#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Voter, Census suppression; COVID killing Black/Latino kids; Oprah demands justice for #BreonnaTaylor

Episode Date: August 8, 2020

8.7.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Voter and Census suppression amid coronavirus pandemic; New jobs report reveals African American workers are at the bottom of the recovery effort; COVID killing Black/Latino kids at disproportionate levels; Man sentenced to life for selling $30 dollars of weed to go free; Oprah demands justice for #BreonnaTaylor; VA man pleads guilty to threatening to burn down a Black church; UCLA is considering terminating two scholarships connected with a Confederate heritage group; Navy Seals suspend their support of the National Navy Seal Museum after a disturbing video goes viral. Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: Ceek Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020 - #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting site covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Martin! Today's Friday, August 7th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, it's past time to get organized to make sure our votes get counted in November. We'll talk about addressing voter and census suppression. The dial-up report was released today, and once again, African Americans are at the bottom

of the recovery effort. We'll break it down. A disproportionate number of Black and Latino children are dying from COVID-19. We'll talk with a pediatric specialist about why. A man sentenced to life in prison in Louisiana for selling $30 worth of marijuana now will go free. We'll tell you his story. Oprah is demanding justice for those who killed Breonna Taylor. She has put up 26 billboards all across Louisville. The Virginia man has pleaded guilty to threatening to burn down a

black church in victory for another young progressive running against an establishment candidate, this time in Tennessee. Folks, wait until I tell you how much money she raised compared to him. And UCLA is considering terminating two scholarships connected to the Confederate Heritage Group. We'll talk about the Navy SEALs suspending their support of the National Navy SEAL Museum over a video that went viral involving Colin Kaepernick. Plus, we have a new batch of anti-Trump ads. Oh, wait till you see, show you these doozies.

It's time to ring the funk. I'm Roland Martin Unfil'm Phil Chitt. Let's go. Sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's Roland Martin, yeah Rolling with Roland now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know He's rolling Martel Martel

Folks, you see it right there, 87 days until Election Day, but that's November 3rd. Remember, we have deadlines coming up when it comes to voter registration, when it comes to getting your ballots, when it comes to early voting. What we are focusing on is making sure you are fully prepared to vote to combat voter suppression that's been going on. Joining us right now is the head of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Melody Campbell. We're going to talk about the issue of, again, voter suppression, what's happening all across this country. Again, as you can see here, we want you to go to vote.org,

vote.org, where you can check your registration, register to vote. You can also get your absentee or your ballot in the mail, get election reminders, also polling place locator, and also register for the United States Census. All of that impacts us as African-Americans. Also, when it comes to the districts in terms of where we're operating in as well, census deals with reapportionment, drawing of lines. All of those things matter when you talk about this election. And so this is critically important for us. We cannot procrastinate.

We cannot wait. So everybody who's out there, you must know your status right now. Make sure, and look, if you're unsure, if your name has been removed from the polls, just register again. There's nothing wrong with you registering again. We also want you to double check your information. That is double, make sure your signature is checked, your address is checked, everything lines up because we do not want them disqualifying your ballot for you to be able to

vote. Every vote is going to count for the presidential, U.S. Senate, congressional, statewide, countywide, citywide races, judicial races, D.A. races. All of these are going to be on the ballot. So we want to make sure that you are properly prepared for it. Rob Richardson is host of Disruption Now podcast. Derek Holley, president, Reaching America and Political Analyst. Dr. Deion Bay Carter, Harvard University Department of Political Science. In a moment, we're going to have Melanie Campbell on. Dr. Carter, I want to go to you. Again, what we're talking about here

is being fully prepared because we see the games that have been going on. Remember in Ohio, this white guy took it all the way to the Supreme Court and the conservative Supreme Court ruled that Ohio could indeed purge folks from the rolls because he had not voted in several elections. And so somebody may think out there that, hey, I'm still registered. No, I keep saying and I don't even try. I keep saying register every year. So there are no excuses. Well, absolutely. I think what a lot of people forget is that you have to be vigilant about your registration. If you lived in my former state of North Carolina, your registration could be challenged by a neighbor and you would never know because

they don't forward that kind of information to a new dresser or something like that. So I would say to anybody, registration is something that you have to do often. And it never hurts, you know, double check it, triple check it. As you said, in most places, you can go to your state board of elections online, on your phone, anywhere, to double-check to make sure, like you said, that all of your information is correct, that they have the right address. If you're trying to get clarity, you're not sure, call them, right? It is their job to make sure. And like you said, Roland, there is no problem with registering again. That is not illegal. I think a lot of people get gun shy and are afraid because they think that if they try to register multiple times, that that will be read as fraud and that they'll be in some type of trouble for, you know, I don't know,

attempting a registration or something like that. And this is the way that suppression works many times is a cooling effect. So it's not telling people that they can't register often. It's saying if you do try to register and your information isn't correct, this could be a felony. Well, I mean, that has a large chilling effect on our communities, as we know, particularly for those who are returning citizens or those who may know others who've been incarcerated. Nobody wants to incur that. So a lot of people just say, well, I don't know and I shouldn't do this again. But no, it is absolutely your right to figure out what your

status is at any given time. And you can do that any day of the week you want to. Rob, you're there in Ohio, Rob. The case I'm referring to came out of Ohio and went all the way to the Supreme Court. In Ohio, they want to be able to purge folks from the rolls. I still don't understand why in the hell you care if somebody did not vote in a couple of elections, but they might vote in the next one. And then what happened after that? A number of states led by Republicans began to purge people, hundreds of thousands of people from the voting rolls. And we saw what happened in Georgia. Greg Palast, we've had him on the show, broke down how many of those folks who were purged in Atlanta, purged in Georgia, had done nothing wrong. They were actually still at those addresses. That's why you can't trust

last year, re-register to make sure you're registered this year. Yeah, well, I can answer it very quickly why they're doing that. You have a party that has given up on trying to legislate. It's given up on trying to convince people. Instead, their whole focus is let's make up voter fraud. Voter fraud is a fraud. It does not exist essentially. You have a better chance of winning the lottery. So we can go out and win the lottery.

We have a better chance of doing that than getting away with voter fraud. It is made up as an attempt to have a talking point in order to suppress votes. But the only way to actually beat voter suppression is to great voter fraud. It is made up. It's an attempt to have a talking point in order to suppress votes. But the only way to actually beat voter suppression is to great voter turnout. As you said, we have to be vigilant. We shouldn't have to be. Our rights should be guarded. Our rights should be protected. But again, right now you have a party that's in place, the Republican Party, that just believes that they need to do everything possible to restrict the amount of people that can vote. They're being anti-American, it's anti-democratic. It's what you do when you don't have any good ideas. You just try to suppress people and take power. This whole notion, it's very interesting. I was reading a story in one of the magazines, Derek, where there was a, in Wisconsin, there was a state official,

state Republican, and they were going back and forth. They kept yelling voter fraud, voter fraud, voter fraud. And he kept saying, can y'all please show me the proof? And then he put his staff on it and his staff went out and they found one example. It was involving a Republican. And he was going, I'm sorry, what the hell is all this yelling of voter fraud? He said, you're, you're offering anecdotal evidence. He said, they offer it nothing. And this was, this was a Republican in the legislature who said, I're offering anecdotal evidence. He said they offer nothing. And this was a Republican in the legislature who said, I'm sorry, we as a party can't sit here and yell voter fraud with no evidence. Donald Trump had that commission. And the most hilarious thing, he put Chris

Kobach over the commission demanding voter information from state secretaries of state. And what's crazy is he was head of the commission and he, as a secretary of state in Kansas, wouldn't even turn over his own information, but criticize others. And so you keep hearing, and Trump keeps hollering voter fraud, voter fraud,

but there virtually is no voter fraud in America. Hey, Roland. I do think there are some cases where voter fraud exists. Let me say that. I just don't think it's a clean system. I don't believe that. However, I think a couple of things

that you guys said that needs to happen. One, African-Americans, black people, we need to vote in every election. And I think that will eliminate the whole thing of whether I'm registered or not, if you get out and vote every single election. Because for whatever reason, we have this theory in our minds that local elections don't mean as much as the presidential election, so we don't go out and vote until every four years. We need to get that notion out of our heads, and we need to vote in every election. The second thing is, when we talk

about this voter fraud and that kind of thing, and Roland, we talked about this on your show before, according to the Pew Research Center, in 2016, that was the lowest turnout in 20 years for African Americans. And so, you can't win an election if you don't get out and vote.

But here's the deal, but Derek, we've got to be honest. When we talk about what happened in 2016, we cannot ignore the reality that after the 2010 midterm elections, after Obama wins in 2008, you saw Republican-led legislatures put a flurry of things that made it more difficult. That's one. For instance, North Carolina, the perfect example. North Carolina had one of the lowest turnouts in terms of the states prior to 2008.

Folks went out there, bust their butt, got folks registered. All of a sudden they went to like 75, 78 percent, went almost to the top. Obama won by 14,100 votes in North Carolina. After that, Republicans were like, oh, hell no. And then that's when they begin to target black voters. Limited early voting. In many cases saying we're only going to have one early voting location for the first two weeks and the entire county, county service, 600,000 people. We know for a fact that in the last 10 years, again, starting in 2010, more than 1000 polling locations have been closed all across the South. After Shelby v. Holder, that made it worse because you had

no preclearance. You had nothing coming out of the Department of Justice. In fact, in 2016, the Obama Department of Justice approved the voter ID in Wisconsin. They said it was legal. They were still dragging their feet, issuing them. A federal judge had to call Republican Governor Scott Walker into the office and say, in this court, saying, what the hell? Why are y'all dragging y'all feet with this? And so we got to be honest here. This is a part of Republican strategy to depress turnout because we know why the history. Lower turnout,

Republicans have a larger chance of winning. Higher turnout, Democrats have a greater chance of winning. But they should get better ideas. Instead of trying to suppress votes, come up with better ideas. Stop trying to divide people of color. Come up with some good ideas. Appeal to us. Instead of just having who you have in the current White House. What they do is say, OK, we probably can't win that. We know we can't win with the rhetoric we have now. So let's just try to figure out how to get them not to vote, make it harder for them to vote, purge them from the rolls. Like I agree with what Derek says. We should vote more often, but we ought to have leaders that don't try to suppress votes either. We could we need both to happen. Like we need responsible leaders and we

need leaders that are trying to bring forth good ideas that are not just trying to divide people, that are not being anti-American. If we're all in this together, we're all supposed to be American. Why are you trying to take away the right to vote? Why are you making it harder to vote? I mean, you're doing that because you don't believe in the power of your own ideas.

