Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme, Quest Love.
What is up? Crew?
See? We have made Bill?
How are you? Everything's good?
Left on the street, remains on the street. Everything's good. I can't complain.
Yeah, I was about to say, I commend you. I haven't told you yet, but uh, you guys handled that. Uh Elmo discovers racism bit.
Autumn's been working real hard on that, and uh do we did some COVID town halls. We did we did race town halls and it's been going pretty well, this partnership with Seeing It.
Yeah, it's cool, all right, all right, So we also got a fine take Alo.
In the house. What's going on?
New smoke coming out?
Anything?
Anything coming up?
Or I mean, I've been working on a lot of stuff that's about to come out. Mainly I just been bumping the CARDI and Meg joint.
That's been my.
Text.
Thanks, I gotta admit.
Yeah.
Yeah, And Steve, you're doing all right? I mean, sugar Steve.
Yeah, I thought we were your friends now so I can address you by your Christian name.
Were you and I are back at work now? How does it feel. We get tested every day, so we're safe.
Y'all go rabbit test, y'all trump? Oh my god, how y'all get the rabbit test?
I got tested. We get tested every day, yo.
And you get your results? And how how short.
Time your brain?
No one, I admit, I gotta admit, okay. So there's like four different nurses that do it. The idea of the.
Sexy nurse, who are called the essendon nurse.
Because she wears these like really weird stiletto heels.
Like everyone everyone fights to be in her room.
He's also the person like, god damn, she damn nearly cleans your brain out like.
She her bedside manner is too rough.
So I like the the other gentle nasal tester.
But yeah, we get a test every day.
Like to answer your question, sony wow, I asked our guests if she gets tested a celebrity thing.
It's always listen, it's always It's always customary that we say hello to each other first, so that people know that, you know, we don't bicker.
How are you like.
Oh, I'm good.
Somebody should know that I am sweating because I am very excited about our guests and that's why I'm sweating.
That's good. Well, yes, let's get to our guests.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome our guest today. She is a four time Daytime Emmy Award winner.
That's right.
Yes, he's a lawyer a journalist of course. She is host of her own true crime series and call Investigation Discovery.
Future best selling author.
This fall, she has a book called i Amb's Truths, a memoir of identity, justice and living between two worlds. That Laya is extreme. We're all excited, but why is Mega s excited about this? Not to be outdone your first so I'll say fiction or your first novel will also be out in twenty twenty one, entitled Summer on the Bluffs, which has nothing to.
Do with Curtis Snow on the Bluff. When I saw that, I.
Was like, wait a minute, that has nothing to do with Curtis Snow's snow on the Bluff. She is also I like to think of myself as a chicken farmer as well, because of where I'm quarantining. She's a fellow chicken farmer from the Boogie Down Bronx. But she's based you know, well known and loved as a member one fifth of the fiery, passionate, informed and impinionated ladies UH known as the Crew from the View.
Let my fellow Q lessers also know that the five of us have.
Very good for We generally agree on most things around here. Can you guys imagine if like me, Steve and Laya were kind of like Megan, Abby will be in it anyway.
Gentlemen, please welcome to you all as Sonny hostin. Please thank you.
Yeah, OK, I have one question for I just I want to get the first question out before like you grow upload right now?
No not. Does it get exhausting.
If I'm being honest, you know, it gets exhausting for a lot of reasons. But I think it's it's very.
Difficult to maintain your composure when you're talking about things that people generally feel uncomfortable talking about, and you know you're talking about them in front of three million people, and you know.
You have to come back and talk about them again. So you can't burn bridges, but sometimes you want to. You kind of want to not only burn them, you want to blow them up. And it's also hard as a woman and a woman of color, when I know that there are all these tropes out there all the time, angry black woman, too emotional, irrational, And I know because I hear from our viewers that they feel that I represent them, and so I do not want to be
a poor representation of the people. So I have to think about all that when I'm there a lot.
Yeah, I feel like for a lot of viewers of the show, especially pre COVID, I will say that there's a majority of the people that I know, especially like where Steve and I work. Steve and I work at thirty Rockefeller Plaza, So I think oftentimes people think like, oh, well, I'm cool roots the roots in a mirror, so I'm not racist, or I'm not you know, or those things where it's like, well, you're friends with your coworkers, so
thus you're on the right side of history. I often feel as though I feel like you and Whoopee might be the only point of view of a person of color or a woman that most of Middle America or I want, and I don't want it to just say like, oh, only housewives watch the view, like anyone who's home during those morning the afternoon hours watches.
It, but we all home.
Yeah, I was going to say that I often feel as though people channel into YouTube for opinions that they might otherwise not know about because they don't have friends that they're close to. So I feel like there's an added pressure on you. But when the when the cameras are off and the show is done, how awkward is that walk back to the dressing room for the five of you, especially if it's unsettled.
Yeah, it depends on the day, you know, in all honesty, because we know we have to Yeah, I mean, we know, we know we're going to work together the next day, and we may have had a really uncomfortable conversation. And what a lot of people don't know is, you know, we're totally unscripted. We don't know what anyone is going to say, we know the topics, we don't even know
the questions that are coming at us. So after it blows up and we're giving our honest feedback, especially during these times like COVID and the pandemic and this presidency and you know, this administration, and I think what's become a racial reckoning, tempers are flaring and and sometimes it's hard to you know, look at your colleague and not be emotional and upset and wondering what where where did that come from? Most times, though, I'll be honest, we
we reach back out to each other. It may take a day, it may take two days, but sometimes it's immediate. We will text each other, we will call each other and say what was that. We we have that relationship with each other.
Now we've done that, guys.
Yeah, yeah, not.
What we've done. We've we've done that.
Happens.
You have to because at the end of the day, it's kind of like another family too.
So you know this.
You don't always like each other. You do love each other, and you want to make sure that you know that, right.
Yeah, And we're dysfunctional like every other family, you know. So this is what it is. And imagine a family that you didn't choose and a family that is We're all very different, different ages, different backgrounds. We are as different as you could be, all thrown together.
I watch you maneuver with the age thing, and that's I see you, to see you and whoope, because that's an interesting in there, because y'all have very different backgrounds and very different.
Views at times.
A lot of times you get this the same, but sometimes your experiences and her experience is coming to and I watch you, you know, gracefully go in your mind to me, I go, you go, that's my elder.
Let me listen to her.
And then absolutely absolutely, you know, I think at least that's how I was raised. You know, you're speaking to someone of a different generation. You do that with respect. Even if you disagree, you just disagree respectfully. Not everyone was raised that way, but that's how I was raised. Oh, how I comport myself?
How how hard is it?
Especially when you have to give so many teachable moments in sound bites within these like eight to nine minute increments, and the five of you have the platform.
Like I'll say right now, the five of us.
Have a rhythm or energy that we didn't have maybe the first twenty episodes where we.
Were talking on top of each other that sort of thing.
Yeah, I don't say anymore, it's my rhythm, silence, no whit.
But oftentimes, well, you've been there for two years now, correct?
Four?
Four?
Okay, yeah, four, I believe it or not?
Right, has been two years long.
So even in being there for four years and new blood comes in and you know, and oftentimes, you know, I think that often when producers or executive producers are looking for someone to fit in, they're thinking about ratings,
they're thinking about who who's controversial, who's rebel rouser. So you kind kind of have to wonder, like who's there just to be the SoundBite of the moment on social media or who's there to really make a teachable moment to teach America and teach each other about how you feel as a human, Like how hard is it to talk in sound bites that are sustinct and to the point, and also trying to make a teachable moment, Like do you ever feel as though you know, I mean, obviously
I'm trying not to make this about Megan, but I'm just saying, like, do you ever that there will be a teachable moment for her?
Where there have been some I'm sorry, go ahead, Yeah, I.
Mean there have been some, but I almost feel like sometimes it's nine steps forward and then.
Mm hm.
As as far like how concerned you about making a teachable moment in which the person really understands and not in that way where it's just like, oh, you're an exception to the rule, you're the good one.
But yeah, you know, Iran getting.
When I when I am thinking in the moment. I'm a quick thinker. I think pretty quickly on my feet. I think it's my training as a lawyer. But I know what my job is, and I know my job is to teach my job. You know, when you have that kind of platform, you have to teach. And I'm not only trying to teach or inform my colleagues. I'm trying to inform someone in you know, somewhere someplace in the country that hasn't hurt that kind of point of view.
Like you mentioned earlier that I'm sometimes the only person of color that they that they've seen that they that they can engage with. And people do engage on social media, that's absolutely sure, and so I try to do that. I will tell you that it's pretty difficult, especially when it's a topic that I know is of great important right and I know what I say is gonna be all over the media. I know people are gonna interpret
it and misinterpret it. I think it's pretty difficult. Our show does a really good job of at a break saying, Sonny, did you say what you needed to say? Megan, did you say what you need to say? Whoop, did you say what you need to say? And if you're watching, oftentimes what we will continue the conversation. And that's because during the break we've said, we didn't get that out, we didn't get that straight. I need to correct myself.
But it's waiting. Why is she always last? I'm like Megan, if you don't get in there in the second, I think she.
