# Roger Fortson Killing: Deputy Testifies. Byron Donalds Faces FAMU Crowd. Hinojosa Takes On Abbott

An episode of [#RolandMartinUnfiltered](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1434424449), 1 Oct 2026, 2 h 16 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/ec5a50b3-3ea1-4b6e-b91b-ae2e00387281/574ada1a-ed8e-4b70-827c-b4d90189c350/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=9fce13f2-0092-4f32-888b-ae2e0038728f

9.30.2026 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Roger Fortson Killing: Deputy Testifies. Byron Donalds Faces FAMU Crowd. Hinojosa Takes On Abbott A Florida jury heard from the Former Okaloosa County, Florida deputy who killed a Black Airman. We'll show you what he said happened the day he killed Roger Fortson in May 2024. You'll see how Republican nominee for Florida governor, Congressman Byron Donald, handled the tough crowd of Florida A&M University students at a town hall. Texas State Representative Gina Hinajosa will lay out her plans to become the state's first Latina Governor and Democrat to win a statewide office since the mid-nineties. The Houston Chronicle editorial board endorsed the candidate they think will be the best next Harris County, Texas, judge. We'll explain why the paper is supporter Democratic candidate Letitia Plummer instead of Republican Orlando Sanchez. Black Star Network Partner: Chapter Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. ____ Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:22] Speaker 1: Hey, folks, today is Wednesday, September 30th, 2026. Coming up
[0:27] Speaker 1: on Rollerback Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network.
[0:30] Speaker 1: A Florida jury heard from the former sheriff in a
[0:34] Speaker 1: Florida county.
[0:35] Speaker 2: Of a deputy who killed a black airman.
[0:37] Speaker 1: We'll show you what he said happened the day he
[0:39] Speaker 1: killed Roger Forsen in May 2024. Also, Congressman Byron Donalds
[0:45] Speaker 1: held a town hall at Florida A & M University
[0:47] Speaker 1: and manned Did it get a little rough for him?
[0:50] Speaker 1: If you want to see how Republicans don't give a
[0:53] Speaker 1: damn about highly unethical, racist individuals.
[0:57] Speaker 2: Wait till we show you what.
[1:00] Speaker 1: The Republican running for county commission in Harris County.
[1:04] Speaker 2: Where Houston is.
[1:05] Speaker 1: What he said to the Houston Chronicle editorial board about
[1:08] Speaker 1: a racist running for statewide office who other Republicans have chastised.
[1:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, this is going to be crazy, folks.
[1:15] Speaker 1: It looks like a suspected child rapist will be Louisiana's
[1:19] Speaker 1: newest police chief.
[1:20] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:21] Speaker 2: Trump administration is cutting access.
[1:23] Speaker 1: To student loans for degrees that have low earning potential,
[1:26] Speaker 1: including social work. We'll talk to an expert about this
[1:29] Speaker 1: very issue. Detroit's first black-led grocery cooperative is raising money,
[1:33] Speaker 1: recruiting members, and making operational changes as it confronts cash
[1:37] Speaker 1: flow problems and rising costs. Also, what does it mean
[1:42] Speaker 1: to vote black, which also means vote blue?
[1:48] Speaker 2: I'll unpack that.
[1:49] Speaker 1: It's time to bring the funk on Rolling Rock Unfiltered
[1:51] Speaker 1: on the Black Sun Network.
[1:52] Speaker 4: Let's go.
[1:55] Speaker 5: Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's
[1:58] Speaker 5: got the scoop, the fact, the fine.
[2:01] Speaker 2: And when it breaks, he's right on time.
[2:03] Speaker 6: And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing.
[2:06] Speaker 7: Putting it down from sports to news to politics.
[2:10] Speaker 6: With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling.
[2:16] Speaker 2: It's Uncle Roro, y'all.
[2:20] Speaker 8: It's Roland Martin, yeah.
[2:25] Speaker 9: Rolling with Roland now.
[2:29] Speaker 5: He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know
[2:32] Speaker 5: he's Roland Martin now.
[2:45] Speaker 1: A former Florida County deputy sheriff, Eddie Duran, who killed
[2:50] Speaker 1: 23-year-old senior airman Roger Forston inside of his apartment, he
[2:54] Speaker 1: is on trial in Florida.
[2:57] Speaker 2: And Duran is testifying.
[2:59] Speaker 1: He told the jury what happened when he arrived at
[3:02] Speaker 1: Forston's door on that fateful day.
[3:04] Speaker 10: Watch.
[3:10] Speaker 11: The next action, I believe, is a knock on the door.
[3:13] Speaker 11: But you did not identify yourself in the first knock
[3:16] Speaker 11: on the door.
[3:17] Speaker 12: Yes, sir.
[3:17] Speaker 11: Would you explain to the jury why you did not
[3:20] Speaker 11: knock and announce on the first knock?
[3:23] Speaker 8: Yes, sir.
[3:24] Speaker 10: So a common law enforcement tactic that we'll do or
[3:27] Speaker 10: that law enforcement does is we'll knock on the door
[3:30] Speaker 10: essentially like it would be any other sort of knock.
[3:33] Speaker 10: And what that does, it'll kind of gauge a situation.
[3:36] Speaker 10: Is this a high-tent situation? Okay, well, if I knock
[3:39] Speaker 10: on the door initially and say police, then is it
[3:41] Speaker 10: going to ramp up? If I knock on the door
[3:43] Speaker 10: and I hear, you know, or the door starts to open, okay, well,
[3:46] Speaker 10: then I can have a discussion with somebody. So really
[3:49] Speaker 10: it's just a tool and a tactic that law enforcement
[3:51] Speaker 10: do just to kind of engage or just to gauge
[3:54] Speaker 10: an entire situation in itself.
[3:55] Speaker 11: And have you used that same tactic in the past?
[3:59] Speaker 10: I've used that tactic throughout my entire career, sir.
[4:01] Speaker 11: And have you had times when people responded to the
[4:03] Speaker 11: first knock?
[4:04] Speaker 10: Yes, sir.
[4:05] Speaker 11: And most of those were without tension?
[4:09] Speaker 10: Yes, sir.
[4:11] Speaker 11: But you didn't get a response this time?
[4:13] Speaker 4: No, sir.
[4:14] Speaker 11: But after the first knock, did you hear anything coming
[4:18] Speaker 11: from the inside of the apartment, 1401? Yes, sir. Would
[4:24] Speaker 11: you tell the jury what you heard?
[4:27] Speaker 10: So the voice that came through when I heard it
[4:30] Speaker 10: was a male voice with the words, fuck and police.
[4:36] Speaker 10: I can't explain it any clearer than that. It was
[4:38] Speaker 10: fuck and then police.
[4:40] Speaker 11: And based on that, did that in any way give
[4:45] Speaker 11: you concern?
[4:46] Speaker 12: It did.
[4:47] Speaker 10: It gave me the idea that the individual in the
[4:50] Speaker 10: home possibly knew I was there, or it was possibly
[4:53] Speaker 10: that knocking on the door, maybe it was beginning to escalate.
[4:57] Speaker 4: Again, so this is where I'm going to knock again.
[5:02] Speaker 11: After hearing that information, did you knock a second time?
[5:05] Speaker 10: Yes, sir.
[5:06] Speaker 11: And when you knocked the second time, did you identify
[5:09] Speaker 11: yourself your employer, and demand that the door be opened.
[5:15] Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
[5:15] Speaker 10: I clearly and loudly said, Sheriff's Office, open the door.
[5:21] Speaker 11: And did someone respond on the second knock?
[5:23] Speaker 9: No, sir.
[5:24] Speaker 11: On the third knock, did you again make a third knock?
[5:32] Speaker 12: Yes, sir.
[5:33] Speaker 10: On the third knock, I again announced loudly and very clearly,
[5:37] Speaker 10: Sheriff's Office, open the door.
[5:40] Speaker 2: And.
[5:41] Speaker 11: Within what period of time was it till that door opened?
[5:45] Speaker 4: I would say no more than a second.
[5:49] Speaker 11: When the door opens, tell the jury what you see initially.
[5:57] Speaker 10: So as soon as the door opens, after the third knock,
[6:02] Speaker 10: I had moved over to the doorknob side where the
[6:04] Speaker 10: door opens away and standing in a bladed position.
[6:10] Speaker 11: Explain to the jury, would you say the bladed position,
[6:12] Speaker 11: what do you mean?
[6:13] Speaker 4: So if the doorway.
[6:15] Speaker 10: Is here or whichever direction, my body's going to be
[6:19] Speaker 10: turned and my head is looking at the doorway. It's
[6:22] Speaker 10: a common tactic that military and police use called pie
[6:24] Speaker 10: in the corner. It gives a good view of what's coming.
[6:30] Speaker 10: And so as soon as the door opens and my
[6:31] Speaker 10: body is bladed and I'm looking, again, my body cam
[6:33] Speaker 10: is here facing this direction because it's on my right
[6:37] Speaker 10: breast pocket. The door opens, and I see an individual, again, eyes, waist,
[6:46] Speaker 10: and hand.
[6:47] Speaker 11: Is this a person with whom you had ever had
[6:49] Speaker 11: an encounter in your law enforcement career?
[6:51] Speaker 4: No, sir.
[6:52] Speaker 11: You didn't know who it was?
[6:54] Speaker 4: No, sir.
[6:55] Speaker 11: Anything about them?
[6:57] Speaker 4: No, sir.
[6:58] Speaker 11: When you observed, is there a, if you will, kind
[7:03] Speaker 11: of a way that you go down a list of
[7:04] Speaker 11: how you're supposed to immediately assess the threat of some person?
[7:08] Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
[7:08] Speaker 10: So again, common practice and training and everything within law enforcement.
[7:13] Speaker 10: First thing you do is you look at someone's eyes.
[7:15] Speaker 10: Eyes will tell you a lot about intent. The eyes
[7:18] Speaker 10: will tell you a lot about what's going on. You
[7:20] Speaker 10: see it on their faces. And then, of course, you're
[7:22] Speaker 10: looking at the waistband. The waistband, if there's a weapon
[7:26] Speaker 10: on the waistband, if it's in a holster, if there's
[7:28] Speaker 10: a knife there. And again, you're looking at the hands.
[7:30] Speaker 10: Hands will tell you what's going on. Or hands will
[7:32] Speaker 10: tell you aggressive. Or if there's something in their hands
[7:35] Speaker 10: that could be used as a weapon. And all this happens...
[7:38] Speaker 10: within a fraction of a second to assess everything that's
[7:43] Speaker 10: going on.
[7:45] Speaker 11: And at the time that door opens, where is your gun?
[7:50] Speaker 4: My gun is.
[7:51] Speaker 10: Locked in the holster with all of the mechanisms engaged.
[7:58] Speaker 11: What did you see and how did you see it?
[8:04] Speaker 10: So when the door opens, again, I see the individual.
[8:10] Speaker 10: And when I see the eyes, I see the waist.
[8:14] Speaker 10: And the first, the last thing that I see is
[8:20] Speaker 10: a black pistol in the hand. His arm was slightly
[8:23] Speaker 10: canted upwards in my direction.
[8:27] Speaker 11: His eyes, what did his eyes appear to you?
[8:30] Speaker 10: Looking at his eyes, it was clear to me that
[8:32] Speaker 10: I wasn't welcomed. I wasn't a welcome presence. He seemed aggressive, frustrated.
[8:39] Speaker 10: And again, just, I'm not welcome.
[8:43] Speaker 11: Prior to that day, had you ever had anybody open
[8:45] Speaker 11: their door and step forward with a gun?
[8:48] Speaker 12: No, sir.
[8:50] Speaker 11: What did you do and why did you do it?
[8:54] Speaker 10: So seeing the gun in an upward position, uh, facing
[8:59] Speaker 10: me after announcing, I, uh, immediately reverted back to what
[9:07] Speaker 10: I've been trained over my entire career, which was react.
[9:11] Speaker 10: And my reaction was to draw and shoot.
[9:18] Speaker 11: And what were you feeling at the time you drew
[9:20] Speaker 11: that gun?
[9:26] Speaker 8: I thought I was dead.
[9:28] Speaker 10: As soon as the door opened and I saw it,
[9:31] Speaker 10: I immediately thought, I'm dead.
[9:34] Speaker 8: This is it.
[9:36] Speaker 11: At the time you made the decision to fire, to
[9:40] Speaker 11: draw your gun and fire, was that as a result
[9:42] Speaker 11: of his face, his gun, and the aggressive look on
[9:46] Speaker 11: his face?
[9:47] Speaker 8: Sustained.
[9:48] Speaker 11: What did you rely upon?
[9:51] Speaker 4: The decision to shoot.
[9:54] Speaker 10: Only came from the door opening, the firearm being up,
[10:00] Speaker 10: in my direction, and the 100% belief.
[10:04] Speaker 4: That I was about to be shot.
[10:08] Speaker 10: OK.
[10:08] Speaker 2: All right.
[10:10] Speaker 1: Initially, the most of that, what you heard there was
[10:13] Speaker 1: Duran being questioned by his defense attorney, Rod Smith. At
[10:16] Speaker 1: the end, there was the prosecution. The prosecution's already arrested
[10:19] Speaker 1: their case. The defense now is putting on their case. Now,
[10:23] Speaker 1: this is the actual video. So you heard Eddie Duran
[10:26] Speaker 1: describing what took place. We're going to play you audio
[10:29] Speaker 1: up of the moment Eddie Duran knocks on Airman Forston's door.
[11:24] Speaker 6: Sheriff's office, open the door!
[11:34] Speaker 13: Sheriff's office, open the door!
[11:43] Speaker 6: Step out. Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
[11:47] Speaker 8: Drop the gun! 312, shots fired.
[11:50] Speaker 12: Suspect down.
[11:53] Speaker 6: Do not move!
[11:58] Speaker 1: I want y'all now to roll that video back, and
[12:02] Speaker 1: I want you to roll the video back to when
[12:04] Speaker 1: the door opens. And then when it's ready, then I
[12:10] Speaker 1: want you to actually start the video. So when the
[12:14] Speaker 1: door opens.
[12:19] Speaker 12: Step out.
[12:24] Speaker 6: Drop the gun. Drop the gun.
[12:27] Speaker 11: Drop the gun.
[12:30] Speaker 8: 312 shots fired. Suspect.
[12:42] Speaker 12: Drop the gun.
[12:49] Speaker 6: Drop the gun. Drop the gun.
[12:54] Speaker 1: Now, you heard what he said. Forreston had his left
[12:59] Speaker 1: hand up, palms showing. He gestures towards the deputy when
[13:04] Speaker 1: he opens the door. The problem is the video has
[13:07] Speaker 1: Forreston's face blurred. So the problem is you can't actually
[13:12] Speaker 1: see the movements there. And also you see right there
[13:17] Speaker 1: where Duran is actually facing down the hallway. He's facing
[13:24] Speaker 1: down the hallway. And so now play the video again.
[13:28] Speaker 1: I want you to get ready to pause it. OK,
[13:30] Speaker 1: now I want you to listen to the door opening.
[13:33] Speaker 2: Play it.
[13:33] Speaker 6: OK.
[13:37] Speaker 3: OK.
[13:52] Speaker 1: This is what is, I'm going to bring in our panel.
[13:54] Speaker 1: Rebecca Cruella is president and CEO of Fair Election Center
[13:56] Speaker 1: out of D.C. Robert Petillo, civil rights attorney of the
[13:58] Speaker 1: Petillo Law Group.
[14:00] Speaker 14: Dr.
[14:00] Speaker 1: Derek Jackson, state representative out of Georgia. Okay, so Robert,
[14:03] Speaker 1: I'm going to start with you. Duran says the eyes
[14:08] Speaker 1: will tell you their intent. He says you look at
[14:14] Speaker 1: their waistband and their movements. Robert, when we played that video,
[14:22] Speaker 1: It is literally 2.48 seconds from the door opening and
[14:34] Speaker 1: the first shot fired. I want y'all to queue it
[14:36] Speaker 1: up again. And this is why this man is on
[14:42] Speaker 1: trial because if you understand the actions again, okay, I
[14:48] Speaker 1: want y'all to listen because you're gonna hear the creaky
[14:50] Speaker 1: of a door open You're going to.
[14:52] Speaker 2: Hear him say something. What you do not.
[14:56] Speaker 1: Hear Duran say is put the weapon down. What you
[15:00] Speaker 1: don't see is you don't see Duran stepping to the
[15:05] Speaker 1: side with his gun. Put the put the gun down.
[15:09] Speaker 1: It's none of that. He immediately goes to firing the weapon.
[15:14] Speaker 2: Roll the video.
[15:22] Speaker 4: Stop.
[15:22] Speaker 9: Drop the gun!
[15:25] Speaker 2: First thing he says, Robert, step out.
[15:28] Speaker 9: Okay?
[15:29] Speaker 2: Not in an authoritative way. Roll it again.
[15:33] Speaker 1: I want y'all to hear how he says step out.
[15:37] Speaker 1: Then after he fires, I want you to hear him
[15:40] Speaker 1: reference the gun.
[15:45] Speaker 12: Step out.
[15:50] Speaker 6: Drop the gun!
[15:53] Speaker 13: Drop the gun!
[15:57] Speaker 2: Drop the gun!
[15:57] Speaker 14: Robert.
[15:59] Speaker 2: Absolutely insane what took place in this shooting.
[16:08] Speaker 14: Absolutely. There's no justification. And even given that testimony where
[16:12] Speaker 14: he says that it was because it's a split-second decision,
[16:15] Speaker 14: the eyes will tell you everything that you need to know.
[16:19] Speaker 14: None of that is in police training. You have to
[16:21] Speaker 14: have an articulable suspicion, meaning that you need to have
[16:25] Speaker 14: something beyond just a hunch, something beyond the eyes told me,
[16:28] Speaker 14: something beyond I had a feeling about it, because that
[16:31] Speaker 14: used to always be the justification they would use for
[16:33] Speaker 14: the escalation of force. The officer had a clear intent
[16:38] Speaker 14: prior to walking into that door that he was going
[16:40] Speaker 14: to open fire the minute that door opened. There was
[16:43] Speaker 14: no time to process the information. If that's a training issue,
[16:46] Speaker 14: if that's a malice intent issue. But what you cannot
[16:49] Speaker 14: argue is that the shooting was justified. And it is
[16:51] Speaker 14: very clear that he is lying and perjuring himself in
[16:54] Speaker 14: order to backfill and create a story he thinks is plausible.
[16:57] Speaker 14: as opposed to simply articulating what happened at the time.
[17:00] Speaker 14: It will be far more believable for him to simply say,
[17:02] Speaker 14: I panicked and shot him than the kind of the
[17:06] Speaker 14: web he's trying to spool right now.
[17:08] Speaker 1: I mean, Rebecca, I'm listening to him, Duran, talk to
[17:13] Speaker 1: his defense attorney, Rod Smith, and I'm sitting.
[17:16] Speaker 2: There going, what the hell are you talking about?
[17:18] Speaker 1: He's describing all of these different things, all these different scenarios.
[17:23] Speaker 2: All these things that you process. It was literally door
[17:29] Speaker 2: opening to first shots, max three seconds. I don't understand.
[17:36] Speaker 1: This reminds me, this absolutely reminds me of the shooting
[17:43] Speaker 1: in Cleveland, of the young man, 12-year-old kid, cop rolls up,
[17:50] Speaker 1: his door wasn't even fully open. and the cop jumps
[17:56] Speaker 1: out and he's already firing. Three seconds that I wanted
[18:01] Speaker 1: to play so many times because when you hear that
[18:04] Speaker 1: door creak open and you hear step out, he sees gun,
[18:09] Speaker 1: he immediately starts firing. He doesn't yell, put the weapon down.
[18:15] Speaker 1: And of course, you would think if somebody had a
[18:19] Speaker 1: weapon and if they raise the weapon, a.
[18:23] Speaker 2: Cop is gonna fire. He doesn't give him time. He
[18:26] Speaker 2: would do that. He says, step outside first. He shoots.
[18:31] Speaker 2: Then he yells, put the weapon down.
[18:35] Speaker 5: Yeah, Roland, the video shows a clear performance.
