, benefit from these programs. But that's not the narrative we have told. And oftentimes we've made- Hold on, Joy. Let's be real, Joy. Hold on, Joy. Hold on, Joy. No,

no, no, no, no, no, no, Joy. We got to be real factual. We got to be factual. Not a lot of white white women. When it comes to any MWBE program, the group that has the largest share is the women category, and that category should be WW for white women. You show me construction, you show me any city and state, I'm going to show you where women are getting the most contracts, and that's white women. So when they talk about DEI, DEI ain't nothing but yesterday's global diversity officer. And before that, it was, again, affirmative action programs. DEI ain't nothing but the grandson, the granddaughter of affirmative action. And white women have benefited from DEI. White women in corporate America. White women in law firms.

White women in the medical field, in the dental field. And when it comes to these attacks, these white women are silent. Worse. They're not just silent. They're actually voting with the other side. You know, I wish they were silent. It's worse than that. I think that for many of them, they've cast their lots with white men.

Some of the things that work in the gender space, a lot of lies that we tell are that, you know, your proximity won't save you. But the fact of the matter is proximity has saved a lot of white women. So they got the saving of the rest of us who fought for equity programs, right? Got them to where they're almost 50% of the workforce. And some workforce is even higher than that. They've been the beneficiary of all the DEI and affirmative action. And now they are willing to sink it for the rest of us when it's no longer convenient for them. They are simply not the allies that we wanted them to be. Maybe we didn't even think they were,

but they're never going to be the allies that we need them to be. Maybe we didn't even think they were, but they're never going to be the allies that we need them to be. And that's why I won't be walking in the women's march. And I know many other black women feel the same because we just have not seen that level of engagement with them, that level of reciprocity. They took everything and they gave almost nothing back. Well, I think, listen, all of those speeches, Lauren, were great, but I really wish Congresswoman Crockett, Summer Lee, and Ayanna Pressley

had turned to every white woman, had turned to every white woman on the committee and say, are you going to speak up? Because women like you, y'all have benefited from DEI. Y'all are the beneficiaries of DEI. See, I think what has happened, Lauren, is that when it comes to programs like this, we've let white women off the hook.

Typically, it's black folks who are defending these programs. Nah, nah. We got to call that thing a thing and say, uh-uh, y'all have been benefiting. It's white women walking around who go, we don't benefit from affirmative action. Oh, yes, you do. And so it's time to put folk on front street, Lauren. Well, when it comes to black leadership and black politics, and some might call it black misleadership, what we see so often is that we are advocating for a lot of other groups and a lot of other people. We are not really calling out white women, as you just said. We then see press releases from various black organizations and historically, you know, historic black civil rights organizations talking about almost every other group except the one that that organization

says it stands for, African Americans. I can remember a few years ago, I think it was the Urban League that put out a press release with regard to immigration, the Dreamers. Certainly, we've seen several press releases from the NAACP for various other groups, LGBT, et cetera, and so on. And that's all fine if the streets are paved with gold in black communities and everything's perfect in our communities, but it isn't. And when you're only 13 and 14 percent of the population, it's really important that your leadership is laser focused on some of the bigger issues that you are dealing with. And obviously, we talk about any sort of opportunity. When we talk about DEI and opportunities for jobs and wealth building,

it's really important in the black community, the leadership stay focused on that because that wealth building piece was dismantled, obviously, during our first 300 years in this experience of being in the United States. So knowing all of that, the leadership has to be very focused, whether it's the Congressional Black Caucus, whether it's the NAACP, whether it's the Urban League or anybody else. And it's very hard to find in a world of corporate control leadership that is brave enough to sort of wave off that corporate control and do what is right for the constituency that you're representing. That is a piece that is not particularly, is not working right now with regard to leadership in the black community. And I think there has to be a major reset with a lot of these groups and I think some members of Congress when it comes to, you know, the question of allyship.

Because we, to me, we really have no allies. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into

the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of absolute season one taser incorporated on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four,

five, and six on June 4th, ad free at lava for good. Plus on Apple podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself

as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. We don't have a lot of groups that come to us and say, we'll help you out with this thing and we'll put out press releases and we'll make statements and our leaders will center your problems and your experiences. Our groups do that for other groups, but we don't see it the other way around quite often. So that has been a huge problem that needs to be fixed. See, Derek, when I talk about putting folk on front street, this is how I look at it.

Maybe I'm just a little bit too radical on this whole thing. So you're in the Georgia legislature. I would sit here and I would go, how many white women in this body have companies that do businesses with the city, the county, school board, or state. And I will sit here and say, Representative so-and-so, you against DEI? Well, that's interesting because you should get contracts because you're a woman. That's DEI. So-and-so, oh, you got $6 million in contracts from this year, from your business. Oh, you are the beneficiary of DEI dollars. When I was at Texas A&M there, it was a speech communications class, and we had to give a presentation.

