Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Rams's Jah and trust you will hear from
Speaker 1: Qward very soon. This is a special episode. Recently we
Speaker 1: got to sit down with the one and only US Representative,
Speaker 1: Jasmine Crockett and have a fantastic conversation about politics. We
Speaker 1: do often talk about politics on this show for the
Speaker 1: benefit of you, our listeners, and for the benefit of us.
Speaker 1: We are citizens in this country and voters the same
Speaker 1: as everyone else, and who better to get some insight
Speaker 1: from than the clapback Queen herself, and of course were
Speaker 1: honored to be able to sit down with her or
Speaker 1: over an hour. If you want the full uncut interview,
Speaker 1: you can always check out our website Civiccipher dot com.
Speaker 1: But we do want you to stick around because this
Speaker 1: conversation discusses a number of things, many things of course
Speaker 1: important to Black America, but a lot of things important
Speaker 1: to America at large. Of course, we.
Speaker 2: Are having to discuss the election season that we're in
Speaker 2: and the candidates that we have to choose from and
Speaker 2: so the Jasmine lets her feelings be known about that
Speaker 2: true to form. So I just think it's a fantastic conversation.
Speaker 2: We're really excited to share it with you, So stick
Speaker 2: around for that and so much more right here on
Speaker 2: civic ciper.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: One of the things that we talk about a lot
Speaker 4: on this show is the state of things in the
Speaker 4: political arena in recent years. We've seen a number of
Speaker 4: villains rise to various moments throughout again recent history, and
Speaker 4: we always have a new reason to be concerned about
Speaker 4: our future. I won't spend too much time discussing that
Speaker 4: because these villains have been well discussed and they're often
Speaker 4: delineated on this very program. But another thing that we
Speaker 4: get is we get heroes. And one of the heroes
Speaker 4: that we've discussed on this program many times, actually we
Speaker 4: have the honor of sitting with and talking to today
Speaker 4: she is the Clapback Queen herself. Today we are joined
Speaker 4: by the one and only Jasmine Kraft. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. I did not know where you
Speaker 5: were going with that.
Speaker 3: It definitely David thinks that I would be the one
Speaker 3: wearing the case at the end of that, But I
Speaker 3: appreciate your kind thoughts and words. Sure, sure, it's because
Speaker 3: we are living in some very dangerous times.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, absolutely. You know. One of the things that we
Speaker 4: end up dealing with on this show is positioning black
Speaker 4: women in a way that people can see them the
Speaker 4: way that we see them. And often I put Q
Speaker 4: in the in the Yeah, I put him out in
Speaker 4: front to say this, but I'll say it this time.
Speaker 4: On this show and all of our shows, we affirm
Speaker 4: that the black woman is as close to God as
Speaker 4: we can be on this planet. And so when we
Speaker 4: suggest that you know, black women come to the rescue,
Speaker 4: black women are wearing the capes, that's something that we
Speaker 4: mean and when we've meant that the entire time that
Speaker 4: we've been in this space, so you know, for our
Speaker 4: long time listening as they understand that to be very true.
Speaker 4: But there are some people who are new to the show,
Speaker 4: of course, and people who are just now getting engaged
Speaker 4: in politics. Maybe they've just come of age, or maybe
Speaker 4: this particular election cycle is of interest to them. So
Speaker 4: for those people, who admittedly is a very small amount
Speaker 4: of folks, i'd imagine, but after those people who are
Speaker 4: not familiar with who you are, give us a little
Speaker 4: bit of background just to bring them up to speak
Speaker 4: for the conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, So I am, I guess technically considered a politician.
Speaker 3: I hate to be classified as a politician, but since
Speaker 3: I am the congresswoman that proudly represents Texas thirtieth Congressional District,
Speaker 3: which is anchored in Dallas County, Texas.
Speaker 5: I am a freshman.
