Speaker 1: We the people In the audio town hall with Vice
Speaker 1: President Kamala Harris in conversation with Charlemagne the God, live
Speaker 1: from Detroit, Michigan and exclusively on iHeartRadio. We'll tackle the
Speaker 1: tough questions, the pressing issues, and the future of our nation.
Speaker 1: Now here's your house, Charlemagne the God.
Speaker 2: Yes, peace of the planet. Charlamagne the God here with
Speaker 2: Madame Vice President Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: How are you very well, Charlemagne? How are you doing?
Speaker 2: Listen? We got twenty days in sixty minutes, so we
Speaker 2: just need to get to it.
Speaker 3: I'm with you all. It was twenty one day.
Speaker 2: How are you because you did just walk in.
Speaker 3: You was kind of la well, I try to be
Speaker 3: on time. Well apparently I'm forty seconds late.
Speaker 2: You're right, well, you are black. Now. You know one
Speaker 2: thing they've been saying, a lot of your press hits
Speaker 2: get criticized. You know, folks that you come off as
Speaker 2: a very scripted. They say you like to stick to
Speaker 2: your talking points, and some media says you have.
Speaker 3: That would be called disciplined.
Speaker 2: Ooh, okay, okay. Some people say you have an inability
Speaker 2: to fearlessly say who you are and what you believe.
Speaker 2: I know that's not true, But what do you say
Speaker 2: to that criticism? And is it fair for s and
Speaker 2: now to make fun of it?
Speaker 3: Hasn't Maya Rudolph been wonderful? Yes, I think I have
Speaker 3: nothing but admiration for the comedy, and I think it's
Speaker 3: important to be able to laugh at yourself and each
Speaker 3: other in the spirit of obviously comedy, and not belittling
Speaker 3: people as my opponent would do.
Speaker 2: But what do you say to people who say you
Speaker 2: stay on the talking points?
Speaker 3: I would say you're welcome. I mean, listen, here's the thing.
Speaker 3: I love having conversations, which is why I'm so happy
Speaker 3: to be with you this afternoon. And the reality is
Speaker 3: that there are certain things that must be repeated to
Speaker 3: ensure that I have everyone know what I stand for
Speaker 3: and the issues that I think are at stake in
Speaker 3: this election, and so it requires repetition. You know, some
Speaker 3: people say that until someone has heard the same thing
Speaker 3: at least three times, it just doesn't stay with you.
Speaker 3: So repetition is important. And for that reason, Yes, at
Speaker 3: my rallies, I say the same thing when I go
Speaker 3: to Detroit, as I do in Philly, as I do
Speaker 3: wherever I am. To make sure that people here and
Speaker 3: receive what I think are some of the most critical
Speaker 3: issues that are at taking the selection.
Speaker 2: There has to be a high level of anxiety too
Speaker 2: when you have these conversations, though, because you are running
Speaker 2: for president.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know what, there is certainly a lot
Speaker 3: of I feel the weight of the moment and my role.
Speaker 3: I feel an extraordinary weight of responsibility right now to
Speaker 3: do everything I can. I'm telling you, Charlemagne, when I
Speaker 3: go to bed at night, I I almost every night,
Speaker 3: in addition to my prayers, will ask have I done
Speaker 3: everything I could do?
Speaker 2: Today?
Speaker 3: This is a margin of era race. It's tight. I'm
Speaker 3: going to win. I'm going to win, but it's tight,
Speaker 3: and you know, what is at stake is truly profound
Speaker 3: in historics, many would say, and it's about you know,
Speaker 3: some people would say this lofty notion of supporting and
Speaker 3: preserving our democracy, but it is about real issues that
Speaker 3: affect people every day, like whether we're going to maintain
Speaker 3: a thirty five dollars cap on insulin for our seniors,
Speaker 3: whether we're going to continue to allow Medicare to negotiate
Speaker 3: drug prices to bring them down, whether we are going
Speaker 3: to have as my opponent would have a formalized stop
Speaker 3: and frisk policy, for which he has said if a
Speaker 3: police department does not do it, they should be defunded
Speaker 3: or not. There is so much at stake, whether America
Speaker 3: is going to stand on its principles around the importance
Speaker 3: of sovereignty and territorial integrity and stand with our allies
Speaker 3: around the world, or whether we're going to admire dictators
Speaker 3: and send during the height of COVID in the pandemic,
Speaker 3: COVID tests that nobody could get to the President of
Speaker 3: Russia for his personal use, when black people were dying
Speaker 3: every day by the hundreds during that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like that one has gone over people's head,
Speaker 2: the fact that he was sending COVID test to putin.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I invite, I don't your listeners,
Speaker 3: the people we know the number of people who lost
Speaker 3: their grandparents and parents, remember what that was like during
Speaker 3: the height of COVID and a lot of it. People
Speaker 3: were scrambling for the resources and needed tests. And Donald
Speaker 3: Trump during that time secretly sent COVID tests to the
Speaker 3: President of Russia, who, by the way, do not forget
Speaker 3: in the twenty sixteen election, because I was a member
Speaker 3: of the Senate Intelligence Committee when we investigated it targeted
Speaker 3: black voters in twenty sixteen with missing disinformation to discourage
Speaker 3: black people from voting in that election. And this is
Speaker 3: just another of the very many examples of who Donald
Speaker 3: Trump really is and the danger he presents. Yeah, real people.
Speaker 2: Sending COVID test to Russia. That doesn't sound very America
Speaker 2: first at all. But it's not just you versus Trump,
Speaker 2: is U versus misinformation. Yes, that's true, right, And one
Speaker 2: of the biggest pieces of misinformation. One of the biggest
Speaker 2: allegations against you is that you targeted and locked up
Speaker 2: thousands of black men in San Francisco for weed. Some
Speaker 2: say you did it to bus your careers, some say
Speaker 2: you did it out of pure hate for black men.
Speaker 2: Please tell us the facts. What's the facts of that situation.
Speaker 3: It's just simply not true. And what public defenders who
Speaker 3: are around those days will tell you. I was the
Speaker 3: most progressive prosecutor in California on marijuana cases and would
Speaker 3: not send people to jail for simple possession of weed.
Speaker 3: And as Vice President, have been a champion for bringing
Speaker 3: marijuana down on the schedule so instead of it being
Speaker 3: ranked up there with heroin. We bring it down, and
Speaker 3: my pledge is, as president, I will work on decriminalizing
Speaker 3: it because I know exactly how those laws have been
Speaker 3: used to disproportionately impact certain populations and specifically black men.
Speaker 2: Before we get into the talk back feature and take
Speaker 2: some questions from the audience, I do want to talk
Speaker 2: to you about the legalization the weed, because you're saying
Speaker 2: you want to legalize it. Now, what steps did the
Speaker 2: Biden administration take to get closer to that reality?
Speaker 3: So we had to work with the DA and it's
Speaker 3: there's a certain level of bureaucracy that exists in the
Speaker 3: federal government that slows things down. But essentially to bring
Speaker 3: down how weed's classified, how marijuana is classified, to make
Speaker 3: it classified as a lesser harm and so that took
Speaker 3: some time. There's a whole process around that. But that's
Speaker 3: the work that we have done, in addition to work
Speaker 3: that we have done writ large on criminal justice reform.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take some calls. Let's take some when I call,
Speaker 2: let's go to the talkback feature.
Speaker 4: My question for Kamala is why are we and I
Speaker 4: say we because my tax dollars is sending the money.
Speaker 4: Why are we sending money to other countries when we
Speaker 4: desperately need in our own country for homeless housing resources
Speaker 4: for whatever. That is my determining factor if I vote
Speaker 4: were COMMA or not.
