# Nolan Wells Family Speaks At NABJ. Jeffries Lays Out Dem Agenda. ICE Spends $20M on Shock Gloves

An episode of [#RolandMartinUnfiltered](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1434424449), 14 Aug 2026, 2 h 49 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/ec5a50b3-3ea1-4b6e-b91b-ae2e00387281/d8031af7-9257-4714-99b4-b4a801626582/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=9fce13f2-0092-4f32-888b-ae2e0038728f

8.13.2026 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Nolan Wells Family Speaks At NABJ. Jeffries Lays Out Dem Agenda. ICE Spends $20M on Shock Gloves The parents of Nolan Wells, Attorney Ben Crump, and Rev. Al Sharpton discuss the death investigation of Nolan Wells at the National Association of Black Journalist Convention. We'll share the family's side of the story and what Crump says is the main objective is while pursuing justice for Nolan. An attorney general could make history as the first black person to hold statewide office in Nevada if he's successful at the polls in November. He joins us to make his case for governor. A white man threatens to kill black people in a mass shooting and walks away free with no charges. We'll tell you the technicality that got him off the hook. A candidate is running against a racist district attorney in Tarrant County Texas. Can she beat him to bring fairness and justice to the office? We'll talk to her as she tells us her plans on winning the position. 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

[0:06] Speaker 1: Folk. Today's Thursday, August thirteenth, twenty twenty six coming up
[0:10] Speaker 1: on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network.
[0:14] Speaker 1: Today is day two of the National Association of Black
[0:16] Speaker 1: Jermalists Convention in Atlanta. In the Newsmakers panel today of
[0:21] Speaker 1: the parents of Nolan Wells spoke about the investigation regarding
[0:25] Speaker 1: their son. They were joined by Attorney Ben Crump as
[0:27] Speaker 1: well as Reverend Alice Sharpton. Will have all of that
[0:30] Speaker 1: stuff for you as well. Plus also on today's show,
[0:35] Speaker 1: we will have a Democratic leader of Haikkim Jeffries who
[0:38] Speaker 1: spoke as well with NABJ President Aaron Haynes about the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Democratic empor to retake the House as well as the Senate.
[0:47] Speaker 1: In abouta attorney general Aaron Ford could have become that
[0:50] Speaker 1: says first Black governor. He will join us to talk
[0:53] Speaker 1: about his campaign. A white man threatened to go black
[0:56] Speaker 1: people in the mass shooting and walks away free of
[0:58] Speaker 1: no charges. Will explain. Plus a carrot running for District
[1:02] Speaker 1: Attorney in Tarrant County is facing a racist white DA.
[1:07] Speaker 1: Will have We'll talk to uh this sister as she
[1:10] Speaker 1: tries to topple this DA. It's time to bring the
[1:14] Speaker 1: fault on rollingd Market, on Filcher, the Blackstart Network.
[1:17] Speaker 2: Let's go whatever the He's do it, whatever it is.
[1:23] Speaker 3: He's got the school the fact to fine and it
[1:26] Speaker 3: believes he's right on time and is rolling.
[1:29] Speaker 4: Best believe he's going putting it out.
[1:32] Speaker 3: Thanks Boston News to politics with entertainment.
[1:36] Speaker 5: Just book Kakes.
[1:37] Speaker 2: He's going.
[1:41] Speaker 3: Rowing up.
[1:45] Speaker 5: It's rolling Martin.
[1:49] Speaker 6: Rowing with.
[1:53] Speaker 5: He's poky stress.
[1:55] Speaker 4: She's real the question, No, he's rolling Martin.
[2:12] Speaker 2: Folks.
[2:12] Speaker 1: Today Atlanta of the National Association of Black Journalist Convention,
[2:15] Speaker 1: Democratic House Leader Hakim Jeffrey sat down in ABJ President
[2:19] Speaker 1: Aaron Haynes to talk about the Democrats planned to retake
[2:23] Speaker 1: the House and the Senate in the mid term elections.
[2:25] Speaker 1: He talked about a variety of issues. Here's some of
[2:28] Speaker 1: what he had to say.
[2:29] Speaker 7: So I think we'll see what happens in terms of
[2:32] Speaker 7: what the caucus looks like on the other side of
[2:35] Speaker 7: the midterm election. Certainly, our focus right now is making
[2:38] Speaker 7: sure that we win as many seats as we can
[2:41] Speaker 7: in November, flip as many red seats blue, and take
[2:45] Speaker 7: the gavels back so we can actually function like a
[2:48] Speaker 7: check in balance on and out of control administration as
[2:52] Speaker 7: opposed to what Republicans have been doing, which is a
[2:54] Speaker 7: reckless rubber stand for Donald Trump's extreme agenda, entirely inconsistent
[2:59] Speaker 7: with the vision of the House of Representatives. I mean,
[3:02] Speaker 7: it was interesting King Charles when he came to the
[3:06] Speaker 7: Congress joint addressed, you know, to the House and to
[3:10] Speaker 7: the Senate, stood there as a king and referenced to
[3:13] Speaker 7: Magna Carta as the principal and foundation for the the
[3:18] Speaker 7: notion in America that executive powers subject to checks and balances.
[3:23] Speaker 7: And of course when he said that, everybody on the
[3:25] Speaker 7: House side, the Democratic side of the House, stood up
[3:29] Speaker 7: and gave him a rousing ovation. But then I looked
[3:33] Speaker 7: over to the other side of the aisle, of the
[3:35] Speaker 7: Republican side, and they stood up.
[3:38] Speaker 8: And gave him a standard of elevation.
[3:41] Speaker 7: And I was very confused, y'all, because King Charles was
[3:45] Speaker 7: talking about them and their failure to actually, uh bring
[3:50] Speaker 7: to life this principle.
[3:51] Speaker 8: So we gonna do that.
[3:52] Speaker 7: That'll connect all House Democrats, whether those are New Dems, progressives.
[3:56] Speaker 8: Of blue dogs.
[3:57] Speaker 7: But I think most importantly everybody is focused on the
[4:01] Speaker 7: notion that life is too expensive in the United States
[4:04] Speaker 7: of America. There's far too many people, certainly this is
[4:08] Speaker 7: the case in our community, in the black community, who
[4:10] Speaker 7: are working hard, they're playing by the rules, but they
[4:13] Speaker 7: can't thrive and they can barely survive.
[4:16] Speaker 8: And that's got to change.
[4:18] Speaker 7: And so we have to make life more affordable, more
[4:20] Speaker 7: comfortable for the American people. And that's what unites every
[4:24] Speaker 7: part of the House Democratic Caucus. I think that we
[4:28] Speaker 7: have to end Citizens United. And one of the things
[4:32] Speaker 7: there's been a series of Supreme Court decisions that have
[4:36] Speaker 7: eroded democracy in America. Ending Citizens United was perhaps the
[4:42] Speaker 7: first that came in twenty ten. Then in twenty thirteen
[4:45] Speaker 7: you had the Supreme Court and the Shelby County case
[4:50] Speaker 7: decimate Section five. That was the initial attack on the
[4:54] Speaker 7: Voting Rights Act, Decimate Section.
[4:56] Speaker 8: Five of the Voting Rights Act.
[4:58] Speaker 7: Then a few years after that, you had the Supreme
[5:01] Speaker 7: Court declare that partisan jerrymandering is all fair in the
[5:09] Speaker 7: political sphere and that there's nothing to prohibit it in
[5:13] Speaker 7: the Constitution. And then you had I think the final
[5:16] Speaker 7: devastating two decisions most recently by the Supreme Court, which
[5:21] Speaker 7: is one, of course, completely gutting the Voting Rights Act
[5:25] Speaker 7: of nineteen sixty five, in the most recent Calaid decision,
[5:29] Speaker 7: and then the decision that I think has unleashed this
[5:32] Speaker 7: unprecedented corruption on the country is in the Trump v.
[5:37] Speaker 7: United States case where they gave the president basically complete
[5:41] Speaker 7: immunity as if he was a king. So you have
[5:43] Speaker 7: a series of systematic decisions going over the last fifteen
[5:48] Speaker 7: plus years that have really decimated sort of our democratic fabric,
[5:54] Speaker 7: and we've got to unravel all of it. But Citizens United,
[5:57] Speaker 7: I think was the first, and we support full repeal
[6:02] Speaker 7: of Citizens United. You can only bring that about in
[6:04] Speaker 7: two different ways, either a constitutional amendment or change in
[6:07] Speaker 7: the Supreme Court. I think we're open to aggressively pursuing both.
[6:11] Speaker 8: I think we have to try.
[6:13] Speaker 7: Anchored in the premise that Donald Trump has broken every
[6:17] Speaker 7: single promise that he's made to the American people. Of consequence,
[6:22] Speaker 7: he promised to lower costs on day one, costs having
[6:25] Speaker 7: gone down, courts have gone up as a direct result
[6:28] Speaker 7: of Trump policies, including his tariffs, that have increased costs
[6:32] Speaker 7: on every day Americans, people in our community and beyond
[6:36] Speaker 7: by thousands of dollars per year. He promised that immigration
[6:41] Speaker 7: enforcement was going to target the worst of the worst.
[6:45] Speaker 7: But immigration enforcement has basically unleashed ice brutality on American
[6:51] Speaker 7: citizens like Alex Freddiett and remain a cold good in
[6:55] Speaker 7: those instances, killing them in cold blood, and certainly ice
[7:00] Speaker 7: brutality violently targeting law abiding immigrants all across the country.
[7:06] Speaker 7: I was just with several in New Jersey connected to
[7:09] Speaker 7: Delaney Hall earlier in this week. He broke that promise.
[7:13] Speaker 7: He promised to release the Epstein files. Broke that promise.
[7:17] Speaker 7: We forced a vote on the issue. About half the
[7:20] Speaker 7: files had been released, the other half still being subjected
[7:23] Speaker 7: to a cover up by the.
[7:24] Speaker 8: Department of Justice.
[7:26] Speaker 7: Donald Trump promised to love and cherish Medicaid, then enacted
[7:31] Speaker 7: the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, costing about
[7:36] Speaker 7: fourteen million Americans their healthcare and devastating hospitals, nursing homes,
[7:42] Speaker 7: and community based health clinics in our communities and in
[7:45] Speaker 7: rural America, the heartland of America and all across America.
[7:49] Speaker 7: And then lastly, of course, this guy promised that he
[7:53] Speaker 7: was in office not to start endless wars in Middle East,
[7:57] Speaker 7: but to stop them.
[7:58] Speaker 8: And it turned around and got us involved.
[8:00] Speaker 7: In the reckless war of choice in Iran, so he's
[8:02] Speaker 7: broken every promise that he's made. Now down the stretch,
[8:07] Speaker 7: we've made clear to the American people we're fighting for
[8:10] Speaker 7: an affordable America, and we've said that looks like three
[8:14] Speaker 7: different things. On costs, on care, and then on corruption.
[8:19] Speaker 7: On costs, we got to lower the cost of groceries,
[8:22] Speaker 7: of gasoline, of housing because life is far too expensive.
[8:27] Speaker 7: On healthcare, we've said, look, this is the wealthiest country
[8:30] Speaker 7: in the hystorial world. We've got to make healthcare affordable
[8:34] Speaker 7: for every single American and that's our commitment, reverse the
[8:37] Speaker 7: damage that's been done.
[8:38] Speaker 8: And then build something better.
[8:41] Speaker 7: And then on corruption, our view has been I don't
[8:44] Speaker 7: know that we'll get partnership on corruption, but we'll try
[8:48] Speaker 7: to seek some common sense Republicans, the few that are
[8:52] Speaker 7: left in Washington to work with us on costs and
[8:56] Speaker 7: on healthcare. But on corruption, we've said, if you've got
[8:59] Speaker 7: people in office who are focused primarily and enriching themselves,
[9:05] Speaker 7: their family, their friends, and their donors, then they're not
[9:09] Speaker 7: focused on making life more affordable for the American people.
[9:12] Speaker 7: And so from beginning on day one, we're going to
[9:15] Speaker 7: hold the crooks accountable. These are the explicit purposes that
[9:18] Speaker 7: we're making to the American people, and we have a
[9:20] Speaker 7: responsibility to try to bring that about. And if we're
[9:24] Speaker 7: in a divided government scenario, we can do the accountability
[9:27] Speaker 7: stuff in the majority on our own, holding gavels and
[9:32] Speaker 7: subpoena power. But in terms of actually moving legislation that
[9:37] Speaker 7: makes life better for the American people, we'll need a
[9:39] Speaker 7: handful of Republicans to join us. Now, we've forced Republicans
[9:43] Speaker 7: to join us in the House on a variety of
[9:45] Speaker 7: different issues in extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits
[9:49] Speaker 7: for three years on our terms, force that vote, and
[9:52] Speaker 7: then won that vote in January. I think in the majority,
[9:56] Speaker 7: we'll have the ability to do more.
[10:00] Speaker 1: Folks, at the end of the show they're telling this show,
[10:03] Speaker 1: we'll play you the full remarks by Congress from haiking draftards.
[10:07] Speaker 1: I want to go pound now. Doctor Greg Carr, the
[10:09] Speaker 1: part of Afro American Studies at Howard University, joining us
[10:12] Speaker 1: from DC, recent COVID hosts of the recent COVID show
[10:14] Speaker 1: series ExM Radio from DC, as well. Doctor Larry J. Walker,
[10:19] Speaker 1: University professor at former Senior Congressional Stafford joining us from Orlando.
[10:25] Speaker 1: Glad to have all three of y'all here. Reason to
[10:28] Speaker 1: start with you, There's been a lot of talk on
[10:33] Speaker 1: the Democratic side about the job that Leader Hakim Jefferson
[10:38] Speaker 1: is doing. You've already got people talking about, well, he
[10:41] Speaker 1: shouldn't be Speaker of the House. Democrats ain't want nothing yet.
[10:46] Speaker 1: My whole deal is, why don't y'all shut up and
[10:49] Speaker 1: focus on winning? Okay, the elections November three, you got
[10:54] Speaker 1: all that time. If the Democrats get two hundred and
[10:57] Speaker 1: eighteen seats or more, you got time between November fourth
[11:01] Speaker 1: and the beginning of the next session in January to
[11:04] Speaker 1: figure out and have that fight. If I'm Democrats, if
[11:08] Speaker 1: I'm Progressives, if I'm liberals, if I'm dnsay, shut the
[11:12] Speaker 1: hell up and focus on getting to two eighteen.
[11:18] Speaker 9: Well, let's start with the fact that it doesn't actually
[11:21] Speaker 9: get attention and clicks to attack Republicans. I did a
[11:26] Speaker 9: little experiment on threads on Saturday, and I said, Okay,
[11:30] Speaker 9: if you haven't been called all these different names that
[11:32] Speaker 9: they have for the bad Democrats, usually the bad blacks,
[11:35] Speaker 9: is how I refer to us. If you haven't been
[11:38] Speaker 9: called any of these names, then come here and drop
[11:40] Speaker 9: your OPO research. And I chose eight Senate seats North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Michigan,
[11:49] Speaker 9: which all of the progressives and ever you know, the
[11:51] Speaker 9: leftists and all them were celebrating Abdulas Siets. I said, hey,
[11:54] Speaker 9: let's let's get some OPO research on his opponent, Mike Rogers,
[11:58] Speaker 9: who just ran in twenty two, twenty four. And out
[12:03] Speaker 9: of all of the eight Republicans that I put forward,
[12:06] Speaker 9: I got zero, zero takers on oppo research. Now, if
[12:12] Speaker 9: I had said Jasmine Crockett likes purple, it would have
[12:17] Speaker 9: been a pack.
[12:18] Speaker 10: It would have been all kinds of insults.
[12:19] Speaker 9: It would have been a litany of every laundry that
[12:21] Speaker 9: said anything anytime that she's.
[12:22] Speaker 10: Ever had taken a breath wrong that people didn't like.
[12:26] Speaker 9: But when I solicited things about Republicans, I got nothing.
[12:30] Speaker 9: And I think what people need is a math lesson here. Okay,
[12:34] Speaker 9: let's go back to twenty twenty four. What happens when
[12:38] Speaker 9: you allow the Republicans to maintain the House majority, not
[12:43] Speaker 9: just through seats that are jerry manner, because to be fair,
[12:46] Speaker 9: there's a lot of jerry manning that happens, but Republicans
[12:49] Speaker 9: won the House by a four million vote margin in
[12:53] Speaker 9: twenty twenty four. It's not decided by the popular vote,
[12:57] Speaker 9: but I'm just giving you guys some context here. And
[13:00] Speaker 9: then it Republicans picked up four Senate seats to take
[13:04] Speaker 9: the majority. Then you had the White House that they took.
[13:07] Speaker 9: You could say, elon Musk and fraud or whatever. The
[13:10] Speaker 9: motherfucker's in the White House now, so you have a
[13:13] Speaker 9: trifective Republican control that they consider a mandate. Because remember
[13:18] Speaker 9: Donald Trump did actually win the popular vote this time,
[13:20] Speaker 9: unlike when he lost to Hillary Clinton in the popular vote,
[13:23] Speaker 9: but he got the electoral college vote. So you have
[13:25] Speaker 9: a million's vote margin in the House, millions vote margin
[13:28] Speaker 9: in the White House, and they pick up a large
[13:32] Speaker 9: number of Senate seats, and they have a Republican Supreme Court.
[13:35] Speaker 10: And then you motherfuckers have the nerve to say Democrats
[13:39] Speaker 10: do something that's not how this works.
[13:44] Speaker 9: Elections have consequences, and people can bitch and moan about
[13:48] Speaker 9: the Democrats all day long, but they don't have the power.
[13:51] Speaker 9: They don't not have the power because they're weak. They
[13:54] Speaker 9: don't not have the power because they aren't trying to
[13:56] Speaker 9: do different things. They don't have the power because the
[13:58] Speaker 9: Americans went to the fucking pot and they vote a
[14:00] Speaker 9: Republican's asses end. Then they said, oh, help me please.
[14:04] Speaker 9: Politics is not a plot twist. The people in power
[14:07] Speaker 9: have the motherfucking power. Now, I will say to Leader
[14:11] Speaker 9: Jeffrey's point, he has stopped Democrats from defecting and things
[14:16] Speaker 9: like the big ugly ass bill which cuts snap cut, Medicaid,
[14:19] Speaker 9: cut housing cut Obamacare subsidies.
[14:23] Speaker 10: He has stopped Democrats from defecting. And that's what a
[14:26] Speaker 10: leader does, is you keep your caucus together, you keep
[14:29] Speaker 10: your caucus disciplined.
[14:30] Speaker 9: They've even managed to get discharge petitions because the Speaker
[14:33] Speaker 9: of the House gets to control the bills that come
[14:35] Speaker 9: to the floor.
[14:36] Speaker 10: But there are mechanisms like a discharge.
[14:38] Speaker 9: Petition where if you gather enough signatures and you get
[14:41] Speaker 9: some defectors on the other side, which again I think
[14:43] Speaker 9: you have to give Leader Jeffrey some credit for they
[14:46] Speaker 9: managed to do and they force the hand on the
[14:49] Speaker 9: Epstein files. But there are just some things that you
[14:51] Speaker 9: can't force a hand on, particularly when it comes to appropriations,
[14:54] Speaker 9: because those things pass on a simple majority in the
[14:56] Speaker 9: House and in the Senate. So I understand and that
[15:01] Speaker 9: people don't like living with the consequences of a Donald
[15:04] Speaker 9: Trump administration. But every single negative consequence of the Donald
[15:08] Speaker 9: Trump administration was broadcast and advertised. He said he was
[15:12] Speaker 9: going to put in tears. They had Project twenty twenty
[15:15] Speaker 9: fucking five. What did y'all think was gonna happen? They
[15:17] Speaker 9: were just gonna say, jess kidding. Now, all the shit
[15:20] Speaker 9: that they're doing is what they told y'all asked as
[15:22] Speaker 9: we would do. And a nine million motherfuckers stayed home
[15:25] Speaker 9: and a seventy four million dom mass motherfuckers went and
[15:27] Speaker 9: voted for Donald Trump.
[15:28] Speaker 11: So here we are.
[15:30] Speaker 10: Now, what can we do about it? We can vote in.
[15:34] Speaker 9: November and realize that our competition is the MAGA people
[15:39] Speaker 9: that were rubber stamped Donald Trump's agenda, and maybe we
[15:42] Speaker 9: won't be able to hang on another two years with
[15:44] Speaker 9: these detrimental policies. So it's time to stop treating Leader
[15:48] Speaker 9: Jefferies like he's the fucking Bachelor, and you're saying, you
[15:52] Speaker 9: know what, I'm gonna self eliminade. I don't want to
[15:54] Speaker 9: rose from the Bachelor. He is the leader of the
[15:57] Speaker 9: Minority Caucus, Okay, And so if you want to get
[16:01] Speaker 9: the majority vote. And then if you have somebody who's
[16:05] Speaker 9: woker or somebody who's not a peg not x y
[16:07] Speaker 9: motherfucking that can do the job.
[16:09] Speaker 10: Then have that battle. But first we got the crawl
[16:11] Speaker 10: before we walk.
[16:15] Speaker 1: So, Larry, I think I heard at least eight mfs
[16:19] Speaker 1: and about three f bombs.
[16:24] Speaker 10: I wasn't trying to use the ms, but I'm just.
[16:30] Speaker 12: Trying me.
[16:31] Speaker 2: But you.
[16:33] Speaker 1: May not be trying, but you succeeded. But Larry, Larry,
[16:41] Speaker 1: I'm just I am just stating making a factual statement receipt.
[16:45] Speaker 2: Larry.
[16:46] Speaker 1: The thing for me here again, Larry, the thing that
[16:49] Speaker 1: that it's just it is perplexity to me. Listen, primaries
[16:54] Speaker 1: are where you have your intra party fights. When the
[16:59] Speaker 1: prime mayory is over, it's time to turn all your
[17:03] Speaker 1: fire to the other side. Congresswoman Haley Stevens it did
[17:07] Speaker 1: not take care long after she lost to al said
[17:10] Speaker 1: in Michigan and saying I'm standing support him, Okay, didn't
[17:15] Speaker 1: take long at all. And so this is the stupidity
[17:20] Speaker 1: to me.
[17:22] Speaker 8: On the left.
[17:24] Speaker 1: This is the stupidity to where certain elements on the
[17:29] Speaker 1: left can't handle when their candidate loses. If you are
[17:34] Speaker 1: a Francesca Hong supporter in Wisconsin.
[17:38] Speaker 12: She lost.
[17:40] Speaker 1: You should be saying we're gonna ride behind Crowley because
[17:44] Speaker 1: we cannot let the Republicans take control of a governess
[17:47] Speaker 1: mansion after we've had it for the last couple of terms.
[17:51] Speaker 1: That's basic politics, and it's no difference, it's no different,
[17:55] Speaker 1: no matter. I'm just gonna let you answer that because
[17:57] Speaker 1: the one I'm about to give Greg is gonna straight
[18:00] Speaker 1: up blow y'all away, but Larry's going away in.
[18:05] Speaker 13: Yeah, Roland, I'm glad you talked about, you know, when
[18:08] Speaker 13: your preferred candidate doesn't win the primary, and so to
[18:11] Speaker 13: note next Tuesday in the state of Florida is our
[18:14] Speaker 13: Democratic Republican primary, and so listen, you gott to whoever
[18:19] Speaker 13: wins the primary. You got to get behind that candidate,
[18:22] Speaker 13: particularly doing the troubling times that we're facing, unprecedented times
[18:27] Speaker 13: in terms of the attack you talked about the attack
[18:29] Speaker 13: on Black America and other minoritized groups.
[18:32] Speaker 2: Obviously we talk about ice and some.
[18:33] Speaker 13: Of the things that are happening there, the economic impact
[18:36] Speaker 13: on the black community. We don't have time for this,
[18:39] Speaker 13: and so you need to coales, you know, behind a
[18:43] Speaker 13: whoever that candidate is raise money, go out and knock
[18:47] Speaker 13: on doors, GOOTV get out the vote right, and you
[18:51] Speaker 13: have to move forward to make sure that you're prepared
[18:53] Speaker 13: in November otherwise, you know, Recee highlighted a really a
[18:56] Speaker 13: lot of really important points in terms of the realistic
[19:00] Speaker 13: expectations that hacking Jefferies deals with. But they don't get
[19:04] Speaker 13: Democrats don't get their act together. We're going to be
[19:07] Speaker 13: having this conversation after November about what we're gonna do
[19:09] Speaker 13: two years from now, and you know, beyond that time
[19:13] Speaker 13: between you know, after this mid term this year and
[19:15] Speaker 13: two years from now, it may be a rat for
[19:17] Speaker 13: what's happening in the United States.
[19:18] Speaker 12: So it's important to keep in mind.
[19:20] Speaker 13: The other thing is wrong I want to mention really
[19:21] Speaker 13: quickly is since we're talking about hawking, Jeffries is heavy.
[19:25] Speaker 13: This is the head that wears the crown, and so
[19:28] Speaker 13: as as a black man who you know, member of
[19:30] Speaker 13: the CBC, and what may happen if he if the
[19:33] Speaker 13: Democrats flipped the House and he becomes the first black speaker.
[19:37] Speaker 13: There are always these expectations that black folks, basically black
[19:40] Speaker 13: Democrats have to deal with that white Democrats and other
[19:44] Speaker 13: groups don't have to deal with recent mentioned Johnson Crockett.
[19:47] Speaker 13: We could go on on in the terms of the
[19:49] Speaker 13: list of black members of Congress who have to constantly
[19:52] Speaker 13: deal with these unrealistic expectations. Lastly, Recy made the great
[19:56] Speaker 13: point Listen, this ain't reality TV. I need folks to
[20:00] Speaker 13: take Civics classes. Because when I worked on the Hill,
[20:02] Speaker 13: we were in the minority. You had to do what
[20:05] Speaker 13: you had to do to get bills passed. Now if
[20:08] Speaker 13: you flip it and you're in the majority, then some
[20:10] Speaker 13: of these bills, as he talked about holding individuals who
[20:13] Speaker 13: have been cheating accountable, then we can provide some balance
[20:17] Speaker 13: in which the frameers of the Constitution initially when they
[20:20] Speaker 13: developed this system of government. Otherwise we'll be dealing with
[20:23] Speaker 13: the same issues over economic issues and the same scandals
[20:26] Speaker 13: over and over again. The folks once again that you say,
[20:29] Speaker 13: have to get behind whoever wins the primary fund and
[20:32] Speaker 13: knock on doors.