Speaker 3: Our terms are two years at a time, and so
Speaker 3: I'm in the second year of my first term. I
Speaker 3: have been considered to be the most viral member of
Speaker 3: Congress during this current term. And you know, in recent times,
Speaker 3: I've done all these interviews where people have asked me
Speaker 3: about the virality and do you know what's happening when
Speaker 3: it's happening, and you know, are there things that you
Speaker 3: can do to try to make it happen? And I
Speaker 3: tell people all the time that it's the unadulterated, unfiltered,
Speaker 3: raw moments, never the prepared remarks that go viral, and
Speaker 3: just to kind of give the listeners a little bit
Speaker 3: more acclamation. I am an attorney by trade, and so
Speaker 3: I did criminal defense work. I did civil rights work
Speaker 3: as well as some personal injury stuff. But I was
Speaker 3: a trial lawyer. I wasn't a death lawyer. I was
Speaker 3: the girl that showed up in court. And I've represented
Speaker 3: anywhere from capital murder all the way down, and so
Speaker 3: I tried cases for almost two decades before I come
Speaker 3: into Congress, and I tell people all the time, I
Speaker 3: don't really like people to come in front of me
Speaker 3: and waste my fune five minutes, because that's all we
Speaker 3: get is five minutes. And so my ability to cross
Speaker 3: examine people and get my point across quickly has really
Speaker 3: helped me in Congress. And knowing quote unquote my case,
Speaker 3: knowing what it is that is the subject matter of
Speaker 3: any potential hearing at any point in time, allows me
Speaker 3: to be able to deal with whatever lies somebody tries
Speaker 3: to lib out there. I tend to be the girl
Speaker 3: that consistently wants to rise to the occasion of recognizing
Speaker 3: that black folk are great, and no matter how many
Speaker 3: times they try to disparage us, whether it's because of
Speaker 3: the color of my skin or whether it's because I'm
Speaker 3: a woman, I'm going to make you feel really bad
Speaker 3: that you try to mesa.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 3: But even in doing that, you know, I look at
Speaker 3: representation completely different. My official title is that I a
Speaker 3: US representative, and for so long I have heard so
Speaker 3: many people say I just don't really feel like I'm
Speaker 3: seen or heard or represented.
Speaker 5: And I never wanted to be that person.
Speaker 3: I wanted people to say, I have a representative that
Speaker 3: is sitting at the table and making sure that my
Speaker 3: position is heard.
Speaker 5: And it is those moments.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, that go viral because it is it's
Speaker 3: not the norm, it's the exception. When the norm should
Speaker 3: be whatever community you come from, your representative should sound
Speaker 3: like you, look like you, and should be lobbying the
Speaker 3: case for the issues that matter most for you.
Speaker 6: The first time we got to connect with you in
Speaker 6: person was at the National Urban League National Convention, but
Speaker 6: we have been cheerleaders and supporters in the stands waiving
Speaker 6: on prom pomps for you long before that. At that time,
Speaker 6: all of us were very excited some news that we
Speaker 6: had just gotten regarding the Democratic ticket for the office
Speaker 6: of president. Our vice president has been very vocal about
Speaker 6: her feeling like she needs to earn people's votes, specifically
Speaker 6: black men, so she doesn't feel she's entitled to them
Speaker 6: just because she's black. What are some of the issues
Speaker 6: you think are important to that base that she's trying
Speaker 6: to reach in whose votes that she's now trying to earn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I love her, you know, thank you for
Speaker 3: given that level set.
Speaker 5: And I'm just going to say this real quick before
Speaker 5: I answer your question.
Speaker 3: Please, I think as black people in general, we have
Speaker 3: always been the ones that have never shied away from
Speaker 3: hard work. We aren't given positions on boards, we're not
Speaker 3: given positions in government, we're not given positions in schools
Speaker 3: like we're not the legacies get admitted to these institutions.
Speaker 3: We've had to work and earn every single thing that
Speaker 3: we've ever gotten. And the fact that the vice president
Speaker 3: is absolutely committed to going out and earning the votes,
Speaker 3: taking her fight straight to the people. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: I think I don't sleep, and then I think about
Speaker 3: her schedule and then I'm like, I'm like, but she
Speaker 3: got a PJ so mah, because I'm like running through
Speaker 3: the airport, like, yes, can you get me through screening
Speaker 3: so I can get to my next city. But nevertheless,
Speaker 3: I definitely don't have time to pity myself as I
Speaker 3: have the privilege of going around the country and arguing
Speaker 3: and making a case for why the Harris Walls ticket
Speaker 3: is the ticket that is the Team USA ticket, to
Speaker 3: ticket that will look out for all of us and
Speaker 3: not leave anybody behind. I appreciate the fact that she,
Speaker 3: as well as Governor Walls, are not afraid of hard work,
Speaker 3: because they both came from places in which they weren't
Speaker 3: born into fortune. They weren't given four hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: when they entered this earth. Instead, they had to work
Speaker 3: to get everything that they've ever gotten, and so that's
Speaker 3: why they're not afraid of the hard work. As it
Speaker 3: relates to black man specifically, I can say that I've
Speaker 3: had a number of conversations with black men, and I
Speaker 3: think one of the things that kind of frustrates me
Speaker 3: in general when we start talking about the election is
Speaker 3: that I really do subscribe to the idea that none
Speaker 3: of us are amnaith no one, and so there isn't
Speaker 3: one kind of happy pill for any one group of people.