Speaker 2: That's one of the reasons the America for US rhetoric
Speaker 2: resonates because nobody in America would complain about where money
Speaker 2: was going if American citizens every day needs were being met.
Speaker 2: So what do you say to.
Speaker 3: That we can do it all? And we do so.
Speaker 3: First of all, I maintained very strongly America should never
Speaker 3: pull ourselves away from our responsibility as a world leader,
Speaker 3: and that is in the best interest of our national
Speaker 3: security in each one of us as Americans, and our
Speaker 3: standing in the world. That being said, we also have
Speaker 3: an obligation to American citizens obviously and people who are
Speaker 3: here to meet their everyday needs and challenges, which is why,
Speaker 3: for example, we have done the work in the last
Speaker 3: four years of bringing down the cost of prescription medication,
Speaker 3: whether it be thirty five dollars a month for seniors
Speaker 3: for insulin or two thousand dollars a year cap on
Speaker 3: prescription medication. What we have done that has been about
Speaker 3: putting seventeen billion dollars in our HBCUs. I am proud
Speaker 3: to be the first HBCU Vice President of the United States.
Speaker 3: I intend to be the first HBCU President of the
Speaker 3: United States. Those resources are about sending them to centers
Speaker 3: of academic excellence that I know them to be. The
Speaker 3: work that I continue to do is about increasing access
Speaker 3: to capital for our small businesses. It is about increasing
Speaker 3: the opportunity for home ownership. Knowing that Black people are
Speaker 3: forty percent less likely to be homeowners in America. We
Speaker 3: have a history of legal and procedural obstacles to that
Speaker 3: home ownership, starting with the fact nobody got forty acres
Speaker 3: in a mule, to redlining, to issues that this Detroit
Speaker 3: area and people around the country know to be real.
Speaker 3: So part of my plan is that we're going to
Speaker 3: give people a twenty five thousand dollars down payment assistance
Speaker 3: to get their foot in the door to buy a
Speaker 3: home for first time home buyers. The work that I'm
Speaker 3: going to do to increase housing supply in America, knowing
Speaker 3: that that's one of the reasons that rents and housing
Speaker 3: prices are jacked up, and to work with the private sector,
Speaker 3: cut through the red tape and work to build more
Speaker 3: housing three million before the end of my first term.
Speaker 3: And I give these examples, and there are many more
Speaker 3: which I will offer. So, for example, the work that
Speaker 3: I will do to extend the child tax credit to
Speaker 3: six thousand dollars for young families during the first year
Speaker 3: of their child's life. Because, as you and I both know,
Speaker 3: our families all have a natural desire to parent their
Speaker 3: children well, but not always the resources. So by expanding
Speaker 3: the child tax credit to the first year of child's
Speaker 3: life to six thousand dollars, that gives that young family
Speaker 3: the ability to buy a car seat, or a crib
Speaker 3: or clothes, the things that are so important during that
Speaker 3: critical phase of that child's development, so that they can
Speaker 3: get on the road and add actually have a chance
Speaker 3: at succeeding.
Speaker 2: You know, you said we can do it all, but
Speaker 2: can we because you know Tupac famously said, you know,
Speaker 2: we got money for war, but can't feed the poor, right,
Speaker 2: And I saw President Obama say last week that you know,
Speaker 2: you really shouldn't expect, you know, a president to rid
Speaker 2: the world of all of its problems. So is it
Speaker 2: fair to tell people, hey, we can do it all,
Speaker 2: Because that's when people get disappointed when things don't happen.
Speaker 3: But I think President Obama is absolutely correct. But it
Speaker 3: doesn't mean we can't do anything that's right. So when
Speaker 3: I talk about extending the child tax credit, as when
Speaker 3: I was Vice president, I pushed that we would do
Speaker 3: it during our first year, and we reduced child black
Speaker 3: child poverty in America by fifty percent. We did that.
Speaker 3: We can do that. My plan that is about building
Speaker 3: up home ownership in the black community, we can do that.
Speaker 3: My work that has been about increasing access to capital,
Speaker 3: bringing billions more dollars into our community banks, which I've
Speaker 3: done as Vice president through cooperation and partnership with some
Speaker 3: of the big banks and tech companies to get more
Speaker 3: access to capital for our entrepreneurs, for our businesses. We've
Speaker 3: done that. So we should never sit back and say, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to vote because everything hasn't been solved.
Speaker 3: I share a desire that everything should be solved by
Speaker 3: the way I think it is what we should all want,
Speaker 3: but that that shouldn't stand in the way of us.
Speaker 3: Also known we can participate in a process that's about
Speaker 3: improving things. And by voting in this election, you have
Speaker 3: two choices, or you don't vote, but you have two
Speaker 3: choices if you do. And it's two very different visions
Speaker 3: for our nation. One mind that is about taking us
Speaker 3: forward and progress and investing the American people, investing in
Speaker 3: their ambitions, dealing with their challenges. And the other Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: is about taking us backward.
Speaker 2: The other is about fascism.
Speaker 3: Why can't we just say it, yes, we can't say that.
Speaker 2: A Reverend Solomon can Locke Jr. I want you to
Speaker 2: meet him. He is the senior pastor of Triumph Church.
Speaker 5: Luck.
Speaker 2: Oh, he's here on tell secret service, move out the way.
Speaker 2: It's okay, it's just the reverend. All right, what's up? Reverend?
Speaker 6: Madam Vice President Charlemagne, thank y'all for being in Detroit tonight.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Recently, a Madam Vice President by one of Trump's surrogates
Speaker 6: from the black faith based community, you've been criticized by
Speaker 6: him and others for your lack of engagement to the
Speaker 6: Black church. Knowing that the black church is an unrivaled
Speaker 6: place in the heart of black people.
Speaker 2: What could you speak to.
Speaker 6: As it relates to a future a Harris administration, how
Speaker 6: you would partner with the Black church to address some
Speaker 6: of the urgent needs of the black community. Doctor King
Speaker 6: talked about a fierce urgency of right now and as
Speaker 6: a church, Triumph Church is in that place.
Speaker 3: So first of all, that allegation, of course, is coming
Speaker 3: from the Trump team because they are full of missing disinformation,
Speaker 3: because they are trying to disconnect me from the people
Speaker 3: I have worked with and that I am from, so
Speaker 3: that they can try and have some advantage in this election,
Speaker 3: because otherwise they have nothing to run on. I grew
Speaker 3: up in the black church I grew up. I grew
Speaker 3: up attending twenty third Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California.
Speaker 3: Yes church, Yes, that is church. My pastor is Amos C. Brown,
Speaker 3: a third Baptist church in San Francisco, California. Yes, I
Speaker 3: have throughout my career and as vice president and recently
Speaker 3: been actively engaged in the church and church leaders, not
Speaker 3: only so we can share in fellowship, but so we
Speaker 3: can share in what we can do together. That is
Speaker 3: about supporting the community, the strength of the community, the
Speaker 3: cohesion of the community, and it is my long standing
Speaker 3: work and therefore my pledge going forward, I will always
Speaker 3: closely with the church because I understand who our church
Speaker 3: leaders are and who the congregation is we are talking
Speaker 3: about people who are driven by faith and the ability
Speaker 3: to see what is possible by faith. Where I was
Speaker 3: raised and I know many of us were understanding that
Speaker 3: our God is a loving God, that our faith propels
Speaker 3: us to act in a way that is about kindness
Speaker 3: and justice and mercy, that is about lifting one another up.
Speaker 3: And let's talk about the contrast here. Donald Trump and
Speaker 3: his followers spend full time trying to suggest that the
Speaker 3: measure of the strength of a leader is based on
Speaker 3: who you beat down, which is absolutely contrary to the church.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: He sells bibles though, where our.