Feels I think she feels most comfortable waiting to hear what everyone is saying, because she really is. Uh. You know, she's the youngest on our on our show, and I really believe quest to your initial question, that she is a work in progress, Like she is really thinking things through.
She's going through a lot of changes. We're talking about, you know, the death of her father, her hero, being pregnant for the first time, married, newly married, having you in her life, having like me is you know, those who are a lot of changes, with a lot of in front of the public at that age, in your early thirties. And and she's really she's learning a lot of a lot of things. I think she's questioning a lot of a lot of things. While she's formed some opinions,
they change mind changed. Sometimes I hear things and I think, okay, you know, I've may never agree with that, but I can understand where you're coming from. And that's what our show is about. I think it's it's changed all of us. Joy will tell you that all the time she's been on the show, from the very beginning, except a couple of years she got fired, and she's a changed person because of it. She's a changed person. And each host
does change you in ways that is very surprising. It's uh, you know, I understand more about conservative women than than I ever have or even cared to.
Really, what is it that you think you understand now? What is the show helped you understand that you didn't before?
You know?
One of the things that I grew up in the South Bronx, right, so, and I grew up with a certain group of people. I didn't grow up in the middle of the country, although I did go to law school in the middle of the country. So my experience is more varied than most people. But my close friends tend to mirror my opinions. We agree with each other most of the time. Now, all of a sudden, I'm learning, Okay, Well, if you have never, let's say, experience, it's the kind
of poverty I experienced. You take for granted a lot of things and it takes someone to say, you know what, not everybody has health care, so you feel sick, you immediately get to go to the doctor. I've had the occasion in my family someone's sick. We don't have health insurance. We don't have the ability to go to the doctors. So we're sick and we go to work and we
get other people sick. So we're not being reckless, so to speak, because we want to be We need to feed our families, and that's Those are the kinds of exchanges that we've had backstage, you know, where people are like, that's reckless, that's reckless. I'm like, no, that's poverty. And I can understand why she may feel that way. Someone one of the hosts may feel that way because it's just not in her experience. She doesn't have the bandwidth.
America.
She's learning it, you know.
It's interesting watching Megan learn how great America isn't like through you guys.
She's she's she's really she's learning things and we're learning from her as well. So it's good to have have someone who just has a different opinion.
It's funny you say that because I think in my second year thirty Rock, like I think like maybe one death and one major sickness. I had to like sit out for like more than a day, and the first time I was like really really sick, like with the flu, they were kind of like, you know, well, why the hell are you in? Like you could have got a
sub to sit in for you. And you know, I came from an upbringing where like I mean, your limbs could be hanging off, yep, you still like you still work where it worked it and they couldn't understand that mentality, you know. And meanwhile, like you know, one of them will have the sniffles and then like run immediately to the ninth floor to like the nurse's office. I'm like, let's get a cleanex like like I'm learning the cultural difference and whatnot. Well, you mentioned the South Bronx. That's
I know, that's where you were born. Could you give us a brief synopsis of what like your formative childhood was, like like the type of household you.
Grew up in, you know, I think my childhood was a lot like so many of us. My parents were teenagers. My mom was seventeen when she got pregnant. My dad was eighteen. They got married, but she had to get a ged. You know, she had all these dreams of going along school. Actually my father wanted to go to medical school. It didn't happen for them. He had to
find a job. Got they got married. She stayed at home with me, and you know, there were plenty of days with no My father actually is here visiting me from North Carolina because my son just graduatedrom High school.
He said, woo to North Carolina. I'm Boosboro. Yeah, Town Greens was my hometown.
That's what I was.
Really, he's right here. He drove ten hours because he can't get on a plane. He's in the seventies, which wasn't gonna miss his grandson's graduation even though it was virtual. We couldn't go New York. Ye. Yeah. And he he he said to me yesterday, he said, uh, we were worried about the power going out. And I said, that's okay. I'll just I'll just put some hot water on the stove, you know, if it gets cold, and I'll heat up
the room. And he was like, you remember that. I said, yeah, I remember that because there were a lot of days when we didn't have we didn't have water, we didn't have food.
Open up the oven heat did do that. That was I did that.
You know that. There's a lot of days. But we always had love. That was the thing, like, we always had love. My parents worked. It was hard for them to get a job. And I will say for us, education was really important. For them, it was it was the game changer. They felt that that was a game changer. So we didn't watch a lot of TV in our house, but there were a lot of books, and it was sort of you know, my mom's from Puerto Rico, so
I think a part of it was. And so Spanish is my first language, but it was Spanish and English, same household, books and work hard even though we don't have a lot, you know, she would make my clothes, that kind of thing. But we had love and we worked hard and things would get better. That was sort of the vibe growing up. And I didn't even realize we were that poor.
Are they still married?
They're still alive. They're not married, but they date, which is really awkward.
They were wait a minute, Sunday, I didn't get to that part of the book. I'm just at the part with a divorce and that was shocking.
Wait, yeah, it's so awkward. He's at the house now she lives here.
So how long have they been seeing each other? Yes, I would not like that. I wouldn't like.
What.
I have so many questions, how do you do that?
So ridiculous?
Really feel okay? Man, he want that old thing back.
Can I just tell you though, it's funny in reading your story, Sonny, because so many parallels and that way.
My parents are the same way.
They don't go together, but they're best friends even though they've been divorced for thirty years. It's just funny of reading your story because you're an only child too, so it just affects you really differently, differently.
I was devastated when they got divorced. I was I was upset, like my whole world blew up. You know, they blew up my world. And now they have the nerve to be at my house mooching in the kitchen. It fishes me off. I'll be honest with you. It was a break for me.
It was a break.
So during the time period that you grew up in the South Bronx, what were your teen years into of course, I mean our our podcast is music heavy. I'd be remiss it if I didn't ask about I mean, you grew up in the birthplace for where hip hop was actually born.
Yeah, in nineteen.
Broken Last Memoir like she's h like a.
Verse, like party jams and those things, and.
I really did, I really did. I mean break dancing was kind of big back then.
As well.
Crazy Legs was out there. I remember going to the Tunnel and seeing Slick Rick perform with Dougie Fresh. I was I just I loved music. I loved loved music because you.
Were allowed to go out.
Because I was worrying because I wasn't necessarily allowed to go out, but I went out.
I went out.
I snuck out sometimes. You know, I was a little bit of a rule breaker. I wasn't really allowed to go out because also, you know, I was I was young. I was twelve in high school, in sixteen in college.
Yeah, I was like yo, issue, yeah, and so but your parents.
My parents are more like you know, my mom was kind of like strict, but at the same time she's like, well, dang, your friends are going out, so maybe you could spend the night out. And that's when you spend the night at the house. Then you go to the club, right, No, parents, My parents, no, they were like, you're too young. And I looked young too. I looked rad young.
So it was kind of, you know, a sneaking out type of thing, trying to make myself look older. Bounces in like you know, they said, bounces back in the day, picking people to get in. They knew what I looked like. I'm sure I looked sixteen twelve, but it was it was, you know, I I loved music, I loved hanging out with my friends, breaking night, you know, that kind of that kind of thing. But I will tell you when my parents after my uncle, my uncle got stabbed during
an altercation and I saw it. I was with him when it happened, and my mother said he was almost killed. He later died as a competent. I did, yeah, and it was it was horrible. My family decided, you know, we can't live with this kind of violence around us all the time. So they kept on trying to get an apartment in Manhattan. But because they're an interracial couple,
they couldn't get an apartment. They would go together, and you think about it, I mean, you know, redline is such a problem and racial bias and housing is such a problem. But this is the seventies and they could not get a place to live together. But interracial marriages had just been sanctioned by the Supreme Court in sixty seven. They got married in sixty eight, so you know, seventies, there weren't that many people that were married from different
races then. So my mother went on her own and filled out an application in Manhattan, and she changed her name from Rosa to Rose, and she changed She used to go by her maiden name, which is Besa. Her father's a Spanish Jew, and she changed it to Come. She used my father's last name Coming, so she became Rose Comings. And if you look at her, she doesn't look of color. And she got an apartment in Manhattan and we move moved out the Bronx, and when my dad and I showed up, you could imagine the sts.
So I got the opportunity when I was going to high school, I lived in Manhattan in a better neighborhood and was able to hang out at the clubs in Manhattan too, So that was that was the upshot. But I split my time because my fam most of my family was still in the Bronx.
I mentioned after in the book and the memoir you when you tell that story about your uncle, because sorry, it was so good. I made a couple of notes, and they said that you said that it marked the beginning of having to straddle multiple worlds, which to me started to make sense as a viewer of.
The view and the way you handle things.
And you just talked about how it becomes natural and necessary to juggle motherhood, career, loving and knew and old friends, and how when you moved to Manhattan your old friends, and the Bronx was like, oh, you knew right.
They still trip on me. It's so funny. They're like, oh, you fancy now still to this day because I have the same friends, I've any friends.
Getting jumped on the subway, I was like, sonny, I got that.
I did. I got jumped on the subway.
Tell the guys this story please, because I had the same experience I did.
You did. It's horrible so that you experienced, Yes, it's horrible. I used to have to take the subway, two subways, two trains from where I lived to this private school my father insisted on sending me to on Park Avenue, and it's like I had never experienced anything like that. You know, it was certainly not my world. And but he wanted a better life for me, so they enrolled me in this this private school with these fancy uniforms.
