Black Republican Celebrities, Plus Butch Ware: the Black Muslim Revolutionary Candidate

Summary

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Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay

Episode: Black Republican Celebrities, Plus Butch Ware: the Black Muslim Revolutionary Candidate
Date: March 31, 2026
Host: The Ringer

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into two interconnected threads:

1. The emergence and motivations of visible Black Republican celebrities—including recent controversies around Chilli (TLC), Nick Cannon, Amber Rose, and broader celebrity political endorsements and alignment with MAGA.
2. A compelling and extensive conversation with Dr. Butch Ware, historian, Black Muslim, Green Party candidate for California governor—and former Green VP running mate—about radical Black liberation, revolutionary politics, ballot suppression, and the future of political engagement outside the two-party system.

Throughout the show, Van and Rachel maintain a conscious tone of critical yet “loving” engagement (“House of Love”)—even as they tackle subjects like political dishonesty, the manipulation of Black celebrity, anti-Blackness, policy hypocrisy, and the urgency of building alternatives to the political and social status quo.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Black Republican Celebrities: Motives, Money, and Meaning

[07:20–36:42]

Chilli/TLC MAGA Controversy

• Background: Chilli denies being a MAGA supporter after FEC records show donations to Trump’s PACs and Senator Ted Cruz, and after reposting a transphobic Michelle Obama conspiracy video.

• Chilli’s Statement ([16:39]): "I would never do anything that's harmful or hateful to anybody... I’m just not about hate or anything like that."

• Hosts’ Take:

  • Van and Rachel both challenge the credibility of Chilli’s “accidental” explanations regarding donations and reposts, calling out the contradictions in her reasoning.
  • Rachel: “It's not just that you donated to Trump's PAC and to... Ted Cruz. It's also when you did it—17 donations between April and November 2024, on an election year... you stopped donating in 2024 when the job was done.” ([22:51])
  • Van: “If you're that, be that. And have the conversation with people as to why. If you can demonstrate why you believe what you believe, I will respect our traction... I’ll look at you as an enemy—but I'll respect it.” ([28:41])

• Broader Point: The phenomenon is not just accidental or based on ignorance. There is a growing, coordinated attempt (especially among certain political operatives and right-wing groups) to “recruit” Black celebrities for MAGA brand legitimacy.

Black Celebrities, Political Endorsements, and Integrity

• Both hosts recount being offered money to publicly endorse party candidates—Van was offered $4,000–$5,000, Rachel received inquiries via email, both refused.
• Van: “There’s never gonna be a time where I’m going to take any money for any type of political speech... If it’s directly me evangelizing to the audience and being paid—no.” ([13:02])
• Rachel: “Whoever funds you, runs you.” ([12:17])
• The tension for both hosts is between paid endorsements, authenticity, and the ability to speak independently and with integrity.

The Impact on Community and Culture

• Debate over whether personal politics should affect cultural support (concerts, music, art): “Do you have to agree with somebody politically to enjoy their art?” ([33:30])
• Both hosts highlight the agency of audiences to withdraw support from artists whose politics they find harmful or dishonest.

Broader Dilemma

• The show explores whether Black celebrities are “duped,” opportunistic, or both—and why so much symbolic and financial effort is invested in making “MAGA Blackness” publicly visible.

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2. Nick Cannon, Amber Rose, and the New Black Right

[37:02–72:40]

Nick Cannon and Amber Rose on Trump, Race, and Parties

• Nick Cannon and Amber Rose, on Nick’s show, express political support for Trump and repeat classic right-wing talking points (“Democrats are the party of the KKK; Republicans freed the slaves”).

• Amber Rose: “Democrats don’t care about Black people, and the Republicans do. And that’s the misconception.” ([38:53])

• Nick Cannon: “I voted for Donald Trump... by far the better option for us. And as of now, I agree with a lot of things that he’s doing.” ([39:38])

• Van and Rachel’s Reaction:

  • They dissect the historical inaccuracies: “Democrats are the party of the KKK”—Van: “It would be disrespectful to our audience to explain some of that... The party shift is well known. Those are right-wing talking points.” ([41:11])
  • Rachel: “How do you then go on… to talk about W.E.B. Du Bois and then talk about Trump in the same way?” ([43:07])

Race, Power, and Denial

• The hosts discuss how celebrity proximity to Trump (before and after his presidency) is used to launder his racist record.
• Van: “White supremacy inverts the way we tell somebody’s story.... Everything that disproves that Donald Trump is a racist is what gets discussed.” ([58:24])
• Rachel: “What makes you racist?... I’d be really interested in how they even define what it is to be a racist.” ([65:01])

Biracial Identity Discourse

• The Amber Rose “biracial people aren’t Black” debate is revived, with Van referencing a “beige jihad” and noting how definitions of Blackness are constantly (and often opportunistically) negotiated by public figures. ([70:00])

The “House of Love” Approach

• The hosts explicitly agree to take a “House of Love” approach—engaging with these views with critical compassion, but without excusing or softening consequences:
  • Van: “Politics is traction. It can be compromised, but it’s traction... I’ll respect our traction… but I’ll look at you as an enemy.” ([28:41])

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3. Culture Check: Kanye West’s “Bully”

[76:33–85:44]

• Discussion of Kanye West’s latest release, “Bully”:
  • Van: “It sounded fantastic. He was saying nothing.” ([78:40])
  • The absence of lyric substance is attributed to Kanye’s isolation from former collaborators and the fallout from his right-wing and antisemitic saga.
  • Rachel: “Sonics are great… but the stakes are too high. It felt like they were having a very light conversation about something I feel like we... take very seriously.” ([84:34])
  • The question of whether supporting Kanye is “worth it” comes up given his political/cultural trajectory.

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4. In-Depth Interview: Dr. Butch Ware—the Black Muslim Revolutionary Candidate

[87:25–187:16]

Personal and Philosophical Genesis

[87:25, 175:03]

• Butch shares formative stories: His upbringing by a hustling, troubled father; being “thrown in the water” as a metaphor for revolutionary risk; how the autobiography of Malcolm X and the Quran inspired his conversion and political awakening at age 15.
• Butch: “All empires fall. Nothing... seized by force is ever held. And once you know that empire is doomed, you’re free, like Malcolm was.” ([175:35])

What is Revolutionary Black Politics, and Why Now?

• Ware positions himself as part of the “Black liberation tradition,” drawing from Malcolm X, the Panthers, Freedom movements, anti-imperialism, and solidarity with Palestine, Indigenous, and immigrant communities.
• Butch: “The duopoly runs through hate and through fear... But power, the love, is stronger than hate.” ([90:30])
• The Green Party, under his stewardship, is being pushed to become the Black, radical, and truly pluralistic “Red, Black and Green Party.”
• “Whoever funds you, runs you.” ([124:54])

Platform and Policies: Tangible, Not Rhetorical

[130:32–143:55]

• Housing:
  • Vacancy tax (90–95%) on property speculators (Blackstone, Blackrock) to force sale of empty units to the state for social housing (“No one gets seconds until everyone eats”).
• Homelessness:
  • Universal basic income for the homeless would be cheaper than current “poverty industrial complex” expenditures.
• Healthcare:
  • Universal single-payer, publicly funded healthcare—breaking the link between job/security and health.
• Political Independence:
  • The Green Party’s victories in “mayor and down” races provide proof that third-party candidates can win if money is removed from the equation.
• Foreign Policy:
  • An unapologetic, Black, anti-imperialist, pro-Palestinian stance—calls out the ways Black and Muslim identities have been weaponized to cover for white supremacy and imperialist projects.

Ballot Suppression and Legal Battle

[112:45–122:53]

• Butch details the state’s technical maneuvering to keep him off the California ballot (delays, paperwork games, redaction requirements, and a suspiciously predetermined court ruling).

Critique of Party Politics: Both Sides Are Not the Same—But Both Are Unjust

• Butch Ware’s view: Republicans and Democrats both serve capital and white supremacy—the main difference is rhetorical and stylistic, not substantive.
• “The sheep is going to live all of its life in fear of the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd.” ([168:22])
• Rachel: “When you talk about leftists versus liberal ideology... People look at leftists and say radicalized or... domestic terrorism...”
• Butch unpacks the history: “In the European framing of things, absolutely I’m a leftist. Both those parties are right-wing... It’s important to remember that all of our heroes... were, by that definition, leftists.” ([144:47])
• Van presses: “Can you explain why the Democrats aren’t the same as the Republicans?” [169:23]

Demographics, Coalition-Building, and Hope

• Ware underscores support among California Muslims (potentially 1 million), independents, and disaffected Black and working-class voters.
• Green Party holds to policies (reparations, Palestinian liberation, universal healthcare, LGBTQ rights) abandoned or diluted by mainstream parties.
• “We’re making this the Red, Black And Green Party now... We can do it now. And that’s why they want me off the ballot, because they know they can lose right now.” ([124:54])
• The “movementum” is toward coalition, not merely individual campaign victories.

Final Message: Organize, Build, Love

[179:13–187:16]

• Butch views electoral politics as one tool—“the electoral arm of our liberation movement”—while rooting ultimate freedom in community, care, abolitionism, and radical love.
• “Revolutions are rooted in love... That happens in community... I am not here to be a savior... I’m here to serve.” ([179:13])
• Unity Uprising event announced—bringing together leaders from across Black radical and labor movements.
• Rachel: “You have found your home here. I don’t understand how someone can’t listen to the way you talk and how passionate you are...” ([144:01])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

(With timestamps and speaker attribution)

• On Celebrity Political Endorsements

  • “Whoever funds you, runs you.” – Rachel ([12:17])
  • “Politics is traction... I will respect our traction, That I will look at you as an enemy. I'll look at you as an enemy. But I'll respect the traction we have.” – Van ([28:41])

• On Chilli’s Defense

  • “You made 17 donations between April 2024 and November 2024... That leads me to believe that you are MAGA.” – Rachel ([22:51])
  • “If you're that, be that. And have the conversation...” – Van ([28:41])

• On "House of Love" Tone

  • “We're going to have conversations in love. In love for Chilli, in love for Nick Cannon. In love for Amber Rose. Love, love, love. The house of love.” – Van ([17:44])

• On Black Political Disillusionment

  • “There are prominent, behind-the-scenes people that are organizing on the right right now to attract black celebrities to the MAGA cause.” – Van ([08:34])

• On False Party History

  • “The Democrats are the party of the KKK”—"That is a right wing talking point. That statement to me indicates capture.” – Van ([45:02])

• On Celebrity Trumpism

  • “I fuck with Trump... for us.” – Nick Cannon (quoted, [39:38])
  • “I would have thought Nick Cannon would have been one of those people to not make that statement.” – Rachel ([42:08])

• On Trump and Racism

  • “The way we talk about Donald Trump... We don’t really do that. We say that he hung out with rappers. He was cool with a couple of black luminaries. That must mean that he is not a racist.” – Van ([61:07])

• On Revolutionary Politics

  • “All revolutionary activity is rooted in profound love. The duopoly runs through hate and through fear... Power, the love, is stronger than hate.” – Butch Ware ([90:30])
  • “Electoral politics, if you understood it as part of a revolutionary cocktail rather than as an end unto itself... Mutual aid plus direct action plus electoral power.” – Butch ([98:20])

• On Platform and Class

  • “Commerce is the trade and exchange of goods. Capitalism is when an ownership class exploits the working class...” – Butch ([154:42])

• On Abolition and Building the New

  • “When you understand that empire is doomed, then your most pressing question is, what do we build on its ashes?... I'm here to serve as the electoral arm of the broader collective liberation movement.” – Butch ([175:03], [179:13])

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Important Timestamps

• [07:20] Start of Black Republican celebrity segment
• [16:39] Chilli’s public statement
• [22:51] Rachel dissects donation pattern (“17 donations…”)
• [38:36] Nick Cannon’s Trump comments aired
• [45:02] Party history and right-wing talking points
• [61:05] Trump and racism: inversion of narrative
• [87:25] Start of Butch Ware interview
• [124:54] “Who funds you, runs you”—in Green Party context
• [130:44] Vacancy tax and housing platform details
• [144:47] On leftist ideology vs. mainstream narratives
• [175:03] Butch recounts his political awakening and hopes for revolution

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Tone and Language

• Candid, irreverent, critical but caring: Hosts engage with disagreement honestly, avoid strawman arguments, and challenge both liberal and right-wing orthodoxies.
• Deeply rooted in Black history and political tradition: Frequent references to Malcolm X, Panthers, the long Black freedom struggle.
• Accessible radicalism: Butch Ware, in particular, makes complex ideology relatable through anecdotes, humor, and personal vulnerability.
• Resonant with radical love: The “House of Love” motif ties through the episode—a challenge to maintain dialogue, dignity, and high expectations simultaneously.

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For New Listeners

This episode offers a panoramic view of current Black politics and its many fractures—from celebrity opportunism to revolutionary challenge. If you want to understand why debates about representation, integrity, analysis of both parties, and the fate of “radical” alternatives matter for Black America in 2026, this is essential listening. The conversation with Butch Ware is a masterclass in organizing, intersectionality, and building new futures amid despair and repression.

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Transcript

[Rachel Lindsay]

Foreign.

[Van Lathan]

What is up? Power learning is on.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Is Ivan Leathon Jr. And it's me, Rachel Lynn Lindsay.

[Van Lathan]

We have an interview today. We do Butch Ware, California gubernatorial candidate, talks about radical liberation politics. He talks about why he fear that the California Democratic Party is trying to keep him off of the ballot. Feels like he's polling well and that there are people who don't want him on the ballot because of what it means for electoral politics in California.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, not just people, a system. I think it's a really, really interesting interview. I think some people you hear radical, you think something totally different. We get into that. It is passionate, it is educated. It is honestly it was a necessary conversation. I think as we are in. In a place where we are starting to explore things outside of what we've been told, what we've been traditionally taught and what we're seeing currently in our political system. This is an interview that I think will challenge you and give you a very, very interesting perspective.

[Van Lathan]

We've had Josh Shapiro, we've had Gavin Newsom, we've had several center left Democrats on the podcast. I think it's helpful for the audience and we gave Butch a lot of time because I give Butch a lot of love. I give Butch a lot of love and all of the questions that I'm sure people will want us to ask about his feelings on the Democratic Party and how those feelings jive with the current Trump administration and what they are doing. His criticism is almost all for the Democratic Party. He talks about Donald Trump a little bit. We talked about it. But this is sort of, this is a thread in leftist progressive circles with being unsatisfied with the Democrats as the opposition party to the fascism that's coming from the right right now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's necessary. I understand. And you guys will too when you listen to the interview. Why specifically he's coming. I shouldn't say coming after, but he's critical of the Democratic Party because I think as maybe as black people traditionally we are hesitant to do that. So. I understand. But I also want to talk about. It is long but you can't do this type of interview in my opinion and cut it short because it's not just about giving you a bullet point answer. It's about an explanation and to a why. And every single question that is asked, the why is explored. And, and to me that's why I found this to be such a powerful interview.

[Van Lathan]

Say this, get into the show other stuff that's happening. There'll be no freedom that you can't imagine. And I hope that you guys understand that almost anything, nothing can exist until you can imagine it first. So if you cannot imagine a world with universal healthcare, that world is never coming. If you can't imagine a world where there's no homelessness, that world won't exist. If you can't imagine a world where you are treated like a citizen on par with everyone else that's walking around you, you're doomed to live in that world forever. So the things that you hear from people with radical politics, leftist politics, he talks about progressive populism, they might rub you the wrong way. How are we going to do that? How are we going to do that? How are we going to do that? The first way you're going to do them is to talk about them. And I want you to know that what might be radical or destabilizing to you is being done somewhere by some country, by some community with great effect. So happy to have Butch on. Going to see Butch again on Saturday. Hope you guys will come out as we're doing that as well. Okay, get into the show. Okay, now we gotta get into the show. It's a very interesting show because a lot of stuff happened, like just in the last couple of days. First of all, Duke,

[Rachel Lindsay]

I haven't had a ch. I've been. I feel like I've been so busy. I haven't really sat down and watched the tournament. Now my team is out, so, I mean, Duke choked.

[Butch Ware]

Your women's team is still in, though, Rachel.

[Van Lathan]

That's true. Shout out to them, Donnie. That's true. As you. As you catch me up. We empower women, Donnie. As you catch me up.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm not saying I don't watch the women. I meant. Yes, thank you, Donnie, for clarifying.

[Van Lathan]

No, no, that wasn't Donnie clarifying. You don't know what Donnie's been doing lately.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What has Donnie been doing?

[Van Lathan]

Donnie's been asserting himself in a scampish, directly confrontational way. Thank you, Donnie. For like everybody. Cause there's a bunch of people. Van don't care about what's going on with the women. When I say when Van says Duke, he means the men. I was talking about the men. And maybe I wasn't talking about the women as much as I should have been. Donnie. I appreciate that. Making me look like a chauvinist for the whole higher learning audience. All stuff, different stuff that happens.

[Butch Ware]

No, if this is what you're saying, it would be. Rachel. That would be the chauvinist not saying that. That's true. I'm talking about Texas's women's team.

[Van Lathan]

I'm acknowledging their existence in the tournament. That's all.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Wow, Rach, I thought you were only talking about the man, but okay. Wow. Okay, Donnie or do Do. Donnie gets a new SP speaker in the studio. It starts really cutting up.

[Van Lathan]

Donna going for it right now. All right, all right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know what, Donnie, your turn is coming.

[Van Lathan]

Donnie, how about this? If we want to talk about stuff, how about you move to la? How about that? How about we've been doing the podcast six years, you still in the woods out there murdering animals because they are making your life inconvenient. How about you do. Remember he killed. Remember he killed. No reason. Kill a snake. No reason. I can understand if it was a fucking cobra or something like that. Donnie goes, snake. I don't like him. Boom. At the Same time, the PCC 8 was take. P22 was taking. The PCC 8 is political organization I work with. P22 was taking his last breath. Kill a snake for no reason. So you don't come to me and do the things that you just did. That's unfair. You deal with yourself. All right. We love Somewhere out there is a Chevy truck.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And the person who drives it, well, that's a Chevy person.

[Van Lathan]

You probably know one, your buddy, your sister. Ones who always show up, they're the

[Butch Ware]

first to rise, the last to leave.

[Van Lathan]

They always have that little extra something.

[Butch Ware]

And maybe you've got it, too.

[Van Lathan]

Chevrolet together, let's drive. Visit chevy.com trucks to explore the lineup. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. You know, with just one trip to Whole Foods, you can travel the world. First stop, discover the taste of the Mediterranean. With big sales on brands like Deco,

[Butch Ware]

Oreos, and San Pellegrino.

[Van Lathan]

With Whole Foods prepared foods, dinner is solved. You can roam the world with empanadas,

[Butch Ware]

burritos, soups, and more.

[Van Lathan]

Maybe expand your snack repertoire to South

[Butch Ware]

America with colorful and crunchy Peruvian potato chips.

[Van Lathan]

Then straight to Mexico for dessert. You can pick up a tres leches

[Butch Ware]

family pack cake for only $10 every Friday. All aboard.

[Van Lathan]

Save on regional flavors at Whole Foods Market. Let's get into the show. Let's start off. We're gonna talk a lot about the Republicans and the Democrats later on. But let's talk about black Republicans. Black Republicans got going on right now. A lot of our celebrities are beloved people or black Republicans.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We always find our way here, you know, and Lizzo warned us.

[Van Lathan]

What did Lizzo say?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Lizzo said, after Lil Kim, you Know, did her. Lil Kim. Wow. After. Oh, my gosh. Nicki Minaj did her tour and, you know, teamed up with. Why are you laughing? Why you get that fiendish gleam in your eye.