It's weakness. It's a lack of leadership. All that's true. I'm not disagreeing with anything that you said, y'all. I'm saying, but all of that could go away and be eliminated if folks get their butts out and vote. You wouldn't have to worry about the voter suppression and you wouldn't have to worry about being purged

if you got out and voted. But Derek, hold on, hold on, hold on. People didn't get out to vote. People are recognizing that, which is why they're consolidating voting locations. That's what I just said. Voting locations and stuff like that. And we know that that exists.

Back in 2016, was it 18? They did shut down election places in Georgia. I mean, they did. But the bottom line is for all that purging and stuff, if you get out and vote, you don't have to worry about being purged. Okay, no, no, no, no. That's not true. That's not true because I want to bring in Melanie Campbell right here,

National Coalition of Black Civic Participation. Perfect example, Melanie. We know for a fact that when when you had Governor Scott in Florida, they purged a number of people in Florida. When they went back and checked, those people had voted. They were eligible, had not moved. It was erroneous purging. Roland, I was listening in, having a little technical so I heard some and some I didn't. But the bottom line is you have it right when you laid it out. Voter suppression for the Republican Party, this is just a fact. I'm not being partisan. It's their strategy for victory. And so the reality is, even

in the 2018 election in Georgia, we know what happened. When you had a secretary of state who actually, before he even got on the ballot, had already started purging voters, it's part of a strategy. And so our history, as we just yesterday celebrated or commemorated in some ways because it gutted it. The 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Congressman John Lewis and Dr. C.T. Bibby, who recently passed, who helped us get that vote, have to be really, it's a nonpartisan reality that voter suppression is something that the Republican Party uses.

We don't need to have folks, and no disrespect to our brother there, but the facts are the facts. It is their strategy. It has been their strategy. I've been doing this for 25 years, and I know for a fact it's their strategy. So we have to push back on it, but it is part of the strategy and not try to debate what is reality. One of the things that, Melanie, again, what I am trying to get people to do is say, OK, we get that's part of the strategy. But then we still have to jump over those hurdles. And so my deal right now, it's August 7th.

I'm saying to everybody who's watching, who's listening, who is also I need them to check their family members and say, look, let's go through this. What are the rules in our state? Do you have to have a voter ID? If you have to have a voter ID, do you have it? If you don't, what's the process right now? Let's not let, and I'm begging our people. The first thing is we got to get them registered first. We'll deal with the voting next, but if they ain't registered first, it don't matter what comes next. Well, Roland, come Monday, you know, I wanted to start it sooner, but we pulled together the next phase of our unity campaign. And thank you for supporting.

We're starting something called RU Vote Rate. And that means do all the things that you're talking about. Make sure that you're registered vote if you voted every last election check your voter registration status now while we have time uh make sure if you want to a lot of us are afraid to but we got to really encourage our folks to use um the early voting process through absentee ballot and mail-in ballots where you can. And if you just can't do that, then get ready to vote. So are you vote ready is what we have to be. We have to ask our family and our friends, are you vote ready? Hey, check my own stuff. I got a ballot in the mail here in the state of Commonwealth of Virginia, then I've got to double-check this application because the Virginia League of Women Voters said

there's some false mail-ins going out to get people to fill out these applications. And guess what? Black households. So we really have to get ready in a whole different way because we also have to make sure that we can vote safely, right? There's another shortage. We need poll workers and poll monitors. We have to help election protection. There's a 250,000. I know I heard you and I thank you so much. August is the month to get ready to vote. So Monday,

we'll be launching this with several of our national organizations working together and our state leaders across the state, across the country, and asking everybody, just grab, take care of your household, take care of your friends and your neighbors, and we're going to turn out. And I think we still can overperform, if you will, for this election, because we already know what's at stake. Our lives are at stake. Our children's lives are at stake. And so we have to be vote ready. So we say, are you ready to vote? And if you're not, get ready. And so when we talk about, again, that idea of being, are you vote ready?

I mean, it's real. And I need people to understand, Melody, is that just because you might have a relative who's in Mississippi and you live in Virginia or you live in North Carolina or you live in Missouri, it doesn't mean what applies in your state applies in their state. Exactly. And that's why we partnered with Vote.org and Power of the Polls.

And that's what we could have the kind of information. We're working with A. Philip Randolph Institute, National Urban League, Hip Hop Caucus, all of our National Action Network and many, many other organizations, our sororities. We're asking our fraternities, 100 Black Men of America. We're trying to pull that unity campaign together for what we call a phase three and using August,

again, Voting Rights Act month, March on Washington month, a suffrage month. August, someone I heard say August is the second Black History Month as far as the Voting Rights Act, as well as the March on Washington that we're working with Reverend Sharpton and others on. So it's just imperative. Normally, we're all, many folks are vacationing, and some may still be doing that, but many folks are not. So it's an opportunity to take the time to get ready to vote because really, Roland, the voting starts beginning of September in many states. Absentee ballots and vote by mail, that process starts. We have the month of September, October up to November 3rd to really vote, but we have to make

sure that, again, get ready to vote. Are you vote ready is the key. All right, Melanie Campbell, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you so much. All right, folks, again, so as we talk about that, so I want you to, again, go to vote.org. You can go to vote.org. You can check all of your information. You can check everything there. Go ahead and show it again. You see right there, 87 days, six hours, 32 minutes, 19 seconds until election day, but you don't have to wait. We must be in position to vote when it comes to this election. And also keep in mind, we talk about even if you're going to vote by mail, let's say you don't want to put your application in through the mail system. You want to ensure, well, you get a check to make sure in your state, in your county,

they have drop-off locations where you can physically drop off your mail-in ballot. And so we're going to be providing you all the information. So for instance, we're going to be getting you beginning on Monday, the registration deadline for every single state. We're going to do that. And then after we get past the registration deadline, then we're going to tell you exactly what are the deadlines when it comes to mail-in ballots. We're going to tell you the deadlines when it comes to when this early voting start in each one of these states, because we must be fully prepared and engaged in this election. One of the big issues that will take place in the election is the economy. Today, the monthly jobs report came out and the economy added 1.8 million jobs in July, a sharp slowdown from June and a

small step for an economy that's still down 12.9 million jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the unemployment rate fell in all demographic groups, but remains the highest by far for black workers at 14.6%. Rob, actually, I'm going to start with you, Rob. I'll bring my guest on in a second. The Trump folks have sent an email out touting black numbers. But the reality is, if you study the numbers under Obama, he leaves 7.7, 7.2 percent. Then it drops down to 5.1 percent. And then all of a sudden it goes up to 17 percent and now dropped two points. But the reality is for black people, these numbers right here show what happens when you have a major impact like a recession or a

pandemic. Black people get hurt more than anybody else. There's no question about that, Roland. And what we've seen overall, everybody gets gets hurt. But I want to point to a trend. A lot of jobs have not come back from any recession. So all these recessions we go through, even when the recovery happens, certain jobs don't come back. And African-Americans tend to be focused in a lot of those jobs, jobs that can be replaced by automation, jobs that are more routine and manual labor. Unfortunately, we're more overrepresented there. So we've seen this trend. This trend is going to exacerbate now, now that we have COVID-19. And you and I have talked about this.

This has been less of a disruptor. It's exposed and it's accelerated trends. So things are going to continue to move and accelerate and expose people that are not in the digital space, that are not in this space. It becomes harder. So you're right. We're seeing this happen for a lot of structural reasons, no doubt about that, racism, things that have been done over the years. But then we have to figure out for us, if I'm looking at us, we have to figure out how we get into the tech space,

how we get into some of the – move on some of these opportunities because that is our new frontier because even if we fix some of the White House, nobody's there coming to save us. What I appreciated about – what I appreciate about you, Roland, and what I saw you talk about when you pointed out Joe Biden and other spending on black media, you should point that out. Because guess what? Without black people, there is no Democratic Party. So they

ought to spend some money, even if they don't first of all, they do get a return, but they ought to spend money just because they don't have a party. I guarantee if black people dropped off by like 15%, Joe Biden loses, period. Right. So like we should get some return for that. We should get some value. And you bring a you bring a you bring a huge presence.

And it's not just you, but there's other black media. There's other consultants that they should be invested in and that they do not. And so I do think that we have to look at this broadly. When we look at politics, we look at economics and really figure out how we organize. You talk about it often, having our third reconstruction. We should do that in this moment. I want to bring in Benga Adjilori, senior economist for the Center for American Progress. We'll talk about this here.

Benga, certainly glad to have you back on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Every time I get an email from Paris Denard with the Trump campaign, I just have to laugh. So they sent out this email this morning. President Trump's inclusive economy continues to work for the black community. And then they start touting his steadfast leadership has led to the black unemployment rate dropping yet again in July, have they paid any attention to what's happened? Because the fact of the matter is since October, the black unemployment rate up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, then it hits, of course, 17, 18%. And then of course is now, but it, well, they're touting it dropping to 14.6%. And that's the thing about these numbers. I mean, yes, technically it dropped,

but it dropped so little that it's almost negligible. And so one of the things you have to look at is when you talk about these unemployment rates, especially by race, you have to compare it with other groups. So yeah, unemployment rate went down to about 14.6% for African-Americans, but for whites, it dropped below double digits, down to 9%. For white women, it's down to 9.6%. For white men, 8.3%. Black men, it's about 15%. Black women, it's 14%.

So is that something that you should tout? No, not at all. So again, so you're saying that when it came to white folks, it dropped double digits. For us... It dropped it dropped double digits. For us. It dropped down to single digits. It dropped out of double to single digits. Yes.

