The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Tezlyn Figaro Talks 'Push The Line,' Trump & Conservatives, Bernie Sanders, Buying Votes + More

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Tezlyn Figaro To Discuss 'Push The Line,' Trump & Conservatives, Bernie Sanders, Buying Votes. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy Juscelarius, Charlamagne the Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. Lola Rosa is here as well. And we got a special guest in the building. The Hood Whisperer.

Tesla! Yes! Family. I'm not special guest. Breakfast Club family. Tesla Figueroa is here. Good morning, Tess. Good morning, good morning, good morning.

Good morning. How you feeling? I'm feeling good. Congratulations. I saw that youess. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Good morning. How you feeling? I'm feeling good. Congratulations. I saw that you officially got accepted into FAMU Law School. Yes. Congratulations. Can we drop a clue?

Absolutely. Of course. Yes, thank you for saying that. Yes, I'm very excited. FAMU, HBCU, very, very important. My daughter, shout out to my daughter, Jada, she actually got into Preview. Okay. So she'll be going on scholarship and mom will be taking advantage of my empty nest situation and going to law school. I love it.

What made you decide to, because you already got two degrees, right? Yes. What made you want to go get a third? I've always wanted to get my law degree. Even though I've worked with attorney Crump as a senior public policy advisor, as you know, for the last 10 years,

just wasn't able to do it. Having a daughter, running a business, 300 employees in Atlanta, hustling, working. Your first year of law school is really like a hazing. You really have to be able to focus. I've always had to worry about getting money. So I wanna say thank you to you for the Black Effect Podcast Network.

Because without that, knowing that I can at least have some type of income coming in, that's really a lot of why it's made possible. So I'm hoping that your critics could never just say, period. I mean, that's really, really important. You know, it's not like I'm wealthy or, you know, anything like that, but one of the things with law school,

it took me over a decade to finish my bachelor's. I had to stop, start, stop, start, stop, start because of money. You know, do I got to work full-time? Do I have to be a teacher, substitute? All those different things. So to really finish the law school program, you need a job. And how do you do that and still study? So I am part-time because I'm still Chief Political Correspondent at Revolt News and managing editor over there, but now I can kind of breathe and, you know, I got some income coming in, so shout out to Charlotte. Will you actually go to class and school there

or will you do online? In class. I know you always ask about online. Yes, no, I will be in class in Orlando, Florida, going back to Orlando, finishing up some, which is a full circle for me. I had to leave due to healthcare reform and I lost my business.

So no, it's actually Monday through Thursday, and then I'll be going to Atlanta to record on Friday. Tell them students gonna be trying to holler at you now, cause you gonna be in class. Tell them students gonna be trying to holler at you now. Nephew, you think they'll try to. Tell them nephews gonna be trying to holler at you now. What's your other two degrees?

Masters in adult education, and then management. And then right now I'm actually at Sam Houston University online working on my second master's in political science. Straight A's by the way. Political science is a law degree so when you finish all of that, you're just gonna apply it to what you're already doing?

Do you have a new area you wanna venture into? No, I will still always be in civil rights, no doubt about that, but criminal defense. It's very, very important to me. My main thing that I advocate for is the criminalization of black men in particular and black folks. And we need more criminal defense lawyers.

We really, really do. If you look at the case right now with the Carmelo Anthony that's going on in Frisco, Texas. Not the basketball player, the young man in Texas, the track star, yeah. I built my first two houses in Frisco, Texas. 5913 Blazing Star Road, 11410 Promenade Road. So I'm very familiar with Frisco,

very familiar with what he's up against. Shout out to- Do you know the case? I know a little bit about it. I just got briefed on it yesterday. Dominique Alexander, Next Generation Action Network, he's doing the activism. He just gave me an award in January

for called Voice of the People. And so now I'm kinda getting involved within the last 24 hours. But I know that the issues that he's gonna be faced with. And so this is why again, we need criminal defense. What Attorney Crump does is important. We need more civil rights attorneys. But I think I can be a beast at that defense table.

I think so too. Well, we got a lot to talk about, a lot to discuss. Where do you wanna go? I see you got your laptop out. I got my laptop. You know your notes and your points. Well no, I came to talk to you guys about Push the Line. I've talked to you about it many, many times.