[Van Lathan]

Think about what else Lizzo said.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Anyways, Nicki Minaj, she was out here with Erica Kirk and Trump and all of that. She was like, you're gonna start seeing. She basically said, they're getting paid. She took this post down and she said, you're gonna start seeing more of the people you love come out in favor because basically because of money in favor of the Republican Party.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, I'll say this. First of all, there's money that people are getting on both sides.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Sure. But we're talking about a specific thing.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I know there's money that people are getting on both sides. I think there exists something on the right that a lot of people might not be aware of that there doesn't exist on the left. That doesn't exist, shall I say, on the left right now, which is. There's not just money on the right. There are prominent behind the scenes people that are organizing on the right right now to attract black celebrities to the maga. Cause I don't know if that exists right now on the left as much because there might not be the need for it. And there's some fracturing and splintering that's going on. I do know that the Biden administration and obviously, I know that people were paid. I mean, I was approached in 2020 to give a paid endorsement. Did not do this. But I mean, that's like a. That's something that happens, right? Like, that's something that goes on. So when people are saying that people are being paid, like, that's. That's nothing new.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Right. But I think it was. Her comment was how people felt so strongly about seeing Nicki Minaj in this way. And she's like, hold on. You'll probably see more people. Because people don't have as much of a strong reaction when they see a black person supporting the Democratic ticket as they do when it comes to. Or just Democrats when it comes to maga.

[Van Lathan]

When I was approached to do it, what I was. What shocked me was the amount of money I'm not popping. That's one of the ways I knew I wasn't popping.

[Rachel Lindsay]

They offered you a lot of money.

[Van Lathan]

No, they didn't. It was like $4,000 or something like that. I'm like, what?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, it was. I was approached, but it was. We didn't even get that far with money because it Was a conversation. Like they must have hit you up with it with the amount.

[Van Lathan]

No, there was a meeting. There was. Okay, so this is what happened. There was a. Have I talked about this? I feel like I have. There was a meeting.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You said you were approached. You didn't get into detail.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, so there was a meeting. And this meeting was about messaging. I have no problem with that. Right. Like if you are trying to convince like younger black men to be politically active and turn out the vote. At that point I was on a clear side in terms of who I wanted to be the president. And there was a meeting about how we talk about it, what we do, and all of that stuff. All of that stuff is cool to me. And then during this meeting, there was a conversation where it was like, you know, if you put these things up, you know, there's a budget involved here. You'd be like, you know, four or $5,000. I was, I'm like, obviously I'm not going to take any money for political speech. I'm not going to do that. Right. But at the same time I was like, $5,000, the fuck.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Like, so there was a price.

[Van Lathan]

There was a price that would have been. But I just thought about, you know, Cause during that time, you know, I had done some stuff with Amazon and Amazon had paid all of this money. Like this was like ads for different shows.

[Butch Ware]

And I was like, what y' all think? Five grand?

[Van Lathan]

Like, I'm a whack ass nigga. I need to keep building my career. $5,000 and I'mma say something political. Who the fuck what?

[Rachel Lindsay]

A lot of people would take it. That's why.

[Van Lathan]

Nah, I get it now. I get it and I understand. But the thing was for me is that there's gonna never be a time where I'm going to take any money for any type of political speech. I had already said even before then that I was completely against Donald Trump and supporting Joe Biden in that particular presidential election. Even though I had all types of criticisms of the major party tickets. Still do. But I wasn't gonna take any money to put anything on my Instagram or do anything else in terms of that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, you know, when we talk to Butch Ware later, he's. Or when that interview plays, he says, makes the comment, whoever funds you, runs you. And I just don't feel like I could be my true self on a social media platform, in an interview or on this very podcast if I knew that I was getting paid or had been paid. I just, I don't think I could Be as clear headed in what I wanted to say, maybe if I gave the money back, maybe feel different, but I wasn't. I didn't go to a meeting, but I definitely was. Someone reached out to me via email about my interest of what that would look like. And for me, it's just, I cannot be me and y' all call me qvc. Rachel are certain things I could take money for, but politics is not one of them.

[Van Lathan]

And let me tell you exactly what I mean. If I was to host like a town hall or something like that, if I am booked as talent, and that talent is, we're gonna have a conversation with this van. You're gonna run this. Like, I've taken money from like the NAACP to host events at the NAACP and all that stuff like that. If somebody brought me out and was like, hey, we're gonna have a conversation about politics while that van. You're gonna host it. You're the talent. Cool. But if it's directly me evangelizing to the audience, hey, give this message and say this thing and then you will be paid. No, I don't think that, like, no people do that. That's fine. No, I don't know that any of these people have done this. But what I will say is that there is organizing being done by prominent figures in hip hop behind the scenes to attract people to the MACA calls.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

So that, that is something that is happening. And look, that's what people do. They whip these votes and they get people involved to people that are important in a way. I don't know that it's quite as nefarious as it's made out to be, but it is, it is happening. Okay, Black Republicans. Donnie. Yeah. Let's start off with Chile.

[Butch Ware]

1/3 of TLC.

[Van Lathan]

She's denying the MAGA allegations following a

[Butch Ware]

report that was released by Media News that said that she had donated to Donald Trump's campaign. That outlet cited FEC records that show that she donated to several MAGA Republicans

[Van Lathan]

through her contributions to Trump's PACs, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Senator Ted Cruz.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She.

[Butch Ware]

She posted a statement on Instagram saying that she attributes this to her not reading the fine print.

[Van Lathan]

And she also posted a video where

[Butch Ware]

she states her respect for Michelle Obama after she reshared a conspiracy video about the former First Lady's gender. Let's hear from Chile.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Hey, guys, I wanted to come on here to address a few things that's circulating on the Internet that's very concerning to me. Let me say this first. I have the utmost respect and admiration for Michelle Obama. And I would never say or do anything that is disrespectful to her or to any woman. I would never do that. And I had no clue that this repost had happened until I started getting phone calls and text messages from everybody. And I immediately went to my page to see what. What was going on. Now, mind you, I'm not very computer savvy, so I'm looking for this repost button, and I see that all of them, all of these buttons are very, very close to each other, and clearly I was scrolling and my thumb hit the repost button again. I had no clue that something like this happened until I got all the calls. But of course, I took that down. And, you know, I would never post anything like that. I would never do something like that. That is not my character. I have supported the Obamas. I gave to the campaign both runs, voted twice for him, and supported the organization that Michelle had in the schools for exercise for the kids. I would never do anything that's harmful or hateful to anybody. You know, I'm just not wired like that. That is. That's just not who I am. And when it comes to organizations that I have donated to, these are the things that support the veterans. You know, I have always supported them. Not just now, but for years. This is not something new. So I just wanted to let you guys know, you know, this from me, you know, that I would never do anything so disrespectful, and I would just never. I'm just not about hate or anything like that. You know, if you look. Look on my page and see my post, it's all about love, faith, and connection. That's what I'm all about. You know, and I've always been that way, and I will continue to be just that way. So I just want to thank you guys for, you know, your love and your support and just taking the time to listen to me right now. I really, really appreciate that and I love you guys. Thank you so much.

[Van Lathan]

Nice message. So normally the name of this podcast is Higher Learning, but for this episode, that's not the name of the podcast.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What is it?

[Van Lathan]

The name of the podcast for this episode is House of Love. Because in the conversations that we're about to have, we're about to put our love caps on for people that we.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Rachel, I'm waiting to hear what you're going to say.

[Van Lathan]

I'm saying we're going to have conversations in love. In love for Chilli, in love for Nick Cannon. In love for Amber Rose. Love, love, love. The house of love. As we break down these different situations and talk about them. And I just want to. You know, you're not buying it. You're not buying the house of love narrative. But I want to challenge us to talk about these things in a way that's not quite as triggering as what it might be. Another different pod.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Appreciate you trying to set the tone.

[Van Lathan]

It's tough.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, no, no, no. I'm not making a face. Cause you're saying how slow. I mean, I did. But I understand the sentiment and what you want to accomplish. But it's tough. It's tough because I don't like for you to talk to me like I'm stupid.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. You know, Chilli is clearly lying. And that's okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

When does the tour start?

[Van Lathan]

Okay. It's going on right now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

When is the tour start?

[Van Lathan]

So. But that's. It's. But I want. She's lying. And that's. I want people to understand that that's okay. It's okay. Cause we've lied. You know, people. It happens. She's. That's a lie.

[Butch Ware]

That's a lie.

[Van Lathan]

It's a ridiculous one. And that's okay.

[Rachel Lindsay]

The only thing I might give her. Right. Cause I don't pay attention to her social media activity. I know there were reports of other people she was following. I was just looking it up on my phone. Unless she removed it or that was a different platform. I only looked on Instagram. I. I did not see her following some of the things that I've seen in post circulating. And of course, you have to be clear because there's a lot of AI stuff and fake posts. I've been duped by them before going around out there. So I didn't see that. But what I will say is the only thing I'm gonna give her. I have never reposted anything to the level of whatever she reposted in regards to being. Talking about Michelle Obama. But she is right. That little repost button that they have on Instagram, you can be scrolling and not even realize that you reposted. Like, you have to feel that the phone did something or you have to see that it's checked in between. Like that. I will give her that. But then again, I say that is also something. That's a type of post that popped up in your algorithm.

[Van Lathan]

It's in your algorithm.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's in your algorithm. I've never seen that. That's not on my algorithm. It's not the type of information I Consume. I'm not being fed that. So I will say she is correct. It is very easy to repost. I actually hate that feature, but it was available. Let's get into the.

[Van Lathan]

Let's do this. Okay, so I think I'm gonna try to bifurcate this issue. Chile as a MAGA Republican, I don't really have an issue with. I don't. I'm just telling you right now, I don't have an issue with Chile as a MAGA Republican. Vote for whoever you want. Be a MAGA Republican if you want, if that's your thing. The disrespect to Michelle Obama, to me, that is part and parcel with MAGA Republicanism is kind of the thing that I have an issue more with. All right. Because if you come out and you are a MAGA Republican, my conversation with you is going to be about why you are one. What about MAGA Republicanism attracts you? Do you not see the inherent anti blackness in it? What is the political conversation that we're having intra communally with someone like Chili or whatever? When we talked about Snoop, it was different because there was a change, there was a shift. This is not me saying that Snoop is necessarily a mag Republican. It's saying that he went to a party and was like welcome to Mac mag on the whole nine where it had been fucked Donald Trump before then. That happened after there was a pardon for a gentleman that was close to him. That sort of transactionality is something that needs to be discussed. Because if that sort of transactionality exists in the political sphere, the question would then be where else does it exist? And can you rely on someone as a leader or a bellwether or whatever you want to call it in your community that could be that transactional. I think that's worth the conversation. I don't care so much that if Chile is maga, I do think that people are going to care. And what I the reason why the lie in and of itself, if I was going to be offended, I would be offended is because if you're that be that and have the conversation with people as to why.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yes. Or if you were that right, and since the election, the way that he has conducted his second presidency, second term and with the administration has caused you to change, then say that. I feel like this could have been a totally different conversation if you were more honest. Because it's not just that you donated to Trump's PAC and to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and to Republican Senator Ted Cruz. It's also when you did it right you made 17 donations between April 2024 and November 2024 on election year. When did it stop? November 2024. That leads me to believe that you are MAGA. You were paying attention to what was happening on the campaign trail. You were paying attention to debates. You were supporting. Like this is even before Biden dropped out. Like you were supporting all of these things that are related to MAGA Project 2020, 25, all of that. And you wanted to see this man in office. This is just my assumption based off of what I have in front of me. And that's. And you stopped donating in 2024 when the job was done. The reason I say don't talk to me like I'm stupid is one, because of what I just said. 17 donations in 6 months, 7 months. The other thing is you're telling me, well I did it because I support and donate to causes in regards to veterans and also to human trafficking. Those are mighty causes to support. Right? But if that is what you are motivated by, then there are a number of organizations that you can split your money to that aren't politically related. There are many organizations that do great work in regards to human trafficking, child trafficking, sex trafficking, all of that. If that is what you're passionate about, right? I don't doubt you. Why not donate there instead if it is in regards to veterans? Same thing, same argument I made. But you specifically, specifically voted in a political or for politics in an election year because that is who you believed in. That is who. That is what I mean about like please don't talk to us like we're stupid. Cuz there are other ways to donate. If I was on Chili's team, I would say, literally I would say I. Cuz she says I didn't read the fine print. I mean honestly Chili, like you didn't have to read the fine print when it came to Trump. Like it is so obvious who he was, particularly in that those last six months. And you could compare that to his first presidency. Like, you know, you don't need to read the fine print. That is also a lie. Like please stop saying these kinds of things if you want to be people to believe you. And maybe this isn't true either. But what I would have done if I was her team is one, not let her get on social media and talk. But two, I would have said exactly what I was saying. There's another way to talk about this. I was maga. I believed in the things. I voted on two important issues. I believed he was more about them than the other candidate, and I voted for him and I supported his campaign. And then I saw that this is not what I signed up for, and I have to own that. But now you see that I haven't donated since I have changed my ways. I am more educated. I am more knowledgeable. I appreciate the call out because I want to explain it. And I'm sure I'm not alone, that there are other people who were duped as well. That's what she should have said. I could have accepted that. I don't take it personal. So, to your point, yeah, I'm not personally bothered by it, but it does feel convenient of the timing of you coming out. Of course, people did their research on her, and she is not the first and won't be the last black public figure that we see this happen to. But I just don't appreciate you talking to me like I'm supposed to believe what you just said.

[Van Lathan]

You know, what's funny is, I do appreciate it. Okay, you know, I'll tell you. So it's clearly a lie. And being that it's clearly a lie, I respect the lie.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Wow. So she. Because. Explain that logic. Because she stood in her lie, because she was honest in her lie.

[Van Lathan]

So let me tell you, like, under no examination does this fly, right? Because if you're talking about Magnus, she's donating to Ted Cruz. Okay? You know, so it's. You know what I mean? Like, she, she. She's donating to Ted Cruz, she's rallying the troops and trying to build the intellectual and political power base of what seemingly she agrees with. Okay? What people need to understand, especially like celebrities, luminaries, and all of that stuff like that that are getting involved in the politics is. Politics is traction. It can be compromised, but it's traction. I am in traction with you. We have friction. If you are maga, if you are MAGA and you believe in what Donald Trump is doing domestically, if you believe in what Donald Trump is doing in terms of foreign policy, if you believe in the overall political project of maga, Republicanism, we are in traction. We're in traction from an emotional standpoint with the way they go about it, we're in traction from a policy standpoint, we're in traction with the way that they use terms like CRT or DEI or whatever. So an intellectual to like what?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Intellectual as well.

[Van Lathan]

Right? Like, we are in traction. Now, I will respect that. You understand that if you can demonstrate why it is you believe what you believe, if you can demonstrate to me or to anyone else why you believe what you believe. I will respect our attraction, That I will look at you as an enemy. I will. I'm sorry. I'll look at you as an enemy. I'll look at you as an enemy. But I'll respect the traction that we have. The glamoring part of it is interesting. I can respect it because she's bowing to pressure from the community. She's bowing down to the litany of people that said, you know what? We're not going to fuck with you anymore. Now, I'm not saying that she's doing that because she's hurt. She's doing that because it will hurt her. Bottom line.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yes, you guys, here's the deal.

[Van Lathan]

It's very simple. This is interesting. It's a very interesting thing. If you move in black spaces and black circles, there are going to be a number of black people that have a problem with you fucking with Donald Trump.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

There are going to be a number of black people that have a problem. We're not going. I will not look at you the same. Just like you might not look at me the same, being that I am a socialist people. Somebody call me a Marxist, all of that. You might not look at me the same.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But I love that.

[Van Lathan]

I don't love it. I love. Love House of Love. What I love is love. What I love. I love to argue. So I don't mind the arguments. I'm not offended by anybody's political stances. But there are political stances that you can have and politics that you can have that put you in direct opposition to what I believe is good for people.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. Donnie wrote tickets for the tour dropped last Thursday.

[Van Lathan]

Can't be fucking up the tour.

[Butch Ware]

Jay wrote that shout out to you.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, sorry, Jay. Thank you, jjj. Tour starts in August. I mean, this is. They were like, you better get on your social media and make a statement. Now, listen to your point. She is entitled to believe whatever it is that she believes. I would rather you stand in it than talk to us like they talk to you. But I. I mean, you have to accept the consequences. To your point, which it might be that people might not want to go on this tour now, knowing that the money they give you may support a belief, a policy, a politician that they don't believe in.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I mean, and that's fair. And that's fair.

[Van Lathan]

Of course it's fair. I'm talking about.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Look at my page. Hold on. My page is full of love.

[Van Lathan]

I know, but this is what I'm saying. Like, people like Curtail their support for people for all kinds of reasons. Here at the Ringer, sometimes there are fans of other podcasts that do not enjoy me as much. Why? Because I'm a bring up race. I'm getting fights on Twitter. I'm going to talk about politics. It's not always going to be, hey, let's talk about Freddy Krueger, right? It's not always going to be that. Okay. It's not always. It's not always going to be, hey, sometimes I'm going to fuck up the pod by talking about the political and racial dynamics of a movie or a show or the NBA or whatever. I'm gonna talk about those things because those things to me are important to talk about. I live with the people that go. I don't fuck with that. I didn't turn on this to hear you spout your bullshit. I turned on this to hear about Victor Wembanyama. Okay, so take that shit out of here. You race obsess, but I live with that. My thing is with this part of this shit is people saying there is a political movement and project right now that we feel like is an existential threat to many different aspects of American life. And if you are a part of that, maybe we don't wanna watch you sing and dance. It's your choice to be a part of that. And it's their choice to be a part of that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Absolutely.

[Van Lathan]

So, you know, if you believe this from Chile, then whatever. But you know, I guess more to the point is, I guess. Let me ask you this. That's the whole room this. So she's obviously capitulated to like. And she's completely broken down and said she's not a part of this. Whatever. Good to go to the concert now. It's tough if you are not gonna go before. If you are not gonna go before with that apology making.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I legit was at a dinner last week and we were looking up tickets to tlc, group of girlfriends. And now I'm like, why? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I want to spend the money to do it at this point. I just don't know. And listen, it's not just her. You got salt and pepper, you got En Vogue there as well and T Boz. But I just. I don't know now I do you

[Van Lathan]

have to agree with somebody politically to enjoy their art or support what it is that they're doing and all of that stuff.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, no, like it's. I'm not saying I would not go. It's just now I'm like, I don't know. We'll see. You might see me there. You might see me there.

[Van Lathan]

Because there's so many other artists that are performing and stuff.

[Rachel Lindsay]

There are other artists that are performing. I do enjoy their music. Who knows? Maybe she never even the statement, right? I believe she doesn't think she's maga, but she does support Ted Cruz, but she does support Trump. I bet she doesn't call herself that. I bet a lot of people who endorse MAGA policies don't consider would be like, but I'm not maga. I could see that. I don't know. August is a long time away, and she ain't even coming to August 1st. I think she comes here in October, so give me six months.

[Van Lathan]

All of that's fine. But the post about Michelle Obama is. That's part of it. That indicates something more than politics, right? I mean, there are people out there who believe that you could have a different set of politics that would make you vote for President Trump. That is just a political thing that you are, I don't know, fiscally conservative. You know, he spent more than any guy.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, we're past that.

[Van Lathan]

But look, I know. But listen, though, there are people who make that right, who, like, I believe in this, I believe in that. I believe I vote for the economy. All of that stuff. The economy was better. All of these things that we could talk about and dissect and all of that. But when the Michelle Obama jokes and stuff like that come in, when some of the other stuff happens, once again, that is a cultural endorsement of the emotional temperature of maga. That's a cult. And by the way, I'd argue that there maybe not might not be another reason, another way to do it, that if you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound. You have to accept President Trump's dehumanizing language. You have to accept President Trump's grotesque, arrogant, dickheadish nature. That part of being MAGA is not just an acceptance of that, but an endorsement of that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It is because that rhetoric that he has, that ideology that he has and those that surround him in his administration and those who are the authors of Project 2025, all of that pours into policies that directly impact black and brown people. So you can't separate it. You cannot. But, you know, House of Love here, House of Love, she said you can look at her social media and see that she's about love. And they did, and they saw that Michelle Obama post. So I mean, now what Chili?

[Van Lathan]

So that wasn't much love in there.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't know. Like I could see the argument again. I've accidentally reposted, but got that it's happened.

[Van Lathan]

You've actually really posted stuff. What did you repost?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, I don't know. It was just like, oops, I didn't mean to repost that. I. I don't know, scrolling, but it wasn't anything like that. It might have been, I don't know, your post. Oops, I didn't mean to repost it.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, really interesting. You're not going to be repost my House of Love. House of Love.

[Butch Ware]

House of Love.