But everybody else getting dropped off, you know, being driven there and I'm taking the subway and I got the ouf and on, and you become a target immediately. You're you're just a target, so like I know, street ways. But they knew that I was somehow different. And this group of girls would always get on the stay train, always got a six train and it was about six of them, and they would just taunt me, Oh you this use that. Look at where'd you get those shoes?
Look at that uniform where you go to school? Blah blah blah blah. It was just oh, but that was constant, you know, and I have very long hair. My hair was like waistless, and they would say, you know, uh, look at that hair, that's why you think you're cute. And it was constant. It was for about three or four months, and I realized we must all gone to school in the same area because we were on the same train at the same time trying to get to school.
And I would try different cars and they would just find me, and they find me, and I think it was just like their their you know, their morning fun, quite frankly. And then one day they were quiet and I was like, oh, maybe it's over. I literally they literally we get off of this at this at the stop. It's a sixty eighth Street, Manhattan, and they don't me. They take one of my like my braid and just cut it off, just one wow. So I got one long grade and just nothing, I mean, And I was
so traumatized. And I had never really looked them in the face, because that's New York real. You don't look at the people in the face because now you're challenging someone. So I would hear them and say, but I would just just cursory glance. So, you know, I ran to the school. The school called the police, and they kept on saying, do you want to identify them? I was like, one, I don't really, I didn't look them in the face. And two can you imagine if I identified them? You know,
then I got to get on the train again. It's just not a good ride. And so I spent the next you know, I would say, six months avoiding taking the train, walking to school, you know, walking miles to school, taking the bus, pretending to be ill. I don't have to. You know, my cousins were like, you know, trying to take me to school. It was it was it was an interesting you know, you're straddling two worlds, right, I mean,
that's that's I think so many of us. We call it code switching now, but I think many of us are sort of used to doing that. And I'm used to doing that on the view too. I mean, there are times I got to tell you, I feel like my husband explodes, explode and yelling at.
The TV and you can't.
Yeah, I feel like falling back into a certain code, but I just know that it's not. It won't serve anybody well to do that.
But the theme is is that you constantly do this.
And even when you were describing the intricacies of being from a Puerto Rican side of the family and a family who is from the South, and the difference between being the light skinned cousin and then the greeta like, yeah, the way you broke down and understood early your position and even though it upsets you, but you were like I get it.
Yeah, I get it. It's interesting when you, I think, when you live between worlds like that, you know, like my father's family, he was the first one that didn't marry a black woman. And on my mother's in my mother's family, she was the first one that didn't marry somebody that was either Latino or white quite frankly, so they were you know, so I was a unicorn. And
on my father's side, they never accepted my mother. They didn't really like it, and because he was like, you know, cream of the crop and why he had to marry her. And I think that happens with some southern families and it's understandable giving our history. And on my mother's side of the family they accepted him, but it was more
like for me, I was always negrita, negrita, negrita. Even in Puerto Rico negrita and Spanish people will tell you that that's a term of endearment, but I don't think it.
Is just niggles on it.
So it sounds like a little bit about the eye. That's what it sounds like to me. And it always felt like that. And they were like, it's a term of endearment. I'm like, but it's raise based, it's color base. I don't like it. And I would say all the time, don't call me that, you know, but they but they would.
Ever stop when you said no, not when I was a kid.
They don't dare now, but you know, no when I was a kid. No, It's like that's a term of endearment. Just take it, just take it. And then you still hear it in the Latino community, you know. And then on my father's side, it was always like, you know, they hated my mom or didn't like my mom, hate his strong work. But it was like, you know, most little girl, the pretty little girl, pretty light skinned girl,
the girl with the good hair. And it's like, so you don't like the marriage, but you are exalting the product.
Of the marriage, product of it, right.
That doesn't make any sense. So it was it was sort of I was. I grappled with that my whole life. I didn't I didn't quite understand it. And even today I write in the book about I was with Anna Navarro, Donald Lemon, I was with Anna Navarro, I was with Don Lemon, Candy Carter, and I think just yeah, we were eating lunch to get Candy used to be she's now the executive producer at Tamman Show, but she was my executive producer at the View and Candy's African American.
Y'all know Anna Navarro, and y'all know Don.
Because he's been lately, he's been. He didn't turn into Don Lemon Pepper as of late.
It's real black now. I'm always gooping on him. I think he had a transformation in Ferguson when we were there and he got killed up. We were both there, but he uh, you know, we were talking and Anna was like, my real name is Asuncion, and Anne was kind of like, you know, I I thought you was Spanish. I was really and and she only seemed to figure it out when j Lo's mom and I would talk speaking in Spanish and.
I should know that your viewers we have we observed that as well. I'm glad.
I was like, how how would you not know that you were with me at CNN? I mean, I've done hits for CNN Espanion. I don't I don't understand that. And I think for her it was more like because I was always so vocal about the black community and Trayvon, and she kind of thought, well, she's just black. Like she couldn't be anything else. And then so we kind of got over that, and she said, but I apologize to you because I don't know. I just I didn't see you as a multi dimensional person. And then Candy
said the same thing. Candy was like, well, I owe you an apology too, because she told me one day. I kept on wondering why when we were booking shows like MLK shows and you know, other other shows, they never asked me for my connects. I was like, why don't the book has come to me? I mean, I know a lot of black people. I was like, y'all can't find anybody. Why don't you come to me? Let me open up my rolodex. And she kind of mentioned to me one day she was like, well, you're not
really black. I was like, so, Whoopy's the only black person on the set? I was. It was just very surprising to me. And her opinion was she saw me as more Latina. And so you have these two women, one's black, one's Latina, I'm both and they are sort of erasing me from both community, from both sides, from
both sides. And then Don Lemon, Donna and I've been friends in a really long time, probably maybe twenty years or so, and he's just he was like, welcome to Sonny's world, because I mean that's you know, he's dealt with his own issues, I think, being a black man from the South and a gay man, so he's traversing very worlds and his fiance is white, so he certainly has to deal with a lot of different different issues.
Well, once again, how exhausting is it?
Very exhausting?
So what are family gatherings like now for you?
Because my dad make it out in the kitchen.
No, no, no, I just mean of it.
You know, there's a point where if a light shines with you, or if there's a success in your life, then you'll see a lot of people's tunes start to change. And I guess maybe I've just started to come to grips with how to even deal with that. I mean no, I was always like a family black sheep. And then once you once you make it, then it's like because of the mirror jay Z's comeing to do.
To get those calls.
I was going to say, like with those do you attend you know, family reunions and those things.
Or yeah, I didn't for a while. I didn't for a while, and then my my father's mother passed and I saw everyone for the first time at her funeral in a long time, and I missed them very, very,
very much. When my mother's mother passed, you know, unfortunately we get together with weddings and funerals a lot of families, And when my mother's mother passed, I realized how far apart I had sort of become from, you know, both sides of my family, just in terms of trying to work hard and like you said, kind of be in the black sheet, you know the other I think it's brought us closer now. I think their passing has brought us closer because now more than ever, I think we
need our families. I think we need our support systems. And when you are the one that makes it, I feel a certain sense of responsibility to help the others in my family that just haven't been able to do as well. You know, I got cousins in prison, I've got you know, other cousins that just can't afford to put their kids through school. And so I've stepped in the gap in the in those places because I just I think when one of us makes it, we can really make a change. For our families. So I have
done that. I've taken it upon myself to make sure that that I do that.
So how exhausting is that because as a black person, that's the other side of it, to be one the one who made it?
Like a lot of people, What is your relationship with the word no? And I'm not asking as the host of this podcast, I'm I.
Need this woman, you know I am. I am not great at it. I've become better at no. I'm certainly good at know when I think that it isn't good for the person asking. You know, I'm not going to help you if if it's going to help you destroy yourself. You need you need money for your next fix, You're not going to get it for me. But I do have trouble saying no when I know I really shouldn't
pile one more thing on my plate. I try to make the time and self care I think is really important, and I don't, I know, realize that I don't spend enough time doing that because you know, if mommy unravels or wife, everything unravels, the whole falls apart.
And I started sat there, what is your self care things, Sonny? Because you do your fighting fights all day. You're a whole and a whole mom, and then.
You and then you fight my chickens. I got fifteen.
I started a place that once had seven. Yeah, and then raccoons I didn't.
Know how like vile foxes and raccoons like they've done.
They go, they they come right underneath. They even have things called chicken moles that just they just like to eat chicken and like you know, attack chickens. Well we have, we've we lost a few at first. And then my husband he's really handy and can fix anything. He put like the steel gauge mesh underneath the coop, underneath the chicken run and so we were good for a while. And then we decided they free range because we look, we live outside the city. Uh, we were letting the
free range. And then we had a hawk attack. We had a hawk incident. Chickens, chickens were flying everywhere. I couldn't believe it.
I was, that's everywhere now, ridiculousness.
Yeah, man, chickens got chickens, got them coming from above, from underneath the side.