My training program, Politics Until Something Happens, it's a non-partisan political training. We did it in 2022, you remember. Had 300 people that came from all over the country in Atlanta, they came from LA, Jersey, Houston, Dallas. I was overwhelmed to see how many people came in. They sat with me for 12 hours in the rain, waiting in the rain at 7 a.m.

And so people have asked, Teslin, bring the program online. And so I finally got it online. It's a five course program. I'm the trainer. I say masters in education, not to stunt, because you know, I'm the hood whisperer, but it's important that you know that

because I actually built the curriculum. And so there's a lot of folks that build courses, but may not know the technicalities of building a curriculum, having objectives and meeting those. So I've built the curriculum myself and so now it's virtually online. I'm happy to go through the, you want me to go through the?

Let's do it. Yeah, sure. So Course One is called We Are Soldiers. And what that is is it's talking about the roles and responsibilities for candidates, campaign workers, organizers, and activists. So this training is even if you are a black conservative, I want you to know, come on in. If you are liberal, if you are progressive,

you are democrat, it's non-partisan, I'm not pushing any agenda, I'm teaching you the basic fundamentals that you need. I've been a candidate myself, I've worked on campaign, state, local, federal, I was the only black person on the ground in 2015 to flip Michigan for Bernie Sanders. I have been an activist, state, local, federal. I was the only black person on the ground in 2015 to flip Michigan for Bernie Sanders. I have been an activist, obviously still am,

and an organizer. So this training really brings all those things together and giving you information that the other trainings won't do. I've probably been to every major training, Congressional Black Caucus Boot Camp, White House Project, Go Run Lead, Yale Law School for Women, they have a training. I have not found one that really breaks it down, one tells you the truth on what

you're really going to have to do to run and so I just decided to create it myself. That first course is critically important. Now you can enroll now teslanfairgold.com. There's course curriculum in there now for you to study. There'll be a live interactive in there now for you to study. There'll be a live interactive class with me on June 14th. If you miss it, it'll still be available for replay, so that's the good thing about it. But a lot of people don't understand roles and responsibilities and the difference between those two.

And I'll just kind of give an example, you and I talk about it all the time, the difference between candidates and activists. One of the reasons why you see a lot of candidates crashing out is because they're trying to be an activist and a candidate and an organizer and all these different things and people don't really know the difference and I blame the candidates for setting them up for that expectation. So to give you an example, we talk about it a lot. An elected official actually serves the constituents. So you'll hear a lot of people online, why is such and such black candidate

talking about immigration? Why are they talking about this? Why are they not talking about black folks? Well, they are, but you gotta understand that candidate in Congress is representing 200,000 people, 150,000 people, and that job literally says to Advocate for your constituents so they have to take care of everybody So that's why people was pissed when they said Oh BP Harris said I'm not gonna only do stuff of black people

I feel it I understand what they meant But what she was basically trying to say is you have to represent everybody which is why I would not be a good candidate It's really important that you know where you fit I wouldn't be a good candidate unless I'm in South Fulton, which is outside of Atlanta, Georgia, 98% black, city commissioner, so I can talk about black issues. But if you're in Congress, you run for president,

you talk about everybody. That's literally a part of their job. And people have to be okay with saying, that's not a good fit for me. An activist, and this is where people get confused, an activist is the one that is pushing the candidate. That is saying, hey, what about me, what about me? So if that's reparations activists,

immigration activists, healthcare activists, your job is to literally put pressure on the elected official. The elected official has to sit around and say, okay, I gotta take care of a little bit of this, this, this, this squeaky oil, what they say, sque bit of this, this, this, this, squeaky oil, what they say, squeaky, oh, what's the, the wheel gets the oil.

Squeaky wheel gets the oil. Right, so your job is to push. However, because candidates, and this is where I criticize them, candidates, elected officials don't work with activists the way that they should because you wanna be at all. You wanna be the candidate, you wanna be the activist, you wanna be the organizer. Are they scared to work with the activists because they think because you wanna be at all. You wanna be the candidate, you wanna be the activist, you wanna be the organizer.

