#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Trump's Racist Rhetoric, Justice Clarence Thomas Financials, Chocolate Side Dishes, Hezekiah Walker

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

12.19.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Trump's Racist Rhetoric, Justice Clarence Thomas Financials, Chocolate Side Dishes, Hezekiah Walker Former President Donald Trump's attorneys are arguing he has the freedom to say what he wants, and he continues to push that point when he recently said immigrants coming to the U.S. are "poisoning the blood of our country."  We'll dissect what he said and who he was really talking about.  I'll talk to one of the ProPublica reporters who wrote the article about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' financial history, his push to lift speaking bans and salary raises for justices.  The White House Christmas video highlighting the decorations has gone viral. I'll break down why so many folks are bashing the festive display.  In tonight's Marketplace segment, I'll talk to a luxury chocolatier, the owner of Phillip Ashley Chocolates, who is making your favorite side dish into a bite-sized chocolate treat.  And you'll see my sit down with gospel artist Hezekiah Walker, who was part of McDonald's  Annual Inspiration Celebration Gospel Tour.  d 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. providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to ascenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

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

This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. 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. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă! Today is Tuesday, December 19, 2023. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Donald Trump says immigrants are poisoning the blood of America. And this fool is leading in polls. We'll break that thing down. Also on today's show, Rudy Giuliani, he keeps running his mouth. His ass gonna just keep getting sued.

A second defamation lawsuit has been dropped against this idiot after losing the first one and hit with a 148 million dollar bill also on uh today's show uh why mega people are really stupid especially those on fox news they're literally complaining about tap dancers in a video that Jill Biden, the first lady, uses to showcase the White House decorations. I told y'all these people are absolutely sick in the head. Also, we'll talk with a ProPublica reporter about Clarence Thomas, and all he does is just keep picking up rich checks. Man, a Supreme Court justice bought and paid for. Plus, Black-owned chocolate company in our Marketplace segment.

It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered. The Black Star Network, let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland, Best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics

With entertainment just for gigs He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling, Martin Rolling with rolling now Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Roland Martin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rolling with Roland now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best.

You know he's Roland Martin now. Martin. I've told y'all many times that Donald Trump is a sick individual. So are the deplorables who actually follow him. Saturday at a New Hampshire rally, this fool who says all kind of wild, outrageous things, and trust me, he believes them, actually said this about immigrants. We got a lot of work to do. They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done.

They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They're pouring into our country. Nobody's even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous. The terrorism is going to be.

Now, I hope all of you African immigrants who support Donald Trump, listen to what he said. Play it again. We got a lot of work to do. They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia,

all over the world. They're pouring into our country. Nobody's even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous. The terrorism is going to be. Huh. That's who that idiot is. Now, today, Senate majorityity Leader Mitch McConnell was asked about what Trump said. And, of course, this is to say Mitch McConnell, who's married to an Asian-American woman, who was Trump's transportation secretary, Elaine Chao. Listen to this. Are you comfortable with your party's leading presidential candidate referring to illegal immigrants as people are poisoning the blood of our country? Well, it strikes me that didn't bother him when he appointed Elaine Chao, secretary of transportation.

Are you comfortable with your party? Hmm. So didn't bother him then. Now, again, again, you got these people who are running around who are immigrants. People are sitting here talking about they're going to be supporting Donald Trump. You've got a political head of story. I saw it how it said that Mexicans along the border. Here it is right here. There's there are a lot of Mexican people looking forward to Trump over the issue of immigration.

But this is what this man thinks about immigrants in this country. But let's be real clear here. It's what Donald Trump thinks about black and brown immigrants. He doesn't mind white immigrants. Like his wife. Or his first wife. Or is he on his fifth or sixth? I can't remember.

But his first wife and his current wife and his children, the children of immigrants. Ah, but they are white immigrants. He's a full on white nationalist, white supremacist, and he's using the same language as Hitler. And he's doing it on purpose because he is speaking to his white Republican base. My panel, Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali, former senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA out of

D.C., Joy Cheney, former executive director of the Washington Bureau of the National Urban League. She joins us right now out of D.C., Dr. Larry J. Walker, assistant professor, University of Central Florida. Glad to have all three of you here. Look, this is real clear, Larry.

And you sit here and you hear this and then you wonder why the Venezuelan immigrants in Florida, the Cuban immigrants in Florida, the Nicaraguan and Honduran immigrants that are all in Florida still support this full on white nationalist? Roland, you know, I heard the comments the other day and, you know, it's funny, I was talking to a colleague today, obviously being in the state of Florida, you talked about Texas. So we got to talk about how people believe in some of the immigration groups you described believe a proximity to whiteness will protect them. And that goes to the comments that Senator McConnell made about his wife. We also have to

highlight that former President Trump has made several disparaging remarks about former Secretary Elaine Chao on a number of different occasions, and Senator McConnell didn't say anything about it. But I think that his rhetoric is dangerous. And as we, over the next several months, get closer to the election, it's going to be really important for people to go out to vote. Because what's happened is, this is the kind of rhetoric, as you described, this is not new in terms of how you describe people. And when a country like the United States has a history of, you know, we talked about slavery, enslaving, formerly enslaved Africans. When you talk about how they treated Asian Americans during the World War II and internment camps, this country itself has a long history of treating minoritized groups a certain way. So the idea that you can, McConnell and some other, you know,

you know, politicians, Senator Lindsey Graham this weekend, who try to, you know, sidestep these comments is not meeting anything and they want to shift like Lindsey Graham did in talking about the border. For those folks out there from minoritized communities, if you vote for Donald Trump, what you are voting for, maybe not for you, but members of your family, whoever you, he's other, right? He was very specific about folks being from Africa, Asia. So if you or anyone in your family, anyone in neighbors you care about fall in those categories, they're coming for you. And he's being very clear when he says he's going to be a dictator from day one. And for those people who don't believe it's going to happen,

this country is teetering on the edge of being a dictator. Go to my iPad. Joy, this was 2018. Norwegians reject Trump's immigration offer. This is what he actually said. He said he blasted what he calls shithole countries, immigrants from shithole countries from Africa, Haiti, and others, and said

that he wishes that we could have more Norwegians. He wants white people. The Republican Party believes in the great replacement theory. They believe that white people are being replaced. They can't handle the fact that white people are not having babies. And so, therefore, they're like, yo, we got to bring in some more white people because these dark people, these brown people, these black people, they simply are,

it's too many of them. That's right. To my Haitian brothers and sisters who are in Florida, in Orlando, where the good doctor's from, where I'm actually from, let me tell you, this man is laying out for you

what he thinks of you. He's done it before. He's continuing to do it. He's not worthy of your vote, no matter what party you're in, race, creed, whatever. Donald Trump is an existential threat. And I would say everyone, including Republicans, there is no issue that we disagree with each other enough to vote for Donald Trump. He is an existential threat. We are, you know, 30s Germany, right?

Dealing with a problem, but not seeing it for what it is. We need to be very concerned about the rhetoric. It is racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, white nationalist. This is unacceptable. And let me tell you, for women out there, it's also, a lot of this is working part and parcel with a lot of sexism and a lot of misogyny as well. We are all under threat by this man, all under threat by this man and the people that would vote for him, that he's soliciting their votes. This is an existential threat. And if Mitch McConnell believed what he said today, it's not enough for him to be flippant, to say, well, he didn't feel that way when he appointed my wife. He needs to directly say this man is not worthy of the nomination of the Republican Party.

And he is most certainly not worthy of my vote. Well, they're not going to say that because they want power. As simple as that. They're not going to say that. But the thing here, Mustafa, that people need to understand, People need to understand this. Oh, he's just saying things. No. He, as well as a lot of hardcore conservatives,

they have a clear, concise plan. And they want to, he's already said, Muslim ban goes into effect day one. They're going to be kicking, rejecting all Muslims coming In to this country They're going to be targeting people of color You hear what he said about African nations as well

And so people can sit here And play this game oh I'm dissatisfied I'm going to sit the election out I just don't like what's going on But what these people have Playing pales In comparison to his first four years. And folk think, oh, you're just that's just hype. No, it's not hype. It's real.

Yeah. And they're being very clear about it. And that's the part that is so disconcerting, is that so many folks continue to sit back and not take this stuff seriously. You know, anytime you have a person who has the opportunity to be the leader of the free world, who continues to weaponize race, that continues to otherism, folks, you have to understand what they're doing. They're laying the groundwork for these sweeping sets of actions that they've been clear about. It's not like that they've kept it silent. They've been very clear about the things that they want to do. So if we are not willing to fully engage in this, to call them out, not after the election, not a day before the election, but actually now, and also Republicans who say that they don't believe in this stuff, well, then you have to stand up. You have to make your voice heard and you have to call this stuff out. So we all have a responsibility in this moment to not allow this type of stuff to move any further. Because if you

do, we've seen throughout history how it plays out. It was just talked about before about Nazism and some of the things that they were able to do to be able to justify many of the actions that they did. Of course, they were unjustifiable, but they used it as a part of their campaigning to be able to take people's rights away and then to be able to actually take people's lives away. Folks, they can play around all they want to. I'm trying to tell you what they have planned. It's real. And so folks can, oh, they can sit here and, you know, poop on it. I'm telling you, that's the case. When we come back, you know, they also love to brand everything, oh, woke, woke, woke.

Everything is woke. Everything is, you know, targeting the white folks. Y'all, they're even whining and complaining about a video from First Lady Jill Biden. I'll discuss it next on Rollerball Unfiltered on the Blackstone Network. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. You will not. White people are losing their damn minds. 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 rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this.