From where they say hawks are supposed to be hunt. They supposedly hunt, and uh, that solitary hunters. But there were there was more than one hawk. My vet said, it's possible that there was like a mother hawk teaching a baby hawk. But anyway, no, I mean, but I'm in west Chester County.
That's by you, right A mirror? Is that you.
Too out here.
Too? Yeah?
Can I just say, speaking of hawks, Sonny, I want to you to share with the guys your initial list for a mate.
Yes.
Uh, And I know that because Sonny hawked down. She howked down on her husband. Manny, I know that Bill and you will find this fast.
I did. I did. I found him in church. I say we met in church.
He said, we didn't meet in church?
You did meet him?
You didn't meet in church? No?
You No, you saw him in church.
Met there.
Okay, what are you saying?
Our souls met there?
You see what I'm saying.
Well, well, what happened. What happened was that my mother said that my problem was that I didn't go to church enough. That's why I couldn't meet any good men. Because I was a serial dater. I was. I was dating a lot of athletes and musicians and stuff like that. I won't tell you, so I won't tell you which one, but here goes my husband peeking, poking in his head. Hey church, did meet a church?
He just said, that's right, sweetheart, marriage man, Okay, okay.
He knows. So I decided I was training for a marathon, and I was in my sweats, like you know, training outfit, and I ran into a church just to kind of just jones on my mother, just to you know, goofin her and call her back and say, yeah, I met the priest in the church. And I sat in the back and these two fine men walk in, and I was like, oh, nice looking men in the church. And my husband goes to church every Sunday, but he goes to church in a suit, and so he had a
suit on. And it turns out that the church was across the street from Johns Hopkins University, where he was in medical school. But I didn't I didn't know that, you know, because I was kind of new in town Baltimore. And uh. I did stay at the church and I went, you know, listen to everything, and then I follow him outside of the church. Of course, does she.
Meet him yet meet him? She's still in the stalking process.
No, I met him in the church. So then I U after we met in the church. Then I followed him to the bagel shop and I approached him and uh, I said, Hi, I'm new in town. And I said, wasn't that she wasn't this a sermons? The homily so beautiful in the church, And he was like, you were in the church? I said I was, But he just kept on looking at me because I had a ridiculous outfit on. I mean I had I was sweaty, I mean, I look crazy. But I was in the church, and
he was a little bit dismissive. But he had everything I wanted because I always wanted a man of faith. I found out at the bagel shop that he was in medical school, so he had something he wanted to do. You know, he was he was on a track of having a career. I wanted someone to smoke, spoke more than one language that was important to me. Found out that he was born in Spain. His mother's from Spain, his father is from Haiti, so he spoke Spanish. Spanish
was his first language. Then check, then so I got three checks. Now, then I said, well where are you from? Because I was like, you know, maybe he's from a corny place and maybe he won't have like a vibe. He was like, I'm you know, I was born in Spain, but then we moved to New York. So I was like check check shack, you.
Know, the same day.
I mean, it's so good. Then he said, uh. We started talking about where he was, you know, went to school where. Then he pledged, he was like, yeah, I'm a member of Camp Alphas. I was like, I was like, oh Jesus. I was like, it's just so good. And I did well, We'll say I. I always said that my husband had to be over six feet tall because
I'm not short. Uh he he. He did not meet that that that one qualification, but I didn't really notice it then because I was all I saw was shininess because he's very good looking in the face, and he walks real tall and he's real muscular. I really didn't notice the height until later, so I had to give that up. I'm right, I'm taller than him if I have heels on, yes, I am.
Mh one to know, Sonny.
Sorry, I've never noticed. I never noticed. But I called my friend and I was like, I met my husband. He don't know it yet, and she was like, oh, so he must do this. He speaks Spanish, he's from New York. He's this and he's what is he six four?
I was like, you're like you in the face.
I was like, he's real good in the face. The grill is working. I was like, everything is good. But I don't think he's over six feet. But we did meet in church.
It sounds one of those Rudy Bud This is one of those Rudy Bud moments.
Yes, of course.
I guess your entry to where you are now starts with law school.
Will you can you say that.
Is it that you're that you're the manifestation of your parents uh dream to become that professional?
Like are you the result of that?
How did you even get how did you have interest in in justice?
And it was my mother. I actually wanted to be a broadcast journalist and my mother freaked out. She was like, what is that castle? Castle? And I was like, this is you know, you put the news on TV. But you got to think in the eighties, there weren't you know, this wasn't like Oprah. You know, Oprah wasn't who she became. And I think in New York there was like Carol Jenkins, but there there just wasn't a lot of representation. I mean there still isn't, but there just wasn't a lot
of representation in media. And she thought that the best way to financial security, especially for a woman, law medicine, law medicine. She became a teacher, and she was like, you gotta you need to become a lawyer. She's like, you like to talk a lot, you like to argue a lot. You got all a's that's what you got
to do. And so I took the LSATs. What was fascinating was I loved law school, but I would not have thought of it if not for my mother, because I did argue all the time, and I felt terrible, Like when I saw the inequity, it bothered me. It bothered me, but I wanted to tell those stories as opposed to fighting for it in the courtroom. And I think it was certainly my mother because she lived a dream deferred because that's what she wanted to do.
Right Is that just a myth our parents sold us?
Because now there are I have I have to say that outside of the entertainment profession, a.
Lot of my friends are those.
Medical students and those law students. Either I played a spring fling twenty years ago, like the roots did something and then I got to know them professionally whatever, and none of them seemed to be living.
Let's talk about it, talk about it.
Is that a lie that America has taught us? Because what's weird is when I last went to.
Cuba, I'm sorry.
When Cuba, my connect there told me that parents grew in their kids to be in the hospitality.
Uh. Because when you're a driver, when you're.
A taxi driver, especially with the way that the economy is there, you can. You can you're rich like a guy like Cuba and rents a driver for a week and that's damn near like a year's worth of pay.
For doctors, none of the doctors, right, because.
They get paid the same thing as socialized medicine.
Right Yeah?
Yeah, Like is do lawyers kicking the dough as we've been hold and fed?
This way, you can make a significant amount of money as a lawyer. I know when I first got out law school, I went to a law firm, and I mean I was making a ton of money. I hated working there. I didn't like it what I was practiced. I was practicing litigation, medical malpractice, insurance defense, and so you it wasn't necessarily boring, but you're basic. We sold to the highest bidder, right, so you've got these corporations that can pay you to defend their their maldeeds, their
their misdeeds. And I just felt like I didn't go to law school and do as well as I did to defend this. I just I didn't feel good. It didn't It didn't feel right. But you can't. You can't do quite well. And I think we we have been and you know, medical doctors they don't do as well as they used to do because of insurance companies. But it's it was a it's sort of a solid living, right, It's like a safe it's a safe job. It's a safe job. And I mean, my husband's a surgeon, he
loves it. But both of his parents and doctors as well. Sister's a doctor. You know, it's sort of the family business in a sense. But his parents are immigrants, and that was the dream, you know, you got you become a doctor. You're gonna and go to America. You're going
to do really well. And they did. But I think I don't think that as people of color, we had we had the My parents at least felt as people of color, we didn't have the ability to dream like that, Like, you're going to try to do what after we've struggled and skimped and you know, saved to put you through school, that's what you're gonna do? You want to be on TV? It just it made no sense to them that that
that's like a recipe for failure. You could fail doing that, but if you go to law school and do well, you can get a job. It's like punching a ticket. It seems that's the safe way to do it.
Sounds like somebody.
I know.
But in a remix though, Now, Sonny, it's funny. I was listening.
I was talking to a girlfriend who whose son is in college, and she was kind of a conversation with him about how we were Traditionally we are told to go to college, and these kids these days are like, no, wait a minute, I don't necessarily have to go to college because I can. I learned how to code to do this, I can do this. So do you feel like at the same youtub yeah, we're all being now it's.
Another era of reprogramming, right.
It definitely is another error. I mean, you know, I'm raising these these generations z kids seventeen and fourteen, about same age as nineteen. Right there. You know, they are different because they have so much information at their fingertips. They're not looking through encyclopedias. And I feel it's double edged sword because my son, who's very bright, will like say something and I'm like, where did you get that?
And he thinks like he he thinks he can. He knows more about, you know, an orthopedic injury than his father because he googles something, you know what I mean, Like he knows a little better than I do because he googles something. So they have they have this cavalier attitude I think sometimes for its information. But I do think that they realized that the world is pretty broad, and you know that they can there are a lot of opportunities for them. He even mentioned at one point,
you know, not everybody needs to go to college. But I will tell you my reaction was, you need to go to college, because I still think that if you can, and not everyone can because it's too it's overpriced and it's not accessible to everyone. And I don't think everyone was meant to go to school, you know, to go to college. You don't necessarily need it, But I think if you can, it's education can still be an equalizer. I do believe that it can still be an equalizer.
At least it was for me, and it can provide tremendous opportunity. And a lot of it is socialization, the people that you meet there.
That's the big part.
It really is a network.
But now even that's being redefined that now that everyone is doing we're all doing it from home now. So, yes, what is college in twenty twenty twenty one? You know what I mean, It's a different thing.