[18:39] Speaker 3: It shows a performance of a deputy who is performing,
[18:43] Speaker 3: understanding that he has a body cam on. It also
[18:46] Speaker 3: shows from our eyes what we see, and our eyes
[18:50] Speaker 3: aren't lying to us, that there is perjury, that there
[18:54] Speaker 3: should be some perjury charges based upon what he testified
[18:57] Speaker 3: in court. He said that he heard someone say, F police.
[19:01] Speaker 3: It's almost like he wanted to say the airmen would say,
[19:04] Speaker 3: F the police. as if that is a threat. Saying
[19:06] Speaker 3: F the police is not a threat. It is a statement.
[19:09] Speaker 3: For some people it's a statement of what their interaction
[19:12] Speaker 3: has been in police. For some people it's a statement
[19:15] Speaker 3: of policy. For some people it means defund the police.
[19:19] Speaker 3: The next thing that we see He also mentioned that
[19:22] Speaker 3: the gun was raised up and towards him. Someone who
[19:27] Speaker 3: understands gun safety, as I would presume that airmen did,
[19:31] Speaker 3: is that you don't even hold your gun that way.
[19:33] Speaker 3: If you're not ready to discharge a weapon, you hold
[19:36] Speaker 3: it down, which is what we saw in that video.
[19:39] Speaker 3: That gun was to his side and was pointed away,
[19:42] Speaker 3: was not pointed at the deputy. And like you just emphasized,
[19:46] Speaker 3: after he shot, after the deputy did, discharged the gun, what,
[19:51] Speaker 3: three times?
[19:52] Speaker 5: Sounded like it was three shots. Then all of a sudden, oh,
[19:55] Speaker 5: weapon discharge, weapon discharge.
[19:56] Speaker 3: And that's when we started to see the phoniness, the acting,
[19:59] Speaker 3: because the deputy is, oh, shoot, I have a body cam.
[20:03] Speaker 5: Oh, I have footage. Oh, there is audio.
[20:06] Speaker 3: And so what we're seeing here is not reflected in
[20:09] Speaker 3: what appears to be a very perjurous testimony that the
[20:13] Speaker 3: deputy delivered.
[20:16] Speaker 2: Derek, it is unbelievable.
[20:20] Speaker 1: And and again, let's be clear, OK, we talk about
[20:25] Speaker 1: training things along things along those lines. First of all,
[20:29] Speaker 1: it was a so-called domestic violence disturbance call. That's what
[20:34] Speaker 1: so-called they got. They got the apartment wrong. Everything was wrong.
[20:38] Speaker 1: And this is a perfect example of somebody making a call,
[20:42] Speaker 1: going to the wrong apartment or whatever. And a black
[20:46] Speaker 1: man ends up dead. OK, we're talking also Florida and
[20:51] Speaker 1: clearly the guys on the phone. Listen, no one knows Florida.
[20:56] Speaker 1: No one knows why he was on the phone and
[21:00] Speaker 1: holding a gun.
[21:02] Speaker 2: No idea. First of all, if you let's do this here.
[21:08] Speaker 2: I want you to go.
[21:09] Speaker 1: Back to when he first starts knocking on the door,
[21:12] Speaker 1: because here's the deal. If I'm in if I want
[21:15] Speaker 1: you to again, this is sort of how I'm sort
[21:17] Speaker 1: of looking at this.
[21:19] Speaker 2: If I'm a gun owner.
[21:20] Speaker 1: First of all, when I hear the loud knocking on
[21:23] Speaker 1: my door, if I'm in another bedroom and I don't
[21:27] Speaker 1: actually all I hear is the knocking, I don't hear
[21:29] Speaker 1: him identifying himself as law enforcement.
[21:34] Speaker 2: My reaction is going to be different, sort of like.
[21:37] Speaker 1: The shooting in Minneapolis when they it was four, three,
[21:40] Speaker 1: four o'clock in the morning and they bust through the
[21:41] Speaker 1: doors and the guy was on the couch. He had
[21:43] Speaker 1: his gun near him and they claimed he was reaching
[21:46] Speaker 1: for his gun. Well, hell, if I don't know who's busted,
[21:48] Speaker 1: I think there's a home invasion. It's a natural response.
[21:53] Speaker 1: If somebody's busting into your door, roll a video again,
[21:56] Speaker 1: because this is why body cam is also important. This
[22:00] Speaker 1: video completely destroys everything that he says on the witness stand.
[22:05] Speaker 2: Roll it.
[22:09] Speaker 12: Thank you.
[23:06] Speaker 13: Sheriff's Office, open the door! Sheriff's Office, open the door!
[23:18] Speaker 9: Drop the gun!
[23:26] Speaker 6: Drop the gun!
[23:28] Speaker 8: Drop the gun! 312, shots fired. Suspect down.
[23:33] Speaker 1: Derek, Sheriff's Office, open the door. You hear the door open.
[23:39] Speaker 1: Total sequence is 7.8 seconds. That's the total sequence. What
[23:45] Speaker 1: the hell was he assessing in seven seconds? And again,
[23:50] Speaker 1: when the door opens, it was three seconds from the
[23:55] Speaker 1: door opening, shots being fired.
[23:59] Speaker 8: You know, Roland, May 3rd, 2024, at 4.31 p.m.
[24:00] Speaker 15: 4.31 p.m., not 11 o'clock at night, not 1 a.m.
[24:12] Speaker 15: in the morning, 4.31, 16.31, 4.31 p.m. Airman Roger Forsen,
[24:22] Speaker 15: a young active duty military service member, in his own apartment,
[24:29] Speaker 15: legally in his own apartment, they went to the wrong floor,
[24:33] Speaker 15: as you've already articulated, they went to the.
[24:35] Speaker 8: Wrong apartment.
[24:38] Speaker 15: An airman, military train, at 4.31 p.m., you hear an
[24:45] Speaker 15: aggressive knock on your door, and you're trained, we.
[24:49] Speaker 6: Are required, I'm telling you, as a retired.
[24:53] Speaker 8: Military officer, bring our nine millimeter to the door.
[24:57] Speaker 15: It's okay, because in Florida, last time I checked, please
[25:01] Speaker 15: correct me if I'm wrong, is a stand.
[25:03] Speaker 8: Your ground state. at 4.31 p.m.
[25:10] Speaker 15: In less than three seconds, as you already spelled out,
[25:15] Speaker 15: that this young man is now dead. And you now
[25:18] Speaker 15: have a police officer saying, trying to revamp, revise what
[25:23] Speaker 15: really happened within those seven seconds. He killed him in
[25:28] Speaker 15: 2.4 seconds. And so here's the last point I want
[25:31] Speaker 15: to make too, Roland, because they talk about training. They
[25:38] Speaker 15: talk about laws. They talk about the police. They talk
[25:40] Speaker 15: about this whole environment. So the one thing that they're
[25:45] Speaker 15: not talking about, Airman Roger Forsen was a military service member.
[25:51] Speaker 15: He was not a thug. I don't know if the
[25:55] Speaker 15: music said F the police. I don't know any of that.
[25:59] Speaker 15: But what they need to say is that this young
[26:01] Speaker 15: man served this country. And if he was trusted to
[26:05] Speaker 15: defend this country, he should also have the ability to
[26:09] Speaker 15: trust the individual that swore an oath.
[26:12] Speaker 8: To protect and serve this country too.
[26:15] Speaker 15: And right now, this system is failing someone that was
[26:18] Speaker 15: serving this country.
[26:21] Speaker 1: I mean, what is crazy here Is for in the
[26:26] Speaker 1: opening statements, I'm going to read this here in the
[26:29] Speaker 1: opening statements. This is from the Mark Alderman, who was
[26:36] Speaker 1: the assistant state attorney. He said, quote, The evidence will
[26:39] Speaker 1: show you that although Eddie Duran did not know Roger
[26:43] Speaker 1: was by himself, he knew or should have known that
[26:46] Speaker 1: his actions made it difficult or impossible for the person
[26:49] Speaker 1: inside to know that a police officer was at his door.
[26:52] Speaker 1: He forced him simply open his own front door with
[26:55] Speaker 1: a gun by his side in case he needed it.
[26:57] Speaker 2: The evidence will show the shooting was not justified.
[26:59] Speaker 1: Now, the defense attorney says that again, says that you're
[27:04] Speaker 1: going to find that after the first knock, when he
[27:06] Speaker 1: didn't identify himself, he Duran hears something at the door.
[27:11] Speaker 1: And what he hears is two words. He can't hear it. Well,
[27:15] Speaker 1: he hears F and police. Now, this is before he
[27:21] Speaker 1: has even announced himself as a deputy sheriff.
[27:25] Speaker 5: Okay.
[27:30] Speaker 1: Here's the problem right here, y'all. He hears F and police.
[27:37] Speaker 1: Does he hear F the police? Or does he hear
[27:44] Speaker 1: Fortune on the phone going F the police? If the
[27:53] Speaker 1: cops roll up on your door and they're knocking hard
[27:56] Speaker 1: and you're on the phone, what you gonna say on
[27:58] Speaker 1: the phone? Oh shit, the police. And again, they lay
[28:07] Speaker 1: out in body worn, this is the ABC News story,
[28:11] Speaker 1: in body worn camera footage released by the sheriff's office,
[28:14] Speaker 1: Forsen is seen holding a gun in his right hand
[28:21] Speaker 1: with his arm extended downward and the muzzle pointing at
[28:28] Speaker 1: the floor as he opens the door in response to
[28:33] Speaker 1: the deputy. The footage reviewed by ABC News also shows
[28:39] Speaker 1: Forsten had his left hand up, palm showing, gesturing towards
[28:46] Speaker 1: the deputy when he opened the door.
[28:51] Speaker 2: Who the hell is trying to shoot a cop like this?
[29:03] Speaker 1: Left hand up, gun pointed down. Robert, you're a gun enthusiast.
[29:11] Speaker 1: People who have been properly trained with weapons, if you
[29:15] Speaker 1: have a weapon, they don't tell you to point it forward.
[29:21] Speaker 2: They don't tell you to point it up. Don't they
[29:25] Speaker 2: train you to tell you to point it down?
[29:28] Speaker 14: Well, Ronald, you have to remember your fundamental rules whenever
[29:30] Speaker 14: you're handling a firearm. One, assume all firearms that you
[29:34] Speaker 14: are in contact with are loaded. Two, never point it
[29:37] Speaker 14: at anything you do not want to destroy or kill. Three,
[29:41] Speaker 14: you have to ensure you do a full safety check
[29:43] Speaker 14: on every firearm before you start playing around with it,
[29:45] Speaker 14: swinging it, etc. At no point in time are you
[29:48] Speaker 14: pointing at the ground if you're intending to shoot or
[29:51] Speaker 14: destroy something. The story just falls apart. And just the
[29:55] Speaker 14: fact that they think they can run this, this idea
[29:57] Speaker 14: that black folks just simply have fewer constitutional rights than
[30:01] Speaker 14: other groups and other individuals. You don't get a full
[30:04] Speaker 14: Second Amendment right if you're an African-American in this country
[30:07] Speaker 14: because Philando Castile let us know that even if you
[30:10] Speaker 14: are legally a gun owner, you can still be killed
[30:13] Speaker 14: for owning a gun. You don't have full First Amendment
[30:15] Speaker 14: rights in this country, the black person. We've seen on
[30:17] Speaker 14: multiple occasions, even in this one, saying F the police
[30:20] Speaker 14: is used as a justification for illegal force.
[30:22] Speaker 6: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[30:24] Speaker 2: Robert, here's the problem.
[30:26] Speaker 1: Rod Smith, the defense attorney, doesn't say he heard F
[30:30] Speaker 1: the police. He says he heard F and police. So, again,
[30:37] Speaker 1: so the problem is here. I'm just, again, I'm not
[30:42] Speaker 1: saying this with force indeed. I'm just telling you right now,
[30:45] Speaker 1: if I'm on the phone because, or, again, he's approaching
[30:49] Speaker 1: the door. So he wasn't, he was on the phone.
[30:53] Speaker 1: He didn't have the phone in his hand when he
[30:55] Speaker 1: came to the door, okay? If I'm coming to the.
[30:58] Speaker 2: Door and I hear a guy, My my reaction might be. Well, please.
[31:05] Speaker 1: I mean, like I'm trying to understand he the defense
[31:09] Speaker 1: attorney wants us to believe that he said F the police.
[31:14] Speaker 1: But even he doesn't say that he said F and police.
[31:19] Speaker 1: So that's the game they're trying to play here.
[31:23] Speaker 14: See, this is the thing. This is what I mean
[31:24] Speaker 14: by black folks not having full First Amendment or Second
[31:27] Speaker 14: Amendment rights. It doesn't even matter if he said F
[31:29] Speaker 14: the police or if he said F this police officer,
[31:32] Speaker 14: I'm about to shoot him. You're still saying that this
[31:35] Speaker 14: person is not allowed to say certain things inside of
[31:37] Speaker 14: their own home. And that's the idea that what you
[31:41] Speaker 14: say can be used as a justification, not to be
[31:43] Speaker 14: used against you in a court of law, but to
[31:45] Speaker 14: be used for a government state sponsored execution of an
[31:48] Speaker 14: individual in their own residence. We have to start thinking
[31:51] Speaker 14: to ourselves exactly what our demands are going to be
[31:55] Speaker 14: when we return to power. When we talk about criminal
[31:57] Speaker 14: justice reform, it's not enough to simply say we need
[31:59] Speaker 14: him to have body cameras. and we need more training.
[32:02] Speaker 14: We have to fundamentally rethink the way that we do
[32:05] Speaker 14: law enforcement in this country, because if an individual can
[32:08] Speaker 14: be executed for exercising both their First and Second Amendment rights,
[32:12] Speaker 14: then what exact constitutional rights do we still have? I
[32:14] Speaker 14: remind people, Dred Scott was never overturned. It's still good
[32:18] Speaker 14: law when they say that the white man, the black
[32:21] Speaker 14: man has no rights that the white man has any
[32:23] Speaker 14: constitutional requirement to respect. So when we're talking about what
[32:26] Speaker 14: we're doing going forward, we have to start thinking about
[32:30] Speaker 14: putting together a legal framework that will give us actual
[32:33] Speaker 14: long-lasting rights that can't be written out by an executive
[32:36] Speaker 14: order or a change in Congress. Because right now we
[32:38] Speaker 14: are still, we might not be three-fifths, but we're about
[32:41] Speaker 14: four-fifths of a citizen of this country.
[32:43] Speaker 1: Well, again, it reminds me of the shooting four years ago,
[32:46] Speaker 1: Amir Locke. Shot and killed. No knock warrant. He's asleep
[32:49] Speaker 1: on the couch. They bust into the doors. He's startled.
[32:54] Speaker 1: They claim they yell. Well, they you can hear on
[32:56] Speaker 1: the video. They yell police and they say he pointed
[32:59] Speaker 1: a weapon at them again.
[33:03] Speaker 2: If I'm if I'm.
[33:03] Speaker 1: Laying on a couch sleep and all of a sudden
[33:06] Speaker 1: the front door bust wide open, my natural reaction as
[33:11] Speaker 1: a gun owner is to grab my gun because I
[33:14] Speaker 1: think it's a home invasion. No, and that's the problem
[33:18] Speaker 1: with no-knock warrants.
[33:20] Speaker 2: And we see this here.
[33:21] Speaker 1: I want to show some more of the prosecution, the
[33:24] Speaker 1: cross-examination of Eddie Duran.
[33:31] Speaker 4: Thank you, Your Honor. Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir.
[33:38] Speaker 16: Now, the call that went out over the radio that
[33:41] Speaker 16: we heard relayed the information to you as a physical disturbance, correct?
[33:46] Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
[33:47] Speaker 16: You indicated that it was not related.
[33:49] Speaker 4: To you as domestic, correct? Yes, sir.
[33:52] Speaker 16: And that is something that needs to be investigated once
[33:56] Speaker 16: the deputy arrives on scene, correct?
[33:57] Speaker 4: Yes, sir. And the information was conveyed to you male
[34:03] Speaker 4: and female, correct?
[34:04] Speaker 9: Yes, sir.
[34:05] Speaker 4: Male and female does not mean domestic, correct?
[34:08] Speaker 10: Male and female could not, you're correct, sir, it could
[34:12] Speaker 10: not mean domestic. However, again, nothing is certain.
[34:15] Speaker 4: Until it's investigated.
[34:16] Speaker 16: Right, so the deputy, once they arrive, they need to
[34:19] Speaker 16: investigate to ascertain that information, correct?
[34:21] Speaker 4: Correct, sir.
[34:24] Speaker 16: And the information also did not indicate which party was
[34:27] Speaker 16: being physical, correct?
[34:29] Speaker 4: Correct, sir.
[34:30] Speaker 10: Again, the information that's given has to be taken until
[34:34] Speaker 10: an investigation can begin or complete it.
[34:38] Speaker 2: Yes.
[34:39] Speaker 4: So it could have been the mail that was being physical, correct?
[34:41] Speaker 10: It is a possibility, sir. Again, that's the information... we
[34:45] Speaker 10: won't know until we start the investigation.
[34:47] Speaker 4: Because it could be the male being physical, it could
[34:49] Speaker 4: be the female being physical. It could be either party
[34:51] Speaker 4: or it could be both simultaneously, sir, yes.
[34:56] Speaker 16: And the description physical disturbance, you'd agree, is a fairly
[35:00] Speaker 16: vague description, correct?
[35:03] Speaker 10: Physical disturbance, sir, could be inferred in several different topics,
[35:07] Speaker 10: so it's just something that's going to be dictated based
[35:10] Speaker 10: off of a lot of training, a lot of experience,
[35:12] Speaker 10: and then again, nothing's for certain.
[35:15] Speaker 4: Until we can actually begin the investigation.
[35:18] Speaker 16: Right, and physical disturbance could be something minor, could be
[35:21] Speaker 16: something serious, correct?
[35:23] Speaker 12: Yes, sir.
[35:27] Speaker 4: And again, you won't know until you investigate. Yes, sir.
[35:33] Speaker 4: The radio traffic also indicated to you that it was
[35:35] Speaker 4: fourth-party information, correct? Yes, sir.
[35:38] Speaker 16: And then once you arrived on scene, you obtained third-party
[35:41] Speaker 16: information from Mr.
[35:42] Speaker 8: Rodriguez.
[35:44] Speaker 4: I believe so, sir.
[35:47] Speaker 16: Now, you would agree with me that the farther the
[35:51] Speaker 16: information is away from the direct source, the less reliable
[35:55] Speaker 16: it can be.
[35:56] Speaker 4: Is that fair?
[35:57] Speaker 10: I would agree that any information given to law enforcement
[35:59] Speaker 10: could be inaccurate until it's determined otherwise.
[36:04] Speaker 16: And as you said, you had no contact with the
[36:08] Speaker 16: person that had directly reported it, correct?
[36:10] Speaker 12: Yes, sir.
[36:11] Speaker 4: Missed sentence.
[36:12] Speaker 10: Yes, sir.
[36:14] Speaker 16: You understood that she lived downstairs and had not seen
[36:18] Speaker 16: anything herself, correct?
[36:19] Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
[36:20] Speaker 16: You understood that she was reporting simply based on what
[36:22] Speaker 16: she had heard?
[36:24] Speaker 4: Correct.
[36:28] Speaker 16: And on the video and on the radio call, we
[36:31] Speaker 16: heard and you mentioned what Ms. Rodriguez had told you
[36:35] Speaker 16: about the prior incident from two weeks ago.
[36:38] Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
[36:39] Speaker 16: And she also indicated to you that she did not
[36:42] Speaker 16: know who Was involved in that, correct?
[36:45] Speaker 4: Correct.
[36:46] Speaker 10: Again, obtaining the information from Ms. Rodriguez is something that
[36:52] Speaker 10: I will listen to. However, my focus is on the
[36:55] Speaker 10: information that was given to me from dispatch.
[36:58] Speaker 4: Yes, sir. But you're aware that she did not know
[36:59] Speaker 4: who was involved in that incident, correct?
[37:01] Speaker 10: Yes, sir. Again, no one's going to be aware until
[37:03] Speaker 10: an investigation can be started.
[37:05] Speaker 4: Right, but I'm talking about the incident two weeks prior.