[20:36] Speaker 1: See Greg when we talk about consequences all the time,
[20:39] Speaker 1: political consequences. And I was having a conversation with someone
[20:47] Speaker 1: today at NABJ in Atlanta and we had to get
[20:50] Speaker 1: a laugh out of this. It's amazing to hear one
[20:54] Speaker 1: of the biggest loud mouths who was telling black people
[20:58] Speaker 1: not to vote, who was telling Black people that Kamala
[21:02] Speaker 1: Harris was the same as Donald Trump turn around and
[21:06] Speaker 1: say the Trump Department of Justice needs to investigate the
[21:11] Speaker 1: death of no One Wills. And I'm like, I'm sorry,
[21:20] Speaker 1: you were one of the people literally telling people not
[21:25] Speaker 1: to vote. And it is undeniable that a vice that
[21:31] Speaker 1: a Kamala Harris Department of Justice, a president Kamala Harris
[21:35] Speaker 1: department of Justice would be far more aggressive in prosecuting
[21:40] Speaker 1: civil rights cases then there would be a Donald Trump
[21:46] Speaker 1: Department of Justice. That's a perfect example to say to progressives,
[21:54] Speaker 1: you look like an idiot where you have a circular
[21:58] Speaker 1: firing squad and you you are trying to destroy your
[22:01] Speaker 1: own when you haven't even reclaimed the House or the Senate.
[22:07] Speaker 1: It's called fight later when now, but fight now and
[22:13] Speaker 1: lose later. It's pretty damn stupid, Greg.
[22:21] Speaker 2: I'm not going to be changed. Prop up failed the
[22:26] Speaker 2: lectorial state, particularly by Petty Bush.
[22:32] Speaker 14: Why long sign safe black collected officials, particularly in the
[22:38] Speaker 14: federal legislature, who have proven themselves incapable of extending the
[22:47] Speaker 14: tradition that they have inherited and for too long. It
[22:52] Speaker 14: seems to me run on as that is more about
[22:59] Speaker 14: demographics and skin come than it is on policy data.
[23:03] Speaker 2: Instead of Maryland. I voted under sided in the primaries a.
[23:11] Speaker 14: Twenty four elections, fully knowing that whoever the Democratic Party
[23:15] Speaker 14: candidate was, I was going to support them.
[23:20] Speaker 2: I think what we see right.
[23:21] Speaker 14: Now and when we look at Michigan and we look
[23:23] Speaker 14: at Wisconsins, we see I think two situations which give
[23:30] Speaker 14: us a good.
[23:31] Speaker 2: Lens to think about the pragmatic polity.
[23:34] Speaker 15: In Michigan, of course, doctor l said prevailed and everybody
[23:41] Speaker 15: came together.
[23:44] Speaker 2: Representative Stephen and am supporting him. We got to move together.
[23:49] Speaker 15: And then in Wisconsin where we saw brother crowdy, when
[23:56] Speaker 15: we saw Home come in at the unergy break this
[24:00] Speaker 15: this week did not speak Crawleys, folks, is we're coming together.
[24:04] Speaker 15: She is'm to work out there in campaign and said
[24:07] Speaker 15: the campaign's not And this is what Hall said in
[24:09] Speaker 15: a release statement. Campaign is not about getting one person
[24:12] Speaker 15: in all about them the movement, but permanent affordability and
[24:15] Speaker 15: the government that puts work in people first. I will
[24:19] Speaker 15: not feed a narrative that I think is completely overblown,
[24:25] Speaker 15: that presumes people.
[24:27] Speaker 2: Are stupid enough to set out election.
[24:32] Speaker 15: Rather than rather than get behind. In a two quality system,
[24:38] Speaker 15: the candidate that pushes their interest most. We're in August
[24:45] Speaker 15: out of it's venue. Who are in that political class, folks.
[24:57] Speaker 1: Greg is skilled traveling overseas, so we're having some issues
[25:00] Speaker 1: with his video feed and audio. So we're gonna get
[25:03] Speaker 1: that worked out. I just want people to understand, you
[25:08] Speaker 1: have to win. You can't change public policy if you lose.
[25:16] Speaker 1: If you're in the minority in the House of the
[25:18] Speaker 1: Maori in the Senate, you ain't got no power. Oh,
[25:21] Speaker 1: you can hold news conferences, you can trail block appointments,
[25:26] Speaker 1: but you're very limited power to govern. So folks might
[25:30] Speaker 1: want to consider that when they are focusing on attacking
[25:35] Speaker 1: inward and not attacking your enemy. Going to a break,
[25:40] Speaker 1: we come back. We're talking with Nava Attorney General Aaron Ford,
[25:43] Speaker 1: who was running for governor of Nevada. That and more
[25:47] Speaker 1: right here on Roland Martin un Fulcherd on the Blackstar Network.
[25:53] Speaker 2: All right, folks, let me get purshal for a second.
[25:55] Speaker 1: My mom had questions about her medicare, so she called
[25:58] Speaker 1: Chapter a Medicare advisory company, and she texts me right after,
[26:01] Speaker 1: saying it's a great benefit. It was easy, a real
[26:04] Speaker 1: person who walked her through the whole thing. And now
[26:07] Speaker 1: she understands better what's going on because also it's not
[26:10] Speaker 1: just her. Woman in Yonkers wrote in saying the process
[26:13] Speaker 1: was so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was
[26:16] Speaker 1: so glad. She called. And there's Maryland, ninety years old
[26:19] Speaker 1: in Florida, living on Social Security. Her premium climb every
[26:23] Speaker 1: single year north of four hundred dollars a month for
[26:26] Speaker 1: coverage she could barely afford anymore. So what does she do?
[26:29] Speaker 2: She called Chapter.
[26:30] Speaker 1: They found her the same top tier coverage for hundreds
[26:33] Speaker 1: of dollars less ninety years old, and finally, somebody in
[26:37] Speaker 1: her corner. I hear stories like that again and again
[26:40] Speaker 1: from our community. The Medicare system was not built to
[26:43] Speaker 1: work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans.
[26:47] Speaker 1: Yet Chapters advisors are independent and honest. The only Medicare
[26:50] Speaker 1: advisors that compare every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing,
[26:54] Speaker 1: what actually works for you. If you're already in the
[26:57] Speaker 1: right plan, they'll tell you no games. People who switched
[27:01] Speaker 1: to a Chapter saved an average of eleven one hundred
[27:03] Speaker 1: dollars a year, all Texas. Twenty minutes, you talk to
[27:06] Speaker 1: a real person and it's completely free. Help so called
[27:10] Speaker 1: chapter at seven two four, two six four eight to
[27:13] Speaker 1: eight one seven two four, two sixty four eight two
[27:17] Speaker 1: eight one.
[27:18] Speaker 2: That's chapter.
[27:19] Speaker 8: Let me ask you a question.
[27:21] Speaker 16: Why do so many people seem to think they know
[27:23] Speaker 16: black men so well but they think we want what
[27:25] Speaker 16: they think we need.
[27:26] Speaker 11: Hell, they even tried to tell us why and how
[27:28] Speaker 11: we vote help. They've never had a conversation with us,
[27:31] Speaker 11: never asked us how we felt, brings us joy?
[27:33] Speaker 12: What makes us angry?
[27:34] Speaker 11: What makes us scared?
[27:36] Speaker 2: How do we live?
[27:36] Speaker 11: That's what this show is about. No translation, because we
[27:40] Speaker 11: don't need anybody speaking for us.
[27:42] Speaker 8: We can speak for ourselves.
[27:43] Speaker 11: This will be a show where we bring brothers on
[27:45] Speaker 11: that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope,
[27:47] Speaker 11: brothers that are doing work in local communities with black men,
[27:50] Speaker 11: for black communities. We're going to hear each other and
[27:53] Speaker 11: try to understand so perhaps we can move forward together.
[27:57] Speaker 11: No translation because we don't need anybody speaking us.
[28:00] Speaker 8: What we need is each other.
[28:02] Speaker 11: No translation right here on the Blackstar Networks.
[28:04] Speaker 9: Check it out.
[28:10] Speaker 16: Hey, let's up with Sammy Roman as Sean rit the
[28:12] Speaker 16: executive producer of the New Sherry Shepper Talk Show.
[28:15] Speaker 3: If me Sherry Sebrat and you know what you're watching
[28:17] Speaker 3: Roland Martin Unfiltered.
[28:26] Speaker 1: In the history of the United States, have only been
[28:29] Speaker 1: three African Americans elected governors of states. This year, we
[28:35] Speaker 1: could actually see four in November. Right now, Governor Wes
[28:41] Speaker 1: Moore is the incumbent in Maryland. He's running for reelection.
[28:44] Speaker 1: Keisha Lance Bottoms the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia.
[28:49] Speaker 1: You also have David Crowley, the Democratic candidate in Wisconsin.
[28:54] Speaker 1: Actually you could have five. You've got Republican MAGA Congressman
[28:59] Speaker 1: Byron Donald's for governor in Florida and Nevada. Aaron Ford,
[29:03] Speaker 1: the Nevada Attorney General, is running for a governor against
[29:08] Speaker 1: the incumbent Republican MAGA Joe Loma Bardo.
[29:13] Speaker 17: Uh.
[29:13] Speaker 1: So, joining us right now is Attorney General Aaron Ford.
[29:17] Speaker 1: Glad to have you here on the show.
[29:19] Speaker 12: Uh.
[29:20] Speaker 1: Let me say it again. Matter of fact, I was
[29:22] Speaker 1: downstairs before I came here. I had a panel the
[29:25] Speaker 1: National Association of Black Journalists. Uh and that was a
[29:28] Speaker 1: brother who was a kappa. And I said one of
[29:31] Speaker 1: your I said, asked him how did he get made
[29:33] Speaker 1: a donation to Aaron Ford's campaign. I said, you need
[29:37] Speaker 1: to go ahead and support your Kappa brother. Uh And
[29:40] Speaker 1: he said you actually had some nice to say. I said,
[29:42] Speaker 1: only because he was the Texas A and m Aggie.
[29:44] Speaker 1: I said, I ain't gonna give it to him too much.
[29:47] Speaker 1: But man, no, no, ain't gonna happen.
[29:59] Speaker 12: Ain't gonna happen.
[30:00] Speaker 1: Let's get into it. You run against incubent governor. He
[30:03] Speaker 1: was standing beside Donald Trump a week ago touting how
[30:07] Speaker 1: great billionaires are. You're in a state that has been
[30:11] Speaker 1: Your economy has been decimated. Las Vegas has been decimated
[30:15] Speaker 1: by Donald Trump's attitude towards Canadians and foreigners. Is that
[30:20] Speaker 1: the main focus you're making this campaign on how awful
[30:25] Speaker 1: the Nevada economy has been? By having your mega governor's
[30:28] Speaker 1: standing shoulder of the shoulder with Donald Trump.
[30:31] Speaker 12: Well, first of all, Roland, always great to see you.
[30:34] Speaker 18: I've known you since Texas and m days your guy
[30:37] Speaker 18: have looked up to even though you made the wrong
[30:38] Speaker 18: decision on frats, but you are.
[30:41] Speaker 8: A good guy.
[30:42] Speaker 2: You know.
[30:42] Speaker 18: I got a lot of appreciation for you, But I
[30:44] Speaker 18: got to pick on you for a quick minute. I
[30:46] Speaker 18: gotta tell you, if you come to my state and
[30:47] Speaker 18: you call it Nevada, you don't get uncharged. Okay, it's
[30:51] Speaker 18: gonna they're gonna uncharge you. And don't call your friend
[30:54] Speaker 18: Aaron for it. You know my name ain't Aaron Aron
[30:57] Speaker 18: for You're gonna get me.
[30:59] Speaker 1: So what do y'all? What are you'ut in Nevada?
[31:03] Speaker 12: That's right, Nevada.
[31:07] Speaker 1: Okay, So so let me take you Aaron. Are you Aron?
[31:11] Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like that.
[31:13] Speaker 8: It's the kid Peel.
[31:16] Speaker 12: I knew you're gonna do that. No, it's Aaron Ford
[31:19] Speaker 12: from Nevada.
[31:20] Speaker 14: Uh.
[31:20] Speaker 18: And you know, uh, you're grateful for you, man, But
[31:23] Speaker 18: look to your question, to to the serious point of
[31:25] Speaker 18: the question.
[31:26] Speaker 12: Uh, you use the word decimated. That is the word.
[31:29] Speaker 18: The fact is Joel Lombardo and Donald Trump have decimated
[31:33] Speaker 18: our economy. It's called the Lombardo Trump economy for a reason.
[31:37] Speaker 18: You know, Donald Trump wanted inst with some tariffs. H
[31:41] Speaker 18: and Joe Lombardo said we should maybe feel a little
[31:43] Speaker 18: pain from them. Those tariffs have in fact caused high unemployment.
[31:47] Speaker 18: They've caused businesses to close.
[31:49] Speaker 3: Uh.
[31:49] Speaker 18: They they've caused the breached havoc all throughout the entirety
[31:53] Speaker 18: of our state. And so when President Trump comes out
[31:56] Speaker 18: here and he talks about the no tax on Tips
[32:00] Speaker 18: pledge and the law that he passed, it doesn't really
[32:03] Speaker 18: matter about tips if you're not It doesn't really matter
[32:06] Speaker 18: about your taxes if you're not getting tips in the
[32:08] Speaker 18: first place. And for Joe Lombardo to get on stage
[32:12] Speaker 18: and highlight the fact that these billionaires are the reasons
[32:15] Speaker 18: why he's supporting Donald Trump just shows you how out
[32:18] Speaker 18: of touch he is with what's happening on the ground
[32:21] Speaker 18: right here in Nevada.
[32:22] Speaker 12: I talk to folks all over the state.
[32:24] Speaker 18: They're struggling right now, and we should be focused on
[32:28] Speaker 18: those individuals and not worried about these billionaires that Donald
[32:30] Speaker 18: Trump and Joe Lombardo are CosIng up to as much.
[32:36] Speaker 1: Data centers, huge issue that is being playing out. How
[32:42] Speaker 1: is that again a part of this campaign there in Nevada.
[32:48] Speaker 12: Yeah, look, Rowland.
[32:49] Speaker 18: Everywhere I go, it doesn't matter where I am, urban, rural,
[32:52] Speaker 18: suburban Nevada, I'm hearing about these data center issues.
[32:55] Speaker 12: And I've made it.
[32:56] Speaker 18: I've made my position very clear that if they're going
[32:58] Speaker 18: to operate here, are going to have to number one,
[33:01] Speaker 18: use something besides water to cool themselves, because we live
[33:04] Speaker 18: in a desert and they can't take our water. Number Two,
[33:07] Speaker 18: I have said that I don't want to see our
[33:09] Speaker 18: residence rates rise by one pendy based on what energy
[33:13] Speaker 18: use these data centers are using. So they're going to
[33:15] Speaker 18: be required to build out their own the grid to
[33:19] Speaker 18: fulfill their particular needs. They're going to have to ensure
[33:22] Speaker 18: that they are hiring local individuals. If they're going to
[33:25] Speaker 18: be operating in our state, they're going to have to
[33:27] Speaker 18: ensure that they have what we call community benefits agreements
[33:30] Speaker 18: in place. And most importantly, we're going to have to
[33:33] Speaker 18: listen to the local people on the ground, whether it's Renal,
[33:36] Speaker 18: Boulder City, Peromp. I was in Mending and they were
[33:41] Speaker 18: talking about a data center come into Yarrington. The input
[33:44] Speaker 18: of people is paramount, and I think they're making their
[33:47] Speaker 18: voices pretty known about how they feel about these data centers.
[33:54] Speaker 1: When we talked the issue of data centers, we also,
[33:59] Speaker 1: of course the kind of healthcare significant issue. How has
[34:04] Speaker 1: the VATA been impacted by Donald Trump's vicious attacks on Medicare,
[34:10] Speaker 1: Medicaid and Infutable Care Act.
[34:13] Speaker 18: You know, there's a connection here, and there's a pattern
[34:16] Speaker 18: between how Joel Lombardo responds to the needs of the
[34:20] Speaker 18: people versus needs of the corporations. We talked about data
[34:24] Speaker 18: centers a second ago that one of the key differences
[34:27] Speaker 18: between Lombardo and me is that he is bankrolled by them.
[34:30] Speaker 18: He's taken millions of dollars from data centers, which is
[34:33] Speaker 18: the reason why he's he's endorsed entirely the existence of
[34:39] Speaker 18: these data centers. He's getting millions of dollars from them. Similarly,
[34:42] Speaker 18: he's getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies.
[34:45] Speaker 15: Right.
[34:45] Speaker 18: And so when you have these big beautiful bills passing
[34:48] Speaker 18: the healthcare components associated with it, our governor has said
[34:53] Speaker 18: we should be excited about the big beautiful bill, and
[34:56] Speaker 18: I say excited about what the fact that one hundred
[34:58] Speaker 18: thousands of Batans are going to get kicked off of Medicaid.
[35:02] Speaker 12: Roland you may not recall because you graduated right before
[35:04] Speaker 12: I did.
[35:05] Speaker 8: But you know my story.
[35:06] Speaker 18: You know I was a single parent when I was
[35:08] Speaker 18: at Texas and m You know that I was living
[35:10] Speaker 18: on Medicaid to keep my son healthy.
[35:12] Speaker 12: You know, I was living on food stamps to keep
[35:14] Speaker 12: us faded, and.
[35:15] Speaker 18: So these types of lifelines are very important to me,
[35:18] Speaker 18: and I understand the importance of them to other people.
[35:21] Speaker 18: And so when I have a governor who's so afraid
[35:24] Speaker 18: to stand up for Donald Trump, who Kyle Taos capitulates,
[35:27] Speaker 18: kisses up to, and simply lies down for Donald Trump,
[35:32] Speaker 18: that gives me great concern, which is the reason why
[35:34] Speaker 18: I'm running right now, because that's a difference between the choice.
[35:38] Speaker 18: They can have someone who folds all the time, or
[35:41] Speaker 18: they can have someone who fights all the time.
[35:43] Speaker 12: And that's the auternic they have in me.
[35:49] Speaker 1: Your state doesn't have a huge African American population, obviously,
[35:55] Speaker 1: it has a very large Latino population American population. How
[36:03] Speaker 1: are you building a broad based coalition to get Democrats
[36:09] Speaker 1: in your state to stand behind your campaign and frankly,
[36:13] Speaker 1: to stop what I call the previous segment, this circular
[36:17] Speaker 1: firing squad between your center left Democrats, your progresses, your liberals,
[36:22] Speaker 1: and your far left Democrats and DSA candidates.
[36:27] Speaker 12: You know, there are a couple of answers to that,
[36:28] Speaker 12: the first of which is I have been across the state.
[36:31] Speaker 18: Several times talking to folks in every corner of our state,
[36:35] Speaker 18: and there have been a handful of topics that have
[36:38] Speaker 18: risen to the top.
[36:38] Speaker 12: I've distilled from these conversations. It doesn't matter the demographic.
[36:42] Speaker 18: I could have been an urban, rural, suburban about I
[36:44] Speaker 18: could be talking to a black, white, Latino, Asian, a
[36:47] Speaker 18: white person. It doesn't matter who I'm talking to. These
[36:50] Speaker 18: demographics across the board, these topics have risen to the top.
[36:54] Speaker 18: It could be a man or a woman. It could
[36:55] Speaker 18: be a Democrat, Republican, Independent. And here's what they tell me.
[36:58] Speaker 18: They just want a good job, to buy house in
[37:02] Speaker 18: a safe neighborhood, where the schools are preparing their kids
[37:05] Speaker 18: for careers or college, and where the healthcare system is
[37:09] Speaker 18: available and affordable to them. And among all of that,
[37:12] Speaker 18: to be treated with humanity, dignity, and respect. That is
[37:16] Speaker 18: across every demographic. And so I'm speaking to those issues
[37:20] Speaker 18: and what we call the Affordable Nevada Plan, a plan
[37:23] Speaker 18: that addresses each of those issues.
[37:24] Speaker 12: We are in the state right now with the one
[37:26] Speaker 12: of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.
[37:29] Speaker 18: In fact, under Joe Lombardo's tenure, we've had either the
[37:32] Speaker 18: highest or one of the highest unemployment rates his entire tenure.
[37:36] Speaker 18: Right now, unemployment is higher than it was when he
[37:38] Speaker 18: took office. That's his fault, right. Housing costs of skyrocketing,
[37:42] Speaker 18: healthcare skyrocketing, energy costs are skyrocketing, and that's across demographics.
[37:46] Speaker 12: Because and so we are we're.
[37:48] Speaker 18: Able to keep this coalition together because we're talking about
[37:51] Speaker 18: things that matter to them. Now, look, you specifically mentioned
[37:54] Speaker 18: the Latino community, and I wanted to speak to that issue.
[37:58] Speaker 18: The lokapass here. You also Atlantical on linguine, you're also
[38:02] Speaker 18: in susson Adio. I mean, some of y'all want to
[38:08] Speaker 18: understand what I just said. Something you want, But the
[38:10] Speaker 18: point I was making is I'm talking to them in
[38:12] Speaker 18: their language. I'm going to their neighborhoods, I'm listening to them.
[38:15] Speaker 18: I'm asking them what's important, and we are putting that
[38:17] Speaker 18: in our Affordable Nevada Plan in a way that resonates,
[38:20] Speaker 18: and that has ultimately led to us having a ground
[38:23] Speaker 18: swot of support and not just frankly the legitimate community,
[38:25] Speaker 18: but all across the state.
[38:29] Speaker 1: All right, let's go to questions from our panel. First stop,
[38:34] Speaker 1: doctor Larry J. Walker, Alpha man.
[38:40] Speaker 2: A G four. Thanks thanks for joining us.
[38:44] Speaker 13: I have a cousin lives in the state and also friends,
[38:47] Speaker 13: so really important, uh, to follow your candidacy. Can you
[38:51] Speaker 13: talk You know, union's played an important role in your
[38:53] Speaker 13: state for obvious reasons in terms of casinos, et cetera.
[38:57] Speaker 13: And so I'm wondering if you could share with the
[38:58] Speaker 13: audience what are the one to two points when you
[39:00] Speaker 13: talk to unions. What are the one of two points
[39:02] Speaker 13: you highlight to make sure you can make their lives
[39:04] Speaker 13: better if you become governor.
[39:06] Speaker 8: Well, you're right.
[39:07] Speaker 18: We are a union town and I enjoyed the support
[39:11] Speaker 18: of almost every union out there, including the largest union
[39:15] Speaker 18: in our state, the Culinary Union.
[39:16] Speaker 12: I was literally just with them this.
[39:18] Speaker 18: Morning as they did a ground or ribbon cutting for
[39:21] Speaker 18: the brand new health facility. But it goes back to
[39:24] Speaker 18: what I just answered for Rodent for the last question.
[39:27] Speaker 18: This affordability crisis is real. This Lombardo Trump economy has
[39:31] Speaker 18: decimated the ability for individuals in our state to not just.
[39:37] Speaker 12: Thrive or try to thrive, but even to survive.
[39:39] Speaker 18: And so speaking to these issues, whether it relates to
[39:42] Speaker 18: our economy being decimated, our housing costs been to expensive,
[39:45] Speaker 18: our health care going up, especially when I was there
[39:48] Speaker 18: at a Riven cutting Boy healthcare center. It resonates with
[39:51] Speaker 18: union members and that's something that by the way, I'm
[39:54] Speaker 18: not new at. I've been elected office since twenty twelve.
[39:58] Speaker 18: They know my track record and it's always stand up
[40:00] Speaker 18: for the working class in a way that allows them
[40:03] Speaker 18: to provide for themselves and their families.
[40:09] Speaker 1: All right, next question, my man, Doctor Greg Carr is
[40:15] Speaker 1: an egypt Alpha man.
[40:20] Speaker 15: Thank you realand you are surrounded general for it, but
[40:24] Speaker 15: that's okay though we're all on the same team generally.
[40:28] Speaker 2: Good talk with you, brother. I was reading the.
[40:31] Speaker 15: Nevada Independent and questionnaire that you and the governor answered,
[40:35] Speaker 15: and it's very interesting to see how he evaded direct
[40:39] Speaker 15: answers to several key questions. Education K twelve funding, didn't
[40:44] Speaker 15: give a yes or no answer whether she be raised,
[40:45] Speaker 15: and you want to, of course increase funding data centers.
[40:49] Speaker 15: Of course, as Roland asked, you didn't give a yes
[40:52] Speaker 15: and no answer, and you said, no, there's got to
[40:54] Speaker 15: be some more strict legislation to regulate them.
[40:59] Speaker 2: Is attempting to in some ways evade some of the
[41:04] Speaker 2: very clear issues.
[41:06] Speaker 15: In terms of lines that it's saying that you have
[41:08] Speaker 15: drawn and if so in a state where it looks
[41:13] Speaker 15: like they're at least as many registered Democrats as that
[41:15] Speaker 15: are Republicans, and in terms of non active voters, seems
[41:19] Speaker 15: like that even those who have identified as Democrats.
[41:22] Speaker 2: May even have an edge. How important is it going
[41:24] Speaker 2: to be to turn out the voters in your state
[41:28] Speaker 2: in order to win select.