So I picked affirmative action. And this is what I said. I said, look, I think maybe I was one of the black person in the class and so I said how many of you in this class your mothers own businesses and hands went up

and I said how many of you how many of your mothers to your knowledge have received city, county, state, federal contracts hands went up I said congratulations to your knowledge, have received city, county, state, federal contracts. Hands went up. I said, congratulations. Affirmative action is paying for your college.

Man, these white folks, they were aghast. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. Your mamas are benefiting from affirmative action. Your mamas are getting contracts. They had never had somebody tell me, see, this is just the moment, as far as I'm concerned, where you got to call folk out and say, yes, you are, maybe we should come up,

we use the phrase, say, DEI dollars, bowling for DEI dollars. Oh, you got some DEI dollars. Bowling for DEI dollars. Oh, you got some DEI dollars? You got some DEI dollars? Oh, you got some DEI dollars. And then use placards and call them out. And then also call out all these women's groups. I would say, I would, matter of fact, I think somebody should,

one of these conservative women's groups, go pull a roster and see how many of them have businesses and how do they get contracts and go, man, look at y'all with those DEI dollars. To me, that's how you got to fight and call these folk out. You know, Roland, I think all of Trump hires are DEI hires. They're all white men, right? I do agree that we need to call them out. Because here's the thing, Roland, and I know you're here in Atlanta with us. They don't use the term DEI for them. They use the word legacy, Roland.

Your legacy. So you go to Harvard for free because of legacy. You go to Yale for free, your legacy. They don't use the same vernacular. Listen, since last year, Roland, over 30 states have implemented some form of DEI law to either restrict any form of DEI. 30 states. So what do you think is going to happen come January?

In fact, two days ago, Roland, Trump used the word reparation. He's going to get three million white men reparations. He said that's their reparation for those blacks who went to HBCUs. So we do need to call them out, but it requires

political courage. Roland, you know as well as I, I'm in Georgia, the largest black caucus in the United States. What will we do in this manner to do exactly what you just called for us to do? Call folks out. Call some of my colleagues who are white women and say, you, you, you are receiving dollars. They won't do that, Roland.

You know that and I know that. Because they don't want to exercise political courage to get that done. Well, again, I just think that if you want to expose people for their hypocrisy, you've got to call them by name. You've got to name check them. You you got to call them by name. You got to name check them. You got to expose them. You got to say, oh, look at Miss DEI Dollars. Oh, she hates DEI,

but she gets contracts because she's a woman. Baby, that's called good old affirmative action. I'm just saying that's what maybe should be done. All right, y'all. Hold tight one second. I've got lots more to talk about, including how in the hell can Shaboosie

have, I mean, break records for the number one Billboard song, 18 weeks, yet when they have the Country Music Awards, he gets totally shut out. Hmm. Wasn't just Beyonce. What do they have in common?

Hmm. I wonder. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture. Covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it and you spread the word.

We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people, $50 this month,

wage $100,000. We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P box 57196 washington dc 20037-0196 paypal is r martin unfiltered venmo is rm unfiltered zale is rolling at rolling s martin.com hatred on the streets a horrific scene a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence white people are losing their damn minds there's an angry pro-trump mob storm to the u.s capital we're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial.

This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at every University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women.

This is white fear. Hey, this is Motown recording artist Kim. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Boy, he always unfiltered, though. I ain't never known him to be filtered. Is there another way to experience Roland Martin than to be unfiltered? Of course he's unfiltered. Would you expect anything less?

Watch what happens next. Well, Donald Trump has just announced he's picked former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to be his attorney general pick after his first choice. Former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew from being considered for a G. This was a tweet that he posted. I had excellent meetings with senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback and the incredible support of many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump-Vance transition. There's no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle. Thus, I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Well, guess what?

I ain't going to read the rest of that crap, y'all. But here's actually what happened. CNN called Gates and said, hey, we are aware that a second 17-year-old girl said you had sex with her. Well, because that 17-year-old girl is underage. That's called statutory rape. Democrats wanted the House Ethics Committee to release their report detailing its investigation into Gates, but Republicans blocked it.