Or they're scared to work with the activists because they think they'll get backlash. Right, or they wanna be on this microphone. You have over 400 people in Congress. How many do you see on the microphone? A handful. So you have your Jasmine Crockett's. You have like-

Nancy Mace. Yeah, but technically, they're the elected official. Technically, they shouldn't have to be on the microphone being the activist, because what happens is, which you see, and we had a big old group chat about this, what happens is, if Jasmine Crockett is talking about all the different things, immigration, I tell people, lay off on being upset with her

talking about immigration. She's in Texas, she must talk about immigration. So you have black people in line, oh being upset with her talking about immigration. She's in Texas She must talk about immigration. So you have black people like why is she talking about immigrate? Because she represents people, you know in Texas. So when you have her having to be the activist Because there's not leadership in the Democrat Party that's loud or there's not activists on the ground that are loud enough or they're not Coordinating with those activists and when I say coordinate I mean give them money so that they can crash out on your behalf then now you have a candidate trying to do it all so what happens when she runs for office when I looked at her Ballotpedia I think it was a hundred something thousand

that voted in a in a general election so when I look at that and I see 50,000 people in the primary that can move you out your seat. That's what happened to Representative Bowman, Jamal Bowman. When you are being the activist and he's talking about Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, and damn they're half of your district is Orthodox Jews, they actually have the power to put you in and put you out. Not the podcast, not the national media. So when you're not coordinating with your activists, say, hey, go run this play, run this offense,

and let me do this and you do that, that's how you see a lot of the issues. And you set up false expectations for the elected official. And then the organizer is very different than the activist. A lot of people think that's the same, it's not the same. Perfect example, Rashida Tlaib in Detroit organized 100,000 people to go to the same. Perfect example. Rashida Tlaib in Detroit organized 100,000 people to go to the polls. So most of the people you see online these podcasts, they're activists. Hey, hey,

reparation now, reparation now, that's important. You know, healthcare now, healthcare now. But organizing is actually getting people in the room like we did at the town hall a couple of weeks ago. I had in Atlanta 150 people standing outside in the rain. That's organizing. Screaming and yelling is one thing, but getting 100,000 people to go to the polls, to say we are voting, no commitment, that is actually organizing, which is why Tamika always says I'm an organizer first.

So when you understand these roles and responsibilities, now you can know your role, which is push the line. My logo has a person pushing the P, the U, the S, the H. Everybody at this table has a role. If you know your role and then we know how to work together, now we can move forward on an agenda. I have a question. With politics today though, when I look at Trump, I feel like he doesn't stay within any lines of any of the things that you just said. Do you feel like it's changed now because he's changed the way that politicians move and what they say and what they

stand for. Like he pushes whatever he wants to push and he's successful at it. So how do you kind of counter what he's doing and kind of make it where the people that you're raising up on either side are just as strong voice-wise is what we see him do. Yeah it's not about really countering it. See one of the one of the modules that I have is it's's Not About We, It's About Me. If you are already strategizing to be against somebody and not doing your role, like you always say, just stay consistent. Don't compete with anybody. Do your role. Push the line is not about trying to focus on Trump or focus on what Republican parties are doing because Trump never focused on

you. He never focused on the Democrat party. So when people set that up to say, I know it felt good when they say, Oh, rockle bomb, he's everybody's president. Actually, you're really the president of the people that vote you in. Yeah. I know people don't want to hear that, but it's really catering to who votes you. Who puts you in? That's just like my household. I'm catering to my man.

I'm not catering to what your man say or what somebody else may say. So Trump has done, and they hate it when I say this, because they say, he didn't do a good job, he's a liar. No, I'm not saying I like it, I'm telling you how it is. It's a difference between how it is and how you want it to be. He is only talking to his base. Even though he know good and damn well,

he cannot dismantle the Department of Education, because Congress is gonna have to do it. He don't give a damn about that. He signed an executive order saying, let's dismantle the Department of Education because Congress is gonna have to do it. He don't give a damn about that. He signed an executive order saying, let's dismantle it. We beg for those things. You remember Charlemagne, like, why don't y'all just do an executive order for the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act?