And for us, it went from what to what? 15.3% to about 14%. So it's still double digits. It's still almost 15%. It's still historically high. So we haven't seen unemployment race like that since Great Depression. So let's go back because I want people to understand numbers. So it was 15 point what?

So 15.3 percent. 15.3 and it drops to 14.6. Yes. That's not even one point. No. Okay. It's basically flat. Wow. even one point no okay it's basically flat wow and and and and they actually are are touting that as something major but i also want you to speak to this here because this is again i deal in truth

and the reality is this here if the numbers were true i'll say it this is what paris denard said says trump built the greatest economy for black Americans with historic low unemployment once and he's doing it again. Let's deal with that. Donald Trump did not build the greatest

economy. The economic resurgence was in full swing when he was inaugurated, correct? That's correct. I mean, it started, so we had the Great Recession in 2008. And from that point on, unemployment has been going down. And in fact, it's actually the longest recovery on history.

So he just inherited a great economy up until we had the pandemic hitting. But even if you want to talk about the great recovery, if you're talking about African-Americans, it was double the whole time. So it's not like you could make that argument if the gap closed. But the gap didn't close. The gap still was double each time. And so we're seeing that again, that after this, you know, it's going down. But the gap between black and white unemployment rates are starting to increase once again. Well, and the point I'm also making with that is when you talk about that number, it was very high, obviously, because of what took place under President George W. Bush. Obama inherits that.

That black unemployment is very high. March 2010, that particular number. But by the time he leaves, it's down to 7.7, almost 12 points knocked off. Trump comes in, it goes down to 5.1, down two points. So this whole idea that Donald Trump is the reason for black unemployment being so well, it's clear. It dropped almost 12 points under Obama and it's only been down two points under Trump and that they went down with two points by 5.1 and now it's back up to 14. So really under Donald Trump, since he has been president, black unemployment has actually

doubled since he got inaugurated. Yeah, you can make that argument. Because of numbers of numbers. He came in, it was 7.7. Today it's 14.6. I guess where I, no, I went to school, that's like seven, that's the times two.

Just saying. Right. And the other thing is, there's nothing policy-wise that the administration can point to that says that it actually made it good for them. The only fiscal policy that they did was the tax cut, which doesn't help black people. It only helps wealthy white people. And so now you look at some of the policies now, there's nothing being done to handle this public health crisis. We had the CARES Act back in March.

Haven't seen anything since. The House passed the HEROES Act on May 15th. We're almost two, maybe three months in, and we still haven't seen anything. And we still have these double-digit unemployment rates for African-Americans, for Latinx populations, for Asians. Only people that have anything, unemployment rate below 10% are white people. Wow. All right. Doc, I appreciate it. Thanks so very much for joining us. Go back to my panel here.

So, Derek, when you hear, again, Paris sent out these statements how Trump built this economy, even you know that's BS. He did not build. He was literally handed an economy that was surging for a number of months before he even got in. Well, I just I just want to ask a question.

At what point? Because I just put up an article while he was talking and it was from NBC. It was from 2019. Right. And it said the lowest unemployment rate ever in history for African-Americans. Right. It was down to 5.5%. Right. Lowest in history. So I guess my question is, this man was elected, Trump, in 2016.

Right. This article was published in 2019. Right. Three years after he's been in office. At what point does he get credit in his administration for the economy? Here's my question. What was it when he came in? What do you mean, what was it coming in?

What was the black unemployment rate when he got inaugurated? I didn't look at those numbers. I just pulled that number right there. No, no, no. I think it said 7.7. Yes, it was 7.7. And it went down to what? To 5.5. Which is a

drop of two points, correct? Correct. Okay. And that still means that that black unemployment rate was still that much higher than that of whites, correct? Yeah, we know that. No, no, no. But here's my whole point. He inherited one that was at 7.7 for black people.

It goes down to 5.5. Who gave him the surging economy? What do you mean who gave him the surging economy? No, no, no. Where are you saying the economy was surging? No, no, no, it's my question. That's the point I'm trying to understand. Did the economy just start improving when he came in or had it been improving for six years?

I'm my question is, at what point does he get credit for his administration? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, It said 14. The dude just said it was at 14. 13% right now. It's at 14.6%. So, if he came in at 7.7% and it's now at 14%, does he also get the blame for it doubling? Hold on, Rob. Hold on, Rob. Rob, Rob, Rob. One second. Derek, does he get the blame? Does he get the blame

for it doubling? Absolutely. Okay. Rob, go ahead. No, that was my point. I was going to give Trump all the credit. He inherited a good economy and has managed to destroy it. So yes, I give him the credit. This is his economy. He's running away with it. I don't think it's the right statement to say he destroyed it.

He definitely did. Hold on. I'm going to tell you why he did. Because he decided to deal with the COVID-19 as something that wasn't real. He didn't have a coordinated response. He didn't have a coordinated response. He didn't have a strong response in terms of actually focusing on making sure we were supporting people, supporting workers, all of it was a game to him.

So a lot of damage happened. So yes, he is the leader. He gets, he's accountable for this. That is my point. And a lot of this has to do with his lack of leadership, period. And also, can I add to the employment sectors where blacks are overrepresented, like sales, like administrators. Like government jobs, like government jobs.

I mean, a lot of those people, food service, right, all of those positions that evaporated, right, when COVID-19 became much more prominent. And again, as Rob said, we had an administration that wanted to play political football with people's actual lives. So yes, he can take credit for that two-point drop-off in unemployment, but he can also take credit for it doubling. And not to mention, that's the economy, unemployment for Black folks, also the deaths of Black folks that happened on his watch as well. So he can take credit for all of that. So this is what I want people to go to my iPad, please. I just want people to see this particular chart right here.

This is the chart right here. Okay. I'm going to scroll over if I can. And you will see in this chart right down here, it goes January 2009, 12.7, going up 13.7. It went all the way up. This is black. It went all the way up to 16.8, and then it goes back up to 15. Then all of a sudden, y'all see, I want everybody to see this right here. I want everybody to 15, then all of a sudden, y'all see, I want everybody to see this right here. I want everybody to see, let me do right here. I want everybody to see what that number looks like because let me go

ahead and reset it because I want y'all to see this is important. Y'all see right over here, this here, these are the Obama years. Down, down, down, down, down. And then all of a sudden you get to 17. These are the beginning of the Trump years. You see that big-ass line that jumped up? That right there, Trump

also has to accept. And that's the thing. They don't want to accept that part. That's the thing, Derek. Here's the deal. If you're going to accept that part. That's the thing, Derek. Here's the deal. If you're going to accept the good, you got to accept the bad. I mean, that's all I'm saying. They don't want to do that, though. I agree, bro.

That don't look good at all. No, it don't. No, it don't. And, in fact, that line over there jumped up higher. I think it actually jumped up higher than, and the way this chart is a little hard, it jumped to 16.8. That's actually higher than, or maybe it tied,

it actually tied the high point of Obama's presidency black unemployment was 6% I want our audience to have the information the highest point under Obama's presidency

March 2010 it was at 16.8 it dropped to 7.7 by the time he left. The lowest point of Trump's presidency, it was actually 5.1, I think, 5.5. 5.5, and the highest is 16.8. So the net effect of Donald Trump on black people, Derek, the net effect of the Trump presidency on black people, Derrick, the net effect of the Trump presidency on black

people is that our unemployment rate has doubled under Donald Trump. That's the net effect. That's the net effect. But I would just look at the COVID, man. I think we all would agree on this panel. It has exposed just black

people in general. That's why even when we start talking about kids going back to school, I just... Of course. It hurts me that some of these kids are going to get left behind with this whole virtual thing. And I realize you got to be safe and keep them home. But damn, we're going to continue to fall behind. But wait, but wait, but hold up, though. But hold up, though.

Hold up, though. Hold up, though. But here's the deal, though. And here's the thing. I'm not saying it's... I'm not saying at all and be real clear, people. I am not saying it is a good thing that coronavirus took place. What I am saying is that now white folks in America are seeing the reality of what it means to be black. They are seeing higher death rates. They are seeing the impact on black businesses.

They are seeing the impact on black kids in school. Can't nobody white sit here and deny what has actually happened to black people historically because what COVID-19 has absolutely exposed all of that, Rob. I agree. It not only has it exposed that, so it's exposed how horrible of a leader we have because that's what a crisis does. It will either expose or it will exaggerate the best characteristics and the worst. And we've seen that. But it's also exposed America and how bad we have been in terms of preparing. It's exposed the fact that we haven't invested in digital infrastructure. We should have broadband

and Wi-Fi built all across this country. We should have that. But we don't have that. So it's exposed that. So people that don't have that, just like Derek said, are being left behind. It's exposing the fact that we haven't invested like we need to as a nation. It's exposed the fact that we don't focus on workers. If you look at every other country, they are now recovering from COVID-19. We are now exceptional in a bad way. We're not recovering for all types of reasons. One, we didn't take it seriously. But then two, how we responded. We didn't respond by making sure we helped every single worker. There's a debate about that right now in Europe and every other place. They made sure every worker was reimbursed, period. In America, we had a long debate about it,

and they were giving money to people like the L.A. Lakers and this business here and huge multinational corporations, ones that didn't need it. So we have the wrong focus in America. It's exposed really the lack of leadership in America as a whole, but we really have a really bad one in the White House. In fact, folks, let's talk about where we are. As of today, there are 4,802,491 cases of COVID-19. 53,685 of those cases are new, 157,631. Actually, we've now crossed 160,000 deaths. 1320 are new.

Now, folks, here's what's scary,000 deaths. 13, 20 are new. Now, folks, here's what's scary. A disproportionate number of non-white children are dying from the virus, according to data released in an internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nationwide, the number of COVID-19 cases among people under the age of 18 from March 1st to August 3rd were 40% Hispanic, 34% white, 19%, excuse me, 40% Hispanic, 34% black, 19%.

Actually, are those numbers? Okay, I got 40% Hispanic, 34% white, 19% black. I think those numbers are reversed. We need to double check that. The ethnicity breakdown of those patients who died from the disease. Okay, this is who died. Okay, so the first number were those who under the age of 18 diagnosed. 40% Hispanic, 34% white, 19% black.