[Van Lathan]

This is. This is not. This is not guys Higher Learning anymore. This is the House of Love. We and we and we. Higher Learning presents Higher Learning presents the House of Love. What happened to me in the next thing is really profound. Donnie. Nick Cannon.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Nick Cannon was joined by Amber Rose

[Butch Ware]

on a recent episode of his show Big Drive where they talked about a

[Van Lathan]

bunch of different things, including one of

[Butch Ware]

Van's favorite topics, being biracial.

[Van Lathan]

Trump not being racist necessarily, according to Amber. And Amber's opinion of white people being

[Butch Ware]

able to say nigga.

[Van Lathan]

Which tough do y' all wanna talk about first? Okay, the first thing I wanna talk about.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We have several clips. Sorry.

[Van Lathan]

We have several clips. The first thing I wanna talk about is the timing because I actually just let you guys know I hit Nick up.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I did too.

[Van Lathan]

Okay. And I love Nick Cannon. I have a lot of love for Nick Cannon. Have a lot of respect for Nick Cannon. Right. So I hit Nick Cannon and the first thing I did was get on him. The moment I said that Nick Cannon is an awesome guy. Nick Cannon said I fuck with Trump. So I took this personally. Just energetically who's who, who wants to fuck? I made this completely about me. Nick fucked me hard.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Where did you say he was awesome?

[Van Lathan]

Jesus Christ. On the, like on the. On the pod where we were talking about Rosama. Okay, okay. Like we were.

[Butch Ware]

Like we were.

[Van Lathan]

We were talking about Rosama.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He told you about 6 WA.

[Van Lathan]

Nick Cannon. 6 WA. Nick Cannon is a great, awesome gu. The next thing. Hey, I fuck with Trump, man. What the fuck is going on? Okay, Donnie, play the clip that got people going crazy at first. The Democrats of the. The party of the KKK thing. Play that I fuck with Trump shit.

[Butch Ware]

Part of the Republican Party. Uh huh.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's right. Former Democrat, former liberal. I was a liberal Democrat my whole life.

[Butch Ware]

Is that because the.

[Van Lathan]

The baggage got so intense and so

[Butch Ware]

heavy that you had a whole nother. You up there with the elite now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Not even close.

[Van Lathan]

Not even close.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Democrats don't care about black people, and

[Butch Ware]

they don't care about people.

[Rachel Lindsay]

They don't care about people of color. And the Republicans do. And that's the misconception.

[Butch Ware]

And you know what?

[Van Lathan]

I agree with you 100%.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Thank you.

[Butch Ware]

People don't know that the Democrats is

[Van Lathan]

the party of the kkk. People don't know that the Republicans are

[Butch Ware]

the party that freed the slaves.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Butch Ware]

I mean, both of you. And I have some conservative views. You just a little bit more outspoken

[Van Lathan]

about it than I am. And I honestly, I don't subscribe to neither party. I Rock with W.E.B.

[Butch Ware]

du Bois when he said, there's no such thing as two parties. It's just one evil party with two different names.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So, yeah, I mean, look, listen, I'm not married to any party.

[Butch Ware]

Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I voted for Donald Trump. Cause he's. We had two options, and he was definitely by far the better option for us. And as of now, I agree with a lot of things that he's doing.

[Butch Ware]

Cleaning house.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Butch Ware]

He doing what he said he was doing.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But guess what? If there's a time where I don't agree, I'll say I don't agree.

[Butch Ware]

We got the Gulf of America now charging. He's like the club. He charging $5 million bottle, service fee to get into the country. I know, listen, I tried, but guess what?

[Van Lathan]

House of Love. Rachel, this is not higher learning. What's the name of this podcast today?

[Rachel Lindsay]

House of Love.

[Van Lathan]

Jade. Come on, guys. What's the name of the podcast?

[Rachel Lindsay]

House of Love.

[Van Lathan]

Bernard, Donnie, what's the name of the podcast today? It's House of Love Today. You guys are so excited about House of Love. Okay, now, so. Okay, now, here's the thing. I respect our audience, so I don't want to disrespect our audience.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Okay?

[Van Lathan]

And it would be disrespectful to the intelligence of our audience to explain some of that. I want you to listen to what I'm saying. It would be for me to go through the history. The history.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. You don't need to.

[Van Lathan]

The party shift.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You don't need to.

[Van Lathan]

Between the Democrats and the Republicans, which, by the way, I wanna say this. I'm not a Democrat. Right. But just an easy thing. An easy thing to say would be, you know what? David Duke ran in the 80s for governor of Louisiana and held office. He was a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He ran as a Republican it will be easy to say that we've seen in several different group chats that come from young Republicans and older, more established Republican figures some of the most vile, racist, white supremacist, anti Semitic language. Right. That the Republican Party right now, as we speak, is clearly. Is clearly embroiled in a white supremacist, existential struggle for the soul of the party. Most people I know know that. Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I would have thought Nick Cannon would have been one of those people.

[Van Lathan]

I would have, too.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And I think that's it. I really, I really thought he would have been one of those people to not make that statement.

[Van Lathan]

Because when you're. And it doesn't matter if you don't fuck with the Democrats, don't fuck with the Democrats. Listen, if you think right now that the Democrats have largely failed black people in moving our fundamental existence in America and giving better outcomes to black people, if you think that's true, that is a conversation that is so robust, ripe. I love it.

[Butch Ware]

Right?

[Van Lathan]

I love to have the conversation about what you're getting for your vote, whatever party you're voting for. But when you say things like this, that are this incendiary, the party of the KKK and all of that, you simply could not be a major Democratic.

[Rachel Lindsay]

House of love.

[Van Lathan]

House of love.

[Rachel Lindsay]

How do you mention. And this is why I say I was surprised Nick Cannon made that comment, because how do you then go on in this conversation to talk about W.E.B. du Bois and then talk about Trump in the like, the same way? Like, I believe in the teachings of this. And you quote it, and then you're like, but Trump's my guy. I don't understand. And so, like, that's where I'm like, okay, you're quoting this historical figure who was so crucial to the advancement of our people. I mean, one of the founders of the END aacp. But how do you speak in that way, but historically be so wrong in what you're saying? Like, how are you educated on that? But then you get this so wrong. And then you put two people who could not be more opposite together. You big up this cultural icon and then you big up Trump in the same sentence. It just makes no sense. Like, what are we doing? House of Love. I'm asking genuine questions of trying to understand. It was such an erratic, this topic of conversation that I'm like, you're just. It almost was like, you're just saying stuff to say it. That's not rooted in anything. You're throwing a name out here, I guess, to build up the argument that you're trying to make, but then you're factually wrong in what you're saying here in regards to history. And then you have a complete misunderstanding of how problematic this Donald Trump is as the President of the United States and how what he does directly impacts black people to where a WEB Du Bois would be totally against. And the things that Trump is trying to do are taking us all the way backwards to these Democrats, to a time not exactly, but a time to where these Democrats who created the KKK existed like very similar ideologies.

[Van Lathan]

I just don't understand well, what it really is. Actually, Democrats are the party of the KKK is actually a right wing talking point.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

And so that is a right wing talking point. That statement to me indicates capture because the statement, while accurate in terms of

[Rachel Lindsay]

House of Love, it's an ignorant statement. I can say that in Love. House of Love, you have to say that. I said an ignorant statement. I did not categorize him as I'm saying it is an ignorant statement. And it is.

[Van Lathan]

Well, what I'll say is if the Democrats were the party of the kkk, then, then the Republicans certainly are the party of the kkk. Okay, so. So the party right now, this is the seat of white supremacists, white supremacy and like, has to literally kowtow to a white supremacist base who can agree on one thing, and that one thing is that they don't want niggas to have shit. Now, if we're negotiating what is failure to live up to your political promises, and we can also negotiate if you want, or talk about if you want the veracity or the sincerity in political promises that people make, we can talk about that. If you're negotiating that with someone, if you're discussing that, and the other side is legitimate impediment to what I believe is progress specifically for black people. I think the conversation gets a little bit easier for a lot of people, particularly when you're talking about the MAGA Republicans. They use black people and things done for black people as a mascot for American inefficiency. They say. They legitimately say your plane will crash because your pilot is black. Yeah. You know, it's like your plane will crash because your pilot is a black lesbian. Like, you're less safe. You're less safe if the country is in the hands of anyone other than the white man who run it. And they say that because, you know, Di and all of that stuff. They use all of this stuff. The inclusion of black people into American society as an indication that American society is failing. Just look what happened when we gave the niggas a slice of stuff that's like a. That's not even a talking point or a policy position that's controversial on the right right now. It's been ratcheted up to a degree. Hey, listen real quick. We've played this before, but we're going to play it again. This is Ronald Reagan's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, discussing. This is in the 80s House of Love, discussing how, in fact, you make a racist platform without being an outright racist. This is coming from somebody who is incredibly influential in legitimately the modern architect of Republican politics, who is Ronald Reagan. Donnie, you start out in 1954 by saying, Nigger, nigger, nigger.

[Rachel Lindsay]

By 1968, you can't say nigger. That hurts your backfire.

[Van Lathan]

So you say stuff like force pussing,

[Butch Ware]

states rights and all that stuff.

[Van Lathan]

And you're getting so abstract now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You're talking about cutting taxes. And all of these things you're talking

[Van Lathan]

about are totally economic things, and the byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.

[Rachel Lindsay]

And subtle subconsciously, maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying

[Butch Ware]

that if it is getting that abstract

[Van Lathan]

and that coded, that we're doing away

[Rachel Lindsay]

with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me?

[Van Lathan]

Because obviously sitting around saying, we want to cut taxes, we want to cut

[Butch Ware]

this, and we want is much more

[Van Lathan]

abstract than even the busing thing,

[Butch Ware]

and a hell of a lot more abstract

[Van Lathan]

than nigger, nigger, there you have a very direct understanding of how they're communicating to their base and the reason why they have to communicate with their base that way. The grander conversation that Atwater is having right there is we have to do this. We have to villainize black people as a means of currency with our base. We have to do it. We just have to do it in a way that's more nuanced. Like that is a thing. Now, you can say whatever you want about the modern liberal movement. They might have to lie to black people, but they certainly don't have to do that because black people make up too much of their power base. So it's interesting that this conversation kind of gets here because it is so sublimely wrong when you talk about it in that way that you wonder if there's actually any investigation of it. But I'll say this. All of that stuff is what it is. You could feel that way. The other part that's really interesting is the I Fuck with Trump part. Amber's made her feelings on this known. There's no need to really get into that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But yes, I was surprised again to hear Nick say I fuck with Trump. So then I'm like, okay, you make this statement.

[Van Lathan]

Why?

[Rachel Lindsay]

There's no answer. Well, he literally is like Gulf of America. He stands on what he means. I would. And again, Nick comes here to talk. My question is why? Yeah, why do you. That's how you lead with love. And you have these conversations. Because I want to understand. Big statement. A lot of people might be shocked to hear you say that. Some people might not. My initial thing, my, my follow up is why. And I get frustrated. I got frustrated as I was listening to these two talk because you couldn't tell me why. Why? For a person you know, is polarizing for a person you know, is controversial for a person you know, black people typically do not rally around you as a black public figure. Say not you understand him, not you like him. You fuck with him. Like you go hard.

[Van Lathan]

Why do you think he fucks with Trump? Why do you think that's right?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I honestly do not know.

[Van Lathan]

So it's interesting, like, because when he

[Rachel Lindsay]

just really quickly, when Amber's talking about it, he goes, oh, you know, he does, he assumes, he goes, oh, is it because he doesn't say, cuz you're conservative. He says, oh, because you got money now? Is that why you do it? And she goes, no, she's like, I was blue, I was liberal, I'm conservative. And he's like, yeah, we both are. So if I had to guess, maybe he would say a financial, like, he stands on business, I'm a businessman, maybe that's it. But I don't know because he did not tell us. I'm not even gonna do the work for him and assume it.

[Van Lathan]

Well, I mean, look, you know, one thing he told me was that this interview was taped a long time ago. It's like taped like a year ago or something like that now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Then don't put it out.

[Van Lathan]

Well, I mean, look. Cause the reality is in Trump's first year, it's actually wreaking havoc on black people. First hundred like, like wreaking havoc on black people.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He rolled back shit in 24 hours.

[Van Lathan]

You guys, I'll say this, you know, just real, real quick, when he says he fucks with, I wonder what he fucks with. Does he fuck with Trump's doj, dropping a lawsuit that black people in Alabama had brought that was forcing them to drink shitty water? I don't think Nick Cannon fucks with that. Does he fuck with the fact that black unemployment right now is at incredible highs, up 1.7% since Donald Trump took office. Something like 500,000 black women are out of the workforce. Out of the workforce. Through a combination of Trump's assault on Di, his assault on the federal workforce, and the tariffs that Donald Trump implemented causing layoffs all over the place. And when those layoffs happen, black people, black women, black men, we don't talk about the fact how many of them are out of the workforce or workforce are the first to go. I know Nick Cannon don't fuck with that, right? I know I'm imagining Nick Cannon, the guy that I know he can't fuck with, starting wars abroad, right, On a whim, twice the sort of adventuring that America is doing all over the world? I don't think he fucks with that. I don't think he fucks with the taking of threatening to take Greenland by force. I don't think he fucks with that. I don't think that. I don't think. I can't believe that some of this stuff that we're talking about, I cannot believe that Nick Cannon would fuck with that. I can't believe that he would be into an assault on the voting rights of black people. An assault on their ability to change from Trump. Right? An assault. If I sat down with Nick Cannon, I explained to him what the SAVE act is or talked about it. I don't wanna make it seem like I explained anything to the nigga. If I talk to him about the fact that, that the SAVE act is inform and function, something that is going to be used to disenfranchise black and brown people. I just don't think he would fuck with that. I don't believe that he would fuck with that. So when he says that he fucks with Trump, like, what do you fuck with?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Hopefully he comes on here and he answers it. Put something out. It's interesting, even more so that you say that this was filmed a year ago because you have the option, this is your platform to either one, put a disclaimer out if you really felt like you didn't want to waste maybe her time or your cruise time or whatever. Two, you could have just not released it if you don't believe a year from now, okay, maybe your. Your opinions did change. You gave that space to Chili. Maybe things did change for you. Okay, well, maybe things did change for you, but why would you put it out? If you put it out, it leads me to believe that that's exactly where you still stand here in March 2026. You still believe that exact same thing. The list goes on and on. You Want to quote W.E.B. dubois? Let's talk about book bans. Let's talk about changes in education. Let's talk about rolling back all of that. Like, there's so many things that seem to be anti what Nick Cannon I thought was about, which is why I say I'm not gonna do the work for him in assuming it. I would love to know what you mean. And I get frustrated when I watch platforms like this or conversations like this where they speak on such a surface level or throw out these things that they believe to be factual or opinions that they have without anything else to back it up. Like, laughing over. To me, the changing of the Gulf of America felt so unserious. Like, you're talking about somebody who is wreaking havoc not just in this country, but outside of it. Like, we may never recover from the things that he's doing. And you're laughing about the Gulf of America as if that's the most outrageous thing he's done. Like, to me, the stakes are too high. And it felt like they were having a very light conversation about something that I feel like we and other people take very seriously. So it was just a really disappointing thing for me to see. Like you said with Amber Rose, she's out there. I'll give it to her. She explains her stuff just a little bit better. Not that I agree with it in any way than Nick did in that moment, but at least, like, with her, she spoke at the rnc, like, we've seen it. We know where she stands. But with him, just to either agree, not push back, or even call co, sign or put out your own statement, aligned with her was just. It's disappointing. I'm gonna say disappointing, cuz. House of Love.

[Van Lathan]

House of love. Okay, so they also talked about the fact that they don't think that Donald Trump is a racist.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And so the reason why I want to discuss this is cuz this is another interesting thing about Donald Trump. Donnie, play that clip.

[Butch Ware]

Even Trump, like, Trump has always been known. Like, before, people was hating on him. Like, he would be at all the

[Van Lathan]

events with, like, Russia, Russell Simmons and all the black parties.

[Butch Ware]

He fucked with black women like he had black girlfriends.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Publicly, Trump has always been. That nigga was on the press prince of Bel Air. Yep.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He didn't have to do that.

[Van Lathan]

But when he got political, that's when

[Butch Ware]

you Know, people start putting the racist

[Rachel Lindsay]

jacket on, it's all propagated.

[Butch Ware]

I honestly don't think he's racist.

[Van Lathan]

I think he's Trumpist.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Here's the thing. If Trump was racist, right, let's say he was pandering just to get the vote, right? Why is he still doing shit for black people right now?

[Butch Ware]

He could have been like, yo, fuck

[Rachel Lindsay]

y', all, I got your vote. I don't give a fuck about y'. All. I'm already in office. I can't run another four years.

[Van Lathan]

So you know what's interesting to me about Donald Trump? And this is something that happens. Like for white guys, this happens. This happens. White supremacy inverts the way we tell somebody's story. So if my story was being told a lot of times in the mainstream by other people, even by some black people, it would start with the most ill shit that I did, right? There would be a large conversation around the fact that I worked at TMZ for a long time. There would be a conversation, whatever. The conversation in America about me begins in scrutiny of me. I'm a black guy. Begins in scrutiny of me. White supremacy inverts that to where the conversation around prominent and powerful white men. I'm not saying I'm either prominent or powerful. Those conversations begin in acceptance. So everything that disproves that Donald Trump is a racist is what gets discussed. And things that run both concurrently with the era that they are talking about and things that happened after do not get discussed. So if, for example, if we talked about the fact that Donald Trump was sued for housing discrimination, right? If we talk about the fact that Donald Trump wrote an open letter in the, I think was the New York Times might have been post.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I think it was a post

[Van Lathan]

against the exonerated five calling for the death penalty.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That was political, by the way. That's a little bit of political politics in that.

[Van Lathan]

That's politics.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So, no, but I'm saying Nick was like, when he got in politics, people had issue. He's been involved.

[Van Lathan]

If we talk about the fact that Donald Trump got involved in birtherism, which was the far right wing conspiracy, that Barack Obama was not born in America, he was a part of that. He was a part of promoting that. He was a part of the conversation around that. And that was directly, directly coming downstream of people who wanted to question the identity of Barack Obama, we'll talk about any of this stuff. We'll talk about any of the other reports surrounding people who talk about Donald Trump and Donald Trump saying at one point that he wouldn't want a black lawyer, stuff like that being reported. If we talk about any of the indications or the clues that Donald Trump. A story just came out, literally just recently. Once again, this was taped along a while ago that said that Donald Trump did not want to promote a black female general because he didn't want to have to stand next to her.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Stand next to her. Yes.

[Van Lathan]

So if we just had a conversation about all of the other things that point to the fact that there might be a race problem or that Donald Trump might be a racist, we don't really do that. We say that he hung out with some rappers, he was cool with a couple of black luminaries. That must mean that he is not a racist. We make that type of excuse. We give that type of soft bed to lie on. We make those types of intellectual. We launder things intellectually for powerful white men. We do. Like, he can't be that bad. Look at him. He can't be that bad. He's one of us. He fucks with us. He does all of this stuff. And it's just not something that's ever done with anyone that we're trying to do it for Nick Cannon right now. We're trying to speak in love about Nick Cannon because I know that Nick Cannon is a good dude. And so I'm trying to do for him what oftentimes is not done for black men. What didn't get done for Nick Cannon a couple of years ago when he got fucked up and got in trouble. He talks about that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

He alludes to it. He doesn't get into it.

[Van Lathan]

When he got fucked up and got in trouble, what people didn't do was go, you know what? This is A guy that might have some wrong information, might have said something that he didn't really understand the ramifications of. Let's look at the totality of him and figure out how we can get over this. No, what actually happened was, fuck all of that. What we need from you now is a complete crawfishing from all the stuff that you said which was wrong and an assurance that you understand how dangerous it is. A lot of people got on his ass for that. I didn't get on his ass for it at all. And the reason why I didn't is because if you care about people, that is what you should do. But people like Donald Trump never have to do that. There is no accountability that goes into the things that they've done. Like, Donald Trump is the greatest businessman in the entire world. So many different Companies have gone bankrupt. His reputation just defies logic. He's the smartest guy that says the dumbest things. He's the best businessman that goes incredibly bankrupt. Right. He's the non racist guy that's been involved in some profoundly racist things. And like I'm, I'm tripping because like, I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And even, even now to have a platform centered around the elimination, the elimination of programs meant to help black people close the gap in society, but yet not a racist, Never been a racist because he had a black girlfriend, which I don't know. When he publicly. Who?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't know. I never seen.