[37:07] Speaker 16: She did not know that incident she described two weeks prior.
[37:11] Speaker 4: She did not know who was involved.
[37:13] Speaker 9: In that, correct? Correct, sir.
[37:15] Speaker 10: Again, I'm focused on the information that I received for
[37:18] Speaker 10: the call that I'm at currently. If that's information that
[37:22] Speaker 10: can be verified later on, that's fine. However, I have
[37:27] Speaker 10: to go off of what I have, and so what
[37:29] Speaker 10: I had at the time is something that I have
[37:31] Speaker 10: to look into first.
[37:37] Speaker 4: Now, when you arrive at.
[37:38] Speaker 16: The door and you listen, and you explain why.
[37:41] Speaker 4: You did not hear anything, correct?
[37:43] Speaker 9: Yes, sir.
[37:44] Speaker 16: And silence could mean that nothing is happening, correct? Silence
[37:49] Speaker 16: could potentially mean yes.
[37:51] Speaker 4: Silence could mean nothing has happened, correct? It could potentially
[37:55] Speaker 4: be yes.
[37:55] Speaker 16: Silence could mean that if something had happened, that one
[38:00] Speaker 16: or more of the parties.
[38:00] Speaker 4: May have left, correct? It could mean many different things, sir.
[38:04] Speaker 10: But again, no one knows until we begin the investigation,
[38:08] Speaker 10: until I am able to actually make contact with the individuals. Again,
[38:13] Speaker 10: based on past training and experience, having that specific type
[38:17] Speaker 10: of scenario previously, it's not something I can walk away from.
[38:22] Speaker 4: Well, that wasn't my question, so let me ask my
[38:23] Speaker 4: question again. Yes, sir.
[38:24] Speaker 16: The question was, silence could mean that if something had happened,
[38:28] Speaker 16: a person could.
[38:28] Speaker 4: Have left, correct? Again, it could mean potentially, yes, the
[38:31] Speaker 4: person could have left. Well, that's my question.
[38:34] Speaker 2: The answer is yes.
[38:35] Speaker 4: The person could have left, and it could also mean
[38:36] Speaker 4: that there's nothing going on. It could mean that it's over.
[38:38] Speaker 4: It could mean.
[38:39] Speaker 10: Somebody's heard it. Nobody knows until we begin the investigation, sir.
[38:44] Speaker 10: And it's important to investigate these incidents, isn't it?
[38:46] Speaker 4: Yes, sir. Now, if you had heard something at.
[38:53] Speaker 16: That point, before you've announced you're listening, if you had heard, say,
[38:59] Speaker 16: a cry for help or scream or help me of.
[39:02] Speaker 4: Something of that nature, would you have entered the apartment?
[39:06] Speaker 2: No, sir.
[39:08] Speaker 4: Would you not have responded to a call for help?
[39:12] Speaker 10: I would have responded accordingly, sir, but kicking a door
[39:14] Speaker 10: in unless there's definitely something going on that I can verify,
[39:18] Speaker 10: it's not something that's within common practice. It would be, again,
[39:22] Speaker 10: knocking unless after a continuous knocking, repetitive, attempted intervention, it's
[39:27] Speaker 10: not something that law enforcement does.
[39:29] Speaker 4: Well let's say you heard you know help me put
[39:32] Speaker 4: down the knife would you have would you have kicked
[39:34] Speaker 4: down the door I would.
[39:35] Speaker 10: Have to contact my supervisor to be honest with you
[39:38] Speaker 10: relay said information to get his verification yes go forward
[39:42] Speaker 10: and do that it's again as a road deputy we're
[39:45] Speaker 10: limited to what the supervisor wants us to do based
[39:48] Speaker 10: on his direction.
[39:51] Speaker 16: If that had come to that, do you believe you
[39:53] Speaker 16: would have been able to enter the apartment if it
[39:55] Speaker 16: had become necessary?
[39:58] Speaker 3: Overall.
[40:03] Speaker 4: I'm just going to ask the question again, sir.
[40:08] Speaker 12: Yes, sir.
[40:09] Speaker 16: So if it came to that, do you believe you
[40:13] Speaker 16: would have been able to enter the apartment, for instance,
[40:14] Speaker 16: kicking down the door?
[40:16] Speaker 4: I wouldn't be able to tell you. That's, again, a
[40:18] Speaker 4: supervisory deal. I just do. what I'm directed to do
[40:22] Speaker 4: from the supervisor.
[40:23] Speaker 12: Yes, sir.
[40:29] Speaker 16: Now, after that first knock, when we saw you position yourself,
[40:32] Speaker 16: and you're standing several feet down the hallway, away from
[40:36] Speaker 16: the door, correct?
[40:38] Speaker 4: Yes, sir. And you said you're not trying to conceal yourself.
[40:41] Speaker 4: That was what you said, correct? Correct.
[40:43] Speaker 16: But you are concealing yourself from whoever was inside the home, correct?
[40:49] Speaker 4: No, sir. So, Initially knocking.
[40:52] Speaker 16: Do you understand the person inside cannot see you when
[40:55] Speaker 16: you're standing beside the.
[40:56] Speaker 4: Wall, correct?
[40:57] Speaker 10: Again, so initially knocking on the door, I'm standing in
[41:00] Speaker 10: front of the doorway, standing in front of the people
[41:03] Speaker 10: and waiting there for several seconds prior to moving to
[41:06] Speaker 10: a different position after assessing that this isn't probably the best.
[41:10] Speaker 4: Position that I could be in right now.
[41:12] Speaker 10: So yes, moving down the hallway a few feet away
[41:15] Speaker 10: from the door is something that we, again, as law enforcement,
[41:18] Speaker 10: would do to avoid any form of danger. However, I
[41:22] Speaker 10: am unaware if, after my first knock, if someone has
[41:25] Speaker 10: come to the door, I'm unaware if somebody has seen
[41:28] Speaker 10: me whatsoever.
[41:29] Speaker 4: I can only go off the information that I have. Okay,
[41:33] Speaker 4: well that wasn't my question, so let me ask my
[41:34] Speaker 4: question again. You're aware when you're standing down.
[41:37] Speaker 16: The hall, out of the side of the door, the
[41:41] Speaker 16: person cannot see you, or anybody inside cannot see you.
[41:45] Speaker 4: You understand that, correct? I understand that, sir, yes. And
[41:47] Speaker 4: that's your purpose, In positioning yourself there, correct? No, sir.
[41:51] Speaker 10: My purpose in positioning myself there is to maintain, again,
[41:55] Speaker 10: situational awareness and safety, officer safety, sir.
[42:00] Speaker 4: Now, at this point, you have not said anything, correct?
[42:02] Speaker 4: You haven't announced?
[42:03] Speaker 9: No, sir.
[42:04] Speaker 4: So, as you're standing there, somebody cannot see you when
[42:07] Speaker 4: you're beside the door, correct? Yes, sir. And they haven't
[42:10] Speaker 4: heard anything you've said, correct?
[42:12] Speaker 9: Yes, sir.
[42:19] Speaker 4: And as you said, you did not use your lights
[42:21] Speaker 4: and sirens, correct?
[42:22] Speaker 12: Yes, sir.
[42:23] Speaker 4: You're aware you're on the fourth floor? Yes, sir.
[42:26] Speaker 16: You're aware that whomever is inside the home cannot see
[42:30] Speaker 16: your patrol vehicle, correct?
[42:32] Speaker 4: Yes, sir. So they haven't heard sirens, haven't seen blue lights, correct?
[42:38] Speaker 14: Yes, sir.
[42:39] Speaker 4: They can't see your vehicle?
[42:40] Speaker 9: Yes, sir.
[42:41] Speaker 4: You're standing out of the side of the door, and
[42:45] Speaker 4: they haven't heard you, correct? Yes, sir. Now, in terms
[42:54] Speaker 4: of standing beside the door, that's common police tactics, right?
[42:57] Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
[42:58] Speaker 16: And the concern is somebody firing through the door, correct?
[43:01] Speaker 4: Yes, sir. Now, you'd agree that statistically that's unlikely to occur, correct?
[43:07] Speaker 10: I couldn't agree to that, sir. I don't know statistically.
[43:09] Speaker 10: I just know what I'm trained to do, sir.
[43:11] Speaker 4: But you'd agree it's unlikely?
[43:13] Speaker 10: Again, I only have to go off of what I'm
[43:15] Speaker 10: trained to do, and law enforcement as well as military
[43:18] Speaker 10: are trained that that is a possibility.
[43:19] Speaker 4: I couldn't tell you the statistics on it.
[43:22] Speaker 9: Yes, sir.
[43:22] Speaker 16: Well, let's say, for example, and I'm making these numbers up.
[43:26] Speaker 16: Let's say there is a 1% chance that if you
[43:29] Speaker 16: stand in front of that door that somebody is going
[43:31] Speaker 16: to fire through that door.
[43:35] Speaker 12: Please approach.
[43:51] Speaker 2: I love.
[43:53] Speaker 1: How the prosecutor, Robert, is methodically, y'all let me know
[43:57] Speaker 1: when they finish the sidebar, how the prosecutor is methodically
[44:01] Speaker 1: walking him through. So you stand to the side. So
[44:06] Speaker 1: when he comes to the door, he can't see you.
[44:11] Speaker 1: He doesn't know who's at the door. He doesn't know
[44:15] Speaker 1: what is being said. I want to play a little
[44:17] Speaker 1: bit more of the cross of the cross.
[44:23] Speaker 12: Come on.
[44:25] Speaker 16: If there was a very small chance of something happening
[44:28] Speaker 16: through the door, would you still position yourself beside the door?
[44:32] Speaker 4: Yes, sir. A very small chance is still a chance
[44:34] Speaker 4: I don't think anybody would want to take.
[44:36] Speaker 9: Right.
[44:36] Speaker 4: And you wouldn't take that chance? That would be an
[44:38] Speaker 4: unnecessary risk to take, correct? Yes, sir.
[44:41] Speaker 16: Your actions are to ensure your safety. Even if something,
[44:45] Speaker 16: as you said, is a very small chance, you're not
[44:47] Speaker 16: going to take that chance, correct?
[44:49] Speaker 14: Yes, sir.
[44:56] Speaker 4: Now, you said you heard the words fuck and police.
[45:00] Speaker 4: Is that right? Yes, sir.
[45:01] Speaker 16: Now, you do not know the full context or what
[45:05] Speaker 16: else was said, correct?
[45:06] Speaker 4: Correct. And could that have been a question? I couldn't
[45:10] Speaker 4: tell you, sir.
[45:11] Speaker 16: So it could have been a question, right, if you
[45:15] Speaker 16: don't know.
[45:15] Speaker 10: Again, I couldn't tell you. The only thing I know
[45:18] Speaker 10: is what I heard, and that was it. Again, a context, question, statement.
[45:23] Speaker 10: Coming from inside the home, okay, I need to just...
[45:26] Speaker 10: announce entirely.
[45:28] Speaker 4: Right, so if you don't know, then it could have
[45:29] Speaker 4: been a question, yes? I don't know, sir. It could
[45:33] Speaker 4: have been any form of statement, question, or anything, sir.
[45:36] Speaker 4: So the answer is yes, it could have been a question. Yes, sir.
[45:42] Speaker 4: And did that, I think you said to Mrs. Smith,
[45:45] Speaker 4: that concerned you? Hearing that, it led me to believe
[45:50] Speaker 4: that my presence was known.
[45:53] Speaker 9: At the time.
[45:54] Speaker 4: Did that concern you?
[45:56] Speaker 10: Yes, it led me to believe that my presence was
[45:58] Speaker 10: known and that if there was something going on, that
[46:01] Speaker 10: there needs to be an intervention.
[46:03] Speaker 4: And was that significant? Was what significant, sir? What you heard.
[46:07] Speaker 4: Was that significant to you in the context of this call?
[46:11] Speaker 4: It was a piece, yes, sir. A significant piece? Just
[46:14] Speaker 4: a piece of information gathered going towards the start of
[46:17] Speaker 4: this investigation as a whole. Was it significant?
[46:21] Speaker 10: I wouldn't say significant, sir, but it was very clear
[46:24] Speaker 10: in that my intervention was necessary.
[46:29] Speaker 4: I believe you said the voice was muffled, correct? Slightly, yes, sir.
[46:39] Speaker 16: And you don't know where that voice, where the person
[46:42] Speaker 16: was inside the apartment, correct?
[46:44] Speaker 4: No, sir. And as we saw, There are no windows
[46:53] Speaker 4: facing that hallway, correct?
[46:55] Speaker 9: You are correct, sir.
[46:56] Speaker 4: And the only way somebody can see out is through
[46:58] Speaker 4: the people in the front door, correct?
[47:00] Speaker 9: Yes, sir.
[47:02] Speaker 4: And you're aware of that at the time?
[47:03] Speaker 9: Yes, sir.
[47:04] Speaker 10: Standing in the door when I initially listened, again, after knocking,
[47:08] Speaker 10: I was in front of the doorway, in front of
[47:09] Speaker 10: the people for an amount of time. Then, again, moving around.
[47:14] Speaker 10: So you are correct, there are no windows. The only
[47:17] Speaker 10: way to view is through the people. And standing in
[47:20] Speaker 10: that way or in that specific spot, I don't know
[47:24] Speaker 10: if anybody saw me.
[47:25] Speaker 4: Or not, sir.
[47:25] Speaker 9: Right.
[47:26] Speaker 16: But you were, my question was, you were aware that
[47:28] Speaker 16: the only way a person could see out was through
[47:31] Speaker 16: the people on the door?
[47:32] Speaker 4: Yes, sir.
[47:36] Speaker 16: And as you just said, you have no idea if
[47:38] Speaker 16: anybody ever looked out through the people, correct?
[47:41] Speaker 4: Correct.
[47:42] Speaker 16: If they did, you don't know when they might have
[47:44] Speaker 16: looked out at people, correct?
[47:45] Speaker 4: Correct.
[47:47] Speaker 1: So Robert, Rebecca, and Derek, I'm going to do with
[47:50] Speaker 1: you Robert first. I love how the prosecutor is just
[47:54] Speaker 1: methodically walking him down and methodically walking him through every
[47:59] Speaker 1: single movement. And they're saying, how can you be standing
[48:03] Speaker 1: by the side of the door? He can't see you.
[48:05] Speaker 1: He doesn't know who's there. He doesn't, basically, he don't
[48:09] Speaker 1: know if this person is actually a cop. He can't
[48:11] Speaker 1: look through the peephole and see a uniform. Even if
[48:14] Speaker 1: he then says, well, he says, well, identify myself. Well,
[48:17] Speaker 1: I don't know if that's actually you. But, Robert, what
[48:20] Speaker 1: it still doesn't get around is how does the man
[48:25] Speaker 1: open the door and in less than three seconds you
[48:29] Speaker 1: shoot him?
[48:32] Speaker 14: And this is why cross-examination is so important. And so
[48:35] Speaker 14: for people who've never done a cross, you're not actually
[48:38] Speaker 14: asking them questions. These aren't inquisitory. You're not trying to
[48:42] Speaker 14: find out information from them. You have a statement that
[48:45] Speaker 14: you want them to read. You need them to read
[48:48] Speaker 14: it against their will. So therefore, you are asking them
[48:52] Speaker 14: questions that you already know the answer to. In your
[48:55] Speaker 14: mind or in your notes you're preparing, you're creating a branch.
[48:58] Speaker 14: If they answer the way they're supposed to, then we
[49:00] Speaker 14: move on to the next question. If they do not, well,
[49:03] Speaker 14: now since I know this to be a fact, now
[49:05] Speaker 14: I have to put them into a perjury trap so
[49:08] Speaker 14: that there's no way for them to get out of
[49:09] Speaker 14: this without them perjuring themselves and therefore spoiling themselves in
[49:13] Speaker 14: front of the jury and facing potential penalties. What this
[49:16] Speaker 14: prosecutor is doing is ensuring that they are creating a... transcript,
[49:20] Speaker 14: creating a record from the officer's mouth himself assuaging any
[49:25] Speaker 14: possibility that somehow this was accidental, somehow that his story
[49:30] Speaker 14: held up, somehow that he was actually in fear and
[49:33] Speaker 14: did the proper steps. And this is why it's so crucial. Remember,
[49:36] Speaker 14: the deck is tilted against prosecuting police officers. When they
[49:40] Speaker 14: show up in full uniform, they're an officer of the court,
[49:42] Speaker 14: they're respected by the community, etc., It's a Herculean task,
[49:46] Speaker 14: and the prosecutor's doing what is necessary. Patiently, and I
[49:50] Speaker 14: know oftentimes people say, well, why can't you just get
[49:52] Speaker 14: to the point? You can't. Patience wins at trial, and
[49:55] Speaker 14: that's why it's so important to be in the minute details.
[49:59] Speaker 14: Each sentence leads to another paragraph, which leads to the
[50:02] Speaker 14: essay you're writing, but you're forcing someone else to say
[50:05] Speaker 14: it out loud against their will, and that's the game
[50:07] Speaker 14: that's being played.
[50:08] Speaker 4: Rebecca?
[50:09] Speaker 14: Rebecca?
[50:11] Speaker 3: You know, based upon that cross, it sounds like the
[50:15] Speaker 3: deputy wants us to believe that the airman knew that
[50:20] Speaker 3: the deputy was a police officer and was outside of
[50:24] Speaker 3: that door. And the deputy wants us to believe that
[50:28] Speaker 3: the airman intended to cause the deputy bodily harm.
[50:33] Speaker 5: So here's my question here.
[50:36] Speaker 3: If in fact, the airmen knew that the deputy was
[50:40] Speaker 3: outside the door. And if in fact the airmen wanted
[50:43] Speaker 3: to cause bodily harm, possibly loss of life to, um, to,
[50:50] Speaker 3: to the deputy, then why as soon as the airmen
[50:54] Speaker 3: opened the door, didn't he start shooting at the deputy?
[50:58] Speaker 5: Like make that make sense.
[50:59] Speaker 3: So even if we are to believe the deputy's story
[51:02] Speaker 3: as he's trying to tell us and we're, And if
[51:05] Speaker 3: we are to jump to the conclusion that he wants
[51:07] Speaker 3: us to jump to with his assertion, it still doesn't
[51:10] Speaker 3: make sense based upon the footage where we see that
[51:14] Speaker 3: a gun is pointed down in a way. And like
[51:16] Speaker 3: Robert said, because Robert is definitely a 2A enthusiast, I.
[51:23] Speaker 5: Just underwent some gun safety and gun training.
[51:27] Speaker 3: And just like Robert said, you learn that unless you
[51:29] Speaker 3: intend to shoot or destroy, to maim, to kill, You
[51:33] Speaker 3: keep that gun pointed down and away from potential targets,
[51:38] Speaker 3: from other humans, from animals, from things that can be
[51:42] Speaker 3: harmed if that bullet is dislodged.
[51:45] Speaker 5: So even if we are to make the logical jumps and.
[51:48] Speaker 3: Conclusions that the deputy wants us to do, his story
[51:50] Speaker 3: still doesn't make sense.
[51:52] Speaker 8: Derek?
[51:54] Speaker 15: You know, and I want to pick up where Rebecca
[51:57] Speaker 15: just left off. Because when you think about it, Roland,
[52:00] Speaker 15: not only police officers... are trained to make split second decisions. Military,
[52:06] Speaker 15: we're trained to make split decisions too.
[52:10] Speaker 8: Life or death situations too.
[52:12] Speaker 15: And so when I think about the airman in the video,
[52:15] Speaker 15: and I appreciate you slowing that video down, the airman
[52:19] Speaker 15: did not present that he was about to take another life.
[52:25] Speaker 15: He did not present his weapon, his service weapon that
[52:30] Speaker 15: he was about to take a life on the other side.
[52:32] Speaker 8: Of that door.
[52:34] Speaker 15: And so the police officer keep talking about his expertise,
[52:37] Speaker 15: his training. Well, if your training, was designed to make
[52:42] Speaker 15: sure that you make a split decision, life or death,
[52:47] Speaker 15: in a dangerous environment at 4.31 p.m.
[52:51] Speaker 8: Again, it wasn't nighttime.
