Is Hip-Hop Still Fun? Plus the DNC’s Autopsy Report and “Dr.” Cheyenne Bryant’s Alleged Title

Summary

Podcast Summary: Higher Learning with Van Lathan & Rachel Lindsay

The Ringer – May 22, 2026

Episode: "Is Hip-Hop Still Fun? Plus the DNC’s Autopsy Report and 'Dr.' Cheyenne Bryant’s Alleged Title"

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Episode Overview

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay examine the evolving culture of hip-hop, dissect the latest political shifts (including the Democratic Party’s 2024 autopsy and recent Republican primaries), and debate the controversy over Dr. Cheyenne Bryant’s professional credentials. The hosts offer candid, sometimes contentious perspectives on Black culture, race, and politics, drawing on personal nostalgia, current events, and expert analysis. The episode also contains a lively critique of the recent Kevin Hart roast and concludes with a commentary on anti-Muslim violence in the wake of a tragic shooting in San Diego.

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Section 1: Is Hip-Hop Still Fun?

[00:14–15:46]

Key Points

• Van and Rachel debate whether hip-hop is as fun and joyful as it once was.
• The conversation is triggered by the highly publicized Drake beef and his album "Iceman."
• Social media’s role in changing the enjoyment of hip-hop is a recurrent theme.

Notable Discussion & Quotes

• On Hip-hop experience and nostalgia:

  • Van:
    "Fun was when shit dropped in the 2010s... Remember when 50 and Kanye went against each other? That was fun." [01:26-01:41]
  • Rachel:
    "The beef was fun ... when a new song would drop and the way people would react … there was excitement surrounding that." [02:07-02:54]

• On today’s “fun”:

  • Van:
    "It feels like now, just like everything else, our fun is in the fight. It seems like before, our fun used to be in the celebration ... now it’s all dick riding competitions or hating competitions. We’re not talking about it in good faith anymore." [04:30-05:40]
  • Rachel suggests fandom and age might be factors:
    "Is it not as fun for you because you're not like a super fan of anybody right now that’s putting out? ... Tyler the Creator ... that was so exciting …" [05:45-06:50]

• Generational perspective and social media’s effect:

  • Van recalls the collective energy of early hip-hop, the lack of social media debates, and a sense of “joy”:
    "Maybe joy is the term that I’m looking for… Hip hop has been a joyous part of my life since then ... now it just seems like we get this shit and it’s a fucking drag, man." [07:31-08:58]
  • Rachel points to generational divides and the difference in music consumption communities:
    "You listen to it and you talk about it, you hear it on the radio, you talk about it with your friends and your friend group. It's not litigated. Cause you're not as connected ..." [09:36-09:58]

• Social media and culture:

  • Z Corner’s input: “There’s less of a purity to hip hop ... more like, rootedness.” [11:11-11:29]
  • Van: “We need the party ... the vibes are down right now ... these sisters need to be out here and they need to be able to shake some ass and have some fun and release the trauma that’s in their hips.” [11:39-12:36]

• Conclusion on hip-hop’s fun factor:
  The consensus is that fun and communal joy around hip-hop are diminished, impacted by social media, hyper-competition, and generational shifts—though unique artist events can revive that old excitement for passionate fans.

Memorable Moment

Rachel pledges to get a sponsored “Higher Learning” table at the famed Everyday People party after reminiscing about the fun of collective music experiences. [12:45-13:07]

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Section 2: 2026 Republican Primaries & Party Loyalty

[17:05–29:25]

Key Points

• Trump remains dominant in GOP primaries; “approval ratings” are misleading—loyalist base is ironclad.
• Discussion of key races in Kentucky and Texas shows the deep hold of Trump’s brand; primary performances don’t necessarily forecast general election outcomes.

Notable Quotes

• Van:
  "That 37% that still approve with Trump, they’re ironclad. Ironclad. They're cemented. That's stone ... What Massie was up against was ... a religious belief in the president and will respond to his call in a primary." [18:54-21:22]

• Rachel:
  "Republicans are still down for Trump ... if you go against him, people will vote against you. That’s really what it showed to me." [17:37-18:44]

• On Texas politics and Talarico’s chances:

  • Rachel: "Ken Paxton is so controversial that will motivate some people to just say ... I don’t want to vote at all. And that’s why I think Talarico could pull it out." [24:44-25:07]

• Van’s take on “pandering” in politics:
  "Talarico, you gotta go to Trey Day. You gotta pander a little bit, bruh. Cause you got the sisters hot." [26:01-26:54]

• Political metaphors & vivid language:
  "If your nuts have to get cut for you to find them, then you probably never had much nuts in the first place. If you can’t find your nuts while they’re still on your body ... then it doesn’t mean very much." [27:57-28:35]

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Section 3: The DNC’s 2024 Autopsy Report

[29:27–46:12]

Key Points

• The DNC autopsy reports problems in candidate positioning, reliance on anti-Trump sentiment, and identity politics backlash.
• The report itself is incomplete, rushed, and contains errors—which the hosts see as symbolic of deeper Democratic dysfunction.
• Van questions if Democrats are even interested in real self-reflection and change.

Key Quotes

• Van:
  "If we are handed a document that tells a party what’s wrong ... and they don’t care, what are we saying about them? We’re saying that they’re okay being wrong, that wrong is working for them for whatever reason." [34:22-36:54]

• Rachel:
  "It's nothing that people at least since 2024 election have been saying — messaging, we are too spread too thin, we need to be very clear on what it is that we’re saying. Focusing so much on Trump, you could almost say that the obsession that MAGA has with making him their religious leader, we're almost the other side was equally obsessed ... rather than listening to what people are saying they need." [33:15-34:13]

• Van, on the “broken machine”:
  "If we know that they know, they know that we know, and nothing is changing, then aren’t we being stupid?" [36:42]

• Rachel calls for continued pressure:
  "We should be questioning these things. We shouldn't just take what they're giving us. And I don't think we are at this point." [41:49-42:34]

Notable Timestamp

Van’s passionate commentary on the meaning of “red” in Louisiana:
"That red to me is blood. The red that my state is being painted, gerrymandered, that's blood to me." [41:04]

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Section 4: The Kevin Hart Roast, Comedy, & Racism

[54:01–72:38]

Key Points

• Chelsea Handler’s viral criticism of racist jokes at the Kevin Hart Netflix roast sparks debate.
• Rachel strongly agrees that many jokes crossed the line and were “just lazy.”
• Van is conflicted, distinguishing between inappropriate and envelope-pushing comedy, and weighs the context of roasts and comedy tradition.
• Discussion includes writer involvement, comedian culture, and the blurry lines between pushing boundaries and perpetuating harm.