Speaker 5: I will say that there.
Speaker 3: Are some targets that are on specific groups that no
Speaker 3: matter what your priorities are, the same targets.
Speaker 5: Are coming for you.
Speaker 3: And so I think it is important not only for
Speaker 3: us to highlight the alternative and talk about the targets
Speaker 3: that are on our collective backs, whether we're talking about
Speaker 3: the fact that Donald Trump specifically wants to get rid
Speaker 3: of criminal immunity for law enforcement officers.
Speaker 5: As we have just now gotten to.
Speaker 3: The point that we have prosecutors that have the audacity
Speaker 3: to say that law enforcement isn't necessarily above the law,
Speaker 3: we can still probably count on one, maybe two hands,
Speaker 3: the number of prosecutions that we've seen in this country
Speaker 3: for law enforcement officers that have gone out and shot
Speaker 3: us did like we were dogs in the street, right,
Speaker 3: And so that's a collective target because we have someone
Speaker 3: where you know, there are those of us as someone
Speaker 3: who's done the civil rights work and know how difficult
Speaker 3: it is to get around qualified immunity and things like that,
Speaker 3: because what we'll have is we end up being killed
Speaker 3: and we don't get any criminal justice, and we usually
Speaker 3: don't get any civil justice. And so as we've been
Speaker 3: pushing the envelope for getting rid of qualified immunity so
Speaker 3: that the civil remedies are available when one of us
Speaker 3: is killed, now he not only doesn't obviously is not
Speaker 3: going to support the civil side, but once I go
Speaker 3: even further and say, for those few progressive prosecutors that
Speaker 3: have thought that your life mattered enough that they would
Speaker 3: actually prosecute a police officer. I don't want that to
Speaker 3: happen anymore.
Speaker 5: And so that's a collective target.
Speaker 3: Now when I talk to some other brothers about the
Speaker 3: things that matter most of them, for some of them,
Speaker 3: it's I will say, collectively, there's a number of them
Speaker 3: that talk about small business ownership, and they don't like
Speaker 3: the idea of potentially Democrats trying to push on quote
Speaker 3: unquote hand me out like they want. They don't want
Speaker 3: you to just say, oh, we're going to try to
Speaker 3: get you a good job, you know, a good union
Speaker 3: paying job. Like there are black men that are like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to go work for somebody else, Like
Speaker 3: I want my own business. What are you going to
Speaker 3: do to help me create my own generational wealth and
Speaker 3: have my own legacy to leave behind. And so I
Speaker 3: think that's why you hear her really making the point
Speaker 3: not just for black men, but like generally speaking, for
Speaker 3: those that are saying, you know what, I want my
Speaker 3: own small business. And so this five thousand dollars tax
Speaker 3: benefit that you used to get when you start a
Speaker 3: small business, She's like, you can't do nothing with five
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. She's like, that's only going to help you
Speaker 3: if you've got a concept of a business, right. She
Speaker 3: was like, right, exactly right, So she's up in that
Speaker 3: to fifty thousand. We've not really talked very much about
Speaker 3: the record, but we know that there were a record
Speaker 3: number of small businesses and black owned businesses specifically that
Speaker 3: were able to benefit. As relates to everybody know about PPP.
Speaker 5: Wee, we've got in trouble with PPP. People got in
Speaker 5: trouble with the PPP, but.
Speaker 3: You know, but it truly did, and we've seen a
Speaker 3: record number of newly created black owned businesses because of
Speaker 3: the loosening of the rains a little bit and making
Speaker 3: sure and definitely the initial roll law out was bad.