And they were saying, shouldn't release. Speaker Mike Johnson, shouldn't be released. But they had Republicans in the Senate saying, no, no, no, the report's going to come out. Don't you find it a little ironic, Lauren, 45 minutes after CNN placed that call and said that was a second 17-year-old who said not only did he have sex,

that he also engaged in a threesome with that 17 year old. Gates was like, yeah, I need to go back home. Obviously, it wasn't a coincidence that that phone call came in from CNN. And then, of course, Gates withdraws his nomination. He's been living with these allegations for, I think, about three or four years now. It was effectively announced in the media two or three years ago that, you know, I think it was the Daily Beast that came out with a story and said they had had certain documents, they had certain sources that were saying that all this is true. Yet here we are three years later with no charges and allegedly, I guess, an investigation at DOJ by one of my least favorite members of the Biden administration, Merrick Garland. Merrick Garland is an absolute disaster. And I would just say that I am obviously not a fan of Matt Gaetz. I think Matt Gaetz is crazy. I've seen some of his antics up close from the press gallery in the U.S. Capitol. in believing anything in this world that we live in of anybody saying anything and

misinfo and disinfo and no charges. And so if everything is alleged is true, then I'm confused as to why there are not criminal charges that have been filed against the former congressman from Florida. And after seeing what happened to the 41st Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax, who I was working for at the time in Virginia in 2019, I don't believe anything until there's an investigation and the police are involved and there's a thorough read of everyone's testimony under oath. I just don't. I'm not a fan of Matt Gaetz, but I'm a little confused as to why it is we're sitting here year after year. DOJ looked at this and then comes up with nothing. And then we have this moment right here. I mean, maybe it's true. I don't know. But I'm a little bit

tired of this sort of routine of having no professional investigation. We have people who investigate things in this country, particularly with regard to sexual crimes. And yet this is always regulated to a discussion in the media and a Jane Doe and all this other stuff. I want facts on the table. I want an investigation. And I want all parties to be heard. But I'm not a fan of this.

I'm just not. And that's just where I stand because I've seen it up close. And I think you're right, Roland, certainly there's a correlation between the phone call to CNN and him resigning. But again, if this is true, where's the Justice Department? Where are the police? And where are the charges? Where's an indictment? I don't get that. That's confusing to me. Well, but here's the deal, though. I mean, look, the reality is this, Joy, and we see this all the time. We know that there are prosecutors who, oh, we don't have enough. We don't have enough, we don't have enough. We know even for the feds, if they don't have a guaranteed win, they're not going to charge. But there were other people who were buddies of Matt Gaetz who did plead guilty. We also

know how they protect members of Congress. And here's the other deal. This is real simple. If there was no smoke here, why did Republicans fight so hard not to have it released? See, that's the real deal here. See, what these folks are doing is they know exactly what's going on and they have their moral righteous indignation. But it's amazing how when one of theirs, oh, no, we can just overlook all of those things. No, just shut up. We confirm them. No, no, no, no. Not happening. Not happening at all. Well, let's be clear. What happened behind the scenes is a lot of Republicans also came to President Trump and said, this is going to be a nominee that's not going to make it across the finish line.

And therefore, that also was a reason. CNN, political pressure from the inside. Now, with respect to releasing the report, some of them don't want the report released because they also have investigations that have been filed against them and they would want not want the incomplete investigation released but also let's be clear we were going to get that report someone was going to leak it um some whether they considered themselves just a rogue agent or uh or or a whistleblower someone was going to release that report we knew we were going to get it, that the walls were closing in on Matt Gaetz, if you believe he was real to begin with. Because the fact of the matter is, Pam Bondi is going to sail through confirmation because he has

been, once you have Gaetz stopped, senators are going to be more inclined to accept whoever Trump's replacement is in this case, Ms. Bondi, who is a credible pick from Trump, especially compared to the yahoos and the clown car participants that he's picked before. So this might have just been the setup, but they overplayed their hand because there was a second person out there. But the fact of the matter is Matt Gaetz was never going to be attorney general. Derek. You know, Roland,

the truth of the matter is there are others that Trump selected with sexual allegations. I just Googled just now, Roland, and three other names popped up in addition to Gates. Pete Heseth has sexual allegations. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sexual allegation. And so when you think about where we are, Pam Bondi is not going to bring charges against her boss or Pete, Seth, or anyone else in Trump's cabinet. And so the reality is we have to figure out what we must do at the state level where I am.

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull, we'll take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain.

I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got

Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. As a state legislator, what we got to do to make sure that the rule of law still holds true.

But right now, as I see it, I'm not comfortable that they're going to bring anybody to justice as it relates to sexual allegations, sexual assaults, sexual abuse, because they are part of his cabinet. Yeah, well, again, you've got Republicans. You have Republicans who have gone on the record to say that Matt Gaetz has been on the floor of the U.S. House showing members videos and photos of women who he had sex with, you know, underage girls. And so, listen, I don't care for the thug. I'm glad he's gone. He was despicable.

And I certainly hope he gets his comeuppance. And so thank goodness he will not be the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Now, Robert Kennedy Jr. kissed Trump's ass, got him a big appointment. But CNN uncovered this audio here where he didn't have a lot of good things to say about Trump and his idiot MAGA supporters. Listen. You know, one of the things that you write so beautifully and I know your stuff is so fun to read, but you write about Trump. Quote, the way that you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things. We may not have that many outright Nazis in America, but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers. And once those fleshy dominoes start tumbling into the Trump camp, the game is up.