Memorable Discussion

• Rachel:
  "It is not a roast if you are disguising your racism within the roast. He's really not disguising it, but you’re hiding it under ... this is just a roast." [56:04-56:34]
• Van (on shifting standards):
  "If Michael Che and Lil Rel Howery ... are saying that some of this stuff is too far, then that conversation is them policing their culture. I acquiesce to that completely." [67:12-67:23]
• Rachel on comedian responsibility:
  "You don’t have to have a doctorate to give good advice. To be a therapist, to be a life coach, that's not taking away from what she does. But it is wrong for her to use a title that it doesn't look like that she's earned." [85:24-86:26]

Memorable Moment

• Van’s riff on “roast is a race to the bottom,” with a dose of empathy for the targets:
  "Do you know how destroyed I would be if I was on Netflix and somebody brought up the death of my father? I’m not signing up for that.” [68:48-68:59]

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Section 5: “Dr.” Cheyenne Bryant’s Credentials Controversy

[73:02–91:12]

Key Points

• Dr. Cheyenne Bryant’s right to the “Doctor” title is scrutinized—she has not produced evidence of a relevant doctorate degree.
• Rachel (a lawyer with a Juris Doctor) finds Bryant’s lack of transparency and defensiveness to be a major issue: “If you did, just show it. If you can’t, it's just ridiculous.” [91:23-91:32]
• Van plays devil’s advocate but ultimately acknowledges the importance of trust, legitimacy, and the unique significance of credentials in Black communities.

Notable Quotes

• Rachel, on the issue of earned titles:
  "If you really respect the profession, then you would honor people’s concerns. You wouldn’t just write it off." [77:15-77:23]
• Van:
  "If Dr. Cheyenne Bryant was waking up going, what the fuck are they kicking my ass for ... it might be good, but it might not feel safe. It might feel, to some people, like a con." [89:31-89:45]
• Rachel concludes:
  “You don’t have to have a doctorate to give good advice ... it is wrong for her to use a title that it doesn't look like that she’s earned ... it is telling of who you are. That’s all I’ll say.” [85:24-86:26]

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Section 6: Michelle Obama’s Comments on MAGA and Race

[92:24–115:16]

Key Points

• Michelle Obama (on another podcast) states that not all MAGA supporters are racist; she suggests that many are just desperate for change.
• Rachel is disappointed by this take, arguing that in the current context, any Trump/MAGA supporter is complicit in racism.
• Van expands the conversation, asserting America is inherently a racist country and arguing that the “ocean” (systemic racism), not individual “sharks,” is what sustains the problem. He predicts Democrats will soon shift away from identity politics to more broad, class-based messaging.

Notable Quotes

• Rachel:
  "How can you sit here and say the person who still supports him and labels him as MAGA is not racist? ... I'm tired of dancing around, like, the degrees of racism." [93:40-97:13; 115:16]

• Van (metaphor):
  "White supremacy is not the shark. It's the ocean ... you have to change the system, the ecology ... America is inherently a racist country." [100:20-100:50]

• Van, on the way forward:
  "Black people, in my opinion, want to know concretely that people understand the level of racism that exists in America. It's very important." [110:55-111:22]

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Section 7: Trump’s Slush Fund, Reparations, & Policy Outrage

[115:55–122:37]

Key Points

• A brief yet potent takedown of Trump’s new $1.7B “slush fund," which is framed as redress for supposedly “wronged” Americans post-Jan. 6, but Rachel and Van argue this highlights deep structural racial inequality and hypocrisy.

Notable Quotes

• Van:
  "America makes a way for the people they believe are Americans ... when actual Americans are done wrong by this country, America pays them back." [121:09–122:37]
• Rachel:
  "The number 1.776 is almost an ode to the America that they wish they still had. Which is why it’s benefiting the Americans from 1776." [122:37]

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Section 8: Closing – Islamophobia and the San Diego Mosque Shooting

[124:16–126:15]

Key Points

• Van briefly mentions the tragic shooting at a mosque in San Diego and promises a more in-depth segment with a guest on upcoming episodes.
• Emphasizes that anti-Muslim violence is underreported and expresses solidarity with the Muslim community.

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Most Notable Quotes & Moments

• Van on nostalgia and hip-hop’s lost joy:
  "Maybe joy is the term that I’m looking for… Hip hop has been a joyous part of my life since then ... now it just seems like we get this shit and it’s a fucking drag." [07:31-08:58]

• Rachel on calling out racism:
  "How can you sit here and say the person who still supports him and labels him as MAGA is not racist? ... I am a little tired of people ... coddling of racist emboldens them to excuse their behavior as anything but racist." [93:40-96:14]

• Van on systemic racism:
  "White supremacy is not the shark. It’s the ocean. The ocean provides the shark with what it needs to kill ... you have to change the system, the ecology ..." [100:30-100:50]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:14 – Van asks: Is hip-hop fun anymore?
• 05:45 – Rachel queries if age and fandom play a role in hip-hop enjoyment.
• 11:39 – Van’s call for “hip-hop parties” and communal celebration.
• 17:05 – Start of the GOP primaries breakdown & Trump base discussion.
• 29:27 – DNC 2024 “autopsy” breakdown.
• 54:06 – Segment on Kevin Hart roast and comedy norms.
• 73:02 – Cheyenne Bryant credentials controversy.
• 92:24 – Michelle Obama’s MAGA comments and ensuing debate.
• 115:55 – Trump’s slush fund & reparations critique.
• 124:16 – Acknowledgment of anti-Muslim violence, lookahead to next episode.

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Tone and Language

The episode is richly conversational, alternating between personal anecdotes, sharp analysis, and moments of humor or exasperation. Van’s metaphors and Rachel’s emphatic, clear points create a dynamic, engaging tone, laced with irreverence and frankness. Both hosts maintain a commitment to honesty, authenticity, and directness—with periodic comic relief and self-deprecation.