[52:53] Speaker 15: He said he assessed the situation, he listened, and he
[52:56] Speaker 15: didn't hear anything, Roland. So this is a catastrophic failure
[53:02] Speaker 15: on all levels.
[53:03] Speaker 8: He can't blame it on his training. He can't blame
[53:05] Speaker 8: it on his expertise.
[53:06] Speaker 15: He has to blame it on those things that we
[53:08] Speaker 15: already know, and that's systemic.
[53:12] Speaker 8: Biases.
[53:13] Speaker 15: He saw a young black man and within 2.4 seconds,
[53:17] Speaker 15: he took his life.
[53:19] Speaker 11: Yep.
[53:21] Speaker 1: And Roger Forsen is dead. And folks, this is what
[53:23] Speaker 1: we have to deal with all of the time. All right,
[53:26] Speaker 1: let's go to go to a break and we come back.
[53:28] Speaker 1: We're going to talk about Donald Trump unilaterally deciding that
[53:32] Speaker 1: if you major in something that, well, They.
[53:35] Speaker 2: Don't like you're not going to get a student loan.
[53:38] Speaker 2: What in the hell?
[53:40] Speaker 1: We'll discuss that next right here on Roller Mark on
[53:42] Speaker 1: a filter on the Black Stud Network. Several different housekeeping
[53:45] Speaker 1: things we want to do. First and foremost, we want
[53:47] Speaker 1: to join our Bring the Funk fan club.
[53:50] Speaker 2: Please do so.
[53:50] Speaker 8: You want to.
[53:50] Speaker 1: Contribute via cash app. Use a Stripe Cura code to
[53:53] Speaker 1: see it right here. That's for credit cards as well.
[53:56] Speaker 1: Checks and money order. Make it payable to Roland Martin Unfiltered.
[53:59] Speaker 1: PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C.
[54:00] Speaker 9: 200370196.
[54:00] Speaker 2: PayPal's R. Martin Unfiltered. Vimeo is R.M. Unfiltered. Zale, Roland
[54:08] Speaker 2: at Roland S.
[54:09] Speaker 1: Martin dot com. Roland at Roland Martin Unfiltered dot com.
[54:12] Speaker 2: Folks, my new book, Black Forward, is available for preorder.
[54:18] Speaker 2: It's available for preorder.
[54:19] Speaker 1: It's marching orders for the fight against Jim Crow 2.0.
[54:23] Speaker 2: You see that QR code right there in the corner.
[54:25] Speaker 2: You can order it there.
[54:26] Speaker 1: You can you can call your independent bookstore, your black
[54:29] Speaker 1: owned bookstore. You can get it online. You can preorder
[54:32] Speaker 1: right now. We want to we want to have at
[54:35] Speaker 1: least a couple of thousand preordered. Actually, I said five
[54:38] Speaker 1: thousand by November 11th. The book drops February 2nd. We're
[54:43] Speaker 1: going to be all around the country talking about it.
[54:45] Speaker 1: And so we give you all first dibs at preordering
[54:49] Speaker 1: the book where we lay out the marching orders. for
[54:52] Speaker 1: black churches, black neighborhoods, black organizations, black fraternities and sororities
[54:57] Speaker 1: when it comes to fighting these attacks happening against black America.
[55:02] Speaker 1: And so get my new book, Black Forward, Marching Order
[55:05] Speaker 1: for the Fight Against Jim Crow 2.0.
[55:06] Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment. All right, folks, let
[55:10] Speaker 2: me get personal for a second.
[55:12] Speaker 1: My mom had questions about her Medicare, so she called Chapter,
[55:16] Speaker 1: a Medicare advisory company, and she texted me right after
[55:18] Speaker 1: saying it's a great benefit.
[55:20] Speaker 2: It was easy.
[55:21] Speaker 1: A real person walked her through the whole thing and
[55:23] Speaker 1: now she understands better what's going on.
[55:26] Speaker 2: But it's also not just her.
[55:27] Speaker 1: A woman in Yonkers wrote in saying the process was
[55:30] Speaker 1: so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was so
[55:33] Speaker 1: glad she called. Then there's Marilyn, 90 years old in Florida,
[55:36] Speaker 1: living on Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year
[55:40] Speaker 1: north of $ 400 a month for coverage she could barely
[55:44] Speaker 1: afford anymore.
[55:45] Speaker 2: So what does she do? She called Chapter.
[55:47] Speaker 1: They found her the same top tier coverage for hundreds
[55:50] Speaker 1: of dollars less. 90 years old and finally somebody in
[55:54] Speaker 1: her corner. I hear stories like that again and again
[55:57] Speaker 1: from our community. The Medicare system was not built to
[56:00] Speaker 1: work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans.
[56:04] Speaker 1: Yet Chapters Advisors are independent and honest, the only Medicare
[56:07] Speaker 1: advisors that compare every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing,
[56:11] Speaker 1: what actually works for you. If you're already in the
[56:14] Speaker 1: right plan, they'll tell you. No games, no People who
[56:18] Speaker 1: switched with Chapter saved an average of $ 1, 100 a year.
[56:21] Speaker 1: All it takes is 20 minutes. You talk to a
[56:23] Speaker 1: real person and it's completely free help. So call Chapter
[56:28] Speaker 1: at 724-264-8281.
[56:30] Speaker 3: 724-264-8281.
[56:30] Speaker 2: That's Chapter.
[56:36] Speaker 7: I was already a lawyer when my brother was murdered.
[56:39] Speaker 7: His killer was never brought to trial. That loss didn't
[56:43] Speaker 7: put me on this path, but it has shaped how
[56:46] Speaker 7: I walk it. As a justice, I hold criminals accountable,
[56:51] Speaker 7: keep communities safe, and ensure every victim gets their day
[56:55] Speaker 7: in court.
[56:57] Speaker 9: I'm Anita Earls.
[56:58] Speaker 7: As a justice, I won't stop working until the law
[57:02] Speaker 7: works for everyone.
[57:12] Speaker 17: Hey, Roland, this is Erica. I am now known as
[57:15] Speaker 17: Minister Erica Savage. And I am so happy to join
[57:19] Speaker 17: in on the celebration of you. Eight years having rolled
[57:23] Speaker 17: out Roland Martin Digital Platform, you've really, really created ways
[57:27] Speaker 17: for people to come to know and respect Black media
[57:31] Speaker 17: in a new and different way. And for that, I
[57:33] Speaker 17: celebrate you. I also want to say thank you. Thank
[57:36] Speaker 17: you for back in 2018, bringing me on as you
[57:41] Speaker 17: being a certified journalist. to become a political commentator and
[57:45] Speaker 17: a media commentator, something that doesn't really happen all of
[57:49] Speaker 17: the time. So for that, I say thank you. It
[57:52] Speaker 17: was lovely being in studio on Zoom, bringing the funk
[57:56] Speaker 17: to thousands, tens of thousands of people for over five years.
[58:00] Speaker 17: So I wish you continued success, Roland. And from a
[58:06] Speaker 17: belief standpoint, I want to seed you with this, something
[58:08] Speaker 17: you may well know, that the number eight is specifically
[58:13] Speaker 17: known as a number for abundance and for new creation.
[58:18] Speaker 17: All abundance and many blessings to you on the new
[58:22] Speaker 17: paths that you will place.
[58:24] Speaker 5: Be well, Roland.
[58:32] Speaker 18: All right, folks, Donald.
[58:52] Speaker 1: Trump's Department of Education have put a new rule in.
[58:55] Speaker 1: It's going to cut off federal student loans for students
[58:57] Speaker 1: enrolled in certain degree programs. that failed to meet their
[59:02] Speaker 1: quite subjective earnings requirements. The program could be affected, including cosmetology,
[59:08] Speaker 1: personal grooming, massage therapy, certain allied health certificate programs, religion
[59:13] Speaker 1: and theology, music, theater, film, visual arts, other performing arts programs,
[59:17] Speaker 1: teacher education and early childhood education, social work counseling and
[59:21] Speaker 1: mental health programs, and certain humanities and liberal arts programs.
[59:24] Speaker 1: Programs that fail the earnings test in two out of
[59:26] Speaker 1: three consecutive award years can lose eligibility or federal direct loans.
[59:30] Speaker 1: The Department of Education responded on social media to reports
[59:33] Speaker 1: describing the policies of ban on financial assistance for certain programs,
[59:37] Speaker 1: saying this is fake news at its finest. First off,
[59:39] Speaker 1: we're not banning any program. The federal government doesn't set
[59:42] Speaker 1: curriculum or programs. Here's the truth. We're holding colleges accountable
[59:45] Speaker 1: for leaving students worse off if they never enrolled. Too
[59:48] Speaker 1: many graduates report delaying major life milestones like buying a
[59:51] Speaker 1: home or starting a family.
[59:52] Speaker 6: Why?
[59:53] Speaker 1: Because low return on investment programs settle them with unmanageable
[59:56] Speaker 1: debt that was never going to translate.
[59:58] Speaker 2: Into a real world job.
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: Federal student loans are not a welfare program for failing
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: college programs. American students deserve education and training pathways that
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: prepare them for the workforce and transparency about programs that
[1:00:10] Speaker 1: will never pay off. Joining us right now is Dr.
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: Brittany Williams. She is the researcher here to explain this.
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: And so let's go through this. This is the problem
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: that I have with this. First of all, there's this
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: idea that you can determine in the first couple of years, okay,
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: what someone is making, that means nothing in terms of
[1:00:35] Speaker 1: 10 years in. I graduated from Texas A & M
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: in 1991. I interviewed for a job before I actually
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: got started. I remember there was a paper in Brayton
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: in Florida, Knight Ritter owned them, and it was a
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: paper less than 200,000 circulation. More than likely, that starting
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: seller is probably going to be 16, 18,000. Austin American
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: Statesman interviews me. They were about two and 3000 in circulation.
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: They offered me $ 20, 100. I said, no, y'all got to
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: pay me at least.
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: So I made 10% more. So I got 22,100 in
[1:01:05] Speaker 2: one year. I was promoted twice.
[1:01:07] Speaker 1: I go up to 24,000 13 months after I graduated
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: the Fort Worth star telegram offers me a job. covering
[1:01:21] Speaker 1: city hall. I'm at 32,100. So I go from $ 20, 000
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: in the offer was December of 1991 to February at 1993.
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: And I've jumped $ 12, 000. I'm there two and a half years.
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: I get a job as a news reporter, morning anchor,
[1:01:38] Speaker 1: the radio station. I'm at $ 45, 000. So three years from
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: graduating to, uh, this other job, I've doubled my salary.
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: These idiots are basically saying that, well, if it doesn't
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: happen in a couple of years, yeah, you're not going
[1:01:55] Speaker 1: to have a student loan for this degree.
[1:01:59] Speaker 2: That's just dumb. Yeah.
[1:02:01] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:02:02] Speaker 9: So let me talk to you. Let me let me
[1:02:04] Speaker 9: lay out a couple of things. Let me give you
[1:02:06] Speaker 9: a timeline really quickly and then we can have a discourse.
[1:02:09] Speaker 9: And so now they told the truth. They surprisingly they
[1:02:13] Speaker 9: aren't banning the programs. They are just preparing to take
[1:02:15] Speaker 9: away the money that the students use to persist and
[1:02:19] Speaker 9: complete those programs. What what we're moving from is a
[1:02:23] Speaker 9: debt to earning system to a simpler earnings system. And
[1:02:28] Speaker 9: so what they are saying is If you're an undergraduate
[1:02:31] Speaker 9: student and you graduated in 2026 by 2030, if you
[1:02:37] Speaker 9: are not making more than a person that has earned
[1:02:41] Speaker 9: a high school diploma in working in this field, then
[1:02:46] Speaker 9: your institution, this program at your institutions may be on
[1:02:50] Speaker 9: the chopping block to lose funding.
[1:02:52] Speaker 5: And so to lose funding.
[1:02:54] Speaker 1: We say lose funding, we say federal funding, now we say,
[1:02:58] Speaker 1: is it the school's going to lose funding or you can't,
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: you will not be able to get financial aid if
[1:03:03] Speaker 1: you want to major in that area?
[1:03:06] Speaker 9: I think it's a both and. So the students won't
[1:03:08] Speaker 9: be able to access the student loans and so then
[1:03:10] Speaker 9: the institutions are essentially losing out on money.
[1:03:14] Speaker 1: But here's the problem I have with that. And I'll
[1:03:19] Speaker 1: just give you a perfect example.
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: There are students... who come through here. They've interned.
[1:03:27] Speaker 1: Or they want to intern with us. I know some
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: folks who went to undergraduate, they graduated, didn't get a job,
[1:03:35] Speaker 1: and then they went and got a master's, incurred more debt,
[1:03:38] Speaker 1: thinking that's going to help them get a job when
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: actually in journalism it's not.
[1:03:43] Speaker 2: The problem is.
[1:03:45] Speaker 1: You can't sit here and go, well, if and also
[1:03:50] Speaker 1: this earnings idea, what is it based on? How can
[1:03:54] Speaker 1: you compare? How can you compare if you are a
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: music major? or you're teaching, or you're in some other area,
[1:04:03] Speaker 1: to somebody who's a high school graduate who might be
[1:04:07] Speaker 1: a plumber or whatever, you can't compare the two. And also,
[1:04:12] Speaker 1: some areas don't pay off in two, three, four years.
[1:04:17] Speaker 2: That's why it's called a career.
[1:04:19] Speaker 9: Yeah. Can I tell you my truth? I think this
[1:04:24] Speaker 9: will disproportionately impact the black community. For example, let me
[1:04:28] Speaker 9: use myself. So I earned a doctorate because I knew
[1:04:32] Speaker 9: that it would help advance me in my career.
[1:04:35] Speaker 2: And what's that?
[1:04:36] Speaker 9: I'm in education policy. know that I have colleagues that
[1:04:41] Speaker 9: are non-black that don't have a doctorate and we are
[1:04:44] Speaker 9: doing the same jobs. So for example, what this earnings
[1:04:48] Speaker 9: test will do, because graduate programs are also impacted, what
[1:04:52] Speaker 9: this earnings test would do is test my earnings at
[1:04:55] Speaker 9: the graduate level or graduate program and then compare it
[1:04:59] Speaker 9: to my peers with a bachelor's who did not pursue
[1:05:05] Speaker 9: graduate programs and they will compare earnings. to see if
[1:05:09] Speaker 9: this program is still viable.
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, but here's what I'm trying to understand, though. They're
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: going to compare you who got a doctorate to somebody
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: with the same major who didn't get a doctorate?
[1:05:25] Speaker 9: According to their analysis, if their analysis based on institutional data.
[1:05:31] Speaker 9: So also there's a caveat. The institution has to report
[1:05:34] Speaker 9: this data to the Department of Ed. This is who's
[1:05:37] Speaker 9: going to crunch the numbers. It's called a regulatory impact analysis.
[1:05:41] Speaker 9: So they're doing... their analyses, and what's going to happen
[1:05:45] Speaker 9: is based on the institution's reporting, they're going to say, yeah,
[1:05:50] Speaker 9: we're going to crunch the numbers. We're going to.
[1:05:52] Speaker 2: Okay, here's the problem. Texas A & M has never.
[1:05:56] Speaker 1: So has sent me a survey saying, hey, Roland, how
[1:06:00] Speaker 1: much are you making this year? Second of all, how
[1:06:03] Speaker 1: many people are just going to willingly give over their information?
[1:06:08] Speaker 1: So like what template exists for this? So what the
[1:06:13] Speaker 1: school is not going to be burdened with you. They
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: have not had to track the earnings of every graduate
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: in all these programs.
[1:06:21] Speaker 9: Correct. And I think your confusion is rightly placed. That's
[1:06:25] Speaker 9: exactly an issue, right? So institutions and states, they have
[1:06:29] Speaker 9: data reporting issues already. And so now you're taking whatever
[1:06:33] Speaker 9: students report out, right, to their institutions or however.
[1:06:37] Speaker 1: And we're talking public and private institutions.
[1:06:39] Speaker 12: So now.
[1:06:41] Speaker 1: all of America's public and private colleges are now going
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: to have to track the earnings data, and is it
[1:06:48] Speaker 1: in all fields or only the fields that they pick?
[1:06:51] Speaker 9: Across all fields, yeah. And so what happened.
[1:06:55] Speaker 1: So are they going to give the schools money to
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: hire somebody whose job is going to be to chase
[1:07:00] Speaker 1: this information down?
[1:07:01] Speaker 9: No, because we're returning education to the states, remember? So
[1:07:05] Speaker 9: now the states will have to incentivize institutions.
[1:07:09] Speaker 2: Let me just go to my panel. Rebecca, I'm going
[1:07:12] Speaker 2: to start with you. These people are stupid.
[1:07:16] Speaker 3: Roland, what you're hearing is applying capitalism principles to what
[1:07:22] Speaker 3: should be education. We educate people for the public good.
[1:07:25] Speaker 3: We educate people because we— at least the thought process is
[1:07:29] Speaker 3: that it is good for society. But to now say
[1:07:32] Speaker 3: that wages— and, in fact, wages having been caught up— stayed caught
[1:07:37] Speaker 3: up with inflation since, what, the 70s? That if you're
[1:07:40] Speaker 3: not getting an underpaid wage that is a good enough
[1:07:44] Speaker 3: wage determined by this administration— that that's going to determine
[1:07:49] Speaker 3: whether or not someone could actually borrow federal money, their
[1:07:52] Speaker 3: tax dollar money, in order to get a higher education.
[1:07:56] Speaker 3: This simply doesn't make sense. So I guess my question
[1:08:01] Speaker 3: for you is, Well, one is dumb, right? But what
[1:08:07] Speaker 3: is even the justification? They're not even claiming that these
[1:08:11] Speaker 3: are universities, that these are colleges, that these are community
[1:08:15] Speaker 3: colleges that are fake or false or for-profit colleges. What
[1:08:21] Speaker 3: is the actual policy argument here?
[1:08:24] Speaker 9: Let me tell you. First, I absolutely do not want
[1:08:26] Speaker 9: to speak for the U.S. Department of Education.
[1:08:29] Speaker 1: I can answer that. I can answer that for you.
[1:08:31] Speaker 1: Go ahead and get your answer. But I'm going to
[1:08:33] Speaker 1: give you the answer as to why they're doing it.
[1:08:35] Speaker 9: But the justification is so that students are not taking
[1:08:39] Speaker 9: out student loan debt that won't turn into profitable or
[1:08:44] Speaker 9: upward economic mobility.
[1:08:45] Speaker 2: And that's a lie.
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: The reality is the reason they're doing this is because
[1:08:50] Speaker 1: Trump and MAGA considers these majors to be far left liberals.
[1:08:57] Speaker 2: That's the whole deal.
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: They, this is their idea of, Oh no, uh, these
[1:09:03] Speaker 1: far left radical libs, they major in these things. So
[1:09:07] Speaker 1: therefore this is how we're going to go after them
[1:09:10] Speaker 1: because they believe that colleges and universities are liberal institutions
[1:09:14] Speaker 1: that are indoctrinating people. That's one of the reasons why, uh,
[1:09:18] Speaker 1: Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, the lieutenant governor of Texas,
[1:09:21] Speaker 1: Dan Patrick. That's why Ron DeSantis in Florida, why they've
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: been targeting a higher education, putting in. And also, I
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: need everybody watching to understand. Also, it's a bunch of
[1:09:32] Speaker 1: public HBCUs now with MAGA presidents. And they are now
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: determining what you now can't major in.
[1:09:41] Speaker 2: You can't get degrees.
[1:09:42] Speaker 1: It's like Africana Studies, African American Studies, Women's History Programs.
[1:09:47] Speaker 1: They are now removing those off the campuses because they
[1:09:51] Speaker 1: believe those are breeding.
[1:09:53] Speaker 2: Grounds for future liberals.
[1:09:55] Speaker 9: Absolutely.
[1:09:57] Speaker 2: That's why they're doing it.
[1:09:58] Speaker 10: Robert.
[1:10:00] Speaker 14: So this event, and hear me out, more than one
[1:10:04] Speaker 14: thing can be true at one time. Everything you just said, 100% true.
[1:10:09] Speaker 14: And yes, they are attacking teachers. They're attacking the pipelines.
