Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership with Reason Choice Media. Welcome home, everybody. This is episode counted one fifteen of Native Lampod, where we give you our take on all things political and sometimes a little cultural, where we tread into trouble. I'm your host for today, Andrew Gilliman. Of course, I'm joined by none other than, of course, the awesome Angela Rai, the self congratulatory Bacari sellers and joining us this week as a co host,
a living legend. I don't know how he feels about that title. Host, entrepreneur, creator, journalist dumb An, the one and only. Can I call you Carlton? Welcome to the audience, y'all, welcome along with me, mister Don Lemon himself?
What's up? Don much? Thank you.
I'm excited to be on with you guys and see how how much trouble I get into.
You know, well, you don't.
Need no Don is your middle name, Carlton?
No wondering why you were talking about that is not don't believe everything you read on the internet.
What do I want people know? My middle name is Rinaldo.
Now just from my face back home, So y'all, we're going to be getting into Don's story a little bit more, a couple of other reasons why he may be in the headlines. I don't know, possibly Nicki Minaj, maybe Ku Klux Klan act, I don't know. But we'll follow up with some questions that we know that you would ask if you were with Donna Day. Also today, we're gonna take a little bit of a take on whether we think Congress is getting a little too old, or if
it's just been old. Then whether or not, I don't know, is.
It appropriate to protest in church.
We'll get into that, but before we do, we want to, of course, I think, go through what has become a favorite with some of our supporters. Thanks to Angela for introducing this. It's called for your Situational Awareness FYSA. Because we've got a lot of I think news to get to and we want to do it quickly, So let's start. I want to just focus everybody back on what's probably at the top of the headlines and a lot of
the cable news, and that's Davos. President Donald Trump was in Switzerland to talk to global economic leaders about everything economic in some political of course, and y'all, if you were looking for the worst reels for Trump as a representative of America, you need not go any further than right here. Let's roll the clip.
We never asked for anything, and we never got anything. We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be frankly unstoppable.
But I won't do that.
Okay, now everyone's saying, oh good, that's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland, where we already had it as a trustee, but respectfully returned it back to Denmark not long ago after we defeated the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians and others in World War Two. We gave it back to them. We want it big
Without us. Right now, you'd all be speaking German and little Japanese. Perhaps all we want from Denmark for national and international security and to keep our very energetic and day injurious potential enemies at bay, is this land on which we're going to build the greatest Golden dome ever built. We're building a golden dome that's going to just by its very nature, going to be defending Canada. Canada gets a lot of freevious from us. By the way, they
should be grateful also, but they're not. I watched your Prime minister yesterday. He wasn't so grateful that they should be grateful to us. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that mark the next time you make your statements.
I hope you'll call that last piece where he says to Canada, remember you only exist because of us. Remember that mark referring to the Prime Minister of Canada.
If it wasn't for to be speaking German.
Yeah, so that way, I'll give it to the foot, to the group down what you got.
It's painful to watch him, I mean, how insulting for our allies to say, if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German and he's he's just ranting there. I mean, look, when is someone going to write a book on his cognitive decline because it's obvious that he's something is going on because he's just ranting and raving up there. And not only did he embarrass himself, but he embarrassed the United States. When I was watching that, it made me
embarrassed to be a United States citizen. Or I shouldn't say it, shouldn't say to be a United States citizen. I should say for him to be our president. And so there are two things. Go ahead, No, they're two things to jump off the screen. Just for some context.
You do know that the the primary language spoken in Switzerland is actually German, right, that's.
First and second is the height of irony.
The last time we actually purchased an island or piece of property from Denmark, does they might know what it was?
Anybody? No? No, anybody?
Oh it was an island.
It's Epstein Island.
Yeah.
Seven in nineteen seventeen.
The last the last piece of property we actually purchased from Dinm was little Saint James Island also known as Epstein Island today.
Yes, yeah, but Cary he also keeps coming up saying that we owned it or whatever. We never actually owned it. The United States offered to buy Greenland for like one hundred million dollars is back in nineteen forty six.
But the Denmark said no.
It was difficult to the Danish Kingdom and important to the history and national identity. We never really owned Greenland at all, so he's not just not really.
But the part of getting Epstein's Island the rapist Island was in nineteen seventeen was the United States trading that island for official recognition from the United States government of the Danish territory at the time of Greenland. The worst part, y'all, I just I'm with you, don around the offensiveness of the comments related to World War Two. He talks about
a great ocean between us. We didn't have to get involved, you know, we sort of did it for y'all, and we never get anything in return, and really diminishes the huge human toll and sacrifice that that took, not only on Europeans but also Americans, over four hundred thousand service members, men and women who gave their lives faithfully to protect the world the globe against these kind of totalitarian leaders with very very outdated ideas around who deserves to live,
who doesn't, who's human, and who isn't. I just thought, overall, it was a horrible, horrible offense. Angela. I don't know if you've got anything on this, because I want to make sure we talked to the rest of y'all on some of your.
Age geography, because I know we've got to get through these clips quick stage geography. His bud was supposed to be sitting down for a fireside chat and instead he was at a rant at the podium. So that's the only stage geography I have. Y'all hit the rest of it. We can go to the name.
No, you're right, because the interviewer was sitting to the side off the station, like, well, that's weird. Why are there two chairs a guy sitting in one and he's at the podium. But I mean, you're giving fun facts right about the last time we acquired land, Bacari do do you guys know why he really wants Greenland? It's not about security. You guys know why he wants to be why he wants.
It right, tell me he wants to go to go Dome. No, he wants his face on Mount Rushmore.
And the folks who are on Mount Rushmore secured their legacy and their place, their status to be on Mount Rushmore is because they acquired more land and resources, strategic land and resources for the United States, and so will he wants his big orange face on Mount Rushmore.
That is it.
That's what they're not telling you. They're giving all these shiny objects we needed for security. We don't need it for security. We already have military assets there, and they said we can put as many there as we want want to. He wants to acquire more land and resources so he can be on Mountain rush More.
That's it.
One of the things you brought up was his mental acuity, and that's something that I've always been talking about, particularly with the light that was shown on Joe Biden and Andrew. One of the things that we recognized was that he was the oldest person to in the history of the United States of America ever run for president. And you know, there have been rumors about his health, but I think
his cognitive decline it is quite evident. I want to play this clip that I dropped into the group chat the other day just so everybody can see what I'm talking about.
And I hope people evaluate this.
But when I learned her her parents and her father in particular, is like I hope he still is, but I don't know. Was a tremendous Trump fan. He was all for Trump, loved Trump, and uh, you know, it's terrible. I was told that by a lot of people. They said, Oh, he loves you. He he was, I hoped. I hope he still feels that way. Sorry, hard situation, But her father was a tremendous and parents were tremendous Trump fans.
That's so said.
Just happens.
It's terrible, not supporters fans, by the way.
I mean, look, so what we just watched.
What we just watched was his interview about Renee Good after his ice shot her in the face.
He was, you know, unkilled.
The reason that I struggle with Donald Trump is because he has a heavy dose of narcissism mixed in with his psychopathy. And what I posted the other day, don and to the group, I mean, I wish that there was a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, whatever mainstream media source expos a maybe maybe we do it, or the Donal Limit Show, or somebody gets four or five psychiatrists and somebody tell me what the fuck is wrong with him.
I want some clinicians.
I want some clinicians to sit back and be able to because I don't feel right guessing about people's mental health and acuity. But somebody tell me what's wrong with him other than just being Oh.
Well, old people who don't act like that.
Correct.
Correct, So we've all had old people in our family where we see the moment that you take the car keys right, let me they need a nurse.
Speaking of taking the car keys, we just talked about his ice don there's a clip that you wanted to get to.
Yes, I want to get to this clip, and that is in Minneapolis Saint Paul. The lies are breaking through with police officers and law enforcement in the area who are speaking out because and police chiefs because their off duty officers are being harassed and abused by these agents, these ICE agents and federal agents that are out in the streets play this.