There'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 people. on a next a balanced life with me dr jackie beware the generational curse they're everywhere in our families in our workplaces and even in our churches. It's like a minefield, identifying the curse and knowing what to do about it. When we're talking about generational patterns, oftentimes we get locked into those patterns because we don't want anyone to say, oh,

you acting brand new, or you doing something different from how, this is how we always did it. It's okay to do something different in order to get the results that you want to see in your life. That's next on A balanced life on black star network Hi everybody, I'm Kim Cole. Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. Yo, it's your man Deon Cole from blackish and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered All right, folks. All these MAGA right-wing nutcase people, all they do is whine and complain. OK. 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 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 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. 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-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. Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program

providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to ascensivehome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our L.A. community rebuild. It takes all of us. About everything. So last week, well, maybe it was a couple weeks ago,

First Lady Jill Biden, they post this video on social media as a way to show everyone the Christmas decorations at the White House. Watch this. СПОКОЙНАЯ МУЗЫКА АПЛОДИСМЕНТЫ Thank you. so so Now, here they are, dressed as characters from The Nutcracker, a very popular Christmas play. But oh, my God. Poor little Laura Ingraham, who's on Fox News. She was just aghast at this display of wokeism.

And she was just beside herself after this video came out. So they're reaching out to the flag burners and the America haters. If you felt embarrassed and angry to see this type of woke nonsense at the White House during a time Christians have regarded as holy for 2,000 years or so, well, that's the point. They wanted to offend you. They did it on purpose because they think their supporters like that sort of thing, and they do. So none of this should surprise us at all. So they're reaching out to the flag burners and the Americans. I'm going to read for y'all some stuff. I mean, again, y'all, this is, I know y'all are sitting here saying you can't be serious.

Yeah, I'm serious. Because if you want to understand just, again, how nutty these people are, this is from a Washington Post article. Let me pull it up here. Again, we're talking about it's tap dancers. That's all it is. it's tap dancers that's all it is it's tap dancers and so anything this is Ingram she also said anything connected to the American tradition

has to be reimagined and then remade through a far left lens wow tap dancers because of the troops take on the Russian Christmas classic, The Nutcracker, which is only performed all across the country. She said, quote, it's kind of a big middle finger to Christians in this country, I think, and frankly to all Americans, not just Christians. Okay.

Newsmax host Eric Bolling called the routine replete with tasteless perversions and beyond woke. Former Donald Trump aide Stephen Miller lambasted its freakishness. The Federalist called the video an abomination

and an attempt by the bias to slip radical Marxism into the country's Christmas celebrations. Tap dancers. These people are sick and demented. They are absolutely crazy. But you need to understand they are literally

talking to an audience that believes it. And I know somebody watching might say, they might say, Mustafa, it's

a video. But people need to understand propaganda, Mustafa. When you label anything, whoa, whoa, here they go, appeal to the flag burners, that is all by design. It is all strategy. There is intentionality in everything these folks do on Fox and all these other folks that are tied to this right-wing ideology that they have. So what they do is they say, what is the most American thing that's out there? And whatever that is in the moment, then they'll throw this wokeism label on top of it. And anything that anyone who had any basic sense would say, well, you're just so far off base, or some people might say you're crazy and not even engage in their foolishness.

But there are individuals who listen and are fed this stuff time and time and time again, and they start to actually believe it. Now, if it was Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers or Gene Kelly, who are the ones who were dancing to that. I wonder if they would still have those same complaints, because if you go back and look throughout history of those iconic tap dancers and dancers, they often were featured in relationship to the holiday season. And of course, people used to call it the christmas season um so they should be very careful because the things that they say uh that they value those same individuals uh were actually dancing to christmas music and to christmas celebrations or holiday celebration see but that that's no no no no they're fine with fred astaire and ginger rogers they're fine with that

joy this is really what they're afraid of, black people. This is Greg Kelly, one of the dumbest people you've ever seen on television, on newsbacks. Listen. And finally, the White House trashing tradition yet again. Jill Biden posting this weirdo Christmas video that nobody can seem to figure out. It kind of looks like a Christmas nightmare. Who exactly is this video aimed at is what I want to know. It's a very traditional holiday. I don't really know what this is, but it's very strange. And of course, it's diverse as hell. They had to do that. It had to be a DEI video. Compare that to the Christmas video under Trump that we saw. A little more traditional. Let's just see the trees.

Let's just see the lights. It's a nice, peaceful time of the year. We don't need these crazy costumes. And whatever that last video was, which a lot of people are comparing to The Hunger Games, which I can't remember that movie, so I don't know. See, Joy? Oh, how dare they have black people in these videos? Yes, no black people, no happy white people,

no people who may be gay, no people who may wear bright colors. I don't know. These people are strange and sick and twisted and broken. They are broken. And I'm going to repeat what I said on the last segment. There is no greater existential threat to our democracy than Donald Trump and his band of minions and merry characters. If it's the Hunger Games, then, you know, they are President Snow.

So. Yep. Let's move on. They're hacks. Well, and again, but the reason why, and I need people to understand, the reason why

we can't ignore Larry is because, again, what are they doing? What is the propaganda goals? What are they trying to achieve? It's literally attack. Now, remember, these are the same people who, oh, it was tradition. And they were praising, oh, Melania's Christmas. Larry, I remember the former friend of the First Lady saying this,

but Melania had to say it about Christmas. They say I'm complicit. I'm the same like him. I support him. I don't say enough. I don't do enough. No. Where I am, I'm working like a ass, my ass.

I know. I put the Christmas stuff that, you know, who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decoration, but I need to do it, right? Yeah, but 100%, you have no choice. And, okay, and then I do it. Oh, so they're praising the good old days when Melania didn't give an F about Christmas. Boy, those are what, I'm sure those good Christians really love to hear that, Larry.

Listen, I need folks who are watching this to listen to me very carefully, because there's a connection between what Trump talked about, we talked about in a previous segment about the dehumanizing language, what you see propaganda-wise from Fox News and other outlets, and what they have planned if he gets elected president in 2025. And so when you hear some of the segments you played and some of the clips of comments people made in the op-ed, in the article,

it highlights what Trump wants to do from day one as it relates to anything that is not centered in whiteness. And for folks who hear this language and think it's not a big deal, it's not a problem. They're coming for you. If you are seeing if you are deemed or anyone else you care about is considered to be different. You heard that recording from the former first lady, her former president. Trump don't care about holidays, Christmas, and they're certainly not religious people. So you can kick all that to the curb. But the bottom line is what they have prepared for everyone else is anything that's, once again, not centered on whiteness. So if you're Black, Asian-American, LGBTQ plus community, et cetera, they're coming to strip all your rights and then make sure your life is miserable and then dare you to defy them and then use the U.S. military, which former

President Trump has already talked about, from day one to make sure that the United States has moved from a democracy to a dictatorship. And so all the hoopla over concerns over this video is just a reflection of what you will see that we magnified by a hundred in a year and a half, a little bit more year from now, if we don't do anything about it. Ken, I'm just, all I'm doing is I need people

just to understand what's at play here. Again, what you constantly hear is the attack, the attack, the attack on woke, on woke, on woke. That's black people. The attack on D.I. That's black people. Why did I write my book, White Fear? How the browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. It's because they cannot handle the nation becoming a nation of minority people. Keep telling y'all this. Some of y'all just think this is no big deal.

You're going to see this when it comes to public policy. All right. Going to break. We come back. If you want to purchase a Supreme Court justice. 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. Add 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, 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. Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the L.A. fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires please get involved sign up to volunteer donate furniture or even donate funds you can go to a sense of home.org to find out more information together we can help

our la community rebuild it takes all of us ain't that hard ain't that hard and basically they pretty much bought clarence thomas proa has been breaking this thing down, and they've really got a good story out now. We're going to discuss it next right here on Roller Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. YouTube folks, hit the like button, folks. We should easily be over 1,000. Also, support us in what we do. Your dollars are critically important for us to do the work. Listen, we don't have millionaires and billionaires cutting us checks like right-wing media. We're out here fighting a good fight when it comes to advertising dollars.

So your support is huge for us to continue to do what we do. And so see the check and money orders to make them out to the Makeabout to Blackstone Network. P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C. 20037-0196. Cash app, dollar sign, RM unfiltered. PayPal, R.C. 2-0-0-3-7-9-0-1-9-6 Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered Venmo is RM Unfiltered, Zelle Roland at RolandSMartin.com Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com Be sure to download the Blackstone Network app

Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV Be sure to get a copy of my book, White Fear How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds, available at bookstores nationwide. Get the audio version on Audible. We'll be right back. Thank you. grow your business or career with grow with google's wide range of online courses

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watching roland martin unfiltered folks justice clarence thomas's financial life has become a topic of interest since his relationships with billionaires were discovered. The folks at ProPublica have been doing a fantastic job with their reporting. They have a new article out. It's called A Delicate Matter. Clarence Thomas' private complaints about money sparked fears he would resign. It is a deep dive into Thomas' financial history, from asking for a salary increase for Supreme Court justices to personal loans. Joshua Kaplan wrote the piece, along with several others with ProPublica. He joins us now from New York City. Joshua, glad to have you here. I mean, this is, all of these stories have been fascinating.

The reason I think this one is really fascinating is because you lay out Thomas going to Georgia to give a speech and writing back the member of Congress where he actually complained about the salary of the Supreme Court justices. And this congressman essentially came back and said, hmm, we got to make sure that Clarence is comfy financially so he doesn't resign. Yeah, no, I mean, these documents we found give a really rare window into how Thomas was thinking about and talking about his finances in this really important period in his tenure. Kind of relatively early. He'd been on the court for about 10 years. And this was when his relationships with these wealthy benefactors were really starting to blossom. And yeah, I mean, that conversation with the congressman you mentioned, so he was flying back from, on the plane back from a conference. He happened to be sitting next to the congressman and he told him Congress should give the Supreme Court justices a raise or else one or more will resign soon, maybe even within a year. And the congressman left that afraid that Thomas was about to step down. stepped out. You know, this is, I mean, what is crazy here is, and I don't understand why,

why this is even not even a bigger deal because all of a sudden, I mean, let's just be clear. It's not like Clarence Thomas was friends with all of these conservative billionaires before he joined the Supreme Court. Yes, he was conservative. Yes, he served in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. But all of a sudden, now, boy, now we're buddies. Now we're going to conferences and now they're picking up travel. And then it becomes he gets this RV and is complaining about money. Dude, why don't you buy a $267,000 RV? And it's called living within your means.