[1:10:12] Speaker 14: They're attacking jobs that predominantly are held by African-American women
[1:10:16] Speaker 14: in particular.
[1:10:17] Speaker 8: But also, a lot of people.
[1:10:19] Speaker 14: Went to a whole bunch of bullshit schools, got a
[1:10:21] Speaker 14: bunch of bullshit degrees, and then they went to the
[1:10:23] Speaker 14: federal government asking for student loan forgiveness after they went
[1:10:26] Speaker 14: to University of Phoenix, followed by Argosy, followed by Grand
[1:10:30] Speaker 14: Canyon University, followed by all those things. That's a separate issue.
[1:10:33] Speaker 14: My point is we have a lot of people who
[1:10:34] Speaker 14: are carrying... A lot of student loan.
[1:10:36] Speaker 2: Robert, Robert, Robert, Robert.
[1:10:39] Speaker 1: The reason that's a totally separate issue. And I see
[1:10:41] Speaker 1: Rebecca shaking her head as well. Under the Obama administration,
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: they went after those places.
[1:10:48] Speaker 2: They went after exactly what you just named.
[1:10:50] Speaker 1: They went after those institutions. No, this is not the
[1:10:54] Speaker 1: online degree factories. No, what they're doing, but this, no,
[1:11:00] Speaker 1: they are targeting institutions. state institutions. They're targeting private colleges.
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: This is not, I know exactly what you're talking about,
[1:11:07] Speaker 1: and you're right.
[1:11:08] Speaker 2: Roll it, roll it.
[1:11:10] Speaker 14: On that point, my freshman year at Clark Atlanta, we
[1:11:13] Speaker 14: had a degree program in fashion design. Everyone I know
[1:11:16] Speaker 14: who got a degree in fashion design sells real estate now.
[1:11:19] Speaker 2: But wait, but wait, but wait, but wait, but hold up,
[1:11:21] Speaker 2: hold up.
[1:11:21] Speaker 8: But hold up.
[1:11:22] Speaker 2: Hold up. Again, I'm glad you brought that up.
[1:11:25] Speaker 1: And the reason, the reason I think people need to
[1:11:27] Speaker 1: understand something is that a person can major in something,
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: but that person also needs to be doing some.
[1:11:35] Speaker 2: Other work to get a job. Now, That's a subjective thing.
[1:11:42] Speaker 1: For instance, not every journalism student was aggressive as I am.
[1:11:47] Speaker 1: In fact, two thirds of when I was at Texas
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: A & M, this is one of the reasons why
[1:11:51] Speaker 1: the president after I left got rid of the program.
[1:11:55] Speaker 1: Now they're phasing it back in. Two thirds of the
[1:11:58] Speaker 1: students who were journalism majors when I was there didn't
[1:12:02] Speaker 1: want to go into journalism.
[1:12:04] Speaker 2: A lot of them want to go in PR.
[1:12:06] Speaker 1: A lot of them flunked out of other colleges at
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: Texas A & M, business, ag, and others, and they
[1:12:13] Speaker 1: want an A & M degree.
[1:12:14] Speaker 2: Now, here's the deal. That's their choice, their decision.
[1:12:18] Speaker 1: The problem that I have is I walked out of
[1:12:21] Speaker 1: my high school, Robert, the number one communications student, voted
[1:12:25] Speaker 1: by the faculty.
[1:12:27] Speaker 2: I was top of the heap. I was number one
[1:12:29] Speaker 2: at Texas A & M.
[1:12:31] Speaker 1: What Trump is saying is that, oh, we're so rolling
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: since your first two years did not meet this earnings level,
[1:12:42] Speaker 1: you can't get financial aid to be a journalism major.
[1:12:45] Speaker 1: I can guarantee you, I'm making way more money now. Hell,
[1:12:50] Speaker 1: I'm making more money giving two speeches in a month
[1:12:53] Speaker 1: than what my first job was. But they're making subjective,
[1:12:57] Speaker 1: arbitrary decisions that are not about the meal factories. This
[1:13:02] Speaker 1: is targeting a wide area of majors because it's about
[1:13:08] Speaker 1: attacking liberals.
[1:13:09] Speaker 2: Brittany, go ahead.
[1:13:09] Speaker 9: Can I give you another example, Roland? What about our
[1:13:12] Speaker 9: teachers who often in the school systems are on a
[1:13:15] Speaker 9: step program? So what I might make coming right out
[1:13:18] Speaker 9: of college four years later compared to teachers that earn
[1:13:22] Speaker 9: more later on, again, I hear where you're going with
[1:13:27] Speaker 9: the gainful employment rule, and I recognize. But we're not
[1:13:30] Speaker 9: talking about predatory programs. What we're talking about is an
[1:13:34] Speaker 9: issue with fair wages. We're talking about an issue.
[1:13:37] Speaker 1: You're penalizing the graduate because the school district don't want to.
[1:13:42] Speaker 2: Listen, my brother was a culinary arts teacher. Yeah.
[1:13:47] Speaker 1: Led his high school to a national championship in culinary arts.
[1:13:51] Speaker 1: And they were like, man, it would be great to
[1:13:54] Speaker 1: have you run the... to have you be the department head.
[1:13:57] Speaker 10: Yeah.
[1:13:58] Speaker 9: Oh, no.
[1:13:59] Speaker 2: This teacher.
[1:14:00] Speaker 1: who had more experience and I think had a master's,
[1:14:05] Speaker 1: qualified to be the department head.
[1:14:07] Speaker 2: Her ass wasn't no executive chef. He's a literal executive.
[1:14:11] Speaker 1: Chef trained in culinary arts, but because of their rules,
[1:14:17] Speaker 1: so she got to make more money running the department.
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: So those are arbitrary rules. It's not about who's actually
[1:14:23] Speaker 1: the better teacher. That's the problem there. And other areas, hell,
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: the market is determined, yeah, we're not going to pay more.
[1:14:31] Speaker 9: It's systemic issues. And so, yes, we're talking about these
[1:14:35] Speaker 9: issues with the student loan debt, but these are economic issues.
[1:14:39] Speaker 9: These are issues that states need to pay attention to.
[1:14:43] Speaker 9: These are issues that, for example, just to use that
[1:14:47] Speaker 9: exact point, you know, a music major, a theater major.
[1:14:51] Speaker 9: If my son, I have an 11th grader right now,
[1:14:53] Speaker 9: if my son wants to major in theater and go
[1:14:58] Speaker 9: on Broadway, guess what? He might make it there in
[1:15:01] Speaker 9: 10 years, but it's going to take him some time.
[1:15:02] Speaker 9: You don't just start out the... there's such a greater
[1:15:06] Speaker 9: issue than just saying, let's snatch the student loan money away.
[1:15:10] Speaker 9: Particularly those of us who need student loans. As a 100%
[1:15:15] Speaker 9: Pell Grant recipient, when I was in my undergrad, I
[1:15:18] Speaker 9: needed student loans to help me complete my psychology degree,
[1:15:23] Speaker 9: of which I am not a psychologist. Why? Because there
[1:15:26] Speaker 9: was no earnings potential in pursuing that without getting a
[1:15:32] Speaker 9: graduate degree. So what happened? I incurred more debt. And
[1:15:35] Speaker 9: then what happened here? I am now. And yes, I'm grateful.
[1:15:38] Speaker 9: I'm making money to sustain. However, the issues at the
[1:15:41] Speaker 9: systemic level still remain wage issues. Right. Guidance, support for students.
[1:15:48] Speaker 9: If we're going to talk about it, we need to
[1:15:50] Speaker 9: talk about a holistic solution and not just, OK, well,
[1:15:53] Speaker 9: students are taking out a.
[1:15:54] Speaker 2: Lot of debt. Right.
[1:15:55] Speaker 9: Why?
[1:15:55] Speaker 1: Derek, you're a state rep. I'm going to show you
[1:15:58] Speaker 1: this is the press release that they sent out.
[1:16:00] Speaker 8: U.S.
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: Department of Education issues proposed rule to hold colleges and
[1:16:04] Speaker 1: universities accountable for low-earning outcomes. Now, this is the paragraph
[1:16:08] Speaker 1: I want.
[1:16:09] Speaker 2: You to see.
[1:16:09] Speaker 1: As a federal student loan portfolio approaches $ 1. 7 trillion, and
[1:16:14] Speaker 1: more students are left financially worse off than if they
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: had never attended college, now is the time for a
[1:16:19] Speaker 1: hard reset in higher education. The act presents a once-in-a-generation
[1:16:23] Speaker 1: opportunity to rein in unsustainable student loan borrowing, better align
[1:16:28] Speaker 1: post-secondary education with workforce needs, and bring uniform accountability across
[1:16:33] Speaker 1: the higher education system.
[1:16:34] Speaker 2: Okay, Derek, now, let me deal with that.
[1:16:37] Speaker 1: First and foremost, the reason that press release is complete
[1:16:40] Speaker 1: and utter.
[1:16:41] Speaker 2: Bullshit is because... The.
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: Biggest reason why there is massive, and I guarantee you
[1:16:48] Speaker 1: Brittany is gonna sit here and say it's sustained, the
[1:16:51] Speaker 1: reason there is massive student loan debt today is.
[1:16:54] Speaker 2: Because the cost of college has exploded. Derek, you're a
[1:16:59] Speaker 2: state rep.
[1:17:00] Speaker 1: The reality is states today spend less money, there's less
[1:17:07] Speaker 1: money that come from the state two state institutions, and
[1:17:12] Speaker 1: as a result, the costs have exploded all across the board. So, yes,
[1:17:18] Speaker 1: and the reason a lot of people are like, well,
[1:17:20] Speaker 1: I ain't had no student loans.
[1:17:22] Speaker 2: Listen, I think... I think I left Texas A & M,
[1:17:27] Speaker 2: I think it.
[1:17:28] Speaker 1: Was $ 30, 000 in student loans. I worked in school, got
[1:17:32] Speaker 1: financial aid. But the cost per credit hour was a
[1:17:37] Speaker 1: hell of a lot smaller than it is today. So
[1:17:40] Speaker 1: they ain't dealing with that. That's why. And that was
[1:17:42] Speaker 1: a time, thank you Ronald Reagan, that was a time
[1:17:46] Speaker 1: when college used to be free. But Ronald Reagan was
[1:17:51] Speaker 1: the one who said, no, he was one of his
[1:17:53] Speaker 1: advisors said, no, we don't.
[1:17:56] Speaker 2: We should not.
[1:17:57] Speaker 1: Make college free because it's going to lead to too
[1:18:01] Speaker 1: many educated people. That's why college loan debt is one
[1:18:06] Speaker 1: point seven trillion dollars. Not solely because of, well, your
[1:18:10] Speaker 1: major isn't making.
[1:18:11] Speaker 2: Lots of money.
[1:18:12] Speaker 8: And not only that, Roland.
[1:18:17] Speaker 15: It's hard for us to invest in curriculum, scholarships, when
[1:18:24] Speaker 15: you gotta pay your head football coach $ 130 million over
[1:18:29] Speaker 15: a 10-year period.
[1:18:31] Speaker 12: That's true.
[1:18:32] Speaker 8: Okay? That's true. So follow the money.
[1:18:37] Speaker 15: I do want to just reset, and I would love
[1:18:39] Speaker 15: to get Dr.
[1:18:40] Speaker 8: Williams' perspective.
[1:18:42] Speaker 15: This goes back, Roland, to Project 2025. In Project 2025,
[1:18:47] Speaker 15: they are very clear to dismantle the K through 12
[1:18:54] Speaker 15: and higher learning institution because they want to target a
[1:19:00] Speaker 15: working class mobility. They are very specific in the specific
[1:19:04] Speaker 15: degrees that they're going after.
[1:19:07] Speaker 8: Early childhood education. I mean, you listed all of them, right?
[1:19:11] Speaker 11: So think about that.
[1:19:12] Speaker 8: So Dr.
[1:19:13] Speaker 15: Williams, my question to you is, we know what Project 2025,
[1:19:17] Speaker 15: they were very clear. They want to starve the education infrastructure.
[1:19:22] Speaker 15: They want to take money out. My question is, are
[1:19:27] Speaker 15: they also targeting trade schools?
[1:19:31] Speaker 9: No, no. And I mean, across the country, you can
[1:19:35] Speaker 9: see there's an influx of dollars for CTE programs.
[1:19:39] Speaker 2: First of all, people don't know what that means. What
[1:19:41] Speaker 2: is CTE?
[1:19:41] Speaker 9: I'm giving it to you.
[1:19:42] Speaker 2: Okay, go ahead.
[1:19:43] Speaker 9: Career and technical education. So as we think about the
[1:19:48] Speaker 9: trade programs or apprenticeship programs or, you know, those programs
[1:19:53] Speaker 9: that will according to state definition, drive students into high wage,
[1:19:58] Speaker 9: high demand careers faster. Absolutely. States are investing across the nation.
[1:20:04] Speaker 9: And in fact, there are more and more tracks than
[1:20:07] Speaker 9: ever before to to put students to track students in
[1:20:11] Speaker 9: those those quick, those fast careers.
[1:20:13] Speaker 2: Now, here's the deal.
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: I have no problem with that. The reason I have
[1:20:16] Speaker 1: no problem with that. I if you go back to
[1:20:18] Speaker 1: my TV, one show, my first one, Washington Watch. We
[1:20:21] Speaker 1: were talking about trades then. I had Bob Johnson on
[1:20:25] Speaker 1: the show. I had his ex-wife Sheila Johnson on the show.
[1:20:29] Speaker 1: We were talking about trades then, because we were seeing
[1:20:32] Speaker 1: what was happening. And so that is critically important. What
[1:20:36] Speaker 1: we also have to own up to, and I want Brittany,
[1:20:41] Speaker 1: you're going to do another round with Rebecca, Robert, and Derek.
[1:20:45] Speaker 1: We also have to own up to that one of
[1:20:48] Speaker 1: the other reasons we have $ 1. 7 trillion student loan debt.
[1:20:52] Speaker 1: It's because what this society did was, I'm going to
[1:20:56] Speaker 1: go back to what you just said about why you
[1:20:58] Speaker 1: had to get the PhD. What this society did was,
[1:21:03] Speaker 1: and the trades are also important in this here, because
[1:21:06] Speaker 1: college used to be free. A lot of people who
[1:21:08] Speaker 1: went to city colleges of New York and other places,
[1:21:11] Speaker 1: it was free. You come out of the 1960s and
[1:21:14] Speaker 1: now you're going to the 1970s. All of a sudden, 1972,
[1:21:18] Speaker 1: you got Title IX, which opened the door of graduate
[1:21:21] Speaker 1: schools to women to become doctors and engineers and lawyers
[1:21:25] Speaker 1: and things along those lines.
[1:21:27] Speaker 9: All right.
[1:21:27] Speaker 1: So the white men being real mad because also what
[1:21:30] Speaker 1: happened was you begin to see your first influx of African-Americans.
[1:21:34] Speaker 1: So here's what began to happen in the 70s and 80s.
[1:21:37] Speaker 1: You had trades in high school. I remember my high school,
[1:21:39] Speaker 1: Jack Yates. We had cosmetology. We actually had a dry cleaners.
[1:21:44] Speaker 2: In our high school. And it wasn't just like no classroom.
[1:21:48] Speaker 1: You could actually drop your clothes off, they'd clean your clothes,
[1:21:50] Speaker 1: and you'd go pick it up at the end of school.
[1:21:53] Speaker 1: We had auto shop, we had woodworks, we had photography,
[1:21:57] Speaker 1: we had all of that. But what happened was, in
[1:22:02] Speaker 1: the 70s and 80s, just like when Hampton opened, and
[1:22:07] Speaker 1: General Armstrong founded Hampton, he wanted the children of formerly
[1:22:12] Speaker 1: enslaved people to keep working the land. The black parents said,
[1:22:16] Speaker 1: oh no, hell no. We want our kids to be doctors, lawyers, engineers.
[1:22:20] Speaker 1: And so that's what that whole, it was a 30 year,
[1:22:22] Speaker 1: if anybody reads James D. Anderson's book, The Education of
[1:22:25] Speaker 1: Blacks in the South, 1860 to 1935, they'll understand that
[1:22:28] Speaker 1: was a 30 year battle over the curriculum at Hampton
[1:22:31] Speaker 1: over that very issue. His most famous student, Booker T. Washington,
[1:22:35] Speaker 1: creates to see all about agriculture.
[1:22:38] Speaker 2: But it was W.B. DuBois.
[1:22:39] Speaker 1: Others were like, no, no, no. Train our kids in
[1:22:41] Speaker 1: the arts and the sciences. So what happened in the
[1:22:43] Speaker 1: 70s and 80s? In the 70s and 80s, what happened?
[1:22:47] Speaker 1: White counselors were pushing black kids and Latino kids into trades.
[1:22:55] Speaker 1: They were not recommending them to college. They were not
[1:22:58] Speaker 1: providing them scholarships and grants along those lines.
[1:23:02] Speaker 2: And so what happened?
[1:23:03] Speaker 1: Black parents, Latino parents rebelled against trades. And then the
[1:23:09] Speaker 1: overall education system then began to go, no, every job
[1:23:13] Speaker 1: needed a college degree. So what then happened? The people
[1:23:16] Speaker 1: who should have never gone to college and it's nothing
[1:23:19] Speaker 1: but the reality is there are people who are master plumbers,
[1:23:22] Speaker 1: master electricians who can make one, two, three hundred.
[1:23:25] Speaker 2: Thousand dollars a year. Everything became, no, you got to
[1:23:28] Speaker 2: go to college. You got to go to college. You
[1:23:29] Speaker 2: got to go to college.
[1:23:30] Speaker 1: So the people who actually were going to trades had
[1:23:34] Speaker 1: to go to college. Then the people who should have
[1:23:37] Speaker 1: gone to college, they were trying to force in the trades.
[1:23:40] Speaker 2: So the system rebelled. We lost trades.
[1:23:43] Speaker 1: The whole system became everybody go to four-year institutions, not
[1:23:47] Speaker 1: even two years. And so now all of a sudden,
[1:23:50] Speaker 1: we had this whole system on how to pass the test,
[1:23:54] Speaker 1: how to get high scores on the SAT and the
[1:23:56] Speaker 1: ACT to qualify to go to college.
[1:23:58] Speaker 2: And then what ended up happening?
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: Baby boomers started retiring, and we now have major, major
[1:24:04] Speaker 1: gaps in the trades. There has to be an education
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: balance between providing resources if you decide to go to
[1:24:12] Speaker 1: trade school, because we need plumbers and electricians, but at
[1:24:16] Speaker 1: the same time, you have to confront lowering the cost
[1:24:19] Speaker 1: of education because it also was driving the debt.
[1:24:23] Speaker 2: And this is not an answer.
[1:24:25] Speaker 9: No, I agree with you. And I think to your point,
[1:24:29] Speaker 9: what I've seen is that there are states. So this
[1:24:31] Speaker 9: is this is an institutional issue. This is a state
[1:24:34] Speaker 9: issue with students are impacted. But what I've seen now
[1:24:37] Speaker 9: is that states are introducing financial aid programs to push
[1:24:43] Speaker 9: adult learners and students that did not decide to go
[1:24:46] Speaker 9: to two and four year into college. those trade programs.
[1:24:49] Speaker 9: And so my home state, Louisiana, we have the MJ
[1:24:53] Speaker 9: Foster program that does this for students. In Maryland, there's
[1:24:57] Speaker 9: the Workforce Shortage Financial Aid program that will finance students
[1:25:02] Speaker 9: going into trade programs. And so states are, they are
[1:25:07] Speaker 9: now coming around to answer the call that you just said. However,
[1:25:11] Speaker 9: but for the students that are deciding to go to
[1:25:14] Speaker 9: the four-year institutions, they're going to need the state support
[1:25:17] Speaker 9: as well. If the feds won't give the support, the
[1:25:20] Speaker 9: state is going to have to answer the call and reinvest.