Recently, as the last two weeks, we as law enforcement community have been receiving endless complaints about civil rights violations in our streets from US citizens. What we're hearing is they're being stopped in traffic stops or on the street with no cause and being forced to demand paperwork to determine if they are here legally. We started hearing from our police officers the same complaints as they fell victim
to this while off duty. Every one of these individuals is a person of color who has had this happen to them in Brooklyn Park. One particular officer that shared her story with me was stopped as she passed ice going down the roadway. When they boxed her in, they demanded her paperwork, of which she's a US citizen and clearly would not have any paperwork. When she became concerned about the rhetoric and the way she was being treated, she pulled out her phone in an attempt to record
the incidant. The phone was knocked out of her hands, prevented her from recording it. The officer had their guns drawn during this interaction, and after the officer became so concerned, they were forced to identify themselves as a Brooklyn Park police officer in hopes of slowing the incident and de escalating the incident down. The agents then immediately left after hearing this, making no other comments, no other apologies, just
got in their vehicles and left. Many of the chiefs standing behind me have similar incidents with their off duty officers. If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day. It has to stop.
It has to stop, But it's not going to stop. As you saw recently in just the last couple of days, Donald Trump standing at the podium in the briefing room with pictures of alleged immigrants or undocumented immigrants with alleged criminal histories or criminal records, without giving any evidence of that, lying saying they're only going after the really bad people, the the criminals, undocumented people. We all know that's a lie, and everything else is a deflection and a cover up.
And the reason people are out there protesting in whatever venue they're protesting in is because of the unjust nature that these ICE agents and federal agents are acting in and they know that they're not using due process. They I believe it is their edict to not use due process and just to beat people up and to ask them, you know, for their papers.
We're in the United States of America.
There are people being asked for their papers who are United States citizens, are just on the basis of their accents or what color their skin is. And I'm glad that that head of a police department, and there were several there that they're out there telling the truth because we don't hear that from this administration. And quite frankly, you don't really hear it enough. I think in mainstream media these there's so much both sizing and just putting on these liars who come on every single day and
say we're going after the bad people. All of these criminals were taken out of the country. It is Joe Biden's open borders, and it's all bullshit.
Don be more right. And in fact, let's take a look at this clip that the president was in Dabos for other reasons but made some other news about the state that we're just discussing. Let's roll it.
The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures which are failed to ever build a successful society of their own. I mean, we're taking people from Somalia, and Somalia is a failed it's not a nation. Got no government, got no police, got no millie, got no nothing. And then we have this fake congress person who they just reported is worth thirty million dollars.
You believe is elon Omar talking about the Constitution provides me she comes from a country that's not a country, and she's telling us.
How to run America. Not going to get away with it much longer.
Let me tell you elon.
The other coming he makes about that in reference to while he went to Minnesota, as he says, uh, you know, we've got these people from you know, other cultures, because he rails against Europe about their inclusion sort of inclusive policies of of immigration, he says, but he says, we've been dealing with these boats and getting these pirates from stop stealing our ships. The Somalis who we thought were low IQ people who happened to uh have a little
bit more IQs. How can they take these ships? And then says about this scandal in Minnesota involving some Somalis Somali Americans, that they can't be that low IQ if they figured out how to swindle that much money away from the United States government. Really offensive rate, just openly racist.
Ship that he said from that stage, and it surta to me, explains why they can act without regard to the Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, sixth Amendment, the Constitution, due process, access to attorneys, even picking up Americans, taking them into counties a distant from where he picks them up, and when they figure that the US citizens leave them to themselves to walk in the snow, back to wherever it is that they're trying to get back to.
This is my regular moment to just remind you all that the ring leader of the Minnesota fraud's name is Amy Bach, a white woman.
Carry on board.
Sure, No, I mean at two points that just drive me crazy. He's indicative of it. And like every episode, I say the same thing, like nothing happens in a vacuum. It's the reason that they want to dumb us down. It's the anti intellectualism that's overtaking the country because his ahistorical ignorance. It's just it's fascinating and baffling at the same time.
I mean, we.
Pride ourselves on having young people in our communities strive to the upper echelons and highest level of educational achievement. We want you to have this insatiable desire to learn as much as possible, and here we have a president who's just dumb as hell. Like it's just it's fascinating to see that you can make it to be leader of the free world that runs contra to everything that
we have taught our children to be. It's like we're living in upside down times and I think that's really frustrating, and I think that's disenchanting for a lot of people. The second point I make is just kind of quick. He's emboldened by And this goes back to a point that Don made about showing your papers. Well, Brett Kavanaugh said in the opinion, said that they could do this because all you were going to have to do is show your papers. It would be a quick traffic stop
on parapact phrasing his opinion. They would let you go and going about your business. But when the court's not saying anything, when the legislative branch isn't saying anything, when the minority party is trying to figure out what to say, it kind of brings everything back to Andrew, which is people in this country have to want change. And we were quiet when they came from Socialist because we weren't socialists. We were quiet when they came for Jews because we
weren't Jews. And then they came for us and there was nobody left to speak for me. And so that's where we are.
Yet, Hey, Don go ahead.
I'm sorry.
So I just want to say something real quickly. Bacari. I think you're right.
I think there are people who do teach their kids that, you know, he's everything that could, He's the opposite of what we teach our kids.
I think that's some of us.
But some of the folks in which we've discovered over the last decade or so, teach their kids that they're entitled there, that this world belongs to them, no matter if.
They achieve or not, that they should be.
The people who get accepted into universities, that they should be the first person to get the jobs, regardless of their qualification, and if there are minorities or women who are more qualified, somehow, it's become a dei situation, diversity equality.
That's what the means. I'm sorry, you don't like you. No, that's you said it. You're right.
So, yes, there are some of us and that so when you said that, it just reminded me of when people say this is not us, this is not America.
Yeah it is, and so uh we do.
There are some of us who have to teach our kids that you have to be an overachiever in order to acquire things in the and to get to a certain level of professional, professional level and a personal level. But there are others who said, this is our land. You people should not be here, and that's why we're in the situation that we're in right now.
All of it.
Yeah, I hear you moving on to a lighter topics really quickly, and that is why is the NCAA football championship team so old? I don't really have a problem with this, but Angelo apparently did this one.
Her car is.
I like it remains undefeated even after playing the University of Miami for the national title in Miami, three oh five, my birthplace.
But folks are.
Wondering if age really is just a number. Turns out the who Jews roster is about the same age as a NFL team on average, and that's the age of about twenty three. So young. I cannot believe. I cannot believe which I am? My old coach Kurt Signette is Signetti Natti. Yeah, has no time for the haters.
He had this to say.
Yeah, it's pretty simple. I win.
Google me, google me.
He's it.
Listen.
The Green Bay PA Packers, at a youngest team on average in the NFL, are about twenty five years old. They made it to the playoffs this year. The average age is about twenty three and some change. For the Indiana Hoosiers. I mean that is a very very narrow gap. I think it shows you that with nil, with the transfer portal, with all these things, football is still football.
And if you get kids that want to be there, if you coach them up the right way, if you have somebody with the swag is Kurt Signetti, you have the pocket of Mark Cuban, who financed all of this. Shout out to Mark Cuban for investing in those young
men and women and being competitive. The pendulum is switched, switched and changed, and now you have fourth and fifth year college graduates getting master's degrees, grown men going out there, going out there and beating the ass of your Miami Hurricanes. But shout out to Miami for at least Megan you. But Indiana hasn't won anything since we've been born, and
so shout out to Indiana. Hoo's just for uh, well, all of us except Don So shout out to the Indiana for their success in the National championship game.
Hey, hey, hey, Butker, since you got the floor, tell us what's going on in Texas? In Texas linebacker, Oh Texas.
I was like, man, that's a horrible toss.
Andrew, I feel like we in the morning news and I'm talking how the fuck is going on?
This ain't my topic?
No, no, no, it's all good. I will go ahead and read this one another football news.