Speaker 4: People.
Speaker 3: Remember first of all, these were democratic policies that were
Speaker 3: pushed to the House in the Senate, but it was
Speaker 3: under Donald Trump who was still president when the first
Speaker 3: policies were pushed through. And what we saw was that
Speaker 3: the only people that got money where people they didn't
Speaker 3: even need the money. We saw NFL and NBA teams
Speaker 3: and all of them, they all had access to capital
Speaker 3: and the little guys didn't. It wasn't until we got
Speaker 3: rid of Donald Trump and we ended up with President
Speaker 3: Biden that they actually started to make sure that those
Speaker 3: small businesses that were complaining that the big banks weren't
Speaker 3: giving them access to these loans. If people really think back,
Speaker 3: it's like you try to go and apply for the
Speaker 3: PPP law and they say all the money had already
Speaker 3: been given out and it was the big guys that
Speaker 3: got it. The small guy only started getting it when
Speaker 3: Democrats controlled every lever the House, the Senate, as well
Speaker 3: as the White House.
Speaker 5: So I think that that's one of the issues. Another
Speaker 5: issue that has been brought.
Speaker 3: Up his criminal justice reform, and so you know, there
Speaker 3: also was this selective memory or it is just a
Speaker 3: failure of us to really talk about and brag because
Speaker 3: Democrats are terrible about bragging. Republicans will take credit for
Speaker 3: stuff they am none to do, but Democrats won't even
Speaker 3: brag on stuff they didn't.
Speaker 5: Done it right.
Speaker 3: And so you know, they felt as if there were
Speaker 3: some changes that were made on the federal level while
Speaker 3: Trump was in office. None of that again was initiated
Speaker 3: under Trump. He signed it into law. So yes, should
Speaker 3: we say, okay, thank you for signing it into law
Speaker 3: if we can. But don't conflate that with that actually
Speaker 3: being on his policy positions.
Speaker 5: That he actually lobbed.
Speaker 3: When we look at the things that he lobbed, he
Speaker 3: lived and got us the Supreme Court. If you think
Speaker 3: that Trump is looking out for us, just look at
Speaker 3: our Supreme Court justices and right now their approval rating
Speaker 3: is the lowest that is historically ever been.
Speaker 5: Because it's his justices. They got rid of affirmative action.
Speaker 3: And for those that you know, I don't know what
Speaker 3: different opinions may exist around affirmative action. Affirmative action has
Speaker 3: never been about a gimme. That's never what it did.
Speaker 3: What it did is said, listen, all you got is
Speaker 3: a bunch of lily white people. Those are the only
Speaker 3: people you will consider. There is great lengths that exist
Speaker 3: in some of these people that aren't lily white. That's
Speaker 3: all it is. But you don't get there, and somehow
Speaker 3: they gonna give you. Well, because you was an affirmative
Speaker 3: action in mission hooding, you get an extra ten points
Speaker 3: on every tense.
Speaker 5: Like that ain't what it is like. You got to.
Speaker 3: Survive, like you've got to make it in and you've
Speaker 3: got to survive. But it at least makes them actually
Speaker 3: look at you and say, you know what, let's open
Speaker 3: up this pool of candidates. And so now what we've
Speaker 3: seen is we've seen a decrease in the enrollment of
Speaker 3: diverse students at these IVY leagues and other pwis. And
Speaker 3: what we've seen is that there's a higher demand for HBCUs.
Speaker 3: And when we think back to Donald Trump, now, one
Speaker 3: thing that presidents can do, presidents always do is they
Speaker 3: put out their budget and that signals to the Congress,
Speaker 3: these are the things that we want to do. This
Speaker 3: is how I want to place money. But at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, the budget belongs to the Congress.
Speaker 3: It doesn't belong to the president. So he just kind
Speaker 3: of like, this is my robap, please follow it. Especially
Speaker 3: if we control if the same parties control the House,
Speaker 3: it's in it. When Donald Trump put out his budget,
Speaker 3: he wanted to zero out funding for HBCUs. That that
Speaker 3: was his proposal, is to zero out HBCU money and
Speaker 3: to give credit where credit is due. It was a
Speaker 3: Bush that had initially agreed to this level of funding,
Speaker 3: which is definitely not where we need our hbc used
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 5: But it was.
