Wake that ass up in the morning.
The Breakfast Club Morning, Everybody's DJ Envy just hilarious, Charlamagne the gud we are the Breakfast Club. You got a special guest in the building, Yes, indeed got May and Ross Barako.
Welcome. How you I'm good. I'm good. Little tired, but I'm good.
You ain't can't get tired now, I know that long way to go.
How are you man, I'm good man. Yeah, yeah, I had a rough couple of weeks, but I'm all right.
You can't elaborate on that, just like the specific circumstances that led to the arrest that the.
Lady or yeah, you know, we've been going down there every day. In fact, my folks are down there now, uh to uh do the inspections, uniform cold construction. Uh you know you have to get a certificated occupancy all these other things. But they came in and just was like, you know, we're gonna do what we want to do. Our folks went down there. They wouldn't let him in. I was surprised, so I have them go with y'all. I want see what's going on.
So they basically they wouldn't let y'all in it to do the inspections.
Yeah. So they basically was like, no, go, this is a private company. This is not the government. I it's nobody, just these guys. And so we took them to court and we're in the process of being in court and they just start putting detainees in the building while we were in court, like just total disrespect. So we go down every morning to serve them, like give them a citation, because we just wanted to show a pattern that they
have been disregarding the local law. When we get in court, the Congress people went down there to do a walk through and they called me and was like, Yo, we having a press conference. We want you to be at the press conference. I said cool. So I came down to the press conference. It was protesters outside and they out there every day by the way, saying let the mayor in. I SI, they were saying when I was at the gate, so the guy lets me in the guard. He was like, come on this side of the gate,
So I did. I stood there about an hour and a half and then the Specialation in charge of Homeland Security came, but ICE was already there. They didn't say anything to me. I was there for like an hour. They just looked at me, looking at them. He came approached me, started talking crazy, reckless. The congress people got in it. He said, you know he's gonna arrest me. Then the congress room was like no. I said, you know what, I'm leaving. Don't worry about it. He said, yeah,
get out. So I left. I left and went on the other side of the fence. He got a phone call. They made a decision to leave the inside and come on the outside and arrest me on the city side, you know. And that's basically what happened. They took me to a real lock up somewhere in some place I didn't even know existed in North by the way Wow, in a cell, took pictures, fingerprints, charged me with federal trespass, went to hearing all the whole thing. You know, finger printed me again. I heard that.
I heard you was subjected to like the second round of fingerprinting.
It's crazy.
Why how do you interpret that?
I have no idea. Man, there was like one agency has it not the other agency. I was like, can't y'all get it from them? Like it's technology. I mean, they did this in the middle of the court, like we were leaving, the Marshalls came into the courtroom to escort me out. My lawyers started, you know, going back and forth with them, and I just said, you know what, forget it, just take me wherever y'all got to, wherever y'all going, I'm going, let's go, and I left.
They took you to a place you didn't even know exist the first time.
Yeah, absolutely, Wow, like some it's non descript factory looking place. Took me down in the basement is a Britain's like real cells in there. Yeah, it's great.
You didn't know it was there.
No, not at all. No, it's a homeland security spot that they have there. Did you see other people? I didn't see anybody. Had me, you know, off somewhere, you know, so I didn't know what was going on.
Criticism of Trump. You think any of your criticism of Trump called them to act like that.
Well, I just believed that they wanted to get the mayor of the city to you know there on this I'm gonna arrest judges, mayors whoether's like they're in charge. You just want to show that we have power and authority and you're not going to defire us and we're gonna get whoever it is, you can get it to type of thing, right, So I think that's what it was. And when they realized I was there, somebody sent them
there to get me, you know. So if that's basically what happened, I don't even think it is directly about me. I think it's about them and them trying to prove to everybody that they're untouchable, and they basically do what they want to do. When they realized it was me, they sent a special agent in charge of the Homeland Security investigation of that region to come and get me. That's like the police director going downtown and the rest
of somebody for shoplifting, you know. So yeah, he comes by itself and does that.
So legality, right, So this is a private building, right that law enforcement should be able to come in and see what's going on. So how do they have the right to stop y'all from going in? So shouldn't in any other Like if I have a private building and I say y'all can't come in, y'all gonna kick the door then for sure, But this case, y'all can't.
Yeah, And like the fire inspectors and the health inspectors have more rights than police officers, like police officers need like a warrant to do specific things. The health inspector and fire inspector can come in any building for safety, health and humor resources or whatever it is. They can come into the building and say, look, this building is not safe, it's not fit, so forth and so on, and they won't let them in. And that's why I was totally shocked, like this can't be real. I need
to go see this myself, and it was right. They just wouldn't let it. They wouldn't let anybody in.