But everybody's so smart in the Democrat Party. That's not how it works. You gotta go through Congress. People wanna know you at least fighting. You at least in the ring. You willing to sock somebody in the eye. You willing to take, you willing to fight for my love You know when they say every night I gotta fight for my love

I think it's a combination of both though because Donald Trump did You know he did call him the woke laugh and he did say that the Democrats are the enemy from within But he didn't just run a campaign of Democrats are bad Democrats are bad Democrats are bad He actually said these are the things I want to do for my constituents as well. I think Democrats just run a whole Trump is bad campaign but they don't ever tell the constituents exactly what it is they wanna do for them.

Right, and they also don't teach constituents how to do it. They're terrible with training, which is why I started this training program. Also, Trump is an organizer and an activist and a candidate and a marketer and an entertainer. He makes everything a spectacle. He makes everything a big deal. He always knows how to play to the camera. All of the things that the Democrats feel they lack too good to do. And so I'm just going to tell you like straight up, oh no, don't do that.

That's not president. He doesn't give a damn. And so when you, he's been campaigning for the last eight years. Yeah. He's campaigning now. We said that he's literally campaigning when you have a rally every month, every other month, that's actually organizing, getting people in the room. They pop out crazy. They pop out crazy. So he's been doing it the whole time.

You, it's hard to catch up with that. It's hard to catch up when you've been talking. It's not a matter of how many people you have. Conservatives are the majority, minority in this country. So it's not about who's the biggest. It's about who's the strongest. That's why I like to use LA gangbanger for those who grew up in the 90s. Bloods were always the smallest, but they also were the most powerful. How did Englewood survive with Crips all around it? Why? Because they knew how to push the line, which, by the way, that's what Bloods say, push the line, Crips say, press the line.

So when you're able to take a small group, organized, consistent, message, message, message, conservatives have the best, and again, don't come for me in the comments, well, I don't give a damn if y'all come for me in the comments or not. They have the digital discipline that you do not have on the left. You do not have that on the left.

Conservatives listen to podcasts, or they listen to AM Talk Radio, we talked about this before, all the way into work, an hour commute. Messaging, messaging, messaging. They go in their job, they listen to a podcast. 70% of podcast listeners are white, which is why we're doing that black effect,

it's so important. So then they at work, messaging, messaging, messaging, bad, bad, bad, enemy, enemy, enemy, enemy. Then they go home and they watch Fox News. Then they get in the comments. I try to teach people how to be the comment caucus. I talk about that too. They stay on it, like we stay on it with Shade Room,

they stay on it, nonstop. Look at the Shade Room. They stay on it nonstop. Look at the interview that I did here with Vivian Ramisami is a perfect example. Then people still commenting on that. I upset them so much. They are still commenting on that. Do you know, I don't know if you knew this, Joe Biden, you will say that's probably one of the most popular interviews that you had, the You Ain't Black. Go look at the comments under YouTube. Under YouTube, we, I think the last time I checked, it might have been 20,000 something comments. Under the Vivick Ramasamy interview,

the last time I checked, 50,000 comments. And Joe Biden had millions of views. We only hit a couple of hundred thousand. But look at the engagement. Them people was on my ass every day. Angry, masculine, da da da da. They made 150 videos about me. They, shout out to y'all though, they know how to message over and over and over, even

if it's wrong. And so you don't see that on the left. And so I don't give them is left or right. I want to see it more in our communities. Know how to message, same way y'all follow gossip, same way y'all followed it. If we have that same type of organizing, which by the way is course two called Ambition of a Rider, it's talking about community coalition building,

how to be the common caucus, how to make sure you click and like, how to get the engagement. You have to be very strategic in this. And if you're not, we don't get anywhere. So how do you press? I agree with that, I also think that that's why when somebody,

when you see somebody scoring points, you just gotta keep feeding them the ball. Republicans did that with that. I also think that that's why when somebody, when you see somebody scoring points, you just got to keep feeding them the ball. Republicans did that with Trump. Once they saw that Trump is the guy that the media gravitates towards and this is who people are listening to, that's the guy. And I think Democrats don't do enough of that. If it's AOC, give her the ball. If it's Jasmine Crockett, give her the ball. If it's Bernie Sanders, give him the ball. Those are the people that folks are gravitating towards right now. He just had a rally in LA, I think, with like 30-something thousand people. That's what I'm saying. If that's the people folks are gravitating towards, that's who needs to be getting the

ball right now. My criticism, well, not criticism, my pushback with that, what Bernie Sanders is, because working on this campaign 2015, they did great getting people to the rally, but you couldn't get them to the polls. So it's great to stand up there and say, hey y'all, this is bullshit. But if you're not giving people the tools, which again, this is why this training is so important.