[41:31] Speaker 18: Well, let me take a lot apart. First, turnout is
[41:34] Speaker 18: absolutely imperative. You know in the midterm. Obviously, we know
[41:37] Speaker 18: that turnout is usually less robust, which is why we
[41:41] Speaker 18: have a even more robust ground game right now. We're
[41:44] Speaker 18: working with my colleagues all on the ballot, whether it's
[41:47] Speaker 18: congress persons or other statewide consocial officers or let just
[41:50] Speaker 18: lay towards to ensure that we have a ground game
[41:53] Speaker 18: that's going to not only registered folks to vote, but
[41:55] Speaker 18: drive them to the post. We're confident in that. And
[41:57] Speaker 18: I just mentioned the Culinary Union. They have an unparalleled
[42:01] Speaker 18: ground game that we get to tap into because they
[42:05] Speaker 18: have eighty thousand members with hundreds of them who will
[42:07] Speaker 18: go out and not go on doors for us. And
[42:09] Speaker 18: so we're excited about that. But you know, to your
[42:11] Speaker 18: first question, that independent article your reference, and I know
[42:14] Speaker 18: exactly what you're talking about, and you're exactly right. Joel
[42:18] Speaker 18: Lombardo is evading questions because he is the reason why
[42:21] Speaker 18: we're in this position right now. His policies, his plans,
[42:25] Speaker 18: his leadership or lack thereof, has led to us having
[42:29] Speaker 18: again one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation
[42:33] Speaker 18: right where our housing costs continue to escalate and riose.
[42:38] Speaker 12: And by the way, he's had opportunities to do things
[42:40] Speaker 12: about this.
[42:41] Speaker 18: Even Donald Trump agrees with me on this one notion
[42:43] Speaker 18: that corporations on living homes, but people live in homes.
[42:47] Speaker 12: I mean, he wasn't signing the bill to fix that.
[42:48] Speaker 12: To be sure, he let it come into law.
[42:50] Speaker 18: But Joel Lombardo could have signed a bill that would
[42:52] Speaker 18: have limited how many corporations, how many homes corporations can
[42:54] Speaker 18: buy up because twenty five percent of the homes in
[42:57] Speaker 18: North Las Vegas, for example, our own about corporations. We
[43:00] Speaker 18: could be experiencing relief right now that Joe Lombardo really
[43:03] Speaker 18: aligned himself with the people of our state. That's why
[43:05] Speaker 18: he can't answer questions about education because we continue to
[43:08] Speaker 18: rank at the bottom of education. Look can't he wouldn't
[43:12] Speaker 18: even agree to feed our children. He vetoed a bill
[43:15] Speaker 18: that would have guaranteed school meals for children. Roland those
[43:18] Speaker 18: I was a single parent.
[43:19] Speaker 12: He doesn't know that.
[43:19] Speaker 18: I used to eat steale candy bars for dinner. Score
[43:22] Speaker 18: bars are my favorite. I used to sneak those stale
[43:25] Speaker 18: candy bars and eat them for lunch. I was that
[43:27] Speaker 18: kid in the classroom whose stomach was growling and couldn't
[43:29] Speaker 18: pay attention in class. And Lombardo said it would been
[43:33] Speaker 18: a waste of money on a kid like me, And
[43:37] Speaker 18: then he went out and spent twenty five million dollars
[43:39] Speaker 18: on office furniture. You see, when I'm governor, we're gonna
[43:42] Speaker 18: feed our kids and we're going to ensure that our
[43:44] Speaker 18: education system continues to improve. That's the reason why Lombardro's
[43:48] Speaker 18: being evasive, That's why he is trying to distract from
[43:52] Speaker 18: his record.
[43:53] Speaker 12: That's why he lies so much. And at the end
[43:56] Speaker 12: of the day, this is going to be referendum on
[43:58] Speaker 12: him and accountability. Today November third, recent colvert, what's your question?
[44:07] Speaker 9: Says ladies last today and no ladies first, but you
[44:11] Speaker 9: can come on mind.
[44:12] Speaker 10: Show general for no, no, no, no, alf was first.
[44:20] Speaker 2: Okay, just throw.
[44:21] Speaker 10: Chivalry off the windows.
[44:22] Speaker 9: Just do okay, anyhood we're I guess we're equals here. Okay,
[44:27] Speaker 9: So uh, General four thought to get serious. You know
[44:32] Speaker 9: a lot of times people talk about they want Democrats
[44:34] Speaker 9: to fight, they want Democrats to fight, and I think
[44:36] Speaker 9: that attorney's general's attorneys general have been some unsung heroes
[44:41] Speaker 9: in terms of the lawsuits and the winds that you
[44:43] Speaker 9: all have been able to rack up against Donald Trump.
[44:45] Speaker 9: Can you talk a little bit about how you have
[44:49] Speaker 9: resisted and how you have delivered for the people of
[44:53] Speaker 9: your state through your lawsuits and how you protected them
[44:56] Speaker 9: through your lawsuits of Trump, and then how that executive
[44:59] Speaker 9: experience being the head of the DJ in your state
[45:03] Speaker 9: translates to you being governor.
[45:06] Speaker 18: Now, look, that's a great question, and I want to
[45:08] Speaker 18: get to that, but I want to let you know
[45:10] Speaker 18: that pretty boys like the noops like I am, you
[45:13] Speaker 18: would have been first.
[45:14] Speaker 12: You see, we do put out women first.
[45:18] Speaker 8: Uh those.
[45:20] Speaker 12: Kill you anyway, Let me stop, Let me stop, let
[45:22] Speaker 12: me stop. Well he kicked me off this his stream anyway.
[45:26] Speaker 12: True question, real question.
[45:27] Speaker 18: And look, the fact of the matter is attorneys general
[45:32] Speaker 18: Democratic attorneys general on scat to fight, and we have
[45:36] Speaker 18: been in court probably uppers of seventy five times this term.
[45:41] Speaker 18: It was over one hundred times when he the first
[45:44] Speaker 18: time he ran for office, and our win rate against
[45:46] Speaker 18: him for violating the law is uppers of eighty five
[45:49] Speaker 18: to ninety percent. We have saved education money we have,
[45:53] Speaker 18: you know, saved energy money we have. We have saved
[45:56] Speaker 18: the constitutional right to birthright, citizenship right. These are the
[45:59] Speaker 18: time of things that we have stood up for. And
[46:01] Speaker 18: this is a stark contrast to a governor who I
[46:04] Speaker 18: have already described to you as one who capitulates, cowtows
[46:06] Speaker 18: and kisses up to Donald Trump, lies down and lays
[46:10] Speaker 18: down his own principles before Donald Trump. I'm not scared
[46:13] Speaker 18: of Donald Trump. Excuse my collocalism. I ain't scared of
[46:16] Speaker 18: none of them. And that's the reason why I am
[46:18] Speaker 18: willing to stand up for what is right, irrespective of
[46:20] Speaker 18: political ball back a pundit treat it doesn't matter. The
[46:24] Speaker 18: fact is things are too important for us right now.
[46:27] Speaker 18: We are in dire straits, and if we don't continue
[46:29] Speaker 18: to stand up and fight back, we will find ourselves
[46:32] Speaker 18: with less rights as we continue to see them trying
[46:35] Speaker 18: to undermine our very existence in this country. So I'm
[46:39] Speaker 18: proud of that work. It is work that the people
[46:41] Speaker 18: in mindset have recognized as well. You know, it's funny,
[46:44] Speaker 18: right because I sued over the tariffs, these tariffs that
[46:47] Speaker 18: I knew from the beginning were unlawful.
[46:50] Speaker 12: Donald Trump said we should be I'm sorry.
[46:52] Speaker 18: Joe Lombardo said we should be excited about the big,
[46:54] Speaker 18: beautiful bill. He said that we should feel pain from
[46:56] Speaker 18: these tariffs, called my lawsuits unfortunate. But as unfortunate see
[47:01] Speaker 18: is that he doesn't understand the plight of the person
[47:04] Speaker 18: on the ground. He's aligned himself with corporations and at
[47:07] Speaker 18: the core of our state, it's people I have. And
[47:10] Speaker 18: when I take this despite to the governor's office, we
[47:14] Speaker 18: will be that much better.
[47:19] Speaker 10: Period.
[47:19] Speaker 1: Last question for me, Last question, I mean it's not
[47:23] Speaker 1: really a question. There's somebody who is watching this show
[47:26] Speaker 1: right now. They're listening to the podcast and they are saying,
[47:32] Speaker 1: you know what, there's voting stuff. I'm not buying it,
[47:36] Speaker 1: I'm not following for it. I just can't go with it.
[47:41] Speaker 1: What do you say to that person who actually believes
[47:45] Speaker 1: that their vote is a waste of time and that
[47:48] Speaker 1: the couch is a credible option.
[47:54] Speaker 2: Listen Roland.
[47:54] Speaker 18: There are a lot of canned responses to that that
[47:58] Speaker 18: are not just can but actual but accurate. Right, they're
[48:01] Speaker 18: trying to take you voted away because they know it
[48:04] Speaker 18: matters right that they you know, your vote, your voters,
[48:07] Speaker 18: your voice.
[48:08] Speaker 2: Right.
[48:08] Speaker 12: I can say all of that, but here I can
[48:10] Speaker 12: give you a real life example.
[48:11] Speaker 18: When I became the Attorney General back in twenty eighteen,
[48:14] Speaker 18: I barely won my race.
[48:16] Speaker 12: I won by point four seven percentage points.
[48:20] Speaker 1: Right.
[48:21] Speaker 18: I tried to say point five and said, no, you
[48:23] Speaker 18: can't round up point four to seven percentage points. Forty
[48:25] Speaker 18: five hundred and thirty three votes out of over a
[48:28] Speaker 18: million casts is what separated me from winning and losing.
[48:31] Speaker 18: And the reason why that's important is because during my
[48:33] Speaker 18: first term, we had George Floyd.
[48:37] Speaker 12: During my first term, we had COVID.
[48:40] Speaker 18: During my first term, we had a president and Donald
[48:42] Speaker 18: Trump held bent on undermining our elections. And thank goodness
[48:46] Speaker 18: it was me in this office as opposed to their alternative,
[48:48] Speaker 18: because none of those things would have been taken. Seriously,
[48:51] Speaker 18: your vote absolutely counts, and it's important that you actually show.
[48:55] Speaker 12: Up to vote. We need your help out there. Look,
[48:58] Speaker 12: we can all throw the talel in This isn't easy.
[49:00] Speaker 18: You think I like getting called everything with the child
[49:02] Speaker 18: of God, right, You think that I like getting called
[49:05] Speaker 18: out my name and being disrespected and having my life
[49:07] Speaker 18: threatened and have to have you know.
[49:10] Speaker 12: Armed security around me all the time.
[49:13] Speaker 8: No, I don't.
[49:14] Speaker 18: But I'm in the fight because I know that if
[49:16] Speaker 18: people like us aren't in the fight, we will continue
[49:19] Speaker 18: to regrets, We will continue to go backwards. And I,
[49:23] Speaker 18: for one, for the sake of the child I have
[49:25] Speaker 18: when I was in college, for the sake of the
[49:27] Speaker 18: other two children my wife and I have had, for
[49:28] Speaker 18: the sake of the nephew are raised, and for the
[49:30] Speaker 18: sake of all children out there, will continue to stay
[49:32] Speaker 18: in this fight.
[49:33] Speaker 12: And I need the people to go out the boat
[49:35] Speaker 12: and stay in this fight with us.
[49:39] Speaker 2: Folks.
[49:40] Speaker 1: That is Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford. Aaron, he is
[49:47] Speaker 1: running for governor of Nevada on the Democratic nomination, and
[49:52] Speaker 1: I appreciate him joining us on the show. Good luck
[49:55] Speaker 1: in the campaign. And so as raight he's saying, go
[50:00] Speaker 1: to his site, all right, What he really saying is uh,
[50:03] Speaker 1: He's really saying, drop cash shaft PayPal, Vin Bozel if
[50:07] Speaker 1: you want to contribute to go to Ford for Divided,
[50:09] Speaker 1: Noveta dot com, Ford for Noveda dot com. And also listen.
[50:13] Speaker 1: And I've said this to people as well all the time. Hey,
[50:16] Speaker 1: you may not live in a state, but you can
[50:18] Speaker 1: also volunteer. There's phone banking, other ways people can assist
[50:22] Speaker 1: to help with campaigns. Uh. And so uh, Aaron, I
[50:26] Speaker 1: appreciate it, Thank you so very much.
[50:28] Speaker 19: Uh.
[50:28] Speaker 1: And again, so ain't Scott Boulden if you're watching and listening,
[50:32] Speaker 1: I told you, I told how King Jeffers this today.
[50:37] Speaker 1: I said, see, I let a few capitals come on.
[50:42] Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[50:44] Speaker 12: You might be cold over there, but it's pretty too.
[50:50] Speaker 1: Well, but ice cold. They gotta be kept warm, all right.
[50:55] Speaker 1: I appreciated my brother, thanks a lot.
[51:00] Speaker 12: To take care.
[51:03] Speaker 1: Can always be serious. Y'all appreciate that the point that
[51:07] Speaker 1: we made. And I'm gonna go to you first on
[51:11] Speaker 1: this one.
[51:11] Speaker 19: Greg.
[51:13] Speaker 1: Again, I keep telling these people I said it earlier.
[51:18] Speaker 1: You got the folks out there who were yelling and
[51:21] Speaker 1: screaming about don't vote, don't vote, your vote don't matter.
[51:27] Speaker 1: But now you want the DOJ to inner seat in
[51:30] Speaker 1: the Nolan Wills case. And I'm like, you can't sit
[51:36] Speaker 1: here and say you want something from government, but then
[51:41] Speaker 1: you're saying, don't participate in the same thing. Your vote
[51:46] Speaker 1: creates the avenue for that to happen. Greg we keep
[51:51] Speaker 1: saying the parties are delivery systems. Is that about identifying
[51:58] Speaker 1: I've never identified as Republican or Democrat. I don't even
[52:01] Speaker 1: identify as an independent. I say I'm a voter, a
[52:04] Speaker 1: black voter. But people need to understand there is a clear,
[52:09] Speaker 1: undeniable difference between when Republicans are in charge and Democrats
[52:15] Speaker 1: are in charge.
[52:16] Speaker 8: I just don't play that all.
[52:17] Speaker 1: They're all the same some yet, but by the line,
[52:21] Speaker 1: I don't play that game.
[52:23] Speaker 2: There's a difference.
[52:28] Speaker 15: No, And you know, I can say it's just somebody
[52:31] Speaker 15: who voted undecided in the twenty twenty four primaries before
[52:36] Speaker 15: full the supporting the vice president in the.
[52:39] Speaker 2: General election, because I'm not stupid.
[52:42] Speaker 15: I think you see a contrast in the primary or
[52:47] Speaker 15: Senate in Michigan with Sayed El Sayed winning and the
[52:53] Speaker 15: governor's race in Wisconsin. I think you see a contrast
[52:57] Speaker 15: there and you see in both cases Hayley Stevens well,
[53:00] Speaker 15: I think it's a terrible candidate, which probably contributed to said,
[53:03] Speaker 15: winning endorsed him and said we got to work together.
[53:06] Speaker 15: And then in Wisconsin you saw the Unity Breakfast this
[53:09] Speaker 15: week with Francesca Hong having put out on social media
[53:14] Speaker 15: all through endorsement of course of Brother Crawley, him saying
[53:19] Speaker 15: that we're going to unite together because it's not about
[53:22] Speaker 15: the names, about the policies, and about defeating what is
[53:27] Speaker 15: clear or clear and present danger to all of us.
[53:30] Speaker 2: I think, you know, we have to remind ourselves that politics.
[53:33] Speaker 15: Is local, even though it has national and in this
[53:35] Speaker 15: case international implications in terms of this election, and we
[53:39] Speaker 15: just have to be smart. The largest block of voters
[53:43] Speaker 15: that can decide this election, of the ones who have
[53:45] Speaker 15: not voted, the ones who need to be organized. And
[53:49] Speaker 15: I think that this contrived narrative of the DSA, you know,
[53:54] Speaker 15: I mean, listen, no, don't do that, y'all. I mean,
[53:58] Speaker 15: don't fall for the banana in the tail pipe at
[54:00] Speaker 15: this point. You know, I'm you know, listening to Representative Jefferies.
[54:04] Speaker 2: I think he has been very.
[54:06] Speaker 15: Clear and consistent in a very kind of politically tuned
[54:10] Speaker 15: message to kind of stay out of things. I think
[54:13] Speaker 15: the thumbs need to stay off the scale in every
[54:15] Speaker 15: area I think Jim Clyburn, God blessed him, made a
[54:18] Speaker 15: lot of work and done a lot of great things
[54:20] Speaker 15: over the years. I think he used to stay out
[54:22] Speaker 15: of local elections, and by local I mean Senate elections.
[54:25] Speaker 2: Congressional elections don't do that, bru. Just those you with
[54:28] Speaker 2: elder stay out of it.
[54:30] Speaker 15: Because I think finally that black politicians at the national
[54:34] Speaker 15: level have been elected to the federal legislature in particularly,
[54:39] Speaker 15: have really over the last several decades squandered the momentum
[54:45] Speaker 15: of the Act first two generations of black elected officials
[54:50] Speaker 15: and have increasingly kind of conflated demographic with policy.
[54:55] Speaker 2: And unfortunately that has not satisfied voters who.
[54:59] Speaker 15: Have become and have become very vulnerable to propaganda campaign
[55:04] Speaker 15: by those who hate all of us and who are
[55:06] Speaker 15: trying to hooper up all this wealth, who grow up
[55:09] Speaker 15: all this money and shovel it into the pockets of billionaires.
[55:13] Speaker 15: The Nevada election can be won by those who have
[55:17] Speaker 15: not been reached out to. And whether it be a
[55:20] Speaker 15: tall Rico in Texas, or whether it be an Elsa
[55:23] Speaker 15: Ed in Michigan, or whether it be as we just
[55:26] Speaker 15: saw here Affard in Nevada. This election can be decided
[55:30] Speaker 15: by those who can get those boots on the ground,
[55:32] Speaker 15: because they're not going to match dollar for dollars the
[55:34] Speaker 15: billionaires who are.
[55:35] Speaker 2: Going to put to put their thumbs on the scale.
[55:37] Speaker 15: And I think we can set aside these things to
[55:39] Speaker 15: defeat this common enemy in the short term if we
[55:42] Speaker 15: can simply continue to focus on that granular door to
[55:45] Speaker 15: door politics, and then once we get past that, sure,
[55:49] Speaker 15: then we can have the conversations.
[55:50] Speaker 2: But don't lose sight of the fact that you can
[55:52] Speaker 2: have any conversations that about.
[55:57] Speaker 8: Well.
[55:58] Speaker 1: I always say, I canna say recent ground game. Listen,
[56:02] Speaker 1: you can spend I mean, but David Crowley just did.
[56:08] Speaker 1: He was in the race, he dropped out, he got
[56:10] Speaker 1: back in, he missed ten days of early voting, He
[56:15] Speaker 1: completely outspent Hong on television. But frankly, he had no choice.
[56:20] Speaker 1: But what I keep saying is that listen, there's gonna
[56:23] Speaker 1: be massive saturation in September and October before November third,
[56:28] Speaker 1: and if Democrats want to win, they're gonna need a
[56:31] Speaker 1: ground game, and they're gonna have to invest in black people,
[56:34] Speaker 1: and it's gonna be it's gonna have to be a
[56:36] Speaker 1: massive investment. Uh, and people are seeing in Wisconsin, in Michigan,
[56:41] Speaker 1: in many of these places, Hey, where you got lots
[56:43] Speaker 1: of black people, you gotta turn them out. North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Texas, Mississippi.
[56:52] Speaker 1: Those are gonna be critical places where you need a
[56:54] Speaker 1: massive black turnout, and folks better be paying attention today
[56:59] Speaker 1: and not for the second week in October.
[57:04] Speaker 10: Absolutely.
[57:04] Speaker 9: I mean, credibility is cumulative with our communities, and it
[57:09] Speaker 9: doesn't take a whole lot of time.
[57:10] Speaker 10: But you can't just swoop in at the last minute.
[57:13] Speaker 9: And that's why I am happy to see some of
[57:15] Speaker 9: the candidates that didn't necessarily focus as much on black
[57:17] Speaker 9: voters during their primaries have pivoted and they are putting
[57:20] Speaker 9: in more work, going to black outlets, going on Urban View,
[57:24] Speaker 9: Mornings with You, Doctor Carr, coming on Row and Show,
[57:28] Speaker 9: and other shows. So I think that it's important to
[57:31] Speaker 9: build that with consistent engagement. But also engagement needs dollars.
[57:37] Speaker 9: It is crazy how black folks, black organizers, black organizations
[57:42] Speaker 9: are always expected to do things for the culture, do
[57:44] Speaker 9: things for the people, and white consultants break up millions
[57:48] Speaker 9: and millions and millions and millions of dollars directing where
[57:51] Speaker 9: the funds go, and usually it's not towards us, so
[57:54] Speaker 9: there should be a massive galvanization of funds going to
[57:58] Speaker 9: the boots on the ground.
[58:00] Speaker 10: We did just see where.
[58:01] Speaker 9: There's you know, controversy this week about there not being
[58:06] Speaker 9: a big investment going into Mississippi.
[58:08] Speaker 10: Now, Grant, you got two black ass.
[58:09] Speaker 9: On dog on general election matter, Chack, you got somebody
[58:11] Speaker 9: who's independent and democratic, So that probably eliminates the chance
[58:14] Speaker 9: of that state turning red turning blue in terms of
[58:17] Speaker 9: that Senate seed. But there's still a gubernatorial election other
[58:20] Speaker 9: things that are happening there. But to doctor krat respectfully,
[58:23] Speaker 9: I am curious why Clyburne in particular has to stand
[58:28] Speaker 9: out stay out when the DSc C chairs Chuck Schumer,
[58:33] Speaker 9: Kristin Jillibrand, they have much more power in terms of
[58:37] Speaker 9: the behind the scenes machinations with Senate races. And then
[58:40] Speaker 9: you also have Bernie Sanders and AOC that win and
[58:43] Speaker 9: they made the endorsements. And so I'm just curious, because
[58:46] Speaker 9: you got cut off a little bit earlier, what is
[58:49] Speaker 9: the problem specifically with black elected that is that is
[58:53] Speaker 9: uniquely symptomatic to them, or what is it that I'm
[58:56] Speaker 9: missing that that you seem to take issue with.
[59:02] Speaker 15: I'm just pay specific the specifically, there is a conservativism,
[59:07] Speaker 15: political conservativism that quite frankly, he's had since he was
[59:10] Speaker 15: a student in South Carolina State.
[59:13] Speaker 2: That I think is masked by the idea that he's
[59:18] Speaker 2: a Democrat.
[59:18] Speaker 15: And I'm using Cliburn as an example because he's one
[59:21] Speaker 15: of the more actively I really don't care what Chuck
[59:23] Speaker 15: Schumer does. I think Democratic Party Ken Martin and them
[59:26] Speaker 15: have proven that they are soft white nationally, and as
[59:29] Speaker 15: we talk about black politics, I think we have to
[59:31] Speaker 15: have a candid conversation. And I'm not saying I'm saying
[59:34] Speaker 15: that understanding that ultimately the gen Crag Party presents us
[59:39] Speaker 15: the best option in terms of delivery systems of getting
[59:42] Speaker 15: what we need done.
[59:43] Speaker 2: But I think we have to be a little bit
[59:45] Speaker 2: more honest.
[59:45] Speaker 15: About the politics of black elected officials in the federal legislature.
[59:50] Speaker 15: And so when you see a Cliburn put his thumb
[59:54] Speaker 15: on the scale and start talking about, you know, black
[59:56] Speaker 15: voters need to do this. Black voters need to do
[59:57] Speaker 15: this respectfully to the elder And this isn't being disrespectful
[1:00:01] Speaker 15: to him at all. But what I'm saying is that
[1:00:03] Speaker 15: when you line up and salute with a Pelosi, with
[1:00:06] Speaker 15: the Shumer, with the rest of them, Black people who
[1:00:08] Speaker 15: are disaffected.
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: Can then look and say, well, look man, nobody wants
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: to hear that.
[1:00:14] Speaker 15: Nobody wants to you know, nobody feels any confidence that
[1:00:20] Speaker 15: you're doing anything other than telling us to stand up and.
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: Vote blue no matter who. Now.
[1:00:25] Speaker 15: That I think is what opens the door to the
[1:00:27] Speaker 15: type of disaffection that then makes people right for the
[1:00:31] Speaker 15: propaganda that comes from the open white naturalist the hard
[1:00:34] Speaker 15: white nationalists again, and I think haw King Jeffries has
[1:00:38] Speaker 15: been dangerously close to that in the past.
[1:00:40] Speaker 2: But as you see these inroads.
[1:00:42] Speaker 15: Made, people don't get the backing of the DNC, which
[1:00:45] Speaker 15: is a soft white nationalist organization, which, of course since
[1:00:49] Speaker 15: the late since the early nineteen nineties, really the late eighties,
[1:00:52] Speaker 15: has been really working hard to tamp down or somehow
[1:00:57] Speaker 15: evade that kind of rising discontent, particularly among black voters.
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: I think that's when you see.
[1:01:03] Speaker 15: People like Jeffries realize, I better stay out of some
[1:01:07] Speaker 15: of these things. I need to probably just be quiet
[1:01:10] Speaker 15: and see what unfold. Meanwhile, it seemed like Claren is
[1:01:14] Speaker 15: just doubling and quadrupling down, and it creates, I think,
[1:01:17] Speaker 15: a generational challenge.
[1:01:19] Speaker 2: It creates a disaffection. You know, why are you playing
[1:01:23] Speaker 2: along the margins?
[1:01:24] Speaker 8: Why are you doing it?
[1:01:25] Speaker 2: And then we'll turn around and say.
[1:01:26] Speaker 15: I've inherited or we've inherited the conscious of the Congress,
[1:01:30] Speaker 15: We've inherited the reconstruction history.
[1:01:32] Speaker 2: No you haven't.
[1:01:34] Speaker 15: Don't do that, not ideologically, because people who don't help,
[1:01:37] Speaker 15: don't read, don't study, will still pick up that vibe
[1:01:40] Speaker 15: and be like, no, that seems like the old timey
[1:01:42] Speaker 15: yassah boss politics that has stopped.