Houston Texans linebacker as these As Air made a political statement that costs nearly twelve thousand dollars in NFL finds. The message stopped the genocide in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
So why was he being.
Told that he would be taking out the game? He explains, that's roller clip.
Before palace sign and you could person off.
You know kids that have been amputated. Were you disappointed that the league find.
You for this?
I knew, you know that that was a fine.
You know, I understood what I was doing as far as like I mean, for example, Steph, he wears the I tape, you know, su As, I know him with stuff on it, and they always find you. But I was told that if I wore that end of the game, I would be pulled out the game. So I think that was probably the part that I was confused about because I understand that.
It was a fine. Sure, but you know, I ain't never seen stepf get pulled.
Out the game.
I tape with writing on it in the truth. So I mean, at the end of the day, it's bigger than me. One of the things that are going on makes people uncomfortable. Imagine how those people feel, and I think that's the biggest thing. I have no affiliation me, no connection to these people, other than the fact that I'm a human being. Right, if you have a heart, dear human being, you can see what's going on in the world, and you check yourself real quick, braking.
When I'm walking off this field.
That's the type of stuff that goes through my head that I have to check myself when I'm seeing it.
Crying about football. What it's people who are dying every single day.
Perspective and awareness, Yes, that's it, you know. According to Gaza's health Ministry, more than seventy thousand Palestinians have been killed since October twenty twenty three. So I thought it was important that this young man is trying to raise awareness for what is happening still in Gaza to the Palestinian people.
And unfortunately, truth telling still comes with great consequence. Apparently, even a truth that's been told by nearly every international health organization in the world who agrees that genocide is underway. Angela.
What you have, well, I still have the floor. I guess this is what I want to talk about. Don Lemon had to read for Nicki Minaj, and so I want to talk about that. Nicki Minaj of course calling Don Lemon out his name, coming at him, WHI slurs after all that's going on, trying to report the facts from the ground in Minnesota. She didn't like him being in the church. Imagine Nicki Minaj being a bigger Christian than TD Jakes. I can't call it, but here's Don's response.
This is what happened on Marlo Ja King Day, y'all.
So people have been asking me about responding to Nicki Minaj's unhinged, homophobic tweet about me. I usually don't respond to this stuff, but let me just say this, Nicki Minaj, stop talking about shit for which you know nothing about.
This is out of your out.
Of your depth, by the way, and you are a homophobic bigot, You don't care about African Americans, and you're not an African American.
From what I know. You are reportedly.
An undocumented citizen, so you should be deported under Donald Trump's rules.
So Don Lemon, we have you here? I want to know what inspired.
This sweet first? Can we put the tweet first? Because Nicki Nicki Nicki.
Be on that to give her. I don't want to put that tweet up.
I just want to mad so he could he could read again. I just wanted to.
Paraphrase he she said that she called me don c sucking lemon. Uh is disgusting. How dare you? I want that thug in jail. He would never do that to any other religion. Lock him up? Okay, a couple of things. Let's let's start. Let's start at the bottom of the page, shall we uh? Can we go back to that she said?
Lock him up now?
According to the reports, allegedly reportedly Nicki Minaj is came she came to this country illegally and she might be undocumented. So under her cult leader's rules, Nicki Minaj should be deported. I should come over to her house and do what they do to other people. Throw her on the ground, handcuff her, throw it in the back of a car, and deport her. Okay number two, I'm just saying, if she.
Has let the man burried, let them wrong.
I want to deportation for black people, for black people who disrespect African Americans when she is a visitor in our country. Yes, and if she supports the man who supports deporting people without due process, then yeah, deport her. As he said, that's the law and the rules that she believes in. I said what I said, and I'm not changing it. He would never do that to any other religion. I don't have my book here. I just wrote a book on religion that came out and was
a bestseller. I know more about I've forgotten more about religion than Nicki Minaj knows who who calls Psalm twenty three Sam's when? And when they ask who is what is her favorite Bible versus, she says Sam's twenty three. I'm like, she don't know. That's two two Corinthians. Like Donald Trump said his favorite thing is I want that thug in jail. She must be talking about her husband and her brother and reportedly allegedly maybe her father. I
don't know that's what I hear now. I don't know about that one.
But her husband.
Her husband is a sex offender who was charged with not registering as a sex offender in twenty twenty one and had to serve time and pay a fine. I believe her brother reportedly allegedly is a pedophile, and so people believe that she's doing that because she wants leniency or something, and that's why she's cosied up to the maga folks. And she is sitting on stage with Erica Kirk.
How dare you well, how dare you Nicki Minaj? When you this is Nicki Minaj is outside of her capacity when commenting on anything other than trash or gossip or garbage. And then don Sea sucking lemon is disgusting. If she wants to know about disgusting, she should go and just turn to the man she sleeps in bed with every night and uh.
Ask his being it was actually convicted.
And if it is disgusting to be on the sex offender register, or ask her brother or whatever it is her family member.
Who is a pedophile. If that's disgusting, that's it. Mm hmm.
Wow, Well that mic was dropped. This is smoking over here, I'm telling you.
And we still got more topics? Will we got?
Andrew I want to throws back up, like, what when do you decide to because this is a good question. This is something that we all talk about sometimes, but when do you decide to respond on versus? Because you get a lot of hate your way, and you have gotten a lot of hate for a long period of time, and you have evolved in a lot of different ways. But when do you when do you decide to respond versus? When do you sit back and just let it let it chill.
I sit back and let it chill for a lot. But you know I don't have to do that anymore. So there's a lot of talk about it.
There's a lot of response that that's in this body that I didn't get out when I worked in mainstream media for twenty twenty five years. Twenty five years, if not more so, I decided because number one is bubbling up. Number two, Nicki Minaj is you have to and I don't mean I mean this metaphorically. You have to punch
a bully right in the nose. Right You can't sometimes like you and you have to no means no. You have to let a bully know that no means no. When Donald Trump says I want to annex Greenland, you just go no. I said what I said, I'm not changing it, and so I think you have to do
that with Nicki Minaj because she thinks it's funny. And also I think it's also important for a journalist support to report the hypocrisy and to let people know that for those of us with real papers from real universities and real degrees, that we studied this and we know how to read in ways and sometimes in many different languages than people who can put up a tweet that is, you know, thirty seconds of something and a picture of
another thing and they think it's cute. She put up a picture of the chucky doll, and I think a better something that would better describe the whole situation.
And who Nicki Minaj.
Is is a pick me doll that she should have put up in that post. Because Nicki Minaj is a pick me. She is the definition of what we, especially Black people, call a pick me, people who cozy up to whiteness because they think that somehow that is going to get them somewhere or make them not as black. You are not like them, You are one of the good ones. She's a pick me. Put a pick me
doll in there. I choose not to pick her, and I think gay people who support her with the homophobic thing she said about me and black people as African Americans who support her should stop because they are contributing to her vileness.
I think that she's given them access to her Twitter account. I'm starting to think that that's not even her tweeting.
She had to shut down her she had to shut down her Instagram because she lost the followers after the whole Charlie Kirk thing.
You know what I didn't think about.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Andrew. I totally forgot about the mansion. Did you guys know this thing too? And so I did a whole thing on it the other day where you have to just let people know about things because they think it's cute. She's also involved in a lawsuit that she lost because her husband reportedly got into a fight with the security guard after the security guard broke up a fight reportedly between Nicki Minaj and one of her staff members, and her husband reportedly punched the security
guard in the face. The security guard has a five dollars one hundred thousand dollars judgment against them and apparently they're not paying it. So they went to court and the judge said that they were going to take some of her assets, which included the twenty some million dollar mansion. And as we are taping this, I think that either happens today that she had to pay it or tomorrow. So if you want to know what's behind somebody's pantics, that's what you have to close.
Go ahead, Bard, No, I want to go. I know you said big on it, bid on it. No, we can. Let's go bid on it. Let's go buy.
Just you know what, let's do it. I can raise some funds. You want to do it, Bard, I love to do it.