It's a different thing. Well, I'll tell you. My son decided to take a gap year instead of starting college because he was, like my husband was dancing up and jumping up and down because he didn't want to pay the money anyway. But it's like for virtual and for us, you know, I thought, well, why should he go to a college and sit in a dorm room and you know not and be alone in the dorm room and then all the classes were going to be virtual and he was going to eat in his dorm room. There
was really not the real college experience. So he decided to take a gap year because of I think.
Is everybody's gap year. This is all of us is.
Did y'all see that episode of black Ish that's like a whole thing for black people now, even though we're doing that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the gap year.
Yeah.
When he first mentioned it to us, we were like, you are nominally Obama, that's what you're not going to do. Yeah, I was a little I was a little uncomfortable with it, but it made sense after a while.
It's like high school extended.
But also think I think that I think gen Z is also the first generation that you know, my parents were definitely the product of you know, safety and security and.
Getting a good job and da da da da fall back on that sort of exactly.
I think that gen z on will go with their first instincts, their first passions, and yes, roll with it, because yeah, you and I.
Basically like the same thing.
Like my dad had plans for me to do something way different, and you know, I had to hide for a long time that I was in a rap group and all this other stuff.
No about it, They about it. They've been gen Z.
They've been watching they've been watching police snuff videos since they was twelve, so you know what I mean.
They you know, I mean it. Yeah, they told me.
Wait, so let me ask you all a question on the sense of that, because since they're reprogramming, reprogramming the whole way we're supposed to think now, even on the subject of like race and sex. I was gonna ask Sonny, how you feel about that, because it's interesting. I was just I was watching I don't know, if y'all watch this show, I may destroy you or whatever it's said.
I'm waiting for it to finish. I was gonna just take them all day.
Okay, Well, there's just an episode.
It's just interesting the way that they're redefining uh, sex,
sexual assault, things of these nature. And they were talking and it was an episode where the girl was having sex with someone willingly and he took the condom off, right, and so she was like, you assaulted me right now rewind ten fifteen years ago, we would just be like that motherfucker is an asshole, fuck you, right, But now these kids are like, no, that's assault, and it's just everything is different, like this language from sex, race, everything
is just do you find yourself since you're on TV every day playing this catchup game of.
Trying to absolutely absolutely how do you think. You know, I try to remain enlightened. You know, I'm trying. I'm trying to plug in all the time and get the information and make sure that that I'm growing along with with every movement. I will say, you know, I think it's really difficult to parent during these times because you know,
it's it's your it's your worst nightmare. That yeah, you know, some of you know, your your your child's accused of assaults or your child is assaulted or not understanding you know, the new societal norms. I spend a lot of time talking about consent, talking about what assault is, talking about respect, talking about you know, they go to very progressive school though, so the school covers a lot of those issues, which
which is good. But I spent a lot of time trying to be informed and try to and making sure that they are informed because I think people are very awake to their rights, which is a good thing and to be ever changing. You know, we got into an argument like this on the show, but like what is PC.
I'm like, you know, in my view, you know, people used to be able to say whatever they wanted to other people, and now people are like, nah, I don't say that to me, and I think respect is at the core of so many things, and I've been making sure that my kids really fundamentally understand other people's rights and respect that, because that's where I think we're just missing. We're losing a lot in terms of our respect for each other. And we know it comes from the top.
We know what we're seeing lately, but that's a fundamental problem.
If I heard correctly, you said that your kids are seventeen and fourteen. Yeah, yeah, it might be the norm right now, but if you can go back to like twenty and sixteen, November of twenty sixteen, how did you explain to them suddenly what was happening?
Like I can't even imagine viewing the world, especially coming from where they came where they were, Yeah, a formative age coming.
Up in the Obama years.
Yeah.
In no way am I ever saying that that was a rosy time either. But it seemed like a more manageable time, and it seemed like we were headed in the right direction.
Yeah, And I mean it's what was wonderful, wasn't it That I felt it was wonderful that my children had for their first for their cognitive years, they saw black president, right. I thought it was wonderful.
You know, how do you expel life to them now that the rugs seemingly been pulled from underneath them, or even not even twenty sixteen, like the idea of the riots.
And how do you how do you explain that to them?
Well, my children, probably because of their mommy, are are very are social activists and their advocates. You know, my son was involved in a sit in at a school a couple of years ago. They're very well read. In fact, it was part of his It got so much press that it had to become part of his college essay, and when he was interviewed, almost every college interview brought brought it up and brought up this question, you know,
like what made you want to become an activist? And his answer really was that he felt that there was a backlash to the fact that there was a black president. And my kids were very very noticeably shape by the
back what they perceived as a backlash. And my daughter, who she's only fourteen, but she said she feels that this sort of you know, there's like a pendulum that swings, and that there were people in our country that felt that Obama being president for eight years, took the pendulum too far, and they wanted to bring it all the
way back. And that was a really interesting perspective that I hadn't even thought of that way, that that's why we're seeing these extremes, because they thought that that was that extreme. So I will say, I don't even know that I had to reconcile it for them. I think because they have so much information and they're so interested in the information, at least my children, they formulated their
own opinions early, very early. I remember in November twenty sixteen, I was bereft, was very upset, and you know, they were like, how could this happen? He's such a joke, he said horrible things. Who would vote for him? There were things like that. You know, they were like, but he didn't. He didn't really win. Like they were trying to really make sense of the process. Even then, even in twenty sixteen, Well.
It should be noted that you at least had your parents cake and you ate it too. By stepping into the television journalism world, starting with Core TV and.
Ley Factor.
Oh yeah, like okay, so what was factor that you should take this to.
A higher level and kind of get to.
Your dreams, Like, what was the what was that moment where you were where I obviously you were like, you know, well, I am going to pursue the journalism.
Man, Yeah.
It was.
And I write in the book that I always know when I'm in the right place, when it feels like home, when it feels right, when I'm comfortable, it feels good. The law firms didn't feel good, The Justice Department felt good. It felt like I was doing the good work, making good trouble. But then after I had my first child, I was really blowing in the wind, and I went back and went to another law firm making a lot of money, which was stupid to go back to a place I knew I wouldn't feel like home, and I
was searching. But in the back of my mind, I have to tell you, I knew that I needed to follow my passion. And I went to a meeting of lawyers and had the good fortune of meeting a television producer there from Court TV, who said, you've got to you know, you should be on television. And I took that opportunity and I seized it, and I really never let it go. I just I just never let it go, and I just kept on doing it, and I kind
of got discovered that way, which is unusual, right. You know, you meet you meet a television producer, and you're on TV the next week, and then it never it never goes away. And I feel like that's because it was my true calling and it was something that I was
supposed to do. But I also had the benefit of being married to an orthopedic surgeon who could pay the bills and who could hold it down, hold it down for me, and who was willing to do that because he basically had a talk and I was like, I think I'm leaving this law firm and this has been a dream of mine and I want to do it. And he basically said, all right, let's talk tonight. Got home, pulled up budgets and pulled up savings accounts, and he
was like okay. And he had just started his own practice, and he was like, well, you know, and we had just bought a house and we just had a baby, two babies at that point, and he said, I can hold it down for about three years. You think you could, You think you could make it in three years? You have to make what you now three years and I said, yeah, I think I can. I said, then do it all right? Communication,
that's significant, right, that's significant. Now, I don't know that a lot of people with you know, so he may have been.
He may have been short, but he wasn't short on cash and the.
Moral to this story and.
To the baby journalists out there too, Sonny, not to say that you were also like still doing the work, like you were going to NABJ. You was doing some of the stuff that to say, all these other baby journalists are doing too.
Yes, you gotta do it, you gotta do it. And I continue to do it. I continue to go to an I go to n h n h J I do. I continue to go to the I go to local meetings. I go. You got you have to you have to do it. You have to do the work, you know. I I text people what do you think about this? What do you think about that? You know? I mean, now I have it just a wonderful circle of of you know, other sister girl journalists who you know, we're we're actually on this text chain and we go back
and put political journalists as well. We go back and forth. You know, can you review this from me? What do you think about this position. What do you think about that? And it's uh, you know, Joy Read has been.
I was just about to ask you how was that?
I was about to say, how was that Zoom party? First week she broke them records? I just oh my god. And then had a good time the first show that she did with all the black mayors, I was like, oh, they couldn't wait to do her episode.
They was like, girl, what you need us.
For watching together? It was so amazing. You know, we pop champagne with Joy after, you know, And she's been. She's been great. She's not only a friend but an inspiration. You know, she's doing such amazing things, amazing work. But I have that circle that I can still depend on and count on. And I say, young journalists, you've got to keep that network tight and and help each other. It is important.
Yeah, since you're probably the only person that I know of that I'm in conversation with that is any proximity towards the Fox building?
Yeah, I have to ask, all right, in general?
Is it is there general modus operandi that they believe what they're saying or they know better, but will still say toxic talking points for the sake of their bottom line, which is and specifically you know, I know that you were a pundit. I don't even want to paint that you were oftentimes you were debating against Yeah, what you know? First of all, how do they find do they find legitimate people that have yeh, like, how.
Did how do backgrounds?
Yeah?