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: Me from even listening, much less going to the polls.
[1:01:47] Speaker 2: And then people are susceptible.
[1:01:49] Speaker 15: Being low information voters, to the kind of propaganda that
[1:01:52] Speaker 15: has us lose these elections. I mean, that's that's why
[1:01:55] Speaker 15: I would say, generally, Okay, you.
[1:02:01] Speaker 1: See any response, Okay, I was just I was just look,
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: I have to.
[1:02:06] Speaker 10: Carry water fever. But I just see, see.
[1:02:09] Speaker 9: The reason why I ask is because you know, and
[1:02:12] Speaker 9: sometimes things are just very online.
[1:02:15] Speaker 10: But what I do see is I see absent.
[1:02:19] Speaker 9: Any specifics about policy, about legislation about voting records. Certain
[1:02:23] Speaker 9: labels are disapportionately attached to black electeds. Now you can
[1:02:28] Speaker 9: argue which black elected is that applies to caraculately or not,
[1:02:31] Speaker 9: but it's there are a lot of times it's establishment.
[1:02:34] Speaker 9: Then you have the APEC thing. Even when people don't
[1:02:36] Speaker 9: take a back money. Somebody called David Crawley a pack
[1:02:39] Speaker 9: and he didn't. He doesn't take a pac money, don't.
[1:02:40] Speaker 10: Even don't even get involved in goognatorial racist.
[1:02:43] Speaker 9: And so whenever we start talking about black electeds or
[1:02:48] Speaker 9: black candidates, then I will I would like us to
[1:02:52] Speaker 9: expound at least to where there is something specific that
[1:02:56] Speaker 9: we can point to policy wise, that is something that
[1:03:00] Speaker 9: needs to be corrected, something that needs to be challenged.
[1:03:03] Speaker 10: And then I also like to have that conversation in
[1:03:06] Speaker 10: the context.
[1:03:07] Speaker 9: Of well, how have other people who are not black
[1:03:10] Speaker 9: demonstrated that, because every election cycle there are some great
[1:03:13] Speaker 9: white hope candidates come around, or great whoever hope hope
[1:03:16] Speaker 9: candidates and progressive candidates come around who have no legislative record,
[1:03:20] Speaker 9: no voting record. All they have is rhetoric and they
[1:03:23] Speaker 9: have PDFs of things that sound good, but they haven't
[1:03:27] Speaker 9: demonstrated specifics on implementing that.
[1:03:30] Speaker 10: And so I'm not saying that there aren't any that have.
[1:03:34] Speaker 9: But I'm just saying that Graham Platner being an example,
[1:03:37] Speaker 9: he's an oyster farmer and he became a great white
[1:03:39] Speaker 9: hope a main So all I'm saying is because you know,
[1:03:43] Speaker 9: my lens is always towards black politics and black electeds,
[1:03:46] Speaker 9: and I understand that it's an imperfect system, and I
[1:03:48] Speaker 9: don't want to just absolve them of things.
[1:03:50] Speaker 10: But often in the work.
[1:03:53] Speaker 9: That I do, specifically talking about black people, especially online,
[1:03:56] Speaker 9: there's a lot of attacks that come through a way
[1:03:58] Speaker 9: that just aren't rooted and politics. And I know that
[1:04:01] Speaker 9: you're more sophisticated and intelligence than that, doctor Carr, but
[1:04:04] Speaker 9: I just wanted to get clarification as to what you meant,
[1:04:08] Speaker 9: because there are people that hold your your rightfully, so
[1:04:12] Speaker 9: hold your assessment of things in such high value. And
[1:04:16] Speaker 9: so if there's a way that I can pick up
[1:04:18] Speaker 9: on what you're talking about and I can say, okay,
[1:04:20] Speaker 9: so when people are expressing that, then this is how
[1:04:23] Speaker 9: I can tackle it. If it's fair, it's fair, But
[1:04:27] Speaker 9: in many cases it's actually not fair for those people,
[1:04:31] Speaker 9: not from you, but from other people.
[1:04:34] Speaker 2: I agree.
[1:04:35] Speaker 8: I agree whole heartedly, Larry.
[1:04:36] Speaker 2: You got to be an enfolled voter. Yeah, yeah, you know,
[1:04:40] Speaker 2: thank you, Roland.
[1:04:41] Speaker 13: I think this is this conversation is really important because
[1:04:44] Speaker 13: I think that a lot of times people when think
[1:04:45] Speaker 13: about black voters and thinkers, that we're monoliths, and we're not.
[1:04:49] Speaker 13: And so where we have a conversation, we're talking about ideology.
[1:04:53] Speaker 13: You know, different generations, different perspectives, and you know, doctor
[1:04:58] Speaker 13: car used cloud Burne. We could talk about you know,
[1:05:00] Speaker 13: Maxine Vorders among others of a different generation compared to
[1:05:04] Speaker 13: Underwood and other you know members of Congress who you
[1:05:07] Speaker 13: know have done certainly done the work, but the generation
[1:05:10] Speaker 13: that has benefited from that. And why this conversation is
[1:05:12] Speaker 13: important is you have to you know, these officials who
[1:05:17] Speaker 13: either are incumbents or hoping to be elected, have to
[1:05:20] Speaker 13: understand that there you have, the way in which you
[1:05:23] Speaker 13: speak the black voters has to be more sophisticated. So
[1:05:26] Speaker 13: not only in terms of understanding what their concerns are
[1:05:30] Speaker 13: from a policy perspective, but as AG four got to,
[1:05:33] Speaker 13: what is the story. Tell me a story. You tell
[1:05:37] Speaker 13: me about your policies. Now tell me how you personally
[1:05:39] Speaker 13: connect to the everyday lives of working Americans and what
[1:05:43] Speaker 13: he does. And there are other black candidates that we've
[1:05:46] Speaker 13: talked about not only tonight, but you know, for other shows.
[1:05:50] Speaker 13: So you've got your policy points, you got how you
[1:05:52] Speaker 13: personalize and you connect to voters, and then thirdly, how
[1:05:57] Speaker 13: do you get reluctant voters to go out and vote
[1:05:59] Speaker 13: for you. That's the trifecta of this challenge as we
[1:06:03] Speaker 13: move towards midterms, and they also think about what's gonna
[1:06:07] Speaker 13: happen two years from now, and so these are all
[1:06:09] Speaker 13: some of the important issues. And you know, someone who
[1:06:11] Speaker 13: worked on campaigns like many of my colleagues and worked
[1:06:13] Speaker 13: on Capitol Hill work for a CBC member, I've seen
[1:06:15] Speaker 13: these issues from multiple perspectives and some of these conversations
[1:06:18] Speaker 13: we've had, I've had this as a congressional staffer, as
[1:06:21] Speaker 13: a CBC staffer about these different generational shifts. So it
[1:06:25] Speaker 13: is real and this conversation is really important, and I
[1:06:28] Speaker 13: appreciate we see, you know, giving doctor carter I an
[1:06:32] Speaker 13: opportunity to really nuanced it out because she highlights We
[1:06:35] Speaker 13: talk about these issues all the time, right, we get this,
[1:06:38] Speaker 13: we have the history, we under understand the knowledge, we
[1:06:40] Speaker 13: know the players, but spolks who are watching this may
[1:06:43] Speaker 13: need us to pull on these threads to understand the
[1:06:46] Speaker 13: importance of why you need to go out and vote
[1:06:49] Speaker 13: and the points that we're making to ensure that black
[1:06:51] Speaker 13: Americans not only live but thrive.
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: All Right, folks, gotta go to your break.
[1:06:58] Speaker 4: We come back.
[1:07:00] Speaker 1: We'll talk with a candidate running for a District attorney
[1:07:02] Speaker 1: in Terran County against the white da who eight years
[1:07:07] Speaker 1: later continues to try to put Crystal Mason in prison
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: for voting. You're watching Rollard Martin un Filtered on the
[1:07:13] Speaker 1: Blackstar Network.
[1:07:14] Speaker 12: Support the work that we do.
[1:07:15] Speaker 1: You and I bring the Funk Fan Club goal is
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: to get twenty thousand of our fans contributing on average
[1:07:20] Speaker 1: fifty bucks each year as four dollars are nineteen since
[1:07:23] Speaker 1: the month thirteen since the day. That is, to of
[1:07:26] Speaker 1: course deflect these significant costs to do this show and
[1:07:31] Speaker 1: also the other shows on our network. So if you
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: want to contribute via cash shap, who's.
[1:07:36] Speaker 12: A striped cure code?
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: You see it right here, this cure code for credit
[1:07:40] Speaker 1: cards as well checks some money or to make it
[1:07:42] Speaker 1: payable to Rolling Martin on filter peel Box five seven
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: one ninety six Washington, DC two zero zero three seven
[1:07:49] Speaker 1: as zero one nine six paypals are Martin Unfiltered, Benmo
[1:07:53] Speaker 1: r In Unfiltered, Zeo rolland at Roland s Martin dot
[1:07:56] Speaker 1: com rolling at Roland Martin unfilter dot com. All right, folks,
[1:08:04] Speaker 1: let me begin personal for a second. My mom had
[1:08:06] Speaker 1: questions about her Medicare. So she called Chapter, a Medicare
[1:08:09] Speaker 1: advisory company, and she texts me right after saying, it's
[1:08:13] Speaker 1: a great benefit. It was easy, a real person who
[1:08:15] Speaker 1: walked her through the whole thing. And now she understands
[1:08:18] Speaker 1: better what's going on because also it's not just her.
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: Woman in Yonkers wrote in saying the process was so simple,
[1:08:24] Speaker 1: the enrollment was easy, and she was so glad.
[1:08:27] Speaker 2: She called.
[1:08:27] Speaker 1: And there's Maryland, ninety years old in Florida, living on
[1:08:30] Speaker 1: Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year north of
[1:08:34] Speaker 1: four hundred dollars a month for coverage she could barely
[1:08:37] Speaker 1: afford anymore.
[1:08:38] Speaker 8: So what does she do?
[1:08:39] Speaker 2: She called Chapter.
[1:08:41] Speaker 1: They found her the same top tier coverage for hundreds
[1:08:44] Speaker 1: of dollars less ninety years old, and finally, somebody in
[1:08:48] Speaker 1: her corner. I hear stories like that again and again
[1:08:50] Speaker 1: from our community. The Medicare system was not built to
[1:08:54] Speaker 1: work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans.
[1:08:57] Speaker 1: Yet Chapters advisors are independent and honest. The old lead
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: medicare advisors that compare every plan nationwide. They're focused on
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: one thing, what actually works for you. If you're already
[1:09:07] Speaker 1: in the right plan, they'll tell you no games and
[1:09:10] Speaker 1: people who switched to a Chapter saved an average of
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: eleven one hundred dollars a year all Texas. Twenty minutes.
[1:09:16] Speaker 1: You talk to a real person and it's completely free help.
[1:09:20] Speaker 1: So called chapter at seven two four two sixty four
[1:09:23] Speaker 1: eight two eight one seven two four two sixty four
[1:09:27] Speaker 1: eight two eight one. That's Chapter.
[1:09:29] Speaker 8: Let me ask you a question.
[1:09:31] Speaker 16: Why do so many people seem to think they know
[1:09:33] Speaker 16: black men so well, but they think we want what
[1:09:36] Speaker 16: they think we need.
[1:09:37] Speaker 11: Hell, they even tried to tell us why and how
[1:09:38] Speaker 11: we vote out. They've never had a conversation with us,
[1:09:41] Speaker 11: never asked us how we felt. Brings us joy, what
[1:09:44] Speaker 11: makes us angry? What makes us scared?
[1:09:46] Speaker 8: How do we live?
[1:09:47] Speaker 11: That's what this show is about. No translation, because we
[1:09:50] Speaker 11: don't need anybody speaking for us.
[1:09:52] Speaker 8: We can speak for ourselves.
[1:09:53] Speaker 11: This will be a show where we bring brothers on
[1:09:55] Speaker 11: that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope,
[1:09:57] Speaker 11: brothers that are doing work in local communities with black
[1:10:00] Speaker 11: men for black communities. We're going to hear each other
[1:10:04] Speaker 11: and try to understand zobrahaps we can move forward together,
[1:10:07] Speaker 11: no translations, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. No,
[1:10:10] Speaker 11: what we need is each other, no translation. Right here
[1:10:13] Speaker 11: on the Black Star Network.
[1:10:15] Speaker 14: Check it out.
[1:10:21] Speaker 4: Hello, we're the credit fixes.
[1:10:22] Speaker 20: I'm doctor Hodges and I'm doctor Terrence Ferguson, and you're
[1:10:25] Speaker 20: tuning into Roland Martin Unfiltered.
[1:10:38] Speaker 12: Folks.
[1:10:39] Speaker 1: Ran County in Texas, where Fort Worth is is the
[1:10:42] Speaker 1: third largest county in the state. That's the last remaining
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: large red county and one of the big races we're
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: paying attention to. In addition to the county judge race
[1:10:52] Speaker 1: involving Lisa Simmons, who's trying to be elected county judge,
[1:10:57] Speaker 1: is a district attorney race, Tiffany Burke's Democrat. She is
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: running against the long time of incumbent DA in Tarrant County.
[1:11:08] Speaker 1: Phil Surrels, Now, why should and I've been calling for
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: Black votes to be organizing and mobilizing like crazy. Phil Surrels,
[1:11:18] Speaker 1: Do y'all understand that this man has continued to target
[1:11:23] Speaker 1: Crystal Mason. I need y'all understand. We launched this show
[1:11:27] Speaker 1: September fourth, twenty eighteen. Crystal Mason her attorney were on
[1:11:32] Speaker 1: our first show. This has been going on nine years,
[1:11:36] Speaker 1: and he is still trying to put that woman in
[1:11:38] Speaker 1: jail for voting in a race where her ballot wasn't
[1:11:41] Speaker 1: even counting. Yeah, this man needs to be defeated. Tiffany
[1:11:46] Speaker 1: Burch Jones's right now. I glad to have you on
[1:11:48] Speaker 1: the show. Is this one of the issues that you've
[1:11:52] Speaker 1: been talking, especially to black voters about about how you
[1:11:56] Speaker 1: know how this man is really at this point he
[1:12:00] Speaker 1: is harassing Crystal Mason.
[1:12:03] Speaker 21: Absolutely, thank you Roland for having me on the show.
[1:12:07] Speaker 21: It's hypocrisy, and I think we know it when we
[1:12:11] Speaker 21: hear our president and other people in the Republican Party
[1:12:15] Speaker 21: talk about election integrity, election fraud, all.
[1:12:19] Speaker 5: Of those things.
[1:12:20] Speaker 21: But right here in Tarrant County, we have we've had
[1:12:23] Speaker 21: a jury and a court that has determined that Crystal
[1:12:27] Speaker 21: Mason is not guilty. A high court made that determination,
[1:12:32] Speaker 21: and so for Phil Soorrows to now come back and
[1:12:35] Speaker 21: say no, we want to reverse that, it's just appalling
[1:12:39] Speaker 21: quite Frankly, and I have gone on record to say
[1:12:42] Speaker 21: that on day one, when I'm elected the new DA
[1:12:45] Speaker 21: in Tarrant County, my first item of business is going
[1:12:49] Speaker 21: to be to withdraw that appeal so that Crystal Mason
[1:12:52] Speaker 21: can move on with her life. She doesn't have to
[1:12:54] Speaker 21: deal with the stress of this situation anymore, and that
[1:12:59] Speaker 21: she can move on. We are talking about a county,
[1:13:03] Speaker 21: and I know you've talked to a Commissioner Simmons.
[1:13:06] Speaker 5: I speak with her on a daily basis.
[1:13:09] Speaker 21: We're talking about a county where they are doing everything
[1:13:12] Speaker 21: that they can to suppress the vote here in Tarrant
[1:13:14] Speaker 21: County because they know what's coming.
[1:13:16] Speaker 5: They know that people are outraged about the corruption in
[1:13:20] Speaker 5: our government.
[1:13:21] Speaker 21: They know that people are upset about limiting or attempting
[1:13:26] Speaker 21: to limit access.
[1:13:27] Speaker 10: To the polls.
[1:13:28] Speaker 21: They know that people are very upset about the redistricting
[1:13:32] Speaker 21: that's gone on, not only in the state of Texas,
[1:13:34] Speaker 21: but right here in Tarrant County.
[1:13:36] Speaker 5: And so I've talked to a lot of voters.
[1:13:39] Speaker 21: We block walk every Saturday Roland every Saturday, and we
[1:13:43] Speaker 21: are going into neighborhoods and communities that people don't normally
[1:13:47] Speaker 21: go to and we're talking to them, and we are
[1:13:51] Speaker 21: letting them know that this, as you've said, is a
[1:13:53] Speaker 21: very important and critical race for Tarrant County, and who
[1:13:58] Speaker 21: their DA is matters, who their county judges matters, who
[1:14:01] Speaker 21: their judges are matter, and we need to make some
[1:14:05] Speaker 21: changes here in Tarrett County. And that's what that's what
[1:14:07] Speaker 21: we're fighting so hard to do.
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: For a very long time, the people who ran for
[1:14:12] Speaker 1: DA were always this tough in law and order, and
[1:14:15] Speaker 1: then the people who understood criminal justice reform finally stop
[1:14:19] Speaker 1: focusing on politicians in Washington, d C. And begin to
[1:14:23] Speaker 1: realize that, well, it's also about electing sensible people as
[1:14:27] Speaker 1: district attorney. Listen, Prosecuting heinous crimes is critically important, but
[1:14:34] Speaker 1: just filling our jails up silently also doesn't make sense.
[1:14:38] Speaker 1: As well. Your thoughts on that and how you would
[1:14:42] Speaker 1: govern when it comes to deciding what cases to pursue,
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: what cases to adjudicate in a different way.
[1:14:49] Speaker 21: You know, I am constantly on the campaign trail and
[1:14:53] Speaker 21: I tell people everywhere I go that we do not
[1:14:57] Speaker 21: have to choose between justice and safety.
[1:15:01] Speaker 5: We can have both.
[1:15:03] Speaker 21: We can have a system, a criminal justice system in
[1:15:06] Speaker 21: Terreant county. That is fair, that is transparent, but that
[1:15:10] Speaker 21: also holds people accountable, and they're in you know, I'll
[1:15:15] Speaker 21: just tell you, district attorneys are the only judges or
[1:15:18] Speaker 21: excuse me, the only attorneys in Texas that actually have
[1:15:22] Speaker 21: a mandate, a duty under the Texas Code of Criminal
[1:15:26] Speaker 21: Procedure that says we must seek justice, not simply convictions.
[1:15:31] Speaker 21: And so the first thing I'll tell you that I
[1:15:33] Speaker 21: will do is I will not make convictions the priority.
[1:15:37] Speaker 21: You know, I have a lot of friends in the
[1:15:38] Speaker 21: current administration, and when he came into office, he had
[1:15:42] Speaker 21: a meeting with his lawyers and basically said, I need
[1:15:46] Speaker 21: high numbers. I need you to put high numbers on
[1:15:48] Speaker 21: the board. I need you to be trying cases that
[1:15:50] Speaker 21: will make me look good. And that is not our mandate.
[1:15:54] Speaker 21: That is quite frankly unethical. As a district attorney, it
[1:15:58] Speaker 21: is our responsibility to seek and so to that end,
[1:16:02] Speaker 21: one of the things that I'm going to be doing
[1:16:04] Speaker 21: when we're looking at the filing of cases in Tarrant
[1:16:07] Speaker 21: County is we are going to be identifying people who
[1:16:10] Speaker 21: have mental health issues. We are going to be identifying
[1:16:13] Speaker 21: people who are first time offenders, who are brought in
[1:16:18] Speaker 21: for small misdemeanor charges, maybe even small drug charges, people
[1:16:24] Speaker 21: who have addiction issues, our veterans, people who are unhoused
[1:16:31] Speaker 21: in our community, and we are going to create the
[1:16:34] Speaker 21: first ever diversion unit in Arrant County. We will have
[1:16:39] Speaker 21: a group of lawyers that will be reviewing those cases
[1:16:41] Speaker 21: on the front end and determining whether or not we
[1:16:45] Speaker 21: need to be moving those cases through to prosecution or
[1:16:48] Speaker 21: if there are other pathways that we can use to
[1:16:51] Speaker 21: try to get people the help that they need. Because
[1:16:54] Speaker 21: I'll tell you, people don't like to hear that. They
[1:16:56] Speaker 21: want to say, you know, democrats are soft on crime.
[1:16:59] Speaker 21: I'll tell you that most of the most of the
[1:17:02] Speaker 21: people that come through through the criminal justice system are
[1:17:05] Speaker 21: there because they have mental health issues, they have drug
[1:17:08] Speaker 21: addiction issues, they are unhoused veterans with PTSD, and so
[1:17:14] Speaker 21: we need to be proactive as opposed to just being reactive.
[1:17:19] Speaker 21: And if we can give people the source the resources
[1:17:22] Speaker 21: they need if they want them, then we can help
[1:17:26] Speaker 21: reduce our crime rate in Tarrant County.
[1:17:30] Speaker 5: And that's something that we're going to do.
[1:17:34] Speaker 1: Watch is Rob Panel rece you first, thank.
[1:17:38] Speaker 10: You Miss Berks for being here.
[1:17:39] Speaker 9: I'm glad that you mentioned the aspect about direct diversion
[1:17:43] Speaker 9: because I noticed in that twenty twenty five Arrant County
[1:17:45] Speaker 9: report that the first and the fifth top crimes that
[1:17:49] Speaker 9: are prosecuted by the current office are possession crimes. And
[1:17:53] Speaker 9: you know, that's something that obviously costs a lot of money.
[1:17:55] Speaker 9: It's a prosecuted it costs a lot of money to
[1:17:59] Speaker 9: if they getting incarcerated. So can you just talk from
[1:18:02] Speaker 9: a fiscal perspective about why it would make more sense
[1:18:06] Speaker 9: to actually focus to offices resources and the counties resources
[1:18:10] Speaker 9: on rehabilitation or on actually deciding what's most appropriate as
[1:18:17] Speaker 9: opposed to spending so much of the offices resources on
[1:18:21] Speaker 9: these possession crimes.
[1:18:24] Speaker 21: You know, about ten percent of the crimes that are
[1:18:27] Speaker 21: committed or excuse me, most about I think it's eighty
[1:18:31] Speaker 21: percent of the crimes that are committed in a jurisdiction
[1:18:34] Speaker 21: are committed about ten percent of the population. So we
[1:18:37] Speaker 21: have some bad actors in Tarrant County who commit crimes,
[1:18:41] Speaker 21: and they reoffend and they recidivate. That's just the nature
[1:18:45] Speaker 21: of what we do. But the over arching or overwhelming
[1:18:50] Speaker 21: majority of people who come into Tarrant County's criminal justice
[1:18:54] Speaker 21: system are those people that you're talking about. We would
[1:18:57] Speaker 21: save a lot of money if we would just work
[1:19:01] Speaker 21: and collaborate with organizations that are already on the ground
[1:19:04] Speaker 21: here in Tarrant County wanting to provide assistance. I will
[1:19:08] Speaker 21: tell you that I also ran in twenty twenty two
[1:19:11] Speaker 21: against Field Soils. I only lost by about thirty seven
[1:19:15] Speaker 21: thousand votes. Into Rowland's point earlier, there are about three
[1:19:21] Speaker 21: hundred thousand Democrats that didn't go to the polls in
[1:19:24] Speaker 21: twenty twenty two, and so if we can get those
[1:19:27] Speaker 21: people to the polls to vote, then we can have
[1:19:30] Speaker 21: a DA who's willing to go into these communities, work
[1:19:34] Speaker 21: and collaborate with different organizations that I've met along the way,
[1:19:39] Speaker 21: funnel people through those organizations to give them the resources
[1:19:43] Speaker 21: they need, and do exactly what you said, save money.
[1:19:47] Speaker 21: You know a lot of people don't know this, but
[1:19:49] Speaker 21: I am running for Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney, and
[1:19:53] Speaker 21: the criminal piece in that title basically says that not
[1:19:56] Speaker 21: only is it my responsibility to prosecute crime, but it's
[1:20:00] Speaker 21: also my responsibility responsibility to be fiscally responsible with the
[1:20:05] Speaker 21: money for the taxpayers of Taran County, and so I
[1:20:10] Speaker 21: think to your point, having services like that available where
[1:20:13] Speaker 21: if people want them, they are available, it's certainly a
[1:20:17] Speaker 21: better pathway than incarceration whenever possible.
[1:20:24] Speaker 13: Larry, Yes, I'm curious in terms of when you're out
[1:20:29] Speaker 13: talking to voters and you need someone says they're un decided,
[1:20:31] Speaker 13: they're on the fence. What is some of the key
[1:20:33] Speaker 13: points you highlight why your tenure would be difference than
[1:20:36] Speaker 13: your counterpart.
[1:20:38] Speaker 21: You know, that's a great question. There are a lot
[1:20:40] Speaker 21: of policy differences that I have with the current DA.
[1:20:44] Speaker 21: One of them is how we handle police involved shootings.
[1:20:48] Speaker 21: You know, I was in that very DA's office for
[1:20:50] Speaker 21: twenty four years, and for years, the way they handled
[1:20:54] Speaker 21: it is if there was a police involved shooting, when
[1:20:58] Speaker 21: a prosecutor took the case of the grand jury, they
[1:21:00] Speaker 21: were not allowed to ask the grand jury for whatever
[1:21:04] Speaker 21: decision they wanted. If I, as a regular citizen, committed
[1:21:10] Speaker 21: a shooting that caused someone injury or even deaf, prosecutors
[1:21:14] Speaker 21: would have no problems telling that grand jury you should indict.