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For Listeners New and Old

This episode is a microcosm of Higher Learning’s style: topical, thought-provoking, and unafraid to challenge friends or famous names alike. Whether you follow every episode or are new to their format, this is a wide-ranging, emotionally charged, and generally insightful exploration of the intersections of culture, race, and American society in 2026.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Yo, yo, yo, Thought warriors. What is up? Coloring is on.

[A]

Is Ivan Lathan Jr. And it's me, Rachel, and Lindsey.

[B]

Before we get into the show, I want to ask you a question. Is hip hop fun anymore?

[A]

I'm gonna assume that you're basing this off of the Drake conversation, I think. Okay, so it can be. Yes. But when we litigate it, which we were totally expecting to do, the moment Iceman came out, we knew we were gonna do this. It takes the fun out of it. Like, you can't just enjoy the music to enjoy it. But also argue that dropping three albums at one time does not make me want to sit back and enjoy the music. It feels like a task. It's too much sensory overload. But, yeah, like. Okay, I'm assuming your answer is no. When is the last time you enjoyed hip hop?

[B]

I thought that the Beef was fun.

[A]

The beef was fun. The Beef was fun.

[B]

I guess what I'm saying is it felt like fun at the time, but I don't know if it was fun. There's something different than fun when mess is involved. It might have been thrilling.

[A]

Ooh, good word.

[B]

Might have been inciting. But I don't know if fun. Fun used to be like. I don't know. Fun was when shit dropped in the 2010s when it dropped and everybody was having fucking.

[A]

Like, when. Remember when 50 and Kanye went against each other?

[B]

Fun.

[A]

That was a fun. That was a fun thing.

[B]

Sicko mode was fun. Like, that song being everywhere and everybody going crazy, Everyone coming together, loving a record. Sicko mode was fun. Like, damn was fun.

[A]

Like, but the beef was fun. And I'll tell you, I don't know

[B]

if the beef was fun in the way that I'm using now, talking fun.

[A]

I mean, I was gonna say. And I'll tell you why.

[B]

Why?

[A]

I remember being out and about when a new song would drop and the way people would react. I remember I was at somebody's birthday party and we were at a house, and it like, oh, my God, he just. Kendrick just dropped Euphoria. And the way people were rushing to turn on the TV and everybody gathered around to just listen. That was fun. That was fun. And then it was like, will Drake respond? Won't he? Dissecting everything. Like the. The anniversary of the. The Beef was a few weeks ago, and I kept seeing on social media that all these compilations of people reacting to hearing not like us for the first time. And it made me feel again what I felt like two years ago. It was the excitement of oh, my gosh. He came out with this so quickly. Oh, my gosh, he said this. Oh my gosh. It was there. And the pop out, which I am still will always give you credit, thank you, Van, for getting me and Kalika tickets without hesitation. And that was a moment that I will always cherish. And that excitement, there was excitement surrounding that too. So.

[B]

All right, so I wish I had better words sometimes. So I get what you're saying. There was a lot of energy, there was a lot of excitement, there were a lot of thrills.

[A]

It was fun.

[B]

But I guess what I'm talking about when I'm saying fun is this good feeling that the music somehow is providing this sonic catharsis that we are all together in enjoyment of. And there used to be. It feels like hip hop used to have that more so than it does now. It feels like now, just like everything else, our fun is in the fight. And it seems like before our fun used to be in the celebration that this music, the purpose of this music. There's always been competition in hip hop. Always been competition. I think the fact that there's so much competition in hip hop is probably a reason why things have gotten to the way that they are. I don't know if hip hop, because it's so competitive, is conducive to artists having long runs. They used to talk about hip hop in the fact that you only got five years, you only got three years, you only got six years. I think that was probably healthy. It was probably healthy not for the artist individually, but it was probably healthy for hip hop culture. It's probably healthy for rap culture, particularly mainstream rap culture, because it's kind of like the NBA. There starts to be diminishing returns if a team is on top for 10 years straight. There starts to be diminishing returns in football, if a team is on top for nine, 10, 11 years straight. Now, because things are so competitive, that chokes off new blood. It changes the media ecosystem. Rather than having a conversation about music, we're having dick riding competitions or hating competitions. We're not talking about it in good faith anymore. It's like if you wanted a good faith assessment of Drake's album, like, where would you go? Half the people are on his nuts, the other half are outright hating. Who is the last bastion of people that. That just listen to something and go, let me help you contextualize it. And I feel like all of this is kind of a contagion that's just not making it as much fun as it used to be.

[A]

Can I ask you this? Is it not as fun for you because you're not like a super fan of anybody right now that's putting out? Could it be that? And the reason I ask you that is because after the whole beef and after the pop out, I. Despite the other conversations that we've had recently, I am a big Tyler the Creator fan. And when Chromacopia dropped, which was also 2024, it had been three years since an album, it dropped. And then Camp Flognog was right there. That was so exciting. If you were a fan, you not only did you just get this music, now you get to see him perform it. And, like, there was so much, if you're a fan of that, of him, so much excitement around that. And I remember, like, I mean, you know, we joked I was probably like the oldest person in camp, but I. But I was a fan of it, and I was really, really excited to. Not just. I had just listened to it and now I get to experience it. So I guess that's why I say, is it because maybe there's not somebody that you're so into like that that you're anticipating the album or excited when they drop something by surprise? Because I think I just experienced fun two years ago with that. I mean, he dropped another album, but that. That just like the turnaround of it from the concert, from the. From the drop to the concert, it was a really fun time for me as a fan also.

[B]

I'm old. Let's face it. I'm older. I'm old. I am the first, maybe the second generation of, like, hip hop fans. So when I started listening to rap, it's. Cause I'm on the bus and like, the bus. This was a bus that, like, was going to Miss Diggs house in Dallas. Like, we lived in Dallas for a little while.

[A]

Okay. Yes, I remember.

[B]

And we're going to Ms. Diggs house in Dallas. Ms. Diggs used to keep kids. So you would get on. It wasn't really a bus. It was like a van. So you would leave T.L. marcellus Elementary School.