Those diagnosed. Now, those who have died, 38% Hispanic, 34 percent black, 25 percent white. That means that among Hispanics, 40 percent diagnosed of the deaths, 38 percent Hispanic. Of those who got it, 19 percent were 34 percent were white, yet 25% died who were white. So that is, it was a drop. Black people, fewest number of black children diagnosed at 19%, 34% of black kids died. Joining me to talk about the crisis, Dr. Dan,

first of all, Dan Fabboui, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist in Maryland and an Obama administration biodefense appointee. Doc, glad to have you here. white children higher rate in terms of getting it, but the lowest, the second highest rate who get it, but the lowest rate among those who die. And I see black children, the lowest number who diagnosed, but the second highest number who died. That is shocking. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Roland. Yeah. so the data, we're still learning a lot about the impact on children and the impact on our community in general, both adults and kids. institutions where my colleagues there looked at a thousand kids actually that were referred by actually a physician or because they were exposed to a high-risk target, as in somebody who had COVID diagnosed and was sick, were referred to this off-site, basically a site to get tested.

In that study, they actually found that approximately one out of every five patients actually that presented to that site in the District of Columbia, which represents the DMV area, actually had tested positive. Of those numbers that were looked at, of that 20 percent, when you break it down of those who were positive, you found that there was a discrepancy in terms of racial and socioeconomic disparity with regards to Hispanics having six times more likely to have a positive test as opposed to their white counterpart. And for African-Americans, it was children was about four times as likely to have a positive test than their white counterpart. So this shows kind of what the discrepancy in the area is. And that doesn't mean that it's

just the children, the same disparity data we found in adults. But this has now clarified the fact that we kind of knew this, but it has documented that there are some racial disparities, not just in the adult population, but now is affecting our children. And we need to make amends to kind of fix those things or at least account for that. Bear in mind that this study also actually was a study that was done early on in the coronavirus pandemic that began. So there were stricter rules in place at this time. So a doctor actually had to refer you to the site, or you had to have the guidelines which were out there,

which was like you had a fever, cough, and exposure to somebody who was sick or recent travel. Now those guidelines have relaxed because it's widespread. So imagine if that test was done actually during this time period, we'd probably see a higher, even more prevalence incidents of that case. The other issue that we're looking at is obviously now all of a sudden school. And now we're talking about an environment where parents, if the kids go back, parents can't control that. Parents can't look like I have twin nieces, OK, 16 years old. And the reality is my wife and I, we control who comes in our home. We control where they go. We control who they

visit. We control everything about that. Once they leave our home and go back into the school, we can't control another kid wearing masks, whether they're washing, whether they actually practice social distancing. And now we got to completely trust that my nieces are going to say, hey, I need you to back up, social distance, whatever. And now, look, you're now talking about, and a lot of schools are not even prepared to have all of the different things in place when it comes to testing people, checking people. Look, you got a Georgia superintendent and just suspended a kid who took photos of a packed hallway and the Georgia superintendent actually said, well, we can't enforce masks. And I'm like, but if you ban kids from smoking,

you damn sure know how to enforce that. You know how to enforce dress codes. You know how to enforce hair length, all that. But you're trying to tell me you can't enforce a mask? Come on. No, real talk. You hit the nail on the head. Those are real issues.

All the schools really need to get their act together as best as they can. Now, there are some limitations. Let's just call a spade a spade. And we need to empower your audience and our community in general to be able to know how to make a decision. Am I actually sending my kids to school? I'm a father, too. I have three.

And I think that some of the factors that people can actually look at are test positivity rate. You can look that up. It's very accessible. John Hopkins has a Web site. You can look at the D.C. Department of Health, Maryland Department of Health, Virginia, whichever state you're in. You can look at all those online. So your positivity rate should be less than five percent. Ideally, you want it one percent or less. New York is a classic example. Theirs is around 1%. D.C. is about 1.6%, 1.4%, looking at the latest data. But even with those numbers, that will actually at least begin to help you have a discussion around,

okay, am I going to send my kids to school? The other part is the school's responsibility, which you alluded to, Roland, which is basically, hey, everybody should be wearing masks, faculty, staff, students. It should be mandatory. If it's not mandatory at any of those institutions, I'm not considering it as a parent. I don't think you should be.

I think if that's in place and then the testing and turnaround time of the testing is another thing. We've had a lot of lag in testing results due to reagents, due to whatever the reasons. There are many things. But now, actually, one of the places that's really been good with really testing is D.C. They've improved their testing, but the questions are still the turnaround times to getting the results. Then you ask the school the other question. What are your policies in place in terms of how do you notify families and parents? They're good at being able to notify

parents on certain things. So have they done this before? Not all administrators understand the pandemic. They're trying to digest all that information while they figure out what's going on with the children and all those things. But there are certain nuances. So do you have a public health or a health expert or specialist at the school that they've plugged in with or with the local Department of Health or Community Department of Health and how they can send kids to get tested or how that all works together. That has to be done. And then what happens when you have a positive case? Do you quarantine just that student? Do you send other kids home? Those things they need to answer and be able to have a plan that's solid in place. Dr. Dan Fabuia, we certainly appreciate it, man.

Thank you so very much. My pleasure. Dr. Carter, I want to go. Dr. Dan Fabuia, we certainly appreciate it, man. Thank you so very much. My pleasure. Dr. Carter, I want to go to you. You, of course, you're a professor at Howard University. Howard's plan is sort of this augmented plan. They're not going completely online. Talk about that again, how y'all are having to deal with this. And obviously you're dealing with college students. You're dealing with adults. It's just a whole different ballgame. We talk about elementary kids, junior high school and high school.

Well, you would hope it would be a different story. But the truth is we're talking about young people who haven't seen each other for months, who want to be in contact. And you're not going to stop a bunch of college kids from congregating, having parties and doing all of those things. And I think Howard just came out today with their new plan, which is going to be virtual for undergraduate students and non-residential. And I think that's important. I mean, we all recognize that universities have a desire to get back to normalcy, but these are not normal times. And certainly we want to be able to provide students with the best education possible.

I would encourage people to not think of online as some sort of less good variety of teaching. It's just a different modality. Nonetheless, you have to think about the kids first, the students first. And if any of your conversation has an acceptable loss calculation as part of it, we've already failed as institutions of higher education. So I hope more institutions start thinking about these things and thinking about the health of the students, especially because we know that these are young adults. And as much as we want to police behavior, when we think about students with

off-campus housing or even on an on-campus environment, we're not going to sit there and lock students away in their rooms and tell them they can't socialize or they can't go off campus and do whatever else they do. And I just think it's a really bad recipe for all the negative outcomes, because we know it only takes one student with a disease that's this high, that's infectious, to make a whole campus community sick. And then it's not just the students. It's the staff that have to clean, right? It's the food service workers. It's all of the other folks who have to come in contact, faculty and others who come in contact with these folks. And universities are

just petri dishes and recipes for disaster. I think what Howard has done and what some other institutions have done is put students over profit. And I know there are a lot of people who would like to be back on campus. They want the experience and they want all of that. But what is the point of opening an institution if you're killing the people that work there and killing the people that you're supposed to be there to provide this education for? And I think, you know, moving to in-camp, on-campus, in-person classes is just a recipe for disaster. Look, this is a concern for every single parent, Derek, because look, you don't know. And again, if you talk about already inadequate resources compared from suburban districts to school, the inner city school districts, you definitely about to see that right now when it comes to health.

Absolutely. And, you know, I sat a couple of weeks ago, I sat on a call for the school district for my son, because I wanted to find out what they were doing and all that kind of stuff. And that's where my, you know, I really found out what a lot of these different school systems were doing. And again, when you talk about those disadvantaged communities and some of these disadvantaged students, they need the face time. However, given this COVID, we got to do virtual. So I'm dealing with a rising senior in high school. And then I have a daughter who's a rising junior who's part of University of Maryland, University of Maryland college system. And so we're, you know, she's going back in a couple of weeks. And so a lot

of their class is going to be virtual. They're going to do a combination of virtual and in class. So I'm a little leery of the whole thing, but as a parent, I don't know what we can do at this point. I got a niece who just went back to NC State. They're all full board, going straight ahead in terms of what they're doing down there. So each one of these universities, each one of these different school districts all have different plans. And I think the onus falls back on the parents in terms of what we feel comfortable with and where we feel comfortable sitting our child at this point. And right now, man, I'm not comfortable with a whole lot of this stuff that's going on. But, I mean, what can we do at this point?

Rob. Yeah, I mean, we got here and I have to remind everybody because we have such poor leadership. Every other country has pretty much came back and responded. Because they've got to be back on the leadership. Because they've dealt with the global pandemic that happens once in a century. You know, like, and so they dealt with it.

We decided that we weren't going to deal with it. We decided that we were going to have a state-specific approach, and Trump wasn't going to do anything. Everybody would do their own thing. Some people just said, well, we're not going to do it. Some people took it seriously. Some didn't. And so we had a lack of a—we didn't have a coordinated response, and literally lies were lost. But here's the thing. You have all these folks talking about the economy. They've caused more damage to the economy because they had this half-assed opening that they shouldn't

have opened. They opened too early. They didn't take precautions. And that did more damage to the economy because now people have less faith. And so when things actually do get safe, there's going to be a lag time. And that's all due to a lack of leadership. And so this is why it matters. It matters. I would say, Rob, a lot of that is opinion. A lot of people had to get back to work. So they had to open up the economy because everybody couldn't stay at home. So I think a lot of times when we talk about what's happening right now, we're Monday morning quarterbacking. This is the first time we've ever

had to deal with a global pandemic. And so when you start talking about what this administration did and what they didn't do, we also have to remember, when this thing kicked off, when this thing kicked off in January and February, every network was carrying impeachment trials because they wanted to get Trump out of the office. And so I think a lot of people dropped the ball on this thing initially because we were focused on impeachment. Hold on a second. Why is it, though, why is it that every other nation in the world is able to get through it but not us?

I can't speak to every other nation. Every other nation is not the United States. It's not opinion. It's because we decided that we weren't going to take it seriously. We didn't have a coordinated response. We did not. And that caused lies and that caused economic damage. And you have governors that follow this idiot's lead and they open up up the economies too early, and they caused a lot of damage to people. And so I want to make one other point. You said that other people had to get back to work. No, that's a lack of a government response.