Speaker 3: Church and my church is about saying true leadership, the
Speaker 3: measure of that is based on who you lift up
Speaker 3: and right, and then he's selling sixty dollars bibles or
Speaker 3: tennis shoes as and and trying to play people as
Speaker 3: though that makes him more understanding of the black community.
Speaker 3: Come on good every day, all the time.
Speaker 2: There you go to make sure you get that right. Now.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the clip, Madam Vice President from the Grill.
Speaker 2: It's it's a clip that's kind of out of context
Speaker 2: and it says that you won't do anything specifically for
Speaker 2: black people. Have you seen that I've not seen that.
Speaker 2: It's a clip that has you saying that you're not
Speaker 2: going to do anything specifically for black people.
Speaker 3: Well, that's just not true. And listen again, you said
Speaker 3: it at the beginning of this visit Charlemagne. One of
Speaker 3: the biggest challenges that I face is missing disinformation, and
Speaker 3: it's purposeful because it is meant to convince people that
Speaker 3: they somehow should not believe that the work that I
Speaker 3: have done has has occurred and has meaning. My work
Speaker 3: from the beginning of my career through today has been about,
Speaker 3: for example, we've talked about it, whether it be on HBCUs,
Speaker 3: whether it be on healthcare, black maternal mortality. I am, singularly,
Speaker 3: many would say, one of the highest level leaders in
Speaker 3: our country to bring the issue black maternal mortality to
Speaker 3: the stage of the White House to address it. The
Speaker 3: work that I've done that has been about focusing on
Speaker 3: my knowledge and my experience in my life, experience of
Speaker 3: knowing the entrepreneurship that we have in the community, the ambition,
Speaker 3: the aspirations, the dreams, and then tapping into that so
Speaker 3: that not only has my work been about ensuring that
Speaker 3: we have some of the lowest black unemployment ever in
Speaker 3: our country. But that also knowing that that should be
Speaker 3: a baseline, that everybody has a job, and what we
Speaker 3: should be invested in is also building wealth in the
Speaker 3: community and intergenerational wealth. And I have many, many examples
Speaker 3: of that. But again, part of the challenge that I
Speaker 3: face is that they are trying to scare people away
Speaker 3: because they know they otherwise have nothing to run on.
Speaker 3: Ask Donald Trump what his plan is for Black America.
Speaker 3: Ask him what you know. I'll tell you what it is.
Speaker 3: Look at Project twenty twenty five. Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: tells you The plan includes making police departments have stopping
Speaker 3: frisk policies. The plan includes making it more difficult for
Speaker 3: workers to receive overtime pay. The plan includes ending the
Speaker 3: ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices. You know what
Speaker 3: we have done, he said he would. We did, which
Speaker 3: means that that's how we brought down the cost of
Speaker 3: prescription medication. His plan includes making it more difficult for
Speaker 3: working people to get by and to destroy our democracy.
Speaker 3: You know what he says he'll do, terminate the Constitution
Speaker 3: in the United States. Let me remind folks, you know
Speaker 3: what's in the Constitution of United States, the Fourth Amendment,
Speaker 3: which protects you against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth Amendment,
Speaker 3: the Sixth Amendment, the fourteenth Amendment, and he's going to
Speaker 3: terminate the Constitution of the United States, which in most
Speaker 3: of those amendments, one thing or another was about a
Speaker 3: movement spurred by black people to ensure that we would
Speaker 3: be equally protected under the law.
Speaker 2: Come on, let's take a question from talking about HI.
Speaker 7: My name is Joshua Fisher, aged thirty one years old,
Speaker 7: African American male from Las Vegas, Nevada. I'd like to
Speaker 7: ask Madam Vice President what laws does she have planned
Speaker 7: to make sure that there's a stop to police brutality
Speaker 7: and murders that have been going on viciously.
Speaker 3: So again, the work that I have done through my
Speaker 3: career and the most recently, even when I was in
Speaker 3: the United States Senate to help write the George Floyd
Speaker 3: Justice and Policing Act, Cory Booker and I work very
Speaker 3: closely on that.
Speaker 2: Could you tell people why that didn't pass? To get
Speaker 2: folks a quick civic.
Speaker 3: Plus, we couldn't get the votes in Congress. There's a
Speaker 3: clip somewhere of me fighting with a Republican Center senator
Speaker 3: to actually write to actually get it passed. We couldn't
Speaker 3: get it passed. But what we did when we came
Speaker 3: in office and during the time that I've been Vice president,
Speaker 3: is we passed an executive order. So whereas we were
Speaker 3: trying and I have been trying to make these things
Speaker 3: national so that everyone would have to do it, an
Speaker 3: executive order by the President in our administration says that
Speaker 3: for federal law enforcement, the following things have to happen,
Speaker 3: which we for the first time put in place no
Speaker 3: knock warrants, barring chokeholds, a national database. Now it's for
Speaker 3: federal law enforcement, but a national database for us to
Speaker 3: collect information and track police officers who have broken the law.
Speaker 3: And this is no small issue, this piece in addition
Speaker 3: everything else, because as we know, we've seen plenty of
Speaker 3: examples of a police officer who committed misconduct and one
Speaker 3: jurisdiction and then goes to another jurisdiction and gets hired
Speaker 3: because there's no place that's tracking their misconduct. So these
Speaker 3: are the sum of the things that we've done. And
Speaker 3: then listen, I'm still going to always work on getting
Speaker 3: the Judge George Floyd Justice and Policing Act.
Speaker 1: PACK.
Speaker 3: Part of the work that I'm doing as a candidate
Speaker 3: for President of the United States includes lifting up those
Speaker 3: candidates who are running either for reelection or for the
Speaker 3: first time to Congress, who are supportive of what we
Speaker 3: need to do on all of the issues we've been discussing,
Speaker 3: whether it be freedom to vote in passing the John
Speaker 3: Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, whether it be freedom to
Speaker 3: make decisions about your own body, whether it be the
Speaker 3: freedom to just be and be free from any brutality,
Speaker 3: including police brutality when and where it occurs.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of the frustration comes from people
Speaker 2: who will say, sometimes politicians volunteer lives because you know, yes,
Speaker 2: it's great to try to pass the George Floyd Policing Act,
Speaker 2: but you probably know you can't get the vote. So
Speaker 2: why push that? Why push that on people?
Speaker 3: I don't I don't subscribe to that approach, And I'm
Speaker 3: going to tell you why. Look, it took a long
Speaker 3: time for the Voting Rights Act to get done. It
Speaker 3: took you know, it took the brutality of of of
Speaker 3: what happened when when John Lewis and all those were
Speaker 3: trying to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge. It took it
Speaker 3: took a lot of work over our history to do
Speaker 3: what we have accomplished thus far, and we have to
Speaker 3: remain committed.
Speaker 2: How do you convince Republican centers, as you just said, but.
Speaker 3: But well, part of it is that their constituents are
Speaker 3: part of this. I mean, we have plenty of folks
Speaker 3: who want this, who live in districts where they serve.
Speaker 3: And this is the point. This gets back to the
Speaker 3: earlier point about you can't let anybody take you out
Speaker 3: of the game by not voting. You got the solutions,
Speaker 3: And maybe this is the point you're making about what
Speaker 3: President Obama's The solutions are not going to happen just overnight,
Speaker 3: and the solutions that we all want are not going
Speaker 3: to happen in totality because of one election. But here's
Speaker 3: the thing. The things that we want and are prepared
Speaker 3: to fight for won't happen if we're not active, and
Speaker 3: if we don't participate, we cannot allow circumstances to take
Speaker 3: us out the game. Because then basically what we're saying
Speaker 3: is all those people who are obstructionists who are standing
Speaker 3: in the way of change. They're winning because they're convincing
Speaker 3: people that it can't be done. So take yourself out,
Speaker 3: don't participate. Look at that circle, look at that vicious
Speaker 3: circle then, so let's not fall for it.