Yeah, they found they found me on Court TV. They saw me on COURTV. Yes, there are some legitimate people. I mean, I mean Chris Wallace is there. I actually think he's one of the finest journalists out there today. I thought Sheef Smith was great as well, and I worked with him. I thought he was he was excellent. I think it's a mixed bag over there. I think there are some people who are saying these irresponsible things that aren't as talented as they should be, and they're
doing it for ratings and for their bottom line. I also think there are some that really believe that, that are indoctrinated and truly truly believe it. My experience there was that you'd walk in the building and there was a collective there were collective points that they wanted to make that day, collective points like on whiteboards. These are the three points and themes that everyone is going to
cover in their shows in various ways. Pundits are going to talk to it, guests are going to speak to it, the anchors are going to pontificate about it. And they were marching orders. That's when Ales was there. Maybe different now, but those were the marching orders, and everybody marched to those orders. It was it was like sort of a monolithic view, and that was Roger Ayles's view, and then they would have a couple of people like me, maybe
Wan Williams to kind of mix it up a little bit. Yeah, but by and large, I think it's a mixed bag, and that some people just do it for ratings, but they all and and if you're doing it, in my opinion, for just ratings, you've sold your soul. You know, you're just you're just inauthentic, You're you're even worse than the people that really believe it, right, And and then there are people that I believe, really believe it. I do.
So knowing the fight and the struggle that we have in the next four months and what's working against the fight and whatnot, you know, how do you see where journalism, be it news sources, be it the blattosphere, be it podcasts, be it talk shows, discussion shows, which there are plenty of now on television. How do you how do you feel as though how effective that they will be?
Oh, well, very effective. We know that we know Fox has been extraordinarily effective, and we know there are other
programs that are extraordinarily effective. I will say this, I think that there's a difference between journalists and punditry, right journalism and commentators, journalists and commentators, and it's the line is so blurry for people intentionally, so that the media and network news and cable news, we all have to be very careful, I think, and letting people know that this is a piece of commentary, This is an opinion piece, This is an op ed as opposed to these are
the yes, these are the facts. Network Yeah, I'm finding you know, by and large. And I was talking to a couple of my journalist's friends, TJ. Holmes, I don't know if you know him, and Robert Roberts and and Pierre Thomas. You know, these are journalists and they're really concerned about that too. Lindsay Davis, who moderated one of the debates, I think she was really our best mind operator that we've seen in the debates she had that fly white suit. But you know, journalists need to continue
doing that job, just the facts, man. And I also think there is an important space for shows like my show. I mean, when I'm not reporting on something, I am giving my opinion. The View is an opinion show, and we make it clear that these are our opinions. These are our views. There's a really important place for that to have that lively discussion so that you can hear those views but then make your mind up yourself. I tried to be very fact based in my arguments on
the view, not emotion right, because fact trump emotion. No pun intended every single time, every single time you come at me with your emotional argument, I'm going to tell you, but these are the facts. Boom boom boom boom.
Can tell you the best example.
I'm sorry, I don't mean, I'm just going to tell you the example that that was that conversation between Tip I want to say, Tiffany.
Cross is Tips Gray Cross and Whoopy Goldberg.
About why we need and I know you've been very vocal on their needs black female VP.
And the not woman of color black. Yeah.
Yes, because of course MS duck Wader will make a great Secretary of Defense.
And she would excellent, and she would.
But we need a black agenda. We need a reconciliation for the black community. You know. One thing that's really fascinating to me about this, this discussion of black VP and I have been very vocal, I was we were the first group to write an op ed in the Washington Post about the need for uh. We started that conversation.
It was I wrote it with Tiffany I wrote it with Angela Raie, Amanda Seals, Brittany Packet Cunningham, who's brilliant, Latasha Brown, one of the co founders of Black Lives Matter, and we got together. We're on a thread talking God, we got to make this happen. And we all agreed, and I reached out to you know, Donald Brazil, minyet more, all these people, and we you know, we have a we have a Black women think tank, we really do, and it was we need He's promised this black Supreme
Court justice. That's great, but you're not getting the black Supreme Court justice unless you have the Senate. Okay, So that's that's a lusory promise. What we need is representation at the table at the table in the White House, and because black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party, brought Joe Biden to the barbecue, resurrected his campaign in South Carolina. Oh, I've spoken to her as well. We
deserve that seat at the table. And for people to say somehow that it's not about race and it's about the most qualified. We've been hearing that argument all the time. And the other thing is every single voting block with power has a lobby and makes demands before they will provide their vote. Right, So you've got the gun lobby, you've got the evangelicals, all those boots will say we will support you. Maybe not their gun lobby now, but
we will support you if you give me this. Why is it when black women say we will support you. We will organize, we will bring our husbands and our children, and our sisters and our parents to vote during a global pandemic risking our lives. But you must give us this representative in the White House. We are somehow asking for too much. We're not doing anything else that any other voting block with power does. So I just I don't understand why there's been such pushback with that demand,
because it's not a request. It's not a request, it's a demand that any other strong voting block makes. And now is the time because once he's in the White House, I mean the black agenda, what is really the Black agenda? And if you've read Joe Biden's agenda, it's okay, it's a little squishy, it's not as specific as it should be.
And you know, he has he's an imperfect candidate, and he has a lot to atone for when it comes to the treatment of Anita Hill, and it comes to the crime bill, and it comes topiration that has a lot to atone for. And I think, because you know, no other candidate in the past fifty years Democratic candidate has one without the Black vote, he needs to win overwhelmingly because if not, the current occupant in the White House is going to have to be you know, it's
not going to walk it out. Black people got to risk their lives to vote now, got to stand in line because of COVID, because of all the attack on on on mail and voting. And I don't think people are going to be as energized with Tammy dug Worth with you.
Know, I'm concerned.
I think Vice President and yeah, either in the Senate or as Attorney general or.
You know, you know, I think that Kamala We've seen her. She is certainly the prosecutor in chief. I know her. I think, you know, California is a lock for Democratic senator. I'm not concerned about Kamala being in the Senate. I think she can be much more effective as vice president and I'd like to see her debate Vice President Pence.
I think she's a really strong candidate in terms of being ready to occupy occupy the oval because not everyone you know is Joe Biden is not immortal, and I'm not an agist, but he is going to be seventy eight, and what he needs to think about is not the next four years. He needs to think about the next eight and the next twelve because in three and a half years, the Trump administration has undone eight years of
what the Obama administration did or was allowed to do. So, you know, you need someone that's able to kind of step in and I just don't know that, you know, and step in and run because she has run the AG's office, you know, she she she has the experience to run. Out of all the candidates that I've seen. I think she has she has the experience to run a country. That's just my take.
What are your thoughts on Valve Demis. I thought she was.
I've interviewed val I think she's great. I think if you look at How's law enforcement record, it's a little problematic, it's a little problem. It can be.
More than who's yes, yes, yes.
I mean if you if you look at Kamala's I've read Kamala's book, and the thing is, you know, you get the black prosecutors get a certain rap talk. Yeah, black prosecutors get a certain rap right, because unfortunately, there is the problem of mass incarceration. We know that black men are twice as likely as white men to get arrested. We know about broken window policing, and so that's a systemic problem. And when you're prosecutor, you have to enforce
the law. Laws are changed through legislation. Prosecutors don't get to change the law. What you do get to do is you get to make you have prosecutorial discussion. So you know, when I was a prosper, there were if I saw someone, a cop comes to me and he's got a confession. But the mugshot shows that the guy has two black guys. I'm not taking that case to trial. Even if I think, huh, you know, he probably did it.
If I only have that confession and he's been beaten up to get it, I have the discretion to say, this is not how you get to police. If you look at what Kamala did, she really was instrumental in changing the way things were done in California, to her credit, working within that system, because sometimes you can't just blow up systems, you have to work within it. So I often say, you know, the black prosecutor. Prosecutor is the person with the most power in the room. People think
it's the judge. He ain't the judge. People think, oh, I got to get a good defense attorney. You need a prosecutor on that side of the table in that courtroom to make the right charging decisions, to make the right recommend you know, sentencing recommendation. That's what you need. I will tell you that in my time as a prosecutor, I didn't charge people who you know, I put people in drug diversion programs. I looked at the whole person.
Because I'm from those neighborhoods. I know the decisions that people make are not just because they're inherently bad. I know, you know some of them are born in poverty. I know what goes into all of this. So I think that However, when you look at val Deming's record, there were a lot of problems in her police department, but she had the ability to change that and a lot
of those changes didn't necessarily happen. So I think she's a great candidate, but she's you know, she's going to come up if he chooses her that it's going to be a little problematic when it comes to her history with law enforcement, considering the reckoning that's going on now in our country.
But that's Sonny. You did the same thing for me, for with Amy Klobash. Are you just.