The response the government should have had, they should have covered workers during this time because the workers didn't do anything wrong. There's nothing they could do. That's what a good government response looks like. We didn't have that. Everybody didn't want that solution. But's nothing they could do. That's what a good government response looks like. We didn't have that. Everybody didn't want that solution. That solution wasn't for everybody. Some people want to get back to work. Dr. Carter?

I just think this idea that people don't want it. Who cares? This is a public health event. Who cares what people want? People don't want controls on their guns. People don't want to wear seatbelts. People don't want to do a lot of things that they do every single day. So this idea that we couldn't do anything other than what we did is nonsense. And now we're in a situation that if we'd done what we were supposed to do in February, in March, in April, kids might be able to actually go back to school right now.

And parents may actually feel a little more comfort in sending their children out into the world. Some of those same parents who work at those same institutions, because it's not just the kids going back to schools. It's the teachers. It's the school nurses. It's the lunch ladies. It's the counselors. It's the principals. It's a whole ecosystem inside of a school building every single day that makes that place go. So if we had done what we were supposed to do and it would have been hard, nobody is not saying that it wouldn't be challenging, but it wouldn't be any more difficult or challenging than what we're facing right now. It's potentially sending our kids off to get a fatal illness. I don't think anybody prefers that. Final comment on this. Go ahead, Derek.

I was just going to say it's real easy for us to sit back months later to say what we should have done and what we could have done. And that's what I always say. If Ipsen Butts was cand and nuts, nobody would be hungry. And so it's just people sit back and say what we should have done, what we could have done, all those kind of things. Not just in this country, but around the world, telling you what you could actually do to mitigate this virus, and we chose not to do it.

So nobody is saying ifs, ands, or buts. The public health information has been consistent for months. We chose to do something else and just say that and realize we got to live with the choices we did not make. All right, folks, let's go to our next story. We told you the other day about the story of a Louisiana black man who is in, was going to be in prison for life for trying, for attempting to steal some hedge clippers.

He was, of course, convicted under the habitual offender law there in Louisiana. Well, he got bad news, but this next guy got great news. A Gulf war veterans named Derek Harris, who was convicted for selling $30 worth of marijuana, has been resentenced to nine years, which he has already served. Originally in Louisiana, Harris was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Earlier this year, a promise of justice initiative led by Cormac Boyle

argued before the Louisiana Supreme Court that Harris's sentence was unconstitutional. Joining us right now is Cormac Boyle, staff attorney, the Promise of Justice Initiative. Cormac, how are you doing? Hi, how are you doing? Doing great. I came across this story because the gentleman in question, Derek Harris, is actually the brother of a friend of mine who I play golf with, Antoine Harris. And you read this story. How in the world did he get life in prison without parole for $30 worth of marijuana?

Yeah, absolutely. It's a, it's a, unfortunately, um, the, the, as, as you pointed out with Mr. Bryant's case, not an anomaly. And a lot of the problem really is that, um, Louisiana has overzealous prosecutors and underfunded and overworked public defenders. And Mr. Harris' public defender unfortunately was not very attentive to Mr. Harris. He failed to communicate a plea deal prior to trial. He failed to present an entrapment defense, which was very viable at trial. And then he failed to point out to the court that the court should and must, in Mr. Harris's circumstance, deviate downward from the life without parole sentence based upon Mr. Harris's background and the fact that he's far from the worst of the worst offender. And this is far from the worst of the worst offense.

But this is the kind of stuff we keep talking about when you look at these southern states, when you look at a place like Louisiana. And here's the other deal. You're a state that's broke as hell. Like, in what world would you say, yeah, it's a notch in my belt to put somebody in prison for life for $30 of marijuana? And this is a young guy. You're talking about you're going to spend, in the same case of the other gentleman, you're going to spend more than a million dollars to imprison somebody for $30. Absolutely. The law itself, the habitual offender law itself is also disproportionately applied to black people. We believe 80% of the people doing habitual offender sentences at Angola are African-American, something that our state really has to address. And I really don't think the government should have the right to use such a draconian law

until it figures out how it can apply it in an equitable manner that is reasonable and not so destructive to our society. But even when it comes to these laws, I frankly find these laws stupid and idiotic. I do. Because, first of all, if you committed a crime and you got sentenced, you served your time for that crime. If you committed a second crime and got sentenced, you served your time for that crime. If you committed a second crime and got sentenced, you serve your time. What this law does,

this law says, we're going to basically re-sentence you for all of your past transgressions, including this one. That, I don't understand how that is legal. Absolutely.

And when these laws started again gaining favor in the 90s, you know, three strikes law, a lot of people did challenge it on the basis of it violating double jeopardy. And no court has held that. But I absolutely agree. I mean, what we're doing is what we're not supposed to be doing. You're supposed to punish people for what they did, not who they are. And this law, I believe, goes into punishing people not for what they did, but for who they are, and ultimately is a repunishment of prior behavior. It is. It is.

What was Derek's response once y'all told him? And when when does he actually walk out? Sure. Well, Derek and I have been, you know, talking about the possibilities for a while. And, you know, when I told him, I think, Derek, you know, he has been treated so poorly that his level of optimism, I would say, is, you know, he's a little shaky. Until he sees himself released, he's not going to believe it. And I understand that completely. It's our expectation that Derek will be released on Monday or possibly Tuesday. I'm going to be continuing to fight with the DOC over some odds and ends on time calculations. As soon as he is released, we'll be there to pick him up and when we can get things sorted out, get him over to his brother Antoine in Kentucky. in uh in concession um you talked about again these laws and and and and how they impact uh

people of color the fact that 80 percent of the people in louisiana jails who have been designated under this law 80 percent of those people are black. 80% of those people are black under this law. Yes. I mean, that's just astonishing. And it speaks to the racial disparity. Without a doubt. I mean, I think it's, you know, you have a system which you can't argue that it's not racist, when it's so unevenly applied. And you know, part of that is because in Louisiana, as in many states, poor people, and particularly African-American people, are over-policed. And when you're over-policed, you're going to get arrested, you're going to get convicted, and they're going to put all these convictions together and give you an enormous sentence, like a life sentence. And it's completely untethered from a practical purpose.

Cormac Boyle, we appreciate all of your work on this. Also, folks, there's a GoFundMe that's been set up to help Derek reestablish himself. Go to my iPad, please. It's under Bring Derek Harris Home. The goal is to raise ten thousand dollars. They raised thus far six hundred and fifty dollars. If you go to GoFundMe.com, if you just simply type in bring Derek bringing Derek Harris home. He is a veteran. He is a veteran. And he served during the Gulf War, folks. So you go to go to go GoFundMe, and if you want to assist, please do so. Corbett Boyle, thanks a lot. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Niambi, this is, you know, when you see stories like this,

when people try to suggest that those of us who talk about this unequal criminal justice system are wrong. This is a perfect example. In no way in the world, here we're now dealing with states in this nation where folks are making billions of dollars off of marijuana. In fact, the first payment in the state of Illinois, when they made marijuana sales fact, the first payment in the state of Illinois, when they made marijuana sales legal, the first month, $52 million in sales. This brother could have served life in prison

for $30 of marijuana. Yeah, and you know what's really perverse is that now that this industry is a thing, because of this conviction, he will never be able to, say, work in that industry. And I think that's what's happened to a lot of people who've been ensnared in this criminal injustice system, for lack of a better word, which is something, some small indiscretion has made your whole life null and void. And so because we have so many private entities that are making money off of corrections and imprisonment,

it makes it a much more attractive process than, you know, using some real discretion here and say, what's happening with this man, in this case with Mr. Harris? I mean, he had PTSD after his military service. Let's address that. Instead, we condemn him to life imprisonment for essentially nothing, right? No one was hurt here. And I think this way in which we don't discern is really, we're doing another kind of violence, right? We assume that those who commit crimes or whatever transgress against the public, that they're now outside of us. But I think when we start thinking of these people as citizens just like us, as people with communities and families, then it makes it easier to understand why these things are so unjust and why calls now for defunding the police and other things are reaching this fever pitch, because there were alternatives, right, if we had thought more critically about these

kinds of laws, to imprisonment. And I think when we are considering the moment we're in right now, we have ultimately got to rethink what we do with these prisons. And while some are calling for abolition of prisons, others are calling for the removal of private monies, for-profit prisons. We have to think about that these are actual people there. And how do we talk about, how we talk about these people, how we legislate about their lives matters. Because one of the things, I mean, going back to the theme of the show, we certainly do count those who are in prison

in the communities where they're being held for redistricting purposes, right? So prisoners are important for a lot of different kinds of people. And so some of these, say, more rural communities or communities that don't have as much population, prison makes sense for them because prisons have lots of bodies in them that they can use to be overrepresented in our national body. million people who are in prison in the United States, 10% are only on the federal level. The real impact on mass incarceration has to take place on the state level. And this is one of those things where Democrats and Republicans, you would think folks who talk about being pro-life and those other people who talk about, you know, ending mass incarceration can come to an agreement that these type of laws, these type of laws, enough of this law and order bullshit. Enough of this whole, you know,

I need to look all tough. It makes no sense to tell somebody, yeah, you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison because you tried to sell $30 in marijuana. Dude, I read that story. First of all, I know a Derek Harris.

I was like, make sure it wasn't my Derek Harris. All right, but dude, life in prison for a $30 bag of weed? I was like, wow. But I'm going to put a different spin on it. Now, this law that had him locked up, that was part of the crime bill that was passed in 1994 that was authored by who? Mr. Joe Biden.

This is a state law. This is a state law. Okay. Is that not part of the crime bill, though? No, no, no, no, no, no. This is a state law. No, no. Hold on.

Hold on. Hold on. Factually, the 1994 crime bill is a federal law. This is a state law. I stand corrected. The bottom line is everything that y'all said was true. Dude, he got life in prison for a $30 bag of weed. And I think, as you said, Democrat or Republican, that don't make sense.