Speaker 3: Something and it was a Republican.
Speaker 5: It was a Bush that signed the initial funding into
Speaker 5: law for our HBCUs. So this was two hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty three million dollars.
Speaker 3: But Trump saw it as an opportunity to do a
Speaker 3: photo app and so after a black woman in North
Speaker 3: Carolina who attended a HBCU who taught at an HBCU,
Speaker 3: doctor Adams. It was doctor Adams, my CBC colleague, who
Speaker 3: fought to get that money back, and so once it
Speaker 3: came back, he then invited all the HBCU presidents in
Speaker 3: for a photo. And so everybody's like, see Donald Trump
Speaker 3: was taking care to HBC's not really not really guys,
Speaker 3: kind of like those STiMi checks, not really, not really,
Speaker 3: not really guys. So they did that. But then when people,
Speaker 3: you know, I was constantly kind of going in on
Speaker 3: people before the vice president became the nominee, where people
Speaker 3: felt away, they felt let down. They were like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, she the vice president, but I mean, what
Speaker 3: has she done. I'm like, first of all, if you
Speaker 3: can't name five other vice presidents, we not about that conversation.
Speaker 3: Let's start there, like we like you at least need
Speaker 3: to be able to name five other vice presidents and correct,
Speaker 3: but most people can't get to the names right because
Speaker 3: most people don't look at a vice president at all.
Speaker 3: I mean, a vice president is a supporting cast member,
Speaker 3: and she has been integral. And I think that Joe
Speaker 3: Biden takes a different stance. He tries to do more
Speaker 3: of a partnership type of situation, kind of like what
Speaker 3: he came into with Barack Obama. And so I think
Speaker 3: that that's kind of how he tries to govern. That
Speaker 3: led to a record sixteen billion dollars with a B,
Speaker 3: not sixteen billion dollars for the investment into HBCUs. It
Speaker 3: mattered that there was an HBCU grad that was sitting
Speaker 3: there as a second in command, and not even just
Speaker 3: from the monetary standpoint, I mean when we look at
Speaker 3: Howard and the spike in applications just once she became,
Speaker 3: because then it's not for so long there's been these limitations.
Speaker 3: If you went to an HBCU and she's defied the limitations,
Speaker 3: she's on the verb of becoming the most powerful person
Speaker 3: in the world, and she graduated from AH and so
Speaker 3: I think that that really tells if I had to
Speaker 3: tell a story about black people in general, is that
Speaker 3: we are more resilient than any other form of people
Speaker 3: that we've ever met. When you think about our presence here,
Speaker 3: they can talk about kicking us out and this and that,
Speaker 3: But we ain't asked to come here. We got dragged here,
Speaker 3: to be clear, right, like, we got dragged here, and
Speaker 3: we labored and we built correct. We built this country
Speaker 3: and we're still here. And while we still have so
Speaker 3: many obstacles that we still get faced with, we somehow persist.
Speaker 3: And if I had to send one message to my
Speaker 3: black man is to know that like, there never should
Speaker 3: be competition. I appreciate that you laid out kind of
Speaker 3: the historical context of your show and being clearly you've
Speaker 3: always uplifted black women. I see no reason for any
Speaker 3: of us to fight one another.
Speaker 5: I love my black men.
Speaker 3: I know that I probably wouldn't necessarily be here but
Speaker 3: for black men in my life, because it was a
Speaker 3: group of black male lawyers that are like my brothers
Speaker 3: that came to me and was like, you got to run,
Speaker 3: and we know it costs money. We put money down.
Speaker 3: The first people to bet on me were black men
Speaker 3: like that was who was like, let me invest in you.
Speaker 3: And so I think that we have to appreciate that collectively,
Speaker 3: this world has never given us our due. And so
Speaker 3: one thing is for sure, regardless as to whether or
Speaker 3: not you agree with her one hundred percent or not
Speaker 3: at all, one thing is for sure is that she
Speaker 3: understands the struggles that this life presents to you more
Speaker 3: than any white man ever will. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: regardless of what's what. But like I keep saying, they're
Speaker 3: gonna kick me off the trail because because I never
Speaker 3: I never say what they tell me to say. Number
Speaker 3: one and number two I remember, I'll make this final
Speaker 3: point that y'all can move on. I went to North
Speaker 3: Carolina and I was doing a fundraiser for the Victory Fund.