So what's inside this building? Has anybody seen what they're doing in this building? Nobody knows.
I mean, CBS was a granted entry and they gave them like a limited tour. And they keep saying it's like these criminals in their murderers, rapists, you know, the Republican talking point. But everybody knows who's in there. You don't know what's going on, who they are, where they come from. We don't know anything. And you know the building was used as a halfway house and drug rehab twenty years ago. To change the use of the building. Now you're going to change it to a place with detainees.
You have to get that. You checked right, it has to be. You have to get a certificate, arguments, you have to apply for that, You have to get inspections. You may have to go to the planning board, zoning board, it depends, but you have to start that process. That's anybody has to do that special. It's not like putting undue circumstances on these people. This is what everybody goes through.
That's all you say that you feel like these measures were an attempt to humiliate and degrade.
You absolutely once you know, you know, they they cuffed me, threw me in a car. You know the security that well the police did was pretty decent, but you know, taking me through that process, they put me in a cell, you know, the whole fingerprinting, the interrogation piece. You know, then't doing it again. I just don't think it's necessary. I mean, the US attorney came to my hearing. It's a classic misdemeanor. Four hundred dollars fine, wow, you know,
maximum thirty days in jail. She's she's at the hearing, the US attorney. I'm like, what what's happening here?
You know, this is they're trying to give you a maximum obviously thirty days in prison in the fall Aliphant.
Yeah, I mean this is probably what they're going after, but they don't have no I don't think they have a case at all. I mean, first of all, it's not federal property, so federal trust. But it's not even one federal employee that worked. Like all they do is all they They don't have a lease. They have a contract for them to house a few of their prisoners. That's it. It's not there's not nothing to do with
the federal government at all. This is a private property with a private owner from Florida called the Geo Group, which owns hundreds of prisons, by the way, that has nothing to do with the federal government. If anything. If it was trespassing, uh, they would have to call the local police, right and if they thought it was a conflict of interest, they should have called the state police. But they didn't call anybody, by the way, because they
let me in the property. Wow. Yeah, the people who called were those ice agents and everybody else who called their bosses and boss came down there and did what he did, and you got orders to do that.
Have you got any like like messages like behind the scenes on some like all right, don't step out of line again, it can get worse or something, you know what I mean, Yeah.
Pretty much. But I mean, you know, we were in the processes, in the process of trying to figure out the charge in that, you know, and these people are you know they serious now they committed today foolishness, you know what I mean. They're threatening to arrest the congresswoman who was there, and multiple congress women. You know, they're threatened to take us through this all the way to the end. But you know, at the end of the day, like,
we didn't do anything wrong. So I mean, if they want to waste their taxpayers money, the government's money, to go through this, then let's go through it. We think we are correct, and I don't think they have any ground and stand on.
What do you say to people who say they don't care about fighting for the rights of immigrants, they're.
Just misinformed and because we've allowed other people to kind of dictate or control the narrative. Honestly, what we're fighting for is the due process for the fourteenth Amendment, the fourth and fifth Amendment, to be secure in your person, your papers, your property, people can't do anything till you pull you over, throw you in jail, without due process, without you going to court, without them having a warrant,
all these specific things. And I think more than anybody, Black people should be concerned about that, because we're the number one victims of being searched without probable cause, or people coming to our property, our persons disregarding our constitutional rights for the for our first the Bill of Rights, the disregard for that, we should be the first ones concerned about it. And so we should stand up for people who's getting getting there is violated because we next.
And I see that you also run for governor as well. Do you feel like this is a part of the plan to mess that up too?
Well, I mean I think it's the part of the plan to mess everything up, you know. So I think they what they meant for evil though always turns to good. I mean, these people are they're not thinking about what they're doing. They're just reacting. Right. The person in charge of homeland security, well, the second in charge gets on TV start saying we stormed the place. It was a bust of migrants going in there. You know, we slammed
ice agents like all this was fabrication. Now they just put themselves in a bad situation because now you're saying things that are not true because we have the videos. So I just start dropping the videos so people could see that I walked in there with my hands in my pocket, you know, very calm, you know, because the guy opened the gate and let us in. There was
no kicking, no shoving, no pushing. I mean, they're used to lying and controlling the narrative, but this is the time they made a very grave mistake.
Do you think that this will impact your bid for governor in any way?