[1:21:18] Speaker 21: And so one of the major policy changes that I'm
[1:21:21] Speaker 21: going to be making is that if there is an
[1:21:23] Speaker 21: officer involved shooting, and the prosecutors under me feel like
[1:21:27] Speaker 21: the facts and the law warrant an indictment, we will
[1:21:30] Speaker 21: be asking the grand jury for an indictment. We won't
[1:21:33] Speaker 21: go into the grand jury and say, you guys.
[1:21:36] Speaker 5: Tell us what you want to do with this. We
[1:21:39] Speaker 5: are the experts.
[1:21:40] Speaker 21: We are supposed to be the ones to know whether
[1:21:43] Speaker 21: or not the facts and the law are on our side.
[1:21:45] Speaker 21: So we won't go in there and say, just tell
[1:21:47] Speaker 21: us what you want to do. We will tell them
[1:21:50] Speaker 21: what we think they should do. And that's only fair.
[1:21:53] Speaker 21: That's being transparent, that's been fair across the board and
[1:21:56] Speaker 21: treating people equally. One of the other policy position that
[1:22:00] Speaker 21: make me different, and what I tell people about, is
[1:22:03] Speaker 21: we're actually going to investigate jail deaths. You know, I
[1:22:06] Speaker 21: know the current DA sent a letter to our now
[1:22:09] Speaker 21: Attorney General Ken Paxton back in I think it was
[1:22:12] Speaker 21: March of this year, and said, do we really have
[1:22:16] Speaker 21: to investigate these jail deaths if the person didn't actually
[1:22:21] Speaker 21: die within the walls of the Tarrant County jail?
[1:22:25] Speaker 5: And Ken Paxton said, you know what, you don't it's okay.
[1:22:30] Speaker 21: And so there are several families out here in Tarrant County,
[1:22:33] Speaker 21: some of whom I've talked with who have no idea
[1:22:36] Speaker 21: how their loved ones died. There has been no investigation,
[1:22:40] Speaker 21: and whether or not there is some criminal accountability that
[1:22:44] Speaker 21: will be attached to that investigation or not, the fact
[1:22:47] Speaker 21: remains that these family members deserve answers. And so one
[1:22:51] Speaker 21: of the policy changes that I will absolutely make is
[1:22:54] Speaker 21: we will be investigating those jail deaths to determine what
[1:22:57] Speaker 21: happened so we can give answers to those famis.
[1:23:03] Speaker 2: Greg, thank you Roland, and thank you Attorney Burkes.
[1:23:10] Speaker 15: You mentioned earlier the role of law and the role
[1:23:17] Speaker 15: of prosecutor to seek justice, and do you mind saying
[1:23:20] Speaker 15: a word or two about what has happened in the
[1:23:25] Speaker 15: case of Lon Burnham and E. J.
[1:23:27] Speaker 2: Carrion.
[1:23:28] Speaker 15: Understand you represented to representing former Representative Carrion, and what
[1:23:33] Speaker 15: happened on the fourth of August as the Commission met
[1:23:37] Speaker 15: to try to shut down one hundred and forty sites
[1:23:41] Speaker 15: voting sites, and how these two men are being subjected
[1:23:48] Speaker 15: to clearly selective prosecution and an attempt to perhaps jail
[1:23:52] Speaker 15: them for basically speaking their mind and speaking up as citizens.
[1:23:57] Speaker 2: Could you say something.
[1:23:58] Speaker 15: About that and how you contrasted seeking justice versus silent
[1:24:01] Speaker 15: and criticism.
[1:24:03] Speaker 21: Absolutely, you know, I want to be a little careful
[1:24:06] Speaker 21: about how I approach this answer because I do represent
[1:24:09] Speaker 21: mister Burnham right now in his lawsuit. But what happened,
[1:24:13] Speaker 21: and I think the nation saw it, everyone here saw it,
[1:24:17] Speaker 21: is that mister Burnham went to the Commissioner's court on
[1:24:20] Speaker 21: August fourth simply to exercise his right under the First
[1:24:24] Speaker 21: Amendment to free speech to criticize his government about polling locations.
[1:24:30] Speaker 21: He has long been an advocate for free and fair elections,
[1:24:35] Speaker 21: but also against attempts to suppress the vote, suppress the vote,
[1:24:41] Speaker 21: and so he went there that day to speak out,
[1:24:43] Speaker 21: along with mister carry On to do the same. And
[1:24:47] Speaker 21: essentially what happened was Tim O'Hare didn't like what he
[1:24:50] Speaker 21: heard and he attempted to stop him from speaking. I
[1:24:56] Speaker 21: think it's interesting, and I find it very interesting that
[1:24:58] Speaker 21: mister Burnham is charge with disrupting a public meeting, and
[1:25:03] Speaker 21: they also added another charge, which is a Class A misdemeanor,
[1:25:07] Speaker 21: a higher charge of hindering a public meeting. And I
[1:25:11] Speaker 21: find it interesting that they did that because if you
[1:25:14] Speaker 21: look at the video, I think it's very clear on
[1:25:16] Speaker 21: who the person was that actually hindered and disrupted that meeting,
[1:25:20] Speaker 21: and you could see that it was Tim O'Hare, the
[1:25:22] Speaker 21: county judge himself. My client was still had time on
[1:25:26] Speaker 21: the clock, he was still attempting to exercise his rights
[1:25:30] Speaker 21: under the First Amendment to speak, and the.
[1:25:33] Speaker 5: Person that disrupted the ability.
[1:25:36] Speaker 21: Of my client to speak has somehow gas lit the
[1:25:42] Speaker 21: entire criminal justice system and turned it on its head
[1:25:46] Speaker 21: to make it seem like it was my client that
[1:25:48] Speaker 21: was actually disrupting that meeting.
[1:25:50] Speaker 15: And so it is.
[1:25:54] Speaker 5: Very alarming, to say the least, that our.
[1:25:58] Speaker 21: Government, and specifically my opponent, who had the opportunity to
[1:26:04] Speaker 21: look at that case file to look at the law
[1:26:07] Speaker 21: because I clearly didn't read the law and say, you
[1:26:11] Speaker 21: know what, we don't have enough evidence here to proceed.
[1:26:16] Speaker 21: I wrote a three page brief before the case was
[1:26:19] Speaker 21: even filed, and I presented it to the DA's office,
[1:26:23] Speaker 21: and I gave them the law and the facts and
[1:26:25] Speaker 21: why this case does not meet the standard beyond a
[1:26:28] Speaker 21: reasonable doubt to prove that mister Lawn is guilty of
[1:26:31] Speaker 21: the offense he's charged with. And I gave them that
[1:26:35] Speaker 21: on Tuesday, and Tuesday night mister Carryon was arrested and
[1:26:40] Speaker 21: I sent a message to my client then and I said,
[1:26:42] Speaker 21: they're going to file. This doesn't have anything to do
[1:26:46] Speaker 21: with doing what is right. This doesn't have anything to
[1:26:49] Speaker 21: do with making sure the law is being that people
[1:26:53] Speaker 21: are abiding by the law. This is selective, as you
[1:26:56] Speaker 21: put it, prosecution. And we know that because there have
[1:26:59] Speaker 21: been other instants Ran County where people have contacted the
[1:27:04] Speaker 21: DA's office about wrongdoing, you know, open meetings violations, or
[1:27:09] Speaker 21: right here in Mansfield where I live, we had someone
[1:27:12] Speaker 21: on the ballot who didn't tell the truth about where
[1:27:15] Speaker 21: they lived. There was no prosecution in those cases, even
[1:27:19] Speaker 21: when there was a request for the DA to do so.
[1:27:22] Speaker 21: And so it's selective prosecution and we just need to
[1:27:25] Speaker 21: call it out for what it is, all.
[1:27:29] Speaker 1: Right, Folks at Tiffany Burks is running for attorney excuse
[1:27:33] Speaker 1: me for uh DA there in Terrant County. If you
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: want more information on her campaign, what do you should
[1:27:42] Speaker 1: do is go to www dot Tiffany Burks for DA
[1:27:46] Speaker 1: dot com Tiffany Burks for d a dot com.
[1:27:50] Speaker 2: We appreciate it, thanks a.
[1:27:51] Speaker 5: Lot, Thank you for having me, folks.
[1:27:56] Speaker 1: Former North Carolina police officer has been released from custody.
[1:28:00] Speaker 1: He was, of course, arrested for planning a mass shooting
[1:28:03] Speaker 1: of black folks in New Orleans. Christopher Gillen was arrested
[1:28:07] Speaker 1: on April twenty second in Florida after state authorities said
[1:28:10] Speaker 1: he was traveling toward Louisiana to carry out a mass shooting.
[1:28:12] Speaker 1: Deputies found a handgun in about two hundred rounds of
[1:28:15] Speaker 1: ammunition in his hotel room. It was extra diety to
[1:28:18] Speaker 1: Louisiana and hell without bond on a state terrorizing charge,
[1:28:22] Speaker 1: but in June, a grand jury declined to indict him,
[1:28:25] Speaker 1: finding there was not enough evidence to move forward with
[1:28:28] Speaker 1: The case. Is released shortly thereafter, was not publicly reported
[1:28:31] Speaker 1: until this week. Louisiana officials say jurisdictional issues complicated the
[1:28:36] Speaker 1: case because the alleged threat was made in North Carolina
[1:28:40] Speaker 1: and Gilliam never entered Louisiana until after his arrest. Gillim's
[1:28:45] Speaker 1: attorney says he is not facing charges in any other jurisdiction.
[1:28:49] Speaker 8: Well, I sure as.
[1:28:50] Speaker 1: Hell hope they're going to be watching him, Larry, because
[1:28:55] Speaker 1: that doesn't bolde weal for black folks.
[1:29:00] Speaker 13: Is this supposed to make me feel safer? Because I
[1:29:02] Speaker 13: certainly don't. And rowing you know, you highlight it.
[1:29:05] Speaker 7: They're not tracking this gentleman.
[1:29:07] Speaker 2: We don't know where he is.
[1:29:08] Speaker 13: And so it's really concerning for me because we know
[1:29:12] Speaker 13: of all over the last several years, these instances in
[1:29:15] Speaker 13: which black people have been targeted in South Carolina among
[1:29:19] Speaker 13: other Buffalo et cetera, other places, when we're simply just
[1:29:22] Speaker 13: living our lives and minding our business.
[1:29:25] Speaker 2: And then when you add on the.
[1:29:26] Speaker 10: Extra layer of the rhetoric directed rhetoric.
[1:29:30] Speaker 13: We've seen in black people in other minoritized communities over
[1:29:32] Speaker 13: the you know, the last two years, these kinds of
[1:29:35] Speaker 13: stories that he was you know, June, it is now August.
[1:29:40] Speaker 13: No idea what this this gentleman is doing. And it's
[1:29:44] Speaker 13: really concerning. And also the fact that it's it seems
[1:29:48] Speaker 13: like they it was like secondhand, kind of like well,
[1:29:50] Speaker 13: you know, no indictman, and he's just kind of out there.
[1:29:54] Speaker 13: And it will be interesting if this, if this gentleman
[1:29:57] Speaker 13: was targeting the group with the with the conversation, had
[1:30:00] Speaker 13: been a lot different. Any efforts in maybe in North
[1:30:03] Speaker 13: Carolina or somewhere else in terms of holding this gentleman
[1:30:07] Speaker 13: accountable would have been a lot different.
[1:30:10] Speaker 12: But I think we do to answer that question.
[1:30:13] Speaker 1: While recie not enough evidence.
[1:30:19] Speaker 9: Well, the evidence that they needed was right in front
[1:30:21] Speaker 9: of them that this person is a danger to black people.
[1:30:23] Speaker 8: So let them loose.
[1:30:25] Speaker 10: This is Trump's America, so it doesn't surprise me at all.
[1:30:31] Speaker 2: Great, yeah, very recently, this is a race soldier. He
[1:30:39] Speaker 2: is as a race soldier in an increasingly openly white
[1:30:45] Speaker 2: nationalist federal government and state governments in Louisiana, in North
[1:30:49] Speaker 2: Carolina and Florida, he is offered protection.
[1:30:55] Speaker 15: They didn't name the event that he was allegedly targeting,
[1:30:57] Speaker 15: but as you say, I mean there came the rest
[1:31:00] Speaker 15: came on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz and
[1:31:02] Speaker 15: Heritage Festival, and so you know, the idea that you
[1:31:06] Speaker 15: know in Louisiana lives morel the white nationalists Attorney General
[1:31:10] Speaker 15: of Louisiana just per office said, you know that his
[1:31:14] Speaker 15: family had taken him to a treatment facility out of
[1:31:16] Speaker 15: the state and that he's not facing any additional criminal charges.
[1:31:20] Speaker 2: North Carolina did say, well, hell, we'd like to know
[1:31:23] Speaker 2: if he's headed back this way.
[1:31:25] Speaker 15: Florida didn't respond to a request for comment about whether
[1:31:30] Speaker 15: he might face additional criminal charges.
[1:31:31] Speaker 2: In his jurisdiction. But it's very clear to me that
[1:31:33] Speaker 2: this is how you stop a race soldier.
[1:31:36] Speaker 15: The easiest way to do it that doesn't involve bloodshed
[1:31:41] Speaker 15: of any type or taking the law into your own
[1:31:43] Speaker 15: hand is to check your run registration and break the
[1:31:48] Speaker 15: back of white nationalist politicians in Louisiana and North Carolina
[1:31:52] Speaker 15: and in Florida, and at the federal level, ensure that
[1:31:56] Speaker 15: whoever comes into the Oval office next puts back in
[1:32:00] Speaker 15: place some Department of Justice officials that will do something
[1:32:03] Speaker 15: other than signal to these race soldiers that we will
[1:32:07] Speaker 15: support you in your efforts to attack black people. That
[1:32:09] Speaker 15: if that doesn't happen, what is history show. Its history
[1:32:13] Speaker 15: shows us that people will take the law in their
[1:32:15] Speaker 15: own hands. So either way this will be Indeed, the
[1:32:19] Speaker 15: best way to do it, it seems to me, is
[1:32:21] Speaker 15: to do it through the political process.
[1:32:22] Speaker 2: But make no mistake about it. If you think the
[1:32:25] Speaker 2: American negro.
[1:32:26] Speaker 15: Is just gonna sit and wait for some race soldiers
[1:32:28] Speaker 15: to come blow their brains out, you don't know anything
[1:32:30] Speaker 15: about history.
[1:32:35] Speaker 1: Indeed, Indeed, Larry recent Greg I appreciate y'all being on
[1:32:39] Speaker 1: today's show. Thank you so very much. See y'all next week, folks.
[1:32:46] Speaker 1: Today at NABJ, the parents of Nolan Wells join Attorney
[1:32:50] Speaker 1: Ben Crump and Reverend Al Sharpton for a Q and
[1:32:53] Speaker 1: a those myriad by Tiffany Cross. As we said early,
[1:32:57] Speaker 1: we showed you a clip in the clip of Democratic
[1:33:00] Speaker 1: Leader Hai King Jeffries also sitting down with n ABJA
[1:33:04] Speaker 1: President Aaron Haynes.
[1:33:06] Speaker 15: Uh.
[1:33:06] Speaker 1: And of course also there's a news the news conference
[1:33:08] Speaker 1: and Congsman, we see Macbeth spokes. We're gonna do is
[1:33:12] Speaker 1: We're gonna play. We're gonna show you, uh, the almost
[1:33:15] Speaker 1: forty minute discussion with the Wells family, then Macbath's comments,
[1:33:18] Speaker 1: and then we're gonna show you the full of Congressman
[1:33:22] Speaker 1: haw King Jeffries. And so we're gonna play that. I've
[1:33:26] Speaker 1: got some National Associations of Black Journalists board duties I
[1:33:29] Speaker 1: have to attend to, uh, and so that's gonna fill
[1:33:32] Speaker 1: out the rest of our show. I'll see all tomorrow.
[1:33:35] Speaker 1: I'm rolling un Filtering on the Blackstar Network. Let's roll it.
[1:33:39] Speaker 4: Now. You still fit are there.
[1:33:54] Speaker 22: And they are joined by civil rights attorney Ben Crump
[1:33:58] Speaker 22: and raymand Al Sharton. Thank you all for being here.
[1:34:28] Speaker 22: I know you've been on a whirl land. I know
[1:34:29] Speaker 22: you've been traveling a lot, so thank you all. And
[1:34:31] Speaker 22: I know you all have other challenges happening around the
[1:34:35] Speaker 22: country that you'll be getting to uh after this, but
[1:34:38] Speaker 22: I am so uh. We are all so honored to
[1:34:41] Speaker 22: meet you, and we are so saddened that we are
[1:34:45] Speaker 22: connecting with you under these circumstances. You know, I want
[1:34:50] Speaker 22: to tell you. They ask me to call them Christine
[1:34:53] Speaker 22: and Elmore. Uh, I wanna say mister and missus Wansley,
[1:34:56] Speaker 22: but Christine and Elmore. I wanna tell you in the
[1:34:59] Speaker 22: audience in this room, but also watching at home are
[1:35:03] Speaker 22: thousands of black journalists. But in addition to being black journalists,
[1:35:08] Speaker 22: these are mothers and fathers, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.
[1:35:13] Speaker 2: Of black children.
[1:35:14] Speaker 22: And we see your humanity and we're gonna center that.
[1:35:19] Speaker 2: In this conversation you.
[1:35:24] Speaker 22: I told Christine, if we cry on this stage, it's
[1:35:26] Speaker 22: okay because.
[1:35:27] Speaker 4: We're among family. Oh, you take your time.
[1:35:32] Speaker 2: I'm Christine.
[1:35:34] Speaker 10: I'm gonna start with you.
[1:35:36] Speaker 22: On Friday, July third, Nolan made you dinner, and so
[1:35:41] Speaker 22: as you're telling us about the last time you saw
[1:35:44] Speaker 22: your baby boy, I want you to talk to us
[1:35:46] Speaker 22: about who Nolan was and tell us about that day.
[1:35:51] Speaker 4: So Nolan.
[1:35:54] Speaker 3: Is and was an incredible I mean just incredible soul.
[1:36:01] Speaker 3: He was the person who no matter where you were
[1:36:04] Speaker 3: in life, what was going on, he was going to
[1:36:07] Speaker 3: be your biggest cheerleader. And I can attest to that
[1:36:10] Speaker 3: because after COVID, my sister was like, oh, you know,
[1:36:13] Speaker 3: you should do social media, and I'm like, I don't
[1:36:16] Speaker 3: want to do social media. I like to just watch others.
[1:36:19] Speaker 3: And then Nolan was like, no, mom, you should do it.
[1:36:22] Speaker 3: I'll help you with the videos I got you. And
[1:36:27] Speaker 3: you know, just anytime I was like, oh, I just
[1:36:29] Speaker 3: really don't want to do this anymore, Nolan was like, no, Mama,
[1:36:34] Speaker 3: you hadn't posted today, and I'm like, I don't want
[1:36:37] Speaker 3: to post some far Yeah. But you know, that's the
[1:36:40] Speaker 3: kind of person he was. He was God fearing, god loving.
[1:36:44] Speaker 3: That boy had faith beyond measure. He was just a
[1:36:49] Speaker 3: bright light and he was our bright light.
[1:36:55] Speaker 4: As far as that day goes went to work and.
[1:37:02] Speaker 3: He was making salmon, so he was facetiming me as
[1:37:06] Speaker 3: I'm trying to see patience kind of in between of course,
[1:37:10] Speaker 3: not answering the phone in the room.
[1:37:12] Speaker 4: And he's like, hey, Mama, how does this look? Is
[1:37:14] Speaker 4: this enough? Season?
[1:37:15] Speaker 8: Like?
[1:37:15] Speaker 4: What am I supposed to do with this? And I
[1:37:17] Speaker 4: was like okay.
[1:37:18] Speaker 3: I was like, you know, you don't have to do that,
[1:37:19] Speaker 3: and he's like, no, you know, I'm gonna take care
[1:37:21] Speaker 3: of it.
[1:37:21] Speaker 4: I was like okay, okay, sure, and so he finishes cooking,
[1:37:29] Speaker 4: get home. He's like, yeah, what you know about this?
[1:37:32] Speaker 4: And he was Guys, when I tell you it, he
[1:37:35] Speaker 4: loved to joke like. He was just one of those people.
[1:37:37] Speaker 3: He wanted everyone around him to smile, be happy, feel
[1:37:42] Speaker 3: comfortable and accepted.
[1:37:45] Speaker 4: And that is the kind of person God made him.
[1:37:49] Speaker 3: You know, us as parents, we definitely had that influence,
[1:37:53] Speaker 3: but no one was just naturally a peacemaker. And so yeah,
[1:37:58] Speaker 3: after that, it was you know eight, and then he
[1:38:02] Speaker 3: got ready to go. He did his normal hugged us up.
[1:38:05] Speaker 3: I love you mom.
[1:38:06] Speaker 4: I was like, you know, be safe.
[1:38:08] Speaker 3: Knowing this was gonna be his last weekend before going
[1:38:11] Speaker 3: back to school because football was starting the summer, training
[1:38:16] Speaker 3: was starting, and this was his second year at Southwest
[1:38:20] Speaker 3: and so we knew this.
[1:38:21] Speaker 4: Was gonna be a big year for him.
[1:38:24] Speaker 3: Dad and him had been training and doing all these
[1:38:27] Speaker 3: things and really just kind of sitting with him and
[1:38:30] Speaker 3: letting him know, like, hey, you know, we're going to
[1:38:32] Speaker 3: the next stage in your life as well as you know,
[1:38:35] Speaker 3: your football career.
[1:38:37] Speaker 4: So the focus was there and he was ready. So
[1:38:41] Speaker 4: he leaves that day.
[1:38:42] Speaker 3: He leaves that day with he drives his car, and
[1:38:46] Speaker 3: he told us kind of a general like, hey, you know,
[1:38:49] Speaker 3: we're gonna go to the island, like we knew that
[1:38:51] Speaker 3: staying at Jack's house. And Jackson was a friend. I
[1:38:55] Speaker 3: think we've met in passing before. And that's the thing,
[1:39:00] Speaker 3: you know, I always say there's a difference in meeting someone.
[1:39:05] Speaker 4: Knowing of someone and then knowing someone.
[1:39:10] Speaker 3: Knowing implies that we've sat down, we've had discussions about
[1:39:13] Speaker 3: your hopes, your dreams, you know, knowing you Okay, Hey
[1:39:17] Speaker 3: he stayed the night at my house, which Wyatt one
[1:39:20] Speaker 3: of his friends.
[1:39:21] Speaker 4: He had stayed at our house a couple of times.
[1:39:25] Speaker 3: And then Jax again, that was one I just maybe
[1:39:27] Speaker 3: someone passing a few times. There's only a handful of
[1:39:31] Speaker 3: young men that we actually knew, like he grew up
[1:39:34] Speaker 3: with And when I say grew up, I'm saying from
[1:39:37] Speaker 3: like first grade. They've known each other all through high
[1:39:40] Speaker 3: school now that they're graduated, and that would be like
[1:39:44] Speaker 3: Jalen and Javon LeBaron. Those are kids that we knew.
[1:39:50] Speaker 3: So it's just it's been hard seeing all this kind
[1:39:55] Speaker 3: of play out. Yeah, and you know these are people
[1:39:58] Speaker 3: that he considered friends.
[1:40:00] Speaker 22: Yes, that I want to ask you because it was
[1:40:04] Speaker 22: Warren Hudson, one of the people that he traveled with,
[1:40:07] Speaker 22: who called to alert.
[1:40:08] Speaker 4: You all that Nolan was missing.
[1:40:12] Speaker 22: Yes, so we know at five point forty four, the
[1:40:15] Speaker 22: boat returns, Nolan is not there. At eleven PM, he
[1:40:19] Speaker 22: calls to say Nolan is missing. I wonder if either
[1:40:22] Speaker 22: of you, who ever, wants to answer what happened in
[1:40:25] Speaker 22: those few hours that prompted.
[1:40:26] Speaker 4: Warren to because.
[1:40:29] Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure what would prompt him to be
[1:40:31] Speaker 3: a concerned But all I can say is what I
[1:40:34] Speaker 3: did that day. So me and my sister we made
[1:40:37] Speaker 3: an order of pon sit, which is a Filipino noodle dish,
[1:40:40] Speaker 3: for one of our friends. They were having a big
[1:40:42] Speaker 3: family get together and we really didn't have anything planned
[1:40:45] Speaker 3: for the fourth. So me and my sister are, you know,
[1:40:49] Speaker 3: cleaning up, and this is about eight and she's like, hey,
[1:40:52] Speaker 3: you know Nolan hasn't text.
[1:40:54] Speaker 4: Us like and that was the thing.
[1:40:55] Speaker 3: Nolan was really big with communication with us, right, And
[1:41:00] Speaker 3: so I call him, doesn't answer.
[1:41:04] Speaker 4: I in the call call back and this is probably
[1:41:07] Speaker 4: I think maybe around eight. Don't quote me on the times, guys.
[1:41:12] Speaker 3: So then I call again later around eight, still no answer,
[1:41:19] Speaker 3: and then I want to say I called one more time,
[1:41:22] Speaker 3: and I think that was at like ten forty eight.
[1:41:25] Speaker 4: So I'm in the kitchen. My phone rings.
[1:41:29] Speaker 3: Now this is probably like early eleven o'clock somewhere around
[1:41:32] Speaker 3: their phone rings. When I make it back to the phone,
[1:41:35] Speaker 3: and I'm like, whose number is this? Because you know,
[1:41:39] Speaker 3: we get weird phone calls sometimes they didn't leave a message.
[1:41:42] Speaker 4: The number pops back up. I pick up the phone because.
[1:41:44] Speaker 3: It says maybe Warren, and I'm like, Warren, So this
[1:41:49] Speaker 3: is eleven oh seven, that's per my cell phone records.
[1:41:53] Speaker 3: Say answer to the phone. He's like, hey, miss Christine,
[1:41:56] Speaker 3: have you seen or talked to Nolan? I said no,
[1:41:58] Speaker 3: why he should be with you, guys, And he said,
[1:42:02] Speaker 3: oh no, Well, you know, when we went to the island,
[1:42:05] Speaker 3: there was a girl named Katie that he met, and
[1:42:07] Speaker 3: he had decided to stay behind us said what, because
[1:42:11] Speaker 3: we know our child, and Nolan isn't one to be like,
[1:42:15] Speaker 3: oh well, I'm.