That'd be funny. Take a picture.
We got.
We got big topics.
Well, we got what what what? What? What's up on the on the how jams react to the custom piece.
We'll talk about cussing later.
But I think because we don't have Don for much longer, we should jump into protesting in church and the allegations of charging him with.
The k K K Actum.
So let us roll this clip from y'all's Assistant Attorney General har Meet Dillon and what she had to say about prosecuting Don Lemon and others.
It's off limits to go into a house of worship to do your little protests. Protests can occur on public property, protests can occur outside you know, on a sidewalk, certain sidewalks, not all sidewalks. And this is like basic what you learn in the first year of law school. There's a time placed in manner restrictions on the First Amendment write a protest, and they were violated here in this case,
no question about it. The only question is who was involved, how many were involved, and how many chargers are going to be brought here? Those are the questions.
So what I think is important here, I just want to remind y'all that this all is going down on Martin Luther King Day. So your Assistant Attorney General goes on a show with this conservative influencer. Earlier in the show, talks about potentially prosecuting Don Lemon and others who were in the church under the KKK Act, also know as the Enforcement Act of eighteen seventy one eighteen seventy one.
More on that in a second. She later stated that individuals could also be charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. This, I think is a important as a backdrop, And we can also pull up the tweet nick where the Assistant Attorney General references the FACE Act, and there's another from Donald Trump on true social about what he thinks should happen to protesters who went into
this church. So don if you can talk to the audience a little bit about why you were in this church, whose church it was, and why they thought they saw fit to even be there.
You were there reporting?
Yes, I was there reporting, And I don't even know the name of the church. I don't even know the name of the pastor who was there. But I do know the name of the pastor who was alleged to be and now has been confirmed by the church to be like the I forget some sort of coordinating agent or something of ICE, a directing agent of ICE.
In acting field director.
Acting right David Easterwood, and that he was a pastor in the church. And so that group said that they went there to protest that I didn't even know what the which what you know, what place they were going. It was an organization that people said were doing They had sent out a flyer and they were a protest group, and they had been protesting what was happening in Minneapolis. And I was I landed in Minneapolis and said, sure, I'll go, I'll follow them. I'll just go chronicle what
they're doing. And so when I found out it was a church, I sat back for a bit and I said, let them do their thing.
Did I know they were going to go in there.
Of course, of course they're going to go in there, that's what they do, or go in there around the church. Well, I wasn't sure if they were going to go inside or go around the church or whatever. I didn't know what their actions would be, but I knew that I wanted to report on it because that's part of what was happening that day. And so when they went into the church, I stood there and waited for a bit and waited and waited, and I saw other members of
the press going in, and so I walked in. When I saw the when when the unrest happened, I walked in and and just started started saying, Hey, look this group is over here. It's chaos right there. They're channing this. They're parishioners and church members over here who are upset.
And let me go over.
And talk to the pastor, pastor, how do you feel about this, about this happening in the church. And then he did this thing, and I went over to one of the some of the parishioners, I said, what do you feel about this? If they said they didn't want to talk, I said, I understand, and I moved on and uh. And then I talked to the afterwards, the members of the group that had organized the protest, and that was it. I left and then somehow, yes, somehow, I became the face of it. I'm like, I'm not
the face of it. I'm not a protester. And I kept saying to them when people would say, why are you going you guys, what do you I said, sir, I'm not part I'm not one of the protesters.
I'm just here. I'm a journalist and I'm here reporting and that's it. Would you like to say something? And then that's it?
So wow, you know why you're the you know why you're the face of it because you are Don Lemon. That's one two. The KKK at don't even apply.
I don't even know what that said.
You can't appear on my show anymore because he's not going to be on any KKK members shows.
It was passed or reconstruction, and the purpose of it was to suppress the KKK and protect African Americans. Ironically, she's saying she's going to prosecute you using this act. It was the reason for it was to protect African Americans and ensure their access to due process, access to hold office, and access to serve on juries.
Because what was happening was the KKK.
They were getting together and they were going out and intimidating folk, and they were like, we need to make sure we keep this from happening. Nothing that you said, the contours the context of what you said falls under the KKK Act.
So that's first.
Second, nobody should really have an issue with Don Levan going in there and covering the movement or covering a protest, because journalists cover protests, and I believe you have the right to cover it wherever you should or wherever you want to. The third thing, though, is where I disagree with all of y'all, and that I don't think you will believe you should protest in church. I believe that
to be whole ground. I believe that to be sacricaying, and I actually I don't mind people covering a protest. My problem is with the protesters, and the reason being is because where do you draw the line. It's an extremely slippery slope, and one of the houses of worship that I find near and dear to my heart is Mother Emmanuel Ami. And in January of twenty twenty four, when Joe Biden was in there speaking, it was crashed by some far left not even far left, but some
left wing Charleston National protesters. And you know, it was just a bunch of older black folks in there trying to pray worship and Mother Emmanuel is a sacred place for a lot of us. I mean, it just warms our spirit a lot of us and we're not trying to go to church to have it interrupted by protesters, particularly for this or that. And so I just find
that to be a very slippery slope. If you're like, oh, well we can just protest ice, well, who's to keep somebody from protesting single payer healthcare or whatever it may be? And that, for me, it's a very personal thing. I'm not trying tompose it on anybody else. That just crosses a line.
I I don't really agree really quick? Can I.
Can?
I just say one thing and then I'll go, I don't disagree with you, but it's not my job. It's not my job to judge whether it's appropriate to.
Cover it.
And so as a Christian. Yes, it may be uncomfortable, and I even say that said that in the report. I can understand why people are uncomfortable. Here, look at the kid. People are consoling their children or whatever. I can understand that. But as a journalist, you know, I mean,
I may have to cover in a war zone. I may not agree with what our country is doing, but it's not my job when I'm covering it to say that it's my job to cover it and then let the people decide, and then I could talk about whether it's appropriate or not in another way. So I actually feel very close to similar as you feel about.
It without the transparent to Our liberation was fomented in the church, the meetings that led to bus boycotts, that led to table counter protests that led to uh in some cases, the admonishment of our skin folk who were not our kinfault.
Correct. The pastors spoke of it, yes, but not all pastors, right, do you remember? Letter from Birmingham jail was directed at all those religious, super religious, black, white and otherwise pastors who said not here Reverend Jackson.
Reverend Jackson hated King so much in Chicago he changed his door, his address correct.
You're making the point, right.
Yeah, So I don't know how we I don't know how we go from And I'll stop here, Angela, because I haven't said much by way of opinion here so far. But it is I don't think one her meet Dylan ought to be setting up the case for whether or not protests and churches is or is not correct. This is the same woman who would not allow her division of civil rights we're supposed to ensure to our civil liberties, in our civil rights within this here country, decided that
she wasn't going to investigate the officer who killed Missus Good. Now, I know that the facts aim to be laid out, but the federal government has already said they're not launching an investigation against Missus Good's killer. This is the same woman who decided to dismiss similarily all of the consent decrees that precessed her from the last administration, holding those communities accountable who had committed atrocious violations of civil rights
acts all around the country. She's got no grounds to tell us what is and is not appropriate. I'm deeply offended by the fact that she even gets to carry this title, and certainly that we have to refer to her as a Department of Justice deputy, because this department is anything but just that's not what they represent, So she doesn't get to set up this frame for me.
I reject that, but I just want us to keep in mind and consider what if this were different day in time, And quite frankly, it feels like maybe similar day in time, but a different day in time, say nineteen fifty eight, fifty four, nineteen sixty sixty three, at a different part of the country, would we be clamoring for our church spaces to be the places in which we not only organize, but also go to protests, to let our voices be heard, to fight amongst each other,
before we then descend out into the streets with a unified voice and message to move our communities forward the history. Now with none of that, I'm not being selective about the fact that there are some places where you have to go. Paula White here in Florida, how you going to hold up the Gospel of Christ on Sunday and then on Monday you are treading barbs against our communities, all of our communities as you pretend to be pastoral moral advisor to President Trump. It just doesn't sink.