[Van Lathan]

What are they talking about? What public black girlfriend that Trump had that missed.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I am, I. When they said it, I was like, who? But also I do not care. I do not care if he had a black girlfriend. That doesn't go towards the argument. It is so interesting with the Trump thing because it's like you want to give all these excuses, he was on Fresh Prince or he's in rap songs or whatever, but then you can. And you don't see how they use that to try to draw you in and say like he's cool or he's down for you or that doesn't make him racist. But then you can so clearly see how you look at Biden and Biden's history or what Biden said on the Breakfast Club or Bill Clinton and how he used to play the saxophone and all that, but now you see the crime Bill. You can see all of that, right? But you can't see it with Trump. This is what I will say and I'll keep it very short on the racism or Trump not being a racist. I would ask if Nick or Amber were sitting right here, I would say, what makes you racist? I'd be very curious as to what even their definition is of a racist. And then from that definition, I will point out the ways either I don't know what they would say, but I would point out the ways in which Trump either has been overtly or covertly racist in words, in actions, in policies, whatever it may be. But I would be really interested in how they even define what it is to be a racist because I wonder if it would differ from maybe how we would do it. But that's how I would start that conversation because as we just, you just talked about and laid out so well, there are so many ways in which he is that I don't know if it's an. You just don't know These things, you just choose to ignore them. Or maybe you just have a totally misunderstanding of what that word means to you also say, it's interesting that the first thing he said was when he's like, trump's not a racist. He hangs out with Russell Simmons.

[Van Lathan]

Tough.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's interesting.

[Van Lathan]

Tough. You know what's interesting? Going back. We have to spend too much time on this. I'm gonna get to one more point on it, though.

[Butch Ware]

I have to.

[Van Lathan]

I have to do it. I'm sorry. Let me get to it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

House of Love. We know where we're going.

[Van Lathan]

House of Love.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, this is for the audience, okay? Because, you know, Van has to address this. So you have to approach him, give him this moment. It's reciprocal.

[Van Lathan]

Going back to it, even the W.E.B. du Bois thing is interesting to me, because if I was riding with my brother Nick, and he is my brother. He is. Nick has talked about the things that he does in the show.

[Rachel Lindsay]

None of this is personal.

[Van Lathan]

And he said WEB Du Bois. I guess I would ask, how are people supposed to learn about W.E.B. du Bois?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, that's what I said. He rolled back the books.

[Van Lathan]

How are we supposed to learn? Like, how? Like, you know, Nick went to Howard and got his education, went there. But somebody as critical of the status quo in American society as he was, other people that are critical of that. Black people. The tradition of black intellectualism that has been assaulted by MAGA regimes in Florida, in Alabama, Louisiana, wherever, that have sought to realign or actually redefine what black history actually is, soften it, water it down, and take any other power out of it. The sort of group of people that want to coalesce around Martin Luther King Jr. As an American Santa Claus and not as what he actually was, which was a man who had a radical view of what he believed equity and equality were and got his fucking head blown off for it. We're supposed to learn about that. When the Trump administration and the MAGA movement want to take black history out of schools, I mean, I'm gonna make sure everyone knows. I'm gonna go places and do the scholarship and do the reading all on my own. But as important as it is for me to know about those people, as a black man, somebody who cares about the state of the world, it's equally as important for white students in classes to know about these people. Yep, it's important. It's incredibly important, because they need to know that there is a history and tradition in black people seeking their freedom and their equality in America. This didn't happen after Dr. King. It's not something that happened in the 90s. We're not going to get there through rap music. We're not going to get there through hip hop. We're going to get there through the same cultural, scientific experimentation that we've always endeavored into. And when we don't teach that, when there's an assault on that, it's an assault on not only the actual history, but the humanity of black people, the humanity of who we are. It's an attempt to tell our story through the lens of a clearly oppressive regime. And I just know Nick Cannon don't fuck with that. I just know he don't. I know he don't. Last thing I have to say this, though, play this real quick. This is Amber Rose and Nick Cannon on biracialism, the act of being biracial.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But people think I'm saying that with, like, an attitude. I love black people. My kids are black. My mom is black. You're black. People I love are black.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's not a racist thing. It's a matter of fact thing. Biracial people are not black people. We're just not.

[Butch Ware]

Now, when you talk to other biracial

[Van Lathan]

people, how do they feel about what you do?

[Butch Ware]

They agree with you?

[Rachel Lindsay]

To each his own.

[Van Lathan]

Do most of them say, I'm finally you said it, or like, people don't understand?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Most of them say that finally Amber is saying it for us.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Rachel Lindsay]

You put the glasses on.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. So according to Amber Rose, there are secret vibrational meetings where they get together and they talk about the fact that they hate being saddled with blackness.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Wow. Say it like that.

[Van Lathan]

Hold on. Wait a minute now. I just want to let you guys know that I said on this podcast that there was a biracial jihad, that they were meeting and having conversations about different things, and I was excoriated. I did not know that the audience would have this much of an issue with any one thing that I said besides the January crash out. Okay? But now we have really one of the most high profile biracials, high profile biracials that exist right now saying she talks to other biracials. They have their own language, they have their own culture, they have their own cultural traditions. And they say, amber, thank you for denying your blackness, because now it gives me the right to deny mine as well. I would say, if we were in

[Rachel Lindsay]

the courtroom, Rachel, what would you do?

[Van Lathan]

I would use this as an exhibit. I would say, hey, maybe the idea of the beige jihad is not as crazy as it sounds. Maybe there's something to it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm not even participating in the conversation. This was all you. This was like a gift to you. As soon as I saw it in the interview, I pressed stop, stop. Because I knew you would carry it on.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, Just. It's tough. By the way, I've never seen an interview with more rocks in it.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What do you mean?

[Van Lathan]

Well, you could watch an interview and they could be a lot of gems, but this one has some rocks in it. There was some rocks in this. I'm sorry. I just keep it real like this. This one has some. There was some rocks in that. Amber. Amber talked about why white people should be able to say. I'm like, yo, man, what are they?

[Butch Ware]

Are they.

[Van Lathan]

Y' all fucking with me. This is a joke.

[Rachel Lindsay]

She literally says that we. If we. If we stop being so sensitive about those words, it would, like, cure everything. Like, if we just allowed everybody to say, like, it would. It, like. We wouldn't have racism. It would cure everything. And I was like, what? What? What are we okay?

[Van Lathan]

House of love.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What? But that's a. That's a loving question.

[Van Lathan]

That's a loving question.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Are we okay? Are you okay? So what? As if it's. If it was that fucking simple, we would have already done the shit.

[Van Lathan]

Come on.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Come on. They gonna talk about the difference. You've already just told us you ain't black. Then you gonna educate us on the. On the N word.

[Van Lathan]

What do you know what's interesting about this? Seriously, As I. You know, I'll give the biracial bit a break, guys. I will. I do talk to Butch Ware about

[Rachel Lindsay]

it later on because, well, it naturally came up.

[Van Lathan]

Made a startling discovery. Discovery talking to Butch Ware, not startling. Startling discovery. And you guys are not gonna wanna miss the way this came out. Like a startling discovery. And talking to Bushwhere, I would have never known. Never known. I wonder when this happened for her. I did an interview with Amber Rose where she definitively told me that she was black. That was probably, like. That was on a red pill. So that was like, 19. Maybe 18. Probably, like, 19. I would say probably 19 was like. When the red pill was really, really kind of getting going, like. Cause the Kanye shit was like, in 18, so. Until they fucking fired me. But I did an interview on the red pill with Amber. Cool. With Amber. Me and Amber, like, had it out. No, but Amber said straight up in this interview, she said, I am black. So she became biracial in, like, the last six or seven years. Unless she meant she is black and biracial but in this clip, I'm gonna find that, and I'm gonna send that. Actually, Donnie put that in right now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So, yes, I am black. My mother is black.

[Van Lathan]

In this clip, though. See, in this clip, she says clearly that she is biracial and not black.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Not black. But then later, and at one point she says, I'm white. She said that.

[Van Lathan]

So that's recent, though, because I talked to her. Like, I literally.

[Butch Ware]

You guys heard it.

[Van Lathan]

I talked to her and she said, I'm confused.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Anyway, we can move off that now. Rachel, we got time for, like, one more before we get into butch. This is a long podcast. What you want to do? Hold on for a second.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know what you want to do?

[Van Lathan]

I gotta talk about the Kanye West.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Well, then that's the only one to do, because the rest of the stuff. Go ahead, go ahead.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, so look, you know what? Why, though? Cause, you know, this is the thing. A lot of times what happens to me on the pod is not fair.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Go ahead, keep going. What do you mean? What's not fair? That I said you.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, Trump's black ex. Here it is right here. They showed her. Her name is. Her ex girlfriend, Kara Young, a black model who she was a rising star in fashion during the 90s, is speaking on allegations that he is racist. She was introduced through Russell Simmons. She said she never saw Trump as racist during the relationship, though she admitted to be unsettled by some of his later public remarks. She believes that racist white men are not attracted to black women. However, Young says that Trump did have distorted views of blacks, but she didn't consider those views to be racist. Okay, so shout out to her. The idea that racist white men aren't attracted to black women is defeated by history. Yeah, just shout out to her. Like, shout out to her. Shout out to her. The idea. I'll say again, that's actually funny. The idea that racist white men aren't attracted to black women. History defeats that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Like, it's like they literally kept them in slavery and then raped them at the same time. The fact that, like, they don't like that. History defeats that. That's defeated by history. That over, like, history defeats that. So, yeah, you know, Kanye west dropped. We got two entertainment topics, and you don't want me to. Why don't you want me to talk about.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I did. Never said that. I actually hold space to you because of the whole you, Kanye thing. I would. I actually never said don't talk about it for me. I'm not as interested in it. I Don't have, like, the ties to it. So I saw it, and I'm like, okay, we'll probably talk about this on the podcast. I'm not telling you not to talk about it. Do you want me to tell you not to talk about it?

[Van Lathan]

There's a thing. This is.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, no, no. I don't care.

[Van Lathan]

You don't care that you drop.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't care. For me, too much has happened. I don't care. I saw the video he released. I see all the talk. We have to pay attention to it. Obviously, it's a big conversation happening in the culture, but I would never deny you the space to talk about it on this podcast. I don't care. I'm the one who said, of all the topics we have to. Come on.

[Van Lathan]

You know who used to do this?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Go ahead.

[Van Lathan]

What you're doing to me is triggering me. Do you know why? You know who used to do this? Ian.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm not Ian right now.

[Van Lathan]

Ian used to do this type of shit. Ian. Like, I would see a girl, and I would be like, damn, she pretty. And Ian would be like, yeah, if that's what you like, be like, what?

[Rachel Lindsay]

He held space for your differences.

[Van Lathan]

I'd be like, so that girl right there is not pretty? He's like, van, I'm not saying she's not pretty. I'm saying if that's what you like, then cool, bruh. And then when he would start doing something else, I'd be like, ian, why are you acting this way? He's like, go talk to her.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Her.

[Van Lathan]

Go. Like, go talk to her. See that? I, like, see how her ears are? That's. That's interesting. And I'd be like, what. What's wrong with it? Like, that's. That's how I feel. You're doing this to me. I would go talk to her anyway, but you. You. Okay, so Kanye west dropped Bully. Bernard, did you listen to Bully? Okay. Bernard, did you listen to Bully? Okay. Bernard listened to it. Jay, did you listen to Bully? I listened to it, but Jay listened to it. Rachel, you didn't, right?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I did not listen.

[Van Lathan]

Donnie, did you listen to Bully? Negative.

[Butch Ware]

No.

[Van Lathan]

No, because you're too out. You're busy killing animals. So, like, what? What? It dropped. And I was very interested to hear, number one, how it sounded, and number two, what he was saying.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I bet.

[Van Lathan]

Okay. And these are the answers to those questions. It sounded fantastic. He was saying nothing.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I looked up the lyrics to the Father song.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, shocked with what?

[Rachel Lindsay]

There wasn't to your Point to the latter. He didn't say much.

[Van Lathan]

Now, I will say this. There's a way. And the sonics are great. Like, he's got kind of an industrial craft work kind of feel to it. Kind of the same vibe that ye's been on for a little while. The sonics are great. The interesting question to me isn't why Kanye isn't that Kanye isn't saying anything on Bully. The interesting question is why? I'll say that. I'll take that again. The interesting thing about Bully is not that Kanye isn't saying anything. The interesting question is why isn't he saying anything? And there are a couple of answers. One answer is that there's so much that's happening with him and so much that has happened, and I should say that he became a full fucking Nazi. That there's not a really. There's not really a way to address that in music. There's no real way to address that. Like, there's a way to address people hating on you or you being the best rapper or you wanting to be whatever, but there probably isn't a way on a song to be like, yo, I was a Nazi for a little while and now that's not my thing anymore.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah. He says it's the new me, right?

[Van Lathan]

So this.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's not the old me, it's the new me. That's him addressing it.

[Van Lathan]

But there's a second thing, a second reason that he might not be saying anything. Why is that his song making intelligentsia is different now. The Kanye west that we really enjoyed and we really loved, and the guy who made classic, timeless, amazing music had the help of some amazing songwriters, amazing people that know how to craft records, you know what I'm saying? And he always had the newer ones around. Travis Scott is on this album. So I don't know how much he had to do in terms of, like, the actual pin work on it or anything like that. But, like, you know, from what I know, there are several guys that when Kanye used to be. When ye used to be recording, that he would fly them out and they would all sit around, talk and write songs and get everything. I don't know if those guys are around now. I don't know if those same guys are involved in the song making process, because there's been a lot of stuff that's happened behind the scenes with some of those relationships. I don't know if those guys are there anymore. So there is a chance that it's not that he didn't want to say anything it's just that he couldn't.

[Butch Ware]

Right?

[Van Lathan]

So, like. And what I mean is, like, some of these records that we really know and we really love, I mean, there are like historic pins on these records. And you can say whatever you want about some of these people and what they've done in their solo careers or whatever, but they know how to put a message in a song. So it might not be that Kanye west is out of things to say. It might be that he's out of people to say it. So. And I'm really not sure because you can listen to this. You can listen to this whole album, and it sounds really good. And there are songs with great replay availability on there. And he still knows how to evoke emotions out of you through a marriage of melody and music. He still knows how to do that. He knows how to do that better than almost anybody that's ever done it. But if you're looking for anything to go into your brain and incite you or make you think of something differently or something even really incredibly introspective or even retrospective. Right. It's not there. It's not there. It's good stuff, though. But. But if you were waiting for him to say something or give you an explanation or like a look into his world or what it's been like, even the torture that he's. That he's apparently been through, it's nothing. It's kind of hollowed out in that way.

[Rachel Lindsay]

What about visually?

[Van Lathan]

What?

[Rachel Lindsay]

The Bianca Sensori thing, like the video, the father video that had a lot of people talking. Would you say visually, he gave you something to think about?

[Van Lathan]

I think he did. I thought that stuff was good.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I saw the video. I would agree, is why I'm bringing it up.

[Van Lathan]

And like, her directing that is interesting. Her proximity to him. I mean, there's some outright. There's a line in there where he says in the song called King where he talks about the fact that he couldn't have had his white wife without Martin Luther. Says that in the record. I mean, there was some stuff like that old Kanye, but that's like, you know, whatever. It's like nothing really happening that's going on. But like, yeah, visually, some of this stuff definitely was moving. Look, nobody is going to argue that has a shred of objectivity, that Kanye west isn't a top flight. Not a 1%, a half of a 1%. Creative, like a half of a 1%. Almost like not even a half of a 1%. I could make an argument that there has never been anyone Like Kanye west before in terms of creativity ever, besides, like Leonardo da Vinci. Like, people that are good at that. Many different disciplines and can do that many different things like that he. His ability to see things and do things that. That's never really existed before. So particularly in hip hop. The only thing that I'll say, obviously Pharrell and guys like that are like, in that same vein. The only thing I would say is the only thing that people are actually arguing is not whether or not that's true. They're arguing whether or not it's worth it. Like, whether or not that is a truth, but whether or not everything else is worth it. And nothing's gonna stop people from having that discussion.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I mean, we'll see. As things go, obviously it had a lot of interest and curiosity. So many people listen to it. I don't have the statistics in front of me, but, like, the streams are crazy.

[Van Lathan]

50 million or something.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, it's crazy. And then he's got his concert here. Is it this weekend?

[Van Lathan]

It's pretty.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

April 3rd, like so far.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Sold out. Yeah, like sold out. People will go and how much of it is to the point of the conversation surrounding it. Curiosity or just like a. Or support, you know, like. We'll see. We'll see.

[Van Lathan]

Bernard, did you like it? Before we get to butchware, did you like Bully?

[Butch Ware]

I like the video. There's been a lot of talk saying he had Michael Jackson in a video. That light skinned brother right behind him.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Fabio.

[Van Lathan]

Interesting. Fabio. Fabio. Jay, did you enjoy Bully?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I mean, I kind of agree with everything you're saying. I mean, I think the sonics of it, they're great lyrics, you know, Seems like he's, you know, trying to play face or save face in a way that's like generalized in a way. But, I mean, I thought it was cool. I had some homies who were in the video, so I was excited for them. But, you know, you know.

[Van Lathan]

So Jade is a rapper. If you guys don't know that Jade raps under the name big time. Jade is the name of her. Is her rap name.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, it's not.

[Van Lathan]

That's what she goes by. If Kanye asked you to write for him, would you write for him?

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's a great question. My boyfriend asked me a lot of questions like this. My initial response, my knee jerk response is a yes. But I. I do have a lot of moral complications when it comes to that. So I think my knee jerk is a yes. My afterthought is okay. In what capacity? Jay?

[Van Lathan]

What?

[Rachel Lindsay]

What?

[Van Lathan]

Look like, once again, you know what it was? I told you guys, Kanye coming back. It's fine. Like, Kanye be back.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It would be so many things, right? Like, I get it. I get the knee jerk reaction to say yes. But then it would be like, okay, you write on a song, song that might be great. You might agree with. He might actually say some things, and you might have influenced him to believe it. But what are the other things? 12 tracks. That's the scary thing.

[Van Lathan]

House of Love. This is the first episode of the House of Love. The first once a month.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because I can't do it again.

[Van Lathan]

Rachel, Rachel. Can I tell you something? Rachel?

[Butch Ware]

Okay.

[Van Lathan]

The woman at his house did a fantastic job with the house.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I did. I did. I really did.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, because y' all don't even know. Rach don't fucking give a fuck.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, that's not true.

[Van Lathan]

Like, Rach don't give a fuck. Rach don't give a A. Okay? She doesn't. But the house of love.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Once a month.

[Van Lathan]

Once. Once a month. Once a month for the house of love. Okay, Butch way on the other side of this.

[Butch Ware]

So I'll tell this one story. Because I tell this story to my team. So my. My father was a locksmith that had a sixth grade education. And he hustled to make ends meet. He stayed strapped at all times. He was a rough man, you know. And, you know, my. My. My mother, she kidnapped us out of his house to take us to, like, a battered women's shelter when I was a kid. She went into hiding. You know, we moved from D.C. to Minneapolis at that time. And so that was that. And, you know, he was dealing with mental health, you know, issues and addiction and other stuff. But he was also a beautiful man, brilliant man, loving man. And he had a very unique nature about him, you know, that was raised, you know, in Georgia before he came to D.C. so when he took me to learn how to swim, it was at Rock Creek park in Washington, D.C. and he took me to Rock Creek park, and he grabbed me by the arm, he threw me in the water. Says sink or swim, boy. Same thing is the camera's running. We need this then. Because if it's the same thing, we got this. This can just be for our own purposes. Can we get this or no?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, you can.