When you talk about fleshy dominoes, Chris Christie comes to mind. Yeah, exactly. Oh, so, Derek, they just love themselves of RFK Jr. now. Trump nominated him executive of Health and Human Services. But they lost their minds when Hillary called them deplorables. That sounded a lot more vicious than what Hillary had to say. I'm up here giggling and rolling because not only did RFK Jr. have a lot of things to say about Trump, but J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham,

they all came around. They all did a 360 and turned around and kissed the butt, kissed the ring I'm in. I mean, the bottom line is, Rowland, they do not have any morals. Hypocrisy, they eat it for lunch and dinner. They really don't care. They'll say, just like J.D. Vance said, oh, I said that in 2016.

But, you know, eight years later, I really don't mean that. Trump's not American's Hitler. He's not a fascist. And so, here we are. What is truth? What is hypocrisy? And so, in his cabinet, we're going to find,

Roland, the first cabinet meeting, we watched it the first time around, the camera's going to span across all of their faces, Roland, and they're all going to kiss their ring. How appreciative that they were selected to be part of this cabinet.

They're less than a man. Joy, when I listened to how RFK described Trump and his supporters, I was like, no lies told. In fact, you know what? Let's just let's just hold on. Let's just hear it again.

You know, one of the things that you write, you write so beautifully and I know your stuff is so fun to read, but you write about Trump, quote, the way that you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things. We may not have that many outright Nazis in America, but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers. And once those fleshy dominoes start tumbling into the Trump camp, the game is up. When you talk about fleshy dominoes, Chris Christie comes to mind. Yeah, exactly. Whoa, belligerent idiots and bootlickers. Sounds like Mather.

Yes, I mean, bootlickers, cowards. I mean, I love it. Frankly, I mean, look, I'm thrilled to see it because I think that after Matt Gaetz, RFK is the next person that they're going to pick off, although Trump might do it himself. Because everything that he said rings absolutely true. The worm in his brain is working. He is absolutely correct. He has identified himself and his fellow now, I guess, Republicans health care views, views that have led to the death of people.

And we're trying to say he's over HHS. That's the real scourge. But, yeah, he never told a lie about the Trump supporter. Well, I just, I mean, I just sat here and, you know, and what gets me is, Lauren, I love it how these MAGA nutcases, when they go crazy, when people blast them and call their names, and the nasty, vicious, despicable things that they say about other people, they act as if, oh, how dare you criticize us? I mean, they truly are the ultimate snowflakes. Yeah, that's the brand. The brand is we get to say whatever we want. We get to be as crazy and nasty as we want.

And then when you give it back to us, we can't take it. I mean, we've seen that year after year after year after year. But oftentimes it is the case that people who are vindictive and negative about everybody else and critical of everybody else can't take any criticism. Somehow that seems to be always the case. I actually think Robert F. Kennedy is going to get through. I mean, if we've got a—we're going to have a sitting president of the United States who is a felon. I mean, I don't understand why anybody thinks that anyone under him would not get through. I was actually kind of surprised that Gates withdrew his nomination.

This is their brand. Their brand is we can do whatever we want. We can say whatever we want. We can get felonies. We can break the rules, all that stuff. I think we should remember, though, during the first Trump administration, a lot of these people turned over in a matter of months, you know, and didn't last very long in the positions that they were in. There was a tremendous amount of turnover in the first Trump term, and there's no reason to believe that that's not going to repeat itself. All right, folks, let's talk about this story out of Illinois. The Illinois Supreme Court overturned the conviction of actor Justice Millett for orchestrating a hate crime hoax. Millett's appeal argued that a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene

after the Cook County State's Attorney's Office dropped an initial 16 counts of disorderly conduct after Smollett performed community service and forfeited a $10,000 bond. Smollett's attorney says the conviction being overturned should not be a surprise. Prosecutions should be based on facts. Prosecutions should not be based on vindictiveness. This was a vindictive persecution, not a prosecution. Let's not make any mistake about that.

The Supreme Court was clear. The rule of law and due process have to remain the fundamental process for which the American jurisprudence is wrong. It is not run by public opinion. Now, we face a big challenge, defense attorneys all around the country, especially in the age of social media, where there's a mass dissemination of information that are not facts in evidence. And the big challenge is holding the line for the rule of law. And that's what exactly this court did. And we're very happy with the decision today. We're very pleased. But it was expected.