[A]

You went to Marcellus?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. You would leave that place. Boy, the Texas indoctrination was something else, by the way. I just remember being a young kid and having to sing. And we've talked about this deep in the heart of Texas all the time, having to, like, do a program.

[C]

Sorry.

[D]

That night.

[B]

And my dad hated that shit. My dad would be like, hey, you from the bayou. All right. It's like, hey, you brought me here. I'm Here. So Teal Marcellus. So I remember leaving that. We get. We get on the bus, go to Ms. Diggs house, and somebody in the back of the bus goes, nobody can rap quite like I can. I take a muscle bound, man. I'm like, oh shit, what the fuck is going on? And from then, rap was in my life. And I was having fun with rap. Rap was fun, man. Don't matter who you liked or who you didn't like. MC Hammer was fun. Eric B and Rakim was fun. Rob Bass was fun. Me and my man Drico used to be around there doing Rob Bass, you know, doing the whole. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. And then the west coast guys came out and it was dangerous, but it was still a lot of fun. It was a lot of joy. A lot of joy. And maybe joy is the term that I'm looking for. Okay, maybe it's joy and. And hip hop has been a joyous part of my life since then. Dmx, even that very hardcore music, everything that was coming out of Yonkers, all of that stuff, it was still animating. And I was still. I was. It was like. And now it just seems like we get this shit and get it out there and it's a fucking drag, man. Everybody mad, everybody talking they shit, everybody's so wound up. We try to even have cultural conversations based around it. And pitchforth come out, everybody's like, look, they're gagging on the dick. Gagging on the dick. It's like, to me, it is. To me, it's like, this shit is just not. And I'm older, so maybe I'm older,

[A]

you're older, and it's social media, right? We didn't have all of that. So, like, you listen to it and you talk about it, you hear it on the radio, you talk about it with your friends and your friend group. Like, it's not as. It's not litigated. Cause you're not as connected all the same way. But age, I think, has a big thing to do with it. Z Corner. Do y' all get excited about music? Well, hip hop, yeah, absolutely.

[E]

I always get excited when.

[A]

What's the last album you got excited over?

[E]

I mean, I was excited for Iceman, Drake, you.

[A]

I'm Drake Jay. You ripped it apart.

[E]

I did, but that's because I was genuinely, like, you let down. I was let down, but I was genuinely excited for it.

[A]

Okay.

[E]

Now, I'm also a Tyler fan, so Chromacopia was probably. I was. I. I went to the. I Went to that listening party that he had at. It was so fun.

[B]

I feel like I. With Tyler. I love Tyler. I think Tyler is legitimately a visionary, but I think the visual stylings of all of that stuff kind of outweigh the musical impact that it has a

[A]

lot of, oh, he's just not one of us. He's just not a fan. For real.

[B]

I'm just for real. I mean, I think that. I think right now that Tyler the creator has a 50 year career ahead of him. Well, he's a 30, 40, whatever. I hope he lives to be 190 years old as like a music video director and all of that stuff like that. But like, just about records, just about, like songs. I don't know how many, like just records and songs are gonna go crazy with Tyler the creator that are gonna like a hold a whole summer down or something like that. Is that a thing? Am I wrong about that?

[E]

I mean, I do think Chroma Copia had that effect, for sure.

[B]

Yeah, I like that.

[E]

I think his last album, not necessarily, but I honestly, I feel like I still get genuinely excited about music. It's just, I think now there's less of a purity to hip hop. I think that there was before and a more like, rootedness. I don't even know how to explain it, but I do think social media plays a big part in that.

[B]

You know, like, I will directly critique one talking point that has come out in the last five or six years. The idea that the party had to stop, that the party had to die. You've heard that like, hey, the party gotta end. No more parties in la. All of that. Stuff like that, man, hip hop needs the party. Like, we need the party. Hey, the vibes are down right now. The vibes are down right now. This summer, we need to keep our eyes on what's happening all over this world and in this country. But this summer, these sisters need to be out here and they need to be able to shake some ass and have some fun and release the trauma that's in their hips. And I need to be able to drink these new flavors of Hennessy that are coming out that have me very excited for the summer. By the way, that's how old I am. I'm very excited for Peach tea for Hennessy and I need to be out in places where I can be real.

[A]

This is what we're doing, talk to

[B]

people and watch people have a great experience.

[E]

But I really think that's already happening.

[A]

This is what we're doing.

[E]

I was at Everyday People.

[A]

That was just. I just see Everyday People. I was just gonna say Everyday People

[B]

is the best party.

[A]

June 14th is the next Everyday People.

[E]

It was so fun.

[A]

I say we get a higher learning sponsor table. When I went last time, I had a blast. We get a sponsored table and you will get every single thing you just said you wanted at everyday interview. We're going, we're going. Van's gonna buy us a table. We're gonn. I'm very excited. June 14th.

[B]

But I also want, you know, and this is why. Shout out to Mouse.

[A]

We gonna come in Monday.

[B]

Shout out to Mouse Jones. Shout out to. Shout out to Mouse Jones. Because he does trap karaoke. So people are out there having a good time. I want people to know that, that, that's very important that we say that, that people are out there having a good time. But a lot of these conversations that we're having around the music, we've always had them the same conversation that people are having about Iceman as it relates to Drake. When Blueprint two came out, I remember like arguing with my friends. We didn't have a lot of the same language that we use now. We weren't calling things cope and whatever. But Jay came out like, can't you see that he's fake? The rapper version of T.D. jake's prophesizing all his CDs and tapes. Jay was talking about how I put dollars on mine. Asked Columbine when the Twin Towers dropped, who was the first in line? And we were listening to that. We were like, is Jay Z, like, trying to convince us that he's a good guy? Because Nas, shredding apart on ether and said that he was a fake was like, is Jay Z. Are these therapy bars? Is this. Is this what happened? Like, what's going on? But Blueprint 2 had so much other stuff on it that, like, we said that for a second and then we moved on to the shit that we liked about the motherfucking album. And now it seems like we are just completely stuck in these many culture wars, intra community culture wars around this stuff that at the end of the day is supposed to make us feel good. I'm not saying that any of these narratives. I know every conversation is the most important conversation. And we got to talk about cultural authenticity and purity. And I'm one of the worst offenders of that. I understand it, but God damn it, man, if I don't just want to listen to some and chill.