[Butch Ware]

Okay, cool. So he threw me in the water and he says, sink or swim, boy. And so I started to flail around. Cause I didn't know how to swim, right? And I'm, you know, kicking my legs and yelling. And then I started to sink because I don't know how to swim, right? And that's when I realized that he had thrown me in exactly enough water that if I put my heel down on the stream bed and lifted my neck up, I could just breathe. He knew how deep the water was. I didn't know how deep the water was. And he was throwing me. He never explained. Explain this, mind you, right? And I'm 4 years old at the time, but, like, I've reflected on it over the years. I realized, like, he was throwing me in exactly enough water that I would experience, like, the urgency with which you have to move your limbs when your life is at stake and the futility of all of that movement if you don't know what you're doing. Yeah, I learned to swim within a week.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Butch Ware]

You know what I'm saying? And so it was. And granted, objectively, that was child abuse. Like, I would never do that to my child. And, you know, like, there was a lesson in it. And I tell my team all the time, like, listen, you know, like, this campaign I ran for vice president, I know this is gonna look crazy. I'm throwing y' all in the water because I know where the bottom is. And, like, we're either gonna sink or swim. And you're gonna have to learn through the process, because there's no substitute for swimming in learning how to swim.

[Van Lathan]

You know what? So similar situation. I remember looking up and seeing two guys smoking cigarettes, laughing,

[Butch Ware]

laughing their asses off.

[Van Lathan]

And then I also remember when it was time to, like, institute safety, when it was time to be like, hey, you're safe. Like, if this gets too much for you, we're here.

[Butch Ware]

We're here.

[Van Lathan]

He was new institute that into your team, knowing that you know what you're getting into by running for governor, they might not know. How do you connect back to them and let them know that you got it?

[Butch Ware]

I have that conversation with the team, you know, from the beginning. And I also tell them, like, you know, hurt people, hurt people. I'm not here to reproduce, you know, trauma. Like, that's actually not it. I want us to, like, actually address this. My door's always open, you know, speak to me about any and everything. Because ultimately, like, what makes us different in the end is the culture inside the institution. So the culture is an abolitionist culture. It's not built on structures of punishment. It's built on community and accountability. And I believe, like Assata Shakur said, that all revolutionary activity is rooted in profound love. The duopoly runs through hate and through fear. They're always fear mongering. The other side does this, the other side does that. Right. That's how they have to govern. Certainly we'll beat them. Because power, the love, is stronger than hate. Positive incentives are more powerful than negative incentives. And ultimately, you do not start building a healed, sound culture on Freedom Day. You have to build it through the revolutionary activity itself. You have to instantiate it on a daily basis inside whatever you're building. And that's the biggest thing that a lot of folks fail in is that they don't understand. They're so busy trying to slay the beast, deconstruct something. Whereas what I learned in West Africa, I lived in Senegal for years, learned to speak the Wolof language fluently. That's where I did my PhD research. They say the child of Adam never releases what their hand is holding until they're reaching for something better. Right. You'll hold on to a hot coal if it's all you got. So our. Our politics and our culture is one of aspiration. It's one of actually giving people something to hope for, not an enemy to attack.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Butch Ware]

Because in the end, the construction of something is infinitely more beautiful and needed than just a constant railing against what the system does to us. What are we building?

[Van Lathan]

What are we building is of. Dr. Butchware. I gotta make sure I introduce you.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah, yeah. Let's get it in.

[Van Lathan]

We have our first California gubernatorial candidate on higher learning. You're there first. We've talked to some other.

[Butch Ware]

It's an honor.

[Van Lathan]

We've talked to some other people that might be running for president.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah. Maybe a current governor. Very interesting. I hope we can talk about that because I find it interesting that he found things interesting.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I find it interesting that he's. I don't know what he finds interesting because he. It seems like he changes his mind every time somebody asks him a question. Oh, Lord. Butch Ware is running for governor. It is a crowded governor field right now. He is born in Washington, D.C. grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Yeah.

[Butch Ware]

South side of Minneapolis. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Now you are a professor at ucsb. What's your discipline there?

[Butch Ware]

So I teach a lot of different courses. I'm trained in African history, African American history, Islamic history. I work basically on the history of black revolutionary movements, both in continental Africa and the diaspora. So it's the struggle against capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy, literally going back to like the 1500s on the African continent into slave rebellions here. So I teach. I just finished my last class, my black revolutionaries class. And now I'm on sabbatical. So I get to focus on the campaign for the next few months. I teach a hip hop history class. Because I grew up in the hip hop era, I never really wanted to be anything other than an emcee. And so my students in that class, they write their final paper on hip hop in a carceral state. So, like, they read Police State, they have the ly, you know, Police Day by Dead Prez, I Wanna Kill Sam by Ice Cube. Right. And they do an analysis of, like, how hip hop has dealt with the development of the carceral state. So I try to keep things culturally relevant. I was called into action running for office, and I speak in public and do those things. But people that know me know that I'm a teacher like that. When you really find me in my lane and in my pocket, it's when I'm teaching. And. Yeah. And I love to teach. So.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah, I literally was just saying before you came in that I cannot imagine myself going back to school. I cannot do more school. But then I hear what you're teaching and the way you talk and you're actually making me more interested. Real quick, before I ask my first question, what was your MC name?

[Butch Ware]

Beware.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah. So just Butch. Where. And I mean, and I put it. I put it in the, you know, in our most recent. So hopefully we'll get to this. But I believe that I'm the first candidate for major office in history to release political ads in the form of diss tracks.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, wow.

[Butch Ware]

So I did.

[Van Lathan]

I never heard that before.

[Butch Ware]

I did they not like us. And then I. And we just did a Shook Ones remix that's about them trying to knock me off the ballot. And we got one that's about to come off about the billionaires that are behind both Team Blue and Team Red called Mask Off. So I did it over Futures. I beat Mask Off.

[Van Lathan]

Wow.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll work the politics and the bars in.

[Van Lathan]

You know, I love that.

[Butch Ware]

Lord willing and the creek don't rise, like we used to say back home

[Rachel Lindsay]

for our audience who might not be as familiar with you. I mean, you already have told us so much about, like, who you are, what you do, a little bit of how you grew up. But being a part of the Green Party and what initially motivated you to even want to run for governor of California, can you talk a little bit about that and kind of what hope you plan to bring to the state of California?

[Butch Ware]

Yeah. So nobody was caught more unprepared, like, psychologically for running for office than me. I never considered running for office. Never. I've been a community educator, an organizer, an activist my whole life. I literally organized my first Pan Africanist revolutionary reading group when I was 19.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Butch Ware]

I'm not joking. And I'll tell the long version of the story, you know, like, as we get further in, but I want to make sure I answer Rachel's question. So all that's to say is I never really considered electoral politics as the route. Mutual aid plus direct action and community education. That was my lane in 2024 with the ongoing genocide. People were following my social media account because I was one of the people that was trying to tell what the black liberation tradition had said about standing 10 toes down for Palestine, about what Malcolm had said in Zionist logic, and how Malcolm said this is a white Jewish population being empowered by white imperialists to move Arabs off their land. Malcolm understood Zionism as a regional variant of white supremacy, and so he acted accordingly. Right. So I got a lot of attention on my social media feed at that time. And one of the things that was happening is that those of us that were liberation minded on the so called left, we were looking at the black and Palestinian solidarity and the struggle in that moment. So my Palestinian American colleagues were like, we're supporting Jill Stein in this upcoming election. And they said, would you like to interview her on your social media feed? So I interviewed her and we had a great conversation. We can come back to that. But I want to get to the question. So I'll try to be a. The brief version of this. 24 hours after I hosted Jill on my social media platform, she asked if I would consider running as the vp.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Wow.

[Butch Ware]

The next day. Wow. And so I had to, like reassess all of my, you know, understandings about how we affect radical revolutionary change. And so I went back to Malcolm. I'll tell the reason why Malcolm means so much to me, you know, when we get further down the road. But Malcolm is like my hero, my archetype. I always filter everything through Malcolm for specific reasons in my own biography. So I went Back to Malcolm. 1964, the Ballad of the Bullet. And Malcolm said, we're gonna knock on every door in Harlem and we're gonna register every black face behind every door. Not as a Democrat, not as a Republican. He said, we're gonna say, show us your card. And whoever didn't have the responsibility to register themselves, we are going to have words with them and we might just move them out of town. He said, it's going to be the Ballot or the bullet.

[Van Lathan]

Uh huh.

[Butch Ware]

And that's when I said, so hold up. Malcolm, my revolutionary hero, was saying, electoral politics is mandatory. Then I looked at what the Panthers and Panthers, Huey P. Newton, revolutionary suicide. He said, we do not claim that we have done what Malcolm would have done, but we say that the spirit of Malcolm was with us because the Panthers were founded in the aftermath of Malcolm's assassination. Well, Huey P. Newton ran for Congress not once, but twice. Bobby Seale ran for mayor of Oakland in 73. Kwame Ture almost won. Almost won. Kwame Ture, formerly Stokely Carmichael. Right. So Stokely interacted with Malcolm around the Zionism question. SNCC was one of the first organizations to come out as an anti Zionist organization. They were blackballed because of it. He becomes Kwame Torre, full throated in his support, 10 toes down for Palestinian liberation. And a true revolutionary founded all African People's Revolutionary Party. And what did he say? He said, voting every four years is the height of bourgeois hypocrisy. But I would shed my blood for the vote. And I have because I know that the vote is how I organize my people. So that's when I started to understand that electoral politics, if you understood it as part of a revolutionary cocktail rather than it's an end unto itself. The Panthers did it. Mutual aid plus direct action plus electoral power. So then coming out of that 2024 presidential election, cast into a national political conversation, doing the Breakfast Club and all of these other media things, the thing that people said about the Green Party is where's the Green Party between elections? And it's a fake argument because the Green Party, literally, some people don't know in mayor and down. In the last three years, Green Party candidates have won 57% of the elections in which they've stood. We beat Team Blue and Red together when there's no money in the equation, Right? We beat both of them sides when there's no money in the equation. But what I was going to say is like y' all say, where's the Green Party between elections? What y' all going to say now? When I'm running for governor in the state of California and building a political organization, we have been from San Diego to Humboldt, into the Central Valley on the Central Coast, Inland Empire. We have thousands of volunteers up and down this state. We've built a political infrastructure that the Green Party, to be fair, never built because it was a party that was dominated by aging white environmentalists that didn't have this black liberation vision. Now they had a Reparations platform, which is why I was rocking with Jill to begin with. She was like, they act like reparations is incalculable. It's been calculated many times. It's $14 trillion.

[Van Lathan]

That's what she said.

[Butch Ware]

And she said, I'm in favor of cash payments. Right. And I was like, okay, we might have something to talk about then. So all of that is to say is that I'm doing it to try to basically bring into political existence that revolutionary vision and to give black folks and all folks a place where our revolutionary aspirations can get their political expression.

[Van Lathan]

You say that your agenda. And there's so many things I want to talk to you about. I want to talk.

[Butch Ware]

How much time do we have?

[Van Lathan]

We have as much time.

[Butch Ware]

Well, let's go in.

[Van Lathan]

I want to talk about sort of your vision of black people here in solidarity with the dignity of the global south with brown people who might be targeted by ice. That's a question that's been happening, that's been being asked by black communities about whether or not issues in Palestine or issues that deal with ICE targeting brown members of the community, some of which were supportive of Donald Trump. If that's. That's our fight. Before I get to your exact platform, what do you say to people who are skeptical about whether or not they should care about Palestine and whether or not they should care about Latino people, Mexican people here?

[Butch Ware]

Well, just ask what our revolutionary ancestors said on this. Right. Malcolm was 10 toes down for Palestinian liberation and for the Latino community, spoke vocally on it. The Panthers, Huey P. Newton, and then especially Fred Hampton. The Panthers were instrumental in the foundation of not only the Brown Berets, predominantly Chicano organization, but also the Young Lords, and on top of that, the Young Patriots, a white Appalachian group so rooted 10 toes down in blackness, we cast a vision of collective liberation because the struggle is against white supremacy. So what Malcolm was calling our attention to is that white supremacy cannot be defeated just by a single ethnic group's response. Everybody that's targeted by white supremacy has to be standing shoulder to shoulder to fight back. So that's why Malcolm said it. Stokely Carmichael said it. Assata Shakur was ten toes down for Palestinian liberation. James Baldwin, in 1979, open letter to the Born Again, said, the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews. The state of Israel was created for the salvation of Western interests. So the anti imperialist struggle in which black liberation is embedded teaches us that we have to light the road for collective liberation. Now, don't get Me wrong. Black folks don't owe anybody anything with respect to protests. We have been on the front lines forever. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our revolutionary ancestors that taught us that there is no getting free as black people without smashing the system that enslaves us. And the system that enslaves us is also the one that is diminishing immigrant communities. When I came here, I married a Mexican American woman. Her family, my mother in law couldn't see her brother for 23 years because they were separated by the border, because both of my wife's parents came undocumented. And I'm sitting here thinking they wept for an hour when they saw each other separated by that man's border in a place that all used to be Mexico, right before the Alamo, before whitey took it. Right? So. So I was looking at this border that was breaking up families the same way that our families were broken up and for the same reason. To have a fragile, easily controllable source of labor. Because there's a reason why both Team Blue and Team Red, the Democrats and the Republicans. Remember Kamala said she was gonna be harder on the border than Trump. She said that. And the reason why they've had this bipartisan agreement on racist immigration policies and brutalizing immigrant communities is because it serves the capitalist class that once against farm workers that have no legal status or standing so that they can't organize. Because you know what? You never see in them ICE raids. You never see white boys in business suits being taken out for hiring 200 undocumented laborers, now do you?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, right. President Trump actually spoke about the fact that some of that he needs to happen. He needs that. Like he talked about what. Interesting that you'd say that about one of the major criticisms on the Joe Biden administration, Kamala Harris, was that they were too soft on the border. So maybe her saying that she was going to do that, but her record said that they weren't. Because the reason why I asked you that, since a lot of people when they hear you say tell that beautiful story about your wife, they're gonna say, well, a lot of what's happening right now with ICE and some of the draconian measures at the border wouldn't have happened had Kamala Harris would have been president.

[Butch Ware]

Well, okay, so except what do you say to people that say, yeah, except that for all of the theatrics and violence of the ICE escalations under Trump, Trump is still chasing Obama's deportation records. He's still behind. He can't catch up with the deporter in chief. It's just that the optics of the way that immigration policy is executed by the Democrats and the Republicans differs. The Republicans have to dramatize it and make it public. The violence is the point because the goal is to humiliate black and brown people. And let's not forget that it's a lot of black folks that are being targeted by this. African immigrants, Caribbean immigrants. Right. So their point is they throw red meat to their base when they make it public, when they make it violent. The Democrats want to do it behind closed doors because they're serving the same corporate interests, but it is not in their public relations interest to be seen doing it in public. So people don't even know that Obama actually deported more people in his first year than Trump did in this. Trump 2.0. So, and this goes back to Malcolm, last point on this. Malcolm said, the liberal is a fox. It bears its teeth. You think it's smiling at you, but you're on the menu. The conservative is a wolf. When it bares its teeth, it's into a vicious snarl that leaves the Negro with no illusion as to where he stands. Malcolm understood our community as being caught between two predators that differ only in the way that they hunt. One hunts by cunning, by guile, pretending to be your friend. You have one of them here, Gavin, right? Yeah. Slick Willie 2.0. Bill Clinton version 2. And the other hunts by sheer force. Right. And Malcolm argued that the concealed enemy is more dangerous to you than the open enemy. He said in 64, the white liberals, the most dangerous thing in the Western hemisphere. And in order for that bar to hit, you have to ask what white conservatives were doing in 64. Right.

[Van Lathan]

I'm gonna let Rachel Cook for a second, please. I. I'm gonna let Rachel Cook. I hear the audience saying, van, let Rachel Cook. I also hear the audience saying something else. They're going to say, people who are listening, they're going to compare the deportations that Barack Obama did with the current situation. That's what I was gonna say. In interior deportations, Barack Obama actually, it seems to a lot of people he wanted to appear tough on the border. So he counted everyone turned away at the border as a deportation, and that accounted for a large number of the 3 million figure that ended up being a part of his administration. And then also there was a point where we just to be. I'm not. There was a point where not only did that stop, deportations went drastically down, but then there was daca. There were other things that the Obama administration did to try to address their overreach early on in some of their immigration stances. What do you say to people that are gonna hear that? And by the way, look, even now from the right, you're hearing people saying that Obama was fake tough on the border.

[Butch Ware]

Right? So we're just back in the realm of rhetoric. And that the way that the Fox wants to sell its product and the way that the Wolf wants to sell their product, they are spinning Obama's deportation record to make it look like he was actually there for black and brown people. And that is the part that is so insidious, that was also the part that drove me wild in the Kamala campaign, is that ultimately the black imperialist is more dangerous to our community even than that white liberal that Malcolm cited. Because when it comes in blackface, we're more likely to accept these arguments. We're more likely to forget that Obama was bombing Yemeni kids, knowing full well that there was a few 33% casualty rate in every single drone strike that the US was conducting in Yemen. And that had to be approved from the White House. Generals wouldn't even sign off on that.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Butch Ware]

And here we are caping and co signing for people that are doing the work of white supremacist imperialism abroad and at home because it comes in a package that looks like us. So what I said in 2024 still obtains today. I am personally offended at the weaponization of blackness in service of white supremacy. That part is the part that I cannot stomach. And those were the ones that Malcolm and others particularly target. Fred Hampton said. He said, there's a man, we call him a capitalist. He comes in all colors, black, red, white, yellow. And he's always our enemy. So these people are doing the work of capitalism and empire, and we give them a pass because they look like us, but they not like us. And not all skin folk are kin folk.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Really quick follow up. Are you saying too, when you talk about, like, the Republicans being more overt and the Democrats being more covert in what they do, but you're generally saying that they do the same thing. In particular, we're talking about the border. Are you saying that the Obama administration called him deporter in chief was equally as violent? I just want to clarify.

[Butch Ware]

It depends on how you define violence. Right. I will very clearly mark masked men pulling up in vans and kidnapping people as an escalation in violence, no question. But systemic violence that is concealed and is hidden is every bit as harmful to our communities. And what Malcolm was saying is even more so. So let's give a more simple example that affects our generation specifically, right? Bill Clinton again, the archetype being Gavin, you know, Gavin Newsom is Now Bill Clinton 2.0. They love a liar, they love a smooth criminal that you know that they do, right? So Bill Clinton and that same Joe Biden were the principal architects of the Crime Bill, 1994 Crime Bill which locked our people up on unprecedented scale. My cousin doing time forever, my dad in and out of the system for no goddamn reason except that their prison, prison industrial complex needed to grow and private prison industry was escalating. But when do they get held accountable? We act as though the carceral state is some kind of fascist thing. We act as though the police state is a recent phenomena. Democrats did that to us. It wasn't Republicans that did that to us. So my fundamental issue is that no, I don't think that they're the same, but that systemic violence. So you saying all the brothers that are locked up right now on a third time weed offense while corporations are literally making big money selling weed in California, that that's not violent. To have your liberty and freedom taken away from you. Systemic violence and concealed violence is every bit as real. And the last part I'll say on this, I teach African history, African American history. Julius Nyerere, I think said it best. Great Tanzanian revolutionary. He said, of course the United States is a single party state, but with classic American extravagance. They have two of them.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Them.

[Butch Ware]

Right. Because if you were to make a Venn diagram of the donor base of the Republicans and the Democrats, that's one circle family like you're literally looking. It's Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, the weapons manufacturers, the prison industrial complex and aipac. Right in the middle. Right in the middle.

[Van Lathan]

Pharma.

[Butch Ware]

Pharma, yeah, exactly.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Pharma for sure.

[Butch Ware]

They play on both sides and they, they want us focus on the culture war between blue and red because none of that affects their money. None of that affects their money. Go ahead.

[Rachel Lindsay]

No, no, no. So you're running for governor, you're currently not on the ballot. You're fighting to get on the ballot. Can you talk about where things broke down and why you believe they want to keep you off the ballot?

[Butch Ware]

So I'll start with the last part. The why is pretty straightforward and easy. The latest polling shows that the the three Democrat candidates that are most serious in the race are polling at 10% each. So that's Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter and Tom Steyer and we don't have corporate money. We can't run cherry pick polls. But they've done polling for us. I'm polling at 5% in the highest of those polls, despite the fact that Tom Steyer has spent $400 million running for president in 2024. And now in his gubernatorial campaign. We're only funded by the people. We don't take any corporate donations. He's had to spend a couple hundred million dollars to just get five points ahead of me.

[Van Lathan]

He's everywhere.