We shouldn't be surprised. This is the law of the land in this particular state and all around America. All right. the state and all around America. Right. 2021, a jury convicted Smollett of five counts of disorderly conduct for his 2019 claims of being a victim of racist and homophobic attacks. Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail, but was released after only six days. Here's the thing right here, Joy, that I think is just really important, that what you have, what this attorney says is rule of law. The fact of the matter is this here. There were people in

Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago superintendent, who later, of course, was kicked to the curb when he was found sleeping behind the wheel of his car. They were pissed off and angry with what Kim Foxx did as the state's attorney. And so they forced this special prosecutor who then said, I'm going after you. And so this was this was literally vigilante justice. I'm going to use a law against you. Hey, the state's attorney, she's elected. She makes, she made the decision. They were mad that she dropped the charges and they said, oh hell no, we got to make this Negro pay. It doesn't matter if you think he did it or not. How they targeted him, the special prosecutor.

That's what this Supreme Court has ruled against. That's correct. I mean, these, like, look, when we're talking about the law, public opinion really has absolutely nothing to do with it. This should never play a role here. It's about facts and evidence. It's about doing what you would do in any case where the person wasn't well known. Because when you violate that, one, it can be later overturned. We've seen several high profile overturnings, including Bill Cosby.

It also seems to suggest that, look, when it comes to, we brought up Merrick Garland before, when it comes to restraint, it feels like restraint is only reserved for white people. Because when it comes to black people, we are, people are eager to make an example out of us, to listen to the mob, the lynch mob, if you will. That's what happened here. It doesn't matter whether it's a Black person doing it or not. It's the screaming and the yelling, and he has to be punished, and he has to be punished in a way that we think is appropriate, that the public that feeds almost like a gladiator style, are you not entertained? That's what's happened here.

And it's been overturned with time, as we should have expected that it would be. Unfortunately, a lot of money and loss of freedom has occurred. And there should be, in my view, some restitution for that. This was an abuse of power. Well, again, and again, I think, I think here, Lauren, where this is where, again, we talk, we talk about law. Look, there were a lot of people who were angry when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Bill Cosby. But what does that mean? The law is the law. And part of the thing about the law is that, again, that sign etched in stone above the Supreme Court, it says equal justice under law. Now, we know with Donald Trump, it's not equal justice.

We know that there are two systems here. But this is the Illinois Supreme Court saying, you know, y'all y'all used a special prosecutor to override the decision of the state's attorney who was duly elected because you were hell bent on prosecuting Jesse Smollett. Yeah, they clearly were mad about Kim Fox's decision. That's obvious. Interesting case and a real unfortunate thing that it took this long to unpack this entire moment. I mean, this happened in 2019. It's five and a half years ago. It's like five years ago, and finally, ooh, we're finding out that maybe they shouldn't have been prosecuted this way. But it is a result of having, I think, sort of a, you know, obviously a resentment for the fact that there was, in fact, a black woman who was very reminiscent of that. You know, when you see sort of these moments where

the law is unpacked later, it really is kind of a shame that it can't happen in the same sort of time period. But, you know, public opinion, the court of public opinion, and the feeling that the public wants a certain outcome plays a huge role in these cases. And in the Smollett case, the feeling was, oh, my goodness, you know, how dare he do this thing of making up a story? He needs to be punished. That was the overwhelming social media feeling. It was the same thing with the Cosby situation that had gone on for years in the media, and how dare he not get punished. And of course, when you unpack the details very deliberately in a judicious manner, you get different results. And certainly, in the rush to sort of get somebody behind bars,

a lot of these prosecutors, we've seen it time and time again. John Grisham has a book that just came out called Framed. It goes over 10 cases of people who were prosecuted incorrectly, who were innocent. And of course, the entire Innocence Project, you know, situation, I mean, gives us example after example of certain situations like this. I mean, I do think it is interesting that his attorney got up and of course, because that's not what this moment was about. Of course, the attorney did not mouth the words that Mr. Smollett did not make up a story, but this moment, not as you said, Roland really isn't about that question is the question about whether or not this justice was merited out correctly, but it really was them trying to reverse the decision

of a black female prosecutor. His was crazy, Derek. Is Derek there? Is Derek back? Yeah, I'm here. Okay. Derek, his was crazy. His was crazy.

There was a plea deal. He pleads. He fulfills the requirements of the plea deal, and then they come back with a special prosecutor and indict him, charge, and convict him after he had already fulfilled. What the hell? We're talking about double jeopardy.

What is this? Let's keep prosecuting you even after you agreed to a deal? That is insane. You know, Roland, but you alluded to the point right there, two justice system. And I appreciate Lauren's point about the social justice project, because I recall rolling about a month or so ago. All right, folks, Derek, his signal is frozen. So we're going to get that together. Let's do this here. Let's go to a break. We want to get his comments there, but his signal froze. We come back. We're going to talk about a case out of Atlanta,

and we'll be chatting with the president of the Georgia State NAACP about this case of this officer who wants his indictment thrown out. You're watching Roller Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Support the work that we do. Of course, if you want to give via cash app, of course, use this QR code to use the strike to give via cash app. So that's it right here. Senior Check and Money, order PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196.