Yeah, no, and it's, I mean, it's like, I think it's really important to keep in mind that most of these relationships with the gentleman who bought him, these kind of billionaire political donors who bought him private school tuition and private jet flights around the world, luxury vacations. The vast majority of these people he met after he became a justice. And it's kind of it's amazing. Some of these gifts were coming from people he'd met, you know, practically just met, met, you know, a year before giving him expensive gifts. And, you know, we've discovered, uh, giving him expensive gifts. And, uh, you know, we've discovered a lot about the gifts themselves this year, but, um, how and why this all happened, there's still a lot. We don't know why, what led so many people to offer him money and other gifts over the years and, and what led him to, um, accept all of that. And that's why I think looking at what he was saying in this period is kind of crucial context. Right. And again, somebody who he just met just gives him five grand to help pay for the private school tuition of his nephew or great nephew or whatever it was.

And then, oh, this donor, like early story. Oh, we're just gonna just fix up his mother's house and you know what we're just gonna buy the house and then you can just go ahead and pay us rent i mean i don't care if this was a member of congress if this was a governor if this was a state representative a state a state, if this was an alderman, a city council or a county commissioner or a school board, they would be investigated for corruption. Yet this is the highest court on the land. And it's like, no, we self-govern and no need to look into us. We can handle it ourselves.

Yeah, I mean, it was I didn't realize this really until we started digging into all this. But the Supreme Court has less oversight, less accountability mechanisms, less rules about things like ethics than really any other part of the federal government. I mean, I don't think most Americans think of Congress as the paragon of ethics, but most of these gifts that Thomas has accepted, even from a friend, a congressman would need explicit, formal preapproval from an ethics committee. Gifts over $50 are banned for congresspeople, with some exceptions that have a process around them. But at the Supreme Court, there's basically no rules governing what gifts they can take. So we have rules for the executive branch. We have rules for the legislative branch. But there are no rules for the judicial branch. I'm sorry. There are rules for the judicial branch. I'm sorry, there are rules

for the judicial branch for all other federal judges except the Supreme Court. Yeah, and the Supreme Court, I mean, they just implemented the first set of ethics rules, I think, last month for the first time in the history of the country. They did not, however, create an enforcement mechanism for that. So what that actually is going to look like in practice very much remains to be seen. Wow, that is absolutely crazy.

What else in your reporting caused you to go, man, what the hell? That's a good question. I mean, it was, like, over the course of this year, I mean, I think the scope of it was amazing. We were talking millions of dollars in value, likely, from a whole range of people, you

know, who were massive donors to conservative causes. And then there's also something easy to forget is relationships with political groups. We did a story earlier this year about Thomas secretly going to Koch Network donor events. Yes. And these, you know, being flown there on a private jet and essentially being a fundraising draw at a dinner for top donors, the Koch network. And he kept that all secret. And we talked to even lower court federal judges who said,

if I did something like this as a less powerful judge, I'd have gotten a letter commencing a disciplinary proceeding. But at the Supreme Court, even with the new vague rules that are in place, as far as it's – even now it seems, if Clarence Thomas thinks that that is OK, then it is OK. There's not really anyone looking over any of of the justices shoulders on ethical questions. Absolutely. Questions from my panel. Joy, you're first. Hi. So a couple of things. Can you just draw it out for the layperson out here? What exactly do you think happened because i know what i think happened he put the word out and they responded what do you think happened how did all of these folks start getting giving him money all of a sudden i mean it's a it's a excellent and really important

question and you know honestly i mean i still don't honestly, I mean, I still don't know. There's no you know, I don't want to act like we've fully cracked the code here. And we're still very much reporting on this. is that right in this period before the gifts really got going, Thomas was privately, and they haven't really become public until now, pushing for ways to make more money on multiple fronts, on multiple occasions. And he was, you know, whether that's pushing for a higher salary, trying to get a ban lifted that prevented judges from giving paid speeches on the side. And in some of these conversations, he was raising the specter of possibly leaving the court. And there were worries. The chatter about this was circulating in Congress and in conservative legal circles that Thomas was dissatisfied with his financial situation. And there was a worry among, you know, we talked to the former Senate majority leader, the Republican,

top Republican in the Senate at the time. He told us there was a real fear right then about that Thomas or other justices would step down. So is that what motivated someone like Harlan Crowe, the Dallas billionaire? I can't say. 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 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Add 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. 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 Sh 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. podcast. Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing

nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to ascensivehome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. But it's valuable context, to be sure. Larry.

We can't say it, but we can. We know what happened. Well, again, well, listen, we can assume, we can speculate. As they say, it's a whole bunch of smoke there. It may not be a raging fire, but it's a damn lot of smoke. Larry, go ahead. Yes. Thank you, Roland.

First of all, I really enjoyed your reporting and really with this article with probably what it's been doing about you know discussing what's happening in the court particularly with justice thomas can you talk a little bit about you know obviously you had this you've been writing these you guys been writing these pieces over the last several months highlighting this kind of essentially kind of money grab that i would describe but what let's talk about what is what Clarence Thomas doing unique or have you guys have looked at not just current justices, but in the past, has this been going part of an ongoing pattern that the American public has been missing

in terms of justices and their relationship and how they've been funded, trips, et cetera, by wealthy donors? Yeah, I mean, there's really, there's two answers to that question. So first to just start with what's known, there's not, there's no evidence that anyone's ever done this at the scale that Thomas has in terms of, you know, living expenses and the just sheer quantity and luxury of what he has taken. But there are other justices that have taken gifts that I think some people would really raise questions about. So Ruth Bader Ginsburg took a trip around Israel paid for by a billionaire. Stephen Breyer, another liberal, took a private jet flight from a wealthy Democratic donor to a wedding in Nantucket.

And Breyer and Ginsburg, they both disclosed that. So that's why we know about those gifts. Alito, though, similarly to Thomas, we found at least one, we found one example of a, you know, pretty extravagant gift he took and kept secret. So he flew to Alaska on the private jet of this billionaire who repeatedly had cases at the Supreme Court that Alito never recused himself from, and they went on this luxury fishing trip together. So that's kind of, that's the first answer. The second answer is, you know, because Thomas didn't disclose any of this, you know, we found it out through a lot of hard work. And it's possible that it's a broader problem than, you know, has come into public view

yet. We've been reporting actively on all of the justices and we haven't found anything on this scale yet. And I don't know if we will, but we are very much still looking. Mustafa. Well, congratulations to you and the ProPublica family for this excellent reporting and bringing this to light. You know, we should also be equally focused on how do we mitigate these types of things from happening in the future based upon the conversations that you've had with probably numbers of people. be implemented to make sure this type of behavior does not continue for whether it is for Clarence Thomas or current Supreme Court justices or future Supreme Court justices? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of ideas happening, floating around right now. I mean, one that I think has a lot of experts in this, a lot of judges think would be really

valuable is having some sort of oversight mechanism, because that's something we have for really the rest of the government, inspectors general who can look into allegations of wrongdoing or potential systemic problems or some sort of enforcement body that can actually make sure that these principles are not just norms but actually something that people have to abide by. And then there's also stricter rules is something that gets talked about a lot. And again, this is something where not just the Supreme Court, but the judiciary as a whole is pretty unique in how vague its ethics rules are. So the rules for judges are really lofty. It's, you know, you have to kind of at all times conduct yourself in a way that will,

you know, encourage impartiality—oh, Jesus Christ. Sorry about that. Just keep talking. Don't worry about it. So you have to at all times conduct yourself in a way that will encourage the public's faith in the integrity of the Supreme Court. And you can't have even the appearance of impropriety. And with the lower courts, there's an enforcement mechanism.

So if you go afoul of that, you can be disciplined. But most other parts of government have actual rules. Like you can't take a gift from someone you just met that's extremely expensive. And so things like gift bans or at least heavy gift regulations are something that could be implemented. Oh, absolutely. All right, Joshua. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Keep up the reporting. We'll be looking forward to more of it. Thanks so much. All right. So we come back. Breaking news. The Colorado Supreme Court has said Donald Trump get the hell off the ballot for president. I will explain this huge decision when we come back on Roller Martin Unfortunate on the next Frequency, Professor Janelle Hopson joins us to talk about hip hop and its intersection with feminism and racial equality, plus her enlightening

work with Ms. Magazine and how the great Harriet Tubman connects with women in hip hop. So it was not hard for me to go from Harriet Tubman to hip hop, honestly, because it is a legacy of black women's resistance and black women supporting our communities. That's what Harriet Tubman did. That's on the frequency on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach.

Did you know that 43% of Americans say that they're going to go deeper into debt because the cost of everything is rising because of inflation? On our next Get Wealthy, you're going to hear from money coach Lynette Kelfani-Kotz as she shares exactly what we need to do to stay out of debt and get wealthy. When I paid off my $100,000 in credit card debt, I was just doing strategies kind of piecemeal. I was doing like what I thought would work. And then it was like, oh, great. It did. It was effective. And then I was like, I should document this. I should explain how I got out of debt. That's right here on Black Star Network with me, Deborah Ola, America's

World. My name is Lena Charles, and I'm from Opelousas, Louisiana. Yes, that is Zydeco capital of the world. My name is Margaret Chappelle. I'm from Dallas, Texas, representing the Urban Trivia Game. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you watch. Roland Martin on Unfiltered. Folks, breaking news out of Colorado. The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that the 14th Amendment, which says that an individual who is involved in an insurrection cannot run for public office, they said that applies to Donald Trump.