So I listen.
My point is, I agree with, as we oftentimes find ourselves, about seventy five percent of what you said. I agree with the offensive nature of the Associate Attorney General. I think she's out of her depth. I don't think she deserves her job all of those things. I think that her interpretation of the KKK Act is like somebody just told her that before she went on air, right, I mean, it's just flatly wrong. But again, we're going back to the point that they can be mediocre and still achieve
these high levels of power. We covered that a little bit earlier. But I think that you are highlighting and conflating two issues, like, yes, the church was the central meeting point. Yes, the church was a point of organization. Yes, the church was a place where you could go out and articulate from the well of the pulpit. Nobody does that better right now than Rafael Warnot. Right Ebenezer, a Baptist church. Rafael Warnot goes up there and he talks
about the scripture. Equates that to making sure that we understand Sunday is not the only day that we do this, making sure that we're out there doing God's work Monday through Saturday, basically relying on the Scripture as a blueprint.
I agree with all of that.
What I'm saying in protesting to the treads on.
Us, right, Yeah, I know.
But but what bothers me though, is in that house of worship, a place where we were stripped of everything that we had when we came here except faith, where we hold it to be sacricanct, where we hold it to be a place of home. And yes we can argue in bicker, because black folks bicker and arguing the church more than anywhere else.
What I'm saying, though, is.
For an outside body, because that's what a protest is, to come in, to come into our church and your body, to come come come into our home, regardless of what it may be, and to protest somebody.
That's what can we get to behind why you feel that?
I really want to chime in here because I think that there's go ahead.
No, I was just going to say.
The why is that I don't feel like we have many spaces that are our own. I don't feel that we have spaces that we can have a certain level of peace. I don't feel like there are spaces where you can go in and rest in your thoughts, in your faith, in your worship. I mean, I go sit at Potter's house and be up there crying in that moment.
The last thing I want somebody to do is comeing in and protest because I don't like Bernie Sanders, like that is for me something that I find to be mine and my Lord, and I want to have that time. And I just I ain't protesting in nobody's church.
I'm sorry.
I'm just going to tell you this, Like there's a difference between fascism faith and black liberation theology. And so I think that the main thing that we're we're conflating here now is that all places of worship are made equal. I want to remind the audience that the purpose of this particular protest is because David Easterwood, who is a pastor at City's Church, is the field director, the acting field director for Saint Paul, the Ice for Ice in
Saint Paul, renee Good was killed. The protest was because renee Good was killed or that man's leadership.
And so it would be one thing if they were protesting scripture.
It would be one thing if they were protesting the fact that they didn't like this particular path because they don't like what he preached about last Sunday. It would be another thing as well, Bakari, if people went to Mother Emmanuel to protest the fact that Dylan Rufe.
Didn't get a big enough cheeseburger.
On the other side of killing the parishioners at Bible study, what we're talking about are people who are protesting because their lives are at risk.
What we're talking about is people who took on the mantle of Jesus.
In Matthew twenty one, verses twelve and thirteen when he flipped the tables over. We're talking about protesting Pharisees and Sadducees, not gentiles who don't know any better. We're talking about protesting people who act under the color of law, people who were acting under fake moral authority. Not what is biblically true, Not what is loving your neighbor as yourself, Not what is feeding the poor, not what is taking care of the migrants, Not what is taking care of people who are.
In prison, incarcerated and being done wrong. Clothing the naked.
They took a naked man outside of his house, fresh out of the shop, hour with this ice.
So I think that we've got to differentiate between.
But how do you differentiate how how do you my pointing.
It's immoral protesting? What is it moral under the color of the cloth.
But I mean, you we just had a protest. We had a protested mother emanual. It wasn't about a cheeseburger. We had these cars came in and Joe Biden is, why do you.
Think of church's off limits? Why is it?
Why is that off limits? Do we deem religion to be off limits? Because that's problematic too, because you ever know, I don't think religion because God said so, And then you go, I don't think that.
Religion is off said so for slavery.
I mean I think I think I don't think religion is off limits. I mean, in fact, I think that religion as a vessel for protest. I mean, I just took my kids out to see the Buddhist monks that are traveling from Houston, Texas. They're walking twenty three hundred miles, and I just you know, it's not my religion, it's not my faith, but I wanted my kids to be able to be a part of that movement. See things they got a chance to meet the monks, meet a local,
the little dog. But my point is this, we're we're setting this arbitrary red line, or this arbitrary line that houses of worship, and that that is what that is what bothers me. I mean houses of worship.
You you established the red line. I don't believe there is a line.
No, that's but no, no, no.
But I'm responding to Angela because Angela. Angela was dictating that all churches are not created equal, which although I agree, although trust me, I do agree with who is who is the arbiter of that line?
Who?
My line is very clear.
Means I think it's God. I think it's God, and it's the guy in me.
I think that.
Look, I understand how you feel as a Christian, as a as a practicing Christian. I understand how you feel about that. But I would also have to ask you about what if there were people whose children had been abused by priests. Would you not want them to go into a Catholic church and say that man abused my child, that man sexually sulted mynd nine or ten or seven whatever? Would it be like, Oh, you can't tell your truth because you just can't go into a church.
No, I mean I think you can go Like I think that if you have a child who is a victim of child sex abuse, like in your example, and you are someone who stands up and says, in that spirit, it comes over you and you tell and you speak your truth in that moment, right, that is what the church is for. If you're speaking your truth, that is what the church is for. Organ But hold on, hold on. And he was also talking about a member of that church or somebody who had a relationship with that church.
Relevantly, what I'm talking about.
What I'm talking about is creating an outside entity that has no affiliation with the church at all and protesting that church or inside that church.
I mean, what if it's a group of people who are protesting against child's sex abuse and some of the child sex abuses are in that church.
I mean, look, I think that we can go down this path and have the have these exceptions, and I think that there are places.
In times perceptions, there are places in tops.
Well, we start trying, we're trying to create more exceptions too.
But my my biggest, my biggest, my biggest problem, my biggest problem is that we're we are saying that this is okay, this is this is okay because this is an issue that drives us. This is okay because we're all four of us are completely outraged by the behavior of Ice. That is a similarity, and that is a message that all of us convey today. Ice is fucking up and destroying people's neighborhoods.
I agree with that.
However, when Andrew gillim or Bacari Sellers or Angela r speak at the next church and we are rolling through talking about the pain and the fight for Black liberation, and then you have a group of Moms for liberty, have no affiliation with that church, come in the church and say.
You niggas are bad for society.
If they want life, if they wanted to shoot their shot in that way, come on right. Because because the environment will curate its own experience and make the choice, we don't get to be selective about what issue necessitates protests. I think church as a venue. I think whatever it is, whatever it is, because people don't generally just randomly show up in churches to protest for no reason. Usually people
are engineered by something that has occurred. There is usually a connection and that provides the moral clarity for the people who are part of that protest to be in that place at that time. I just think in today's society, and quite frankly for our community, it's been that way since jump in this country. But in today's society, uh, where churches, particularly white evangelical churches, are organizing politics, organizing centers of politics. I don't understand how we then draw
the line. But you said twice, and it's can use a church to organize a protest, you just can't execute one thing.
You've said this twice.
Can you name me throughout history using your civil rights direct line and metaphor, can you name me an organized protest that black folks have had in opposition inside of the house of worship?
You know, we people have to integrate churches and integrating black people, innovating churches and going in I am the churches.
That's a form of protest.
I'm not talking about large scale I'm not talking about large scale movement, march on Washington type stuff. That's what I have been a part of congregations where people have come in and protested, including I've seen in my community people who have come in and protested the pastor who is sleeping with uh uh, this.
This person's history. I'm not about.
You to curate you're trying to This.
Is also inner churches, because then the inn church beef is that they are not abiding. We literally have someone who is the pastor of the church.
Facilitating go ahead. I'm sure.