If you're just saying get involved in your community, a lot of people literally don't know how. They literally need a step-by-step guide. Democrats should be running a play, you should see commercials, just as much as they ran y'all commercials every 15 minutes, it should be who wanna run, who wanna run, who wanna run, who wanna work on the, who want to work on the campaign,

who want to work on the campaign. Constant. Y'all raise $100 million in 90 days. Where's $100 million to actually train people? Just so we clear, nothing is back, people pay for the course, but nothing is backing me. It's not a Republican, it's not a Democrat, it's not any of that. Why are they not using that money to train you how to run for local office?

You have midterms next year. Then you need to train people how to actually work on the campaign. There's a lack of infrastructure. One of the reasons Rashida Tlaib was seven, four, five, six black people that ran against Rashida Tlaib in Detroit. They had to hire a friend of mine from Kansas City to run the campaign because of the lack of infrastructure of knowing how to run a campaign, how to be a volunteer coordinator, how to be a campaign manager, how to be a comms director. So they don't build up the infrastructure,

which means you don't have a bench. It's not just getting a good candidate. You also need your organizers, you need your campaign workers. And that's where my criticism is of Bernie Sanders and anybody that's doing a rally. You're not training these people. You're getting them upset, but for what?

I was gonna ask you, you know, a lot of times Democrats get butthurt a lot when you push back on a lot of the things that they say. Why do you think that is? It almost feels like they are upset when we question the things that we should be able to question. Well, there's a lot of ego in politics,

which is one of the things, again, that we teach, that I teach you the thing to remove your ego out the way, meaning not about me, not about what is about me. They know it all. I'm just gonna be straight up honest with you. They know it all. They know it all, but seem to not know

how to win consistently. You have people who are highly educated in what they do. Again, I'm not anti-education. I love degrees. The more the better. But they just refuse, many of them not all, but refuse to really connect to the concrete. I go by concrete roots, not mud,

because mud is too soft for me. I got this shit out of concrete. Not a manager, not agent, not my family was in this, not somebody put me on. So they can't have those conversations and they don't know how to get the play, get a ball to the people that can have a conversation. But you know why?

Cause they wanna be on microphone, it's just like a rapper. Like they have to be the one on the microphone and say, you know what? Such and such know how to talk to this group. Let me give them the play. Yeah, I don't wanna see Hakeem Jeffries. I wanna see AOC, I wanna see Jasmine. I wanna see those people.

That's really the problem. But then there's also people that they can't want to see Hakeem Jeffries. Yeah. I don't want to see AOC. I want to see Jasmine. I want to see those people. That's, that's really the problem. But then there's also people that they can't connect to as well. Why are you not connecting to the streets in California? Well, Governor Newsom, who to me don't have a shot in hell on the national level, but still very good with pushing this message. I know some homies right now in LA that would organize right now, who's never voted, who's never voted, who's never because of what he did with the gang enhancement, what he's done with healthcare.

You hear a lot of bad about California, but healthcare. What do you call the streets though? I mean, Bernie and AOC did just have 36,000 people in LA. Well, they still not, there's still a demographic, people that are not involved at all, people that don't give a damn about none of this. Bernie Sanders demographic, and I'm just going to be honest, the progressive demographic, the Rainbow Coalition, is white liberals, pretty much, white progressives. There's still a lack of talking to those

that have completely given up, completely disenfranchised. Obviously, and also with Coachella, the average ticket was seven, $800. Well, no, that wasn't Coachella. Bernie came out of Coachella, but they had a whole other event. He did Coachella, though, too, though. Yeah, he came out to Coachella, but they had a whole other event. He did Coachella, too, though. Yeah, he came out of Coachella, but they had a whole other event.