[1:25:23] Speaker 1: Rebecca, my wife was vice president, uh, at one of
[1:25:26] Speaker 1: the city colleges of Chicago. Um, and what was, uh,
[1:25:31] Speaker 1: what was crazy at that time, they were spending $ 40
[1:25:35] Speaker 1: million a year on literacy. That's because K through 12
[1:25:40] Speaker 1: was Chicago public schools was failing these same students. And
[1:25:43] Speaker 1: they were literally treating the City College of Chicago first
[1:25:45] Speaker 1: years of 13th grade.
[1:25:47] Speaker 2: So here's what happened.
[1:25:48] Speaker 1: Comair, the energy company, they saw all these people were retiring.
[1:25:53] Speaker 1: So they created a nine-month certification program where you would
[1:25:58] Speaker 1: go through with Kennedy King. You would learn the job
[1:26:02] Speaker 1: of the people who climbed the poles. If you finished
[1:26:05] Speaker 1: the program, nine months, and graduated from the program and
[1:26:10] Speaker 1: you get hired by ComEd, starting salary with jobs were
[1:26:13] Speaker 1: like $ 90, 000. With overtime or whatever, you can make upwards
[1:26:17] Speaker 1: of $ 150, 000. It was a nine month program. That made sense.
[1:26:23] Speaker 1: I believe part of this issue that we have to
[1:26:26] Speaker 1: confront with education, and again, this is a stupid idea here.
[1:26:30] Speaker 1: You do have to, I believe, marry actual industries with
[1:26:36] Speaker 1: what the industries need today and for the future, with
[1:26:39] Speaker 1: what's being taught in the classroom, because I do believe,
[1:26:43] Speaker 1: and I know this for a fact in media, there
[1:26:45] Speaker 1: are too many places where they are teaching the theoretical.
[1:26:50] Speaker 1: They're teaching theory of media and not actually what we do.
[1:26:55] Speaker 1: So we get interns here, and I'm like, that four-year
[1:26:59] Speaker 1: paper don't mean shit here.
[1:27:01] Speaker 2: It ain't going to get you through the first 24 hours.
[1:27:04] Speaker 1: That's a different conversation than to say we're going to
[1:27:07] Speaker 1: cut out any financial aid if you desire to major
[1:27:12] Speaker 1: in these programs.
[1:27:12] Speaker 2: Rebecca, I'm going to come back to you, Brittany.
[1:27:15] Speaker 3: Rebecca, go. So Roland, here's my issue with positing it
[1:27:20] Speaker 3: that way, is that our society and capitalism, it teaches
[1:27:24] Speaker 3: us that we.
[1:27:25] Speaker 5: Send people to get educated, to.
[1:27:29] Speaker 3: Serve business, instead of we educate people to serve society.
[1:27:34] Speaker 5: We educate people to improve the human.
[1:27:36] Speaker 3: Condition of all in society, which also improves those who
[1:27:40] Speaker 3: do have businesses.
[1:27:41] Speaker 5: So I'm going to give a couple of examples. So
[1:27:44] Speaker 5: on that.
[1:27:44] Speaker 3: List of particular fields of study that may no longer
[1:27:48] Speaker 3: be eligible under this pending rule by the Department of
[1:27:51] Speaker 3: Education is social workers. My eldest sister is a social worker.
[1:27:55] Speaker 3: She has been a social worker, I think, for years.
[1:27:56] Speaker 2: And Lord, we know we need them.
[1:27:59] Speaker 3: And when I tell you about the thousands of young people,
[1:28:04] Speaker 3: thousands of foster youth, thousands of young people who have
[1:28:07] Speaker 3: aged out of the system and now are in the world,
[1:28:10] Speaker 3: quote unquote, real world, that she has impacted directly or indirectly.
[1:28:14] Speaker 3: So even talking about these programs where, oh, for foster youth, well,
[1:28:19] Speaker 3: guess what?
[1:28:19] Speaker 5: If you don't have people like my sister.
[1:28:21] Speaker 3: Actually preparing them with life skills or all of those
[1:28:24] Speaker 3: foster kids, as soon as they turn 18 and age
[1:28:27] Speaker 3: out of the system, they are left to their own.
[1:28:30] Speaker 3: My sister has had to teach these young people how
[1:28:33] Speaker 3: to apply for jobs, how to get state IDs, how
[1:28:36] Speaker 3: to get a bus permit, how to do the things
[1:28:38] Speaker 3: that normally you would learn within a family unit if
[1:28:44] Speaker 3: that's what you.
[1:28:44] Speaker 5: Grew up in.
[1:28:46] Speaker 3: Also, this same Department of Education tried to say, oh, well,
[1:28:49] Speaker 3: for certain majors, including some STEM fields of study, they're
[1:28:53] Speaker 3: going to put a very low cap on how much
[1:28:55] Speaker 3: in loans you could take, such as PAs.
[1:28:58] Speaker 5: My middle sister is a PA. And she also is the.
[1:29:02] Speaker 3: Co-program director at Meharry, which is a HBCU for their
[1:29:06] Speaker 3: PA program. PAs work alongside doctors and they actually treat
[1:29:12] Speaker 3: patients on the same medical platform that doctors treat patients.
[1:29:17] Speaker 5: They also prescribe medicine.
[1:29:19] Speaker 3: So when we look at serving different communities and we're
[1:29:22] Speaker 3: looking at different paths that people can take to serve communities,
[1:29:25] Speaker 3: that's one of them. And this administration has put that
[1:29:28] Speaker 3: on the chopping block. When I think about early in
[1:29:30] Speaker 3: my career, my first job out of law school, I
[1:29:33] Speaker 3: worked for AmeriCorps. I was an AmeriCorps attorney. I made
[1:29:36] Speaker 3: less than $ 24, 000 a year. All of the AmeriCorps attorneys,
[1:29:40] Speaker 3: they handed us a food stamp card because we were
[1:29:43] Speaker 3: below poverty wages.
[1:29:44] Speaker 5: The particular program that I did, and Dr.
[1:29:47] Speaker 3: Britton, you were like this, After Katrina and Rita happened,
[1:29:50] Speaker 3: thousands of attorneys left Louisiana. And so I was an
[1:29:53] Speaker 3: AmeriCorps attorney assigned in Louisiana doing some post-Katrina and Rita
[1:29:58] Speaker 3: service work. And so if this administration is allowed to
[1:30:02] Speaker 3: do what it does, then it's taking away from those
[1:30:04] Speaker 3: people and the public interest work in society that actually
[1:30:09] Speaker 3: makes our country great. Finally, I would say, when we're
[1:30:12] Speaker 3: talking about certain majors, when we're talking about certain disciplines,
[1:30:16] Speaker 3: when I think about the humanities, and if someone is
[1:30:19] Speaker 3: getting a philosophy major, this is why all.
[1:30:21] Speaker 5: Of us should care. It's because that includes ethics. So
[1:30:25] Speaker 5: when we see what all these.
[1:30:26] Speaker 3: Big tech bros are doing to ruin our society, if
[1:30:30] Speaker 3: you don't have those who are educated in the discipline,
[1:30:34] Speaker 3: not just major, but the discipline of ethics, They are
[1:30:37] Speaker 3: going to be making all sorts of decisions that is
[1:30:39] Speaker 3: bad for society.
[1:30:40] Speaker 5: That's why you need these types of measures.
[1:30:42] Speaker 2: Well, also, I think I'll say this here, Brittany.
[1:30:44] Speaker 1: I think one of the problems that we're in now,
[1:30:47] Speaker 1: because the arts have been completely decimated in schools. Frankly,
[1:30:51] Speaker 1: we got young people who don't know how to think.
[1:30:52] Speaker 9: Yeah.
[1:30:53] Speaker 1: I mean, the reality is, I mean, if there's one
[1:30:55] Speaker 1: pet peeve that I have had for the last 20 years, last,
[1:30:59] Speaker 1: let's see, TV one show started in 2009.
[1:31:00] Speaker 2: So really for the last.
[1:31:02] Speaker 1: 19 years of having my own show and now with
[1:31:07] Speaker 1: my own company, it drives me crazy having staff members,
[1:31:13] Speaker 1: people who I hire, who don't know how to think
[1:31:17] Speaker 1: because they've been trained in the education system to memorize
[1:31:21] Speaker 1: but not think their way through, not understand deductive reasoning.
[1:31:27] Speaker 2: That's actually a philosophy class.
[1:31:29] Speaker 1: Okay, I did horribly in that damn class, but I
[1:31:32] Speaker 1: didn't know what the hell home was about modus ponens.
[1:31:34] Speaker 1: I was like, dude, I know deductive reasoning. So we
[1:31:36] Speaker 1: had issues in there. But the bottom line is the
[1:31:40] Speaker 1: ability to think. And so we're not actually training the
[1:31:43] Speaker 1: entire mind in education.
[1:31:45] Speaker 2: It's all, yeah, can you just memorize?
[1:31:48] Speaker 1: And so the targeting of these programs, if you're not
[1:31:51] Speaker 1: targeting these programs in college, you know what's going to happen?
[1:31:54] Speaker 1: They're going to wipe out many of these programs in
[1:31:56] Speaker 1: high school. Middle school, elementary school.
[1:31:59] Speaker 18: Go ahead.
[1:32:00] Speaker 2: I'm going to go to Robert and Derek.
[1:32:01] Speaker 9: I just love everything that Rebecca just said. And I
[1:32:03] Speaker 9: want to underscore that. And to your point, Roland, exactly.
[1:32:07] Speaker 9: I think what we are seeing right now is where
[1:32:11] Speaker 9: students are not taught to critically think because we are.
[1:32:14] Speaker 9: educating them for business. It's a machine. We're not educating
[1:32:18] Speaker 9: them to go out and support society. Because you want
[1:32:22] Speaker 9: to know what I think? I think that's because that
[1:32:26] Speaker 9: means we would need equitable resources. I think if we
[1:32:29] Speaker 9: were truly training... and we truly cared about the health
[1:32:33] Speaker 9: of the communities and the health of society as we
[1:32:36] Speaker 9: know it, then we would have to disperse resources across
[1:32:39] Speaker 9: institutions in a way that we know systems are not doing,
[1:32:44] Speaker 9: especially under this administration.
[1:32:46] Speaker 4: Robert?
[1:32:48] Speaker 14: I think everything's so important, but it's also we do
[1:32:51] Speaker 14: need to still reform what many of these colleges are
[1:32:54] Speaker 14: doing on the college level, because the colleges, as you say,
[1:32:58] Speaker 14: they take alumni data. They know which degrees are actually
[1:33:01] Speaker 14: productive and actually setting these kids up for things that
[1:33:03] Speaker 14: can be be monetized going forward or learning those deductive
[1:33:07] Speaker 14: reasoning skills. So there's room for improvement.
[1:33:09] Speaker 8: But again.
[1:33:10] Speaker 14: We all know this administration is going to take even
[1:33:12] Speaker 14: the most noble of causes and corrupt it some kind
[1:33:15] Speaker 14: of way. And that's what we're seeing currently.
[1:33:17] Speaker 1: Well, so where I agree with you on that, Robert,
[1:33:21] Speaker 1: is this, you do have to look at the data
[1:33:26] Speaker 1: to understand where industries are going.
[1:33:29] Speaker 2: So here's what I mean.
[1:33:31] Speaker 1: The journalism industry, that's TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, Magazines,
[1:33:41] Speaker 1: you are seeing a massive, massive drop in jobs.
[1:33:48] Speaker 2: But what are you also seeing?
[1:33:50] Speaker 1: You are seeing the creator economy individuals explode. So TV
[1:33:58] Speaker 1: one canceled my new show. December 2017. Well, I created
[1:34:06] Speaker 1: my own show. If I think back to that show,
[1:34:10] Speaker 1: we probably had 20 some odd people. Well, there are
[1:34:17] Speaker 1: 17 people who work for me now.
[1:34:19] Speaker 8: All right.
[1:34:20] Speaker 1: So what is happening is we're seeing contraction in that now,
[1:34:24] Speaker 1: meaning going forward, going forward, we start looking at, OK.
[1:34:29] Speaker 2: What will these.
[1:34:31] Speaker 1: Legacy media companies be doing, there'll be fewer jobs. But
[1:34:34] Speaker 1: it doesn't mean the underpinning of what we do, journalism,
[1:34:38] Speaker 1: is not being done.
[1:34:39] Speaker 2: What needs to happen.
[1:34:41] Speaker 1: To your point, Brittany, to Rebecca's point about ethics, you
[1:34:43] Speaker 1: need more of these content creators who are actually trained
[1:34:46] Speaker 1: in who, where, when, how, and why, and also who
[1:34:48] Speaker 1: have a sense of ethics in terms of what's on
[1:34:50] Speaker 1: the record, off the record. So maybe you don't have
[1:34:55] Speaker 1: as many journalism majors. Maybe what you have is you
[1:34:59] Speaker 1: have more business majors and journalism minors. So it's still
[1:35:05] Speaker 1: a thing that's still going to be going there. But still,
[1:35:07] Speaker 1: to me, those are responsibilities of the universities to figure
[1:35:13] Speaker 1: out and the state bodies to figure out, not the
[1:35:16] Speaker 1: federal government. Last point before I go to Derek, I
[1:35:18] Speaker 1: go back to Texas A & M. One of the things,
[1:35:22] Speaker 1: one of the things that people didn't understand, and I
[1:35:25] Speaker 1: remember when they wanted to get rid of the department,
[1:35:30] Speaker 1: the journalism department at Texas A & M, and some
[1:35:35] Speaker 1: graduates were hitting me. They were like, oh my God,
[1:35:38] Speaker 1: we got to fight for this program.
[1:35:40] Speaker 2: And I was like, no, we don't.
[1:35:42] Speaker 1: And they were trying to understand like, okay, Roland, why
[1:35:47] Speaker 1: are you against this?
[1:35:48] Speaker 8: All right.
[1:35:49] Speaker 1: And I tried to explain to them Y'all really don't
[1:35:52] Speaker 1: get this. And I'm not about to draw a map
[1:35:56] Speaker 1: of the state of Texas. I'm not about to draw
[1:35:58] Speaker 1: the map. But I'm going to actually do this here.
[1:36:00] Speaker 1: College Station, Texas is right here. University of North Texas
[1:36:06] Speaker 1: is up here. University of Texas is right here. Sam
[1:36:10] Speaker 1: Houston State's right here. University of Houston's down here. All
[1:36:14] Speaker 1: of those cities had journalism programs. If you want to
[1:36:18] Speaker 1: major in journalism, you shouldn't go to Texas A & M.
[1:36:23] Speaker 1: If you want to major in communications, you don't go
[1:36:26] Speaker 1: to Texas A & M. University of Houston, Texas Southern University,
[1:36:30] Speaker 1: Sam Houston State, University of North Texas, North Texas State,
[1:36:34] Speaker 1: University of Texas, they all had journalism communication programs. So
[1:36:39] Speaker 1: every school doesn't need the same majors. The reality is
[1:36:43] Speaker 1: you should be going to a college based upon the major.
[1:36:48] Speaker 1: not every college having all the same majors. The Texas
[1:36:52] Speaker 1: Higher Education Coordinating Board, Derrick, they actually would decide those things,
[1:36:56] Speaker 1: and it was actually done.
[1:36:59] Speaker 2: Texas A & M.
[1:36:59] Speaker 1: Did not have a strong journalism program. They didn't have
[1:37:02] Speaker 1: a they had a mediocre journalism program.
[1:37:04] Speaker 2: I'm just being honest.
[1:37:05] Speaker 1: And there's no disrespect against any professors that I had there.
[1:37:09] Speaker 2: But it was not a top program. It simply wasn't.
[1:37:12] Speaker 1: I went there because my brother was there. My sister
[1:37:14] Speaker 1: followed me and it was more economical for my parents.
[1:37:17] Speaker 1: I knew my ass was going to get a job.
[1:37:18] Speaker 1: I wasn't worried about that because I had four years
[1:37:20] Speaker 1: of it in high school. So the point, this is
[1:37:23] Speaker 1: an example where a Texas A & M should not
[1:37:26] Speaker 1: have a journalism program. They should not. It doesn't make
[1:37:29] Speaker 1: any sense. If you want to major in journalism, go
[1:37:31] Speaker 1: to the other five state schools in Texas that are
[1:37:34] Speaker 1: in a three-hour radius of Texas A & M. But
[1:37:36] Speaker 1: the federal government, Derek, should not be the determinant by
[1:37:40] Speaker 1: saying you're not going to get any financial aid to
[1:37:44] Speaker 1: major in this because we don't believe in the first
[1:37:49] Speaker 1: two or three years you were making enough money to
[1:37:52] Speaker 1: justify you majoring in that.
[1:37:55] Speaker 2: That to me is just utterly idiotic.
[1:38:00] Speaker 8: I agree with you, Roland.
[1:38:01] Speaker 15: We should not have a federal government, especially this federal
[1:38:04] Speaker 15: government that's in place right now, tinkering with our education system,
[1:38:10] Speaker 15: higher learning and K through 12. I remind you that
[1:38:15] Speaker 15: 24 years ago, when the federal government created No Child
[1:38:20] Speaker 15: Left Behind, and we're still dealing with that 24 years later.
[1:38:25] Speaker 15: What happened in 2002 when that bill went into law?
[1:38:29] Speaker 8: Well, several things. They started to dilute the curriculum.
[1:38:34] Speaker 15: So when you say we don't have no critical thinkers,
[1:38:37] Speaker 15: creative thinkers, and problem solvers, They started to change their
[1:38:42] Speaker 15: curriculum to meet the need of the No Child Left Behind.
[1:38:45] Speaker 15: Fast forward 24 years later, here we are, we got
[1:38:48] Speaker 15: the federal man, oh yeah, we don't need these programs
[1:38:52] Speaker 15: because we don't think they have net going to need
[1:38:57] Speaker 15: to down the road.
[1:38:58] Speaker 8: And which my question to Dr.
[1:39:01] Speaker 15: Williams, 10 years from now, What they're doing today, what
[1:39:06] Speaker 15: would that do to our higher learning education?
[1:39:08] Speaker 8: What would that do to our supply?
[1:39:11] Speaker 15: What would that do to the whole structure of our society?
[1:39:16] Speaker 15: Because some of these soft skills that we believe that
[1:39:20] Speaker 15: AI is going to substitute They're not going to do it.
[1:39:24] Speaker 19: If we had a crystal ball... At the end, they
[1:39:29] Speaker 19: don't care about any of that. They simply believe, and Brittany,
[1:39:32] Speaker 19: you get a final comment, they simply believe that these
[1:39:36] Speaker 19: are nothing but breeding grounds for future liberals.
[1:39:39] Speaker 9: Yeah. I think 10 years down the line, it's going
[1:39:42] Speaker 9: to be devastating. I think if we already have seen
[1:39:47] Speaker 9: such a vast, for example, educator gap, we already are
[1:39:51] Speaker 9: not seeing enough educators in the classroom. So what does
[1:39:54] Speaker 9: that look like if we are not able to matriculate
[1:39:59] Speaker 9: educators through their programs into their degrees conference? We already
[1:40:05] Speaker 9: are in a mental health crisis where a lot of
[1:40:08] Speaker 9: social workers and mental health professionals have been coming to
[1:40:12] Speaker 9: the aid across the nation. If they are not able
[1:40:16] Speaker 9: to persist through their degree programs, graduate school included, because
[1:40:21] Speaker 9: it's unaffordable, then what happens to the state of mental
[1:40:25] Speaker 9: health that goes back to Rebecca's comment around supporting the society,
[1:40:30] Speaker 9: the community of it all? I think it will only
[1:40:33] Speaker 9: get worse. And because you asked, let me give you
[1:40:36] Speaker 9: a timeline very quickly. So these new accountability rules will
[1:40:42] Speaker 9: go into effect next year on July 1st. So July 1, 2027.
[1:40:46] Speaker 9: And so what we might see is the impact would
[1:40:52] Speaker 9: be around the 2028-29 school year, because the way that
[1:40:57] Speaker 9: they have written the information so far today, because you
[1:41:01] Speaker 9: know things change, is that in about two out of
[1:41:06] Speaker 9: three years, if an institution is failing their assessment, that
[1:41:11] Speaker 9: is when the eligibility for financial aid, or federal aid, rather,
[1:41:15] Speaker 9: will be stripped away. And so, you know, nothing is
[1:41:19] Speaker 9: happening right now.