Well, all I'm saying is this, let me just reference the law. Because you reference Kkkact, we know that was created under reconstruction. But also this Assistant Attorney General references the freedom of access to clinic entrances active nineteen ninety four. You know the sponsor was the late Ted Kennedy. The reason I'm bringing this up is as a compromise, places of worship were integrated into this particular legislation. But this was really about people who are defacing clinics where people
were getting abortions. Now they say specifically in this bill that there's nothing in here that should be taking away activities protected by free speech or free exercise clauses the First Amendment, and I think that it is very important that we decipher between the two. We can feel disrespected, we can feel afraid, we can feel concerned that people are in places that we normally deem sacred, but which should be more sacred than anything else else in this life in this country, is life itself.
And this woman's life was taken from her.
So these pro life people at this city's church, and they're acting Ice director, who is also their pastor, should have to make a statement, should have to be clear about where they stand in this. Donald Trump is even saying, well, Ice has made some mistakes. He's being very cavalier about it, but at least he's even acknowledged that they've made mistakes.
This pastor's not doing that, and I thntion our folks have every right to demand that he says something, if nothing else, an apology to her family.
Angel I just I agree with you. I simply just want to align myself with I am issue agnostic about what the protests may be or may be about. I understand that there are many of us who hold in our hearts, our churches sacrasanc. There are people who also hold their traffic time, the streets that they go on to get from and to work sacri sank and do not believe you should be able to come into the intersection and disrupt that protest is fine, So long as
it doesn't disrupt me. But the meaning of protest, the very essence of why we do it, is to shake you out of your normal to do something so drastic, so different, so capturing, and quite frankly out of place, for the moment that I hold your attention, so that you get to hear what it is that I have to say. Again, I think, obviously, I consider my church base sacred, my prayer time sacred, o my home sacred, and so many other things, and there are laws around.
All of that.
But protest, by its essence, at its depth, at its very meaning, is to frankly, to cause you to say a man or ouch, And more of us will likely say ouch, because it is happening out of our comfort zone. And that is the point.
I agree with her, whether I agree with her or you agree with it, and I am torn. I have mixed feelings about it. I still believe that my role as a journalist, not as a protester, is protected under the First Amendment, and it be chronicled, should be chronicled, because.
Then you don't know what.
Imagine if there were no journalists there and it was not chronicled, and if it was not recorded, they could have made things up about what the protesters did. The protesters could have made things up about and now you see it all on camera. And that is the role of a journalist.
So anyway, and we need you, We need you in the first Amendment also needs you, and we also need Congress, but.
Do they need to be We also need Jesus. But I was just I think we all four of us will agree.
You walk up and protesting the black church, your experience, to use term will be curated.
That's now.
Outside of the protest.
But put some flyers on the cars. Don't come up here. That's what I said.
If you feel a real froggy, you want to leap, Okay, you go ahead.
When you walk into the church, there's a big sign on the door that says, don't start.
None who cares about truth and.
The loss more than saying it.
So according to NBC News, twenty four members of Congress are eighty four or older, and more than half of them are running for reelection.
But Kari and I got.
Into a heated discussion about this just briefly, and so I was like, well, you know, we should run that thing back into the show. So I want to talk very quickly about the aging of our Congress and whether or not age is nothing but a number or if it's all the numbers. Clearly we see the impact of age on Donald Trump's presidency. People talked about it quite a bit with Joe Biden's presidency. Don I got to hear from you, what do you think about the age of our Congress.
Look, I don't want to seem like I'm straddling the fence here, but I think you need a combination of both. I think that I think there's time for some people to just say, you know, there comes a time we have to say so long, like Carol Burnett said so And I think we have to make room for young people with pressure ideas, because that's how if you ever hang around a young person like my social media team
keeps me young and they have great ideas. And a lot of the folks who are the old folks don't understand where the world is going AI, you know, streaming computers and all of that. But I believe there is one thing that older people have that we can't buy, and that's wisdom. And I think we have to respect that wisdom. And also you have to respect experience because there are things that people with experience, they've gone through one hundred times before, and they know how to deal with it.
They know how to deal with.
Pressure and pain and grief and all of those things that one of the younger souls may not be able to deal with as well. So I think you need both. You need the old one, you know, each one, teach one. I think you need some of the older folks to do that and some of the younger folks to come in. But I do believe that we need more young people. They are younger voices, pressure ideas.
Thank you.
I hear that, Bakari. So you want to get rid of all the old people? So what you got?
Yeah?
I mean I'm somewhat with donnad. First of all, every eighty year old, all eighty year olds aren't equal. I think we all know that, right. I think that we see that in our own lives. You have these eighty year olds.
You know.
I was looking at the other day Llkuj's mama, right. I don't know if y'all saw that picture. He was celebrating a birthday, I believe, and she was. I mean, they said, I don't want to guess the age, but she was she was up there, right, but she looked amazing, like she looked like she had to be fifty years old. So every eighty year old is not equal. And we're we're not talking about casting folk aside. There are two issues that I have, particularly with black leadership in the
aging One both in our church. We've been church heavy in this program, but both in our church and our civic organizations as well as our politics. We don't create succession plans. We don't have any idea who or what we're looking for in the next upcoming leader, which means that when something has happens to our aging leaders, when they fall a brick a hip, when they have a heart attack, when it's a tragedy that strikes, whatever it may be, we're just sitting out here. Just the John
Conyer's district is probably one of the better examples, right, Michigan. Detroit, Michigan has no black the city of Detroit one of the blackest, I think it is the blackest major city in the United States of America. Has no black representative in the United States Congress, not a one. Right, and
you begin to see those things. The other thing is, and this is when Angela really gets mad at me because I think that we need a job fair, but these neighbors, like I think we need a job fair for black elected officials in particular, because when white boys get to a certain age, they cash out, they go to think things.
They go to SaaS.
Maybe he please just I know he's Senator SaaS is somebody who actually asked the question. Although I disagree with him politically, he asked a question what can I do for my country, not what can my country do for me? And I don't know if you all saw his post recently that he is what can UF pay for next? He's in stage four cancer and he doesn't have that much longer left to live. So I just wanted to uh kind of throw that throw throw that out there
as a random aside. But you know, you have these individuals who go to these college campuses like SaaS at UF or whatever it is, and a lot of times black folk in elected office don't have a landing spot.
We talk about that all the time. We don't have a landing spot.
And so when I think I think about the age in Congress, it's like one we don't have a succession plan. I'm not saying get rid of all the old folks, everybody above the eighties shouldn't run. Jim Cloudburn lasts at me all the time because he says, every time I shake his hand, I check his pulse, right, he says.
Macary, I'm only taking one cholesterol pill. I'm in good shape. Right. That's cool.
Everybody's not created equal, but we need a succession plan and we need to make sure that our they have a great landing spot that like the white boys do, so they can actually go out and create wealth for their families and reap the benefits of their service.
This is this is one thing that I think and Andrew want you to weigh in here too. But there's one area in particular that I want you to address.
Bacari has been controversial, particularly on the Hill. There are members of Congress, especially our older ones, people who are my mentors, like father figures to me, mother figures to me, who have taken great issue with the fact that they were told that you wanted to run against Congressman Clyburn and you were ready to take him out us form of an intern So I would like for you to address this once and for all.
Oh.
Yeah, I've always told people, I've always told people, and I tell Congressman that, first of all, I don't address I don't address everything, like That's one of the questions I asked Don earlier in the show, Like I don't address everything because everything don't need to be addressed. And if people around Congressman Cliburn want to tell him I'm running against him, so what I mean, you kind of listen when you can pick up the phone and call me,
that's that's fine. I've never made any steps to run against Congressman Clyburn. If I've been critical of something he's done in the media, ask me, I will like anybody else. I mean, I think we have that relationship, we have that respect for each other. He and I have a great relationship. But I've told him many times I have no intentions of running against Jim Cliver. I mean, I don't have I don't, I don't. I don't want to
do that. I don't feel that to be good for black folk in any in any way shape form, for this district and somebody who served and who brought stuff back, you know, it is what it is now.