Speaker 2: Zeke. This is my man, is Zeke. He's the president
Speaker 2: and CEO of New Era Detroit. He wants to talk
Speaker 2: to you about your blackmail agenda for the black community,
Speaker 2: just your agenda for the black community period. Zeke, what's up? Brother?
Speaker 2: What up?
Speaker 4: Do?
Speaker 2: What up do?
Speaker 8: Madam Vice Prayerident Charlotte Magne the God what up? Don't
Speaker 8: Welcome to Detroit. I like to say the real Detroit
Speaker 8: because I'm up in here. My name is Zeke Newer,
Speaker 8: founder and CEO. I've worked on the ground here in
Speaker 8: Detroit and the black communities all across the country for
Speaker 8: over the past ten years. Actually celebrating our tenth year
Speaker 8: this past August. In my ten years of organizing, we
Speaker 8: played a major role in the resurgence of pride and
Speaker 8: the change of mindset in Detroit neighborhoods across the city.
Speaker 8: We are not only known for the work that we
Speaker 8: do here in Detroit, but across the country and black communities.
Speaker 8: I'm having worked in over thirty five cities of the
Speaker 8: blackest cities in America. I'm saying all that to say
Speaker 8: I'm extremely qualified to sit in front of the current
Speaker 8: vice president and which can be the next president of
Speaker 8: the United States of America. As I opposed my question
Speaker 8: to you, I would first like to make it known
Speaker 8: that I don't have any emotional connections to politicians. I
Speaker 8: believe that this is one of our biggest flaws in
Speaker 8: the current political process. I view politics as a business,
Speaker 8: and America is one of the biggest corporations in the world.
Speaker 8: With that being said, I'm here on behalf of the
Speaker 8: business of the black community. With all that Black Americans
Speaker 8: have been through and contribute to the success of America,
Speaker 8: I feel that there should be an in depth investigation
Speaker 8: or evaluation of the lack of resources and current living
Speaker 8: conditions in black communities nationwide. My caution to you is
Speaker 8: what's your stance on reparations. We all know that America
Speaker 8: became great, you know, off the backs of free black labor.
Speaker 8: How progressive are you on making it a priority and
Speaker 8: right in America's wrongs. It's understood that you are running
Speaker 8: for president for all people of America, asking for specifics
Speaker 8: for black communities, doesn't mean don't do for others. But
Speaker 8: Black Americans are heavily asked to vote Democrat in every
Speaker 8: election for over half a century, with very little in return.
Speaker 8: What are your plans to address these very important issues
Speaker 8: and change that narrative?
Speaker 2: Make you, Zeke?
Speaker 3: I appreciate that, thank you, and thank you for your work.
Speaker 3: So to your point, yes, I am running to be
Speaker 3: a president for all Americans. That being said, I do
Speaker 3: have clear eyes about the disparities that exist and the
Speaker 3: context in which they exist, meaning history. To your point,
Speaker 3: so my agenda, well, first of all, on the point
Speaker 3: of reparations, it has to be studied, There's no question
Speaker 3: about that, and I've been very clear about that position.
Speaker 3: In terms of my immediate plan, I will tell you
Speaker 3: a few of the following one as it relates to
Speaker 3: the economy, which is a lot of what you have addressed. Look,
Speaker 3: I grew up in the middle class. My mother, you know,
Speaker 3: worked hard, raised me and my sister, and by the
Speaker 3: time I was in high school, she was able to
Speaker 3: afford our first home. I know what it means for
Speaker 3: an individual and a family to have home ownership. I
Speaker 3: also know in the context of history. Nobody got forty
Speaker 3: acres and a mule. We have a history of a
Speaker 3: number of things, including redlining. Detroit knows it well, a
Speaker 3: history of, for example, something that still exists that I've
Speaker 3: worked on to address, which is racial bias and home appraisals.
Speaker 3: And we know home ownership is Black families are forty
Speaker 3: percent less likely to be homeowners than others, and that
Speaker 3: home ownership is one of the surest ways to build
Speaker 3: intergenerational wealth. Right because when you own a home, that's
Speaker 3: when if your child says, Daddy, I want to go
Speaker 3: to college, you can say, sweetheart, don't have to take
Speaker 3: out a loan. I'll take some equity out of the house.
Speaker 3: Or if your child says I want to start a
Speaker 3: same a small business, same point. Right. So my includes
Speaker 3: making sure that for first time home buyers they have
Speaker 3: a twenty five thousand dollars down payment assistance to just
Speaker 3: get their foot in the door, because we know folks
Speaker 3: will work hard, they'll save and pay that monthly mortgage.
Speaker 3: Second point is to bring down the cost of housing generally,
Speaker 3: because one of the issues is we have a housing
Speaker 3: supply shortage, and so that's about working with the private
Speaker 3: section in terms of our small businesses, which are part
Speaker 3: of the backbone of the economy of the Black community
Speaker 3: and part of the backbone of America's economy. Writ large.
Speaker 3: My second mother, woman who helped raise us, was a
Speaker 3: small business owner. I know who our small business owners are,
Speaker 3: and I have convened black small business owners way before
Speaker 3: I was running for president in my official office at
Speaker 3: the White House, to talk with young entrepreneurs, mostly young
Speaker 3: about the work that they are doing that is about
Speaker 3: clean energy, work, technology, as well as the traditional you know,
Speaker 3: whether it be a barbershop or arrest. One of the
Speaker 3: big issues facing black entrepreneurs and black small businesses is
Speaker 3: access to capital. Because unlike my opponent who got handed
Speaker 3: four hundred million dollars on a silver platter and then
Speaker 3: file bankruptcy six times, don't forget that calls himself a businessman,
Speaker 3: not everybody has access to the capital they But we
Speaker 3: know in the community we do not lack for ambition, aspirations, dreams,
Speaker 3: hard work, ethic and so my work has been as
Speaker 3: vice president to increase billions of dollars into community banks,
Speaker 3: and as vice president, part of that work will also
Speaker 3: be to change the tax deduction for startup small businesses
Speaker 3: from five thousand dollars to fifty thousand dollars because nobody
Speaker 3: can start a small business on five thousand dollars, and
Speaker 3: if you don't otherwise have intergenerational wealth, how are you
Speaker 3: going to be able to do it? Second point on
Speaker 3: small business is this I'm going to do. Basically, it's
Speaker 3: a program that is about a twenty thousand dollars unrefundable
Speaker 3: loan to a certain to basically businesses that don't have
Speaker 3: access to wealth and don't have those relationships, which is
Speaker 3: going to directly impact a lot of small, black owned
Speaker 3: small businesses. That twenty thousand dollars non refundable loan is
Speaker 3: what would help somebody if they need to buy equipment,
Speaker 3: right if they need to buy an extra chalk, depending
Speaker 3: on what that business is, which we know that's a
Speaker 3: big part of what holds back our small businesses, just
Speaker 3: having enough capital to actually pay for the things that
Speaker 3: allow you to then put your hard work into play
Speaker 3: to actually grow your business. The other piece, and this
Speaker 3: is something that is critically important, is to see black
Speaker 3: folks and in particular black men, as a whole human
Speaker 3: being and understand that we are talking about sons. We
Speaker 3: are talking about fathers, we are talking about grandsons, we're
Speaker 3: talking about grandparents, we're talking about uncles. And so I
Speaker 3: say that as a preface to say to other things,
Speaker 3: and then I'll keep going one to deal with. I
Speaker 3: mean you like that, you got that. To deal with
Speaker 3: health care for black people and black men in particular,
Speaker 3: we know that we still have a lot of work
Speaker 3: to do to increase, for example, the high risks that
Speaker 3: we have for calling cancer for prostate cancer right, and
Speaker 3: to increase screenings and to make sure that people are
Speaker 3: actually going to get the screenings, not to mention the
Speaker 3: higher risk for sickle cell. So part of my agenda
Speaker 3: is about what we will do to deal with and
Speaker 3: highlight what we've got to do to focus on black
Speaker 3: men's health. And then a similar point is this of
Speaker 3: caregivers are men, and we know culturally we take care
Speaker 3: of our elders, and we have a lot of men
Speaker 3: in the community who are in the Sandwich generation who
Speaker 3: are trying to take care of their young kink kids
Speaker 3: and take care of an elder parent or relative. And
Speaker 3: it's overwhelming for people to be able to do both,
Speaker 3: and a lot of people have to end up thinking
Speaker 3: about leaving their job to just do it. So my
Speaker 3: plan is this one. In order for people to then
Speaker 3: afford assistance for hiring health care home health care, they
Speaker 3: basically have to go broke to be eligible for Medicaid.