[1:41:20] Speaker 2: And that's their pathway.
[1:41:21] Speaker 9: Nothing is happening now, but it's coming.
[1:41:23] Speaker 2: That's their pathway. Well, public comment is open right now.
[1:41:26] Speaker 1: Folk, you can actually go to regulations.gov and you can
[1:41:30] Speaker 1: submit public comments.
[1:41:31] Speaker 2: It says public comments.
[1:41:32] Speaker 1: The proposed rules can be submitted through the federal rulemaking
[1:41:35] Speaker 1: portal at www.regulations.gov. And department must receive. Well, first of all,
[1:41:42] Speaker 1: you know damn well they don't give a damn about that.
[1:41:44] Speaker 1: They ain't looking no damn public comments. And here's the
[1:41:47] Speaker 1: whole deal. If you want to know if this is real,
[1:41:49] Speaker 1: this is their own website. It says the department must
[1:41:52] Speaker 1: receive comments on or before May.
[1:41:53] Speaker 12: 20, 2026.
[1:41:53] Speaker 14: Hmm.
[1:41:54] Speaker 2: Y'all, that was... Yeah.
[1:42:02] Speaker 9: Because they already said this was going to happen July 1.
[1:42:08] Speaker 2: That's what they do.
[1:42:09] Speaker 1: And in fact, they dropped the press release on April 17, 2026.
[1:42:13] Speaker 1: Only gave one month of comments. Brittany, we appreciate it.
[1:42:16] Speaker 2: Thanks a lot.
[1:42:16] Speaker 9: Thank you for having me.
[1:42:17] Speaker 2: Folks, got to go to break. We come back.
[1:42:19] Speaker 1: We're going to talk about a grocery store, a co-op
[1:42:21] Speaker 1: in Detroit having some serious issues. And also, Byron Donalds
[1:42:25] Speaker 1: literally makes one of the dumbest comments you've ever seen
[1:42:28] Speaker 1: when he is at a town hall at Florida A &
[1:42:31] Speaker 1: M University. We'll have that next right here on Filtered
[1:42:33] Speaker 1: on the Black Star Network.
[1:42:34] Speaker 2: All right, folks, let me get personal for a second.
[1:42:40] Speaker 2: My mom had questions about her Medicare, so she called Chapter,
[1:42:43] Speaker 2: a Medicare advisory company, and she texted me right after
[1:42:46] Speaker 2: saying it's a great benefit. It was easy.
[1:42:49] Speaker 1: A real person walked her through the whole thing, and
[1:42:51] Speaker 1: now she understands.
[1:42:53] Speaker 2: Better what's going on. But it's also not just her.
[1:42:55] Speaker 1: A woman in Yonkers wrote in saying the process was
[1:42:58] Speaker 1: so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was so
[1:43:01] Speaker 1: glad she called. Then there's Marilyn, 90 years old in Florida,
[1:43:04] Speaker 1: living on Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year
[1:43:08] Speaker 1: north of $ 400 a month for coverage she could barely
[1:43:12] Speaker 1: afford anymore.
[1:43:13] Speaker 2: So what does she do? She called Chapter. They found
[1:43:15] Speaker 2: her the same top tier coverage for hundreds of dollars less.
[1:43:19] Speaker 1: 90 years old and finally somebody in her corner. I
[1:43:23] Speaker 1: hear stories like that again and again from our community.
[1:43:26] Speaker 1: The Medicare system was not built to work for you.
[1:43:29] Speaker 1: Too much fine print, too many plans. Yet Chapters advisors
[1:43:32] Speaker 1: are independent and honest. The only Medicare advisors that compare
[1:43:36] Speaker 1: every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing, what actually
[1:43:40] Speaker 1: works for you. If you're already in the right plan,
[1:43:42] Speaker 1: they'll tell you.
[1:43:43] Speaker 11: No games.
[1:43:45] Speaker 2: People who switched with Chapter saved an average of $ 1, 100
[1:43:48] Speaker 2: a year. All it takes is 20 minutes.
[1:43:51] Speaker 1: You talk to a real person and it's completely free help.
[1:43:54] Speaker 2: So call Chapter at 724-264-8281.
[1:43:56] Speaker 9: 724-264-8281.
[1:43:56] Speaker 2: That's Chapter.
[1:44:03] Speaker 7: When it comes to your electric bill, the law is
[1:44:06] Speaker 7: supposed to protect you. That's why I ruled against an
[1:44:10] Speaker 7: unfair utility rate hike that will cost our families more.
[1:44:14] Speaker 7: You deserve honest math, fair prices, and a court that
[1:44:18] Speaker 7: follows the law to put people before profits. I'm Justice
[1:44:22] Speaker 7: Anita Earls. On the court, I hold everyone accountable, no
[1:44:26] Speaker 7: matter how rich or powerful. And I won't stop until
[1:44:30] Speaker 7: the law works for everyone.
[1:44:42] Speaker 13: Hi, Roland.
[1:44:42] Speaker 9: This is Mama.
[1:44:44] Speaker 20: Congratulating you on eight years with the Black Star Network
[1:44:49] Speaker 20: and praying that you will have many more years of
[1:44:52] Speaker 20: showcasing Black Americans across the country and world and keeping
[1:44:57] Speaker 20: us informed, educated on our daily lives.
[1:45:10] Speaker 2: All right, folks.
[1:45:14] Speaker 1: The Republican gubernatorial candidate of Florida, Congressman Byron Donalds, had
[1:45:17] Speaker 1: a town hall last night at Florida A & M
[1:45:19] Speaker 1: University where he went to school for a couple of years.
[1:45:23] Speaker 2: And man, the students asked him some tough questions.
[1:45:26] Speaker 1: And he talked about full ability, gun rights, higher education,
[1:45:28] Speaker 1: diversity policies, immigration enforcement, and what needs to be done
[1:45:31] Speaker 1: to get young, black, and educated people involved.
[1:45:34] Speaker 2: Now, he was interesting.
[1:45:35] Speaker 1: There was this At one point, Donald actually makes this
[1:45:40] Speaker 1: comment about black people and voting for Democrats and what
[1:45:46] Speaker 1: have Democrats done for them and blah, blah, blah. And
[1:45:50] Speaker 1: it's the typical comment you often see these Republicans make,
[1:45:55] Speaker 1: but it never, ever holds up to being fact-checked.
[1:45:59] Speaker 9: Listen.
[1:46:00] Speaker 4: Listen.
[1:46:02] Speaker 21: How would you summarize the outlook of your educational policies
[1:46:06] Speaker 21: to people of our generation to increase civic literacy, clear
[1:46:10] Speaker 21: misconceptions amongst Gen Z voters, and how you will affect
[1:46:15] Speaker 21: the future of our education here in Florida?
[1:46:22] Speaker 22: I think the first thing is, let's start with just K-12.
[1:46:26] Speaker 12: I think in the K-12 system, it's.
[1:46:28] Speaker 22: Important for all of our children to master math reading
[1:46:32] Speaker 22: and writing.
[1:46:32] Speaker 12: Why is that important?
[1:46:34] Speaker 22: Because if you're not reading on grade level, it's easy
[1:46:37] Speaker 22: to succumb to what somebody wrote on social media or
[1:46:40] Speaker 22: some video that went viral. And that should not be
[1:46:43] Speaker 22: the basis of forming a public opinion view. I think
[1:46:47] Speaker 22: that should be formed with looking at multiple sources, reading them,
[1:46:52] Speaker 22: and actually having a thought-provoking, even internal conversation or conversations
[1:46:58] Speaker 22: with other people. I think that's how public opinion and
[1:47:01] Speaker 22: public thought, especially when it comes to policy, should really evolve.
[1:47:06] Speaker 22: And I think it requires a well-educated public to be
[1:47:09] Speaker 22: able to look at all these issues read the source material,
[1:47:13] Speaker 22: make those determinations.
[1:47:14] Speaker 12: I think mathematics is just as important.
[1:47:18] Speaker 22: If people are struggling to do basic math, then when
[1:47:20] Speaker 22: somebody comes along and talks about a public policy feature
[1:47:25] Speaker 22: without an understanding of mathematics, risk, financial.
[1:47:30] Speaker 12: Literacy, et cetera, it makes it harder. for the voter
[1:47:33] Speaker 12: to judge that.
[1:47:35] Speaker 22: I think in your time as a young person, you
[1:47:38] Speaker 22: guys have access to more information than anybody ever has
[1:47:42] Speaker 22: in the history.
[1:47:43] Speaker 12: Of the planet.
[1:47:46] Speaker 22: But with the good comes the bad, because you also
[1:47:49] Speaker 22: have access to more slop than anybody has ever had
[1:47:53] Speaker 22: in the history of the planet. And so I would
[1:47:56] Speaker 22: say for young people in particular, what's really important, reading
[1:48:00] Speaker 22: multiple sources not just getting caught up in your worldview
[1:48:05] Speaker 22: and thinking that's the only way that people look at
[1:48:07] Speaker 22: these issues. I always recommend to young people Real Clear Policy.
[1:48:12] Speaker 22: Real Clear Politics is one website. Real Clear Policy is
[1:48:15] Speaker 22: another website. Real Clear Policy actually goes back and forth
[1:48:19] Speaker 22: left to right on all these public policy issues. They
[1:48:22] Speaker 22: put out white papers. They put out articles where you
[1:48:25] Speaker 22: challenge your worldview. I think for the future of young
[1:48:28] Speaker 22: Americans in particular, challenging your worldview is going to be everything.
[1:48:32] Speaker 22: When I first decided to get involved in local grassroots politics.
[1:48:38] Speaker 22: My wife would tell you, the first thing I did
[1:48:40] Speaker 22: is I just started reading everything. I read liberal sources.
[1:48:44] Speaker 22: I read conservative sources. I listened to, this was early podcasting.
[1:48:48] Speaker 22: I listened to liberal podcasts. I listened to conservative podcasts.
[1:48:52] Speaker 22: I would listen to MSNBC and I would listen to
[1:48:55] Speaker 22: Fox News. And I listened to both sides because I
[1:49:00] Speaker 22: did not know. I was a regular person like everybody else.
[1:49:03] Speaker 22: I was apolitical before 30 years old. And so I
[1:49:07] Speaker 22: went and I read and I really got into it.
[1:49:11] Speaker 22: And I think that's important when you're trying to figure
[1:49:13] Speaker 22: out politically what your worldview is going to be as
[1:49:18] Speaker 22: an adult. The last thing I would say, especially here
[1:49:21] Speaker 22: at FAM, but really across the board, I'm just going
[1:49:25] Speaker 22: to be blunt. Stop moving like a monolith. I'm going
[1:49:31] Speaker 22: to get real personal now. I was asked in the
[1:49:33] Speaker 22: back by one of the reporters while the fire alarms
[1:49:38] Speaker 22: went off, so we were able to have a conversation.
[1:49:42] Speaker 22: And we talked about the movement and the differences between
[1:49:45] Speaker 22: the parties from 1900 till today. Black people have since 1963-ish,
[1:49:55] Speaker 22: black people have largely supported the Democrat Party. Have they
[1:50:01] Speaker 22: actually followed through with what they said? Have they actually
[1:50:06] Speaker 22: done all the things that they've promised? You've been faithful
[1:50:10] Speaker 22: to that party. Have they been faithful to you? I
[1:50:14] Speaker 22: think for black people in particular, I think us making
[1:50:18] Speaker 22: our own political decisions is more important today than it
[1:50:21] Speaker 22: ever has been. Because as a Republican, I'm not telling you,
[1:50:25] Speaker 22: I'm asking you to vote for me because I'm talking
[1:50:28] Speaker 22: about policy. I think everybody should be making those decisions
[1:50:33] Speaker 22: based upon the research that they have done, not because
[1:50:37] Speaker 22: they see what is happening through the black community. And
[1:50:42] Speaker 22: for me, I've been involved now 16 years in politics.
[1:50:48] Speaker 12: I've heard the same promises year after year after year
[1:50:51] Speaker 12: after year after year.
[1:50:53] Speaker 22: I would ask black people in Florida, black people in America,
[1:50:56] Speaker 22: have they delivered? That's a question for people to think
[1:51:01] Speaker 22: about when they go home.
[1:51:04] Speaker 1: It's always interesting for me when I hear black Republicans,
[1:51:10] Speaker 1: Republicans deposit that comment and you notice what they do.
[1:51:17] Speaker 1: You notice Byron Donalds didn't say, he said, have they
[1:51:20] Speaker 1: delivered on what they promised?
[1:51:24] Speaker 2: Well, Byron, would you like to name the issues?
[1:51:29] Speaker 1: See, it's very easy to put and see this is
[1:51:32] Speaker 1: what happens when you're a simple assignment because you hear
[1:51:35] Speaker 1: that you go, no, they have it. OK, can you
[1:51:39] Speaker 1: define me the issue then? What specifically are you talking about,
[1:51:44] Speaker 1: Congressman Byron Donalds? He also talked about black folks and
[1:51:49] Speaker 1: that they've been voting all Democrats since 1964.
[1:51:52] Speaker 2: Actually, no, that's not true. The Joint Center for Political
[1:51:56] Speaker 2: and Economic Studies, this is what they lay out.
[1:51:59] Speaker 1: If you actually look at the numbers, black people have
[1:52:01] Speaker 1: consistently voted Democrat since 1936.
[1:52:04] Speaker 2: This is the data right here. It was 71% in 1936.
[1:52:07] Speaker 14: It was 28% in 1936.
[1:52:08] Speaker 2: Today, it's 88 to 90%. Now, let's unpack that. You see,
[1:52:10] Speaker 2: they love to... They love to... They love to.
[1:52:28] Speaker 2: Present this idea that black people, y'all don't think. I
[1:52:33] Speaker 2: want y'all, so y'all need to listen to what he said.
[1:52:36] Speaker 2: Byron Donald said, you shouldn't move as a monolith. Let
[1:52:41] Speaker 2: me be very clear. The most astute voters in America
[1:52:48] Speaker 2: are African Americans. Black people.
[1:52:54] Speaker 1: Are not just some go along to get along voters.
[1:52:59] Speaker 1: Black voters make extremely smart, clear.
[1:53:06] Speaker 2: Precise decisions. Black people, we've.
[1:53:09] Speaker 1: Had to factor in all sorts of white racist bullshit.
[1:53:15] Speaker 2: Let me go back to 2020. Do y'all read all
[1:53:19] Speaker 2: these stories? Oh, in South Carolina, black people voted for
[1:53:25] Speaker 2: Biden because Clyburn told them to. No, they didn't.
[1:53:32] Speaker 1: Do you know what I recall happening in 2020? Late 2019, 2020?
[1:53:37] Speaker 1: This is what I recall the conversations with black people.
[1:53:45] Speaker 2: And not just black people in D.C. or black people
[1:53:48] Speaker 2: in New York or bougie black people or well-to-do black people.
[1:53:53] Speaker 2: It was black people all around the country. Black people went,
[1:53:57] Speaker 2: who the hell are we going to support who can
[1:54:00] Speaker 2: defeat this white racist Donald Trump.
[1:54:04] Speaker 1: Let me remind y'all, Senator Kamala Harris ran for president 2019.
[1:54:10] Speaker 1: The two biggest town halls on MSNBC and CNN were
[1:54:16] Speaker 1: involving Senator Kamala Harris. By December 2019, she was out
[1:54:20] Speaker 1: of the race. Senator Cory Booker, he ran. That was
[1:54:25] Speaker 1: a brief moment where former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick jumped
[1:54:29] Speaker 1: into the race. You had the brother who was the
[1:54:33] Speaker 1: mayor of the small town. Why has it escaped me?
[1:54:37] Speaker 1: He's an alpha too. Derek might remember his name. He
[1:54:40] Speaker 1: was a mayor of a small town in Florida. His
[1:54:43] Speaker 1: town actually was bigger than Pete Blue Judge, South Bend, Indiana.
[1:54:47] Speaker 2: Hell, he ran president. Black folks didn't vote for them
[1:54:53] Speaker 2: because black people sat back and they studied and they said,
[1:54:59] Speaker 2: We had four years of Obama and America elected this
[1:55:04] Speaker 2: racist ass Trump. So we going to need somebody to
[1:55:08] Speaker 2: beat Trump. You know what black people in South Carolina did?
[1:55:12] Speaker 2: Black people in South Carolina went, Bernie, let me remind y'all,
[1:55:21] Speaker 2: Buttigieg won Iowa. Bernie won Nevada. Biden didn't win the
[1:55:27] Speaker 2: first two states.
[1:55:30] Speaker 1: Then black people went, Buttigieg.
[1:55:36] Speaker 4: Uh-uh, he ain't it.
[1:55:37] Speaker 2: Then they went, send to Amy Klobuchar. Nah, they ain't it.
[1:55:46] Speaker 2: Then they said, remember Michael Bloomberg jumped in? They like, nah,
[1:55:53] Speaker 2: he ain't it. Then they said billionaire Tom Steyer. Nah,
[1:56:00] Speaker 2: he ain't it. I think Tulsi Gabbard was still in
[1:56:04] Speaker 2: the race. Black people went, nah, hell nah, it ain't her.
[1:56:10] Speaker 2: Say Elizabeth Warren. Black folks said, nah, that ain't it.
[1:56:17] Speaker 2: Black people said, America's going to vote for an old
[1:56:21] Speaker 2: white dude. And we're going to need to vote for
[1:56:25] Speaker 2: an old white dude.
[1:56:26] Speaker 1: Who's going to make white people comfortable, but He's progressive
[1:56:30] Speaker 1: enough for us to support.
[1:56:33] Speaker 2: And you know what? We're going to need somebody.
[1:56:36] Speaker 1: He got foreign policy experience. We're going to need somebody
[1:56:40] Speaker 1: to clean up this damn mess that Trump and Pence
[1:56:43] Speaker 1: left us.
[1:56:44] Speaker 2: You know what? We think out of everybody, it's Joe Biden.
[1:56:52] Speaker 2: And do y'all remember what happened? This ain't just me, y'all.
[1:56:58] Speaker 1: Super Tuesday then came and it was like a clearing
[1:57:03] Speaker 1: of the field because black people said, we're going to
[1:57:11] Speaker 1: pick somebody who can win in November.
[1:57:17] Speaker 2: That's not a monolith.
[1:57:20] Speaker 1: That's black people sitting here going voting rights, civil rights, healthcare, education,
[1:57:29] Speaker 1: Foreign policy.
[1:57:33] Speaker 2: Black folks are astute.
[1:57:35] Speaker 1: See, if America had listened to black people in 2016,
[1:57:42] Speaker 1: Trump would have never gotten to pick three Supreme Court justices.
[1:57:47] Speaker 1: If white Democrats had listened to black people, Hillary Clinton
[1:57:51] Speaker 1: would have won in 2016. Had Democrats, white Democrats, and
[1:57:59] Speaker 1: Latino Democrats and Asian American Democrats. And yeah, a whole
[1:58:05] Speaker 1: bunch of disaffected black men had they listened to the
[1:58:08] Speaker 1: rest of black America.
[1:58:10] Speaker 2: Trump would have never won in 2024. See, we should
[1:58:16] Speaker 2: never allow anybody, especially a black conservative, to somehow suggest
[1:58:22] Speaker 2: that we're just so dumb. If they can just throw
[1:58:27] Speaker 2: anybody up, we're like, sure, we're going to give you
[1:58:30] Speaker 2: our votes.
[1:58:32] Speaker 1: No, black people have been astute at politics for an
[1:58:37] Speaker 1: extremely long time. In fact, when others wanted black people
[1:58:45] Speaker 1: to be hardcore progressive, we like, no, I don't think.
[1:58:49] Speaker 2: Y'all really going to do that. So we can't go there.
[1:58:53] Speaker 2: I got to remind y'all.
[1:58:54] Speaker 12: 1984.
[1:58:56] Speaker 1: It was a lot of black people who was not
[1:59:01] Speaker 1: standing with Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. And there was a
[1:59:04] Speaker 1: lot of them wasn't standing with him in 1988. And
[1:59:07] Speaker 1: I got to remind y'all, 2007, Senator Barack Obama announced
[1:59:15] Speaker 1: his candidacy on that cold ass day in Springfield, Illinois.