This ruling just came down a few moments ago, and I'm going to read for you. Go to my iPad. It says right here, Anderson v. Griswold Election Law 14th Amendment. In this appeal from a district court proceeding under the Colorado election code, the Supreme court considers whether former president Donald J. Trump may appear on the Colorado Republican presidential primary ballot in 2024.

A majority of the court holds that president Trump, uh, uh, majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section under the election code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot. The court stays its ruling until January 4th, 2024, subject to any further appellate proceedings. They state this knowing full well that Trump is going to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. As I said, as I said, this ruling just just came down, folks. And it is very clear in terms of its impact. The right is losing their absolute minds because of this decision. They are already out coming out. Oh, there's left leaning court, whatever.

But the law is the law. And the law says point blank. The law says the 14th Amendment in terms of what it says about an insurrection. And so this is the actual ruling itself. And so it goes on here. It lays it all out in here in terms of the petition of the respondent, everything that is involved in here, the various law firms involved and the legal rationale laid out here by the court. And so it was three months ago when the lawsuit was filed. It says more than three

months ago, a group of Colorado electors eligible to vote in the Republican presidential primary, both registered Republican and unaffiliated voters, filed a lengthy petition in the district court for the city and county of Denver, asking the court to rule that former President Donald J. Trump may not appear on the Colorado Republican presidential primary ballot. This is a huge, huge decision, folks. And it, look, people are saying, you know what, you got a conservative Supreme Court. And, you know, they're going to overturn this to allow it. But Mustafa, the 14th Amendment makes it clear.

And that was an election official. That was an election official. That was an election official. And I think it was New Mexico that was disqualified from office because. 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. 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 glad and this is season two of the war on drugs but 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.

Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the L.A. fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds.

You can go to ascensivehome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. Their involvement in the insurrection that took place on January 6th, 2021. Yeah, and you know, Republicans should actually be saying,

since they always talk about being constitutionalists, that, you know, that they should be in alignment with what this court just brought down. Now, there was over a dozen states the last time I took a look that were trying to move forward on utilizing the 14th Amendment. We should also be very clear that you've got the Iowa caucuses coming up here shortly, and people are going to see this, and they're going to be making some tough decisions about who they actually want to get behind. So this is going to make it much tougher for Trump, not only in the appeal that's going to have to happen there in Colorado, but also these upcoming sets of elections that he's got some competitors that's got some traction and may eat away at that lead that he currently had. So for people who don't quite understand,

and again, I love these people who love talking about the Constitution, and they've never actually bothered to read it. It was after the Civil War, and there was a series of what are called the Reconstruction Amendments, 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments of the constitution uh and the 14th amendment was one of those those um one of those reconstruction amendments now what happens is we often talk about the 14th amendment because it deals with naturalized citizenship it deals with the equal protection clause. Yet this is often overlooked in here where where where this is talked about. So so so go to my iPad. So, again, Section one is the part where they talk about naturalized citizens. And Section two is where they talk about apportionment.

That is number of number of member of. That is, member of Congress, it lays out electors, things along those lines. This Supreme Court decision in Colorado deals with Section 3. And Section 3 says, no person shall be a senator or representative in Congress or elector, a president and vice president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any state who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or as an officer of the United States or as a member of any state legislature or as any executive or judicial officer of any state to support the Constitution of the United States shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or give aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

But Congress may by a vote of two thirds of each house remove such disability. they're saying here what what they're saying here joy is that one again this is the key line shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof we've already we've already heard don've already, we've already heard Donald Trump say, we've already heard Donald Trump say that he, Joy, that he is going to actually, that he's actually going to pardon the folks on January 6th. He's already said, Joy, that those folks need to be released. He's already made all those things perfectly clear. So he's laid out how he's given them comfort. Correct. And he gave them comfort in real time. So if you don't believe that he engaged in insurrection, you certainly must believe that in real time, during January 6th, he most certainly gave them comfort. He aided and abetted their insurrection.

So either way you look at it, but here's the most interesting part of the clause, right? Section 3 is that part about two-thirds of the Congress of both houses may remove such a disability. So the question is, is Congress going to try to step in here and save him? First of all, Congress can't step in. First of all, the Supreme Court is going to rule.

Now, after the Supreme Court rules, if the Supreme Court rules that Colorado is correct, then Congress could step in. But here's the whole deal. He ain't getting two-thirds because the Republicans barely have a majority in the House. They don't control the Senate. He ain't getting two-thirds of the House and the Senate.

We certainly hope not. No, no, no. He's not. What? He's not. He's not getting it because he doesn't have that many Republicans. No, no, no. He's not. What? He's not. He's not getting it because there's not this. He doesn't have that many Republicans. No, no, no. He's not.

He's not getting it because you've got a clear majority of Democrats in the House and Senate who voted for him, who voted for impeachment, who voted for impeachment. This is going to waste our time. But absolutely, there is nothing that he can do in Colorado. And if you are Nikki Haley, if you are Governor DeSantis, you have got to be looking at this and breathing a sigh of relief. This really makes the case that you have been making, which is that the man is unelectable. If you are Joe Biden, you've also got to be breathing a sigh of relief because you know the Republican Party is still most likely to nominate him. So there is a lot to be happy about in this decision.

I hope that it spreads throughout the country. But this is a sad day for the country, but it is also a good day, too, because it means that there are some backstops to what could be a completely complete takeover by a dictator and someone who's laid out for us that not only did he aid and abet a former insurrection but he would do it again if given the opportunity the the thing uh that that really speaks to me here uh uh mustafa uh the thing that really speaks to me here, again, are the actions of Donald Trump that day as well as the actions after. And the beauty of the Section 3 is, again, it doesn't say that a person has to have direct involvement in the insurrection. Now, the question comes in, will they define what took place on January 6th as an insurrection? I think it's perfectly clear. The answer is yes. The man absolutely wanted to thwart

the will of the people, and they were plotting to do so. I mean, we would all agree that common sense doesn't always equate with legal sense. So when the court takes a look, a conservative leaning court, then we know that it is an uphill battle and that they will look for every opportunity to continue to allow, you know, the former president to continue down the journey of the election. You know, the other thing that we're going to have real talk is that this is going to solidify some of his base. We think that this will erode them and this will make people have second thoughts. If you've been committed to Trumpism, if you've been committed to the way that 45 has moved forward, this is just going to once again pull you probably closer to

him. So I don't want anyone to think that, you know, now people are going to go running away from him. I doubt that that's the case. I would be quite surprised based upon the things that we've seen before. But again, we, you know, the Constitution is supposed to be the law of the land. And for those who have continually said that they stand on the Constitution, something conservatives always say, if that's true, then you should understand that it is now time to move away from Donald Trump and to actually live up to the values that you continue to espouse to the rest of the country. Larry, I love how conservatives call themselves strict constructionists. And we look at the literal interpretation of the crafters of the Constitution. Well, it was real clear what Congress laid out in the Reconstruction Amendments.

But the other thing is this here. This Supreme Court is already dealing with another issue January 6th, and that is a particular statute dealing with the obstruction statute that prosecutors have used to charge folks on January 6th. Joyce Alleyne, she was talking to Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney, about this on this podcast, where this actually came up. And so Supreme Court has a couple of huge decisions to make, both tied to January 6th. That was happening out of Colorado in this case. Listen to this. Four charges against Trump involve this statute, and it carries the longest penalty of any of the charges. But let's just say for the sake of argument that this charge is somehow disallowed

as to Trump or just unavailable. There are still two counts of conviction. So I think, you know, the argument that we can have about 1512 is whether or not on its face it should reach this conduct. And I guess there are two choices. Either the Supreme Court finds that it does reach something, you know, like an attempt to interfere with certification of the Electoral College, or they tell Congress, hey, you screwed up. You need to go write a better statute if you want to do this. It's interesting that Mr. Fisher's situation, it could be distinguished from Trump's. I mean, I suppose you can, and some of the January 6th defendants have made the argument, well, they didn't know that there was an electoral college certification going on. They just went and stormed the Capitol for whatever reason. And maybe you could try to distinguish that from

a Trump who knew what the stakes were and in fact intended that official documents reflecting who the electors were, were going to be put into play in an effort to interfere with the certification vote. I just don't know that the court needs to go there to reach a result in this case. Larry, so this conservative court has a couple of major decisions to make. They do. Yeah, they do. And obviously, like you said, Roland, this came down in the last half an hour. And so I want to highlight a point you make all the time about elections having a real importance. And we go back, if Donald Trump was elected in 2016, we would have a court that had a different composition. And maybe some of these questions relating to,

obviously, we just talked about relating to January 6th, you know, case in addition to this one, maybe our expectations would be a little bit different. But you're right. These are two monumental cases that are going to go, you know, well, this recent one we talked about today likely to go before the Supreme Court. The other thing I want to point, I want to make as it relates to this particular Colorado Supreme Court decision, is the Republican primary is March, I think it's March 5th. So they're really going to have to, with the holidays, they're really going to have a very busy schedule and have to make some tough decisions. And as we've just talked about with Clarence Thomas and some of the other justices, they're under a microscope and people are watching them very carefully. And as we know, the court does pay attention to public opinion.

But it will be interesting to see how they rule. And not only this case that just came down with Colorado Supreme Court, but also relating to this issue with January 6th in terms of what kind of protections former President Trump has. So it's going to be a very interesting first few months at the beginning of 2024. Well, but let's talk about this here, OK? 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 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 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add 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-studugs 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 man. 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 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. Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care.