[1:42:16] Speaker 4: Just gonna throw caution to the wind and I'm gonna.
[1:42:18] Speaker 3: Stay here with this girl that I just met. So
[1:42:22] Speaker 3: I'm on the phone with him now I'm in a panic.
[1:42:25] Speaker 3: I'm running into my room Elmore Woods in bed watching
[1:42:29] Speaker 3: a different movie and I'm just I'm like frantic.
[1:42:31] Speaker 4: He's like, what's going on. I'm like, no one is missing.
[1:42:33] Speaker 3: I'm trying to pull up the GPS as I'm talking
[1:42:36] Speaker 3: to him, and at some point he tells me that.
[1:42:39] Speaker 4: I was like, well, you know, his.
[1:42:41] Speaker 3: Phone says GPS Life three sixty, not snapchat, right, Life
[1:42:45] Speaker 3: three sixty says that he's he's on land.
[1:42:47] Speaker 4: And he was like, well no, I mean you know
[1:42:49] Speaker 4: when we we have his phone.
[1:42:53] Speaker 3: And I'm like.
[1:42:55] Speaker 8: What.
[1:42:56] Speaker 3: And I'm like okay, because at that point, you're telling
[1:43:02] Speaker 3: me this is coming from Wren, don't worry about it.
[1:43:04] Speaker 3: We're gonna find him. It's gonna be okay.
[1:43:07] Speaker 4: Don't tell me not to worry. This is my child,
[1:43:10] Speaker 4: my flesh and blood that I brought into this world,
[1:43:13] Speaker 4: and you're telling me not to worry. Absolutely not.
[1:43:18] Speaker 3: So then it was after The phone call ended, of course,
[1:43:21] Speaker 3: asking him for information.
[1:43:23] Speaker 4: What was he wearing? He was like, last seeing northwest tip,
[1:43:27] Speaker 4: black shorts, sunglasses, that's important.
[1:43:32] Speaker 3: So I end up calling DMR. Spoke with the DMR.
[1:43:39] Speaker 3: She took all that for our audience, DMO. So DMR
[1:43:42] Speaker 3: is because he went missing on the island. They are
[1:43:46] Speaker 3: basically the marine people, right, They're the ones who's going
[1:43:50] Speaker 3: to launch the boats to go into the water and
[1:43:52] Speaker 3: all that. But before getting off the phone with Warren,
[1:43:55] Speaker 3: he was like, hey, I have I know some people
[1:43:57] Speaker 3: at Coast Guard. I said, okay. He's like, I'm anna
[1:44:00] Speaker 3: called Coastguard. You call DMR. Get on the phone with DMR.
[1:44:03] Speaker 3: I give the young lady the information and she tells.
[1:44:06] Speaker 4: Me, hey, you know, I got this.
[1:44:08] Speaker 3: Let me let me call you back, because she was like,
[1:44:10] Speaker 3: I'm not sure if this is going to be in
[1:44:12] Speaker 3: our jurisdiction essentially, So then she calls back and she
[1:44:17] Speaker 3: tells me, okay, yeah, you know, we spoke with Coastguard,
[1:44:21] Speaker 3: and I'm like okay, but they're like, this isn't our jurisdiction.
[1:44:25] Speaker 3: You have to contact the City of Ocean Springs. I said, okay,
[1:44:31] Speaker 3: hang up the phone call an Ocean Springs Police department.
[1:44:34] Speaker 3: They say, hey, you have to physically come down and
[1:44:37] Speaker 3: give a report. I said, okay, so on our way
[1:44:41] Speaker 3: because we don't live that far from the police station.
[1:44:44] Speaker 3: On our way there, I was like, well, let me
[1:44:46] Speaker 3: stop by the hospital because there's a hospital.
[1:44:48] Speaker 4: That's maybe five minutes up the road from our house.
[1:44:52] Speaker 4: Stop by there. I'm like, hey, have you guys seen
[1:44:54] Speaker 4: this kid? Has he been brought in? The lady's like no, no, ma'am.
[1:44:58] Speaker 4: You know we had And I said, okay, thank you.
[1:45:00] Speaker 4: Run out. We go to the police department, get to
[1:45:03] Speaker 4: the police station, and.
[1:45:05] Speaker 3: The officer basically says, again, this is out of our jurisdiction.
[1:45:12] Speaker 3: And at that point I'm like, my god, who am
[1:45:15] Speaker 3: I supposed to talk to? Who is supposed to help
[1:45:17] Speaker 3: me with this? So then he said it's going to
[1:45:20] Speaker 3: be you would have to call DMR. I was like,
[1:45:22] Speaker 3: we've already called DMR. DMR said it's not in their jurisdiction.
[1:45:27] Speaker 3: So we end up I think at some point I
[1:45:31] Speaker 3: had called Jackson County Sheriff's office. Yeah, So she calls
[1:45:35] Speaker 3: back and she's like, hey, are you there. I say, yes,
[1:45:38] Speaker 3: we're here, But he's telling us the same thing you
[1:45:40] Speaker 3: guys told us, which is, no, we can't take it.
[1:45:44] Speaker 3: She gets on the phone with the police officer. Now
[1:45:46] Speaker 3: this is Jackson County Sheriff's Department speaking with the Ocean
[1:45:51] Speaker 3: Springs Police Department. Ocean Springs Police Department is saying this
[1:45:56] Speaker 3: is why we can't take this information.
[1:45:59] Speaker 4: She says, okay.
[1:46:00] Speaker 3: He gives me the phone back and she's like, okay,
[1:46:03] Speaker 3: I'm just gonna take it. I'm just gonna take the information.
[1:46:05] Speaker 3: And that was we met an officer. It was after midnight, right, yeah,
[1:46:11] Speaker 3: somewhere after midnight, met him in the McDonald's parking lot,
[1:46:14] Speaker 3: gave him the information. He was just like okay, thanks that.
[1:46:17] Speaker 3: I was like, like, where is the urgency? And so,
[1:46:25] Speaker 3: as far as we know, there were no boats on
[1:46:28] Speaker 3: the water that night. We actually his high school football coach,
[1:46:33] Speaker 3: coach Bramlett, text Elmore that morning. He said, hey, man,
[1:46:37] Speaker 3: I got a boat. Because again, we don't have boats.
[1:46:40] Speaker 3: Let me make that very clear.
[1:46:41] Speaker 4: We do not have a boat. We're not boating people.
[1:46:43] Speaker 4: We don't do water like that.
[1:46:45] Speaker 3: Okay, So coach Bramlett's like, hey, I got a boat.
[1:46:48] Speaker 3: So we was like great, less go, We're on the water,
[1:46:51] Speaker 3: we go out there, we walked the island. Cell phone
[1:46:55] Speaker 3: works perfectly fine. I actually had almost an entire conversation
[1:46:58] Speaker 3: with my grandmother who was an a panic as we're
[1:47:01] Speaker 3: walking this island looking for anything.
[1:47:05] Speaker 22: I just want to pause there.
[1:47:06] Speaker 4: The cell phone worked fine.
[1:47:07] Speaker 22: Because in the reporting, there's been so much reporting that
[1:47:11] Speaker 22: there's poor cell phone reception. And this is some of
[1:47:14] Speaker 22: the disputes that we have about that night. Dad, feel
[1:47:16] Speaker 22: free to jump in here, because they're saying he met
[1:47:20] Speaker 22: this young lady Katie and that he stayed back. According
[1:47:25] Speaker 22: to the reporting, Katie is saying no, he said he
[1:47:27] Speaker 22: was going to go with his friends. According to the reporting,
[1:47:30] Speaker 22: the friends said, no, he left us his phone because.
[1:47:33] Speaker 10: There was no reception.
[1:47:36] Speaker 11: Dad, Have have you found.
[1:47:40] Speaker 22: Any consistencies? Have you spoken directly with any of his friends.
[1:47:45] Speaker 20: Well, the first inconsistency was you call me and telling
[1:47:50] Speaker 20: my son stayed on the island to talk to a girl.
[1:47:53] Speaker 8: My son will never do that, not in his character.
[1:47:57] Speaker 8: I didn't.
[1:47:58] Speaker 20: I didn't raise none of my kids to do that.
[1:48:00] Speaker 20: The second thing is he say he doesn't have his phone,
[1:48:04] Speaker 20: he doesn't leave his phone. I would wake up sometimes
[1:48:07] Speaker 20: in the morning and no longer have his phone here
[1:48:10] Speaker 20: right in my face, and I'll waken up cussing, the
[1:48:13] Speaker 20: fussing like, boy, you don't get to kill out of
[1:48:15] Speaker 20: my faith. And he just laughing and giggling and stuff
[1:48:18] Speaker 20: like that. So that's twice this. That to me, that's
[1:48:22] Speaker 20: two lies. And told me as a father, Like I said,
[1:48:29] Speaker 20: we we went on the island. And actually a classmate
[1:48:33] Speaker 20: of mine called me that morning as we were going
[1:48:36] Speaker 20: out to the island with know this coach, he's like
[1:48:42] Speaker 20: forty miles away. He calls in, Hey, man, I got
[1:48:45] Speaker 20: the boat. Me and my boys were gonna go out
[1:48:47] Speaker 20: there and help you. Look, I didn't call him. He
[1:48:50] Speaker 20: called me, and we're gonna start on this end. I said, well,
[1:48:53] Speaker 20: we're probably gonna s gonna start on the hood end.
[1:48:55] Speaker 20: So me, my wife, coach Remily, and a high school
[1:49:02] Speaker 20: classmate of mine were the only one wee to m
[1:49:06] Speaker 20: We were the first ones out there liquor. Like I said,
[1:49:10] Speaker 20: We docked the boat, got out the boat, walked on
[1:49:12] Speaker 20: the island. She had a whole conversation with her grandmother
[1:49:15] Speaker 20: on the island, got back on the boat, went back
[1:49:19] Speaker 20: around the island. I guess that would be the north
[1:49:22] Speaker 20: side facing to go for Mexico. I get another phone call.
[1:49:28] Speaker 20: So my phone worked fine. So this whole thing about
[1:49:31] Speaker 20: not having phone service, I don't know. I I don't
[1:49:34] Speaker 20: know I if it's the the carrier with but I
[1:49:37] Speaker 20: was worth fine. I think those around maybe eight eight o'clock, Yeah,
[1:49:43] Speaker 20: cause saw me finished up art or was it Jackson
[1:49:45] Speaker 20: County or.
[1:49:46] Speaker 4: The Yeah, Jackson County shit fighting showed up.
[1:49:48] Speaker 20: Yeah, a couple of boats. They finally showed up. By
[1:49:51] Speaker 20: that time, I was like, he's not out here. I
[1:49:55] Speaker 20: was more focused that he was at someone's house.
[1:49:59] Speaker 8: That was so that w and that was devil. That
[1:50:02] Speaker 8: was That's t where my hopes and feelings were. So
[1:50:04] Speaker 8: we left.
[1:50:06] Speaker 20: M the county stayed out there. My friend, he stayed
[1:50:11] Speaker 20: out there cause he called. He said, well, we're gonna
[1:50:13] Speaker 20: sta out here a little bit longer. I say, okay,
[1:50:16] Speaker 20: I appreciate it.
[1:50:17] Speaker 8: So we leave.
[1:50:21] Speaker 20: Then I would say, maybe a couple hours later, my
[1:50:25] Speaker 20: friend calls me back and he say, well, we're gonna
[1:50:27] Speaker 20: get in and go. But he say, look, I can
[1:50:31] Speaker 20: gas the boat back up and if you wanna go
[1:50:33] Speaker 20: back out there, we can go back out there. I said,
[1:50:36] Speaker 20: I don't. I don't wanna go back out.
[1:50:37] Speaker 8: To the island.
[1:50:38] Speaker 20: I just have a feeling that he's not He's not there,
[1:50:42] Speaker 20: and I don't wanna go back to the island. So
[1:50:44] Speaker 20: he said, he off. We say, well, if you do,
[1:50:47] Speaker 20: we can go right now. I said, don't worry about
[1:50:49] Speaker 20: I appreciate you coming out there. But he said, at
[1:50:51] Speaker 20: that time, the helicopters were out there, more and more
[1:50:54] Speaker 20: coach go up, more people out there. So we go back,
[1:50:58] Speaker 20: said go back, get back on there. And as far
[1:51:03] Speaker 20: as the keys, what was it that night?
[1:51:07] Speaker 4: What was it that was that night?
[1:51:09] Speaker 8: That was not the call? Okay?
[1:51:12] Speaker 20: As far as getting the car back, after we gave
[1:51:16] Speaker 20: our report to Jackson County the share department that night,
[1:51:22] Speaker 20: we were trying to figure out who to go report to.
[1:51:25] Speaker 20: We had our friend and the family that located his phone.
[1:51:30] Speaker 20: We wasn't there to get the phone, but apparently there
[1:51:33] Speaker 20: was some kind of friction were getting his phone.
[1:51:36] Speaker 8: We don't know what the friction was.
[1:51:37] Speaker 3: The phone and the key were at the same location,
[1:51:41] Speaker 3: which was Jack's house. Okay, And again all of these
[1:51:45] Speaker 3: kids share their locations on Snapchat, and so she was like, hey,
[1:51:52] Speaker 3: I can go pick his go pick his phone up,
[1:51:55] Speaker 3: not thinking that his car is there, you know, which
[1:51:59] Speaker 3: she stopped everything she was doing. Her and the boys
[1:52:02] Speaker 3: they went out, like we were all out searching for
[1:52:05] Speaker 3: him that night. And yeah, like Elmore was saying, there
[1:52:08] Speaker 3: was an issue, some type of friction. They the cops
[1:52:11] Speaker 3: ended up coming and they left. And so then kind
[1:52:15] Speaker 3: of the same thing when we came to pick up
[1:52:17] Speaker 3: the key, Elmore went up there asking for the key,
[1:52:19] Speaker 3: didn't know where the key was, and all of a sudden,
[1:52:22] Speaker 3: we know where the key is.
[1:52:23] Speaker 20: See but see this, and this is another thing that
[1:52:27] Speaker 20: that that bothered me. So when we got to the house,
[1:52:31] Speaker 20: you know, it was some of his other friends were there,
[1:52:35] Speaker 20: you know, and they were, you know, being on the door,
[1:52:37] Speaker 20: like we're knowing that, we're knowing that, you know, being
[1:52:40] Speaker 20: on a little time to get in the house. So
[1:52:42] Speaker 20: I walk up, I walk up to the door, and
[1:52:44] Speaker 20: I'm calming them down because for one, okay, you allowed
[1:52:49] Speaker 20: to you in these people house, So if you tell
[1:52:52] Speaker 20: the people's house up, this could be a whole other issue.
[1:52:55] Speaker 8: I don't want y'all bought in that.
[1:52:56] Speaker 20: And three, I need you, I need you guys to
[1:52:58] Speaker 20: calm down, and I need them to kind of trust
[1:53:00] Speaker 20: me as being the adult so I can get something.
[1:53:02] Speaker 20: Nod up, so I get them out the house, and
[1:53:06] Speaker 20: then Jack's finally comes down the stairs. I guess in
[1:53:08] Speaker 20: the room Harold Minster like he just woke up. Whatever
[1:53:12] Speaker 20: I said. Look, I said, I'm Nolan's farting. His car
[1:53:15] Speaker 20: is outside. I need to get his car and all
[1:53:18] Speaker 20: this personal effects that's that may be left over you.
[1:53:22] Speaker 8: And he goes off.
[1:53:23] Speaker 20: Man, Nolan was like my brother, I said, Nolan was
[1:53:25] Speaker 20: like my brother. I said, if Nolan was like their brother,
[1:53:28] Speaker 20: would you please go and get everything of his so
[1:53:31] Speaker 20: I can get his car, I can go home.
[1:53:34] Speaker 8: She walks off two or three minutes. Lady, come back,
[1:53:38] Speaker 8: I don't.
[1:53:38] Speaker 20: I don't see the keys, okay, So I leave out
[1:53:43] Speaker 20: the house, go back outside, stand by the car. During
[1:53:48] Speaker 20: that time, one of the guys that was in the house,
[1:53:51] Speaker 20: one of the other friends, he was on the phone
[1:53:52] Speaker 20: with a girl who was apparently there with them earlier
[1:53:55] Speaker 20: that day, and she was telling him that his keys.
[1:53:59] Speaker 8: Was on top of the xbox xbox in his room.
[1:54:02] Speaker 20: So he goes back up to the door by hisself
[1:54:05] Speaker 20: and we're still not buy the car and learn behold
[1:54:09] Speaker 20: here comes the keys. So now to me, you laughed
[1:54:12] Speaker 20: me three times. I don't believe nothing that you tell
[1:54:15] Speaker 20: me me a out and this is jacks This, it's Jackson.
[1:54:19] Speaker 4: And eventually he does give you the key.
[1:54:21] Speaker 10: Yea eventually give but there was friction getting the kids.
[1:54:23] Speaker 20: M So from when you tell me my son is
[1:54:25] Speaker 20: on left still in the island with a girl, two
[1:54:31] Speaker 20: you have his phone, and three you don't give me
[1:54:36] Speaker 20: the kids, not aks. I don't know any father who
[1:54:42] Speaker 20: will believe just just if one of my friends did that.
[1:54:47] Speaker 20: I'm'a be carsy with you, but I'm gonna watch you.
[1:54:51] Speaker 10: And I just it's it's I been.
[1:54:56] Speaker 22: I I wanna ask you because I'm hearing these two
[1:54:58] Speaker 22: parents who essentially had to become search and rescue er
[1:55:02] Speaker 22: law enforcement looking for their own child with such a
[1:55:06] Speaker 22: lack of urgency on behalf of law enforcement. Obviously we're
[1:55:10] Speaker 22: talking to black journalists. We can't ignore the ugly racial
[1:55:14] Speaker 22: history of Mississippi.
[1:55:16] Speaker 4: I looked into the.
[1:55:16] Speaker 22: Demographics of the Jackson County Sheriff Department. It's quite asymmetrical,
[1:55:21] Speaker 22: but also just the general attitude and the lack of
[1:55:23] Speaker 22: value when it comes to black life. Does this sound
[1:55:26] Speaker 22: like a normal process for when an eighteen year old
[1:55:30] Speaker 22: goes missing. To you, what holes have you seen in
[1:55:32] Speaker 22: your looking into this case?
[1:55:35] Speaker 19: Tiffing to that was the question that Christine and Aylmore
[1:55:40] Speaker 19: had when they first called us. They wanted the truth
[1:55:45] Speaker 19: of what happened to their eighteen year old son, Nolan Wells,
[1:55:49] Speaker 19: and they had concerns whether they were going to get
[1:55:53] Speaker 19: a fair and impartial investigation. And from that day to
[1:56:00] Speaker 19: this one, it has been the same objective to have truth,
[1:56:05] Speaker 19: transparency and find out what happened to Nolan. They said,
[1:56:10] Speaker 19: we want a thorough investigation because when they found Nolan,
[1:56:16] Speaker 19: they expressed to me that the sheriff had already said
[1:56:20] Speaker 19: no foul play, and they was like, no, my son,
[1:56:26] Speaker 19: he knows how to swim.
[1:56:28] Speaker 8: Our son is a college athlete. Our son is in
[1:56:32] Speaker 8: great shape.
[1:56:33] Speaker 19: We don't believe that he just drowned and nobody knows nothing.
[1:56:40] Speaker 8: Nobody saw nothing.
[1:56:42] Speaker 19: I mean, they are about three hundred four hundred people
[1:56:45] Speaker 19: on the island, and so that's what they were saying.
[1:56:49] Speaker 19: We want to know what happened. We want truth, we
[1:56:53] Speaker 19: want transparency. We don't want his death to be swept
[1:56:56] Speaker 19: under the rug.
[1:56:58] Speaker 22: Well just make sure to audience and the people watching
[1:57:00] Speaker 22: at home. No, so they did declare very quickly as
[1:57:04] Speaker 22: you're noting that he drowned. When his body was recovered
[1:57:07] Speaker 22: on July sixth, Mom and Dad and you all know
[1:57:10] Speaker 22: that he is a student athlete able to swim. On
[1:57:13] Speaker 22: July fourth on Hornet Island, it was very crowded, certainly,
[1:57:16] Speaker 22: the suggestion that someone would have seen a child in distress,
[1:57:20] Speaker 22: there is going to be the convening of a grand jury. Now,
[1:57:24] Speaker 22: the DA of this area, Angel Myers Macilwrath, is a
[1:57:30] Speaker 22: very out loud.
[1:57:31] Speaker 4: Proud Republican.
[1:57:34] Speaker 22: If there is a US attorney appointed to this case,
[1:57:36] Speaker 22: it would likely be a Trump appointee.
[1:57:38] Speaker 4: I'm just curious, Vin, from you and Rev. I think
[1:57:42] Speaker 4: we have to be very candid here.
[1:57:44] Speaker 22: What concerns do you have about the racial animus that
[1:57:50] Speaker 22: we are seeing so much of play in this case?
[1:57:54] Speaker 2: Well, you are Rev.
[1:57:55] Speaker 8: Whoever all I'll say and then defer to Rev. You
[1:58:01] Speaker 8: want to.
[1:58:03] Speaker 19: Believe that this is a child that everybody is going
[1:58:08] Speaker 19: to do their level best to find out what happened,
[1:58:13] Speaker 19: so these broken hearted parents will know what happened to
[1:58:16] Speaker 19: their child. In time, We've seen Christine and the family
[1:58:24] Speaker 19: be attacked just for asking questions what happened to my child?
[1:58:28] Speaker 8: Trying to say no, no, we want to question this.
[1:58:32] Speaker 19: Part of investigation, that part of investigation because day one
[1:58:37] Speaker 19: you said no foul play. But tell me now, what
[1:58:41] Speaker 19: are you doing to be able to get us to
[1:58:44] Speaker 19: the truth?
[1:58:45] Speaker 4: And that is.
[1:58:47] Speaker 8: It causes them sleepless nights. We talk at night and
[1:58:52] Speaker 8: so trust but verify.
[1:58:55] Speaker 19: We are trying to cooperate everything we can do to say, hey,
[1:59:00] Speaker 19: we want to help, but we want you to give
[1:59:03] Speaker 19: them a Pharaoh investigation.
[1:59:06] Speaker 8: We want you to do for him what you would
[1:59:10] Speaker 8: do for your child.
[1:59:12] Speaker 11: Rev.
[1:59:12] Speaker 22: I'm gonna come to you in a sect. But you
[1:59:14] Speaker 22: brought up something ban about attacks, and certainly as journalists
[1:59:18] Speaker 22: we have a keen eye, and I have noticed that
[1:59:21] Speaker 22: the narrative around this story has shifted to the threats that.
[1:59:25] Speaker 4: Are going to the young men who was with Nolan.
[1:59:30] Speaker 22: They've hired attorneys who previously represented Donald Trump in cases.
[1:59:35] Speaker 22: They've gone on very MAGA friendly podcast, and I just
[1:59:41] Speaker 22: want to make sure that we keep the main thing,
[1:59:42] Speaker 22: the main thing, the narrative, to the victim, to the actual.
[1:59:47] Speaker 4: Child who died.
[1:59:49] Speaker 22: And I'm curious Christine, if you can weigh in on
[1:59:52] Speaker 22: what threats have you and your family experience.
[1:59:55] Speaker 3: So there have been a big smear campaign just not
[2:00:02] Speaker 3: not only professionally, but personally.
[2:00:04] Speaker 4: For me, and they attacked your nursing.
[2:00:08] Speaker 11: Yes.
[2:00:09] Speaker 3: So it started out with one star reviews of people
[2:00:13] Speaker 3: saying they saw me off my office. Verify that these
[2:00:18] Speaker 3: were incorrect, and then it went so much as to
[2:00:21] Speaker 3: someone contacted the Board of Nursing and then that started
[2:00:25] Speaker 3: that opened the investigation for the professional misconduct. There was
[2:00:30] Speaker 3: no evidence presented for that claim. And the investigator I
[2:00:34] Speaker 3: spoke with, he said, you know, we have to do
[2:00:37] Speaker 3: our due diligence.
[2:00:37] Speaker 4: I said, I understand it. I respect. It was like,
[2:00:40] Speaker 4: I'm sorry it's coming. At this time, I was like, no,
[2:00:43] Speaker 4: I get it.
[2:00:43] Speaker 3: Do what you have to do because I know who
[2:00:45] Speaker 3: I am, I know what kind of care I give
[2:00:48] Speaker 3: to my patients. I know the relationship that we have,
[2:00:53] Speaker 3: and I'm grateful that my patients, a lot of them
[2:00:56] Speaker 3: are still trusting and loving in the care that they
[2:00:58] Speaker 3: know they're going to get with me, and so these attacks.
[2:01:04] Speaker 4: Are not going to it's not going to break me.
[2:01:09] Speaker 4: I have to find out.
[2:01:17] Speaker 3: We have to find out what happened to Nolan. That
[2:01:20] Speaker 3: is the only question we've ever asked. We've never blamed anyone,
[2:01:24] Speaker 3: we've never tried to smear anyone. I know I heard
[2:01:27] Speaker 3: something about the picture. That picture was sent to me because.
[2:01:31] Speaker 22: The this is a picture of him on the boat,
[2:01:33] Speaker 22: on the boat with people, Yes, and.
[2:01:35] Speaker 3: What it was is they were like the person was like,
[2:01:37] Speaker 3: Miss Christine, the information is incorrect. This is what he
[2:01:42] Speaker 3: was wearing because initially it was he was in black shorts,
[2:01:45] Speaker 3: which again that is the information I received from Warren
[2:01:49] Speaker 3: verbally and via text when she sent me that picture.
[2:01:53] Speaker 3: I was like, oh, completely different color. These are like
[2:01:57] Speaker 3: a blue gray short. So we have to correct that.