I don't think so. I mean, people who don't like what happened, don't like what happened anyway, they don't like they wouldn't vote for me anyway. So I don't think I'm gonna lose any votes based on what we did. I think what it does do, though, it tells people that we're willing to go all the way, that you know, we're not just talking about defending people's rights, that we're going to challenge these people at every turn.
I do wonder what message do you think your arrest sense to other elected officials who might oppose the these federal polities who just opposed the Trump administration period.
Well, I think these guys need to ratchet it up a little bit, need to figure out what we're gonna do in a collective way. These kind of individual things that are happening. It's not really enough. We need like collective energy here, a cooperative plan of action to push back against what's happening. Not all these separate states doing
these suits. We should do a collective one. The irony is when I was going to court, the state of New Jersey was going to court with Donald Trump that same day, our ag filed the suit against this his sign of executive order undermining the fourteenth Amendment of birthright citizenship. On that day he was in court. But it should have been Donald Trump versus New Jersey, against balt against Maryland, against you know, California against Maine. It should have been
like fifteen different states together. And I think we need collective action. This individual stuff is not working.
Yeah, I've heard, you know, may and Adam say this, and I've heard a lot of other people say this to me, like there's an attack on black mayors. Do you think so?
Well? I think I think black mayors having a little bit more difficult than everybody else, obviously, just like black people do. Obviously people expect more from you. You're going to be scrutinized more. They think you have a magic wand and because you're black, you're gonna make all of the black people problems disappear in five seconds. Obviously that's not going to happen. But I mean, ultimately, I think we have a harder road to tow, a heavier, a
bolder to move. But you know, it is what it is. This is what you signed up for. You know, we knew this when we got into it, like this was what it was going to be.
How did it feel for you when you just saw you know, the city and knew it like really come to your defense, like they was outside, like people was pulling that not even just knew people was pulling up from all over the tried state, you know the ride for you? How did you feel when you came out and saw that?
It made me feel good. Irony is when I was in there, you know, the the guy locked me up after the judge said you could go, took an extra thirty forty minutes to let me out because he was trying to devise a plan to get me outside because there were so many people out there. He was like, Oh, we got to get these people from in front of the building. I said, you know how you get them out, Get me out, Let me out, They'll go. I wish it was that easy, I said, is it actually is
that easy? So as I walk out of here, they're gonna walk away and lo and behold. I walked out, We walked down the street, talked to them, and everybody dispersed. I mean, people are not interested in doing nothing extra crazy, you know, they just want justice. And that's simply what it is.
Now you're running for governor, what's the first thing you want to do when you become governor? Like, what's the first thing on your mind? The first thing you want to do first day, second day, third day?
With well, I mean number one, I think we need to fix this budget. Our budget is, you know, is out of whack because we have given so many tax breaks to these multinationals and we need to bring that money back and fix our tax code. But ultimately, we need to be building affordable housing across the state of New Jersey. We need to be building ten twenty thousand units of affordable housing in the first two years one,
it'll reduce people's costs, reduce rents, mortgage. So I would put a rent control on all rent across the state of New Jersey for the first couple of years until we get the first units of housing built in a state. That needs to happen to begin stabilizing our economy and it to make people believe we mean business right put thousands of people to work. So dealing with this affordable housing crisis is like number one on my list.
That there's a lot of people in this race for governor. Now, how do you step above all those people? Because right now looking at polls, and polls mean a lot of nothing a lot of times. But how do you make sure you're ahead of those polls to make sure people come out and support you, that you're really taking this serious?
Yeah? Well, I mean the polls are fluctuating every week, they change here and there, which means that it's like a fourth quarter game. It's going to be whoever gets there put people out to the polls to vote, and whoever wants it better than more than anybody else is the person I think that's gonna get over the line.
But ultimately I think people could see my record, and we've been putting that out there, the things that we've done in the city of Newark, and we believe that if you could do it in Newark, you could basically do it anywhere. Our problem if the state has a cold, Newark has the flu. Right, so our problems are a lot more intractable and difficult, and our ability to mitigate those issues makes us uniquely qualified to deal with the issues around the state. I saw something.
It was an Emerson College poll and it said that fifty six percent of voters were undecided about who they wanted to vote for in the Democratic primary.
Yeah, I don't think it's that big Immocon Yeah, Emmerson. They did a text poll. Those text polls are incredibly unreliable. They're texting people, and you know they texting a small portion of people, but there is a huge undecided number, but it's not fifty six percent. And you always have to understand and I know, we know when they poll in people, it's not really us because we're not answering the phone. So we have to be a little weary of those poles, little literary of them, and really just
get on the ground and keep working. I mean, the poll said that Kamala Harris was going to win right. The poll says she was gonna win New Jersey by double digits, and she only won by five percentage points.