Speaker 3: And this was soon after Arkawi's not r Kelly, that's
Speaker 3: messed up. I don't call them mar Kelly Puffy. This
Speaker 3: soon after child, I call them are a lot of birds.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that clearly in my mind anyway.
Speaker 3: Nevertheless, and so I said, if you want a better
Speaker 3: example of how this country views us, no matter how
Speaker 3: much money we have and how the systems are inequitable,
Speaker 3: look at Diddy situation and look at Trumps. Now. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying either one of them is right. I'm not
Speaker 3: saying even when them is wrong, y'all don't come from
Speaker 3: the defense side. So I will give Trump his thirty
Speaker 3: four felony convictions wrong because he been convicted. He still
Speaker 3: got other stuff that he's technically presuming instant for his
Speaker 3: same thing with Diddy. But here's the deal. Did he
Speaker 3: has bad cases? Definitely, not thirty four counts of them
Speaker 3: so far? He got him in one jurisdiction, he didn't
Speaker 3: get let out, y'all. They did not release him right.
Speaker 3: And here it is, Trump had close to ninety He
Speaker 3: had over eighty something counts pending in four different jurisdictions,
Speaker 3: then ultimately got found guilty and was going in talking
Speaker 3: about the judges, talking about the judges starter in New
Speaker 3: York doing all kinds of things. Now, in my experience,
Speaker 3: the most cases I ever have for one defendant was
Speaker 3: a little under forty. He had thirty something counts. He
Speaker 3: didn't have a record. It was his first time, I mean,
Speaker 3: in trouble, and he did it with a bang, for sure.
Speaker 3: But the fans got him as well as the state.
Speaker 3: He never got out like he never got released pre trial.
Speaker 3: So I don't want people to be fooled into believing
Speaker 3: that because he's been subjected to the criminal justice system,
Speaker 3: that they're in any similar kind of level of understanding,
Speaker 3: because I would argue that he's barely been subjected to
Speaker 3: the criminal justice system, because I know, I've had to
Speaker 3: represent protesters. I've had protesters to spend more time in
Speaker 3: jail with the Donald Trump and you know, and I
Speaker 3: got them off of air cases.
Speaker 5: So no, this isn't equitable. He doesn't understand.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't know what it was like to walk a
Speaker 3: day in one of our shoes, where you get brought
Speaker 3: up on charges that really are not significant at all,
Speaker 3: and you are being forced into taking a plea. He
Speaker 3: doesn't know that life like that is a completely different
Speaker 3: life from what we experience in the black community. The
Speaker 3: same people that feel like the criminal justice system has
Speaker 3: never been just, but it's only been injust right. That's
Speaker 3: he's living the type of criminal justice system we was
Speaker 3: looking for, the one that said, oh I got all
Speaker 3: these cases, but hey, you know what that person is,
Speaker 3: let me let me be out.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna be good. I'm a clown. The judges and
Speaker 5: everybody else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean literally like intimidating witnesses, all this kind
Speaker 3: of you ain't catch a whole other fifty kind of
Speaker 3: cases like this is it's it's insane, It's insane. What Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's insane.
Speaker 4: You know, there's there's something that that I think is
Speaker 4: really interesting that is taking place here. You're absolutely right,
Speaker 4: you know, for all of the things that have happened.
Speaker 3: Let's go back to.
Speaker 4: Let's go back to like the me Too movement for
Speaker 4: a second, where I think this concept started to jail.
Speaker 4: You know, listen to black women, beat on black women,
Speaker 4: believe black women, you know, all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: And then of course that had swelled up to twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: and then it skyrocketed ever since then. And then now
Speaker 4: we're celebrating black grow magic and black boy joy and
Speaker 4: all this sort of stuff, but hyper focused on our women,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. We need to find lost
Speaker 4: black women, we need to dedicate more media resources, We
Speaker 4: needed all these sorts of things, right, this concerted effort
Speaker 4: that has in my estimation, included black men. It's so
Speaker 4: interesting to see the breakdown of that when it comes
Speaker 4: to voting for a black woman, right, and you know,
Speaker 4: no one is going to agree one hundred percent with
Speaker 4: anyone else. We're all different people. Right. No one is
Speaker 4: going to get anything one hundred percent right. But one
Speaker 4: of the things that I believed, that we understood in
Speaker 4: the majority of the past decade is that if we
Speaker 4: were working together, that cohesiveness would allow us to accomplish more,
Speaker 4: to move the needle, to change and shape outcomes, particularly
Speaker 4: for the black community. And if we shape those outcomes
Speaker 4: around the sensibilities of black women, we would all be okay.