[2:02:00] Speaker 3: But I'm grateful. We are grateful to all of you.
[2:02:04] Speaker 3: Thank you for keeping our son's story alive.
[2:02:08] Speaker 4: And thank you so much.
[2:02:09] Speaker 22: Take me for having us we we I think that's
[2:02:12] Speaker 22: part of the our assignment here, our responsibility.
[2:02:17] Speaker 14: Uh.
[2:02:17] Speaker 22: So often in newsrooms we have to defend and define
[2:02:21] Speaker 22: uh black life and defend and define our own humanity,
[2:02:25] Speaker 22: and so uh it makes a difference the same way
[2:02:27] Speaker 22: in other newsrooms when you've see someone that you feel
[2:02:31] Speaker 22: like they're familiar. Yeah, that so happens as they resegregate
[2:02:36] Speaker 22: newsrooms and lay off black journalists in mass that goes away.
[2:02:41] Speaker 22: So the people in this room have a keen interest
[2:02:44] Speaker 22: in this story because they see your humanity. And that's
[2:02:47] Speaker 22: what we center uh in this conversation. Pres put us
[2:02:50] Speaker 22: in historical context for us, because as I look at Mississippi,
[2:02:55] Speaker 22: I don't have to tell you, of all people some
[2:02:57] Speaker 22: of the immediate thoughts that surface for us here.
[2:03:00] Speaker 23: Well, when I got the call from Ben Crump and
[2:03:04] Speaker 23: he had the parents connected and they told me the story,
[2:03:10] Speaker 23: I had not heard the story. I heard something about
[2:03:13] Speaker 23: some in Mississippi. But when I heard the details, the
[2:03:17] Speaker 23: thing that jarred me from a civil rights point of
[2:03:20] Speaker 23: view that I've been working Ben as come Nash Action
[2:03:24] Speaker 23: Network for twenty some years in a case and then
[2:03:29] Speaker 23: from there on and on and on, and if it's
[2:03:32] Speaker 23: not a civil rights position, we don't get involved. And
[2:03:37] Speaker 23: when they told me that, law enforcement said there is
[2:03:40] Speaker 23: no foul play. That's a prejudgment. And I said, wait
[2:03:45] Speaker 23: a minute, They said, the parents repeated men find I said,
[2:03:48] Speaker 23: they said it was this two days after that happened,
[2:03:51] Speaker 23: And how do you investigate and there's no foul play
[2:03:55] Speaker 23: and you don't even know what happened yet.
[2:03:58] Speaker 8: So that's what perked my interests.
[2:03:59] Speaker 23: I said, said that, well, we'll be involved and we'll
[2:04:03] Speaker 23: help to the best of our ability. Talk to nothing
[2:04:05] Speaker 23: there or too. I said, y'all come to New York.
[2:04:08] Speaker 23: We're having National Press commis. That's how we broke the story.
[2:04:10] Speaker 23: The first National Press compass they did at our headquarters,
[2:04:13] Speaker 23: Nash Action Network. Then all of a sudden, it was
[2:04:16] Speaker 23: all of this attack for getting involved and so, and
[2:04:21] Speaker 23: they asked me do the eulogy.
[2:04:22] Speaker 8: I said, we'll take care of the funeral.
[2:04:24] Speaker 23: Tyler Perry called me and said, no, I'll take care
[2:04:26] Speaker 23: of it. So the thing that bothered me waning was prejudgment. Second,
[2:04:31] Speaker 23: the parents of the guys that were with him started
[2:04:34] Speaker 23: talking about they was gonna sue us for getting involved,
[2:04:38] Speaker 23: and sue.
[2:04:39] Speaker 8: I don't even know the kid's name.
[2:04:41] Speaker 23: So you can't say I to fame your son. I
[2:04:43] Speaker 23: don't know your son's name. But I will say this
[2:04:46] Speaker 23: on this stage. I want them to suit me first,
[2:04:50] Speaker 23: and I tell you why. No, I'll tell you why.
[2:04:55] Speaker 8: And National Action Network.
[2:04:56] Speaker 23: You cert the papers because I want to depose your
[2:05:00] Speaker 23: if you sue, the plaintiffs are deposed. So rather than
[2:05:06] Speaker 23: us depend on the Mississippi Da who's already had.
[2:05:09] Speaker 8: People saying it was no foul.
[2:05:11] Speaker 23: Let's go to civil court, any kind of court you
[2:05:14] Speaker 23: want to go to, because you can't make this make
[2:05:18] Speaker 23: sense and direct to your point at Tiffany, as I
[2:05:21] Speaker 23: said in the eulogy that I did, I don't know
[2:05:24] Speaker 23: what happened. The parents never said they knew what happened.
[2:05:28] Speaker 23: They never said it was racial racial. I don't know
[2:05:32] Speaker 23: it was racist, but they don't know it wasn't racist.
[2:05:35] Speaker 23: You don't know what happened, So why are you prejudging
[2:05:39] Speaker 23: it unless something is there you don't want out. Second
[2:05:43] Speaker 23: thing is you know And I said this to Elma
[2:05:47] Speaker 23: and Kristin. I had heard my knee. I had taught Maniska,
[2:05:54] Speaker 23: and when I taught, I told Ben the truth. I
[2:05:58] Speaker 23: did it working out one morning about told them I'd
[2:06:00] Speaker 23: got it because I was.
[2:06:01] Speaker 8: Underneaths praying too much.
[2:06:02] Speaker 23: But anyway, when they took me to say they may
[2:06:09] Speaker 23: have do surgery, the first thing they said is, well,
[2:06:12] Speaker 23: we got to get your medical history from your primary doctor.
[2:06:16] Speaker 8: I said, okay.
[2:06:18] Speaker 23: So I said in the eulogy that I don't know
[2:06:21] Speaker 23: what happened, but I got your history in Mississippi.
[2:06:25] Speaker 8: And the history tells me.
[2:06:27] Speaker 23: Black boy go out with three white kids, three white
[2:06:30] Speaker 23: kids come back.
[2:06:31] Speaker 8: There's a blurred stirring. What happened?
[2:06:33] Speaker 23: Now you're all hostile and all of them said didn't
[2:06:36] Speaker 23: have the keys, but.
[2:06:38] Speaker 4: Then you had the keys.
[2:06:39] Speaker 23: Some about this don't make sense given your history. And
[2:06:44] Speaker 23: I'm gonna stay on this until we find out what happened.
[2:06:48] Speaker 23: It may be nothing, but we're not gonna leave that
[2:06:50] Speaker 23: up to chance with people that are distorted.
[2:06:53] Speaker 8: We gonna stay on this case.
[2:06:56] Speaker 23: And lastly, lastly, since they want to talk about losses,
[2:07:02] Speaker 23: one of the things tying your morning together, Tiffany. They
[2:07:06] Speaker 23: may come back, as you suggested, playing right wing politics
[2:07:12] Speaker 23: with this, with the local prosecute, even with the federal people.
[2:07:17] Speaker 23: But if we have a change in January and there
[2:07:23] Speaker 23: is a democratic House, I said that if King becomes
[2:07:29] Speaker 23: the speaker, he needs to have the Chair Judiciary subpoened
[2:07:33] Speaker 23: them to the Judiciary Department testify.
[2:07:36] Speaker 8: Know that's what this vote means. We need to have
[2:07:39] Speaker 8: a check and balance of government so that we got
[2:07:43] Speaker 8: somewhere to go. We can't depend to go to Trump's
[2:07:45] Speaker 8: Justice Department.
[2:07:46] Speaker 23: So we need to really mobilize so people like these
[2:07:50] Speaker 23: two parents can protect their children.
[2:07:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel.
[2:07:59] Speaker 22: I think laid out to such a great example on
[2:08:01] Speaker 22: how the tentacles of white supremacy cast such a dark
[2:08:04] Speaker 22: shadow over almost every aspect of what your parents went through.
[2:08:08] Speaker 22: I know that there's so many more questions that I have,
[2:08:12] Speaker 22: and I'm sure the audience has, as all my broadcasters
[2:08:15] Speaker 22: know have an IFB and they've been telling me to
[2:08:17] Speaker 22: wrap for about ten minutes, but no, we wanted. It
[2:08:22] Speaker 22: was my pleasure to go over time, and not only
[2:08:24] Speaker 22: my pleasure, my responsibility to give you all a platform
[2:08:27] Speaker 22: to share your story.
[2:08:29] Speaker 4: I think it's so important and I think this is.
[2:08:30] Speaker 22: The responsibility that the black journalists in this room take
[2:08:33] Speaker 22: very seriously and will carry with them back to their
[2:08:36] Speaker 22: newsrooms where they may be the only or back to
[2:08:39] Speaker 22: their platforms where they are building reach or have a
[2:08:42] Speaker 22: wide reach. So I thank you all for sharing your
[2:08:45] Speaker 22: time and being so open. There will be a press conference.
[2:08:49] Speaker 22: There was an autopsy, a second autopsy that Ben Crump
[2:08:55] Speaker 22: initiated that I believe Colin Kaepernick helped to fund. There
[2:08:59] Speaker 22: were questions around that, and so please I encourage credential
[2:09:02] Speaker 22: media to please go to the press conference and the
[2:09:06] Speaker 22: access for.
[2:09:07] Speaker 4: Credential media will be on the inn ABJ app for
[2:09:11] Speaker 4: more information.
[2:09:12] Speaker 22: So I don't want you all to think I didn't
[2:09:13] Speaker 22: have more questions, but I passed the baton to you
[2:09:16] Speaker 22: all to go ask all the additional questions. And I
[2:09:19] Speaker 22: just want to thank all of you all sincerely for
[2:09:22] Speaker 22: being here, and I want to thank you in ABJ
[2:09:25] Speaker 22: for being such an attentive audience. Please welcome back to
[2:09:31] Speaker 22: the stage, n ABJ President Aaron Haynes, you want to
[2:09:37] Speaker 22: do photos.
[2:09:38] Speaker 2: You were so great.
[2:10:15] Speaker 4: The president here.
[2:10:16] Speaker 6: They hi for the wealthy, that occasion that we're here again.
[2:10:34] Speaker 24: I was just saying to my staff on the way,
[2:10:36] Speaker 24: and it's like this brings back so many vivid memories
[2:10:41] Speaker 24: for me and my own family, having lost Jordan to
[2:10:44] Speaker 24: unnecessary gun violence in November twenty twelve, Black Friday, simply
[2:10:49] Speaker 24: because he was black and playing loud music in his car.
[2:10:54] Speaker 24: And so here we are again today, here for the
[2:10:59] Speaker 24: law of another black young man in our community, and
[2:11:06] Speaker 24: we find ourselves asking the same questions, how did it happen?
[2:11:13] Speaker 4: Why did it happen?
[2:11:15] Speaker 24: This family stands here demanding answers. This family deserves answers.
[2:11:23] Speaker 24: I myself sought the same justice from my son Jordan
[2:11:27] Speaker 24: that they're seeking for theirs, and they deserve answers, and
[2:11:31] Speaker 24: they deserve justice, justice that should not be denied this family,
[2:11:39] Speaker 24: or should it ever be denied to any of our
[2:11:42] Speaker 24: children or lost loved ones.
[2:11:46] Speaker 10: As a member of.
[2:11:47] Speaker 24: The Congression of Black Caucus, I'm the second vice chair
[2:11:50] Speaker 24: of the Congression of Black Caucus. We are demanding a
[2:11:56] Speaker 24: full federal investigation Cash Bettel were, a full federal investigation
[2:12:02] Speaker 24: as to what has actually happened to Nolan Wells. We
[2:12:08] Speaker 24: want to make sure that every stone is unturned because
[2:12:13] Speaker 24: his life matters, all of our children's, in our families' lives.
[2:12:19] Speaker 4: Matter, and we must fight back.
[2:12:24] Speaker 6: We must stand up, and.
[2:12:26] Speaker 24: We must demand accountability for this family's loss.
[2:12:31] Speaker 4: We cannot turn a blind eye to what continues to.
[2:12:34] Speaker 10: Happen again and again and again.
[2:12:38] Speaker 24: That's the reason why I ran for Congress, to make
[2:12:42] Speaker 24: sure that we continue to put a face on what's
[2:12:46] Speaker 24: happening to our families and our communities. Every single day,
[2:12:52] Speaker 24: we must say Nolan's name, say his name, lived his name,
[2:13:02] Speaker 24: and as the national Black journalists of this country, you
[2:13:07] Speaker 24: have the ability to be able to lift this story
[2:13:12] Speaker 24: and not let it die we see over and over again,
[2:13:17] Speaker 24: these kinds of tragedies in our communities that continue to happen, and.
[2:13:23] Speaker 4: They make it to CNN, they make it to MSN.
[2:13:26] Speaker 24: Now, they make it to our local news for maybe
[2:13:30] Speaker 24: thirty days if that, and then the stories are gone
[2:13:37] Speaker 24: and the carnage is left with the families and the
[2:13:40] Speaker 24: communities that have lost someone that they love. So I
[2:13:46] Speaker 24: thank the National Black Journalists, Thank you for lifting this
[2:13:50] Speaker 24: family story.
[2:13:52] Speaker 6: Do not let it die.
[2:13:55] Speaker 24: Continue to say his name, continue to tell his story
[2:14:00] Speaker 24: because they deserve justice.
[2:14:02] Speaker 4: And it matters.
[2:14:03] Speaker 24: It mattered for me, It mattered for Trayvon, it mattered
[2:14:07] Speaker 24: for Eric Brown, it matters for all of our loved
[2:14:12] Speaker 24: ones that we have lost.
[2:14:20] Speaker 17: All right, now, do you want to go ahead and
[2:14:21] Speaker 17: get your NIXT references out of the way before we
[2:14:23] Speaker 17: get started or what ollie, y'all get it out of
[2:14:26] Speaker 17: your system right now before.
[2:14:27] Speaker 4: We get started.
[2:14:28] Speaker 8: One of blue skies.
[2:14:33] Speaker 17: Now, Also before we get started, I should note that
[2:14:35] Speaker 17: this audience can submit questions online. So what you want
[2:14:38] Speaker 17: to do is you want to look for the prompt
[2:14:40] Speaker 17: to do so on your nabj app. It's under the
[2:14:43] Speaker 17: Newsmaker Plenary event. Okay, all right, well, leader Jeffries, let's
[2:14:48] Speaker 17: get started now. You're about eighty two days out from
[2:14:51] Speaker 17: the midterm elections, which are going to decide which party
[2:14:54] Speaker 17: controls Congress. But today you're here with us in Atlanta, Georgia.
[2:14:58] Speaker 4: In a room full of black journalists. What is your
[2:15:01] Speaker 4: message to this audience in.
[2:15:03] Speaker 7: This moment, Well, good morning everyone, Thank you Eron for
[2:15:06] Speaker 7: your leadership, and nabj thank you for what you do.
[2:15:10] Speaker 7: This is a moment of peril, but a moment when
[2:15:14] Speaker 7: the press overall, and I think the black press in particular,
[2:15:19] Speaker 7: is needed your independence, your voice, your authenticity, and your
[2:15:25] Speaker 7: connection to the communities that you cover as well as
[2:15:29] Speaker 7: to the country. Our journey as African Americans, of course,
[2:15:33] Speaker 7: has been a freedom struggle from the very beginning, and
[2:15:36] Speaker 7: we've been on a long walk toward freedom with fits
[2:15:40] Speaker 7: and starts, with progress and backlash. That has been the
[2:15:44] Speaker 7: reality of our walk over the last two hundred and
[2:15:48] Speaker 7: fifty years. But every step of the way, the Black press,
[2:15:52] Speaker 7: in covering that journey authentically, has been an important part
[2:15:58] Speaker 7: of making sure that truth is being spoke into power.
[2:16:01] Speaker 8: And we need truth smoking into power now more than ever.
[2:16:04] Speaker 17: Yeah, and what do you see the role of black
[2:16:06] Speaker 17: journalists in doing that, especially with the truth being under
[2:16:09] Speaker 17: attack and under threat from the highest levels.
[2:16:11] Speaker 4: Of our government.
[2:16:12] Speaker 7: Well, in my view, what we're dealing with in terms
[2:16:15] Speaker 7: of the opposition right now is three diabolical elements. Facts
[2:16:21] Speaker 7: don't matter. Hypocrisy is not a constraint to their behavior.
[2:16:26] Speaker 7: These extremists will say one thing and then they'll do
[2:16:29] Speaker 7: the exact opposite. And I'm convinced that they believe that
[2:16:32] Speaker 7: shamelessness is a superpower. So when you're dealing with that
[2:16:37] Speaker 7: kind of adversary, or at least that kind of entity,
[2:16:42] Speaker 7: the Trump cartel sitting in the White House, highest office
[2:16:47] Speaker 7: in the land than being bought on, Boss unafraid in
[2:16:53] Speaker 7: terms of speaking truth to power in that regard is
[2:16:55] Speaker 7: going to be critically important.
[2:16:57] Speaker 8: Now.
[2:16:58] Speaker 7: I think the American people aren't buying what they're selling
[2:17:01] Speaker 7: because we've seen historic disapproval across almost every measure. Right,
[2:17:08] Speaker 7: that's general disapproval, that's the economy, certainly, that's healthcare, even
[2:17:13] Speaker 7: immigration enforcement, and certainly it's reckless and costly war of
[2:17:17] Speaker 7: choice in around.
[2:17:18] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[2:17:19] Speaker 17: Yeah, Well, I want to go back in time a
[2:17:21] Speaker 17: little bit, because when you came into Congress in twenty thirteen,
[2:17:23] Speaker 17: John Bayner was the House Speaker. Nancy Pelosi was in
[2:17:27] Speaker 17: your position now as Minority leader, and you were.
[2:17:29] Speaker 4: Forty four years old.
[2:17:30] Speaker 17: A lot of people saw you as a firebrand progressive
[2:17:32] Speaker 17: coming in with a lot of big ideas on criminal justice.
[2:17:35] Speaker 8: You think I was forty two but nothing, well.
[2:17:37] Speaker 17: You know, fact check me, economic opportunity, on generational change.
[2:17:42] Speaker 17: Do you recognize that progressive platform in what the progressive
[2:17:46] Speaker 17: wing of your party is fighting for now?
[2:17:48] Speaker 7: Yeah, I do think that we are an important moment
[2:17:51] Speaker 7: of generational change. And you know, I give a lot
[2:17:55] Speaker 7: of credit to Speaker Pelosi. You know, then majority with Cliveburn,
[2:18:02] Speaker 7: Majority Leader Hoyer, who in twenty twenty two decided that
[2:18:07] Speaker 7: they were going to voluntarily pass the baton to the
[2:18:12] Speaker 7: next generation of House Democrats across the board in leadership
[2:18:15] Speaker 7: and beyond. So that's a transition that, of course is
[2:18:18] Speaker 7: necessarily underway. And I've always thought about the House of
[2:18:23] Speaker 7: Representative it's a special institution. It's the institution that the
[2:18:27] Speaker 7: Framers decided to be the closest, wanted to be the
[2:18:30] Speaker 7: closest to the American people. Reflect the hopes, the dreams,
[2:18:33] Speaker 7: the aspirations, the fears that concerns, the anxieties, the life experiences,
[2:18:38] Speaker 7: and the passions of the American people. I think it
[2:18:40] Speaker 7: was Madison who said the House should be an intimate
[2:18:43] Speaker 7: sympathy at its best with the American people, and so
[2:18:48] Speaker 7: in order for that to happen, I think transition, change,
[2:18:53] Speaker 7: renewal will continue to be an important part of the story,
[2:18:57] Speaker 7: and that energy is being brought to the House in
[2:18:59] Speaker 7: a variety of different ways, including from our progressive members.
[2:19:03] Speaker 17: Yeah, I mean, I think we could see that with
[2:19:05] Speaker 17: these midterm elections in November. You've got the Democratic Socialists
[2:19:09] Speaker 17: of America DSA with several candidates who are on the
[2:19:11] Speaker 17: ballot headed into these midterm elections. Your thoughts on what
[2:19:16] Speaker 17: that energy, how that represents some of the change that
[2:19:19] Speaker 17: you are talking about that's happening in the progressive wing
[2:19:21] Speaker 17: of your party.
[2:19:22] Speaker 7: Yeah, so, I think we'll see what happens in terms
[2:19:25] Speaker 7: of what the caucus looks like on the other side
[2:19:28] Speaker 7: of the midterm election. Certainly, our focus right now is
[2:19:31] Speaker 7: making sure that we win as many seats as we
[2:19:33] Speaker 7: can in November, flip as many red seats blue, and
[2:19:38] Speaker 7: take the gavels back so we can actually function like
[2:19:40] Speaker 7: a check in balance on and out of control administration
[2:19:44] Speaker 7: as opposed to what Republicans have been doing, which is
[2:19:47] Speaker 7: a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump's extreme agenda, entirely
[2:19:51] Speaker 7: and consistent with the vision of the House of Representatives.
[2:19:55] Speaker 8: I mean, it was interesting.
[2:19:56] Speaker 7: King Charles, when he came to the Congress is joint
[2:20:00] Speaker 7: addressed to the House and to the Senate, stood there
[2:20:04] Speaker 7: as a king and referenced the Magna Carta as the
[2:20:08] Speaker 7: principle and foundation for the notion in America that executive
[2:20:13] Speaker 7: power is subject to.
[2:20:14] Speaker 8: Checks and balances.
[2:20:16] Speaker 7: And of course when he said that, everybody on the
[2:20:18] Speaker 7: House side, the Democratic side of the House, stood up
[2:20:22] Speaker 7: and gave him a rousing ovation.
[2:20:25] Speaker 8: But then I looked over to the other side.
[2:20:27] Speaker 7: Of the aisle, of the Republican side, and they stood
[2:20:29] Speaker 7: up and gave him a standing of ovation. And I
[2:20:34] Speaker 7: was very confused, y'all, because King Charles was talking about
[2:20:39] Speaker 7: them and their failure to actually bring to life this principle.
[2:20:44] Speaker 8: So we're going to do that.
[2:20:45] Speaker 7: That'll connect all House Democrats, whether those are New Dems,
[2:20:49] Speaker 7: progressives of blue dogs. But I think most importantly everybody
[2:20:53] Speaker 7: is focused on the notion that life is too expensive
[2:20:56] Speaker 7: in the United States of America. There's far too many people,
[2:21:00] Speaker 7: certainly this is the case in our community, in the
[2:21:02] Speaker 7: black community, who are working hard, they're playing by the rules,
[2:21:06] Speaker 7: but they can't thrive and they can barely survive. And
[2:21:09] Speaker 7: that's got to change. And so we have to make
[2:21:11] Speaker 7: life more affordable, more comfortable for the American people. And
[2:21:15] Speaker 7: that's what unites every part of the House Democratic Caucus.
[2:21:20] Speaker 17: Well, I will say there's one thing I want to
[2:21:22] Speaker 17: ask about, and that is AID for Israel, because that
[2:21:24] Speaker 17: may be one of the most contentious issues in your caucus.
[2:21:28] Speaker 4: Many members, including you, have.
[2:21:29] Speaker 17: Said that they want that aid to come with conditions.
[2:21:32] Speaker 17: But what do you say to others who want to
[2:21:34] Speaker 17: cut that aid off completely.
[2:21:36] Speaker 7: Well, I think that that's certainly a conversation that we're
[2:21:39] Speaker 7: going to have about what's the appropriate way to bring
[2:21:44] Speaker 7: to life. I think some principles that pretty much everybody
[2:21:48] Speaker 7: within the House Democratic Caucus and I think America agrees with.
[2:21:50] Speaker 7: The way I would articulate it is like this one.
[2:21:54] Speaker 7: You know, we believe in a safe and secure Israel
[2:21:58] Speaker 7: right or Israel's rights to exist as a Jewish and
[2:22:00] Speaker 7: democratic state. We also believe in an independent Palestinian state
[2:22:06] Speaker 7: that for far too long has been denied and that
[2:22:09] Speaker 7: should be able to provide dignity and self determination for
[2:22:13] Speaker 7: the Palestinian people. And then the question becomes, how do
[2:22:16] Speaker 7: you bring those two principles to life in a part
[2:22:20] Speaker 7: of the world that has been contested for thousands of years?
[2:22:23] Speaker 7: And I think what is clear in terms of what
[2:22:27] Speaker 7: needs to be done is that one, you've got to
[2:22:31] Speaker 7: reconstruct Gaza. You've got to allow new Palestinian leadership to emerge.
[2:22:37] Speaker 8: Hamas has got to be out.
[2:22:39] Speaker 7: You've got to figure out how you can economically invest
[2:22:43] Speaker 7: in Gaza and the West Bank in ways that allow
[2:22:47] Speaker 7: the Palestinian community to thrive on a pathway toward a
[2:22:52] Speaker 7: independent state. And then you've got to figure out how
[2:22:55] Speaker 7: to make sure that people who have been breaking the
[2:22:59] Speaker 7: law US law held accountable. And certainly that's the case
[2:23:02] Speaker 7: with respect the settle of violence in the West Bank
[2:23:04] Speaker 7: that's out of control.
[2:23:05] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[2:23:06] Speaker 17: Well, I want to stay on the DSA for a minute,
[2:23:08] Speaker 17: because they're pushing a lot of these progressive candidates, and
[2:23:13] Speaker 17: many of them are loud about getting big money out
[2:23:15] Speaker 17: of politics.
[2:23:16] Speaker 4: What do you make of that push? What is your
[2:23:18] Speaker 4: thought about that?
[2:23:19] Speaker 8: I think that we have to end Citizens United.
[2:23:23] Speaker 7: And one of the things there's been a series of
[2:23:26] Speaker 7: Supreme Court decisions that have eroded democracy in America. Ending
[2:23:33] Speaker 7: Citizens United was perhaps the first that came in twenty ten.
[2:23:37] Speaker 7: Then in twenty thirteen you had the Supreme Court and
[2:23:40] Speaker 7: the Shelby County case decimate Section five.
[2:23:46] Speaker 8: That was the initial attack.