You're not going to be able to pass that seat down to X y Z. But I don't.
I have a great deal of respect for Jim Clavern and his family, and I've never that was something.
The funny part about.
That is that that's so dc that it's like decently irrelevant to anybody in the sixth Congressional District, decently irrelevant to anybody in South Carolina, because everybody down here knows, and no one in here is like, but car go run against Jim, And I'm not telling people I am.
Well, I wanted to clear that up because I think that's important in the context for this particular topic. Andrew, you're a former young elected official, developed young elected officials network through people for the American way, and I think it's so important that we're building a bench, but we're also not throwing away our elders. There is no succession plan for a lot of the members of Congress, particularly
the black members. It's the most money that many of them have ever made in their lives to say you need to leave here. The question is and do what you know. And also, Congressman Waters has more energy than some of the thirty and forty year old members of Congress. So I do think it's very dumb to say, oh, if you're over this age because the third oldest Congress
in history, you should have to automatically step down. Who has the ability, the wherewithal, the knowledge to fight against this type of authority is here in regime.
Who was closer to.
Jim Crow and knows what happens and how to combat when segregationist policies are front and center.
We should not be thrown away all of our elders.
And we certainly now, if you're not doing nothing, I don't care what age you are, you should be run against.
That's completely different.
But I think this blanket idea that if you're older you automatically need to be tossed aside is just bad.
But let's also say this, and I'm gonna call a name out and people whatever, take it how you wish. But I love Eleanor Holmes Norton with a passion. She's done so much for DC. She does not need to run for reelection.
I mean agreed.
I mean, there are there are certain people who we know who we see with our eyes like I mean, it's it's it's I guess it's people now look at it as like a Joe Biden test, right, that just don't need to be running for office again, and we need to be confident like Chuck Grassley doesn't need to be running for office again from the great state of Iowa. I mean, this is not a this is not a democratic problem. This is a problem I believe across the electorate.
And I I think people give me more grief because I'm not afraid to like, we deal with these the three of us. We deal with these people consistently all the time. They're friends, many of them are friends. If they're not friends with us, they've been friends with our parents, right, So we have to be willing to hold them accountable.
I think I don't. I don't find that to be out of the out of the ballpark.
I agree on on on the on many of the points. One, there's really ever a retirement land. There's really ever a place to go when you when you leave a place like that. And let's just be honest, once you've been in a position to have that will, that kind of influence over the lives of people, it's very hard to find a place where you feel like your best and highest talents are being called upon and are utilized. And people don't want to be put out in the pasture
when they're not ready for pasture. And so I'm a big fan of leaving you know, people's term limits, what your opinion and aging out, you know, force retirement. D Look, if you are on a ballot that already exists, the voters are the arbiters of whether or not you get a term or you get your limit, and they you have to trust them to decide that for themselves. And they've been able to do that even against long term
institutional names. Voters have gone out and shot you know, the system by turning you know, those kinds of people out or re electing them and saying go back and keep up the fight. I will say this as well, because you laid out some of my early credentials with development of young leaders and and and the young Lative Officials network is one of the things that it showed me as well. And I wasn't planning for this, but it showed me also who absolutely should.
Not ever be in office again.
And if I had a chance to put you out, I'd do it right now right. It's similar to this whole thing about all old people aren't created equal, all young people are not created equal, with equal talents, equal moral compass equal uh vision uh equal uh, philosophical development around what you believe that you know. The presidential Remember we talked a little while back about Gavin Newsom, and I don't have any I don't know him well. I think he helped with the fundraiser when I was running
for governor and we met uh a few times. But my biggest issue is I feel like he's sort of sort of rediscovering a new version of himself politically that doesn't feel very connected to philosophical beliefs, but rather sort of you know this whole brow thing, right, Like, I don't get I don't know what it leads to. I
don't know why. I know that young white men are being attracted to the Republican Party and lure to them, and are lured by things like people who go to the gym and who have muscles, and who have pretty wives and girlfriends, and you know that kind of thing. But is that what we're emulating? Like what is the derivative?
What does that lead to? Because when you're president of the United States and you are quite virtually the most powerful person in the world, I really don't want you there figuring out whether or not your philosophical belief system exist or whether you have to invent it based off of either who's around you, the last person in the room, or how good person looks. And I'm not assigning those motives to him. I'm simply saying I don't really care as much about the age as much as I care
about people being at home in themselves. Like I can say no very clearly. I'm so much more clear, and life has taught me some things that I didn't know when I first got in. I wasn't bad as an elected.
When I first got in.
I was extremely I felt energetic and curious and innovative, but also very pollyannish and am not always clear about why somebody was in front of me, what they were asking for, who was on the come up on the other end. So I just think that there are things that season you over time that ultimately will yield a better product for the people who put you there on
their behalfs. So develop yourself first, develop your lifelosophical thinking and belief system, Develop your own moral compass, Develop where the red line to is that I will not go beyond, and then we can talk about you running.
And then don't be afraid to evolve while you're in you should you know.
You shouldn't it from somewhere You're right, I mean Andrews, and Andrew, that last portion of that uh soliloquy was just superb like it was. It was brilliant because I echo that sentiment all the time about because people come up to you that, like young people especially, I want to run for office.
I want to run for office.
I'm like dog, spend some time with yourself, like figure out. The other thing is we go into office broke, which leads to a lot of other persons about that. I mean that, you know, we we go into office thinking it.
Could lead to a lot of our problems if the money is the value and you haven't thought about how you cover your Maslow's hierarchy of.
Needs, and if you think that you might because my joys can do things that y'all came in office, Let's be.
Clear about that.
And I do think that I do think that Andrew, you and I and Angela to Angela as well are somewhat to blame because a lot of people see running for office as this kind of springboard to platforming themselves on TV or other things.
Celebrity and you know the celebrity, the celebrity and politics thing.
When I ran for office in two thousand and six, much like when you ran for office first, that wasn't a part of its celebrity and politics. Yeah, the celebrity and politics didn't really come along until you have Barack Obama, when people beganify and you had that intersection of politics, culture, sport, and entertainment. Right, that's when people were like, oh my god, you can go out and I mean you got political
groupies now right. I mean it's just a fascinating type of of of a profession and it should.
Be oh, of course, because you are the angel right the but but Caari building off that, I just wanted to say.
Go to commercial after that.
No, no, no, I was just you're the thing that happens. I should to drop the mic.
Sorry she felt anyway.
But but is that there are those who we know are in the field who make it look easy, that that the way you experienced them, it seems so effortless. You actually convince yourself that there is no effort, that that that there's nothing that came before that amazing experience that you had with them. That you also feel like you can replicate like, oh, I think I can do that, right, But you know what there is more what what was that?
Uh?
This uld to be this commercial? Uh? And Alicia Key said, my overnight success has been decades in the making. So we see the highlight reel and think, oh, well, you know if I get getting that, and then I'm no, this has been building, this has been happening, this has been coming the whole hour. We're the same age, and I want to want and be what did what have you done? What has made you ready for the moment?
And that doesn't mean you had to have been elected before, but you bet I'd be able to tell me something about something that gives you the siffing spine that this is the work that you should be doing for others. Otherwise you should definitely go in intern for the person who is holding the seat that you think belonged to you or some other thing.
Right.
But I think there is an impression sometimes that there are those who make the thing look sort of effortless, that people think you can get it and then be effortless as well, And that just means unprepared, not ready for the moment. You're call flat footed at the first crisis, so on and so forth. So no, the Overnight story has been decades in the making.
I want to just point out that you always make everything look so effortless. And for another one who makes things look effortless, Don who joined us today, he had to step out because he got legal stuff to deal with thanks to your crazy administration.
But we're going to effortlessly. Now go to our CTAs where Don will rejoin us.
Nobody knows.