[Butch Ware]

He's everywhere because he can pay for all of that stuff. And he still can't make headway. He can't break away from me because we have the responsible people. So they're terrified because they saw what happened with Mamdani in New York. Mamdani, at the same point in his electoral cycle was polling at about 2 or 3%. He had to get to 50% in a Democratic primary. I'm at 5% and have to get to 15 or 20% in an open primary in order to finish in the top two. So they're deathly afraid because they can feel us coming. So that's why they did what they did. Now onto your question of to what they actually did. I'll give the short version of this. The short version is that everybody is required to file unredacted and redacted copies of five years of tax returns. So we did that just like everybody else. We dotted every. I crossed every T that was supposed. You had to send that in by March 6. We sent ours in on March 5. On March 7, we get an email from the Secretary of State's office that says, no, not redacted. Return not submitted. And we were like, huh? Because that's not English. It was ungrammatical. So we couldn't understand what they were saying we hadn't sent. They said, there are deficiencies in your dossier that need to be corrected, otherwise you will be disqualified from the ballot if they're not corrected by March 16 at 5pm so we're looking at this, trying to read this email. Like, what does this mean? Then they send an email on March 10th to correct it. Now they say unredacted returns were not submitted, but they say it only for 2022 and 2023. The first email so said 21 through 24. So now we have to ask, so do you need new copies of just two years or do you need all four years? They wait another two days before they answer back. Do you see they're starting to run the clock they're sending me chasing my tail because they won't tell me what it is that I'm supposed to submit or when I'm supposed to submit it. Back and forth like this until Friday the 13th at 10am we finally get instructions. I'm literally sitting with my CPA because I filed these taxes years ago. We redacted them, sent them in. Long story short, within two hours we send them back, send them overnight mail. They get a Monday morning at 9:17am they have them in their possession. 4:50pm they send me an email and they say that your phone number was not redacted from one of these forms and that your business name was over redacted from one other form. So on two pieces of paper in a 130 page filing of redacted and unredacted tax returns, they said you have two redaction errors. We're going to disqualify you from the ballot if you don't come into our office with hard copy in the next 10 minutes to rectify this. 10 minutes, 4:50pm they send the email. I have to be there by five. I live in Santa Barbara, right. So they know that we can't comply, comply with it. And then it gets worse. So that's what we go to court on. We go to court on this because, and I'll explain more of the context later, you can ask me follow up questions. We go to court. So we file the lawsuit. Because they literally just going to try to knock us out on this technicality that they created. Right? That they created. It got even worse in court because our lawyers, look, I was ready for this. We had a war chest. Even though we only take small donations, no corporate donations. A brother had a war chest set to the side because it takes a war chest to fight a war. So we were ready and we, and we had lawyers file suit within 48 hours because we had to in order to be able to appear on the voter's guide. They gave us basically two days, otherwise we wouldn't even be able to get redress in timely fashion to go on the voter's guide, which is what they were doing. Long story short, my lawyer goes through every single document that they submitted. The opposition the Secretary of State submitted into evidence two things. They falsified the email thread. They went back to that March 7th email and tried to make it look as though they had given us grammatical instructions that we could follow from the beginning. Our lawyer printed out two emails with identical date and time stamps. The first, the original one, with the orders that you couldn't follow, which cost us three days for no reason. The second they went in and fixed it to make it look like we had orders that we could comply with the whole time, the judge, unmoved, couldn't care less. And here it gets even worse. Rachel, our lawyer, went through everything that the opposition put into evidence. So they submitted this into evidence themselves, they submitted these falsified emails. And then it got even worse because they submitted all of the returns that we had submitted, both in the first mailing that we sent in on March 5th and in the second mailing that we sent in overnight March 13th. And they pointed out that the Secretary of State had the correct forms in their possession the whole time. The two redaction errors that they claimed, which is literally just my phone number not being blacked out, that's my phone number. If it gets out in the public, what does that do? The purpose of the law is so that the financial information of the candidates is openly available. All that was openly available and it complied. It was redacted and unredacted as it was expected to be. So what they showed is that quite literally, and this happened in court, that they had in the original filing, those two pieces of paper with those redactions correct, all they literally had to do was just take the piece of paper and put it into the file. Case closed, done. And the judge asked, is this correct? Did you have these in your possession the whole time? I said, this is the Secretary of State. And they look flummoxed, right? And they're like, yeah, we did. And they said, it's not our job to collate. So the judge then said, this is true? Yes, it's true. Spoke to our lawyer and our lawyer said, so he asked our lawyer. So they had this in possession, complete set of both tax returns, redacted and unredacted in what you had submitted to the Secretary of State, is that correct? Yes. And he said, okay, so I'm ready to read my ruling. And then he read a pre written ruling.

[Van Lathan]

He had made the decision before he got the evidence.

[Butch Ware]

He had made the decision before he got the evidence. And the pre written ruling said we had not sent it in in time. It didn't matter that they send us like dog chasing our tail. It didn't matter that they gave us 10 minutes to comply. All of that is thrown out. We can throw you out on any technicality. If you miss a single field, if you don't dot an I on a document, we can throw you out. Because you didn't submit. But the court had just accepted in public, and the defense, the Secretary of State's lawyer had said they had it and the judge had confirmed that they had it. So he read a ruling that went directly against what the oral arguments had indicated, because he was sent there to do a job the same way that that clerk who was sent to go through my tax returns with a fine tube comb to try to find something to throw me off the ballot. And how do we know? Because you can go on the Secretary of State's website right now for the candidates that are in the race and go to their tax returns. A bunch of them have unredacted fields. There are literally dozens of quote unquote redaction errors in candidates that are in the field, but none of them are a threat to the Democrat control over the state of California.

[Van Lathan]

I was gonna ask that. So they were, they're, they're special exceptions that they're making for you that they didn't make for other candidates.

[Butch Ware]

You're saying they. And they always do this, they always do this for the Green Party because they know what I just told you. They know that when people are exposed to the message, they lose. They know that the Green party has won 57% of those local elections over the last three years. They know that a Green Party candidate named Matt Gonzalez, who had never been on the Breakfast Club and would never get on higher learning, got 47% of the vote against Gavin Newsom for mayor of San Francisco. And he was being outspent 30 to 1. We almost ended little Gavin before Gavin even got started. They know. And what they know especially is that it's a jungle primary, top two primary. They know that if I finish in the top two in that primary, they're dead because they cannot hold up against me on a debate stage from June to November where they can't hide me from the public.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's what I want to get into because I'm registered as an independent. But, like, the more I read about. Like what? Obviously preparing for this interview about where you're coming from and the ideology of the party you are. And I'm sure, like a lot of people who feel politically homeless, that you are, your message is very attractive to that, to the independent, to the people who might be frustrated with the two party system, who are looking for something different. And on a national level, we can get into this conversation. It might feel a little bit more risky when you look at the greater stakes, but on more of a regional or a local level, it's like, okay, like maybe we can make this happen. Can you talk more and even go deeper about that specific threat to the Democratic establishment and why they are so fearful? Because it's becoming more of a movement.

[Butch Ware]

Rachel, this is such an, it's very blue right now.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm moving.

[Butch Ware]

And many, especially so many of our folk have. But also like other folk too, right? So, and here's the reason why is that disaffection with that duopoly with that two party system that's funded by the same billionaires and corporations is at an all time high. So 63% of registered voters say in polling that those two parties do such a, quote, poor job that we need an independent third party. That number is 53% when you're asking registered Democrats. That number is 48% when you're asking registered Republicans. The disaffection with the duopoly is so severe that right now 48% of Americans identify politically as independent. Only 25% with Team Blue genocide. Only 25% with Team Red Fascism. So all of those homeless people. And we'll talk about my policy towards homelessness. Cuz my dad was homeless. I faced homelessness as a child. I'm not trying to turn homelessness into a cash cow like Gavin Newsom has. I'm actually trying to end it. And that policy on housing affordability, universal healthcare, and an actual solution to the homelessness crisis, that is appealing to people who are politically homeless. It is attractive to people from all across the ideological spectrum. It's not just a left issue, it's not a centrist issue, it's not a right issue. And it's also attractive to people who don't want Zionists in office. Right. You know, y' all had your, the moment here where y' all caught Gavin, you know, just flat footed because he found it so interesting that he was being asked about aipac. And real quick, that was hilarious to me because it was like, aipac? Is that that girl that stay down the street aipac? I don't even know her. Is that even her name?

[Van Lathan]

That's not. No.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah, Michelle Leslie Brown. They stayed out there.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know, I ain't never seen that. What are you talking about?

[Butch Ware]

Right, interesting. I find it interesting that we even asked me about her. I ain't thought about her in years and I definitely do not have her number saved under a different name on my phone.

[Van Lathan]

Pizza Hut.

[Butch Ware]

Right. So all of that is just to say that people want, across the ideological spectrum, they want people that won't take A penny from aipac. That goes for right leaning people, centrists across the board. And they know that, that, that Israel First California last attitude is gonna get their asses beat in this election. But they're all owned by those corporations, by that lobby, and who funds you, runs you, so they can't change their position. They gotta try to knock me out of the race because they know I'm gonna beat the brakes off of them. Because the disaffection with the overall direction of both Team Blue genocide and Team Red fascism is so total. So all of those people that are looking for home, they find in this party, Green Party been standing on reparations since 2006, Palestinian liberation since 2006, LGBTQ rights, core of the platform, environmental justice insanity. We wrote the Green New Deal. The Democrats stole it, watered it down, didn't implement it. All of the things that people want, the Green Party has already been doing. But in fairness, as I've said, it was a party that was dominated by aging white environmentalists. It didn't have enough of our people in it. And I said, listen, when Jill asked me what I consider running, I said, I'm gonna pray about it. I'm gonna talk to my spiritual mentors in West Africa. I'm practicing Muslim. I studied with Islamic teachers while I was doing my PhD research. And before, I'm gonna talk it over my family, I'm gonna talk it over my family back in Georgia, back in dc, My wife here. And I said, and while I'm doing that, y' all better run tape on me, because you're getting a whole black Muslim revolutionary at the core, at the top of your party. And that's gonna have implications for the direction of this party in the future. And they said, we know, that's why we're asking. So they're essentially handing the keys to us to take this forward. And, man, they never should have let a nigga like me. They never should have let that happen. Because I told him, I said, look, if I'm the face of the. Jill Stein's 75 years old, she's not running again for major office. And by the way, she's a huge supporter of my campaign, right? She does fundraising calls. Nina Turner, Democrat, comes to weekly meetings for my campaign. She's like an important supporter of my campaign. We brought together people from across the board. But all of that is just to say that with me, especially in this campaign in California, having a concrete political outcome that's achievable right now, man, we making this the red, black And Green Party, right. This is the chance for those black liberation aspirations that Malcolm and Assata and Toni Morrison and and others, James Baldwin, that they taught to us. It's actually time to get those into political application. We can do it now. And that's why they want me off the ballot, because they know they can lose right now. And last thing on this, they like to say California is the fourth largest economy. The Democrats, you'll hear them repeat that over and over again. Right. Technically it's actually the third. If the United States was split into 50 independent republics, they count the US in front of California. But if it was 50 independent states, the list is China, Germany, California. Those are the three largest economies on the planet. And the economy of California is over 4 trillion GDP, that's almost twice. It's actually slightly more than twice what Texas is. And Texas is the second highest. Let's go back to immigration real quick. Both of them used to be Mexico, right? So the economic basis that has all this migrant labor. A separate question. But all that's just to say they know that losing control over the third largest economy on the planet to an actual anti imperialist, to an actual anti capitalist, to somebody who wants to bring universal single payer healthcare to get the healthcare companies freeluigi out of our politics, that wants to provide housing first, which means housing first is just, it's like when you go to a meal with your family, nobody gets seconds until everybody eats. Right? It's the same as that for housing. Blackstone and Blackrock can't have hundreds of vacant properties when there's homeless people in the street. So we can't have 14 vacant properties for every one homeless person in the city of San Francisco. So I'm gonna tax the shit out of Blackstone and Blackrock till they can't wait to sell those properties back to the state. And we operate those as social housing the way that they do in Vienna, Austria where the average renter Place pays 25% of their monthly income and rent. How much are y' all paying on your housing costs here in the state of California? Because people are paying 70, 80%, sometimes 100% of their check. They don't want us to fix that, right? They, they are deathly afraid of losing control. Because the thing is, is that we win this election and it's not even the whole election, just the primary. The primary ends them. If I finish in the top two, the duopoly never recovers and they know it, so they're coming after it. It's completely changed, completely Changed environment. Why? To return to Rachel's question, just briefly, we saw a glimpse of what this looks like in the UK recently. So the uk, in a district called Gordon and Denton, Hannah Spencer, a plumber, a white plumber in a district with 1/3 Muslims in it, wins one by election. A by election is essentially the equivalent of a congressional special election. So it's an election for a Congress seat. They won one election, got one seat, their whole seat, the Green Party's whole seat. And the Green Party surpassed the Labor Party in national public opinion polling that week. They passed the Democrats of England. And they know what would happen if we do this in California. They know that that is the end of the duopoly as currently constituted.

[Van Lathan]

So the platform. Yes, we talked about the vacancy tax, which I love. Go a little bit deeper, please, before we move on to a couple of other issues that you've honed in on. Tell people about the vacancy tax.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah, so the short version is just that we want to. So to zoom out really quickly. There are 186 billionaires in the state of California and 187,000 homeless people sleep on the streets every night. And that can't happen. Third largest economy, highest rates of wealth inequality of any state. So we have the most wealth inequality. And if that wasn't enough, we also are tied with Louisiana for the highest poverty rates.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, man, my home state.

[Butch Ware]

We keep it real. Both la's, right? Both la's. Both la's representing.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, we, like, we're still struggling in education. Fucking Mississippi has figured it out, like

[Rachel Lindsay]

worse than Mississippi now.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, the Mississippi miracle. Something's happening.

[Butch Ware]

So, but, but, so, but like, make it make sense, y', all, because, like, there's nine families in Silicon Valley that control $683 billion worth of personal wealth. And while Gavin Newsom is out clearing homeless. Homeless encampments, like literally taking stuff from the poorest people in the society. I'm out doing food distribution in San Jose within a few miles of those $683 billion. And we got people, trans people, you know, being subjected to sexual assault, sleeping in their vehicles and not knowing where they're going to get their next meal. It can't continue like this. So the platform, the vacancy tax is just a part of the overall platform, but the vacancy tax is critical. I'm going to tax them at 90, 95% on those vacant properties, especially if it's 20 or more vacant properties, they are going to sell those back to us for pennies on the dollar, and we're going to operate those at cost for social housing, not public housing, not the projects that I grew up in in D.C. we're not doing that. Those are concrete cages for poor people. I know those well, this is mixed income social housing. The same way that they do it in Europe. Somebody pointed out in response to this policy, they're like, Singapore is like one of the most capitalist places on the planet and even they have social housing available. There's no reason why we can't afford it. We can absolutely do it. The problem is, is that the Democrat establishment in the state is beholden to those real estate developer interests and those private equity interests. And if all you have is a hammer, then every problem look like a nail. Every one of their solutions is going to be something that first serves their corporate masters and only secondarily might actually resolve the issue.

[Van Lathan]

So the vacancy tax is one thing. I know that there are a couple of pilot programs up and down the state that seek to identify people before they are homeless. Los Angeles is actually LA county is using AI to identify people before they're homeless and institute payments to them that stop them from becoming homeless. And up and down the state, not everybody's using AI to do it, but up and down the state it's really bore a lot of fruit in keeping people off of the streets. What are some other things that you would do to attack that problem? The vacancy tax is one of them. What else do you have on the street?

[Butch Ware]

Yeah, so if you go to my website, the first three things at the top of the platform are healthcare, housing and human rights. So the healthcare and housing pieces are actually the ones that resolve the fundamental contributors to homelessness. So universal single payer healthcare that is comprehensive of mental health treatment and addiction treatment. Do you see?

[Van Lathan]

I. Absolutely.

[Butch Ware]

So because I know. So I'm just going to speak candidly about this. My father was a Locksmith with a 6th grade education and he hustled to make ends meet and he stayed strapped all the time. And I mean he. God rest his soul, but everybody in our family knew to him and my Uncle Willie had bodies on them. Pistols. Right. The thing is, is that my dad was fighting inner demons throughout his life and drank them away at the exact same time that Ronald Reagan and his trickle down economics. And we're going to come back to neoliberalism that literally is just Reagan's trickle down economics. When Reagan pulled the safety net. And again, I don't know if my dad actually hurt anybody, but he had demons that he was wrestling with and a lot of people do the safety net gets pulled out, no more treatment facilities. None of that is there. And so my father spent the better part of 20, 30 years on and off the streets. It wasn't just that I was living in battered women's shelter as a kid because my father was violent towards my mother. It wasn't just that I was sleeping in my dad's locksmith van sometimes when he was there. Like I faced homelessness. I'm not resolving the issue as though homeless people are not human. I know better. So I'm not trying to treat this like a public nuisance. I'm treating it like a public policy crisis. So I want the mental health treatment, I want the addiction treatment, and I want to take care of the housing costs, because that's the predominant factor that's driving it. We know that every time there's a hundred dollar median increase in the average rent, homelessness rates raise by 9%. So you got to get the rent down because those are the two principal contributing factors. You take out the two pieces that are driving the problem, and now you can address the problem itself more directly. Gavin Newsom has spent $25 billion of our money as California taxpayers in the last five years on homelessness alleviation programs. And the average number of people sleeping on the streets went from 120,000 per night average at the beginning to 187,000 average per night now. Where did the money go? Yeah, the money went into the poverty industrial complex. That's where NGOs write for themselves. The CEO, Chief Operating Officer writes for themselves a $400,000 a year salary to operate a homelessness facility or a poverty alleviation program. It's just handouts from our tax dollars to private citizens. They just get fed out of Gavin's public trough or it goes to developers. So if you ask Democrats about how they're gonna solve the housing affordability, they're like, we need to build more housing, build more housing. We have 14 vacant units for every homeless person. The problem is not more housing. And even in the places where you would want to do some state construction, you're gonna need some more. But the point is that that's not what they're doing. They want to give him handouts to their developer buddies. And so the way that it looks is that they'll have a program so they'll build 100 units. 10 of them will be affordable housing. And those 10 that are affordable housing will become market rate in 10 years. We pay for that as the taxpayers. And a developer just takes all of that money. And that's the corruption that is at the heart of the Newsom administration. It wasn't just corruption in that courtroom. Right. It's down the street.

[Van Lathan]

Even the, even the vacancy tax that you're talking about on some of these vacant units, some of these vacant units aren't necessarily built for single family housing or multifamily housing. Some of them are commercial units.

[Butch Ware]

Correct.

[Van Lathan]

So there would have to be housing built even in those situations, because you'd have to take those, those, those structures and turn them.

[Butch Ware]

For the record, I'm actually not talking about commercial vacancies. I'm only, only, only residential vacancies. We have many, many times more open units than we have.

[Van Lathan]

So a commercial vacancy would not pay any type of vacancy tax.

[Butch Ware]

Commercial vacancies are not included in that, in that policy.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, yeah.

[Butch Ware]

Commercial vacancies are a separate question. Commercial vacancies is the reason why Gavin Newsom administration is trying to force remote telework workers back into offices. Because the businesses in downtown districts are complaining about vacancy rates. They're losing money because they had already banked a bunch of profits in their own heads. Right. And now that they don't have labors. Because we learned during, you know, quarantine lockdown that you could have less of an impact on the environment because you're not commuting. Like, I live in Santa Barbara. I don't know how y' all do it down here in la, bro. Like, you mean the traffic, the, the, the.

[Van Lathan]

Hey, you gotta figure it out, bro.

[Butch Ware]

That's. But I'm, but, but you know what

[Van Lathan]

I'm saying, Like, I just, boom. Back streets up, around.

[Rachel Lindsay]

It's everywhere.

[Butch Ware]

Not, not in Santa Barbara. I can get out here. I can get, I can get anywhere in 15 minutes. You know, that I. To need to be. But all that's just to say that we learned that the environment. Look, we are the green party, after all. We don't want people sitting in vehicles. The emissions. The emissions. So, like the environmental effects, but also the child care effects. Like, my mom was a single mom. She was. My mom was 15 years old, pregnant with me. Told by her high school guidance counselor to abort the child because she was pregnant by a Black man.