[A]

Yeah, all right.

[B]

I'm going to be listening to the hot boys. Get it? How you live for the rest of my life if they don't change it up. I just. I don't know, I just thought about it, man. Like, for. Somehow me and one of my homeboys just was talking about the summer of 2015 in LA and it just made us sad because, like, we were. It was going crazy, Whatever.

[A]

I wasn't here.

[B]

Now it's like everybody, every day, dick riding people. Nobody is really giving it. No one is up. That commercial came out. The Drake, Kevin Durant commercial. I watched the commercial. That's funny. It's funny. It's a funny commercial. But, like, I have a lot of people in my life that are staunchly on different sides of this. It's like, oh, this is the problem with everything. It's a fucking joke. The joke is that this is the way people are and this is the way things are. And like, normalizing glazing is crazy because glazing means nigga, basically the nut in your face. So, like, that is. That's a choice. But I'm just. I thought this shit was funny.

[F]

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[B]

Hey, man, I don't know. I'm just. Well, now we have to get to real shit. This is the shit that we should be arguing about. Not no motherfucking hip hop records. Okay? Now this is the shit that we should be arguing about. Donnie.

[G]

Primaries. Let's talk about them. Trump got more wins in Republican primaries on Tuesday, most notably Kentucky, where Representative Tom Massie was defeated by Trump endorsed candidate L. Gallerain. Six states voted with results looking skewed to the Republican Party, voters in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon and Pennsylvania chose their party nominees, setting the stage for November matchups for Senate, governor and key House seats. Where were you guys? Takeaways from this week's primaries.

[A]

Did you think it was gonna be any different? I think, let me say this, I think because we're constantly, you watch news, politics, all that, and they're constantly talking about how low Trump's approval rating is. So I think that there were some people who might have thought that the primaries may have gone a little different, but those approval ratings include everybody, right? So the Republicans are still high on Trump, and that's evident in these primaries. I don't think that this speaks to how the midterms are necessarily gonna go, because you don't know how independent voters and swing voters are gonna be. But the Republicans are still down for Trump, they're still loyal to Trump, no matter what has happened, how much of a deficit the country's in, how long we've been in this war that seems to not have any end in sight, the economy going to shit, inflation up, it doesn't matter. Republicans are still down for Trump. That's all the primaries really said to me. And if you go against him, people will vote against you. That's really what it showed to me.

[B]

What's Trump's number, his approval rating? Right now?

[A]

It's like 30 something.

[B]

37%. Yeah, it's an all time low 37%,

[A]

but that's combining everybody.

[B]

Well, here's the deal, though. Let's look at it, let's broaden it, widen the aperture. So when you look at that 37%, for things to be as dysfunctional as they are right now, because you're looking at basically three phases of dysfunction. You're looking at political dysfunction in dc, you're looking at foreign policy dysfunction, and you're looking at economic dysfunction. So in no way right now are we functional. Every part of the government has scandal and corruption, be it flying in planes, slush funds, all of this stuff that we're going to get into. And then you have a major foreign policy blunder in the Iran war right now that seeks to, or seeks to, threatens to make Iran a viable world power with their ability to choke off 20% of the world's energy or whatever. All of that. The 37% that still approve with Trump, they're ironclad. Ironclad. They're cemented. That's stone. I wonder how much lower that could possibly go. When we say what Percentage of MAGA ain't changing their minds. And we wonder whether or not it's 50% of the country. We say all the time, it's 50% of the country. We say half the country. We're actually wrong about that. It's probably more like 35%, because there can be some erosion inside of the Republican intelligentsia as well. So that 35 to 30%, 37% are represented in the approval rating. That's who we're talking about. Okay, then, in a primary, what type of person is going to be motivated to vote? And if you're Thomas Massie, particularly, you were having that debate, his political future was oriented around the question of could he raise rebellion in the Republican Party to beat the people who are not only not going to turn their backs on Trump, but are going to show up for him whenever he asks, are going to buy a phone, never get the fucking phone, are going to invest, like, all of that stuff, invest their money into stuff, never get their money. They have a religious belief in the president and will respond to his call in a primary. That's still going to win. Yeah, like that is still going to win. So what Massie was up against was that not only that, but a ridiculous funding push from AIPAC and Israel Lobby.

[A]

Right, Right.

[B]

So he was. But I don't even know if that is more important than the fact that there is this percentage of people. That's it. They're done. Their guy, what he says goes. They believe that their version of America, like who they are, what they are, is tied up in the ascension of Donald Trump, and they will never not believe that. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, the man who beat Ed. Whatever his last name is, who beat Massie, literally said, I am there to serve Trump and I will do whatever Trump needs me to do, period. That got him in, which is crazy, because Massie is still super conservative. And there's like, two, three things that he's pushed back on. And that doesn't matter, because it's all or nothing when it comes to that percentage of people in that base. When it comes to voting for people who are wanting to serve Trump, that's it. Massie did not serve him 100%. He served him 90%.

[B]

And he also had some really big breaks. And some of the really big breaks were obviously the Epstein stuff, and then Epstein war, deficit. Right. But those breaks are probably fundamental to Trump, like, so fundamental that they threaten his control over the party. If you're looking at this in terms of how it's going to play out in the midterms. I wouldn't take too much from it.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I agree.

[B]

I personally wouldn't take too much from it. You know that these 37%, whatever it is, people are going to be here. But. And this is always kind of the inconvenient thing. You don't win a presidential election with those people. You win a presidential election with the people that you can add on top of that cemented, locked in going along base. And Trump and the Republicans, the MAGA movement, have been able to do that largely with an anti immigration platform and with an economic platform.