It's an incredible organization. Just days into the L.A. fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to ascensivehome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. The real question is, as a matter of fact, you know what, I'm gonna do this here. I'm gonna go to a break, and I'll come back and discuss this. Clarence Thomas, he's

married to an insurrectionist. Should he recuse himself? We'll discuss that next on Roller Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Next, on The Black Table, with me, Greg Carr. We featured the

brand new work of Professor Angie Porter, which, simply put, is a revolutionary reframing of the African experience in this country. It's the one legal article everyone, and I mean everyone, should read. Professor Porter and Dr. Valetia Watkins, our legal roundtable team, join us to explore the paper that I guarantee

is going to prompt a major aha moment in our culture. You crystallize it by saying, who are we to other people? Who are African people to others? Governance is our thing. Who are we to each other? The structures we create for ourselves, how we order the universe as African people. That's next on The Black Table,

here on The Black Star Network. What's up, everybody? It's your girl Latasha from the A. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks. If you're watching on YouTube, hit that like button, y'all. Y'all are taking too much time. We should easily be over 1,000 by now. So y'all hit the doggone like button.

So we're talking about, of course, this breaking news out of Colorado, breaking news out of Colorado, where the Colorado State Supreme Court has ruled, the majority, that Donald Trump violated the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and he should not be on the ballot for president of the United States there. They'll state their decision pending it going to the Supreme Court. And so now let's talk about that, Joy, because let's be real clear here. Clarence Thomas sleeps with an insurrectionist.

Clarence Thomas is married to an insurrectionist. Clarence Thomas is married to Jenny Thomas. Jenny Thomas was texting Mark Meadows and others demanding that they overturn the election results. Here's the deal. Clarence Thomas should absolutely recuse himself from anything involving January 6th because his wife was one of them. That's correct. That's correct. And there's also a real question about what Clarence Thomas himself knew about his wife's activities,

which, frankly, I'm sure the FBI has had to investigate. She has been deposed and brought in both by investigators as well as by the January 6th commission. Absolutely, we have questions there. He should recuse himself. And if he were an ethical justice, which, frankly, it is unlikely that he is, and I don't usually engage in hyperbole like this, but I don't think it is in this case. I think there are real questions about his ethical nature and his fitness to serve on the court.

I think you certainly have to say if he were, he would recuse himself because he would not want even the appearance of impropriety here. He is self-vested, is self-interested in the outcome of this case because of its implications for anyone associated with January 6th, including his wife. Larry, she tried when she testified before the January 6th special committee. She said, oh, I hate that, you know, I wish those texts didn't exist. I was emotional. She was standing, telling Martin Meadows to tell Trump to stand firm. She believed the election fraud. She believed the lies.

She believed there were irregularities. Then she also tried to suggest that, oh, that her husband is independent and stubborn. Go to my iPad. She said she insisted that she operates independently from Clarence Thomas. Quote, it's laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence. The man is independent and stubborn. We all know that's BS. Man, come on, bro.

Your wife has been getting paid by conservative groups. This has been a part of the Clarence Thomas payoff. Man, give me a break. He should absolutely recuse himself. If he has any integrity or any credibility, any morals or values, he would recuse himself from this decision. He would, but, you know, we're not talking about anyone like Thurgood Marshall. You know, Clarence Thomas has been using the Supreme Court as a piggy bank,

and he's been cashing in. And listen, he and his wife, Jenny Thomas, are two peas in a pod. And you're right, Roland, for somebody who's been married a long time, you know without a doubt that they had a conversation about all the stuff she's been involved in. We know that a number of funders have given money to her to kind of sidestep any scrutiny in terms of making sure they can certainly have influence Justice Thomas. But of course they had a conversation. And these are like-minded individuals. And if he had any, you know, if he understood the importance of being a justice in Atlanta's highest court, then he would recuse himself from at least two of the cases we've

discussed this evening. But I doubt he does that. But it does bring a number of questions in terms of impropriety, in terms of all the money, millions of dollars, it sounds like, over the last several years. He's been able to, from trips, et cetera, paying off loans, the house of his mother's house, et cetera, his, you know, his nephew's tuition, all these other things. So he's benefited financially from being on the court. And look, those individuals, you know, those dark money organizations are expecting him to pay it forward. And these cases, along with what we saw happen in reversal of Roe v. Wade, are some of the examples in terms of what those individuals are expecting to cash in.

And see, here's what I love here, Mustafa. All of these conservatives, remember, they tried to get the Supreme Court to accept this legal theory that states are not bound by any courts, by the public, they can decide who wins elections and who the electors are on their own because they are elected. They wanted that state process to go forward. Well, here is a state Supreme Court making its determination. I guarantee you they ain't states' rights right now.

Be careful what you ask for, right? Because you just might get it. And, you know, the court there in Colorado saw the foolishness that went on, the dangerousness, the sets of actions to, you know, either chip away or destroy our democracy and said no. They said you don't get a second bite at the apple, which is really how we should be framing this, that he does no longer get a second bite at the apple, at least in this moment in the state of Colorado. And hopefully others will follow suit and take a hard look at the role that he played in January the 6th and actually lean on the side of our democracy, of this union that we often talk about here in America. And so for the folks who don't know,

again, I think it was in, I think it was in Arizona. Let me pull it up. 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 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 there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute season one, 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 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. 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.

Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the L.A. fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to ascenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us.

It was Arizona. Yeah, it wasn't New Mexico. It was Arizona. And let's see here. Right here. Go to my iPad. Coy Griffin, he was the first elected official since the Civil War banned from holding elected office. He was an Otero County Commissioner in New Mexico. And he was a county commissioner there. And again, he was disqualified from office under this same provision. So it's not like it hasn't already happened, Joy. It's happened. This is from September 2022?

That's right. And it can no longer continue to be acceptable for people who are low men on the totem pole to be barred and be persecuted and be prosecuted, rather, and have the big fish, the person who called them to Washington, D.C., to stop the steal during a time when we were certifying the election. Anyone who suggested they didn't understand what they were here for is lying. It can no longer be acceptable

for them to be put in jail, for them to lose opportunities, but not Donald Trump. And I think that that message is going to resonate throughout the country as folks are looking at filing these similar lawsuits. I predict that Colorado is the first of others.

And here's the thing here that we got to factor in here, Larry. Go back to my iPad. In that particular case, Judge Francis Matthew wrote in his decision that Griffin's attempts to, quote, sanitize his actions are without merit and that his characterization of his actions, quote, amounted to nothing more than attempting to put lipstick on a pig The judge cited Griffiths participation in the January 6th attack on the Capitol along with surrounding planning of mobilization and incitement Matthew also called those actions as

insurrection against the Constitution. Now, he was removed from office immediately. So here's the thing that we now have to have to factor in. This thing here goes before the Supreme Court. Now all of a sudden

they now have to contend with what this federal judge wrote. And again, that important line in Section 3, this guy was directly involved with January 6th. But that comma or is important. So, man, these hearings, these oral arguments before the court are going to be amazing to listen to how they describe the actions of Donald Trump. And they are going to go over a lot of the things the January 6th committee

discovered in terms of his inaction, refusing to answer the phone calls, refusing to call the National Guard. All of those things are going to now be public again before the Supreme Court. Yeah, everything you point out is a really important role. And I think the other thing I want to add is that, you know, you have to talk about the fake elective scheme. We just saw in Wisconsin recently in terms of some of the, you know, those individuals involved, you know, apologizing to the court and to the state in terms of their involvement. But Donald Trump not only given a speech and like you talked about not answering phone calls, but was involved in a lot of these, like I said, fake electorate

schemes in other states besides Wisconsin. But he was intimately involved in coordinating these efforts along with his chief of staff and other members of the White House and even saw one or two in the DOJ to circumvent the will of the voters. So it's going to be really interesting to see how the Supreme Court rules. Oh, yeah, it's going to be real interesting. And folks, guess what? They got to make a decision real quick because the primaries begin early next year. If the Supreme Court thought they were going to have a chill Christmas and New Year's, nope!

Y'all got to do some work. All right, y'all. Got to go to break. We come back more on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Sun Network. All y'all YouTube people, I see all y'all commenting. How y'all ain't hitting the like button, okay? We should easily, easily be at 2,000 likes right now. Real easy.

How hard is it to hit like? It ain't that hard. Just hit the doggone button, okay? Also, don't forget to support us in what we do. We are still less than 200,000 from our goal for 2023, so we would love for you to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Our goal is real simple, to get 20,000 of our fans on an annual basis to contribute, on average, 50 bucks each. That's $4.19 a month, 13 cents a day.

It allows for us to be able to, look, pay for the studio, pay for the equipment. We've got 10 robotic cameras in our studio. We've got, of course, the office space here, the rent that we actually pay. Of course, we've got our control room and our staff. We're on the road as well, all the things that we do. Again, to run the network, to run Black Star Network, that means this show, all the shows, producers, independent contractors, staff is $195,000 a month. Those costs are real. And so we are a black-owned, independent company. I don't have, again, millionaires and billionaires

sending me checks. It doesn't happen. We have been able to survive because you have supported us in what we do. And we appreciate every single dollar. People have given. They said, can't give 50. They give 25, 10, 5, $1.

They placed dollars in my hand. People were handing me money when we were just in Atlanta for Global Hope Forum. People have given us more than that. We appreciate every single dollar. So please join our fan club. Send your check and money order. PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C. 20037-0196.

Make it out to the Black Star Network. Also, Cash App is dollar sign. RM Unfiltered. PayPal or Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back.

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must be completed by December 31st, 2024. Scan the QR code to complete the application. There are 1,000 scholarships available. Grow with Google and J-Hood and Associates. Be job-ready and qualify for in-demand jobs. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, beware the generational curse. They're everywhere in our families, in our workplaces, and even in our churches. It's like a minefield, identifying the curse and knowing what to do about it.