Speaker 3: My plan is this, let's have Medicare, and this is
Speaker 3: I've mapped it out and we can make it work.
Speaker 3: Medicare cover the cost of home health care for seniors,
Speaker 3: which means that you are looking at individuals in the
Speaker 3: context of their whole family. Because what we know is
Speaker 3: again understanding culture, understanding the reality lots of people are
Speaker 3: having to leave work in order to do that. So
Speaker 3: these are some examples of my agenda, and overall, it
Speaker 3: is an agenda that understands, by the way, because we've
Speaker 3: talked already a lot about criminal justice, that the needs
Speaker 3: of the black community are not just about criminal justice.
Speaker 2: We need that money.
Speaker 3: It's about yeah, because here's the thing. We have brought
Speaker 3: down black unemployment. I said this earlier to the one
Speaker 3: of the lowest levels in history. But I'm very clear
Speaker 3: the community is not going to stand up in applaud
Speaker 3: just because everybody has a job. That should be a baseline.
Speaker 3: My agenda is about tapping into the ambitions and the aspirations,
Speaker 3: knowing that folks want to have an opportunity. If they want,
Speaker 3: they should have a meaningful opportunity to build wealth, including
Speaker 3: intergenerational wealth, and that's my agenda.
Speaker 2: You know a couple of things that you said, appreciate you,
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you. Think there were a couple of
Speaker 2: things that you said that people would say, we're talking points,
Speaker 2: but it's really just your story, even though they are
Speaker 2: becoming your greatest hits when you talk about the middle
Speaker 2: class and your godmother being a small business owner. But
Speaker 2: that's just your story.
Speaker 3: It's my story. Look, I've been in this race seventy days.
Speaker 3: Some people are just getting to know me. Other people
Speaker 3: have known me, and I owe it. Listen. I feel
Speaker 3: very strongly I need to earn every vote, which is
Speaker 3: why I'm here having this candid conversation with you and
Speaker 3: your listeners. I have to earn people's support and I
Speaker 3: am working to do that.
Speaker 2: Before we go to another talk back call, I want
Speaker 2: to say they were the time I had a politician
Speaker 2: tell me once that if you're running for a national election,
Speaker 2: it's bad electoral strategy to say you are going to
Speaker 2: do things specifically for black people, which is why a
Speaker 2: lot of politicians don't speak directly to their plans for
Speaker 2: black people. Is that a thing?
Speaker 3: I don't know that that's true. I think that what
Speaker 3: is true is that I am running to be a
Speaker 3: president for everybody. But I am clear eight about the
Speaker 3: history and the disparities that exist for specific communities, and
Speaker 3: I'm not going to shy away from that. It doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that my policies aren't going to benefit everybody, because
Speaker 3: they are. Everything I just talked about will benefit everybody.
Speaker 3: Small business owners, whatever their race, their age, their gender,
Speaker 3: their geographic location, are going to benefit from the fact
Speaker 3: that I'm going to extend tax deductions to fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Every first time homeowner, wherever they are, whatever their race,
Speaker 3: will benefit. If they are a first time home buyer
Speaker 3: with a twenty five thousand dollars down payment of sixes.
Speaker 3: Everyone is going to benefit from my plan to extend
Speaker 3: the child tax credit to six thousand dollars for the
Speaker 3: first year of their child's life. That's going to benefit everybody.
Speaker 3: But I do realize again that on the issue of
Speaker 3: home ownership, for example, black people are forty percent less
Speaker 3: likely to own a home.
Speaker 2: So do you you know, do you feel like President
Speaker 2: Obama stepped on your roll out because I know you've
Speaker 2: been working on this blackmail agenda for a long time
Speaker 2: and you've been doing the outreach, you know, which was
Speaker 2: the Opportunity Economy tour and things like that. But then
Speaker 2: he made the statements that he made last week. So
Speaker 2: everybody thinks this is a reaction to that.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, no, I mean you just have
Speaker 3: to no, obviously not. I've been doing this for quite
Speaker 3: some time, including before I was running for president.
Speaker 2: Let's go to talk about Geddy.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 5: I'm Bobby from Georgia and I have a question for
Speaker 5: Kabl Harris. Could you please respond to Trump's claim that
Speaker 5: he's going to use the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen
Speaker 5: ninety eight to round up immigrants if he wins the election.
Speaker 5: This law was last used to put Asian Americans in
Speaker 5: internment camps during World War Two, and I have a
Speaker 5: sneaking suspicion that if Trump wins, He's going to use
Speaker 5: this law to put anyone that doesn't look white in camps.
Speaker 9: And I'm scared.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you've hit on a really important point and
Speaker 3: expressed it, I think so well, which is he is
Speaker 3: achieving his intended effect to make you scared. He is
Speaker 3: running full time on a campaign that is about instilling fear,
Speaker 3: not about hope, not about optimism, not about the future,
Speaker 3: but about fear. And so this is yet another example.
Speaker 3: Look what he did and saying that those legal imgrants
Speaker 3: in Springfield, Ohio were eating their pets. He and by
Speaker 3: the way, the hypocrisy of it abounds because on the
Speaker 3: issue of immigration, let's be clear, some of the most
Speaker 3: conservative members of the United States Congress, working with others,
Speaker 3: came up with a border security bill which was the
Speaker 3: strongest toughest border security bill in a long long time.
Speaker 3: It would have put fifteen hundred more border agents at
Speaker 3: the border. It would have reduced the flow of fentanyl
Speaker 3: into our country, which is killing people all over our
Speaker 3: country of every race and background. It would have allowed
Speaker 3: us to do more work on prosecuting transnational criminal organizations,
Speaker 3: which I have done in my career. Trump got word
Speaker 3: that that bill was afoot, knew it would fix a problem,
Speaker 3: and told his buddies in Congress to kill the bill.
Speaker 3: And you know why, because he would prefer to run
Speaker 3: on a problem instead of fixing a problem, and he's
Speaker 3: running his campaign in a way that he does these
Speaker 3: rallies where people by the way, and does these rallies
Speaker 3: to try and and still fear around an issue where
Speaker 3: he actually could be part of a solution, but he
Speaker 3: chose not to because he prefers to run on a
Speaker 3: problem instead of fix a problem. And we've got to
Speaker 3: call it out and see it for what it is.