PayPal's R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Hi, I'm Isaac. Case the third founder and CEO of fan base. Fan base is a free to download, free to use next generation social media platform that allows anyone to have

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White people are losing their damn lives. send it into deadly violence. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business,

taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and three on may 21st

and episodes four five and six on june 4th ad free at lava for good plus on apple podcasts i'm clayton english i'm greg glad and this is season two of the war on drugs podcast we are back in a big way in a very big way real real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers,

but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you've got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. A violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the rise of the Proud Boys

and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear. This is Tamela Mayne. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go.

I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go.

I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. I'm going to go. Martin! The Department of Justice says the Trenton, New Jersey Police Department and the City of Trenton engage in conduct that constitutes civil rights violations.

In a 45-page report released Thursday, the DOJ found that police in New Jersey's capital have shown a pattern of misconduct, including excessive force and unlawful stops. The report documents arrests without a legal basis, officers escalating situations with aggression and unnecessary use of pepper spray. This comes after a years-long investigation into the Trenton Police Department after an officer shot and paralyzed a young black man who attempted to drive away when officers didn't tell them why they stopped him. Justice Department found the police department's practices violate the Fourth Amendment. The report makes over two dozen recommendations for remedial action in using force, stops, searches and arrests, accountability, policies, training, as well as supervision.

Folks, in Georgia family, they're waiting for a federal judge to make a decision regarding self-defense for the cop who killed an unarmed Black man. A grand jury indicted now retired Atlanta police officer Sung Kim with felony murder, involuntary manslaughter, and violation of oath by public officer in connection with the shooting death of 21-year-old Jenny Atchison. This took place in January 2019. Joining us right now is Gerald Griggs. He's the president of the Atlanta NAACP and also

leads the state conference of the NAACP. Gerald, walk us through this. So explain here. So the defense is arguing that he shot him in self-defense. So there's a hearing on that as opposed to this actually going to trial and the jury making that determination? Yeah. So this has been a difficult case from its inception. Jimmy Atchison was unarmed and surrendering in a closet when he was shot in his face by then task force officer and Atlanta police officer Sung Kim. And it took almost five years to get the case to where it is right now. It went from state court to federal court for this exact reason. You get an opportunity to claim self-defense or immunity pretrial. And so that's what Officer Sung Kim, through his attorneys, are arguing.

And basically he's saying he felt threatened by an unarmed man who was surrendering as he was coming out of a closet after receiving two orders to come out from different members of the federal task force. So it's a very difficult case for the family to sit through two days of an immunity hearing and listen to the evidence and listen to Sung Kim try to make the case that a federal judge should throw this out and it should not go before a jury. But we're hopeful that the federal judge will listen to all the facts, especially the fact that Jimmy was unarmed and allow this case to proceed to a jury. Now, this is in federal court here. Now, it says he's now retired. Did he retire before he was fired to preserve pension? What happened there? Exactly. So this case happened right before the Olympics in 2019, and there was a large uproar. But Atlanta police allowed him to

retire prior to being terminated. And that was one of the issues that led to such a large uproar from the public. We know what happened to Jimmy. Unfortunately, there were not body cams mandated on the federal task force, nor the city of Atlanta at that point. So we wouldn't have actual video evidence of what happened to Jimmy. But because they allowed Sung Kim to retire, and then he went on to work for a federal task force while this case was pending. So it was a lot of difficult issues that his family had to persevere through, and they continue to persevere through, and they're hopeful for a decision from the federal judge. So, federal judge, any idea when this judge is going to rule?

It can take months. As you know, federal cases move extremely slow. So we expect hopefully, you know, by the middle of next year, sometime in the spring, maybe the summer. But we don't expect it to be very quick. But we are hopeful based on the facts as we know that the immunity defense will be dismissed and we will proceed to trial. Okay, then. All right. Well, certainly keep us up to date on this case. Definitely will. Thank you, Roland, for covering it. All right. Thanks a bunch.

Folks, let's go to Texas, where a Texas jury awarded a multimillion-dollar verdict to the family of Bothan Jean. He was, of course, murdered in his apartment by Dallas police officer in 2018, Amber Geiger. The federal jury found that Amber Geiger used excessive force and violated John's constitutional rights when she shot him on September 6, 2018. For that, she was ordered to pay about $60 million in punitive damages and $38.6 million in compensatory damages to Jean's family, totaling $98.65 million. Geiger was convicted of killing Jean. She mistakenly walked into his apartment thinking it was hers. She saw the 26-year-old black man sitting on his couch eating

ice cream and watching television when she shot him. Geiger is serving a 10-year prison sentence. Of course, this is against her. It's not against the police department, Derek. But I do think this case... Do we have Derek there? Yeah, okay. The reason I think this case is really important, the reason I think this case is really important because by holding cops accountable, then personally accountable, then they can't just shun these things off to the police department, off to the taxpayers.