[Van Lathan]

Tough.

[Butch Ware]

1973, Washington D.C. yeah, 73. I'm 52 years old. Even light skinned black don't crack.

[Van Lathan]

I'm asking your mom. Printed by a black man.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Your mom. White lady.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, wow.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

We've been talking about the biracials here.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Not we.

[Butch Ware]

I'm not A biracial. There was no such thing when I was a kid. I was just light skinned.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Oh, here we. This is music to us. Go ahead. I was just light skinned because you identify as black.

[Butch Ware]

Black. My whole life I've never been biracial for a day. I've never. Literally. Because how, how could I identify that way? I remember when they made up the term. That was like in the 1990s, 2000. I had been a human for 20 plus years by that time. I had been black that whole time.

[Van Lathan]

You need to call a meeting amongst your people.

[Butch Ware]

I'm calling a caucus for the light skinned.

[Van Lathan]

Delegation, Delegation. Delegation.

[Butch Ware]

We need to get organized. Because I, I've never.

[Van Lathan]

We need to get organized.

[Butch Ware]

I've never been biracial my whole life. And you gotta understand, I mean, that wasn't even an option for me. I grew up in Washington D.C. in Northeast D.C. my father, God rest his soul, had a Locksmith shop on 13th and H back before gentrified. I could go weeks without seeing a white person that wasn't my mom. Literally weeks. I had friends that had never had a five minute conversation before they went to college with a white person. Like, D.C. was Chocolate City at that time. So, so that, that just wasn't part of my live reality, being biracial. Like literally I go to Horace and Dickies, you know, to get a fish sandwich. And the first thing they say, light skin, what you have, right? And I'm like. And I'll say, I'll take the fish sandwich. Extra mumbo sauce.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, right. Extra male too.

[Butch Ware]

Where are you from? Brought it. I just, I just heard it. I just heard it. I just heard it. I just heard it. Apologies.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know, you unlocked a whole nother thing with that.

[Butch Ware]

We can have this whole conversation.

[Van Lathan]

But hold on, we gotta stay on the.

[Butch Ware]

I want to get one. But we, I hope we can circle back to the culture because the event that we're doing, you know, the unity uprising, it's a crucial part of it. I just want to finish that one part. Certainly to close the circle so that the 25 billion, instead of using it as handouts to developers and to the poverty industrial complex, which is the mirror of the prison industrial complex. How about universal basic income?

[Van Lathan]

Ubi. Yeah, Tubs Stockton.

[Butch Ware]

Right. So exactly. Stockton, which is, by the way, where my wife is from. And like, and I learned, you know, I was like, oh, so Stockton is just Compton for Mexicans. I was like, I get it. You know, like, like.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, what? Look, Mike Tubbs, love him. Mike is coming on the podcast, pretty cool, ubi. Situations like that, like, these things are programs that have been. Or policies that have been proven to work.

[Butch Ware]

They work. And the thing is. So just as a math experiment, my campaign manager, sake busman, who you might hear coughing or laughing in the back of the interview at various points. So we ran the numbers, like, literally every one of those 187,000 people that sleep on the streets for average per year. You could give each one $25,000 per year for the entirety of that period, and it would come back cheaper than the 25 billion of our money that Gavin already spent for his developer buddies and for the NGOs. And why is this so offensive? Because I've tasted what the streets feel like. Me and my brother, I was about to go overseas for extended period as part of my work teaching, and we hadn't heard from my dad in a while. So me and my brother flew out to D.C. and went looking for my dad on the street. And we heard word that he was clean, he was sober. He got hit by a car, dragged for half a city block because he was so high. And while he was in the medical recovery, everything that he was on got out of his system. My dad was clean for the first time in 30 years. You know, me and my brother went, and each of us put in a third of the rent. He got his benefits to put the other third of the rent, and we got my dad off the street. That's what I'm trying to do, man. I'm trying to take care of people because my dad was still a human being and he was still somebody that needed care and not a cage.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Butch Ware]

So all of that is just to say, what if we actually put the resources in the hands of the people? Why is it so offensive? Because we're paying those taxes to take care of the most impoverished and vulnerable in our society. And then rich people are coming and taking it and putting it in their bank accounts that forever. Forever. And every last one that ever did that. Because, like, our people are in need and hurting, and y' all are taking the cream off the top. Cash rules.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Is that one of the videos you have, too?

[Butch Ware]

That one's coming. We ain't done that. We ain't done that yet. I'll get. I'll get some of the bars in later.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So, I mean, we are an animated podcast, for sure. You have found your home here. I don't understand how someone can't listen to the way you talk and how passionate you are and what you're motivated by Whether it's how you grew up, what you've seen, what is happening in this very state. And I want to talk about. Because sometimes you're a leftist and people love to.

[Butch Ware]

We can talk about that too.

[Rachel Lindsay]

But go ahead, people will. Am I wrong in saying that you are?

[Butch Ware]

No, no, not at all. Not at all.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because I feel like I just, I

[Butch Ware]

look at it differently. You're not wrong at all.

[Van Lathan]

And I want you to talk about

[Rachel Lindsay]

that because I feel like in general when people don't know you've got leftist versus liberal ideology. We've talked about that. People look at it at leftists and they say radicalized or they look at it at the worst, say domestic terrorism in some ways. You know what I mean?

[Butch Ware]

Yeah, Trump on that.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I want you to talk about what you were going to say, but then also the question of the misconception of it. Because again, circling back to the top of what I was saying, you hear what you believe in, why? And it so contradicts the myth that people have or the misconception that they have about being a leftist.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah. So this is such a deep and important question. And I want to go like, slowly because I feel like as an educator, a professor, first and foremost, because I have to do this work with my students too. So I want to unpack these terms. So the first thing is that left versus right was literally a distinction that was made in, at the end of the 18th century, in the midst of the French Revolution. Like it was literally people on opposite sides of a cafe and where they sit. So the only reason why I push back on the definition as leftist is that I actually don't take any of my personal identity categories from European traditions at all. I don't now in the European framing of things, absolutely. I'm a leftist. And both of those parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, are right wing parties in our current Constitution. To return to Reagan and that trickle down economics and pulling out the safety net. So that's what's now referred to as neoliberal economics. And people think that that has something to do with liberal versus conservative. But it's not about social identity. It's about an economic position. And the economic position of neoliberal economics is that you take away the state regulation and you put everything in the hands of private industry. Right. And so the Democrats will talk about this as public private partnership. So that is a far right position because you are handing over power to corporations. When Mussolini, who would know, defined fascism, he said it is the merger of state and corporate power from the standpoint of a traditional left versus right divide. Both Democrats and Republicans are on the right wing and they are both fascist because neoliberal economics is fascism. But they have us thinking.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, go ahead, say more. Say how.

[Butch Ware]

Okay. It's the merger of state and corporate power. It's what I mean when I say who funds you, runs you, is that they are in the pockets of the corporations and the corporations actually use the state in order to make decisions. They use the state to execute their policies. So that Tesla pays a 0.75% effective tax rate. How much they take from your check, Rachel?

[Rachel Lindsay]

I don't know.

[Butch Ware]

They take a lot more than that. They take 35, you know, 40% right off, right off the top. So the, the state does the work of securing and preserving corporate interests. That's a far right position. A leftist position is that the state's job is to, to be in public service and public resources. Public funds are for public goods. So for example, I don't think that PG&E should be able to start 480 wildfires in a year, be held accountable for those wildfires, get a $9 billion check for the damages of those wildfires and then Gavin Newsom write that off and put that 9 billion back onto the taxpayers. That's the merger of state and corporate interests. Do you see? And Gavin is every bit as dangerous as Trump in that respect. What they did to me in court is the same thing that Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh are there to do for the Republicans. What Trump does. Supreme Court, that's what Gavin Newsom does with the judiciary. They use the institutions of state as an arm for corporate power. In that iteration, I'm a leftist and dangerous and scary according to all of the traditional metrics. It's important to remember that all of our revolutionary heroes, as black people and as intellectuals, were all, by that definition, leftists. Paul Robeson was a communist. W.E.B. du Bois was a socialist. The Panthers were a Marxist Leninist organization. Fred Hampton, Socialist Right.

[Van Lathan]

Would you consider Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam to be in that mode? No, no, they were capitalist.

[Butch Ware]

The Nation was capitalist. And that's part of why Malcolm broke with the Nation. Now, Malcolm never identified himself as a socialist, and I don't for the same reasons. But if somebody calls me a socialist or a communist or a leftist, I'll raise my hand and say present. It's just that I don't personally identify by any Western ontological court categories. Because Malcolm, when he was asked, he said, because Malcolm, he would talk about capitalism and he would talk about imperialism and he would talk about dollarism, as he called it. Dollarism, Dope, right? Malcolm be spitting. And I'm gonna get to why Malcolm means so much me in a second. But when asked if he's a socialist, he said, I'm a black Muslim revolutionary. And if you ask me, I'm a black Muslim revolutionary now.

[Van Lathan]

Why?

[Butch Ware]

Because people have been conditioned to be so afraid of socialism. But if you actually explain the anti capitalist policies like universal single payer healthcare, like housing affordability, you find that those are 70, 30, 80, 20 issues with voters. That's why it sounds so common sense. So I don't actually think that it's beneficial to present it as left or right because one those categories don't correspond to African traditions. They don't respond to the histories and aspirations of our enslaved ancestors. I teach at ucsb. The late great Cedric Robinson taught there. He really the principal scholar to write about the black radical tradition. He wrote a book called Black Marxism where he was critical. He accepts Marx reading of Capital, as do I. But he said that that reading does not express the depth or breadth of black historical struggle against capitalism. I teach West African history. I teach the Haitian revolution. I teach about a West African Muslim revolution that abolished the slave trade and slavery in the 1770s. The first independent free republic. And y' all have never heard of it. Most of my students have never heard of it because they whitewash it out of the books. I learned Wolof and learned to do interviews in Arabic and Fulani and the French language for the archival so I could tell these stories. So I can't personally identify myself as a Marxist because my Heroes were born 200 years before. Marx was a glint in his daddy's eye. The struggle against capitalism and imperialism is something that our people and white supremacy for that matter, is something that our people were on. So yes, I'm a leftist and that's not the way that I personally identify myself, if that makes sense.

[Van Lathan]

Can I ask you a question, please. Do you feel the need in your politics or in your platform to. This is kind of a broad question to make people understand how economically they'll be better off if my brother. Come on. Homelessness and healthcare and those things are taken care of? Or is your approach to let them know just how much they're being harvested by those things?

[Butch Ware]

Is there like, because the aspirational is always more important?

[Van Lathan]

Exactly. Because what the battle that's actually being fought is that. We talked about this on the last podcast is that to me Young black men, young black people. Black people are told that capitalism will save them, that they can buy their humanity with how much they can produce and that religion is very, very strong. So the question is, what do you put in place of it?

[Butch Ware]

Yeah, it's critical. So Amilkar Cabral, one of those great African revolutionary socialists, he was assassinated because of his organization of anti colonial resistance by the Portuguese in 1973, the year that I was born. So he was both a socialist in the way that he understood capitalism, but he also said we use whatever from Marx helps set our people free, but our freedom is rooted in our indigenous traditions first and foremost. Right? So it has to make sense culturally. So why does this go to your question directly? He said, never forget that people are not struggling for the ideas in anyone's head. They're struggling for materially better lives. They're struggling to be able to pay the bills and to take care of their kids. So why is this so important and so crucial whether they're anti capitalists that are pre Marx, like the Haitian rebels or the Senegambian revolutionaries that I describe, or whether they're actual Marxist Leninist socialists like the Panthers. And to be fair, some of the Panthers were anarchists, not even Marxist Leninists. Right. In that respect, I think that we make a mistake as leftists when we forget that no one cares about your ideology. How are we gonna make this here rent? And so they are not actually. And an anti capitalist revolution or socialist revolution has never been affected by persuading all of the people in the society to adopt your ideology. Anti capitalists are successful because in a moment of where the crisis that capitalism is constantly imposing on the people becomes acute, then people who have an effective reading of what capitalism does provide the best material solutions to people's problems. I don't think that people are going to think like me. I'm not even trying to persuade them. I'm trying to meet their needs. I'm trying to meet your need for health care. I'm trying to meet your need for housing. I'm trying to meet your need for. For to have your, your human rights and dignity respected. Whether you are a trans person that's being harassed because of your, your identity or you're an immigrant who's having your rights violated. Your human rights are sacred, right? So it is actually by meeting the needs of the people, not trying to program them with an ideology. And now to your point, a lot of so called leftists or socialists are so busy banging on capitalism that they forget that nobody wants to be broke. Yeah, because I am an anti capitalist, but I am all for successful commerce. Commerce needs to thrive. And commerce and capitalism ain't the same thing.

[Van Lathan]

Explain the difference.

[Butch Ware]

Exactly. So commerce is the trade and exchange of goods. Capitalism is when an ownership class exploits the working class and the people do not control the means of production or the output of their labor. That's. That's all extracted upwards. Right. Commerce is trade. It's good. We need economic growth in California, but we need it to be distributed differently. China, for example, is both capitalist. It has a communist party, but it's really something like a mix of socialism and capital. Exactly. China has the second highest number of millionaires on the planet. No homelessness and no billionaires. I don't think that that's a bad model. Right. At all. And how do you do something like that in the state of California? Simple. Right. So let's go back to universal single payer health care. General Motors pays more for its health care than it pays for the steel in its vehicles.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Butch Ware]

That's the look that I had my team, okay. I was going to pretend like my team showed me those numbers. I looked that stuff up. This was me. And the reason is, so what's going to happen when we get universal single payer health care in the state? Which by the way, remember Gavin Newsom promised us that in 2022. He ran on that. And then when he got in office, he didn't stab us in the back, he stabbed us in the face. Because the health care companies put $2.7 million down on the Democrat party of the state of California. And Gavin worked behind the scenes to make sure it never got brought to a floor vote. He is playing in y' all's faces.

[Van Lathan]

He promised that it would still happen

[Butch Ware]

when he was on the podcast and all three. So Katie Porter and Eric Swalwell both said that single payer health care is a non starter six months ago. And now they're saying they're gonna get you single payer healthcare.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Butch Ware]

Tom Steyer, the billionaire is telling you he's gonna get you single payer healthcare. And if you believe that the Democrats are gonna get you single payer healthcare, I have a bridge in San Francisco that I'd like to sell you because what James Ball would say, I can't believe what you say because I see what you do. Right? So they are playing in our faces. But when we actually deliver it, what is going to be the economic effect? Think about this. Commerce is going to come running to the state of California because They no longer have to worry about health care costs. This is going to be great for business. And not only will it be great for business, but it will rebalance the, the playing field between large corporations and small businesses. Before I got dragged into politics, I had a community education online teaching thing that started during quarantine, did really nice, helped me pay bills. And I had to give so much of that money over to Sam and to the state just for them to waste it on all of these programs. But even more crucially than that, I couldn't hire full time employees because I can't compete on the benefits. So now small businesses can be more competitive against the large corporations because it's a level playing field. And now labor has more. How many times has somebody that's listening to this right now stayed in a bad job because it had the health benefits that they needed, but now you can just go look for the job that suits you. And then the labor unions, the labor unions who are in, listen, the rank and file are great, but the Democrats are controlling the leadership in just about every union in this state because they've been at war with me too. I've won open debates like SEIU local 1004 and a half hour debate, Katie Porter, the rest of them on stage. They closed the door, did the vote of 1,000 people in the room and I beat the next two candidates together. And they didn't even include me in their endorsement process, not even a discussion. And they wouldn't allow the video of the debate to be circulated in the public because it was a bloodbath. Right. So why am I saying this? Because these unions that are in bed with the Democrats are still holding on to the old order. But what happened because they're negotiating for health care benefits, that's a crucial part of their piece. They're used to the system as it is. But imagine labor organizing where you're not worried about the health care already. It's not just that it's good for small business, it's good for people to move around. But now union organizers can negotiate for better wages and better working conditions, which is what unions are supposed to be before, not just trying to make sure that you can get seen when you're sick because the state is supposed to take care of that. And the Green Party, which effectively won that election over there in the uk, very similar platform, also standing on Palestinian liberation, big support from the Muslim community. I'll talk about the demographics of our support in a minute. But the one thing that they didn't have to argue for was universal healthcare because they already got it. We should have it. We're supposed to have it. And none of them are going to give it to you. And they know that I will. And that's why they, they want me off the ballot.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Talk about the breakdown of the demographics, you said.

[Butch Ware]

Yeah, okay, I should look to camera one. I want to look at the camera for this. They're concealing from you the fact that the Muslim American vote has already fled from the Democrat plantation. In the 2024 presidential election, 53% of American Muslims voted for the Steinware ticket for Dr. Jill Stein and my itself only 20% for Team Blue genocide, 20% for Team Red fascism. It's the biggest move from one party to another by a major ethnic or religious group in a hundred years. And the media doesn't want you to know about it because it signals what's about to happen. The state of California has a million Muslims in it. The average voter turnout for the last two gubernatorial primaries has been about, about five and a half million people. People don't vote in primaries. To finish in the top two, it's going to take about 1.2, maybe 1.5 million votes tops. There might be 6 million votes cast between May 4th when the ballots go out. May the 4th be with you and yeah, because I'm starting a whole rebel uprising and that's why they're so afraid. But between that time and 6226, palindrome numeric. What's the name for a numerical palindrome. But 6226 read the same way front and back. Between that date, there might be 6 million votes cast. There's a million Muslims in the state of California. 53% of them already voted for me. Right. I'm the only Muslim on the ballot and the only anti Zionist. Well, on the ballot, not technically. For now. We'll get to that in just a second. So we expect a 70% yield from the Muslim community in this environment, how

[Van Lathan]

many of you expect to turn out?

[Butch Ware]

Exactly. So our, our program has been turning out the demographics that we know. See this. And let me just say this really quick. I expect that actually they have access to polling data that we don't have. My suspicion is that they know that I'm already past 5% and probably at 8 or 9 right behind those two. And that's why they got desperate to do what they did because it looks really, really bad to throw somebody off the ballot because they didn't black out their number and then lie about it in court, and then it turns out you had it the whole time. So why would they be so desperate? Because they're really afraid. So the turnout, that's been our focus. So we're engaged with the Muslim community, but we're not just engaging the Muslim community. Obviously, this is a message that speaks to immigrant communities, because I've said, as governor of the state of California, I'm not complying with any unconstitutional federal orders, which means that the feds are gonna have to go through every lawyer and law enforcement officer in this state, because before they touch so much of the hair on the head of any California resident, Gavin could be doing that right now. I've said, as governor of state of California, any crime that was alleged to have been committed in the state of California in those Epstein files or by a California resident in those Epstein files, I will direct the attorney general to open an immediate investigation. And if found guilty, we're prosecuting at the state level. Any governor could do that right now. Have you heard that from any governor? No, because Team Blue and Team Red are both in them files. Ain't no Greens in them files.

[Van Lathan]

No. So I want to ask a couple of questions. I want to ask a couple questions about this, number one, and I just. I have to ask the Muslims that. The Muslim population that did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, do you think they're getting a return on the investment that they made by either staying home or by voting for President Trump?

[Butch Ware]

So the truth of the matter is, is that the Muslim vote for us was a win for Green Party organizing, the same way that it's a win in Gorton and Denton for Hannah Spencer. But it had no impact whatsoever on the presidential election.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Butch Ware]

Because of the spending difference. So just for context, Kamala spent $1.5 billion in her. What, 108 days? Is that what she called it?

[Rachel Lindsay]

107 days?

[Butch Ware]

107 days. So she spent $1.5 billion in those 108 days. And the internal polling, they revealed after the fact that they never had her winning. They never had her winning. All of that money was squandered because they knew that she was never gonna win. And I knew on my third day in electoral politics, I got called into the. She had 108 days. I had 77. That's when I was. When I was nominated to. One of the first things I did was take a meeting with Dalia Mulgahid, who's done polling in the Muslim community for the last 20 years. Here's what she said, she said three states, swing states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia. Biden was at 65% of the vote there in 2020. They're polling at 12% now in the Muslim community. I said, dead man walking. They can't win the election.

[Van Lathan]

This is what I'm trying to ask.

[Butch Ware]

Yes, no, I know. Make sure. Please do this. Please do.