Speaker 4: This is what I thought. So for me, it was
Speaker 4: very interesting to see this breakdown right at this intersection
Speaker 4: of what we have a black woman who can now
Speaker 4: be the most powerful human being on earth, and black
Speaker 4: men of all people are standing around like no, oh, no, right,
Speaker 4: So let's uh, you know, in your in your opinion,
Speaker 4: Let's take it back a little bit because in this
Speaker 4: moment we're seeing the breakdown. But I'm curious what kind
Speaker 4: of led up to that. So let me let me
Speaker 4: ask the question this way. We recall covering sort of
Speaker 4: an erosion of support from black men to the then
Speaker 4: presumed Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, and that felt a little
Speaker 4: weird because that group of people had historically been reliably democratic,
Speaker 4: and then obviously, with the announcement of Kamala Harris taking
Speaker 4: the reins of the future of the Democratic Party. There
Speaker 4: had been some ground recovered, but as we've been discussing,
Speaker 4: there are still some black men who are holding out.
Speaker 4: And I wonder if there are some historical like, how
Speaker 4: has this group of people gotten here? In your estimation,
Speaker 4: having talked to black men around the country, what pieces
Speaker 4: are many of us missing? Because I think we know
Speaker 4: those pieces we can start trying to rebuild. Certainly, folks like.
Speaker 3: Hell and message, I think, okay, So I'll say this way.
Speaker 3: Democrats are very good at basis we can. You know,
Speaker 3: you would imagine that projects on twenty five would have
Speaker 3: been ours. I mean, we are the ones that speak
Speaker 3: in these large kind of.
Speaker 5: Very deep, you know. But that's not what the other
Speaker 5: side does.
Speaker 3: And when we look at the numbers across the board,
Speaker 3: the numbers are clear that the more educated folk are
Speaker 3: tending to kind of dig a little deeper, and we
Speaker 3: are getting the lion's share of those that are more educated,
Speaker 3: so to speak.
Speaker 5: And that's across the board.
Speaker 3: What I find is that Trump has been very good
Speaker 3: at taking advantage of people that don't have the luxury
Speaker 3: of time, people that are literally fighting to make sure
Speaker 3: that they can keep a roof over their head, keep
Speaker 3: clothes on the backs of their children, and keep food
Speaker 3: on the table. And when your focus is on those things,
Speaker 3: you don't have time necessarily to dig in.
Speaker 5: And learn it all. And he's taking advantage of that.
Speaker 3: And so one of the reasons that we see that
Speaker 3: this team has said, I mean JD Van said, I'll
Speaker 3: lie if it'll get me attention.
Speaker 5: So they're liars.
Speaker 3: And if they can just get a few people to
Speaker 3: believe their lives they will make They will say they
Speaker 3: have no ethics, they have no rules, they have no morals.
Speaker 5: They will say whatever to win.
Speaker 3: And so for those people that are like mm hmm,
Speaker 3: that don't even sound right, right, like those people that
Speaker 3: have the luxury of saying, let me go through my
Speaker 3: research or let me consult with my such and such
Speaker 3: somebody in my circle. Which is why I'm trying to
Speaker 3: tell people get out of your circles. Like if you
Speaker 3: vote in the right way, chances are your circle is good.
Speaker 3: We need to start talking to people who aren't really
Speaker 3: engaged in these kind of conversations.
Speaker 5: That's what we need to do.
Speaker 3: We end up in our little silos, you know, your
Speaker 3: sororities and your fraternities and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and all of y'all are talking, right, what are we
Speaker 3: doing to actually start talking to other people, because again,
Speaker 3: we have a shared fate and so we need to
Speaker 3: start talking about the threats and we need to talk
Speaker 3: about the possibilities. But if we're not engaging, and I
Speaker 3: think that's what's happening, We're not engaging with a number
Speaker 3: of the black men that have checked out,