They have to be held accountable. And this goes to the heart of qualified immunity, why you got Republicans who don't want to get rid of it and where you have others who say no. Because these cops know they can operate with impunity, if you take away that qualified immunity and they got to be held personally liable, it forces them to think before they act and cause them to be more accountable about the lives that they could actually take. Absolutely, Roland. And I sort of see this as a lawmaker in two perspectives, right?

Because on one side, it's great that this family was awarded $98.6 million, but it won't bring their loved one back. The other side, Roland, again, I'm going to continue to be alongside you about Project 2025. In Project 2025, they expressed giving police officers qualified and sovereign immunity. And what that means to your audience, Roland, that they would not be held accountable from a criminal or civil. And so when you have a climate like that, after they fully implement Project 2025, Roland, you won't see families receiving justice. And here's the other part

of the reality, Roland. Only 2% of police officers are held accountable. That means the other 98% of police officers are not convicted. They get a chance to retire or go off to another jurisdiction and become a police officer again. And so, like I said, I'm sort of bittersweet on this. It's great the family received justice, but when Project 2025 is fully implemented, we're going to see these kind of trials not being realized and families will not get justice.

Lauren? You know what? I would have rather the police department get sued so that the family would actually get the money that they're owed in an attempt to try to make them whole, which, of course, they can never be made whole because their loved one is gone forever. I found Amber Geiger's story to be completely and utterly ridiculous. It's an absolutely ridiculous story. And typically on police departments, you know, they're trained—people are trained so often that the liability is with the department, of course, because you're not trained to come into the wrong apartment and shoot somebody eating ice cream.

That is not what, you know, you're doing as part of your employment as a police officer. It's a ridiculous story from this woman. And, you know, suing her personally, of course, means that it's unlikely that that entire payout will happen. But at any rate, this is a really terrible, sad story, like so many others we've gone over and seen in this country. And, you know, I'm just kind of, you know, pissed off about this story, because this is a dumb story. Her testimony in court was stupid, and she clearly was engaged in something ridiculous that, of course, she didn't want to fully admit to in court. So we heard that ridiculous story when this was in the news. Yeah.

Joy? Yeah, we're in agreement here. Even Clarence Thomas has entertained the idea of qualified immunity. The fact of the matter is police officers are one of the only professions where you aren't held liable for liable activity, right, where you aren't held liable for reckless endangerment of the public violations of the trust that we've given you. They ought to be held, yes, the police department, but also them individually so that they will make the decisions in their head. I'm only going to shoot the person if really my life is at risk. I'm not going to shoot at will because I have to worry about my future. I have

to worry about the future of my family because even if they don't pay, this is always going to be hanging over them. The other thing is we need to consider the possibility of having some kind of malpractice insurance on police officers, where they won't be insured going forward in order to go work at other offices if they have a history of this. We must change the incentives. Training is not enough. We have tried that model. It's not enough.

We can't shame the men to doing it. We have to incentivize better behavior by cops, and we have to incentivize police departments to make better choices about who works for them, and that means also diminishing the role of the police union.

Absolutely. All right, folks. I'm going to go to go to break we come back country music awards how in the hell can you be the breakout star of the year shibuzi and you just get completely shut out of all the top awards. And then what was the shade thrown towards him from the stage? People are talking about this on the social media. We're going to talk about it next right here on Roller Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood Martin, and I have a question for you.

Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for a balanced life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up.

So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is.

So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-stud on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

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Your money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. PayPal is rmartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. I'm Russell L. Honore, Lieutenant General, United States Army, retired, and you're watching Roland Martin on Filth. All right, folks. Kamiya Valentine has been missing from her Woodland Hills, California home since January 28th.

The 17-year-old is 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs 136 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Kamiya Valentine should call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-275-5273. 877-275-5273. All right, folks. Last night, the Country Music Awards took place,

and Shabuzy, Black Country Music star, he was nominated for the biggest song of the year. He was nominated for New Artist of the Year. He was also nominated for New Artist of the Year, Single of the Year, but it came up empty. Now, his was interesting. This other, this guy named Trent Wilmon, who was the producer for Cody Johnson. Cody Johnson won Album of the Year. This is literally what dude says on the stage last night.

It takes an army of people to make a great record, but I gotta tell you this is for this cowboy who's been kicking Shabuzy for a lot of years, y'all. Cody Johnson. Well, Shabuzy did not take any to that he posted this photo uh on instagram and twitter

as well making it perfectly clear uh how he felt uh like nobody uh is kicking me around this is a guy who has broken the record uh for the he's had for for 18 non-consecutive weeks, has been number one on the billboards, hot 100. Okay. He's one week away from setting a new record. Okay. Performed in the ceremony as well. And it was, of course, again, he's a huge breakout star.