When we're talking about generational patterns, oftentimes we get locked into those patterns because we don't want anyone to say, oh, you acting brand new, or you doing something different from how, this is how we always did it. It's okay to do something different in order to get the results that you want to see in your life.

That's next on A Balanced Life on Black Star Network. I'm Faraiq Muhammad, live from L.A. And this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together. So let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network.

I'm Dee Barnes. And on the next frequency, Professor Janelle Hobson joins us to talk about hip hop and its intersection with feminism and racial equality, plus her enlightening work with Ms. Magazine and how the great Harriet Tubman connects with women in hip hop. So it was not hard for me to go from Harriet Tubman to hip hop, honestly, because it is a legacy of black women's resistance

and black women supporting our communities. That's what Harriet Tubman did. That's on the frequency on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+. And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. All right, folks. My next guest is a real-life black Willy Wonka. He's a chocolatier, and he has these one-of-a-kind creations, if you will,

made with some of the finest ingredients. Phillip Ashley Ricks is a James Beard-nominated chocolatier. He developed chocolate collections that include unique handcrafted flavors like candied yams, baked mac and cheese, hot sauce, and red Kool-Aid. This holiday season, Philip Ashley Chocolate partnered with Campbell's to celebrate America's love of side dishes like green bean casserole and baked corn casserole. Philip Ashley Ricks, the owner of Philip Ashley Chocolate,

joins me now from Memphis. All right, so how did you put this stuff together? How? Well, first of all, thanks for having me. But, no, just have a crazy imagination, you know, finally using my education from college and when I went to study chemistry. But, yeah, just always been fascinated with mixing things up and doing, you know, kind of interesting things with food, even all the way

back in my grandmother's kitchen, five years old, she let me mix up and do funky biscuits and all kinds of stuff. So it really came from her. And then just I evolved over time, learned how to do some things, taught myself about chocolate. And it was always wanting to, you know, really that Willy Wonka piece, creating that stick of gum. So the roast beef, the tomato soup and the potatoes. And so just wanted to do that in real life. And so that's why, you know, we do what we do. So explain that, because this is this right here is Philip Ashley Chocolates Holiday Sides Collection inspired by Campbell's. And then when I go in here, I've got these these different colored chocolates. And so explain that.

Yeah. So everything is handcrafted right here in Memphis, Tennessee. You know, Campbell's approached me and said, hey, you know, we want to come up with something interesting using our side dishes. And I said, well, let's infuse, you know, your flavors and the profiles and even the soup like cream of mushroom and that sort of thing. In the green bean casserole, you include Campbell's cream of mushroom condensed soup. In the cream of mushrooms, then let's see here. Everything bagel, mashed potatoes. I see the cheddar condensed soup caramel coated in a dark chocolate um with everything bagel seasoning uh then i see here uh let's see here the apple uh the apple uh what is this here fennel stuffle yeah apple and fennel. You utilize the cream of celery.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, again, I spent so many years and so much time just tasting food, tasting ingredients, learning about herbs, spices, etc. And really how to manipulate flavor. And that's that's what I've become become an expert at. And so I can take things, break them down, still celebrating chocolate, because at the end of the day, that's what it's about. It's about the chocolate. It's about celebrating the 70 percent of all cocoa coming out of West Africa, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, and really shining a light on that. But doing these fantastical things with chocolate that no one else is doing or able to do. And so and then at the end of the day, making it taste good. So let's talk about this. First of all, this is a wise color scheme being black and gold.

And so, of course, I'm an alpha. The first one was red and white, though. The first one was cruising and cream, you know what I mean? No, I'm sorry. You said the first? Well, the first box you were showing. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You said the first? Well, the first box you were showing. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. I'm glad. I want to correct you. Because when you say the first, we all know Alpha was the first.

And so you have me on this panel and there's two other Alphas on here as well. So let's not be confused when you say. But of course, you realize that you weren't going to sell much in red and white. And so you knew black and gold color scheme was wise. So, yep, smart choice. So Alpha still wins out. So you have this here, and these are set up as tape cassettes. And one says, Goat, Leading Ladies, league MVP, power couple,

Three's Company, head of the table. So explain this. So this is my celebration and love of hip-hop. And so I grew up making mixtapes, grew up making CDs, grew up in a playlist, et cetera, et cetera. And so just all throughout life, I've always enjoyed music and sharing with my friends. And so when the 50th anniversary of hip-hop came along,

I had long been thinking about doing something that incorporated music. And that's really what we do with Chocolate, tell stories. And so these are the stories of the people, the artists, the rappers, the producers, the fashion designers, et cetera, all throughout hip hop, you know, past, present, and even some future that inspire me in their artistry. And it's like, okay, let me transform who they are, what their music is and what they do in chocolate and really just kind of taking inspiration and saying, well, how do we distill something that Jay-Z might put out in the atmosphere into a

chocolate or, you know, what would, um, Carter beans chocolate tastes like that sort of stuff. And it's just like re-imagining things and saying, well, if this were to live in the real world as a flavor, this is what it is. But it's all about the music. What would Carter bean chocolate taste like? It'd be spicy, lots of custard. All right, let's bring the panel up here.

And since we, Alpha's always rule supreme, so let me go ahead, Mustafa, you first. Go ahead with your question for this noop. All right. Well, congratulations, brother. I really appreciate it. You know, your product actually, it looks like artwork. It's amazing how that looks. You mentioned Africa, even though chocolate didn't start in Africa. I'm curious about how you make a decision about that key ingredient, which is so important for your product. Yeah. Again, I spend a lot of time daydreaming and imagining, you know,

the types of chocolates we make. And really, again, it starts with the story and the narrative. So what's the season, what's the purpose or who's the person, place or thing that is serving as the inspiration. But yeah, you know, it didn't start in Africa, but the core, like I said, a large part of the commercial cocoa is coming out of that region. And so, you know, we do a lot of work out of there, but we work with in all parts of the world. And so finding the best ingredients, being able to use those, celebrate them, turn them into beautiful pieces of chocolate, which my dad, who was a history teacher for 40 years and basketball coach,

he's now our primary chocolate artist. So he's the man back here painting everything to the tunes of thousands of chocolates a day. Larry, another alpha. That's right. That's right. As everyone said, congratulations on your success. And so I essentially have two questions for you. I think the first one is I think it's really important you talk about your

chemistry background. And I think for those who are watching who have kids or nieces and nephews, can you expand on your chemistry background as it relates to food products? I think a lot of people don't understand that. And secondly, your marketing strategy, because like I say, you have a great product. So can you talk about both those things? Yeah, and thanks again. From a chemistry standpoint, I was all, even as a kid, just remember loving to do science fairs and even was big into art growing up.

And so from a chemistry standpoint, understanding the chemical makeup of food, how people taste, the zones of the palate, pH levels, acidity, all of those sort of things. And chocolate in particular is very formula driven. So the recipes are really more like formulas. And so understanding the metric system and how to do math in that way. And so it helped me a lot to, you know, translate from, you know, making volcanoes that explode to creating caramels with sriracha and lime salt and that kind of thing. And so spend a lot of time translating that information and knowledge into what we do with food. And from a marketing standpoint, again, really being able to utilize the various touch points in media to tell our story.

And we're, again, I'm a lover of storytellers, and this is how we narrate. We use chocolate as our ink, is what I always say. Chocolate is my love language, and that's really how I celebrate people and how we share what we do. And then so whether it's social media or coming on platforms like this, which we're totally grateful for, it allows us to amplify who we are, what we do. Everything's handcrafted. We use the very best ingredients, spend a lot of time sourcing, fair trade.

Even our cream, we check the husbandry of the cows, you know, so a lot of time, effort and work, even all the way down to the packaging that we design and how each piece really celebrates the artists like Basquiat or Warhol or, you know, Jackson Pollock or any of these folks that, you know, so I spent a lot of time studying all of these things to then translate it into pieces of edible art. Joy. Kids, if you're watching at home, this man is an expert. And I think that really you have to know your craft.

But it's the marketplace that's the segment. What is your market share of the international chocolate market? How are you encroaching on what is really a global market for chocolate? I'm curious if you've been embraced by Europe and other places. So, yeah, we actually do really well in particularly the English-speaking countries. So the U.K., Australia, believe it or not, even my production manager is Australian, and she found us via our operations and connections over there. And again, we're starting to do a good bit of work in West Africa, South Africa, the Emirates, and some other places. And we source out of China. So we work with a number

of Parso in Belgium. And so I've spent over the decade a lot of time growing relationships. And that's really what it's all about, developing relationships with brands, with companies, and ultimately the consumers in these international markets. And that is our plan over the next five years in particular, is to continue to expand not only nationally but internationally. We have key markets that we're already targeting. We're already moving in. Portugal, Porto, Portugal was one of our first international markets. We started supplying them back at a winery back there, Churchill Graham,

in 2014. So we've been overseas for quite some time now. All right. All right. So where can folks get them? Phillip Ashley Chocolates, Phillip with two L's. You can follow us on Instagram at Phillip Ashley Chocolates and at PhillipAshley. We ship all over. Holiday season is busy, but we've got a lot going on and even going into next year where you'll be able to find us at some of your luxury retailers as well. All right, then. Say it again, Carol.

Okay, where's the discount code? The discount code is Roland Martin. is all right yeah roland martin all right so folks use a discount code roland martin go to the website uh and you can actually uh get a discount on uh philip's chocolates uh philip we appreciate it thanks a lot thank you cheers all right i'll tell scott bowden see i allow some capitals on every now and then. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. All right. Joy, Larry, Mustafa, I appreciate y'all being on today's show. Thank you so very much, folks. Hold tight one second. We come back. Hezekiah Walker and I chat about his influence on gospel music. That is next on the Black Star Network.