[A]

No, I agree with you completely. In Texas particularly, and that's why I say you can't really, I agree with you. You can't just focus on the primaries. Crazy enough, Trump backed Ken Paxton not because he's like ultra maga and not John Cornyn, who John Cornyn, we know, pushed back a little bit, but then tried to crawl back something Massie didn't do. Massie pushed back and stayed with it. There are people who tried to push back and then tried to say, okay, that's not working for me. Let me just try to beg for Trump to forgive me and to work my way back into his good graces. Didn't work for John Corny. He ended up endorsing Ken Paxton, I think, and hope that that's gonna be a mistake. Ken Paxton is awful. He's been impeached. I mean, the Republican Senate turned it over in Texas. He has. His wife calls him a cheater. He's like anti biblical, which is a big thing. Like they're using that against him. Anti biblical. He's not anti biblical, but his adultery and his actions are being promoted as anti religion, which is very big in Texas. So I think that even though Trump supported or Kim Paxton is probably going to win the primary coming up in a couple of weeks in Texas with Trump's endorsement, I think that that's going to backfire, or at least I hope it is in the midterms. So I think that's why it's not telling. Because Kim, I think people are going to not vote in Texas. They'd rather not vote than vote for Kim Paxton when it comes to it. And that's why I think James Talarico might win that race.

[B]

Oh, you think Talarico is going to take it? I've been seeing him surging a little bit. Even some of the prediction markets, even

[A]

though John Cornyn has been deemed a Rhino. I think that Kim Paxton is so controversial that. That will motivate some people to just say, like, I don't want to vote at all. And that's why I think Talarico could pull it out.

[B]

Talarico, according to. Was it Paxton or Cornwall and.

[A]

Well, yeah, mind you, the primary hasn't happened yet, but people are assuming with the endorsement of Trump now, which people were shocked by. They thought he would endorse no one. Or Cornyn, that now Paxton will win.

[B]

Well, I mean, they're taking aim at Talarico. The question is, Talarico surges the black maternal mortality initiative he put forward. Can Talarico do two things? Number one, can he be Texas enough? Ha ha. Texas. We like our guns. We like our bathrooms for gender. Get out of my bathroom. I'm from Texas. Pew. Pew. Okay. Can he be Texas enough? And then can he. He gonna have to put on some dashiki.

[A]

He's not gonna put on. That's not gonna help.

[B]

He gonna have to. I'm telling A. Don't listen to her. Tellariko. You're going to have to electric slide on Juneteenth. You got to come kiss the ring. I'm telling you right now. You got to come kiss the ring, man. You got to go to the AME church.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Houston and Dallas. And what's his part like? You gotta. I'm telling you right now, right now, bro. Cha Cha slide. Whatever you do, he need to scout up. Trade the truth. Reach out to Trade the truth.

[A]

That's not a bad idea.

[B]

Reach out to Trey. The truth. Reach out to Bun B.

[A]

When's his day? When's that day?

[B]

Trade the truth day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Trey Day go to Trey Day. Talarico go to Trey Day. Do a tnt. Trey and Talarico. You gotta do all of this. You gotta pander a little bit, bruh. Cause you got the sisters hot.

[A]

July 17 to July 21. Trade a weekend.

[B]

Talariko and trade A together. You gotta go do it. He's got to do a lot of things. Like, you know how they go to. You know, sometimes I see white politicians and they'll go to a soul food restaurant and they'll try to peach cobbler. And I see their eyes buck with the sugar. I see it affect them. And they go, that's some good ass shit right there, my nigga. That's what Talarico got to do. He got to drop some. He might need to go.

[A]

That's not a bad idea.

[B]

He definitely should go. This is so. So he's got to go down there enjoying with the people and he also probably. Probably needs to figure out a way to. And I don't know how you do this, but communicate with Jasmine Crockett in a way that makes people feel like, I know she'll be down.

[A]

Yeah, I hope she goes down and campaigns with him.

[B]

That has to happen.

[A]

Yeah, it has to. I completely agree. I thought about that, too. I was thinking about that. Cause I saw her campaigning for Becerra, and I was like, for us to turn Texas, like, yeah, we all gotta come together.

[B]

Cassidy lost in Louisiana, and now he started to.

[A]

He's like a corny.

[B]

To vote for things that he should have been voting for before. You know, here's the thing with Cassidy or any of these people. If your nuts have to get cut for you to find them, then you probably never had much nuts in the first place. If you can't find your nuts while they're still on your body, if somebody's got to cut them off and show them to you for you to assert them, then it doesn't mean very much. Okay. I'm just saying, like, all of these. All of these sayings that my dad and my uncles used to say. I try.

[A]

Is that one of them?

[B]

Oh, my dad used to say, if your nuts gotta get cut for you to find them, you never had no nuts in the first place. He said, your nuts only matter when they own your body. Somebody gotta cut your nuts for you to find them. Like, meaning, nigga beat down to everything. Now you wanna. Nah, you can't drop your nuts after somebody didn't cut them. They gotta stay on. And that's kind of the way I look at that. But these primaries, I mean, if you're Donald Trump, you're gonna.

[A]

Of course this is a win. That's the headline for him. He's touting this as a win. And, I mean, it does show that he is still powerful within his party because the people that opposed him, the people who turned against him, he pushed them out. That makes him feel powerful, and he is in that way. But will that translate into the midterms? Probably not.

[B]

Tough.

[A]

At least we hope not.

[B]

All right, breaking Donny. The DNC's 2024 autopsy came out obtained by CNN.

[G]

Right. CNN is publishing a copy of the report, which goes into why the Democrats lost. The 2024 presidential election is conducted at the request of Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin. This version of the report, better known as the 2024 autopsy, was written by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera. The DNC withheld the report until presented with CNN's reporting about a lot of his contents. You guys read and dug into this. What'd you think about it?

[B]

Read as much as we could. This is coming out right now. I read a lot of reports on it, tried to get into it as much as I could. The document basically talks about a couple of different aspects of the failed bid to get the presidency back. Talks about the fact that it says, should I say that Biden's White House failed to adequately promote Harris politically? I think that's prior to her deciding to run. They didn't position her as a power in the party. We had already heard that there was some dissatisfaction, satisfaction, should I say dissatisfaction from the Harris team over the way they were being positioned inside of the administration. It also said that Democrats are too closely associated with identity politics that that damages the party's brand. Also said that Democrats should spend money earlier in election cycles. It said that on Trump, the campaign and its allies failed to remind voters of his incompetence. And it included an annotation calling the idea that Trump's negatives were baked in a major failure of analysis and reality. So it seems that according to the autopsy, the Democrats thought that they didn't have to do much work on Trump because Trump's identity was so well established that people would know one more thing and then we'll talk about some of the things that are missing from here. The report suggests that replacing Biden with Harris helped down ballot. Democrats say that Biden was so weak at the time that he was running that things would have been worse down ballot if not for switching Biden out with Kamala Harris. It doesn't really go into Biden's decision to run again in the first place, which is ridiculous. It does not extensively evaluate his support for Israel, which I think is one of the main things that people would have wanted from this. Okay, because the DNC's that's significant. But because the DNC's internal findings, according to a source with knowledge of the report, concede that the Biden administration's support for Israel played a large role in Harris losing votes. I think I'm just reading some stuff here, but I think if I was to say that plainly, we all know that by the time it got deep into the race, that the genocide question in Israel and the freedom of the Palestinian people and their self dignity, their self determination, should I say the dignity and self determination that was a major thorn in the side to the Kamala Harris campaign.