Of course, there were a lot of people who were highly critical of the CMAs because Beyonce, of course, big hit, and she got no CMA nominations as well. You also might remember when she performed during the CMAs, when she performed, she actually huge ratings. A lot of those racist folks did not like the fact that she performed and they were ripping her online. They took that video down, eventually put it back up um it's got to be it's got to be insane joy to have a record-breaking year where you come on the scene and you see and you take it by storm and you have the hottest record

and you don't even win new artist of the Year. Who the hell? I mean, look, this is racism in America. They have decided that we are not going to take country music again by storm, even though they came from us, right? That's why we have country music is because of black people, right? So they're not going to have it. They're not going to allow it. And they're going to to have it. They're not going to allow it. And they're going to diminish our artists. But the truth is, and they know it too, they can't diminish our artists

because their own viewers are listening to our artists. And they're crossover and they're taking the country music by storm. There is nothing they can do about it. The only thing they can do is try to deny them some award, some frankly, some silly award that at this point is continuing to make itself less and less relevant because it doesn't reflect what is obviously happening here.

It also means that we're going to have to diversify who's making a decision about who wins what awards and who doesn't win the awards. None of this is a surprise. Shabuzy, Beyonce, they're not grieving. They're just fine. I love that big smile he had. The song is a bar song tipsy uh and again uh the caption of that photo go ahead short again he said ain't nobody kicking me um and to me that was the appropriate response lauren and guess what you may not bring home the awards but hey when, you racking up the dough, you racking up the money, and there's no doubt that he is indeed a major, major star. He's also up for five Grammy Awards,

and so let's see what happens at the Grammys. Yeah, the Country Music Association is made up of, you know, 6,000 people, which is a relatively small amount of Beyonce is in need of this type of white validation, quite frankly, because there's something, as Quincy Jones once said, there's something almost on a religious level about music. And what happens is that popular phenomena of people listening to his music and going to see him in concert would overtake anything that CMA would ever do. It kind of reminds me a little bit of what happened to Spike Lee with the movie Malcolm X when Scent of a Woman won, or X was Al Pacino who won the best actor, and Denzel didn't win, and the movie didn't win. And, you know, we look back on it all like, what movie do we

remember? We remember Malcolm X more than we remember Son of a Woman. Right. So it's kind of the the public speaks and they'll win out in the end. And I just don't think they are needed as type of white validation. It really just doesn't matter. They're overtaken by the numbers. They're overtaken by the fame that they'll get from their music. And shout out to Shibuza he's got a virginia connection he was born in woodbridge uh he's gonna overtake them he's gonna win in the end it's just no doubt in my mind and beyonce's already won she won years ago uh it just it really is kind of cute that they think that they can diminish these people they're not going to be able to do it.

Well, it's funny, of course, when you look at the numbers, you look at how you perform, you look at, frankly, being number one. And I get a kick out of these people, Derek, who go, you know, this is our culture. It's ours. You didn't even create it right right because because roland they do black no black people did you didn't even create it black people created country music they don't know their history and that's why they're trying to whitewash history right they got to go back to chuck berry who did chuck berry um have uh learned from him elvis presley ask elvis presley who he learned from right and so bb king right we create everything rolling and that's why they're so envy and jealous of us

i don't care if it's country music sports like football or tennis anything we get involved in they cannot compete and so the little piece that they try to control this is a perfect example. They try to control it. And so, yeah, I agree with Lauren and Joy. Beyonce and Shibuzee, they're in a great place. They don't have nothing to worry about. And we're going to continue to do as a people, as Black people, continue to demonstrate Black excellence, regardless of the industry, regardless of the activity that we get involved in. Well, I think it would be absolutely hilarious for Shibuji to go to the Grammys and clean up big time and then sit here and go, hey, CMA, how you like me now so and also

I love I love the new generation of black country stars that are coming up and here's the deal bottom line is white folks don't own country music they don't own it

and Lil Nas also showed Shibuzy's love because remember they were not happy when he when his song uh blew up and took over and dominated uh the charts as well and so to me that's where you always get the last laugh when they start talking trash and you go So look at the charts. Look at the charts. Look at the charts. All right. Derek, Joy, Lauren, I appreciate all of y'all being on today's show. Thank you so very much.

Folks, that is it for us. I'm going to be back in studio tomorrow, so I appreciate the folks at Coca-Cola working with them. It was a project we were working on with them. We're going to HBCU, so we're going to share a lot of that with you later. And so, thank you so very much, folks. That is it. Don't forget, support the work that we do. The work that we do here is critically

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So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We'll be right back. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.