Speaker 2: But doesn't the Biden administration have to take some blame
Speaker 2: for the border though a lot of the blame, because
Speaker 2: I mean, the first three years, y'all did get a
Speaker 2: lot of things wrong with the border.
Speaker 3: Charlemagne, within hours of being inaugurated, the first bill we passed,
Speaker 3: before we did the Inflation Reduction Act, before we did
Speaker 3: the bipart is An Infrastructure Act, before we did the
Speaker 3: Safer Communities Act to deal with gun violence, first thing
Speaker 3: we dropped was a bill to fix the broken immigration system,
Speaker 3: which by the way, Trump did not fix when he
Speaker 3: was president, and you can look at every step along
Speaker 3: the way. We then tightened up the asylum application process.
Speaker 3: We then worked with what we needed to do to
Speaker 3: secure ports of entry. We did a number of things,
Speaker 3: including what we did to try and get that border
Speaker 3: security bill passed, and then also an executive order that
Speaker 3: has actually reduced significantly the number of illegal crossings and
Speaker 3: tightened up what needs to happen in between ports of entry.
Speaker 3: But no, we've been working on it ever since. But
Speaker 3: but here's here's here's what what has to happen. Congress
Speaker 3: has to act to fix the immigration system, and it
Speaker 3: has been broken for a long time. Congress has to act.
Speaker 3: But it does not help. When finally a bipartisan group
Speaker 3: got together to fix it and Donald Trump told them,
Speaker 3: hold on, don't do that because it won't It won't
Speaker 3: help me politically.
Speaker 2: Why do you allow him to call you the borders
Speaker 2: are when that's not even your.
Speaker 3: I'm not giving him permission for that, But.
Speaker 2: I mean, you don't push back on it because that
Speaker 2: wasn't you. That's not that wasn't your role.
Speaker 3: With fact checkers have made that clear. Look, if I
Speaker 3: responded to every name he called me, I wouldn't be
Speaker 3: focused on the things that actually helped the American people.
Speaker 3: And that's my focus.
Speaker 2: That is true. Before we go to talk about I
Speaker 2: want to say something else. I don't feel like the
Speaker 2: Biden administration has treated Trump like a real threat to democracy.
Speaker 2: And that's why America doesn't realize how much of a
Speaker 2: threat he is. It's one thing to say it, but
Speaker 2: you have to act on it. Don't you believe Merrick
Speaker 2: Garland should have moved faster to put Donald Trump in
Speaker 2: prison for leading an attempt to cool his country.
Speaker 3: The Department Justice, it has independence in terms of how
Speaker 3: they make those decisions, as they should. And let's also
Speaker 3: be very clear, don no, well, no, Donald Trump has
Speaker 3: been very clear that he would weaponize the Department of
Speaker 3: Justice against his political lanemies. He has been very clear
Speaker 3: that he would take out the independent folks who are
Speaker 3: in there and put in there instead his loyalists. So
Speaker 3: I understand again you talk about because this brings it
Speaker 3: back to exactly your point about threats to our democracy.
Speaker 3: Donald Donald Trump would go into the Department of Justice
Speaker 3: and manipulate it in such a way that it would
Speaker 3: be used as a weapon against his political enemies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna lock y'all up if he gets back
Speaker 2: and over.
Speaker 3: Well, by the way he's gonna you should look at
Speaker 3: his words. I don't think that you, as a journalist
Speaker 3: should feel so so about the journalists judges others, And
Speaker 3: you know who does that. Dictators do that, Other countries
Speaker 3: do that, Which is say that you're gonna send as
Speaker 3: he has the military to go and and suppress peaceful protesters.
Speaker 3: That happens in other countries. That's not supposed to happen
Speaker 3: in America. So do understand when this man says what
Speaker 3: he says, how that would play out in real time?
Speaker 2: So why is it okay for him to say he'll
Speaker 2: lock up his political opponents, but it's not okay for
Speaker 2: y'all to say he should be in prison when he's
Speaker 2: actually committed crimes.
Speaker 3: Oh, I have been very clear. I think that the
Speaker 3: court should handle that, and I'm gonna handle November.
Speaker 2: The court should handle that. Okay, let's go to talkback, Eddie.
Speaker 2: What'll we got.
Speaker 9: Our men and women in the military are sent to
Speaker 9: foreign countries to fight for their freedom, win or lose.
Speaker 9: Donald Trump has promised to seek revenge. My question is
Speaker 9: will our military be there to fight for our freedom
Speaker 9: after the election? Should Trump start another insurrection?
Speaker 3: Well, you raise a profound point that is very much
Speaker 3: a part of this election cycle in terms of what
Speaker 3: the American people have a choice right now. So January sixth,
Speaker 3: Donald Trump incited a violent mob to try and undo
Speaker 3: the will of the people and undo the results of
Speaker 3: a free and fair election. That violent mom attacked the
Speaker 3: United States Capital. Over one hundred and forty law enforcement
Speaker 3: officers were injured, some of them were killed, and he
Speaker 3: has said since then that there will be a bloodbath
Speaker 3: after this election. He has, on your point about the military,
Speaker 3: referred to members of our military as suckers and losers,
Speaker 3: which is why, by the way, do see the number
Speaker 3: of military leaders who worked under his administration who are
Speaker 3: supporting me. And I will point out what everyone knows,
Speaker 3: which is that the people who worked the closest with
Speaker 3: Donald Trump when he was president, worked with him in
Speaker 3: the oval office, saw him at play in the situation room.
Speaker 3: His chief of staff, two secretaries of Defense, is national
Speaker 3: security advisor, and his former vice president have all said
Speaker 3: he is dangerous and unfit to serve. Mark Milly, the
Speaker 3: former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, most recently
Speaker 3: articulated exactly that point. And again, you know, here's Charlemagne.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I think is really ironic,
Speaker 3: but at play Donald Trump, through his his his way
Speaker 3: of trying to name call and demean and divide, tries
Speaker 3: to project as though those things are a sign of strength,
Speaker 3: when in fact the man is really quite weak. He's weak.
Speaker 3: It's a sign of weakness that you want to please
Speaker 3: dictators and seek their flattery and favor. It's a sign
Speaker 3: of weakness that you would demean America's military and America's
Speaker 3: service members. It's a sign of weakness that you don't
Speaker 3: have the courage to stand up for the Constitution of
Speaker 3: the United States and the principles upon which it stands.
Speaker 3: This man is weak and he is unfit.
Speaker 2: So why is everybody sitting around acting like Donald Trump
Speaker 2: isn't going to a plan to steal this election if
Speaker 2: you lose, like, you know, Republican officials won't certify the
Speaker 2: results of the election. We know is Donald Trump Supreme Court?
Speaker 2: Why are people acting like this is going to be
Speaker 2: a free in fair election and he won't try to
Speaker 2: steal it.
Speaker 3: Well, but those are two different points, Okay, So it
Speaker 3: will be a free and fair election if we the
Speaker 3: American people stand up for that. You know, I see
Speaker 3: it as this. I think that their democracy has its
Speaker 3: like two points of nature. One, there's a fact about
Speaker 3: a democracy that when it is intact, the strength that
Speaker 3: it possesses in terms of the protection of people's individual
Speaker 3: rights and liberties. When a democracy is intact, we protect
Speaker 3: your rights and your liberties. Strength democracy is also very fragile.
Speaker 3: It will only be as strong as our willingness we
Speaker 3: the people to fight for it, and not as much
Speaker 3: as anything is what's that plan in this election? Fight
Speaker 3: for our democracy? Flawed though it is imperfect, though it
Speaker 3: may be because there are very two real paths right now.
Speaker 3: The man has told you he has to terminate the Constitution.