Working on that campaign, I'm just going to be straight up with you. I'm very clear about my position with Bernie Sanders. He is talking to a very progressive, white-ran movement to me. And even if you're Hispanic, it's still white-adjacent. It's still, let's just, as long as we get everybody who make money out the way As long as everybody make $15 an hour all will be well. He struggles with dealing with race I'm saying it as his former racial justice director also

Everybody ain't mad at rich people Charlemagne Like some people really trying to get the bag. So those conversing I know what they mean with the elite the top Yeah, I think I think I with the elite, the top. Yeah, I think the fighting oligarchy tour is a good message, but I think it's a, well, it's not a hypocritical message from Bernie Sanders and AOC, but from majority of the Democratic Party is a hypocritical message because they all taking money from the billionaires

and the corporate lobbyists. Well, who don't know what the oligarchy is? How do you say it? Fighting oligarchy. They don't know what the hell you're talking about. I mean, they don't. You know, when the people talking about neoliberal, they don't know what you're talking about. I mean, they don't. You know what I mean? People are talking about neoliberal, they don't know what you're talking about.

So there's different messages that people need to have to engage. And I think the Democrat Party 10 is too big. It's too big. Oh, I agree with that. It needs to be broken down. Everybody's not gonna relate to Bernie Sanders. Everybody's not gonna relate to AOC.

Everybody's not gonna relate to Jasmine Crockett. Everybody's not gonna relate to me. So that's why everybody should be doing a lot. Like Killer Mike said, if everybody does a little, nobody gotta do a lot. That's right. And again, local, state. We gotta stop this fascination with federal. We really, really do.

All of your powers is your city commissioner, your mayor. They are managing billion dollar budgets. Look at Atlanta, the black mecca. The mayor get to decide who gonna get this grant, who's gonna get this funding, how do we keep this program going, how do we keep the after school program going? Okay, if y'all don't wanna do it, we gonna figure it out.

It's the local. I think it's cause the local government, even though when you get old enough to understand that, the local government is not like, the glitz and the glamour isn't there. Right, they want the sexiness. I feel like when Kiesha Lance Bottoms was mayor in Atlanta, the bottom was mayor in Atlanta,

she did a good job of like, you knew who she was even if you didn't live in Atlanta. Like you cared about what she was doing even if you didn't live there, like she was a talking point, but a lot of local government people don't do that. Like you don't just- Well, they don't need to do it. It's called actually serving your constituents.

See, so again, this is where I go back to, these politicians, I appreciate what they're doing. Don't get me wrong, because we need the voices because you don't see it damn sure not coming from the Democrat party. But Keisha needs to be worrying about Keisha's constituents. All of this, I'm trying to be a national spokesperson and all of that. That's how you get, you end up crashing out. That's how you get out of office.

Your constituents seeing you at the grocery store. They're seeing you at church. They don't care about you trying to be no voice for everybody else. They're concerned with are you taking care of these a hundred thousand people in your district or two hundred thousand people in your district. It's not about you can't get Keisha in and you can't get her out. You have zero power. So so she can get on these podcast mics if they want to. But at the end of the day they don't vote for you. So either you want to be an elected official mics if they want to, but at the end of the day, they don't vote for you. So either you wanna be an elected official

or do you wanna be a podcaster? I agree, but I think sometimes it's not your fault. Like in Keisha's case, I don't think it was her fault. She just happened to be a black woman who was the mayor of Atlanta, so like all the rappers were talking about her. And the pandemic was happening. What was the slogan?

Atlanta got a man named Keisha. Like it was a thing. Yeah, I'm not blaming her. Yeah, I'm definitely not blaming her. I'm just, I'm using that name for any local politician. I just pointed to her because she's the only person, I just think about it like locally in Delaware, like you would know because like you said,

you see them, you hear them, but outside of, whether it's Delaware, Philly, wherever, you don't just know of these people and I think a lot of it is because even if they're not at the microphones, I don't know, it's just local level is not glamorized. Right, but sometimes it's scandal, like Marion Barry. Like you didn't, you know. But guess what? They could never get them out. I encourage people to go watch the

10 lies, the nine lies of Marion Barry. Scandal or not, they could not get them out. You know why they couldn't get them out? My dad was a real Marion Barry. Cause he was doing the work. Yeah. He was doing the work. When you do the work, like shout out to Eric Mays, my friend, rest in peace. Shout out to y'all seen Eric Mays. I be cussing at people Shout out to y'all seeing Eric Mays. When you're doing the work, people will know about you, but you cannot get Eric Mays out of office for nothing because he took care of his district.