[2:23:47] Speaker 7: On the Voting Rights Act, Decimate Section five of the
[2:23:50] Speaker 7: Voting Rights Act. Then a few years after that, you
[2:23:54] Speaker 7: had a Supreme Court declare that partisan jerry mandering is
[2:23:59] Speaker 7: all fair in the political sphere and that there's nothing
[2:24:05] Speaker 7: to prohibit it in the Constitution. And then you had
[2:24:08] Speaker 7: I think the final devastating two decisions most recently by
[2:24:13] Speaker 7: the Supreme Court, which is one, of course, completely gutting
[2:24:17] Speaker 7: the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five in the
[2:24:20] Speaker 7: most recent Calaid decision. And then the decision that I
[2:24:25] Speaker 7: think has unleashed this unprecedented corruption on the country is
[2:24:29] Speaker 7: in the Trump v. United States case where they gave
[2:24:31] Speaker 7: the president basically complete immunity as if he was a king.
[2:24:36] Speaker 7: So you have a series of systematic decisions going over
[2:24:40] Speaker 7: the last fifteen plus years that have really decimated sort
[2:24:45] Speaker 7: of our democratic fabric and we've got to unravel all
[2:24:48] Speaker 7: of it. But Citizens United, I think was the first
[2:24:53] Speaker 7: and we support full repeal of Citizens United. You can
[2:24:56] Speaker 7: only bring that about in two different ways, either a
[2:24:58] Speaker 7: constitution or amendment or change in the Supreme Court. I
[2:25:02] Speaker 7: think we're open to aggressively pursuing both.
[2:25:05] Speaker 4: Got it.
[2:25:06] Speaker 17: I want to let you all know you should still
[2:25:08] Speaker 17: for those of you who may have come in, please
[2:25:11] Speaker 17: you can ask questions. You can submit your questions by
[2:25:13] Speaker 17: using the app that is your nabj app.
[2:25:16] Speaker 4: You can go under.
[2:25:17] Speaker 17: Newsmaker Plenary and you can submit your questions. Keep those coming,
[2:25:20] Speaker 17: and we're going to try to get to some of
[2:25:22] Speaker 17: those in just a bit. So Leader jeffries, even if
[2:25:26] Speaker 17: your party wins back the majority in November, that won't
[2:25:29] Speaker 17: change the White House. President Trump will still be in office.
[2:25:33] Speaker 17: You've talked about your two sides, you know, seeing your
[2:25:35] Speaker 17: two sides. You talked about seeing the Democratic Party coming
[2:25:40] Speaker 17: together on the other side of November. But do you
[2:25:43] Speaker 17: see possibly Democrats and Republicans being able to come together
[2:25:46] Speaker 17: to accomplish anything substantial for the American people, And even
[2:25:51] Speaker 17: in this new climate, Yeah, I think.
[2:25:52] Speaker 7: We have to try anchored in the premise that Donald
[2:25:56] Speaker 7: Trump has broken every single promise that he's made to
[2:26:00] Speaker 7: the American people. Of consequence, he promised to lower costs
[2:26:05] Speaker 7: on day one, costs having gone down, courts have gone
[2:26:07] Speaker 7: up as a direct result of Trump policies, including his tariffs,
[2:26:12] Speaker 7: that have increased costs on everyday Americans, people in our
[2:26:15] Speaker 7: community and beyond, by thousands of dollars per year. He
[2:26:20] Speaker 7: promised that Immigration enforcement was going to target the worst
[2:26:25] Speaker 7: of the worst, but immigration enforcement has basically unleashed ice
[2:26:31] Speaker 7: brutality on American citizens like Alex Reddiett and remain a
[2:26:36] Speaker 7: cold good in those instances, killing them in cold blood,
[2:26:40] Speaker 7: and certainly ice brutality violently targeting law abiding immigrants all
[2:26:46] Speaker 7: across the country. I was just with several in New
[2:26:49] Speaker 7: Jersey connected to Delaney Hall earlier in this week. He
[2:26:53] Speaker 7: broke that promise. He promised to release the Epstein files.
[2:26:56] Speaker 7: Broke that promise. We forced a vote on the issue.
[2:27:00] Speaker 7: About half the files had been released, the other half
[2:27:03] Speaker 7: still being subjected to a cover up by the.
[2:27:05] Speaker 8: Department of Justice.
[2:27:07] Speaker 7: Donald Trump promised to love and cherish medicaid, then enacted
[2:27:12] Speaker 7: the largest cut to medicaid in American history. Costing about
[2:27:17] Speaker 7: fourteen million Americans their healthcare, and devastating hospitals, nursing homes,
[2:27:23] Speaker 7: and community based health clinics in our communities and in
[2:27:26] Speaker 7: rural America, the heartland of America and all across America.
[2:27:30] Speaker 7: And then lastly, of course, this guy promised that he
[2:27:34] Speaker 7: was in office not to start endless wars in the
[2:27:37] Speaker 7: Middle East, but to stop them, and it turned around
[2:27:40] Speaker 7: and got us involved in the reckless war of choice
[2:27:42] Speaker 7: in Iran. So he's broken every promise that he's made.
[2:27:46] Speaker 7: Now down the stretch, we've made clear to the American
[2:27:49] Speaker 7: people we're fighting for an affordable America, and we've said
[2:27:54] Speaker 7: that looks like three different things on costs, on care,
[2:27:58] Speaker 7: and then on corruption. On costs, we got to lower
[2:28:01] Speaker 7: the cost of groceries, of gasoline, of housing because life
[2:28:06] Speaker 7: is far too expensive. On healthcare, we've said, look, this
[2:28:10] Speaker 7: is the wealthiest country in the hystorial world. We've got
[2:28:12] Speaker 7: to make healthcare affordable for every single American and that's
[2:28:17] Speaker 7: our commitment, reverse the damage that's been done and then
[2:28:20] Speaker 7: build something better. And then on corruption, our view has
[2:28:24] Speaker 7: been I don't know that we'll get partnership on corruption,
[2:28:28] Speaker 7: but we'll try to seek some common sense Republicans, the
[2:28:32] Speaker 7: few that are left in Washington to work with us
[2:28:36] Speaker 7: on costs and on healthcare, but on corruption, We've said,
[2:28:39] Speaker 7: if you've got people in office who are focused primarily
[2:28:44] Speaker 7: and enriching themselves, their family, their friends, and their donors,
[2:28:49] Speaker 7: then they're not focused on making life more affordable for
[2:28:52] Speaker 7: the American people. And so from beginning on day one,
[2:28:55] Speaker 7: we're going to hold the crooks accountable. These are the
[2:28:58] Speaker 7: explicit purposes that we're making to the American people, and
[2:29:01] Speaker 7: we have a responsibility to try to bring that about.
[2:29:04] Speaker 7: And if we're in a divided government scenario, we can
[2:29:07] Speaker 7: do the accountability stuff in the majority on our own,
[2:29:11] Speaker 7: holding gavels and subpoena power, But in terms of actually
[2:29:16] Speaker 7: moving legislation that makes life better for the American people,
[2:29:19] Speaker 7: we'll need a handful of Republicans to join us. Now,
[2:29:23] Speaker 7: we've forced Republicans to join us in the House on
[2:29:26] Speaker 7: a variety of different issues, including extending the Affordable Care
[2:29:29] Speaker 7: Act tax credits for three years on our terms, force
[2:29:32] Speaker 7: that vote, and then won that vote in January. I
[2:29:35] Speaker 7: think in the majority we'll have the ability.
[2:29:38] Speaker 8: To do more.
[2:29:40] Speaker 2: Well.
[2:29:41] Speaker 17: I want to back up to before day one, and
[2:29:43] Speaker 17: think about the other side of the November election, because
[2:29:46] Speaker 17: you know, in twenty twenty, when you were able to
[2:29:49] Speaker 17: regain control, there was an insurrection at the US Capitol.
[2:29:52] Speaker 17: Are you concerned about possible backlash after the November election?
[2:29:56] Speaker 7: Well, I think we're operating under the premise that the
[2:30:01] Speaker 7: Trump administration and that Republicans have adopted voter suppression as
[2:30:07] Speaker 7: an electoral strategy, and they're going to do everything they
[2:30:10] Speaker 7: can to try to rig the election in their favor.
[2:30:13] Speaker 7: We've already seen that through the jerrymandering efforts, and then
[2:30:16] Speaker 7: the Supreme Court aided and embedded the Maggie extremists by
[2:30:20] Speaker 7: unleashing Jim Crow like tactics in the South. And you
[2:30:25] Speaker 7: know we've seen that now in Tennessee and in Louisiana
[2:30:29] Speaker 7: and in Alabama. Certainly in Alabama, SAMRII figures running hard
[2:30:34] Speaker 7: and I believe he's going to hold that seat, but
[2:30:37] Speaker 7: making it very difficult for the African American community to
[2:30:41] Speaker 7: elect the candidate of their choice in all three places.
[2:30:44] Speaker 7: Certainly that's the case in Tennessee and in Louisiana. With
[2:30:48] Speaker 7: Cleophield's deciding not to seek re election as a result,
[2:30:52] Speaker 7: of what has happened. So we're operating under the premise
[2:30:56] Speaker 7: that we've got to put together the largest voter protection
[2:30:59] Speaker 7: f in the history of the country.
[2:31:04] Speaker 8: And that's what we've been doing.
[2:31:05] Speaker 7: House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic Attorney
[2:31:11] Speaker 7: General's Association, the Democratic Secretaries of State Association, and then
[2:31:15] Speaker 7: working in concert with civil society, the faith community, civil
[2:31:20] Speaker 7: rights groups, organized labor as well as civil liberties groups
[2:31:24] Speaker 7: and good government groups. It will be the largest voter
[2:31:28] Speaker 7: protection effort in the history of the country. That's to
[2:31:31] Speaker 7: make sure that the right to vote is fully vindicated.
[2:31:35] Speaker 7: And the press is role in exposing these efforts and
[2:31:40] Speaker 7: the schemes that's coming from the other side. It is
[2:31:42] Speaker 7: going to be important so that the American people have
[2:31:44] Speaker 7: full visibility into what the other.
[2:31:47] Speaker 8: Side is trying to do.
[2:31:47] Speaker 7: They can't defend their record, and so they're going to
[2:31:51] Speaker 7: try to alter the landscape electorally, and we can't let
[2:31:54] Speaker 7: it happen.
[2:31:55] Speaker 4: Well, I mean, some of that coalition building.
[2:31:57] Speaker 17: Some of the concern I hear you voicing is that
[2:32:00] Speaker 17: becausin part you may be worried that the president could
[2:32:03] Speaker 17: declare a national emergency, as he has not ruled out
[2:32:06] Speaker 17: doing ahead of the twenty twenty sixth election.
[2:32:09] Speaker 7: Yeah, I think we've always viewed this as a three
[2:32:11] Speaker 7: dimensional battle, legislative battle, litigation battle, and then a battle
[2:32:17] Speaker 7: for the hearts and minds of the American people and
[2:32:20] Speaker 7: communities all across the country. And we got to be
[2:32:22] Speaker 7: able to do all three. And we have been doing
[2:32:26] Speaker 7: all three, and we've got to continue at the highest
[2:32:29] Speaker 7: level of vigilance in that regard less than anything as possible.
[2:32:32] Speaker 2: I was there.
[2:32:35] Speaker 8: On January sixth.
[2:32:38] Speaker 7: On the House floor, and I'll never forget that day,
[2:32:42] Speaker 7: and it's a day that no American should ever forget.
[2:32:45] Speaker 7: It was a violent insurrection, and I was seated in
[2:32:49] Speaker 7: the leadership section at the time, and I was the
[2:32:52] Speaker 7: number five Democrat, the chair the House Democratic Caucus at
[2:32:56] Speaker 7: the time, and there was a debate that was going on.
[2:33:00] Speaker 7: I think it was to certify the results from Arizona,
[2:33:03] Speaker 7: because we proceed in alphabetical order, and Sergeant at Arms
[2:33:08] Speaker 7: interrupts the debate and says, the mob.
[2:33:13] Speaker 8: Has breached the Capitol.
[2:33:15] Speaker 7: They're on the second floor, so everybody needs to be
[2:33:19] Speaker 7: prepared to hit.
[2:33:20] Speaker 8: The ground.
[2:33:23] Speaker 7: And secure the gas masks that are underneath your seats. Now,
[2:33:27] Speaker 7: I got to be honest, y'all. I was in Congress
[2:33:29] Speaker 7: at that point, a little over four terms. I had
[2:33:32] Speaker 7: no idea there were gas masks underneath each and every seaton.
[2:33:37] Speaker 7: Something to myself, Damn, this is a situation right now.
[2:33:41] Speaker 7: And you know, eventually we were all evacuated, and then
[2:33:48] Speaker 7: obviously we saw what unfolded.
[2:33:50] Speaker 8: And this was an intentional effort.
[2:33:55] Speaker 7: To halt the peaceful transfer of power, never before seen
[2:34:00] Speaker 7: in American history. And if it's happened before, it's Jim
[2:34:04] Speaker 7: Cliber and the great Jim Cliber and often says it
[2:34:06] Speaker 7: can happen again, and so.
[2:34:08] Speaker 8: We'll be prepared.
[2:34:10] Speaker 4: Well, what happens if you don't win?
[2:34:13] Speaker 8: Failure is not an option.
[2:34:16] Speaker 7: And look, if the Knicks just won the championship for
[2:34:18] Speaker 7: the first time in fifty three years, the Democratic comeback
[2:34:23] Speaker 7: can take place.
[2:34:27] Speaker 4: I set myself up for that one.
[2:34:32] Speaker 17: So look, you've got progressive saying they want leadership, Democratic
[2:34:35] Speaker 17: voters are saying they want a fighter.
[2:34:37] Speaker 4: How do you feel like you've earned their support?
[2:34:39] Speaker 7: Yeah, well, you know, I've been proud of the effort
[2:34:43] Speaker 7: that's been underway by House Democrats from the very beginning.
[2:34:47] Speaker 8: But it's not been easy.
[2:34:50] Speaker 7: It's been tough because the moment is tough for the
[2:34:54] Speaker 7: American people. And what I think we've talked about is
[2:34:57] Speaker 7: House Democrats is look, we have to continue.
[2:34:59] Speaker 8: To wretch where in a more is more environment.
[2:35:03] Speaker 7: And because of the unprecedented extremism being on leased on
[2:35:07] Speaker 7: the American people, we have to be in a position
[2:35:09] Speaker 7: to do more, and do more differently and do more creatively.
[2:35:15] Speaker 8: And that's what we've tried to do.
[2:35:16] Speaker 7: It's both stopping the extremism whenever aware of a possible
[2:35:23] Speaker 7: from being on leased on the American people, and then
[2:35:25] Speaker 7: articulating a forward vision for what we believe needs to
[2:35:29] Speaker 7: be done in this country, fighting for an affordable America,
[2:35:32] Speaker 7: holding the crooks accountable, affordability, accountability, cost care, corruption, and
[2:35:39] Speaker 7: I think after the twenty twenty four election, there were
[2:35:43] Speaker 7: a lot of people who were, understandably including Democrats, asking
[2:35:46] Speaker 7: the question, have has the party forgotten how to win?
[2:35:51] Speaker 7: This happened again and now we all have to deal
[2:35:54] Speaker 7: with the fallout from him coming back into office.
[2:35:59] Speaker 2: We have.
[2:36:01] Speaker 7: Shown collectively, and this is because of the American people
[2:36:05] Speaker 7: over the last eighteen plus months, is that we've won
[2:36:08] Speaker 7: every meaningful election up and down the ballot across the country,
[2:36:14] Speaker 7: at the local level, at the city level, at the
[2:36:18] Speaker 7: county level, and certainly at the state level. I think
[2:36:22] Speaker 7: there's something like thirty one legislative seats that have changed
[2:36:25] Speaker 7: hands over the last eighteen months. All thirty one of
[2:36:29] Speaker 7: those seats have been won by Democrats. Republicans haven't flipped
[2:36:32] Speaker 7: a single seat. And we've seen movements emerge and different
[2:36:38] Speaker 7: type of candidates get elected in New York City, in
[2:36:40] Speaker 7: New Jersey, in Virginia Prop fifty in California, across the board.
[2:36:45] Speaker 7: So I do think that we've turned the corner, but
[2:36:50] Speaker 7: we of course have to finish the job. And finishing
[2:36:55] Speaker 7: the job is not the November midterm elections. That's just
[2:36:59] Speaker 7: the beg beginning of the end.
[2:37:02] Speaker 8: It's not the end.
[2:37:03] Speaker 7: We can cut his presidency legislatively in half by winning
[2:37:08] Speaker 7: the midterm elections, and that's incredibly important, but then we'd
[2:37:12] Speaker 7: rather turn this situation around. And by the way, I
[2:37:14] Speaker 7: should just say this is not all political. We are
[2:37:18] Speaker 7: in a backlash moment and the people in this room
[2:37:23] Speaker 7: have been on the wrong side of that backlash, as
[2:37:27] Speaker 7: have many in our community across the country. But we're
[2:37:30] Speaker 7: in a backlash moment in America. And you know, we've
[2:37:35] Speaker 7: seen from the very beginning of our journey, whenever progress
[2:37:38] Speaker 7: is made in this country, it often triggers a backlash.
[2:37:43] Speaker 8: And we had the progress of.
[2:37:45] Speaker 7: Emancipation, the progress of reconstruction, and then after thirteen or
[2:37:50] Speaker 7: fourteen years, that progress is short circuited by a backlash
[2:37:54] Speaker 7: and the rise of Jim Crow, the rise of the KKK,
[2:37:59] Speaker 7: the lynching epidemic, Plessy versus Ferguson, And it takes almost
[2:38:04] Speaker 7: one hundred years to unravel that backlash. And then a
[2:38:07] Speaker 7: new generation emerges, civil rights heroes and foot soldiers to
[2:38:13] Speaker 7: usher in a new era of progress for our community
[2:38:17] Speaker 7: and for America through the civil rights legislation that was
[2:38:22] Speaker 7: Historic Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, Fairhousing Act, Great
[2:38:26] Speaker 7: Society Program that doctor King and others fought for, Medicare, Medicaid,
[2:38:31] Speaker 7: head Start, Immigration and Naturalization Act in nineteen sixty five,
[2:38:35] Speaker 7: things of that nature.
[2:38:37] Speaker 8: But then that immediately.
[2:38:41] Speaker 7: Is followed by a backlash with the election of Richard
[2:38:44] Speaker 7: Nixon in nineteen sixty eight, who ran on a platform
[2:38:49] Speaker 7: of capitalizing on the anxiety to all the progress that
[2:38:53] Speaker 7: had just been made, and then in his first term
[2:38:56] Speaker 7: declares a war on drugs, which is a war on us.
[2:39:01] Speaker 7: And when he declares drug abuse publican to be number
[2:39:04] Speaker 7: one in his first term in the summer of nineteen
[2:39:08] Speaker 7: seventy one, they're less than three hundred thousand people incarcerated
[2:39:12] Speaker 7: in America today about two point two million, disproportionately Black,
[2:39:20] Speaker 7: Latino or low income of every race. Progress followed by backlash,
[2:39:28] Speaker 7: and then you have what I believe was a third
[2:39:30] Speaker 7: moment of progress in this country, and that's the election
[2:39:35] Speaker 7: of Barack Obama.
[2:39:36] Speaker 8: Historic election.
[2:39:38] Speaker 7: Incredible thing for us to go from the outhouse to
[2:39:42] Speaker 7: the White House, and of course it represented significant progress
[2:39:47] Speaker 7: and some incredible things, including the Affordable Care Act.
[2:39:50] Speaker 8: Were accomplished.
[2:39:53] Speaker 7: And our children being able to look at a President Obama,
[2:39:58] Speaker 7: a first Lady Michelle Obama, that eloquence, their brilliance, their class,
[2:40:03] Speaker 7: their character. Of course Sashamalia and Grandma all being up
[2:40:07] Speaker 7: in the White House as well. What an incredible thing
[2:40:11] Speaker 7: that progress. But you remember many were asking the question
[2:40:15] Speaker 7: at the time, does this mean that America has now
[2:40:20] Speaker 7: entered into a post racial phase?
[2:40:24] Speaker 8: That's the question Roland remembers that was being asked at
[2:40:29] Speaker 8: the time.
[2:40:29] Speaker 7: Those of us who have studied history know that those
[2:40:33] Speaker 7: was meaningful progress. It also meant that it was about
[2:40:38] Speaker 7: to trigger a ferocious backlash. And that's exactly the moment
[2:40:44] Speaker 7: that we're in right now, and we've got to show
[2:40:47] Speaker 7: up with character and courage and conviction to get through it.
[2:40:50] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[2:40:51] Speaker 17: Well, I want to get to a couple of questions
[2:40:52] Speaker 17: from the audience if we can. You talked about the
[2:40:57] Speaker 17: Voting Right Tact. We've got a question asking why did
[2:41:02] Speaker 17: in Congress pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act between
[2:41:04] Speaker 17: twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three when it was
[2:41:06] Speaker 17: introduced and Democrats held majority in all three branches? And
[2:41:10] Speaker 17: if you all are victorious in November, should you be
[2:41:13] Speaker 17: the next speaker, would this be one of your first priorities.
[2:41:15] Speaker 8: Yeah.
[2:41:16] Speaker 7: Absolutely, I've said that publicly on the campaign trail, on
[2:41:19] Speaker 7: the Florida House and all across America.
[2:41:24] Speaker 8: And just a nuance to that question, the House did pass.
[2:41:30] Speaker 7: The John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act under the
[2:41:33] Speaker 7: leadership of Terry Sewell and the CBC, not once but twice.
[2:41:38] Speaker 7: We sent it over to the Senate, not once but twice,
[2:41:43] Speaker 7: including when we had the trifecta and Joe Biden was president,
[2:41:48] Speaker 7: and unfortunately you had two. Though we had fifty one Democrats,
[2:41:55] Speaker 7: there were two Democrats at the time. I guess they
[2:41:59] Speaker 7: may have been independents caucasin with the Democrats who chose
[2:42:06] Speaker 7: not to create an exception to the filibuster in order
[2:42:11] Speaker 7: to allow voting rights to be fully brought to life
[2:42:14] Speaker 7: in the United States of America.
[2:42:16] Speaker 2: And that was a mistake.
[2:42:18] Speaker 7: And what we've seen from the other side is that
[2:42:20] Speaker 7: when they have power, they use it, and so I
[2:42:24] Speaker 7: think one of the lessons has to be when we
[2:42:27] Speaker 7: have the ability to move forward and get meaningful things done,
[2:42:32] Speaker 7: we've got to use it. And President Obama, by the way,
[2:42:37] Speaker 7: here in Atlanta in twenty twenty, during John Lewis's funeral,
[2:42:44] Speaker 7: pointed out President Obama that the filibuster is a relic
[2:42:49] Speaker 7: of the past and needs to be reformed, and we
[2:42:54] Speaker 7: certainly support philibuster reform.
[2:42:57] Speaker 17: Well, talking about reform, we have another quoest question. It's
[2:43:00] Speaker 17: about the Supreme Court. You mentioned two ways that the
[2:43:04] Speaker 17: Supreme Court could be overhauled. Could you expand on that
[2:43:07] Speaker 17: and are Democrats prepared to take.
[2:43:09] Speaker 4: Action on that now?
[2:43:11] Speaker 7: And my view, dramatic Supreme Court reform is necessary, and
[2:43:19] Speaker 7: you know, I'm going to leave it to the Democrats
[2:43:21] Speaker 7: on the Judiciary Committee led by Jamie Raskin, who will
[2:43:26] Speaker 7: be the next chair. The American people give us the
[2:43:28] Speaker 7: ability to govern on their behalf in the majority, and
[2:43:33] Speaker 7: there's a variety of different options that are on the table,
[2:43:35] Speaker 7: and I think that we can't foreclose any single one
[2:43:38] Speaker 7: of them. The Supreme Court, the conservative right wing majority
[2:43:42] Speaker 7: on the Supreme Court has become, you know, basically a
[2:43:47] Speaker 7: subsidiary of the MAGA Republican Party.
[2:43:51] Speaker 8: That's what that decision in Calai said to me.
[2:43:53] Speaker 7: And then they turned around when a court in Alabama,
[2:43:59] Speaker 7: right judge panel in Alabama found that the new map
[2:44:06] Speaker 7: that Alabama Republicans wanted to put in place that would
[2:44:10] Speaker 7: gut the second black opportunity to elect district, the district
[2:44:15] Speaker 7: that Shamari figures now holds. That three judge panel said
[2:44:20] Speaker 7: that it was an attack, a racially motivated attack on
[2:44:27] Speaker 7: black voters in Alabama. One of those judges, I believe
[2:44:33] Speaker 7: was appointed by Ronald Reagan and the other two were
[2:44:36] Speaker 7: appointed by Donald Trump. If a three judge federal panel
[2:44:41] Speaker 7: appointed by Republican judges, two of whom were appointed by
[2:44:45] Speaker 7: the current president could conclude that that was a racially
[2:44:49] Speaker 7: motivated map attacking black voters, and then the Supreme Court
[2:44:53] Speaker 7: steps in and overturns that decision. It tells me that
[2:44:57] Speaker 7: they don't have the credibility for us to move forward
[2:45:00] Speaker 7: acting like everything is okay and the status quo is acceptable.
[2:45:04] Speaker 7: It's not, and we're going to push for dramatic perform
[2:45:07] Speaker 7: in the Supreme Court.
[2:45:09] Speaker 17: Well, Leader Jeffries, thank you again for coming here, being
[2:45:11] Speaker 17: with us, answering some of the questions from the black
[2:45:14] Speaker 17: journalists in the room and talking here with me.
[2:45:16] Speaker 8: Thank you. Eron, you got it.
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[2:47:06] Speaker 2: To double checks a couple of facts.
[2:47:08] Speaker 1: And so that's why I'm not gonna run.
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[2:48:23] Speaker 1: I'll see tomorrow right here rolling Martin unfiltered on the
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[2:48:28] Speaker 14: How

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