Newark Airport, Man, what the hell is going on? Man Baraka? Like, what is the problem with Newing Airport? How did they get here to way? People are saying it's unsafe to fly out the new A Airport.
They don't flatter airport. I don't think it's unsafe. I don't think it's unsafe because they keep delaying in canceling flights. If they weren't doing that, then it would be unsafe. The reality is it's too many planes in the airspace air traffic controllers is not enough. Our air traffic controllers walked off because of stress. They don't want to when they losing contact with airplanes. They don't want to be the one responsible for ninety people one hundred and fifty
people going down, so they walking away. The radar system in that area doesn't work. The infrastructure has broke. So but the Trump administration came in, got rid of four hundred people, blamed DEI and now they realize it's a real problem and none of that is gonna help it. So now they're trying to put money in infrastructure and hire more air traffic controllers. But they need to do that like rapidly, like an emergency, and in the meantime,
we just need to slow those flights down. We need to do the same kind of patterns that happened out of LaGuardia. See LaGuardia is in the same airspace but not having this problem. They're not having this problem because they have less flights and they have more time between flights, right, the flights coming in and the flight's going as more space between those, nor to just we just fly places, flying in and out, in and out, in and out. We acting like there is no problem, right, but there
is a problem. And so as we act like there's no problem, they're canceling flights and delaying flights and ultimately this need to not have those flights until they get this in order.
So you said people are they were walking off whye because they.
Just were stretched out? Yeah? They what were stretched out about? Like, I mean, to not have contact with an airplane for thirty seconds, for sixty seconds, for ninety seconds is a lot. I mean, if you're an air traffic controller, and you can't control what's going on, and somebody crashes and dies on your watch. I mean, obviously that's going to cause a bit of stress. Absolutely, folks walked off and Newark unfortunately add insult the entry there you fixing one of
the runways at the same time. So that should be done prayerfully by the end of June. But we need more air traffic controllers and we need the infrastructure fixed immediately. We need emergency spending, emergency funding to get that stuff done like yesterday.
But nobody knew that about the infrastructure beforehand.
Of course they did. They knew. They knew that the infrastructure was old. They also knew that we didn't have enough air traffic controllers, not just newer but period, right,
and that's why we were having incidents. Then when the Trump administration first came in, you've seen all these airline issues that were going on, which signaled that there was a problem, and instead of dealing with the problem, they began blaming DEI and continue to lay people off instead of hiring people fixing the infrastructure so we won't have this emergency situation where we are now. So they finally
they've understood that this is a real problem. So now they're trying to address it, but it's not happening fast enough. But in the meantime, I would say, they need to stop some of these planes from going off the ground. Yeah, you're gonna be inconvenienced because you can't get as many flights as you could have got before. But safety is more important than anything else, I will say.
Now, I wanted to ask about the congresswoman that is also going against you in this race. They said that she has supported a lot of the things that Donald Trump has has put to the table, and you've been very vocal about that. What are your thoughts to some of the things that she's trying to follow up with and that she's campaigning for.
Well, you know, everybody in the primary now is progressive, right, but all of the progressive leaning organizations endorsed my candidacy, all of the progressive unions, all of the progressive organizations for People's Organization in Progress thirty too, be Jay working families because I'm a real progressive. I'm not just playing one on TV. The reality is, here's a woman who supported the border wall, right, who you know, supported four
billion dollars to go towards Trump's borderwall. Right, A person that voted against immigrants while she was the congress person. Right, who is opposed to Immigrant Trust Act in New Jersey that says that we have to not ask people their status, that our police can't cooperate with ice, that we have to make sure immigrants get the same services as any other people or residents of the state of New Jersey. She voted she is opposed to that, and voted against
things when she was the governor. I mean, excuse me, when she was the congress person. So the reality is, I don't think that she's progressive at all.
Now, you went to her hometown of Montclair to make that statement, to make sure that the residents of Montclair know who they're voting for.