But as the doctor said just now, everything that she said was true, too. These prisons have a population that is very useful for a lot of different reasons. And so some of it's political, some of it's not. But, man, that right there, that makes no sense. And something like that has to be changed. I feel so sorry for that brother and what happened to him. Rob, go ahead. Yeah, the system is not broken.

It's working as it was designed to. It's working to disenfranchise people. It's working to take away the power of people. This is why it applies disproportionately to black Americans. It was these laws were put. These are revisionist laws from like right after Reconstruction. And now this is our third kind of morphing of discrimination in this country.

We had, obviously, slavery. Then we had Jim Crow. Then we had mass incarceration. And we had these laws pretending to be strong on law and order. What they really were was just thinly veiled disguises of ways to discriminate against us, to put us in prison, and to find ways to disenfranchise us. It's not only putting us in prison,

it's disenfranchising us afterwards, making it hard to, and sometimes you can't vote, making it hard to actually get a job. But as the doctor said, as Dr. Naomi Carter said, we still use those bodies, they still use those bodies for profit. Profits are made in prison. We still use those bodies for accounting representation

so people have power while taking away power from those communities. So these things are done strategically. And what we've got to get people to understand is that, look, this is where Derek and I agree. Democrats and Republicans own this system together. And we have to make sure we fight back hard and make sure that when we get people in power that say they back us, they need to do everything possible to dismantle this. And it will be hard for them to do that because we know how the power system is designed in this country. But, again, if we as Democrats, people that are supporting Democrats, we need to hold them accountable.

Republicans need to step up, too, because they say they believe in pro-life. They believe in justice. Hey, Republicans, make us work. Like, make Democrats work for the vote. Go out and do this stuff. Instead, they don't do that. I would love to see a time when Republicans were actually championing these things, fighting for these things, and making folks have to question who do we align with, who do we support. I want to see that. We don't see it right now.

Well, especially when you have people like Attorney General Bill Barr who say it's just so unfortunate that Roger Stone should have to go to prison. He's 67, first time offender. And so let's just go ahead and give him a pardon or commutation, whatever the hell he got. But you don't see the same capacity for other people. I want to reach out to this here. The last item on this story, this is from the appeal.org. They cover a lot of criminal justice stuff. Under Louisiana's habitual offender statute, a district attorney can file to have a person's punishment enhanced based on their criminal history. In 2011, Bernard Noble was sentenced to 13 years in prison after he was arrested in New Orleans for possessing two marijuana joints because of prior drug convictions.

Noble, wait, wait, wait. Noble served seven years and was granted an early release in 2016. Oh, my God. In 2016, Jacobia Grimes faced 20 years to life for allegedly stealing $31 worth of candy bars from Dollar General store in New Orleans after Orleans Parish DA Leon Canazaro charged him under the habitual offender statute. The case received national attention and Grimes later entered a guilty plea in which he was sentenced to two years in prison. Y'all, he was sentenced to two years in prison for stealing $31 of candy. Now, for everybody watching, I need you to understand this is how voting comes in.

Go back to the iPad. The key is this. The person who determines whether to use the habitual offender statute is the district attorney. So, this is why DAs matter. This is why Aramis Ayala in Florida matters. Larry Krasner in Philadelphia matters. Kim Fox in Chicago matters. This is why Marilyn Mosby matters. This is why Kim Gardner matters. This is why Wesley is why Wesley and St. Louis matter. When you have

district attorneys who will sit there and say, okay, this is stupid. Because remember y'all, the DA in Louisiana does not have to invoke this statute. They are choosing to invoke this statute.

That is a huge, huge difference. And so I just want people to understand that. Now here's the other deal in 2018, they did have some reform of this deal. It actually was signed into law by democratic governor, John Bill Edwards on June 15th, 2017. This is under reform of the statute. A fourth offense resulted in a maximum of 20 years in prison. And so, uh, the law, so the law was changed. And so one of the things, so the reason Derek is getting out and even the reason why the Louisiana Supreme court heard the other case was because they both petitioned to have their cases reviewed as a result of this particular law. Frankly, this reform still hasn't gone far enough because I'm sorry. I don't care

if somebody had three prior offenses. If you steal $31 in candy, you shouldn't be slapped with 20 years in prison. I got to go to commercial break. We come back. Folks, we'll talk about viral ads. That's next on Rolandin unfiltered support the roland martin unfiltered daily digital show by going to rolandmartinunfiltered.com our goal is to get 20 000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year you can make this possible rolandmartinunfiltered.com donald trump is 74 years old and he has never faced any consequences when don Donald Trump was called to serve in Vietnam, his powerful father used his money to buy his privileged son five separate deferments. But what about the kids who weren't rich? And what poor kids without a rich father

had to take Donald Trump's place five times on the battlefield. When Donald Trump repeatedly lied to the American people about the coronavirus. I think that at some point that's going to sort of just disappear. Deliberately spreading lies that caused over 155,000 Americans to die agonizing deaths alone. Not one single doctor ever stood up in the White House briefing room and had the courage to say, do not listen to the president. He is lying to you. Instead, they praised him. He's been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data. When Donald Trump bragged on camera about sexually assaulting women, it should have immediately ended his presidential campaign and he should have faced criminal

charges. But instead, his third wife, so desperate to be the first lady, rushed to cover for him. I know how some men talk. They were kind of a boy talk. When Donald Trump had multiple bankruptcies, he should have lost his businesses and suffered the same consequences everyone else would have. But instead, corrupt banks like Deutsche Bank stepped in to rescue him, perpetuating the false image that Trump was rich and successful. When Donald Trump cheated on his wife and had unprotected sex with porn stars, his daughter refused to even say it was wrong.

I think it's a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter. When it was revealed that Vladimir Putin had put bounties on the heads of U.S. soldiers and that Donald Trump knew about it and did nothing to defend the United States, he should have been impeached and removed from office. But instead, his army of enablers defended him. Time and time again, people have stepped in and covered for Donald Trump. For 74 years, Donald Trump has gotten away with one crime after another. But on November 3rd, you can take away Donald Trump's power.

And when he's not President Trump, he will have to face charges for the crimes he's committed. On November 3rd, you're the jury in the case of the people versus Donald Trump. It's up to you. Trump donors. Times are tough. After destroying the economy.

US economy contracted a record shattering 32.9% last quarter. The U.S. economy contracted a record-shattering 32.9% last quarter. Causing massive death. More than 150,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the U.S. Trump is begging you for money. And begging and begging for money to support Don Jr.'s girlfriend and Eric's wife. His hotels. Ferraris for his campaign managers. Golden toilets for Jared and Ivanka. He defrauded a cancer charity. He bankrupted casinos.

His companies. A fake university, our country. Don't be Don's next con. Modest Touch is responsible for the content of this advertising. Governor confirming that coronavirus has arrived. When we were stuck inside, we wondered, would we face the plague of gun violence again? Will we fear gathering in our schools and our churches again? Will we be shot for the color of our skin again?

But a fight for justice forced us out to fill the empty streets. Black Americans are still being killed for being black in America. The pandemic hitting black, indigenous, and people of color disproportionately has only worsened the epidemic of gun violence in those same communities. Because it's clear the fight for racial justice is still on, and we won't live without it. In Colorado, he stood against hatred,

but in Wisconsin, he carried a Confederate flag. In Arizona, she stood for her patients, but in Michigan, she carried a swastika. They bought guns in record numbers, but we took it to the streets. So when we leave our homes this time, will the people carrying weapons of war and banners of hatred decide our future again or will we stand up and demonstrate our power our power means we demand all gun sales will be licensed our power means we demand weapons of war be banned for good our power means lawmakers must listen our power means we refuse to watch black people be murdered in the streets.

Our power means we refuse to fear for our lives. We refuse to live without justice. It's our power, and we will use it. This moment in our history has been a long time coming, but a change has come. In 1961, black and white people could not be seated together on a Greyhound bus. I first came to Washington to participate in a freedom ride. We were beaten and arrested and jailed. But we helped bring an end to segregation and public transportation.

In 1963, I came back here again. Hundreds and thousands of people were arrested and jailed throughout the South for trying to participate in the democratic process. We must never, ever give up. We must never, ever give in. We must keep the faith and keep our eyes on the prize. We must continue to push. We must continue to work. We may have come here

on different steps, but we all are in the same boat now. It doesn't matter whether we're black or white, Latino, Asian-American, or Native American, whether we are gay or straight,

we're one people, we're one family, we all live in the same house, not just the American house, but the world house, the world house. I'm gonna be a registered voter, oh Lord. I'm gonna be a registered voter, oh Lord. I'm gonna be a registered voter. I gotta add one more, because I gotta get our panel.

I know, Derek, I know you have to go. It's your wife's birthday. Hopefully you got her something good. And yesterday, Donald Trump was in Cleveland. It was supposed to be a White House event. He turns it into a rally. And he questioned Joe Biden's faith. Watch this.

Things that nobody ever would ever think even possible because he's following the radical left agenda. Take away your guns. Destroy your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible, hurt God. He's against God. He's against guns. He's against energy, our kind of energy. I don't think he's going to do too well in Ohio. Things that nobody ever would ever think even Joe Biden has enough power. He can hurt God.

He has enough power to hurt God. Is that what he said? He's literally said Joe Biden is going to hurt God. I don't know where that came from. I don't know where that came from, but I will say this. He's in Ohio. And Rob, you're in Ohio. And we say this all the time when I'm kidding around with my friends. I'm't know where that came from, but I will say this. He's in Ohio. And Rob, you're in Ohio. And we say

this all the time when I'm kidding around with my friends. I'm like, you know, one thing people got to realize when it comes down to this election November 3rd, all right? So once you leave Atlanta, you're in Georgia. Once you leave Cincinnati, you're in Ohio. And a lot of times, you know, these opinions that we talk

about, they come from, well, I would say a lot of times, bi-coastal and urban elitist. And so there's a whole group of Americans who don't necessarily agree with everything that is said on this show. Well, yeah, but it's a hell of a whole lot who do agree. And trust me, there are white folks who agree as well. And the thing here, Rob, when you have a fool stand up talking about Joe Biden is going to hurt God. And I just wanted, I just wanted, you know, while we were playing that, I just want to remind y'all of this.