This is a district conversation. Even Congress is still a district, it's still a local conversation. So when you get out on these microphones, and you're, because I've seen it happen in real time, and you're trying to please all of these different constituents that can't vote for you, because I want to say what they want me to say. I want to say what they want me to say.

Okay, the people that's actually voting for you are the ones that make the decision. So you don't hear about it, Lauren, because they're doing their job. But those candidates should also stop trying to be seen all the time, which I think is important. I'm not disin? No, cause they don't have a choice.

The Jasmine's and all that don't have a choice cause they ain't nobody else stepping up. So this is not shitting on her. I'm saying that I wish they would work more with activists and fund those activists because they're crashing out. Literally, they can't get jobs. They can't go transition anywhere. Fund those activists to run that play for you so

that you can actually be in office to vote. Cori Bush, Jamal Bowman, they're no longer in Congress. They can't vote for nothing because when they were pushing those issues, which is important, but the district said otherwise. So you got the money to say, yeah, push, push, push, push, push. But your district said, no, we're going to do something different. So now you don't even have an ally that can actually vote to make a difference. And so that's what I mean. What do you say to people that they always feel like

it's a money play, like both sides of money play, right? They look at Democrats and they see, for instance, Eric Adams, who was the mayor of New York City, who a lot of people voted for him because he was Democrat. Then you see him buddy, buddy with Trump and then Trump partnered him. Or you see Kamala Harris giving

a lot of these organizations money, whether it was Al Sharpton or Roland Martin, and then they do interviews with him. And of course, if people feel like, if you give me money, I have to be partial to you. So how do you feel when people look at those things? Okay, well one, course four is stand on business. It talks about legal compliance

and how to really work with that money so you don't go to jail. So that's one of the courses. That's why I love you, that's one of the courses. Of course three, and this is all in one course, thinking of a master plan also talks about that roadmap on literally how you navigate that. So I teach that.

Because if you give me money and I interview you, can I be partial or am I just going to be on your side the whole time because I know I got a check coming? Well let's just be real. I mean the people that you're talking about that you named, they're staunch Democrats. So whether it's a check or not a check, Al Sharpton's going to- But we still going to push back. These same people have been up here.

We haven't been paid for nothing, but we ask questions on both sides. We ask for the people. We don't ask to be your friend. Where is the money by the way? They always talk about we getting paid. We're the guy, we're the money to be a friend. Well again, Where is the money by the way? Yeah, well, I wanna know where's that money. We always talk about we getting paid. Where the guy, where the money? We ain't get no dollar.

I ain't get a dollar. My dumb ass out here for no reason. Where the money? Right, right, right. Well, Don't say that. You're dealing with somebody that ain't got it. No, but it ain't just for the people.

It's different, it's different. But no, but it ain't just for the people. Like let's go on and really talk about this. It is. Let's have a conversation. It's for the people, but the people need, they gotta have, you gotta have money to run any damn thing.

So at the end of the day, how, if money's not being spent to organize on the ground, if you're not buying ads from Black Effect, if you're not buying ads. They did advertise on Black Effect. So it is a money play, America's money. This is a capitalist society. I know the progressive wanna tell y'all something different,

but it's about money. And you should be buying votes, yes. They should be going down. If I had $100 million, every Little League program, every uniform that need to get bought in the hood, I'd be buying it. Those are the things that you need to do in order so people can see something tangible,

so they can say, you know what? They did do something in my community. So again, Lauren, this is why the local and state is important. Your city commissioner can go do that. They can did do something in my community. So again, this is why the local and state is important. Your city commissioner can go do that. They can go do that in Orlando. Black Business Investment Fund, here go $150,000, start your business.

You can't get out that commission, they're gonna ride for that commission. So it is a money play, Embi, but a lot of the people have been getting the same money over and over and over, and guess what happened? They found out that they don't have the motion that they used to. So now, a lot of the same folks, and I'm not shitting, I'm just telling you what it is,

now they're having a partner with people they never thought about partnering before because you don't went up there and told them people that you have emotion. And the results in the last election showed you really don't have emotions no more. The street don't believe you anymore. You're talking to the same people over and over and over.