My call to action is to like and subscribe to the Donal Livan Show on YouTube, uh, on Twitch, on a substack on Instagram and all of the platforms, because this is the time, all the things, and it's very important that you support us because I'd believe that independent journalists are doing doing the work out here, boots on the ground, and I'm very happy to be in this space and sharing it with people like Joy Read, like Jim Acosta, like Georgia fort in Minnesota, and others who
are out here like Roland Martin, Angela, Andrew.
I don't know about you, Bacar. You kind of a hybrid, so I'm halfway proud of you. I'm kidding you know. I'm very proud of you to.
Take it.
I will take it.
So yeah, like and subscribe to the Donovan Show on YouTube, stack, twitch, everywhere you get your streaming.
I love it. I love it.
We're you're killing it.
Thank you.
Oh to vote for me, vote for me for the four NAACP Image Awards that I was nominated for.
So he's in our category. If he's in our category, vote for U.
Yeah.
I was about to say, give them your second.
I love you guys, and you I'm sure you love me, but you want people to vote for you, right, and I want people to vote for me.
So but if you win in the tape, it'll be for our page. But yes, keep going. You can vote for him another three categories.
Before I hop into my CTA's, I wanted to make sure I made two very very quick announcements. The first is that my sub stack is launching. It has launched.
Check it out.
Shout out to my team, Brian Fitz, shout out to Jerry Loho. It has written material for me. You can find everything from seeing in appearances, speaking in current speaking engagements, Native lampod, all of those things. Oh and my second announcement ties right into the Native lamp pod. Because every other Monday beginning on January twenty sixth, we're gonna kick off my solo pod, which is just going to be a little bit of time I spend with you, kind
of live ish, I guess. I don't know talk to the producers about that, but we'll be talking about sports, entertainment, politics, culture, all the things that you want us to cover. And I think that's important to note right before I get into my call to action. My my call to action is very simple. I always tell people, particularly young people, that the most important currency in this country, in the world that you have the then you should cultivate more
than money, is relationships. And my relationship with Don Lemon has been something that has been amazing from a very long period of time, from when Caputo called me boy uh during the commercial break of the Don Lemon Show, uh too, when he he was just like.
Breathe that was Matt slap. I didn't mean computo match slap. You're right, And do you know who is on show? Mark?
I was thinking about the other I was thinking about the other computo in my head, not Mark, but the other one.
But it was Matt slap. But yeah, I know he was. I know he was never on the show again. But you you meant so much to us.
And I don't think I think that, you know, for a long period of time, for a long period of time, you got uh somewhat deserving le an interesting reception from black folks. But over the past, over the past decade, it was the thing in Missouri for me. But over the past decade, I don't think I wasn't lying. I don't let me finished. I don't think that people realize how much you have helped bring black voices onto TV.
Giving myself an opportunity, Angela Rian opportunity, Andrew gilliam an opportunity, Simone Sander's an opportunity. Because the way it works is the white folk at these networks they go to black folk that they know and say, are they gonna be good? Is it okay? And you put us on your show. You let us have that freedom, You let us be able to get our thoughts out. And so my call to action is to say, build relationships, value relationships, and also give people their flowers while they're living.
And so thank you. Don I know you're getting up there in age, so I just wanted to say thank you.
It's some distressing well, Andrew, my call to action.
As you all can probably imagine, my Seahawks are still in the NFL playoffs and so I just want to drop this song, real quick call to action to support the Hawks.
My born three one two three, and I'm not gonna have.
A licensing issues. My friend dras song.
Oh okay, I about to say.
To the dark side, boy my mentality.
Can we say mos we mean miss welcome to the dark side. When you see that blue and green.
No, it's my tie, depending every blade of grass when we couldn't lie and seattle when it's ringing.
And we outside, yeah, we outside of everybody.
Outside, whole shitty going up like a sun. Times you're hungry, we can provide.
Some beef up front and pancakes from my own line.
And Murphy is that?
I mean?
I got a big cat, but they allergic to the beat on the West Coast sometimes.
You do something.
Okay, that's enough, all right, Andrew?
What's your call as you're such a hater just because you don't have no.
You we had the Carolina Panthers, right, we are all lemon heads. I love it, you like it, y'all.
Mine is quick and easy. I just this weekend, of course, spend the time with my kids, and one of them asked me, Daddy, are we such and such and such, And I said, well, I know I am, but you will one day get to decide for yourself what you are and what you believe, what you believe in, and whether you support a thing or you don't. You know, I just encourage you to, you know, really stay honest with how you feel, and don't let your friends around you, you know, try to tell you to believe or to
do a thing just because they're doing it. And I guess what that reminded me of is just the the significant importance of helping our children to very honestly think for themselves. There are things, obviously at certain ages you
have to be directive about. And then I think there are things and moments that just happen through the course of your exchange with your kids at dinner or in the day, over the weekends, at night, whatever that might cause us to possibly, instead of taking the parent assertive, this is the this, and this is that to coach them through ways to sort of think and develop for themselves some critical thinking skills that you know, I think might be the best gift that we can give to
our children is in this world where everybody seems like sheep following one, you know, the leader, because it's the leader. We need some people who are willing to say, well, that's not what I think, that's not what I believe, uh, and to feel comfortable in doing that without going along to get along.
That's good.
That's it, y'all. So you've got our directives, our admonishments, our assignments. If you will, we want to put an assignment out for you, which is keep those videos, questions, comments thoughts coming our direction, because if I'm not mistaken, y'all, we're gonna be talking on our mini pod about questions that we've gotten over the last couple of weeks that we haven't gotten to and we want to make sure
we get to those. So stay tuned for that. Don As always, it's always been a pleasure because we've always been on your platforms coming and you know you asking all the questions, and I thought you were doing that a little bit here, like, well, let me get to the substance of that in the what what makes you feel this way? I felt that because you're a journalist and truth that at heart and you do a damn good job at it. We're so fortunate to have you
with us on nail lampid. I hope you enjoyed it, because we enjoyed you.
I love being here. You guys know that you are my brothers and sisters. Angela you you know how I feel about you. Bacari, Come on, I love your wife more than Ellen is mine. That most people most people do, but I do have to say that I really do miss you, Andrew, and I still have one. I don't know if you ever if you remember this, just to show how kind you are. We were sitting on the set in Washington, DC covering something, some craziness that happened.
It's probably a Trump thing, I don't know. And you had on this beautiful bracelet and I said, man, I really liked that bracelet. What is it? And you said that it was bullets? Do you remember that?
And you gave me that bracelet and I do still have it to hollowed out bullets, and I still have that and I will never That just showed me just what a generous heart that you have.
And so he had two of them. I said, I like it, and you're like, you can have it and I was like, thank you. He got him for free. He had two of them, so.
Bullocks for life. Check it out in Miami. Uh, and you'll learn all about it. Don I do remember that, I remember it well. We asked some other conversations too. We won't just mention those here though. No.
Well, I am so grateful that you came on, Don, and we are, you know, rooting for you absolutely and Bakari and I'm signing him up even though he can be a little greedy. We are here as pro bono council for you if you need support on this non.
Already I already called him. I don't know what pro bono means, but I already called him.
He said, you know, I got you, and I said pro bono and he goes, what language is that? I'm glad?
Oh lord, I thank you.
Continued success. Okay, welcome home, welcome home, come home, Thank you, Thank you.
That was a full episode, y'all, And thank you to our listeners as always for listening, for supporting, for subscribing, for sharing. Please please, please can do you do to do all those things? Also, don't don't forget to please send your questions in. We want to hear from you. In fact, we want to hear from you so bad. We are all three of us committed to making Fridays Mini Pod just about you, the questions that you've entered
and we look forward to answering them. As always, we want to remind everyone to please leave us a review. As I said before, subscribe to Natal Lampid. If you're not already subscribed, share with your friends. We're available on all podcasts platforms and of course on YouTube. If you're looking for more shows like ours, check out the other shows on our recent choice media network, Spola Takes with Jamil Hill, Off the Cup with Si Cup and now
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He out of you.
Welcome home. There are two hundred and ninety one days until midterm elections. They can come quick enough.
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