Talking about how it's your favorite book. And you said, I think last night in Iowa, some people are surprised that you say that. I'm wondering what one or two of your most favorite Bible verses are and why. I wouldn't want to get into it because to me that's very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible, it's very personal, so I don't want to get into verses. There's no verse that means a lot to you that you think about or cite? The Bible means a lot to me, but I don't want to get into specifics. Even to cite a verse that you like? No, I don't want to get into specifics. Even to cite a verse that you like?

No, I don't want to do that. An Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy? Probably equal. I think it's just an incredible, the whole Bible is an incredible. I joke very much so. They always hold up the art of the deal. I say my second favorite book of all time. But I just think the Bible is just something very special.

Okay, you mentioned the Bible. You've been talking. He didn't have no Bible verse. He literally said, Old Testament, New Testament. Oh, probably equal. He has no acquaintance with that Bible, so I don't even know why he's perpetrating that fraud. But I will also have people remember, and I will always say this, you can believe whatever you want, right? That's part of the Constitution., you can believe whatever you want, right? That's part of the Constitution. You can follow whatever religion you want. But the state

does not have the right to establish said religion. And I think we have to always keep that in mind, that the framers that we like to pull out every time we want to talk about something, we're very cautious of religion, in particular state-run religion or state-promoted religion. So we should always be keep that in mind when we're talking about leaders and their faith, right, that there is a separation between those two things. And there ought to be in the framers' minds, at least. And I think for many people who are nonreligious or who are non-Christian, right, that we don't actually want that to be a thing. And Donald Trump is about as religious as a box of hair. I just got Rob. I got to play this one last one for you.

And Derek, this is still so special for somebody who just loves in the doors the Bible so much that they can't even talk about their favorite verse, this is probably why. As some of the folks, because I hear this is a major theme right here, but two Corinthians, right? Two Corinthians, 317. That's the whole ballgame. Where the Spirit of the Lord, right? Where the Spirit of the Lord is. Anthony. the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And here there is Liberty College, but Liberty University.

It is so true. You know, when you think, and that's really, is that the one? Is that the one you like? I think that's the one you like because I loved it. And it's so representative of what's taken place. But we are going to protect Christianity. And if you look what's going on throughout the world, you look at Syria, ask some of the folks, because I hear this is a major theme right here,

but two Corinthians, right? Two Corinthians, 317. That's the whole ballgame. Rob, Rob, he literally told somebody, find me a Bible verse that got liberty in it. And this fool went up there and said, two Corinthians. There's no church I've ever been to where they've ever said, brothers and sisters, could you please turn to two Corinthians chapter 3, verse 17. There's one role in the Trump of church, of Trump.

You know, that's his. He's got his own church, apparently. Maybe he's going to start Trump Church after this because if you want to protect Christianity, you need to get rid of Donald Trump. He's the biggest threat to Christianity we've ever seen. And this is what I want to say. For all these folks that are Bible-toting, that are just behind Donald Trump and they don't care that he's cheating on his wife, they don't care that he says he's assaulted women, they don't care that he cusses all the time, that tells me they don't care about everything they say that they do. So I don't want to hear it when this Democratic president is going to say, oh, my gosh, they don't have morality. Like, you back Donald Trump. You no longer have credibility in telling me something about your religion.

They are selling out to me, people that are backing this man and just ignoring his moral failings because they are clear and present for anybody to see. And Republicans, every Republican that's not in power sees that and says that, that's not looking for something from him almost says that. People that don't have

to depend on him. So he is actually doing more damage to Christianity because people are saying, look, I'm a Christian, but I can see if people are like, if that's a Christian, that's what I don't want to be. If you're saying that's the religion that he's following, like, I don't see what anything he stands for, locking up children, putting them away, having no empathy, having no sympathy. Like, none of those things align with the Bible. The Bible is about grace. The Bible is about love. Nobody in their right mind would use those words to describe Trump.

You wouldn't use grace. You wouldn't use love. You would use none of those things if we're being honest about it. But instead, this tells me they have a higher value. It is not about religion. It's about something else. Derek, I know you've got to go. I'm going to give you the final comment on this one.

Somebody put this on Twitter. They said, well, Second Corinthians is acceptable depending upon the way you preach. Watch this. 2 Corinthians 317. Hold on, hold on. 2 Corinthians 317. Instead of the conventional American way of 2 Corinthians 317. That's a priest trolling Trump, Derek.

We're trying to figure it out. He goes to Corinthians as opposed to the acceptable way of 2 Corinthians. That was his way of saying the person in the Oval Office is a religious idiot. All this is said, there are many interpretations is a religious idiot. Look,

all this is a there are many interpretations of the Bible. No, no, no! No! No! No! No! There's NIV, there's a King James, there's an ASV,

there's the message, there are in every single one it ain't two Corinthians I don't know which version that was I had to go look that one up man I don't know you can do a drive by a church

and know it's not two Corinthians I gotta look which version that came from man I can't speak on it Derek go on Derek go on be with your wife on her birthday go on I gotta look which version I came from, man. I can't speak on it. Derek, go on. Derek, go on and be with your wife on her birthday. Go on. Go on.

Go on. Just sign up. Just cut it off like you did last week. Just go on. Go on. Go on. I'm out. I talked to you.

Go on. Y'all go ahead and run that Don Winslow film of Trump fake Christianity. Roll it. Y'all told me y'all had it, and how y'all not ready? I'm very pro-choice. And again, it may be a little bit of a New York background because there is some different attitude in different parts of the country and you know I was raised in New York and grew up and work and everything else in New York City. But you would not ban it? No. Or ban partial birth abortion? No, I would I

would I am I am pro-choice in every respect and as far as it goes. Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle? There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman? Yeah, there has to be some form. I'm wondering what one or two of your most favored Bible verses are and why. I wouldn't want to get into it because to me that's very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible, it's very personal, so I don't want to to get into it there's no verse it means a lot to you that you think about or cite the bible means a lot to me but i don't want to get into

specifics two corinthians right two corinthians y'all y'all trump is a fake christian i mean, that hashtag is on the money right there, Dr. Carter. He a fake Christian. That little stunt he pulled, he didn't even know how to hold a Bible. This is how he look. He just got an old used version anybody who has held a bible who hold it above their head does not go no they hold a bible they know how to hold it he go ahead but i was there but let's also remember what he did immediately before he snapped that

picture right he had tear gassed those people and um otherwise used force to move them back so he could take a damn picture in front of a church that he does not attend and clearly with a bible that he is not very acquainted with so donald trump is here for the pictures donald trump is here to sort of make people believe that he is going to be some sort of beacon of Christianity, perhaps survival of Christianity. He's made them feel that they have a friend in the White House. And in turn, they vote for him in great numbers. And I think Rob's point is exactly right. I don't want to hear about your more high ground anymore.

I don't want to hear about your Christian faith and your morality. This man is on tape talking about he was grabbing women by their private part and nobody better than I. Right. And you got all these evangelicals to show up at that White House and put their hands on this man and pray over him as if. So I don't want to hear anything about his Christianity. I don't want to hear about the folks who supposedly support his Christianity, because if you can look at a man who does the things that he does, the does the things that he does, says the things that he says, and creates the discord and the damage that

he has created in this country, there are over 150,000 people dead right now that shouldn't be dead. But here's the deal, and here's the mistake, Rob, that I really believe progressives make.

What progressives do, and I saw a segment earlier where Matt Schlapp was questioning Joe Biden's faith against Donald Brazil. And what he did was he only framed, he only framed the issue of faith in politics within the prism of abortion. Angela Stanton tried that with me on Twitter the other day, and I just straight up just demolished her ass. And I said, oh, because she was like, you know, you're supporting a man who wants to fund Planned Parenthood. I'm supporting a man who's protecting the innocent unborn and who wants to defund Planned Parenthood.

I said, oh, I'm sorry. Are you also supporting the same man who wanted to cut the food subsidies to the poor? Last I checked, that's also what the Bible talks about. I said, are you also supporting the man who actually had the children of folks who crossed the border snatched out of their hands, removed from them, sent those kids to other families, did not document what happened to those children. I said, is that also the Christian way of life? I said, if y'all want to have a discussion about Trump policies and Christianity, we can have that conversation. See, I have long said white right wing conservatives and a few black folks who vote with them, they only want to define faith as two things

being against abortion and being against gay folk. That's the only two issues. They don't want to have a discussion about Christianity and about caring for the needy. They don't want to have a conversation about housing and the homeless and the poor. I said, how can you, Angela Stanton, support a man and you use Christianity as the basis of it when he wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, which is health care? I said, with no plan? Oh, but y'all don't want to talk about that part of Christianity. See, this is where I keep trying to tell progressives stop falling for their okey-doke. If y'all want to have a Christian conversation, a faith conversation. I remember when I was on CNN, the night Obama was going with Rick Warren.

And we were on the air, and they had Tony Perkins on, Family Research Council. They always want to pull Tony Perkins. And I told CNN, why every time y'all want to talk about faith, y'all always pull this white conservative evangelical out. So they had me against Tony Perkins. And he had the audacity, the unmitigated gall to bring up Reverend Wright. Uh, as he said, but that's not what Christians are about. I said, Oh, I'm sorry, Tony, you want to have a Christian conversation? Last I checked the real responsibility of Christians is to save souls. I said, you want to have a sermon on the Mount conversation,

bro? Let's go. See, the real problem is that progressives who are of the faith, they go on TV and they speak more through the prism of their progressive views as opposed to the prism of their faith. And so my deal is here. I'm not a Republican or Democrat. I'm not a conservative or a liberal. But I can tell you one thing. What I'm not going to do is let these white conservative evangelicals and these black folks like Angela Stanton, Alveda King and others define faith solely as two issues.