[A]

Hmm. Are you surprised by anything? I'm like reading it now as it's breaking news too. Are you surprised by anything that came out with this? I think. And here, I guess, here's my other thing, I guess. One, are you surprised at anything they said or did anything stand out to you? And two, does this really do anything for the party? This reports out. It's telling you the failures of the party. Is it really going to resonate and be effective in any kind of way for the upcoming election?

[B]

Huh?

[A]

And can I tell you why I asked that? Because I'm not surprised by any of the stuff that I'm reading. And again, like, this is just breaking. So I'm just like, you know, consuming this now. But nothing is shocking to me and it's nothing that people at least since 2024 election have been saying messaging. We are too spread too thin. Like, we need to be very clear on what it is that we're saying. Focusing so much on Trump, you could almost say that the obsession that MAGA has with making him their religious leader, we're almost the other side was equally obsessed leading up about being anti him rather than actually listening to what people are saying they need, which is why they lost ground with some of these key groups. Because the focus or obsession, I could say, became so Trump so bad rather than you're not looking at what people are actually telling you that they need. And maybe they were. But there are just so many issues where it's just so simple with the Republicans. Why are you looking at me like that? I do not like the way you were slouched over picking your beard like that. I'm like, what are you thinking?

[B]

No, I think that the question that you asked is profound. I really do. I think the question that you asked is, does it matter if you know what's wrong with you? And that's a question that we ask ourselves all the time. The reason why we encourage people to go to therapy, the reason why we encourage people to go on journeys of self discovery is so that they can understand their trauma and what's not working for them. But there is an expectation that once people know that, that they act on it, that they don't take the therapy speak that they learn or the coping mechanisms that they learn and deepen their own dysfunction, there's a thought and an expectation that they want to be better. And so if we are handed a document which by the way, in and of itself is incomplete, got all kinds of factual errors, spelling errors, all of this stuff, even the way they put this document out, denotes deep dysfunction in the Democratic Party, right? But let's Put all of that to the side. If we are handed a document that tells a party what's wrong with them or what they did wrong and they don't care, what are we saying about them? We're saying that they're okay being wrong, that wrong is working for them for whatever reason, then the question that you would have to ask yourself is why? Because the question of why right is not being done is an easy one. The question of why wrong being done still works is fundamental to understanding a dysfunctional society. And I'm not gleaning all of that from this document. I'm saying if we all know the things that would be in a document like this, and we know the things that are not in a document like this, this being those things relating to Israel or relating to other things that they don't want to talk about. Right. Then why should we expect the Democrats to be better? If we know that they know, they know that we know, and nothing is changing, then aren't we being stupid?

[A]

Well, let's make matters worse. This creation of this autopsy, it's not even the final product. That's what your DNC chair is saying, says that there are blank sections, it's disorganized, and it fails to cite and source the things that it is saying led to the loss of the 2024 election. So why is it put out?

[B]

Well, it's put out because there was a tremendous amount of pressure to have it put out.

[A]

But isn't. But is that not problematic? So let's. So, because. So, because. But that's what I'm saying. To your point, even more so. Right. Why are we rushing something out with pressure that we don't even know if what it's saying is true? Because it's not properly sourced and researched and they didn't conduct interviews or supporting data from. For the assertions that are made within this 200 pages, sections are blank. So, like, are we not just repeating the same thing? We're putting it out for the. You're pressuring people to put it out for what reason?

[B]

Well, the reason why is that's not

[A]

what the public is necessarily asking for. I don't want you to. I don't want you to rush it. So what's the point of this if it's, if it's not properly done?

[B]

Well, number one, it should have been done properly a long time ago. Number two, there are a lot of people who are fucking scared.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And there's a lot of dysfunction that they have witnessed. When we talked about some of Trump's domestic failings. We forgot about ice. We forgot about government shutdowns. We are forgetting about a lot of this body blows that we have been taking for a while just because this hip hop music is not allowing us to have any escapist fun anymore. All right. But anyway, and so I think people want an accounting of how we got here. And part of that accounting is in how the Democrats lost.

[A]

But that's what I was saying. People want that. Right? And we should. And if they're scared because they wanna know how we lost, are you not even more scared that they just threw something out there just to give it to you, for the sake of giving you? And you still aren't telling us exactly why we lost? This is so problematic.

[B]

Can I ask you a question, though?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

What if the fact that you believe in the Democrats in the first, first place is the reason why you're here? That's that. Okay, look, so everybody about to get mad. It. I see the tiktoks, by the way. I appreciate like, I see them. I see the tiktoks, I see all the tiktoks. I see people mad that I endorse butch wear, people upset. I see it all. And by the way, I think it's fucking fair. I think it's fair. I think it's fair right now for people who are afraid, afraid to ask questions about where they're going to get protection. So if you're mad that I am moving to the left and you think that there is no community or synergy in your protection with my worldview, I think the questions that you are asking are completely fair. And I would love to have those conversations. But when I look at something like this and we're having the conversation that we are right, what I think is they can't even tell people with honesty, effectiveness. Honesty or effectiveness, I always look for that third word that fucks me up. They can't tell people with honesty or effectiveness why they lost. They don't seem to be interested in having an actual conversation about the deficiencies of the party. So maybe it's a belief in them, in the place first, first place that have put you in this position. And so that frustrates me when I'm having to have a. When I'm trying to have a conversation that adequately examines the Democrats, not as the group that stands on the heel with swords in opposition to what Donald Trump is doing. Not the watchers of the gate of democracy, the white knights of bodily autonomy. Me, I'm talking about effectiveness of a Political machine. I'm talking about what fucking actually happened.