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. 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. Hey, Drew Scott here, letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes

for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to ascensivehome.org to find out more information.

Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. 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 capitol we're about to see the rise of what i call white minority resistance we have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at every university calls white rage as a backlash.

This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. 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 Beard. Some of the top gospel songs over the past two decades all emanated from the brilliant mind of our next guest. We recently sat down with Hezekiah Walker

and talked about the importance of gospel music in his career. And when he hits that stage, what he is ready to deliver. Here's our conversation. That's good. It's been a while. It's been a minute. What you been up to? Everything, everything.

Just what I do. So in terms of, we say everything. So what are you doing now that people will be surprised or shocked by? What you got going on? Is there something interesting happening overseas

or something that people go? Well, you know, we're getting rid of Africa. We're doing a live recording in Cape Town, South Africa. Really? I'm excited. First time? First time doing a recording. It's not my first time going. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Uh, why? Well, you know, we've been going for the last ten years. We set a church up over there, and so we've been going for the last ten, twelve years. And so I just think that, you know, gospel music over in South Africa, they love the U.S. gospel. And they love the sound.

I love the sound from South Africa. So we kind of effusing it love the sound from South Africa. So we kind of infusing it together, putting it South Africa. Explain to the people who don't know, the praise and worship in South Africa, in Nigeria, in Ghana, we think we do praise and worship. Bro, I was at a church in Ghana in 2008. Yes. That was crazy.

They had a whole new level. They do praise and worship. Whole another level. Well, you know, I think the difference is, you know, of course, it's authentic. Not that our worship is not authentic, but I think, you know, because we basically sort of have everything at our feet, you know. When I first went to South Africa, I met a group of people who did not have medical coverage, who did not have the means to even go to the doctor. And all they had was worship.

And so they came to church worshiping, but they were worshiping because they needed something from God. And they wanted God to heal them because they didn't have the means to go to doctors. So I think sometimes when worship really truly comes from the heart, and it's not about the look, it's not about the fashion, it's not about the, you know, who's singing. It's just about it comes purely from the heart,

because really what comes from the heart reaches the heart. And I found from being there, like, they come there, you know, to worship it from the heart. There was a young man who, when we did the offering, he didn't have any kind of means of money to give. you know, worshiping from the heart. There was a young man who, when we did the offering, he didn't have any kind of means of money to give. He ripped two buttons off his jacket and gave two buttons. And that was his offering.

I also think what has actually hurt us is that when you look at what took place when, during slavery, we were not allowed to express ourselves. Yes. And I think that that still sort of hinders us in terms of, no, no, no, no, you know, shouldn't do that, or you're

carrying on too much. Yes. As opposed to when the service services there, you know, they, we talk about allowing the Holy Spirit to move. They ain't tripping on the clock. They're not, like, I've seen some preachers, hey, it's time for me to preach.

It's time for me to preach. As opposed to allowing the service. I think probably one of the greatest things I ever saw, Kerber John Caldwell was not there that Sunday. It was one of their other pastors. It was Windsor Village United Methodist Church. And the praise and worship was so powerful that the preacher literally chose not to give a sermon.

Wow. So the entire two and a half hours was praise and worship. And now he talked in between, but it wasn't like, stop praise and worship, time for the sermon time. Right. He allowed the Holy Spirit to move. And I just personally believe that I've seen a lot of preachers which just stop the Holy Spirit from moving and not let that moment, not be in the moment and say,

you know what, my sermon can wait because something else is happening. Exactly. Exactly. And I think when we get to that point, I think that's when we will see a major display as we've seen in Africa. I think we'll see an authentic group of people coming and letting God have His way

without quenching it and saying, okay, it should be in order. Because I grew up in a church where there was an order. And if you didn't follow the order, then you was out of order. But again, I think we have to get back to that place where it's just pure worship and whatever God says, then that's what we do. So you're in a unique position because you're bishop,

but then you also got the music piece. And there are two forces that are constantly peddling in a church. There's that preacher and the musician. And the musician. And the musician, yes. Yes. One guy.

Because here's the reality. I don't care how great a preacher you are. You need that music. You need that music. You need that music. I mean, you gonna be the gladdest preacher in the world, but you need that music. I think, you know, again, trying to get both sides to understand that, you know.

The minstrel need the preacher, and the preacher need the minstrel. And I really believe that that's where I come in at to kind of help both sides come together. And you know as well as I know, when both sides lock... Oh, my God. ...it's a major experience. Oh, I... V. Michael McKay...

Oh, yeah. ...when he was... So my wife is the first female staff pastor at Brookheller Baptist Church, Church Without Walls. She was in the education ministry. Okay. And so, when they were on Bingo, the original location, so she had these tapes,

and V. Michael was so in sync with Pastor Ralph Douglas West, V. Michael would be literally writing songs as he was playing. And Pastor Wes would say the lyric. Pastor Wes, who could also sing, would say it as well. And he was just, it was sort of just like this, just back and forth, and it was just perfect. And you're right, when those two forces collide, that's right.

Oh, it's something powerful. But when they collide for bad, it's something powerful. But when they collide for bad, it can be a disaster. It would be a disaster. The worship will go down. The sermon will go down. The music will go down.

But when they come together as one force and when they collide, like you said, I think that it's powerful. And of course, because the enemy knows that, he will always keep friction between the minstrel and the preacher. Talk about this shift that we have seen take place during COVID. And I've said this many times. COVID was awful.

It was miserable. It was hard to deal with. But if there was a silver lining during COVID, it forced a lot of black churches to have to change. Yes. Many of them, they hated live streaming. They didn't want cameras, nothing. I had more preachers calling me,

trying to, Roland, you've been doing this, trying to figure out what cameras to buy, what switches to buy. And many of them realized that they were benefiting, that there were people who were visiting their church who weren't even in their states, who weren't even out of the country. And so COVID forced a lot of Black churches to have to catch up, as opposed to what we call that 15-year gap between Black churches and everybody else. I agree. I agree. We talk about this all the time.

And, you know, even myself, it helped me to catch up. And although I'm in the music, you know, side of things as well, um, you know, I've always in my head, you know, my job was to preach to the community where my church is, and to get the community to be involved in the church. And, um, again, my mindset was there for years, but COVID helped me to understand

that there will be people that can get to where my church is, get to the community in which the church is located. And, you know, I've never even considered having members from other cities, from other countries. And Tyler's. And Tyler's. Never even considered that until COVID hit. So I think that COVID was an eye-opener to all of us,

you know, especially the Black church. We needed to advance, and we needed to understand that there will be people that will be attracted to us outside of our city, and we're going to be a part. And so we had to expand what we were doing. I think it's also because I think so many preachers were taught, fill the seats, fill the seats, fill the seats. Yes.

I had this conversation with a lot of HBCU presidents. And a lot of HBCU alumni were saying, we need to get you back to campus. And I remember I was talking to South Carolina State alumni. I said, no, you don't. Right. Many HBCUs have infrastructure issues. They don't have the dormitory capacity. I said, there are

people who want to go to your school. They can't travel to South Carolina. I said, how many alumni chapters do you all have? They said like 39. I said, you could be creating your communal experience in your cities, but they still go to your school. And the president was like,

brother, thank you for saying that. Because they were so fixated on buildings, when he was saying, no, we can actually grow the universities and not even step foot on the campus. And I think that's when you're so trained to, I gotta see people, I gotta see them sitting in the pews, without realizing that they're out there, and they're giving theiring, they're involving,

it's reaching them in a totally different way. It blew my mind when I looked at the numbers that I have online as opposed to what's actually in the church. And it's like, you know, you have double or triple the numbers online than you do in church. Right. And so it's like... And if your mission is to spread the gospel... It's supposed to be our mission, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, sometimes God have to really push us in deep water. Sometimes we can get stuck where we are, and sometimes God is like, I need to move the church along, so, you know, I'm going to have to do something to move you along. And I really believe that that's what COVID did for us.

Speaking of moving along, when you look at this tour, the 17th annual McDonald's tour, and then you look at the roster of artists, and you look at... new sounds, different sounds, you know, not traditional sounds, what does that say to you about the next phase or the next decade or two decades of gospel music?

I believe that it's moving in the right direction, really. You know, as I look at all of the artists that's on, I think each of us bring a different element. And I think that the message of gospel needs to get out, that it's broader than what most people think. You know, we have all different types of music as it relates to gospel music. And I think that this is what this tour is gonna bring to the table. Like, this is what gospel really is. You have your traditional, your contempt,

you know, you have your urban contempt. Well, a couple of artists were talking about Brie Babineau. She said, I'm neo-soul. Right. And you don't hear people using that phrase with gospel. Her deal was, this is what I listened to growing up. Exactly. This is what informed my musical taste.

And that's what it is. And I think that if we don't bring it to the table, people won't see that. People will understand. You know, most times when you think of gospel music, you know, on the secular mindset, it's always back in the day, in the 60s or, you know, the 50s. But again, I think that we are bringing some to the table that have not been done, and so we're moving forward.

Just to see, you know, the multi-gospel artist that's on the tour now. It really puts a smile on my face. And I'm thinking about the, you know, the contemporaries and the urban contempt. And, you know, back in the day, I was considered contempt,

but now I'm considered tradition. Right. So, but it's like, you're going from being edgy, edgy, all that, to school. Right, right, right, right, right, right. Move down!

Put in that A-shot! Let me get that A-shot here. Here we go. One, two, three. One, two, three. Everybody, turn it in. Come on. Hey!

One, two, three. One, two, three. Hey! I've asked many secular artists this. I've asked comedians. 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 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season 2 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. 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. Hey, Drew Scott here letting you know why I recently joined the board of an amazing nonprofit, A Sense of Home. For 10 years, this charity has been creating homes for young people exiting foster care. It's an incredible organization. Just days into the L.A. fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires.

Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture different cities bring different energy. And I'm not going to ask you about the six cities, but of all the places you've gone in the United States, is there a particular city that they bring it when you perform? Is there one that just,

you know, a lot of people thought that when you hit that city, you know, I got to bring some fire, because they are ready to praise God. I got to say Chicago. Really. I really have to say Chicago. When you come, because I, you know, I'm a quiet guy.

And so when you come to Chicago, you got to bring it. You got to bring it because Chicago is a quiet town. Like, you know, you can't mention quietness and not mention Chicago. So when you come to Chicago, like, when we come to Chicago, we be on our A-game because they coming because they want to hear that quiet sound. They want the energy, and they want the energy

that they feel and they see every single Sunday. And so when we come, we bring in, and we try to bring it a notch higher. Right. Yeah. So have there been times when they were like... But... And you either look at that crowd like, hey, I'm gonna jump.

We gonna have to, like, switch that play, switch that quarter, because we gonna have to play something else because they ain't feeling it. Yes, that has happened. That has happened on several occasions. That has happened on several occasions. But then, you know what?

You have to know where you're going. Right. You know, and then you have to know what songs to pull out, you know? And so... Through your just... Yeah, that, depending upon the city and where... Really, so now, this is what I do.

I don't ever stay in the dressing room. You know, some artists stay in the dressing room until it's time for them to sing or to perform. What I like to do, I like to go inside of the crowd where I'm behind the stage, and I'm feeling the room. And I'm feeling what the crowd wants. Because a lot of times, you got to... It's almost like preaching, pastoring.

You know, sometimes I prepare a sermon, but then I have to switch it when I've sensed the room, that the room needs something else. That's how I give speeches. Like, literally, I don't write speeches. Wow. I wrote one speech, never read from it.

But literally, I don't write the title, I don't write, I don't have any notes, but that's exactly what happens. You have to read the room. I sit and assist the people. But that's exactly what happens. You have to read through all this. I sit and assist the people. And the room for sin. And the room for sin to me. Told a sermon. And I've given speeches, and the host would say,

how did you know we were dealing with that problem? I'm like, I ain't know. He knew. I didn't know. But absolutely. And you feel it. I remember I spoke to, it was the New York Black and Puerto Rican caucus in Auburn. Doc, and I'm sitting there, and they're coming up to me. They're like, Mr. Whitney, anything? I was, no.

They were like, you OK? I'm like, fine. But it was like, I felt it. And I was like, I need to get to that mic. It was, and I'm talking about I was like, I didn't want to talk to nobody. I didn't eat anything. And I was like, but need to get to that mic. It was, and I'm talking about, I was like, I didn't want to talk to nobody. I didn't eat anything. And I was like, but when I get to them,

I got something to say to these people. And man, went up there. And so the next year, Bakari Sellers spoke. He called me, he was like, say, bro, what did you talk about last year? He's like, because I was speaking this year. Right, right, right. They still talking about what you talked about. I said,'s like, I was speaking this year. Right, right, right. They still talking about what you talked about.

I said, well, that's part of my job. I want to make it hard on that next person speaking. That's right. That's what you do. That's exactly what you do. And I think the key to my success is deserting the room, deserting what the people want, and then knowing what to do when you get on stage.

And a lot of times we kind of rehearse our set, but sometimes the set, the atmosphere or the room, all the people is not calling for what you, you know, set out to put. And I think the worst thing in the world, if you are, and again, whether you're a speaker, whether you are a musician, whether you're a singer, is even a DJ.

Like, I only what DJs do. That's true. And they try to DJ. They got a blast. They play the wrong song. They play the wrong song. Right. We wait on what you're doing.

Right. And you have to be willing to, yeah, read that room and make that switch. And a lot of people don't like that. They're like, no, no, I'm going to do it this way. And it's like, well, and the artist is gonna let you know, we ain't feeling what you give it out. It's true. So true. And if you don't read the room and if you don't discern the room,

you know, you can really fall a hole in your face. And, you know, but I think it's important to read the room and to kind of know the atmosphere. Right. And then you can kind of put the songs out. And I think, you know, if less people would do that, I think we have better concerts. Look, you've done stuff,

written for other performances with other people. Who would you say, this is not putting you on the spot, but it sort of is, but it was just unbelievably magic when y'all got together either to write it or produce it or even do it live. That,

out of all different people, it was just, even today, you go, wow, that was crazy. I wrote a song back in the 80s

called I'll Make It. And, I always wanted to do that song with John P. King. And we finally did it. Really? And it's like every time I hear it, and every time we get together and we do it on stage,

it's just like, this is it. Wow. What about it? I think actually when I wrote the song, and after the song came out, and after I got accustomed to hearing John's voice, in my head, I was like, this is really a song for him, you know? And at the time I wrote the song,

I didn't even know who he was, you know? Wow. Yeah, so I didn't even know. I didn't know John at the time. But then, you know, after I heard his voice, I was like, that voice needed to be on that song. And so I always wanted to, you know, after I heard his voice, I was like, that voice needed to be on that song. And so I always wanted to, you know, wanted to sing with him.

And so after a few years, we re-recorded it and I called him. I said, John, I want you to do our Make It With Me. He said, what? He said, okay, cool, we gonna do it. And we did it, and it's like, even now when I play it, listen to it, I'll be like, this is it. And then we, if we ever together, and we did it a few years ago in Richmond together, it was like, the crowd went crazy.

Yeah. So I would have to say John Key. I think there's some, uh... What always amazes me is when, and I know this is hard for being an artist, that you still put new music out, you still want to express creativity and still want to stretch. But there are just some songs that they hit folk in a certain way that they're like, look, you can go out and sing the rest of that stuff if you want to, but I need to hear this.

And we were talking about that, and I was on Instagram Live, and I was just killing show up. And John was, and Johnny, because I didn't remember him as well. And he hits me, he's like, he said, are you serious? I was like, John, you don't understand. I said, bruh, I said, you put out all the other stuff. I said, but that song, and you're right, that choir, and I said, and how, I said, the I said the repetition, it's a whole different thing.

And we would sit and become friends. When he did the song during COVID, it was the Go-Go Infused song. He sent it to me beforehand. And I was just like, I mean, just killing it. But it's just some songs that, look, Jan has that sound. He has that sound and he has that voice. It's going to capture you and it's going to ring in your head.

It's going to ring in your heart. And he just write those songs that you just going to keep on doing this. You just going to keep on playing it. When you think back to just all the different songs that you've done, and... It's always interesting when I ask this question, because most artists will say something

that most people do not agree with. What is your... Is it a song or an album that you're like, that's it for me, that you've done? I would have to say my Live in Toronto album. That live project in Toronto still rings in my heart, in my mind. The songs like Cleat Inside, that song still,

everyone after 30 years, we're coming up on 30 years of doing that live album. And that song still is everyone, after 30 years, we're coming up on 30 years of doing that live album. And that song still is a favorite of everybody. So, I wouldn't have to say that. Also, um... I also would have to say the live at Radio City Music Hall. When we did that, we did the song, -"I Need You To Survive." -"Mm-hmm."

And we did that song basically for 9-11. Mm. And so, um, that's another song that really... really, I have to say that that's one of the songs that I kind of go back to. I'm a liar! Look at that song that I'm singing! Come on!

I'm a liar! I'm a liar! I'm a liar! I'm a liar! I pray for me. You were there for me. I love you. I dream to survive. Why is live so much more different with gospel than any other art form? Well, I think it captures the essence of who we are. You know, sometimes in the studio, when you do studio records, you can't really get that feel. Bishop Ronald Brown has a song where he goes...

I don't want no studio sound. I want a church sound. Exactly. So that's really what that's all about. It's getting that... Because, you know, when you're in the studio, you kind of just become professional. And when you're in church, you just kind of relax and just do it. And I you're in church, you just kind of relax and just do it.

Right. And I think that's really what most times I want people to feel that. So McDonald's has done this again for 17 years in six cities. What do you want someone who's coming to one of these concerts, what do you want them to feel when they get back in that car or get on that bus or that train and go home? I want them to be amazed at the variety of gospel music. I want them to be, to walk away feeling like, I can do it, I can make it, and I am a lover of gospel music. That's really, really what I want. I think sometimes when we go to concerts, we leave,

you know, we're energized and, you know, we are loving what we heard, but we really don't, you know, leave a major impact. You know, it's like the next he's over. I want this to be a long-lasting experience that every time they see anything related to McDonald's, they'll think about the gospel concert and be like, that's what I want to do, because that's what happened to me, you know? Back in the day, I was back in New York. We started out, you know, as, you know,

applying to be a part of the McDonald's Gospel Fest contest. Yeah. And I started learning from that point. You know, McDonald's was very instrumental in pushing me to say, hey, you're a gospel artist. And so here I am, you know, like, I fell in love with it from watching it, from seeing it, and then wanted to be, you know, a part of it. Here it is years later, I'm here.

So I think that that's what, you know, I would really want people to grab a hold of that. Like, yo, McDonald's put me down with gospel music. Because one thing that happens to these cities and from the past shows that I've done with them, people from all over come. And some of them come and don't know what to expect. You know, and when they leave, they be like,

wow, this is what gospel music is? I'm like, yes. We've been trying to tell you this all along. And now you know. And now you know. Bishop, always good to see you, my brother. It's always good to talk to you man yes sir

you're doing real good I'm proud of you I appreciate it Oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, oh, he's playing, Thank you. We'll see you next time. Thank you. incredible organization. Just days into the LA fires, they moved mountains to launch a new emergency relief program, providing fully functional home environments for those who lost everything in the fires. Please get involved. Sign up to volunteer, donate furniture, or even donate funds. You can go to asenseofhome.org to find out more information. Together, we can help our LA community rebuild. It takes all of us. 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. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it.

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. This is an iHeart Podcast.