Speaker 3: The man has told you all these things about his
Speaker 3: disregard and disrespect for your freedoms and liberty, including the
Speaker 3: right of a woman to make decisions about her own body.
Speaker 3: And he hand selected three members of the United States
Speaker 3: Supreme Court with the intention they would do exactly what
Speaker 3: they did. One out of three women in America lives
Speaker 3: in a state with the Trump abortion band. You know,
Speaker 3: every state except Virginia in the South has an abortion band.
Speaker 3: You know where the majority of black women live in
Speaker 3: the South, in those same states that have some of
Speaker 3: the highest rates of black maternal mortality. And they want
Speaker 3: to strut around talking about this is in the interest
Speaker 3: of women and children, and they've been silent on an
Speaker 3: issue like black maternal mortality. But I know that people
Speaker 3: are aware and clear eyed, and I do believe that
Speaker 3: on election day and early voting in Michigan starts in
Speaker 3: four days, people are going to go to the poems
Speaker 3: and they're going to vote to stand up for these
Speaker 3: principles and to stand up for their rights to freedom
Speaker 3: and liberty and to live and just be free to be.
Speaker 2: I believe that I want to bring in my guy
Speaker 2: Ice weear vessel. He's very politically engaged. I want to
Speaker 2: ask you a question why he's coming in this quick question.
Speaker 2: There's a room in that Janet Jackson is mad at
Speaker 2: you because you prosecuted her brother, the late Great Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: That's that's on the internet. Cleared that up for people.
Speaker 3: That's just not true on either account. She's I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know. I have not talked
Speaker 3: to her, but it's certainly it's not true about her brother,
Speaker 3: that's all.
Speaker 10: Charlotte Manne, what's up, madam Vice President? How are you
Speaker 10: doing today? As with Sandy Troit?
Speaker 6: What up?
Speaker 11: Though?
Speaker 10: So yesterday I read that there's a new opportunity agenda
Speaker 10: a plan for Black men, which includes a proposal of
Speaker 10: forgivable loans up to twenty thousand dollars for one million
Speaker 10: black entrepreneurs. What would you say to the people that
Speaker 10: will consider the timing of this proposal as political timing,
Speaker 10: And how would you speak to the sentiment that support
Speaker 10: for black men is only sought out during election cycles
Speaker 10: and feels that building trust requires consistent engagement and genuine
Speaker 10: investment into the community outside of election periods and political
Speaker 10: benefits for politicians, and may view that some people in
Speaker 10: the Democrat Party use Black Americans to play identity politics.
Speaker 3: So, first of all, thank you for your question for
Speaker 3: being here. I've been in this race about seventy days.
Speaker 3: You can look at all my work before those seventy
Speaker 3: days to know this. What I'm talking about right now
Speaker 3: is not new and is not for the sake of
Speaker 3: winning this election. This is about a long standing commitment,
Speaker 3: including the work that I've done as Vice president and
Speaker 3: when I was Senator and before that. In fact, a
Speaker 3: lot of what I'm doing that is about my economic
Speaker 3: agenda and opportunity economy was born out of the work
Speaker 3: I did as Vice president before that as Senator. More
Speaker 3: most recently, to get access to capital for our entrepreneurs.
Speaker 3: The work that I did in the Senate was about
Speaker 3: getting a couple billion more dollars into our community banks,
Speaker 3: and then building on that. When I became Vice President,
Speaker 3: I created it. It's called the Economic Opportunity Council, bringing
Speaker 3: in some of the biggest banks and technology companies to
Speaker 3: put more into the community banks. And I'm going to
Speaker 3: tell you one of the reasons why, because I have
Speaker 3: been aware for years black entrepreneurs only get one percent
Speaker 3: of venture capital funding. Of all the venture capital funding,
Speaker 3: only one percent goes to black entrepreneurs. We don't have
Speaker 3: the same rates of access to capital, be it through
Speaker 3: family or through connections. Which is why I've done the
Speaker 3: work of put billions more dollars and working to put
Speaker 3: billions more dollars into community banks, which go right directly
Speaker 3: to the community. My work around the twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 3: is building on that and understanding that you know, I convened,
Speaker 3: for example, I said this earlier a group of black entrepreneurs,
Speaker 3: way before I was running for president, in my official
Speaker 3: office at the White House, to hear some of the
Speaker 3: obstacles that they were facing. And one of them was
Speaker 3: what we need to do around getting folks the help
Speaker 3: to just be able to buy the equipment they need
Speaker 3: to run their business. And oftentime, we find that when
Speaker 3: black entrepreneurs and black people apply for credit, they're denied
Speaker 3: at a higher rate than others. We have also seen
Speaker 3: and the data proves this that all of those the
Speaker 3: realities also tend to dissuade black folks and black entrepreneurs
Speaker 3: in particularly from even applying for credit. So my point
Speaker 3: is to work on every way that we can approach
Speaker 3: the issue to encourage people and to invest in their ambition,
Speaker 3: because I know the ambition is there, I know the
Speaker 3: talent is there, I know the innovation is there, and
Speaker 3: certainly the hard work ethic. So this is not new
Speaker 3: work for me.
Speaker 2: And just speak to the American Rescue Plan too, because
Speaker 2: I mean tens of millions of dollars. I know small
Speaker 2: businesses in North Carolina, that small black businesses that got
Speaker 2: tens of million dollars because of that. You speak to that, that's.
Speaker 3: Right, and that was from the first time, from when
Speaker 3: we first came in the American Rescue Plan, the work
Speaker 3: that we have done, that the Infrastructure Bill, I mean
Speaker 3: part of that is, we made a decision that we
Speaker 3: were going to increase the number of federal contracts that
Speaker 3: go to historically underrepresented businesses. This was way before I
Speaker 3: was running with this years ago, so this is not
Speaker 3: new work.
Speaker 2: Let's go to feature.
Speaker 11: On several occasions recently, John Lemon has stated that there's
Speaker 11: a large group of black men who believed Donald Trump
Speaker 11: sent them a personal check during COVID because his name
Speaker 11: was on it versus it coming from the government as
Speaker 11: a stimulus check. Can you provide some clarification on this.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you raised that. So so here's what happened.
Speaker 3: A majority Democratic Congress fought to get those stimulus checks out,
Speaker 3: fought against resistance by the Trump administration, and one because
Speaker 3: we had a majority of Democrats in Congress, and that's
Speaker 3: why those checks went out. As we all know and
Speaker 3: grew up learning, Congress holds the purse strings. It was
Speaker 3: Congress that made that decision, and then Donald Trump, never
Speaker 3: being one to pass up an opportunity to give himself
Speaker 3: credit when no credit is due, put his name on
Speaker 3: those checks, and sadly, it resulted in people thinking Donald
Speaker 3: Trump was responsible for and directly responsible for putting money
Speaker 3: in their pocket, when in fact it was a Democratic
Speaker 3: majority Congress that was responsible for those checks going out.
Speaker 2: Why is it hard for Democrats to message their wins
Speaker 2: on the economy? Like since World War Two, the economy
Speaker 2: has done better under a Democrat president. This is just
Speaker 2: a historical fact. But for some reason, the narrative is
Speaker 2: that the economy does better under Republicans. Why do people
Speaker 2: believe that and why don't Democrats push back on that
Speaker 2: narrative more?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, we I think that part of the
Speaker 3: issue is that Democrats probably talk about it more in
Speaker 3: terms of what we are doing for people rather than
Speaker 3: the economy, when in fact, when you do for people,
Speaker 3: the economy grows. And you are absolutely right, Charlemagne, you
Speaker 3: will look at the growth of the economy under in
Speaker 3: compare democratic and Republican administrations, Democrats have been accelerated economic
Speaker 3: growth my plan, for example. Okay, so some of the
Speaker 3: smartest economists in the country have reviewed and compared my
Speaker 3: plan to Donald Trump's plans for the economy, from Goldman
Speaker 3: Sachs to Moody's to sixteen Nobel Laureates and even most
Speaker 3: recently the Wall Street Journal, and in comparing our two plans.