[Van Lathan]

Number one, I do not fault anyone, of course. Anyone whatsoever that looked at what happened in Gaza and went, I can't vote for this. I don't. I can't. I can't do that. Like, especially when you look at the history there and just the. Absolutely. Atrocities, the absolute atrocities that are happening. Having said that. Yeah. Donald Trump has attacked Iran twice. Yep. We are currently at war. Yes. With Iran. The escalation ladder seems to be being climbed by every country that's in the region and can. It's a wider regional war now to where all of the Gulf states, all the Gulf countries could end up having their desalinization hit and not have fresh

[Butch Ware]

drinking in three days. Qatar would be out of water.

[Van Lathan]

Right. And so when you look at that, there seems to have been an immense consequence with the fighting in Gaza continuing, violence in the west bank continuing. And I guess the question is, and I know it's a grotesque question for my leftist out there, but you have to ask it. Would you not have been better if Kamala Harris was president?

[Butch Ware]

So thank you for refocusing the question because as a historian, I was getting long winded into the why. Yeah. And I get 75 minutes at a time with undergraduates sometimes. Sometimes I be long winded. The short version is this, is that there was not a single swing state where if you had even added up all the third party votes together, that it would have given Kamala even one of those states. So the Muslims did not cost the election. Third party voters didn't cost the election. The math ain't mathing. They lost the election for a simple reason. And it's the reason why they won't release that message.

[Van Lathan]

That autopsy, that messaging is that there is message that comes out that goes, hey, she straight up lost on this issue. And the autopsy said that the issue did have some.

[Butch Ware]

It did. It did not.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Just for voters, maybe disenfranchised voters.

[Butch Ware]

Exactly.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I didn't talk about that part enough. That messaging affected people to be apathetic

[Butch Ware]

and say, I don't want to say listen. But it wasn't messaging. That was the organic response of the people. And when I had to explain, so I have a special needs son, 15 year old chocolate boy wonder, autistic. Yesterday was his birthday, Idris. Yesterday was his birthday. So, you know, I took him to Burbank because there's this, this building in Burbank that he's fascinated with. He just wants to go look at it. So I drove him there and did all these things. Now why am I mentioning this? Because it takes, like, special aids to take care of, like, you know, a 6 foot, 180 pound, you know, black boy. So I had to explain to one of his aides, who's not like, particularly Reddit on politics, what the run was about back in 2024. So I'd explain it real simple. I said, listen, the Democrats could definitely win this election if they stop killing kids. Because people don't like having their tax dollars used to kill kids, but they're getting paid really good money by aipac, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman to kill kids. So they're gonna keep right on killing kids until they lose the election because they like cashing the checks from the baby killers more than they like winning the election. The Democrats are, are like a boxer who is getting paid more by the mob to throw the fight than the prize money to win it. They can raise $1.5 billion in a losing effort, and the institution reproduces itself in strength. And then they can use that institutional strength to go to war on people like me and to try to knock me out of courtroom and try to knock our voice out of it. The Democrats are every bit as dangerous. I told you what Malcolm said about foxes and wolves. Here's one for me. The sheep is going to live all of its life in fear of the wolf, only to be eaten by the

[Van Lathan]

shepherd, because the shepherd has. The shepherd raises the sheep purposely to

[Butch Ware]

kill it and to kill it. So the Democrats are going to be saying, the wolf, the wolf, the big red wolf. Stay close to me. Stay here where it's safe. What have they gotten us? They lock us up. They genocide us. They murder us. Kamala said herself that Iran was the number one adversary. Obama assassinated Gaddafi and there is now an African slave trade in Libya. Right.

[Van Lathan]

So I guess what I'm saying is I am not a Democrat.

[Butch Ware]

I know.

[Van Lathan]

And being that I'm not one, I think it's. So we talk about killing children. There's 200 girls got killed in Iran by a US strike. I do not think, boy, it feels like I'm holding water for the Democrats. I do not think that Kamala Harris would have gone to war in Iran. And the reason why I don't think she would have gone to war in Iran is because no president went to war in Iran for the entire time.

[Butch Ware]

I understand that they were trying to

[Van Lathan]

drum up the case to go to war in Iran. No one did it. No one did it. Trump did it twice. He took out some Amani in 1980, which told me if he got another

[Butch Ware]

term, he was going to have another crack at the album.

[Van Lathan]

He was going to go for it even more the second time. I do think that as we talk about the sameness of these parties and

[Butch Ware]

we must talk about, we must talk about the distinctions.

[Van Lathan]

But we have to talk about the distinctions.

[Butch Ware]

Yes, because if not, then it's a disingenuous conversation.

[Van Lathan]

Certainly.

[Butch Ware]

I couldn't agree more. I don't think that the style would have been in any way the same, but I think that the substance would be fundamentally the same.

[Van Lathan]

You think she was going to war anymore?

[Butch Ware]

Well, so, so here's the issue is that I'm a historian, I look at this in the broad trajectory and I study what history teaches us and what the, the patterns are. So Richard Wolff, great Marxist historian, I strongly encourage you to have him on the show at some point because he's really good at breaking stuff down in a simple way. He showed that this is actually the trajectory of every dying empire.

[Van Lathan]

Empire.

[Butch Ware]

Every dying empire increasingly escalates military militaristic adventurism as it's falling apart because it has to do more resources and it's what kills the empire. They always end up doubling down on this and it accelerates. So the US dollar was the reserve currency for about 80% of the world 30, 40 years ago. Now that's down to about 40%. And he showed that this was the same pattern with the British before that, them, and the French before them, the Dutch before them, the Spanish before them, the Portuguese. The end of the empire begins with the sell off of that reserve currency. And the ones that have a softer fall, they just accept the collapse of the empire and don't do this continued adventurism. But the democrats have been more hawkish. The democrats did the Russia war, the Ukraine war. That was democrat administration that were, were belligerent in the way that they approached the Ukraine situation. They started the World War three that we are currently in. They are the architects of this situation. And I want to go just back to one really, really crucial piece of this. As a historian, I'm glad to announce, y', all, glad to announce that this is the last of the white supremacist empires. We are in its death throes as we speak in this country. Yeah. So I'm gonna tell this part, and then if I can, I'm gonna tell my story because this helps frame why I understand things this way. So there have been five centuries of white supremacist empire. It began with the Portuguese taking our people and turning them into commodities. And the Spanish then amplified that, conducted a genocide of indigenous people. And like many African Americans on my father's side, both of his grandmothers, Hattie and Clara, were both part Seminole. That's our people too. Right. So genocide of indigenous people. The Spanish are the next ascendant empire, then the Dutch, then the French, then the British. Since World War II, the United States of America has been that last white supremacist empire, capitalist empire, dominating the globe. And in its scale and scope, the United States empire is the most dangerous instrument of surveillance and death dealing ever to ex in human history. And it's dying. It's in its extinction burst, just as Israel is in its extinction burst. And they're always the most violent and extractive right before they're extinguished, right before they collapse. I told you that Jill invited me into electoral politics. I told you what she said about reparations. It was what she said about foreign policy that made me consider that taking over the Green Party by us might be a good idea. I said, what's your vision for American foreign policy? She said, my vision is to dismantle the American empire. And I said, yeah, and you better hurry up quick and do it quick before somebody do it for you. Because if you divest from using all of these resources to try to save the empire for the benefit of a tiny group, 0.1% of oligarchs and billionaires, you're going to hasten the collapse of your republic. Whereas if you divest from those things and invest in housing, healthcare, education, your republic, which was never a republic for us, when were we ever able to vote? It was a settler colony the whole time. But you might be able to have at least this state survive the collapse of its empire. So me, why am I running for vice president and then for governor? I got unfinished business with that flag. I want it to pay all that it's due to, all that is due to all of us that it's harmed. And I want it to live up to its promises. Because what's worth fighting for is the idea of a pluralistic society, of a representative democracy. We're not fighting to make America great again. We're Fighting to make this place keep its promises for the first time. And that those two capitalist parties, those two imperialist parties, those two white supremacist parties are never gonna do that. Malcolm said the Democrats, you put them first and they put you last. And that makes you a chump. That makes you a political chump. That's what Malcolm said. I'll save the story about why Malcolm means so much to me to the end of this interview because I know I'd be talking too long. So I'm gonna let y' all get back in.

[Van Lathan]

Rachel.

[Rachel Lindsay]

So if this is the end, White

[Butch Ware]

supremacy, white supremacist empire, anyway.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Empire, empire.

[Butch Ware]

White supremacy's gonna have an afterlife.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Then what is next?

[Butch Ware]

Aha. So you set up the question. So this is the chance for me to tell the story. So I told you that I came up rough. So when I was 15 years old, I read Malcolm's autobiography. I read the autobiography, Malcolm X. I read that book cover to cover in one night. Couldn't put that book down because Malcolm was so brutally honest about not just what America had done to him, right? His father being killed by white supremacist, his mother driven to madness by the insurance companies that wouldn't pay to claim.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Butch Ware]

Free Luigi again. Right. Malcolm ends up in the foster care system. Malcolm ends up a hustler. Malcolm ends up a pimp. He was honest not just about what America did to him, but what he had become because of it. And the thing is, man, I needed what Malcolm had because I was experienced in the business end of white supremacy on a daily basis. And so I read that book cover to cover in one night. And I wanted what Malcolm had at the end of that book. He had a freedom from his inner demons and from his external oppressors. So I said, if Islam is good enough for Malcolm, it's good enough for me. I went out to my public school library. I checked out an English translation of the Quran. I read that cover to cover the next night. I'd been up, low key, manic. High key, manic. I read that cover to cover the next night. And then I fell asleep, missed my school bus. Didn't go to school the next day. And when my mom got off of work, I said, mom, I'm a Muslim. I want you to take me to this mosque. I looked up in the phone book so I could make my shahada. I looked up how to convert. We didn't have the Internet. I had to look up in books back then. And she said, that's fine, baby. But it's gonna have to wait till the weekend because I have work. You know, my mom was always saying God is big enough for all of us and all paths lead to him. And she's still a practicing Catholic to this day, and she's still one of my closest friends, you know? I mean, we went through the wars together, you know, it was hard. You know, I. She would sit and watch me and my brother eat. And when we were done, she would eat whatever was left. Like, if you ever listen to all that I got is you by Ghost, right? Fifteen of us in a three bedroom apartment, roaches everywhere. Cousins and aunts was there, right? That was our childhood. That was our whole childhood. So I needed what Malcolm had. And I found it. Because when I read that book, the Quran, and cover to cover the next night, I found this story about Abraham Ibrahim in the Quranic version, standing up against Nimrod of Babylon, the most dangerous imperialist tyrant on the face of the earth in his time. I heard the story of Musa Moses and Harun Aaron standing up against the Pharaoh, the most dangerous imperialist tyrant on the face of the earth in his time. I learned about Jesus all over again. Issa and John Yahya standing up against Caesar. And I realized over the course of the years that there was this eternal truth in the Quran that was also there in the Bible. And it's in all of our sacred and secular traditions. It's in all of our faiths and philosophies. All empires fall. Nothing that is seized by force is ever held. And once you know that empire is doomed. You're free like Malcolm was. Malcolm said, we're not outnumbered. We're out organized. And then he said, never let your enemy tell you how many of you there are. Never let the man that you are against form your opinions for you. Once Malcolm was free in here and in here, he couldn't be contained. He could even teach me posthumously, right after the fact, set me free and turn me into a weapon. So why am I saying that? When you understand that empire is doomed, then your most pressing question is, what do we build on its ashes? And that's when where we were talking before that. It's about what you're building, not what you're tearing down. It's about bringing abolitionist practice. It's about care over cages. It's about serving people. Not the prison industry. Prison industrial complex. Yeah, like educated, mumble mouth status. It'd be like that sometimes. So all of that is just to say what we're doing through this campaign is not electoral politics. I think that that's what they're so afraid of. I think that what they're afraid of is that I understand this as the electoral arm of our liberation movement.

[Van Lathan]

Consciousness shift.

[Butch Ware]

We have so much to discuss on this, because that's exactly it. It's just a shift in perspective. Because for me, like my wife, she said. She said, your superpower is that you can convince people that don't believe in voting to vote. And I say, yeah, because I don't believe in it anymore than they do. Right. I believe that it's our community work. It's our mutual aid. It's what we do in community. It's what we do in those liberation theology churches. It's the food giveaway at the mosque, it's the food distribution at the shelter. It's the protection of trans communities. And like, we got trans visibility day coming up tomorrow. I don't know when this is going to air. It's about fighting for everybody, no matter what you look like, no matter who you pray with, no matter who you lay with. Right? That however you show up in the world, that your rights and dignity are sacred and we gonna fight 10 toes down for them no matter what. That. That happens in community. Right? And that the direct action, like, never let anybody tell you Martin Luther King did nonviolent protests. He never did nonviolent protests. He did nonviolent direct action. He put the people into the gears of the machine so the machine couldn't turn over. He stopped outcomes from happening. That's what a boycott did. And it created new forms of community and solidarity because we had to figure out how to get them rides and everybody get to work. And we put the pressure on the machine and we saw each other, we cooked for one another. We showed up each other's houses early for that pickup, and we made our own routes and we built new forms of community and solidarity together. Revolutions are rooted in love, and we build that. If we don't think that electoral power by itself is the solution. I am not here to be a savior in the electoral arena. I'm here to serve as the electoral arm of the broader collective liberation movement. And black folks have always led the way in that. And that's why it's so frustrating. Not only when black imperialists serve white supremacist empire, but when in a narrow way, our people just say, my people first or my people only. I don't care what happens to immigrants. Forget what Malcolm said. I don't care about any of that. That me, well, that divide and conquer is how we ended up where we are. And it was that that Fred Hampton had passed that and was able to get the young lords and Brown Berets and young patriots. That's why they ended him. It was when Malcolm came out of the nation and was now preaching a universalist message that they took him out. Because it is when the black liberation tradition is rooted 10 toes down in our experience, our category, our culture, and reaches out from our truth to speak a truth that frees everyone. Because as this empire is collapsing, we have to provide the road light, the path to freedom that isn't built on their cages. It's not built on their prisons. It's not built on their exploitation. It's built on what we have always had and we've always kindled. And that's why it hurts me when our people drink the Kool Aid and start caping for master's fence and saying, I don't care about Jamaicans or Africans. It's like, nigga, that was one stop on the boat. Like, you literally, like, you don't. Like, you were the next stop. And now you're like, you know, y' all stay out. Make it make sense. Like, why? Why does that man's border mean so much to you? Who taught you to hate yourself?

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Butch Ware]

That was what Malcolm said.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Anyway.

[Butch Ware]

I said too much.

[Van Lathan]

So I'll make sure to get back you guys. That's Butch Ware. He's running for governor in California. Our first gubernatorial candidate that we've had joining us on higher learning. Butch, before we get you out of here, tell them where they can go to support you, learn more about you and everything that you got going on.

[Butch Ware]

I'm Butchware on all social platforms since it was my son's birthday yesterday. He goes by Idris. His name is actually Rudolph Idris Ware. I'm Rudolph Ware. So I'm Rudolph III. He's Rudolph IV. My father was Rudolph Jr. My grandfather from rural Georgia was Rudolph Sr. But look for me by my nickname, Butch Ware. The name I took for myself when I was converted to Islam at 15 was Bilal. That's also beware, and that's my MC name. You can look for our political diss tracks, but you can find me butchware on all social platforms. We are fighting in both. We're fighting in the state court. There's a private suit by a citizen, a Palestinian Latina sister, who's suing the state for throwing me off the ballot because she said that I'm the only candidate that represents both sides of her family. She lost 56 family members in Gaza, so she's filing her own suit in state court. We are appealing that crooked judge's decision in the circuit court and we are preparing a federal case. But even if they are somehow successful in corrupting the whole system and they are able to write me off of the ballot, there's nothing that they can do to stop a writing candidacy. So if they try to write us out of history, write us right back in. Because Butch Ware on a ballot is the two most dangerous words in the English language to this system.

[Van Lathan]

All right, thank you for joining us on Higher Learning.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Brother.

[Butch Ware]

I forgot the call to action. What's called action Volunteer. Register and donate to our legal fund. Them lawyers ain't cheap. So that's all I want to say.

[Van Lathan]

Remember, anything helps. The movement is moved through small donations. Well, we know that times are tough out there, but like guys like butch people, they build their organizations not through these grand billionaires. No, they build it through 3, 5, 7, 6. $2 at a time. So whatever you can get.

[Butch Ware]

Do we get to tell them about what we doing on Saturday?

[Rachel Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Butch Ware]

Okay. Yeah. So. And racial. I didn't have your direct number, but you are most invited.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Thank you. Thank you. Because Van forgets to tell me.

[Butch Ware]

No, no. See, so, yeah. So we're having something called Unity Uprising. I just want to make this clear. This is not my campaign. This is my 501C3. So this is a non profit. We're doing it. So my nonprofit is called the Revolutionary Learning Community. So in conjunction with Dr. Molina Abdullah. So we were the two black Muslim VPs that people wanted to pit against each other. Other? Nah, that's my soul sister. So we're. We're hosting an event called Unity Uprising. Black Radical Traditions and Collective Liberation. And so we're co hosting it. It's at Cal State LA, the MLK lecture hall. It's on the. The 58th anniversary of Dr. King's martyrdom, his assassination. And we are hosting an event where we're going to have panels. So on political organizing. And on the political organizing panel we're going to have the honorable Senator Nina Turner. We're going to have a local Mexican American activist, Fernando De. We are going to have Chris Smalls, the incredible Amazon labor organizer. I'm trying. Who is the fourth person that's on that panel? We'll circle back.

[Van Lathan]

It was Vic.

[Butch Ware]

Oh yeah. So Vic Mensa is on the culture panel, so. Oh, actually Van, you're, I think on the political panel. I wanted you there. Vic is on the culture panel. So we're gonna have Vic Mensa pulling up. We're gonna have Conscious Lee. George Lee's gonna be in. In the building as well. Our. My sister, my communications director, she's actually promoted as of April 1, the deputy campaign manager, because sister is just a boss. She gets. She does everything. And. Yeah, so. So that she's also going to be. Be participating. And we want folks to show. We haven't had this kind of meeting of the hearts of. In the black liberation movement since the 60s. And so the thing is that, yeah, I'm running a campaign. We're trying to win, but this is about a bigger movement. I want the energy from this moment to be translated into movement. My son is autistic, so he does these iterations. So he'll go, one moment, one minute, one moment, one momentum, one movementum. And he said. And I said, did you just say movementum?

[Van Lathan]

Ooh,

[Butch Ware]

so we need some movementum. And that's that. Yeah, so that's what trying to do.

[Van Lathan]

Young man is a genius. He is. Butch, I appreciate you for joining us, man. We appreciate you.

[Butch Ware]

All power to the people, y'.

[Van Lathan]

All.

[Butch Ware]

All power to the people.

[Van Lathan]

All right, Butch. So look, one. I've been getting cracked. I haven't. Okay, that's twice. Okay, shut up, Donnie.

[Rachel Lindsay]

You know why? Because we're almost at four hours. Yeah, go to the back. And I got a podcast after this.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, well, we gotta go.

[Rachel Lindsay]

That's why you keep messing it up, because we are tapped out.

[Van Lathan]

I didn't mean to say we done ran out. Regard. What I'm saying is that people have been saying that we don't have enough black leftists on the show. Oh, we.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because we got a great one today.

[Van Lathan]

We had a great one today. And we've just to let you guys know, we've had Cornel west, we've had Molina Abdullah. We've had several black leftists on the show.

[Rachel Lindsay]

We've had Mark Lamont Hill.

[Van Lathan]

We've had Mark Lamont Hill on the show for everybody that's leveling that criticism. Johnny come lately, okay, Nina Turner was on the show. Okay?

[Rachel Lindsay]

So.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, stop playing with us.

[Rachel Lindsay]

Because when we did that, they said, well, y' all need to bring more conservatives on the show, like, different.

[Van Lathan]

So I'm saying is we can go further. We can do more, and we will. All right? We also gonna have the rest of the. The fucking candidates for the gubernatorial situation on here. We'll have Katie Porter on. We'll see if she throws a whiteboard at our heads, okay? Take think caps off. But do not stop learning. I am Van Lathan jr.

[Rachel Lindsay]

I'm Rachel Lynn Lindsay. Bye, guys.