Like but that's interesting? Do you know that before I interviewed her, people say it was cross examination. I single handedly undid her campaign, and her campaign was very upset after her appearance on our show. I mean, she was never questioned about her prosecutorial background in the way that Kamala was. She was never questioned about it until she came on the show. And do you know how I found out about it. They buried her team had buried
that case my Burrell's case. Black activists d m me dm me on social media and said, we hear that Amy's going on the show. Can I send you some documents about a case? I said sure. And sometimes I don't even look at Twitter. I don't even look at everything, you know. I just happened to be looking at it and I read my husband will tell you. I mean, I was up all night. I couldn't I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my god. And you know, I
think her campaign felt that I ambushed them. And I heard there's a CNN document or HBO Max documentary now, and CNN told some of their reporters that they can't believe they got scooped by a talk show host, which was kind of infuriating because I am a legal journalist federal prosecutor, So I was like, what are they talking about? Yeah, come on now, and you work on CNN, so I'm gonna need them there. And I worked there, and you
know it is the number one talk show in the country. Yeah, that part, But I was surprised that I was the first journalist to bring it up. But everybody's bringing up Kamala's record. So black women do get examined in a in a way that is very different than white women, especially during this time when of vetting. And I think Valerie Jarrett just came out with an initiative for the media called something like we have we have her back, and they're saying, if he picks a woman, especially a
woman of color, media, you are to profile and report accordingly. Yeah, you are to do your jobs professionally and ethically. And I think it was really important for her to say that because I do not think that Kamala I don't think that representative bass. I don't think that Stacy Abrams got got about Deming's got appropriate treatment in the media. I really don't believe they did.
Can I ask oftentimes when I do watch news programs, sometimes I just wish that And I know that we're supposed to you know, when they go low we go high end quote.
Fuck all that.
But I'm just saying that, you know, can't we and we.
As in whoever we we is in twenty twenty, why.
Are we playing as dirty or as devious.
And I don't mean as effective even yeah, as effective and as.
Effective as It's almost like we already know that we already know what's in line to sure another.
Four years in November.
And it's kind of like watching those old you know, dully do right Snuffley with where you know our future is on this uh conveyor belt headed towards a mule sawt thing. And it's it's why can't we play as dirty?
Why can't we you know that's too loaded of a.
No, it's not for me, you know, Joy Behar and I talk about this all the time. She's like, when they go low, we need to go low. She's futilistic, right, I tend to disagree. I just think it's it's I do I think that with facts on your side, with the law on your side, you don't have to play dirty.
But it's like truth, come on, man, Like truth now is everyone, you know, the dangerous thing, Like everyone picks their own facts now, like it's not even.
Is the winner?
Yeah, and even kind of to your point earlier, Sonny about you know you were talking about, you know, the
difference between journalism and entertainment. I think that's kind of a big, you know, kind of problem because you know, I mean I was a journalism major like in college, and you know, one of the things I see now and a lot of other like writers have talked about it of just kind of you have the conflation of journalism versus entertainment, where one is often masquerading as the other, you know what I mean, Like we don't have a twenty four hour news cycle because of journalism. That shit
is entertainment, you know what I mean. It's not it is, you know what I mean. So I think that is where the kind of going lower thing comes in, because it's like you kind of have to use we're not playing the same rules don't apply anymore like as they as they used to.
Everything aim has changed, that is true. But I just don't I think that if everyone is cheating, then you truly have the devolution of society, Like there has to be these standards and and and that's the that's the problem, you know. I don't think we can I certainly think we can combat, Like if you're going to go low,
I can be pugilistic and hit you back. I don't know that I need to go lower, you know, I just I believe that, yeah, I can hit back, But I agree, I don't agree that you need to resort to trickery. I don't think you need to and the rules. I don't like that.
I just so Kanye is not scaring you right now.
For Kanye, I mean.
From but he hasn't.
Can't do that with somebody with mental illness, Like that's okay.
Maybe.
Be true, can be true?
Suffering that yeah, really really suffering. He's really suffering. And I think what's important, what's really unfortunate is.
That you know, he's not getting the help he needs, right and he can't. He's not getting it.
And it's hard to help a grown person with a lot of money and power to like that's the whole thing you.
Do institutionalized, like Sonny, you can, you can clear this up.
But he literally has to physically hurt himself or somebody for him to be forcibly hospitalized.
Correct, Yes, he has to be a danger to himself or others in California.
Rob, I don't.
Know he is.
He is, just I mean it is. And think about his old music, right, I mean, oh, I mean you know I could listen to it. I thought I thought it was like masterful, some of it was masterful. And now you look at him and you're like, he is really suffering. My son was upstairs, he was working out and he was listening to I can't remember. The song was like building They're building tunnels up underwall.
Nia Men.
I noticed Nigga here with that ship, like he's sick. I think he.
I think he is exactly who he has always been.
I think so. I think.
I'm not saying that. I'm not negating any of that. I'm not.
I'm not I'm not negating any of that. I'm just saying just in my very limited view of him. And as I've always said this, before he started all this stupid Trump ship, you know when people always ask me, because you know, we work with each other very early, you know, on in his career, before you know, he
was Kanye Kanye. And the thing that I've been always telling people for years, you know, when people talk about the old Kanye versus the new Kanye, the thing I would always say is, like, listen, man, Kanye is the same dude he has always been. It's just now he has much more power, influence, and a bigger platform to be who he is. He's just become more of who he already was. So by my estimation, there is no
old Kanye, New Kanye. It's the same dude, just with much more resources, you know, at his disposal Kanye.
Sick Kanye though I don't know what.
Kanye then, yeah, facts.
He's gotta be sick. I mean if you saw that that I don't know what campaign speech whatever was, I mean, someone is such Yeah, he was in such pain. I was like, oh my gosh, it's interest.
In the way it's resulting in this this racial thing. Because even in that speech, the way he was treating that black girl versus that it.
Was, I just couldnt believe that he's, well, that's not I don't Yeah, I believe he's I think, just don't believe.
I don't get into it. Is it well sick.
You don't have to believe that he's well, just believe that he's Kanye.
I believe that.
Yeah, that's what the fuck it is.
And like, we ain't got time for this silly shit now, bro, Like come on, man, no, we are we are.
Less than one hundred days from the election, and and and we we I think as a community desperately need Joe Biden. Even though he may be an imperfect candidate, we need him to win. And someone even you know, working against that, even sick is problematic.
We look at the way we came together on that. That was beautiful.
Yeah yeah, I'm about to get here and argue with my people.
No, that's that's how funny be on the view. I ain't gonna argue with what'll be on TV.
We'll do it, I know, I know, take it to the group chat.
I will say that. Uh it's it's before we let you go. It's really endearing to watch you guys via your social media platforms during game night. I'm very envious these monopoly games, like for real, Like it's my dream. I I live with a bunch of people who believe in going to bed at like nine pm. Oh they go to they go to bed early, they wake up at five in the morning and meditating all that stuff.
And you know, like I just want one.
I want one good game night where I can flip over the monopoly table if I'm losing.
Like is that what the family? Or is that what?
Ye whatever?
I mean.
We tried game nights, but you know everyone's.
At your house. No, we we get we get a little crazy. We're competitive by nature competitive everybody. My father I posted yesterday we had a game night with my father. He started trash talking about ten minutes is a game. I was like, you haven't played Clue in a minute? Are you trash talking? He's like, yeah, yeah, keep on playing, keep on playing. It's just it's just kind of a family dynamic that we have. Oh we play Clue. Let
me just just ignorant. But it's been such a wonderful thing for us because you know, Manny usually leaves very early in the morning to see patients. I usually leave early. The kids are you know, they're athletes, so they're they're constantly running. This has been the first time in years. The one silber lining for us is that we are home together, and we've been home together for months and uh,
I'm sorry, thank you, he's cut, he's cute. I know, it's so ridiculous, those two, but I I love that we, you know, we've all been able to spend that time together. And like, the kids are serious about family game Night. They're like, Thursday night is family get Like they decide when we're going to play, and they decide what we're going to play.
The top three games because we need some new suggestions.
For this and I would say probably it's a toss up between Pictionary and you.
Know, about to say.
Tules were stacking. The only thing is you got to stack. The only thing is you stacked with the same sweet. So if it's a draw too, I can stack a draw to, but you can't put a draw.
Four on top of draw to it.
I go get it with it.
Draws the same.
That you use this niggas that used to read with their fingers under the word.
The family game night.
It's good.
That one.
That's good for the coffee table book.
What is the one thing that you've adjusted to since March or during the quarantine that you haven't before that you're that's now part of your regular repertoire.
I've started I've always cooked it, but I cookle up more. And I will say I started walking and running again. You know, remember I said I used was training for a marathon when I when I met my husband in church. It's been a long time since I. I have done it consistently, and I find that, you know, the one thing that kind of does give me a little self care is to try to exercise a little bit a little.
I don't like to sweat that much, honestly, but running or walking a couple of miles a day, it's uh, it feels that feels good, and it's something that I just almost didn't make the time for before. Didn't just I don't know, I didn't I stop doing that. So I would say that that's different for me a little bit of what it's fantastic. It's probably award winning if I entered it into something.
Let's talk about it.
Yes, uh shoulder, Yeah, you can sit well, and I don't.
I certainly can make that everybody that's my usually Thanksgiving and Christmas, I throw that, you know, into the mix, but I will make it especially for you.
Okay, Well, Sonny, just ask you a quick technical question. Way, y'all are taping the view, so are you you're still at They just.
Gave y'all one background.