This is no disrespect, but if the Urban League is hosting an event with none but Urban League people in the audience, those people are already voting. You're not talking to the people who are not voting. You have to bring in new people. That's how we win elections in Orlando. Commissioner Regina Hill arrested 21 times, ran against a 21-year incumbent. It was just three of us on the campaign. We went and got three, 4,000 people that never thought about being in the process and snuck them in and put them in the game. That's how you win.

They don't wanna do that in because they don't wanna spend the money. They think they know every damn thing. They want their contracts. I'm keeping real. They want their contracts. They want access. Most of the people that are still grieving right now

over the loss that are still going through those five stages of grief are pissed because they don't have access to the White House. By default, they care about the people. I'm not saying they don't care about the people. I'm not saying they're not doing it for the right reasons, but a lot of this is, I need to be able to say I'm at the White House. Yeah, it's ego.

Yeah. What's that, what else? What's the other one? Okay, so the fourth one is stand on business. We talked about that. The fifth one is show me my opponent. That's where your opponent, you really know who your opponent is

because even if you might think it's just the candidate, you might think it's just the other campaign team, but even as an activist and an organizer, you have an opponent. You need to know what you're fighting against, what you're standing for, how they're gonna try to put you out the game, the crash out, all of those different things.

All five of these courses are cumulative. You can sign up for each one, you know, individually if you want. It's only 50 bucks. That's two hours with me, live course, in addition to course materials that are already there right now for you to study and quiz. So you just think about 25 bucks an hour to two-hour class, $1,500 value by the way. So you can take each course individually, but I recommend people take all five because they all work together. I layer it like we did in this conversation so that it just kind of makes sense.

And this is for people who want to actually run in their own local election. No, it's for if you think you wanna run, if you wanna run, if you already running, because more than likely if you're running, you're doing 50 different jobs, if you run on local. It's also for campaign workers, if you wanna work on a campaign,

if you wanna be a campaign manager, a volunteer coordinator, it's also for organizers that say, you know what, I wanna push an initiative. I wanna get an initiative on the ballot to say we want local reparations. And then it's also for activists. People who say, I don't wanna do any of those things, but I just wanna be online and I wanna create some noise.

So it's all five, I'm addressing all five, all at the same time because the fundamentals are the same. So you'll get your individual, and right now you'll see on the course, you'll get your individual materials, but I'm weaving it together so that it all makes sense. So if you don't know what the hell you wanna do, and you like, I'm just gonna come to the first one

for roles and responsibilities just to get an idea because I wanna do something, then this is the course for you. Well, Tez, we appreciate you joining us. Tezlin Figaro. How can they get information on the course? Tezlinfigaro.com, T-E-Z-L-Y-N-F-I-G-A-R-O. Soon as you go to the website, the course pops up.

You got a Southwest flight to catch? I got a Southwest. Y'all going to stop talking about Southwest. Shut up, it's a Southwest. What time the flight leave? It leaves at 3 o'clock. Shout out to Sam Witton. You see we got new plugs?

No, I ain't never been one of them. I posted yesterday. I posted yesterday. Oh, I did see that in your story. OK, OK. I thought that was AI. I thought that was AI. Shout out to Sam Witton.

And shout out to one of your biggest followers, Lovey. I'm sure Lovey's excited. Oh, my god. Yes, he is so supportive. Oh, he'll love that you shouted about. He's so supportive. He really, really is. And subscribe to the Straight Shot No Chase podcast.

There you go. On the Black Friday. Congratulations, Lauren. Thank you. Thank you. On your podcast, and congratulations on everything you guys are doing. They called me Judy Winslow, because I left and I never said goodbye to the people in the audience that supported me on FrontPage News.

Because it wasn't a goodbye. Yeah, but they was used to seeing me. It wasn't a goodbye. But I do want to say that. Shout out to everybody that supported me on Front Page News. We're still family, we're still here, wasn't no drama, people waiting on tea, wasn't no tea, wasn't no drama, wasn't no anything.

I'm doing great things, but I love you guys, and I just wanted to say, give everybody a proper goodbye. There you go, it's Teslan Figaro, it's The Breakfast Club, good morning. Peace. Wake that ass up. In the morning. The Breakfast Club.