Speaker 3: The net result is my plans will strengthen the economy.
Speaker 3: His plans will weaken the economy. Their reports come back
Speaker 3: and include the fact that Donald Trump's plans for the
Speaker 3: economy would accelerate inflation and invite a recession by the
Speaker 3: middle of next year. My plans would strengthen the economy
Speaker 3: as a whole. You look at under what we've been doing.
Speaker 3: You look at the stock market is one of the
Speaker 3: strongest it's ever been, Wages of outpaced inflation. Inflation is
Speaker 3: going down to I think it's now the most recent
Speaker 3: numbers two point four percent. So but those you know,
Speaker 3: nobody wants to hear an econ one on one lecture, right,
Speaker 3: But the reality of it, to your point is that
Speaker 3: under democratic rule, the economy gets strengthened. And certainly when
Speaker 3: you look at my plan for my presidency, it will
Speaker 3: strengthen the economy and it will help people. And as
Speaker 3: per the conversation we've been having today, perhaps the issue
Speaker 3: is that I'm gonna always think about it in the
Speaker 3: context of how am I helping working people? How am
Speaker 3: I helping families? How am I helping people in the
Speaker 3: middle class, How am I helping people who have been
Speaker 3: without access having access. That's how I talk about it.
Speaker 3: But my plan is about strengthening the economy. And I
Speaker 3: know when you strengthen the economy, that's how you do it.
Speaker 3: You do it by investing in the middle class. Let
Speaker 3: me tell you the contrast. Donald Trump thinks about the
Speaker 3: economy based on what he has done and will do.
Speaker 3: Cutting taxes for billionaires in the biggest corporations. That's how
Speaker 3: he thinks about the economy. He thinks about the economy,
Speaker 3: not about middle class people trying to not just get
Speaker 3: by but get ahead. No, he wants to to stop
Speaker 3: Medicare from being able to negotiate drug prices down from
Speaker 3: the big pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker 2: We got a couple more questions. I want to get more,
Speaker 2: man Eric Thompson here, because we only got like a
Speaker 2: few more minutes. But I do want to say President
Speaker 2: Obama was out there last week waving his finger at
Speaker 2: black men. When are Liz Cheney and Hillary Clinton going
Speaker 2: waveday finger at white women? Went up, Bill Clinton and
Speaker 2: Joe Biden going wave their finger at white men. Because
Speaker 2: fifty two percent of white women voted for Trump in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, fifty five percent voted for Trump in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: They all voted against their own interests when their finger
Speaker 2: waving gonna start at them.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for highlighting that I do have the
Speaker 3: support of over two hundred Republicans who worked for various administrations,
Speaker 3: including everyone going back to Ronald Reagan to the Bushes,
Speaker 3: to John McCain and Mitt Romney, and including Liz Channing.
Speaker 3: I'm very proud to have her support. And I believe
Speaker 3: that they who many of them who may have voted
Speaker 3: for Trump before, are supporting me because, as they know,
Speaker 3: the stakes are so high in terms of our very
Speaker 3: democracy and rule of law, and.
Speaker 2: So the finger wagon should start today a tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Well, I think what is happening is that we are
Speaker 3: all working on reminding people of what is at stake,
Speaker 3: and that is very important.
Speaker 2: Eric, real quick. We only got a few minutes, only.
Speaker 12: Got a few minutes. Thank you, Madame Vice President for
Speaker 12: having me. Thank you, Charlotte and the god h So.
Speaker 12: As an employee of a mission driven nonprofit bank, I
Speaker 12: appreciate the efforts in that bank I work with investor Trade,
Speaker 12: but as chief storyteller to City Detroit, I spent a
Speaker 12: lot of time dispelling information about the city of Detroit.
Speaker 12: And so I'm sure for those of us who are
Speaker 12: like me, if Donald Trump doesn't like the trade so much,
Speaker 12: he's not welcome back now.
Speaker 3: But okay, I don't want to interrupt. I don't know
Speaker 3: what you're talking about. Okay, go on, but you.
Speaker 2: Can get into it.
Speaker 12: I just wanted to say that we know that there's
Speaker 12: been a lot of conversation about growing the middle class,
Speaker 12: but black men have been taking out of workforce for
Speaker 12: a myriad of systemic reasons, from mass in corporation to
Speaker 12: racial bias, fear mongering. We know that black men are
Speaker 12: not criminals, they are criminalized, and that has taken black
Speaker 12: men out of the home, has taken wealth out of
Speaker 12: the home. And so because especially in the city with
Speaker 12: such high poverty, I've heard a lot about middle class,
Speaker 12: but I would love to hear more about stare stepping
Speaker 12: from poverty into middle class so they can take advantage
Speaker 12: of the opportunities and the policies you're talking about.
Speaker 3: That's right, and that's real. So, for example, the child
Speaker 3: tax credit, when we did it when I first became
Speaker 3: Vice president, we cut black child poverty by half. And
Speaker 3: you know, when you deal with poverty for a child.
Speaker 3: That's about the whole family. Right. When you look at
Speaker 3: the work that we have done that has been about
Speaker 3: dealing with prescription medication for our seniors, Black people are
Speaker 3: sixty percent more likely to get diagnosed with diabetes and
Speaker 3: have And when you look at what people are in
Speaker 3: terms of on the or to bankruptcy because of medical
Speaker 3: bills and medical debt, that's very real. So us capping
Speaker 3: the cost of something like insulin and prescription medication, not
Speaker 3: to mention the work that I've been doing to ensure
Speaker 3: that medical debt does not get included on your credit score.
Speaker 3: Because medical debt comes about because of a medical emergency,
Speaker 3: nobody invites it upon themselves. And back to the point
Speaker 3: about history and the reality of life. We also know
Speaker 3: the real disparities around access to meaningful health care, which
Speaker 3: are more likely to result in people facing chronic illness
Speaker 3: and in medical emergency. So my work has been and
Speaker 3: included working to get medical debt not beyond your credit
Speaker 3: score so that that thing you did not invite upon
Speaker 3: yourself would not be the reason that you can't get
Speaker 3: a lease on an apartment or anything else. We have
Speaker 3: to deal with child poverty. We have to deal with poverty, period,
Speaker 3: and there are many specific ways to do it, including
Speaker 3: dealing with getting resources into the community that alleviate the
Speaker 3: burdens that hold people down. But back to Detroit, can
Speaker 3: so can you imagine you go to a city and
Speaker 3: you say you want the votes of those people, and
Speaker 3: then you disparage the city. And that's what he did
Speaker 3: in Detroit. And he has a tendency to mention cities
Speaker 3: that either have a historically black majority population or a
Speaker 3: black mayor.
Speaker 2: That's right, and that's what he did. He only did
Speaker 2: that to Detroit because Detroit is seventy eight percent black
Speaker 2: and he doesn't want America to look like that. Madam
Speaker 2: Vice President. Thank you. We gotta do this again.
Speaker 3: We're done.
Speaker 2: We only according to iHeart. I just want to keep going.
Speaker 2: I got more questions for you, but thank you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you man, Thank you.
Speaker 1: This has been Iheartradios. We the people in audio town
Speaker 1: hall with Vice President Kamala Harris. Remember your voice matters,
Speaker 1: stay informed, stay engaged, and most importantly, make sure to vote.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us and