I know they just looked it up, didn't they, Because it wasn't always like that, like y'ating we're still at home. What they did was when they realized that we would we would be doing this all season and probably likely into next season as well, they brought equipment into our homes. I mean, people had has Mad suits on. It was really impressive. And ABC basically set trucks with equipment and
people and has Mad suits to everyone's home. And no, they put them in, like they built these kind of mini studios and each host home and so we have a big screen behind us. It's not a green screen, it's actually a huge monitor that that we have a picture of where we generally the background of where we generally sit on the show.
It's so, and then we have our lighting, and I mean they basically made sure that we could continue doing the show remotely.
And you know, there's been a couple of little glitches because it's hard because you don't want to speak over each other, and so it's it's a little bit difficult. But we do not have monitors. We have prompter. Now we have feedback where we can see each other. The first month we didn't have that and then it just
they came in fixed it. And you know, we interestingly enough, we used to be you know, sort of like number one, but they would break out syndicated and non syndicated, and now we're number one across the board in all of daytime TV.
And imagine this week.
I know everyone's like, I can't believe you on vacation, but I think it's because we're we are at our best when we are just talking about the issues, even the uncomfortable Ones. Yes, that's where we're at our best. That's when people are at their best when they when they talk.
Sonny, I have to thank you because and I'm gonna thank you from all the people that I know that watch every day, from my dad to my best friend Fadija, because although I know it's a heavyweight, you carry it so classy and so beautifully.
And I just really saying that.
As I really appreciate you.
I told you this at a mere DJ to Oscar party Ones, and I wanted to say something to you, and I walked up to you and I was like, I want.
You to know you and I appreciate you because we do.
Thank you. Thank you. One quick thing I will tell you is that I was diagnosed with diverticulitis, stress induced diverticulitis, which is like an information of the intestines and stuff. And yeah, I was.
I was.
I got really sick last last season, and last season was a tumultuous season for us. I lost like twenty pounds. I couldn't eat everything I ate BYuT of my stomach. So I went to the GI doctor and he said he usually sees that in what I have in seventy plus year old women and then seventy plus and he said, but it's stress induced. Are you under an extraordinary amount of stress? And I was like, no, I'm not. I'm fine.
I'm only on the number one talk show stress, I argue.
No stress.
Yeah.
I realized that it is a heavyweight because I attribute that to the fact that there are things sometimes that I would like to say. And I'm sure all of you understand this. There are things that I would sometimes like to say that will result in my losing that platform, and I think it's too important of a platform to lose for our community, and so I do not say those things. But when you internalize and internalize, you could
end up with stress induced but diverticulitis. So I say that as an example because I really think it's important. If you're not on television token to three million people, you really have to talk it out right. You've got to get all of that stuff out. And I think now it's more important than ever to do that, not censoring. I'm not censoring myself, but I'm trying to keep it classy at all times.
Well, Sonny, I will cordially invite you to the Quest Love supreme group chat where you can say all the problematic, to say.
All you can't say for the white people. It's like therapy. It's like therapy. It's like therapy. Hey, group chat is the new social media.
So we're gonna need to do a trade do I'm gonna need to get get into that good.
Lights geting a loud group chat.
She in with all her fling that's good Light.
The women she named, I was like, yeah, you know, I forgot to say Jamel Jamel Hill's loud.
She don't like y'all about the same. Y'all got the paper bag?
Yeah we can't.
We got, we got. It was Jeorge j Alicia Alicia Garza.
My girl from CBS assistant for a girl sometimes that what's her name?
She is so sharp with the short haircut. Oh my god.
Yeah, we we do. We do. We keep. And what's great is sometimes when they see me on the show and they see that, I'm really, you know, drinking my tea because I'm like, if I get in to this last week like this last week, it was like, yeah, job, I'm gonna lose my job. I can't lose your job, right there?
Can?
I ask you?
Is it possible. Is there a line to be crossed on the view?
Ros o'donald said directly on the show, not like things discovered.
I believe there are lines, and I always a line for black people, well, and always there's a line for everybody.
I don't have a question.
Since we're talking about this in this time that we're in right now, where seemingly everybody has an opinion, we're all encouraged to speak, speak up and speak out at this point, certainly, And but on the other side of the coin, you say the smallest thing wrong, your job is at risk, your life is at risk, everything. So how do you navigate that, especially since it's your job to speak your mind in front of so many people every day.
Yeah, well I try to navigate it very carefully while being authentic. Becau See, I don't really believe in what people are calling cancel culture. I don't really believe that that is that. I think it's accountability culture. You don't get canceled just for giving your opinion. You don't get
canceled for, you know, having an opinion that's different. You get held accountable though, for saying things that are racist, for saying things that are misogynistic you could get and doubling down on them and not apologizing you can get held accountable for those things. So I kind of disagree with this. There is oh, there's a cancel culture for giving your opinion. No, I think people are, for the first time in a long time, being held accountable for
their actions. But because of my platform, I am very careful about what I say, making sure there's fact based and how I say it, because I also think there's something to be said about dealing with your colleagues gracefully and respectfully so that you can go to battle with those same people the next day without hurt feelings and things like that, and without people feeling personally attacked, feeling like they've been disrespected just because of their view right.
So I think it's more that it's that people are now finally being held accountable for saying the quiet part out loud and other people saying I don't like that. You know that that's racist or that's sexist, or that's this, and if the person rather than say, you know what, teach me, what do you mean by that? Why do you take it that way, the person's like, no, it's not and yeah, blah, blah blah. That's different. I think that's I think that's someone that can't learn. That's just my take.
I don't know. Okay, don't you disagree.
It's fine you disagree.
No no, no, no, no, no, I don't. I don't think I necessarily disagree with you.
I just think it's you know, when we talk about, like, you know what cancel culture is, because I mean, because, right, I mean essentially what you're saying is like, well, yeah, I mean, no one gets canceled. They just you know, you might lose some money and you go away for a little while and then you just come back and rebrand, right, But you're being.
Held accountable on that particular thing that you did.
You say, you're being held accountable.
But I guess the part for me is that, you know, a big part for me is like there's never like when we're like now in the era that we're in where we're talking about just rebuilding everything, like we're talking about, you know, defunding the police and abolishing prison like all these programming, right, So there's always I'm like, I'm with it, like we can let's bot police, nigga, let's get it on. But there's always there's never a discussion about what redemption
looks like. And so my thing is that you know what I mean, Like, so at what point, you know my problem with you know, what people call is cancel culture. If you cancel someone, they no longer have an incentive to change, if you if cancel culture, or if holding someone accountable means we like we were just joking about
you losing your job. If you've lost your job, then at that point it's like, well fuck it, Like you know, I don't already lost my job, lost my name Google you Google search me, and everybody talk.
This is what defines me now, so hell, you know what I mean.
So I think that's the part that I think that I think gets missed, you know what I mean? And particularly now you know, I think a big problem that, a point that I think is missed is that the audience today.
Versus someone you know, twenty years ago, whatever.
We have the high mind of social media at our disposal to help us break down very very complex concepts. So you know, if you were you know, twenty years ago, right, if you were a person that was assaulted or you you know, had questions about your sexuality or like how we were talking earlier about consent or whatever.
I mean, who could you really talk to?
I mean, you could maybe talk to your parents, You could maybe talk to you know, a friend maybe you know what I'm saying, just you know.
Out there and everybody can chime in.
Me get right now, like now, if you have questions, but whatever, you have world class counselors, psychologists, teachers, you know at your disposal, who have you know, who create and release content on their platforms daily to help you parse all of this information. So I think it's unfair to judge people now. I think it's unfair to litigate the present or litigate the past current understanding of the present,
you know what I mean. And so when I see a lot of these things that happen when people just you know, when people just be saying some old dumb shit and they wouldever you know, to your point about educating.
I don't ever see like education happen.
It's always the first the first thing I see is always yeah, it's like get this now, they got to go, they counsel they've done, they say that, and there's never any room for education.
Well, and that's why I refer to those that double down because I've seen situations where someone's held accountable and say ah ah, that was wrong. And then you have someone that says, you know what, I've met with this person and that person and I was wrong. I get it, and I get it now. See I believe in reject shin. So I don't I don't think that person loses their job.
I don't.
I don't agree with that. But the person that doubles down, and it's like, whatever, right, I mean, what do you do with that? Not gonna?
Well you do?
Yeah? I mean.
Downtown, Yeah, I love that.
About think about he's double down And I was just like.
Wow, trip n.
We we thank you for doing the show and and thank you for fighting a good fight.
And you know we we feel your stress every episode.
Thank you for thank you for feeling with me and having me. Y'all are great.
This was wonderful and everybody get what I am the truth that memo.
When the open back up, when the world open back up, I'm coming for a nice slice of that. I need ho hold, I need that. Uh, what's I need that? Comes?
Yellow Rice? Yeah?
I hate over, I hate the missions the SLA. Can you also find out why black women get fibrys. I'm sorry, it's in the book. Everybody read the books.
She has them.
But I'm just saying, yes, yes, there are there studies being done, but we're gonna talk about that.
Thank you, thank you. I'm with you in the struggle.
We be happy. Yeah, Sugar Steve, I'm paid, Bill and fine, take a love. This is quest Love, This is Quest Love Supreme, and we will see you on the next program. Thank you very much.
Hmm.
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