[1:59:18] Speaker 2: I was there. February 2007. I remember.
[1:59:25] Speaker 1: September 2007, he was still down big time to Senator
[1:59:29] Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton in the polls. Everything changed when she answered,
[1:59:35] Speaker 1: when she flubbed the answer to a question regarding driver's
[1:59:39] Speaker 1: licenses for undocumented people. That was a debate in Iowa
[1:59:45] Speaker 1: in October 2007. Black people looked at that whole thing
[1:59:51] Speaker 1: and said, we don't know what to do.
[1:59:52] Speaker 2: I'm going to go to Robert real quick. I know
[1:59:54] Speaker 2: you got to go.
[1:59:55] Speaker 1: Robert, my problem with these fools, like Donald's, they act
[1:59:58] Speaker 1: like we're dumb.
[1:59:59] Speaker 9: No, no, no.
[2:00:00] Speaker 2: We smart as hell.
[2:00:02] Speaker 1: We just don't follow fools like him because we know,
[2:00:05] Speaker 1: we know that he ain't supporting nothing that black folk
[2:00:08] Speaker 1: care about.
[2:00:10] Speaker 14: Well, on that point, Roland, I find it ironic that
[2:00:14] Speaker 14: he goes to a HBCU to talk about us not
[2:00:18] Speaker 14: voting as a monolith. Meanwhile, he will not even criticize
[2:00:21] Speaker 14: the president of the United States who he supports. who
[2:00:24] Speaker 14: he has the endorsement of. You know, he took him
[2:00:26] Speaker 14: off his own website. He refuses to talk. He'll go
[2:00:29] Speaker 14: to the Haitian American community and campaign, but won't stand
[2:00:32] Speaker 14: up to Donald Trump about canceling TPS for Haitian Americans.
[2:00:36] Speaker 14: He'll go to black students talking about getting careers and jobs,
[2:00:39] Speaker 14: but he won't confront the Trump administration about getting rid
[2:00:42] Speaker 14: of diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements, both at the federal
[2:00:46] Speaker 14: level and attacking law firms and corporations and pretty much
[2:00:50] Speaker 14: anybody who has any programs that are meant to uplift
[2:00:53] Speaker 14: African Americans. He doesn't go there to talk about how
[2:00:55] Speaker 14: he will stand up to black people in the Department
[2:00:58] Speaker 14: of War, wants to put Confederate names on bases, or
[2:01:01] Speaker 14: wants to rebuild Confederate statues. Why don't you talk about
[2:01:04] Speaker 14: all that stuff, Byron? Why did he bring his white
[2:01:07] Speaker 14: wife with him to the college? So he can talk
[2:01:09] Speaker 14: about black family values and how important it is for
[2:01:12] Speaker 14: us to build black generation wealth, et cetera. The level
[2:01:14] Speaker 14: of hypocrisy of these individuals is to an extent that
[2:01:19] Speaker 14: they wonder. And then they'll be the first ones to
[2:01:21] Speaker 14: hop up. I don't know why people call us coons.
[2:01:24] Speaker 14: I can't believe y'all called me Uncle Tom. And I
[2:01:27] Speaker 14: remind folks all the time, Uncle Tom was not the
[2:01:29] Speaker 14: villain in the book. He was the villain in the
[2:01:32] Speaker 14: stage plays thereafter. which set the popular opinion, which is
[2:01:35] Speaker 14: why we say Uncle Thomas and Uncle Remus, many of
[2:01:37] Speaker 14: us read the books. But the point is, when you
[2:01:39] Speaker 14: have these folks who are these obsequious sycophants who decide
[2:01:43] Speaker 14: that they will suck up to white supremacy, and even
[2:01:45] Speaker 14: if they aren't personally racist, they have decided that racism
[2:01:48] Speaker 14: is not a deal breaker for them, that you can
[2:01:51] Speaker 14: say Haitians eat dogs and cats and I will support you,
[2:01:54] Speaker 14: and I will still show up at the Haitian American
[2:01:56] Speaker 14: community in South Florida, we'll put a Haitian flag scarf
[2:01:59] Speaker 14: on and try to campaign to you. We need to
[2:02:01] Speaker 14: understand these folks are sociopaths, and we need to have
[2:02:04] Speaker 14: a cleansing after this to cleanse our society. Form these people.
[2:02:08] Speaker 14: We saw this in Germany. We saw this during Reconstruction.
[2:02:11] Speaker 14: It can be done, but we're dealing with a different
[2:02:13] Speaker 14: political animal, and that's why it's crucial that if you're
[2:02:15] Speaker 14: in Florida, turn out and vote against Byron Donald. If
[2:02:18] Speaker 14: you're in Georgia, turn out and vote for Keith and
[2:02:20] Speaker 14: Lance Bottoms. Send money, send donations. If you're in Texas,
[2:02:23] Speaker 14: turn out and vote, because this is a national cancer
[2:02:26] Speaker 14: that we have to cure.
[2:02:28] Speaker 2: All right then.
[2:02:29] Speaker 1: Robert, we appreciate you joining the show. Rebecca, it really
[2:02:33] Speaker 1: does piss me off when these people say these things.
[2:02:37] Speaker 1: As if black people are just dumb, aloof, ignorant, don't read,
[2:02:45] Speaker 1: don't study, don't listen, don't make clear decisions when case
[2:02:53] Speaker 1: after case, We have called stuff and said stuff long
[2:02:57] Speaker 1: before white folk finally caught up, including white Democrats.
[2:03:03] Speaker 5: Roland, I got two points on Mr. Byron Donalds. The
[2:03:07] Speaker 5: first point is this.
[2:03:09] Speaker 3: He talked about education, about there's issues in education in
[2:03:14] Speaker 3: this country. But he was at FAMU. He didn't call
[2:03:18] Speaker 3: out the MAGA president at FAMU. And he didn't point
[2:03:22] Speaker 3: out how she used to be on the Florida State
[2:03:25] Speaker 3: Board of Elections and that the abysmal education issues that's
[2:03:31] Speaker 3: plaguing the state of Florida.
[2:03:33] Speaker 2: State Board of Education. State Board of Education. Yep.
[2:03:36] Speaker 5: Sorry if I didn't say it correctly.
[2:03:38] Speaker 2: State Board of Education. State Board of Education, not elections.
[2:03:39] Speaker 8: Go ahead.
[2:03:40] Speaker 5: Sorry, thank you, I'm tired. State Board of Education.
[2:03:45] Speaker 3: And under her watch, black and brown students in Florida
[2:03:51] Speaker 3: continue to have negative outcomes under her watch. So if
[2:03:56] Speaker 3: he wants to talk about the role of education, if
[2:03:59] Speaker 3: he wants to talk about all those things, then well,
[2:04:01] Speaker 3: he could have said something about the very person who
[2:04:04] Speaker 3: was responsible for some of those policies. And also it's
[2:04:08] Speaker 3: ironic on two fronts when he said that, you know,
[2:04:11] Speaker 3: young people ought to be challenged, but guess what? Byron
[2:04:13] Speaker 3: Donalds also ought to be challenged because In fact, he
[2:04:16] Speaker 3: tried to handpick which students were allowed to be at
[2:04:20] Speaker 3: the town hall at FAMU. He wanted it to be
[2:04:23] Speaker 3: closed door. He even in earlier iterations didn't want it
[2:04:27] Speaker 3: to be recorded.
[2:04:28] Speaker 5: That doesn't sound like someone who wants to be challenged.
[2:04:30] Speaker 3: And finally, Roland, I remember in 2024 at the DNC,
[2:04:34] Speaker 3: Byron Donalds walked through media row and he saw you
[2:04:38] Speaker 3: turned his head and walked the other way and went
[2:04:40] Speaker 3: down the hall in media row to go talk to
[2:04:44] Speaker 3: some content creators who he thought he would get softball
[2:04:47] Speaker 3: questions from. So it doesn't sound like Byron Donalds actually
[2:04:50] Speaker 3: likes to be challenged, but he wants 18 and 19-year-olds
[2:04:54] Speaker 3: to be challenged.
[2:04:55] Speaker 5: That's very ironic, don't you think?
[2:04:58] Speaker 2: Indeed. Derek?
[2:05:01] Speaker 15: You know, I just thought it was just an insult
[2:05:04] Speaker 15: when he said we are a monolith. And more importantly,
[2:05:08] Speaker 15: what have they delivered? Well, if Donald is watching your program,
[2:05:16] Speaker 15: which I know he's not, because he said he watches everything,
[2:05:19] Speaker 15: he's apolitical.
[2:05:21] Speaker 8: Well, let's go through the list real quick.
[2:05:23] Speaker 15: The list is saying, hey, your president said he was
[2:05:29] Speaker 15: going to eliminate the national debt. He did not. He
[2:05:35] Speaker 15: increased the national debt, $ 7. 8 trillion. He also said he's
[2:05:41] Speaker 15: going to improve the GDP rolling to 46%.
[2:05:44] Speaker 5: It's flat at three.
[2:05:48] Speaker 15: He also said that he's going to release the Epstein files.
[2:05:52] Speaker 8: Crickets on that.
[2:05:54] Speaker 15: He also said he's going to release his personal tax returns.
[2:05:57] Speaker 8: Crickets on that.
[2:05:59] Speaker 15: And so if he's going to talk about broken promises, oh, yeah,
[2:06:03] Speaker 15: by the way, he said he's not going to get
[2:06:05] Speaker 15: us into a war.
[2:06:06] Speaker 8: And here we are eight months into a war.
[2:06:09] Speaker 15: That's our gas over $ 6.
[2:06:12] Speaker 8: A gallon for premium gas. The rent is.
[2:06:16] Speaker 15: Going up, the cost of eggs, chickens, the dairy. We
[2:06:21] Speaker 15: covered this on your program last week. Immigration, they can't
[2:06:25] Speaker 15: find no immigration workers on these dairy farms. And so
[2:06:29] Speaker 15: I don't think he has made America great again.
[2:06:33] Speaker 8: It's a disaster.
[2:06:35] Speaker 15: And we cannot allow for someone like him that's running
[2:06:40] Speaker 15: for governor down in Florida believe that he can just
[2:06:43] Speaker 15: dupe us, walk in there with a suit and tie,
[2:06:46] Speaker 15: and think that his conservative voice is going to influence
[2:06:51] Speaker 15: us or persuade us when we clearly can see what
[2:06:55] Speaker 15: he's trying to say and what he's trying to do.
[2:06:59] Speaker 2: Bottom line is this here, folks.
[2:07:02] Speaker 1: Don't let anybody, including black Republicans or black Democrat or
[2:07:08] Speaker 1: black independent, gaslight black people. This is what we call gaslighting.
[2:07:14] Speaker 1: This is what we call lying. These people claim one
[2:07:17] Speaker 1: thing and it's simply not the truth. As somebody who
[2:07:23] Speaker 1: has spent more years in black owned media than I
[2:07:26] Speaker 1: did in mainstream media, I have traveled this country and
[2:07:31] Speaker 1: I have talked to folks of every economic status.
[2:07:35] Speaker 2: I've talked to black folks.
[2:07:37] Speaker 1: With multiple PhDs, people who are Nobel laureates, senators and presidents.
[2:07:47] Speaker 2: I mean, we can go down the line.
[2:07:49] Speaker 1: And I've talked to folk with no education, GEDs, folk
[2:07:56] Speaker 1: who make less than $ 10, 000 a year. And I'm telling
[2:07:59] Speaker 1: you right now, black folks ain't stupid. Black folks see
[2:08:05] Speaker 1: this country for exactly what it is. And it was
[2:08:08] Speaker 1: Ella Baker, Barbara Ransby told her a phenomenal story in
[2:08:12] Speaker 1: her book.
[2:08:13] Speaker 2: It's Ella Baker who told.
[2:08:14] Speaker 1: The SNCC students, when y'all go down to Loudoun County,
[2:08:17] Speaker 1: when y'all go down to Mississippi and Alabama, She said,
[2:08:19] Speaker 1: don't think for a second that those sharecroppers are dumb.
[2:08:23] Speaker 1: She said, they might have second and third, the highest
[2:08:26] Speaker 1: education they might have, the second.
[2:08:27] Speaker 2: And third grade. She said, oh, but they smart. She said,
[2:08:31] Speaker 2: listen to what they have to say.
[2:08:32] Speaker 1: She said, take your college clothes off and put your
[2:08:35] Speaker 1: overalls on and go listen to what it is they
[2:08:40] Speaker 1: have to say. Listen to what they want to do.
[2:08:43] Speaker 1: Don't tell them we are here to help you do this.
[2:08:46] Speaker 1: Don't let them say what it is they want and say,
[2:08:49] Speaker 1: we're willing to work with you. See, that's what Byron
[2:08:53] Speaker 1: Donalds don't understand. Because see, here's the reality, Congressman Donalds.
[2:08:57] Speaker 1: When last time you came on this show, Carol, go
[2:08:59] Speaker 1: ahead and call his office.
[2:09:00] Speaker 2: Let's see.
[2:09:01] Speaker 1: I want you to hit Byron Donalds' campaign and his
[2:09:04] Speaker 1: office every day between now and November 3rd. Let's see
[2:09:09] Speaker 1: if Byron come over here and talk to the black folk. See,
[2:09:14] Speaker 1: Byron Donalds loved to run the Fox News. He loves
[2:09:17] Speaker 1: popping up on the rest of these shows. But Byron,
[2:09:20] Speaker 1: come talk to black people. But we're going to talk
[2:09:23] Speaker 1: about Trump's attacks on black folks. We're going to talk
[2:09:28] Speaker 1: about MAGA slashing of budgets that deal with black folk.
[2:09:34] Speaker 5: No, no, Byron.
[2:09:37] Speaker 2: Come here for a black conversation.
[2:09:41] Speaker 1: And a place where you're not going to be allowed
[2:09:43] Speaker 1: to just throw up nonsense that are not even factual
[2:09:47] Speaker 1: regarding black folks. If y'all keep saying this nonsense, y'all
[2:09:55] Speaker 1: keep saying this nonsense, we're going to keep calling you out.
[2:10:01] Speaker 2: And we ain't going to stop calling you out every
[2:10:05] Speaker 2: single day. Folks, that is it for us. Derek, thanks
[2:10:10] Speaker 2: a bunch. Rebecca, thanks a bunch. Robert, thanks a bunch.
[2:10:13] Speaker 1: Y'all, tomorrow I'm going to be broadcasting from Houston, the
[2:10:16] Speaker 1: National Association of Black Journalists. We've got our national board
[2:10:19] Speaker 1: meeting in my hometown, so I will be there tomorrow.
[2:10:22] Speaker 1: So look forward to seeing you there. Hey, folks, don't
[2:10:25] Speaker 1: forget to support the work that we do. Join our
[2:10:26] Speaker 1: Bring the Funk fan club. The goal is to get
[2:10:28] Speaker 1: 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks each
[2:10:31] Speaker 1: a year. That's for all in 19 cents a month,
[2:10:33] Speaker 1: 13 cents a day. You support this show. and all
[2:10:35] Speaker 1: the other shows here on the Black Star Network. If
[2:10:38] Speaker 1: you want to give via cash app, use the Stripe
[2:10:39] Speaker 1: QR code. Also, that's for credit cards as well. Checks
[2:10:43] Speaker 1: and money order. Make it payable at a roller market unfiltered.
[2:10:45] Speaker 7: P.O.
[2:10:45] Speaker 2: Box 57196, Washington, D.C. 2003790196.
[2:10:51] Speaker 1: PayPal is rmartinunfiltered, Venmo, RM unfiltered, Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com,
[2:10:58] Speaker 1: Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Download the Blast Start Network app, Apple phone,
[2:11:03] Speaker 1: Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV,
[2:11:07] Speaker 1: Samsung Smart TV. Y'all, y'all been messing around on YouTube. Literally,
[2:11:11] Speaker 1: we need 54 more damn likes to hit 500. 1,000.
[2:11:15] Speaker 2: What is wrong with y'all? We should have been way
[2:11:17] Speaker 2: over 1,000. So y'all hurry the hell up. Hit the
[2:11:19] Speaker 2: doggone like button so we can get to 1,000 before
[2:11:21] Speaker 2: I sign off. Come on, let's go.
[2:11:23] Speaker 1: Stop playing around, YouTube. Folks, get our Roland Martin unfiltered
[2:11:27] Speaker 1: Blackstar Network swag. I want you to go to shopblackstarnetwork.com.
[2:11:31] Speaker 1: Shopblackstarnetwork.com and get our hats, T-shirts, mugs, zip-ups, wall art,
[2:11:37] Speaker 1: you name it, all that good stuff. We got some
[2:11:39] Speaker 1: new shirts there as well. So go to shopblackstarnetwork.com.
[2:11:44] Speaker 2: Now, all the products that you see right here in
[2:11:47] Speaker 2: our studio, every single one of those.
[2:11:49] Speaker 1: Products you can get at shopblackstarnetwork.com. We have 89.
[2:11:55] Speaker 2: 89 black-owned businesses that are on our marketplace right there
[2:12:01] Speaker 2: at shopblacksuddennetwork.com. So please check that out.
[2:12:06] Speaker 1: And folks, don't forget, get my new book, Black Forward.
[2:12:10] Speaker 1: That's right, Black Forward.
[2:12:13] Speaker 2: Marching orders for the fight against Jim Crow 2.0 is for.
[2:12:16] Speaker 1: Pre-order right now. Get your order in. The QR code
[2:12:19] Speaker 1: is right there. You can order it from an independent bookstore.
[2:12:23] Speaker 1: You pick a black bookstore. You can order it online
[2:12:26] Speaker 1: as well. Let's get it.
[2:12:28] Speaker 2: I would love to have 5,000 copies pre-ordered by November.
[2:12:33] Speaker 2: I would love to do that.
[2:12:34] Speaker 1: My birthday is November 14th, so that'll be a great
[2:12:36] Speaker 1: birthday present. The book drops February 2nd.
[2:12:39] Speaker 2: Can't wait.
[2:12:40] Speaker 1: And so we want to do all we can to
[2:12:41] Speaker 1: get that sucker on the New York Times bestseller list,
[2:12:43] Speaker 1: so let's make that thing.
[2:12:44] Speaker 2: Happen, y'all.
[2:12:46] Speaker 1: And so get the book, Black Forward, Marching Orders, for
[2:12:48] Speaker 1: the fight against Jim Crow 2.0. And next Friday, y'all
[2:12:53] Speaker 1: have the graphic? I'm going to be in Little Rock, Arkansas,
[2:12:56] Speaker 1: in Little Rock, Arkansas, for the Black Mayors of Arkansas.
[2:13:01] Speaker 1: I look forward to being there again. That is next Friday.
[2:13:07] Speaker 1: I'm going to be speaking next Friday night in Arkansas
[2:13:09] Speaker 1: at the mayor at the Bridges in Bold Moves Gala.
[2:13:14] Speaker 8: That's right.
[2:13:14] Speaker 1: If you go to A.R. Black mayors dot com, A.R.
[2:13:17] Speaker 1: Black mayors dot com. You can get tickets. That's going
[2:13:21] Speaker 1: to be on next Friday, October 9th, October 10th. I'm
[2:13:26] Speaker 1: going to be in Fairfax, Virginia for the NAACP Freedom
[2:13:30] Speaker 1: Fun Dinner. Look forward to that. October 11th, I'm going
[2:13:33] Speaker 1: to be in Lansing, Michigan. That event is already sold out. Lansing,
[2:13:37] Speaker 1: y'all have bought tickets. So October 11th, I will be
[2:13:40] Speaker 1: in Lansing, Michigan. Well, their Freedom Fund dinner. And so
[2:13:44] Speaker 1: in Arkansas, Friday night in Fairfax, Virginia, Saturday night in Lansing, Michigan,
[2:13:51] Speaker 1: Sunday night. So looking forward to all of that. So
[2:13:54] Speaker 1: be sure to get your tickets.
[2:13:55] Speaker 2: All right, y'all.
[2:13:57] Speaker 8: That's it.
[2:13:57] Speaker 2: I'll see y'all tomorrow right here. Roland Martin Unfiltered on
[2:14:01] Speaker 2: the Black Star Network.

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