What was that important to you? Well, I went there to really talk about the fact that they have a plan for everything but black people, right, that the reality is, they come up with all of these strategies and plans that they're so thoughtful about, but none of it involves us. But they keep coming in our community asking us for things,
but they have no plan to help us. When we were on a panel, they asked her about the wealth gap as she started talking about third gradest reading level, and so I got upset, Right, I said something on a panel and I said something in Montclair. I said, you know, reading levels. We need to make sure that our kids can read on grade level. But don't get confused that the wealth gap has nothing to do with reading. As a matter of fact, income and wealth are two
different things. Income you could say that, you know, if you have a better education, you can get a better job and your income could be better. But wealth, you could be dumb as a doornail and have wealth. Your parents can pass down businesses and real estate and all the thing to you, and you can mess it up, but you still have wealth. Right. You know, Donald Trump has wealth not because he's brilliant, but because his family
had wealth. I mean, this country has denied us wealth since we came here, like slaves, helped to develop wealth
for other people who've passed their wealth down. And because she don't understand that, and she talks about it like in a tone deaf way, it kind of undermines our ability to destroy a wealth gap that's actually doubling in a state of New Jersey right now, that went from three hundred thousand dollars to six hundre one thousand dollars because of the lack of home ownership and business development in our state. And she and if you're going to be the governor, you should know that, right.
So's she's actually supposed to be coming up here, I think this weekend next week. What's one question that you would think is the most important question that she should answer.
That what's her plan for black and brown people? But more importantly black women. Right, Black women are the most committed and dedicated constituent that the Democratic Party has, and they're treated the worst in New Jersey or in this country. I mean, she's endorsed by the mainstream Democratic Party, but they have no plan for black people. They never did. They have no plan for Latinos, they never did. And
they have no plan for working people. I mean, the Democratic Party is in charge of the state, and working people are struggling the most. We can't pay our bills, Our childcare is too high, right, insurance is too high. In fact, if you got the wrong credit score, you might not get no insurance. Right. Your rent is too high,
your more is just too high. And we still give a tax breaks to billionaires in New Jersey and can't take care of working people, and you're supposed to be the party of working families, right, she should have an answer for those things.
Is running for governor hard when you still got a governed as mayor. And the reason I brought that up is because everybody were not everybody, but they were people saying that this was a publicity stunt when you got arrested, Like you're just trying to drum up, you know, attention for your campaign for governor.
What you say, I got a lot of ways to drum up attention. Corner jail ain't one of them, you know. But but ultimately, like, look, I just came from the gym that day. You know, I was going to get a shake to go back to the office. My policy advisor reminded me that they were having a press conference. I went down there for that press conference to support my congress people, right. I didn't expect that they would do that. And honestly, you know, when they started threatening,
I thought they was bluffing. Like when I left the property, if I wanted to get arrested, I would have stayed on the property or I actually left right in twenty years go, I would have took flight, you know where they said they coming to wrest you. I would have been ENCE's cars everything. You know. The reality the matter is nowhere for me to go. Like, if they're gonna wrest you wherever I'm gonna go, they're gonna come. Like, so,
if you're gonna do it, just do it now. And that's really what my sentiment was, like, I don't believe you got it in you that this is not gonna happen. This can't happen. What a congressman told me, they come and to rest you, I said, why, what did I do? I didn't do anything. That's exactly what my response was, What did I do? I was like, oh, come arrest me. I was saying, I didn't do anything, But how would you? How are you gonna arrest me? I'm not even on
your property anymore? And they came out and did it anyway?
Did that confirm to you what type of political climate were in?
Oh? Absolutely, absolutely, very very dangerous. The fact they're still going through this, that my lawyers are still going back and forth with these people, it's still it tells you clearly that they're committed to this stuff. And the question becomes how committed are we and I don't believe we are as committed as we need to be to turn this thing over.
At any point, were you like afraid for your life the fact that you were taken to an off site factory.
Absolutely? Absolutely. I mean, I mean, I guess when you I'm a grown man now with families, So when you get arrested, all kinds of things going through your head. Who picked my children up from school? Like I got to beat you? All kinds of stuff I leave my house going through But all kind of stuff is going through your head, like you know, really fast and uh, and they're taking you somewhere you don't know, like you
can hear them talking. Yeah, they followed me. They came one of the details got in a separate car and drove behind them and got and went to where I was going. But ultimately, like you don't know where they take me. If I'm not going to the county jail. Am I going to Berging County? That's this county? What's going on? And where they're gonna put me out when I get in the county jail. I mean, that's the things I was thinking about right the when I got
to the place I'm like, what is this place? I mean, what are they gonna do? Do anybody know I'm here right? And all of those things are going through your head. So yeah, I mean, fear gets in your in your heart and you just pray that you know, fear don't turn you into a coward.
There you go. Well, we appreciate you for joining us, and I'm sure you know you'll be back up here before the race actually happens.
When what date is that tenth?
That's right, well, ladies and gentlemen, Mayor Ross Baraka, it's the Breakfast Club.
Good morning, Wake that ass up in the morning. Come Breakfast Club.