Y'all want a faith conversation? Bring it on. Come on. Because look, Trump, we talked about COVID exposing America, exposing our weaknesses. Trump has exposed Christians to me, some white Christians that say that they're Christians, they believe in these things. And clearly Trump does not. And clearly, if you listen to the words of Jesus, right, they don't align with anything Trump stands for. Jesus was a disruptor. He turned over tables within the church because they weren't doing what they were supposed to. They weren't looking out for the needy. How do you think he would feel about Trump sending kids over the border, letting them die? How do you think he would feel about

taking away health care from people? How do you think he would feel about putting money ahead of the interest of people's health? I mean, Jesus is very clear on these things. And so, like, I am not afraid to have these conversations. And I do think people that are of the faith, we accept people that are not. But when it comes down to it, we can't be afraid to have a conversation. We can't be afraid to frame our values. And we can't let them frame it. Because if we do, then it looks like, oh, they're the Christians, but they're not.

I ain't letting no white conservative evangelical talk to me about Trump when that man wouldn't even admit to paying our porn stars. I don't want to hear nothing from them about this man in faith when he actually said he saw no reason in his whole life why he had to ask God for grace and mercy. You can't find nobody.

First of all, Jesus said, I died for your sins. This fool basically said, I ain't got no sins to confess. I'm good. Y'all, he's a fake Christian. Let me be as clear as possible. White conservative evangelicals don't give a damn about the Bible. They don't care about faith. What they care about are tax cuts. What they care about are right wing federal judges. They don't care about civil rights. They don't care about human rights. And when Matt Schlapp sits there

on Fox News talking about what it means to be a Catholic? Did Matt Schlapp forget the fact that the Catholic Church also vehemently opposes the death penalty? Who was the one who reinstated the federal death penalty? Donald Trump. Oh, oh, but I thought y'all pro-life. So why

did you reinstate the federal death penalty? T. Dr. Carter, that's what I keep telling progressives. Stop punking out and letting somebody question your faith. Well, I mean, look, I think it's hard because I think, like you said, the two big issues that people always talk about are

abortion or... No, no, no, no, no. Not people. Not people. Not people. White, conservative, evangelicals talk about those two. But we all participate in it because we have limited the conversation to faith to that. We let them limit it. It also goes to this larger issue, though, that people aren't ideologically consistent, right? I say I'm pro-life, but what I really mean is I only care about people having the right to be born.

I don't really care about their life once they are born. I certainly don't have responsibility to other people, right? So when we talk about condemning people to the death penalty, that's perfectly fine if I'm a pro- have responsibility to other people, right? So when we talk about condemning people to the death penalty, that's perfectly fine if I'm a pro-lifer in some cases, right? I don't care about SNAP assistance, right? I don't care about children having somewhere safe to live or having regular access to food, having access to adequate education, all the things that would actually support life, right? Environmental cleanliness, right? I don't care about any of those things because the issue is not about

Christianity, bottom line. The issue is about using whatever pool you have to forestall conversation. Because the minute you say, I'm a Christian, particularly to somebody who's not a Christian, right? Who can't go Bible verse to Bible verse with you. It makes it very difficult to have a conversation because now I have to question your faith. And usually for many people, even Americans, it's a non-starter. And I think that's a very easy way to forestall any debate or conversation.

Say, oh, it's my religious conviction. If I happen to not share that conviction or that tradition, then we can't actually have a conversation and you can go on being the bigot that you've always been. And since we on that, that Christian University leader of

evangelicals founded by Reverend Jerry Falwell, y'all seen this photo? This is his son who leads it. Jerry Falwell Jr. He's an attorney. He was not a pastor. Here he takes a photo. Y'all, let me tell you how dumb this fool is.

He actually posted this on Instagram. This is a photo of him, pants unzipped with a drink in his hand, standing next to a woman who ain't his wife. He later came out and said, oh, no, she was pregnant. This was just a

photo. Well, this happened right here, y'all. Statement that was announced today. The Executive Committee of Liberty University's Board of Trustees, acting on behalf of the full board, met today and requested that Jerry Falwell Jr. take an indefinite leave of absence from his roles as president and chancellor of Liberty University, to which he has

agreed effective immediately. Well, Rob, how about them Christian values? I mean, yeah, it's just selective. It's when you want to use them and when you want to use them, particularly as really, as Dr. Carter said, it's used as a purpose for power. It's used to say, we are good people, you are not. And it's often been used for superiority reasons. I mean, there's a reason why there have been some people of African descent that don't want to be associated with Christianity because they see, and it has been used to justify things like slavery and things like that. And we see people use it as a justification for treating people poorly when it's actually the opposite. It's supposed to be to actually give more to those who are given much is required.

That is the principle. It's not like, oh, if you got a lot, then you're supposed to use the religion to hurt other people. So people just find a way to use the religion to justify the injustices that they put upon others. I got to play this. I got to play this. He called into a rate. Y'all. So this happened before he got suspended.

He called into a radio station to explain. Sound like he was a little tipsy. What was up with that picture on Instagram? You know, it was weird because she could. She was pregnant. So she couldn't get her. She couldn't get her pants zipped. And so I was, like, trying to, like, I had on a pair of jeans I haven't worn in a long time,

so I couldn't get mine zipped either. And so I just put my belly out like hers. And it was just, she's my wife's assistant, and she's a sweetheart. I should never have put it up because it embarrassed her. Because, anyway, I've apologized to everybody, and I promised my kids I'm going to try to be a good boy from here on out. All right, and so was this TV show this is this trader park boys thing whatever whatever it was the costume party on and we were on vacation and anyway long story short it was just uh just just a good fun that's it

look this is is your university president And allegedly a reverend He's a charlatan No, no, no, he's not a reverend He's not a lawyer His daddy was, he's not Well, he's the head of a religious institution That makes it

The bar a little bit higher Than sort of any other university president But I guarantee he's going to go to rehab He's going to come about That he's had these substance abuse issues. He's going to ask people for their thoughts and prayers. And then he's going to be reinstalled. So we know this script. I mean, Jerry Falwell Jr. has tried this with the blackface mask that he did early this year.

I mean, he brought students back to Liberty's campus in the middle of COVID and got other students sick. I mean, this man has been a disaster. And this is the bridge too far for the Board of Trustees tells me something that I, tells me everything I need to know about the Board of Trustees at Liberty University, quite frankly. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy, I'm sure. I'm not crying for Jerry Falwell Jr., but I guarantee he's going to come out with some statement about he needs to go to rehab because he has a substance abuse problem, yada, yada.

That doesn't explain the racism and the other stuff. All right, I got to go to the next story. Oprah Winfrey and her old magazine team are demanding justice for Breonna Taylor. Winfrey has purchased 26 billboards with the face of Taylor across the city. That's one billboard for every year of her life. Each reads,

Demand that the police involved in killing Breonna Taylor be arrested and charged. Visit untilfreedom.com. Now, of course, it's supposed to be expected to be completed by Monday. The officers involved in the death of Breonna Taylor have not been charged. Detective Brett Hankinson was fired,

and Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly and Detective Miles Cosgrove were only placed on administrative leave. Folks in Virginia, the Virginia man who threatened to burn down a black church has pled guilty. John Malcolm Bearswill is facing a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. He called New Hope Baptist Church after they held a vigil for George Floyd. He made racially charged remarks and threatened to set the church on fire. He denied to police that he made the call, but records show that he did call the church from his mobile phone. You got to have you got to realize, folks, that's a really dumb ass people.

In another case of progressives taking on establishment political candidates, Memphis activist Markita Bradshaw scored a shocking victory in the Democratic Senate primary in Tennessee on yesterday. Folks, her opponent, James Mackler, was the candidate of choice by Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senate leaders. Now, check this out. Y'all gonna love this one. Bradshaw raised eighty two hundred dollars in the first quarter. Hasn't even filed a second quarter fundraising report with the Federal Elections Commission. Her opponent, my man, raised $2 million.

And of course, she faces an uphill battle, Dr. Carter, there in Tennessee. But with five candidates, she got 35%. She dominated, obviously, in Shelby County, where Memphis is. But it has to say something. This is what she said, though.

Her deal was, don't make this because I'm black. She's also a big-time organizer. And what she said is they organize people in different parts of the state. She came out on top 35%. The guy who Chuck Schumer, who they wanted, a forming Army vet, he came in third. Absolutely. And I think, look, if AOC hasn't shown anybody anything, is that it really matters to beat the pavement. So you can have all the endorsements you want. But at the end of the day, it was about who you can compel to show up. And let's be clear,

Chuck Schumer is from New York. What does he know about Tennessee? And why do the people of Tennessee care? I think it'll be really interesting to see how this general election shakes out, because I was thinking immediately of Harold Ford when he ran in 2006. And I think she'll have an uphill battle because, you know, Tennessee is a red state. They have two Republican senators right now. So it'll be curious. But I think the fact that she was able to upset people, the other candidate, Mackler, who was clearly the favorite going in this race and had out-spent her and certainly out-fundraised her, says something. There's clearly an appetite for something different on the horizon. And I think her environmental justice stuff was interesting not just to black folks, but to whites. And if she's going to win in Tennessee, she's absolutely going to have to win the whiter parts of the state.

Here is a video of Markeita responding to her shocking win. for us to move towards the future and lay racism to bed so we can move into the ingenuity and creativity that we all deserve as Americans working together. My name is Marquita Bradshaw and I am the Democratic nominee. Yay! Right? We did it, girl! We did it, girl. No, we did it.

This was not Marquita by herself. No. With less than $25,000, we beat a million dollar budget because people lent their resources and worked their networks. Grassroot organizing, along with the proper budget, is going to flip this U.S. Senate seat and make history. Look, I know, I know it's a red state, Rob, but if I'm Republicans, I have a problem with somebody spending $8,200 and getting 35% of the vote and beating the dude who raised 2 million. Yep. And now it tells you something too. It too. When people say their vote doesn't matter, this is an example. They say there's too much money in politics.

Some of that is true, but this shows you you can overcome it. She had basically no money to millions of dollars, and she wiped the floor with him. And so we can take our democracy back, and even in these so-called red states, Obama won Indiana, home of the KKK, in 2008. So, like, anything is possible if we're willing to come out, work, organize, and make sure our voices are heard. All right.

Rob and Ianni, we appreciate it. Thanks very much for joining us this week. Thank you. Thank you. All right, folks. Time for this brought to you by AFSCME. I asked me. We can face this pandemic head on. We can do what it takes to protect our families and our communities.

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