[F]

Right.

[B]

Not about. Not a van is. No, no, I understand. I'm from Louisiana. They're redrawing my state, painting it red. That red to me is blood. The red that my state is being painted, gerrymandered, that's blood to me. When I see that, I see blood. I see blood spilled on that soil by enslaved people. I see blood spilled on that soil by people that march so they could get up and go get their fucking vote. And it pisses me the fuck off. Right. I get mad, too. I understand it. But I'm wondering, I think everybody should be wondering if there's another option besides putting our faith to stop that in a political movement that seems irreparably broken.

[A]

Yeah, it feels that way. I think that what you pose is correct. I think that's why you have to keep not accepting what you're being told and keep pushing for what it is that you actually want and need. And if that pushes you to the left, if that makes you vote for someone who isn't on the ticket and you have to write it in, if that makes you just say, hey, I'm going to constantly be demanding from my. From the Democrat who runs my area, or whatever it may be, demand that they change and do something different, or I will take my vote somewhere, whatever it may be. I just think that, yeah, we should be questioning these things. We shouldn't just take what they're giving us. And I don't think we are. I don't think we are at this point.

[B]

Well, I don't think you are. But my thing is, the way I look at it, is the very least you could do is kick their ass till they get it right. But that, to me, doesn't seem like what a large portion of the center Democratic establishment wants. What they want is a version of what Trump has. What they want is a version to where, like, Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. They love that. They want you to fall in line. They want you to fall in line. They want you to want the best, but accept the middle or maybe even the worst. They want you to be like, hey, you know what? I'll settle for 5% freedom, because 5% freedom is better than what the other side is offering. It's an odd thing because the moment that you start interrogating or having conversations about the political ideas that you're getting from the established left of this country, which is the Democratic Party, all you get from, really, their constituency is razors. You don't get any good faith conversation, a good faith conversation that you would think you would get with people who are more politically, I guess, curious, the ones who don't believe in just choking off people's votes or taking their rights away. You would think that you would be able to have a conversation with them about what freedom actually is and how. But increasingly, probably because of fear, 100%, probably because of fear, probably because of what they're seeing increasingly, they're just saying, and I get it. I just want this political experiment done.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I want MAGA done.

[A]

They do, yeah. And I get it.

[B]

And I understand that if that means Gavin Newsom, if that means Gavin Newsom, if that means whomever, if that means electing a billionaire, yeah, I mean, I'll do it.

[A]

And you see it happening right now for the people who promoted Jill Stein. You see the conversation happening right now. I mean, how many times are you seeing people's names like a Mark Lamont Hill thrown out there? Who are the other names we're seeing out there?

[B]

A lot of them.

[A]

Oh, you don't wanna name em.

[B]

I'm not throwing anybody under the bus for.

[A]

No, it's not throwing anybody under the bus for. They like an Eddie Glau Jr. It's not throwing them under the bus. These people, it's out there. These people stood in it. They voted for what they believed. And I'm not throwing it in their face. I'm just saying, to your point of fear of, well, I don't want to happen again, what happened? We split the vote. I just got to make sure that whatever I do, I'm voting to get that out and we'll deal with the rest later. I understand why people say that. Sometimes I feel that way. I am so scared of having another four, eight years of what we've had when we know that already in two years what's been done. It would take at the very least like 30 years and a packed court to even make changes. The damage is done and the loss of which is what's so crazy. Trump obviously got into office saying you can't trust the government and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's so much corruption and I'm gonna do all these things, the whole populism message, and that's exactly what he's doing now. So I also say that to say I think there is a fear of. There's just so much corruption. We don't trust anything right now. So I get why people want to vote for the establishment. I really, really do. So I don't fault them from it because I have the same fear that you have. I really do.

[B]

Well, look, this is what I will

[A]

say, but I'm still not voting for Becerra.

[B]

Hold on. This is what I'll say. I actually do agree with you in that regard. I do agree with you. I think it's fair. When I'm talking to my super lefty friends, and Mark Lamont Hill is one of them, when I'm talking to them, I think it's fair to ask questions that make them uncomfortable. For example, ask. The question is, do you feel like if you wouldn't have stumped for Jill Stein or Butch Ware or whomever it is, do you think that. And don't say it broadly, ask the question specifically. Do you think that Renee Good would be alive? I mean, think about that. Because legitimately, when we think about the election of Donald Trump, and I think this is part of the plan, when we think about the election of Donald Trump, we think about it in terms of numbers, which everything that we get now are numbers. And as our brains become more addicted to digital things, numbers actually become a little bit less. Less. Like, for example, less important. For example, somebody comes out and they say, if we take it back to the Drake thing, they go, Drake had 150 billion streams and all that. What does that really mean? Right? There used to be a different experience that we will put to music consumption. So somebody had to go out and buy a cd. You had to buy a cd. You had to take the rapping off of the cd. You have to open the cd, you have to read the credits of the cd. You have to have almost an experience with it. Yeah, you did so have an experience. When they said that a million people did that in one week, you would be like, shit. A million people went out and just did that same thing. Like, they gave a little something up to experience this music. They had to drive, they had to wait in traffic, they had to go wait in line a lot of times to get all of this stuff. It just felt different, right? Felt different. Now, you know that a stream. Not that that's not impressive, because it is impressive, but a stream is just hitting play on a device that you already have. It took you a half a second to do it, right?

[A]

No effort.

[B]

And the reason why I'm saying that is because a lot of the numbers that we get when we're talking about, like, political dysfunction, I think they're starting to wash over us because we're looking at them in the same way that we look at everything that pops up on this computer screen. But when you're talking about the fact that somebody died and it's gone forever, like 200 people killed in Iran, like schoolgirls killed because of a decision that

[A]

the President made, like people still getting bombed in Palestine.

[B]

Like people still getting bombed in Palestine. The reason why that cut through is because the numbers of people getting bombed were alongside of pictures of emaciated babies and like people under and mothers crying. And there's a human experience to it. So I think it's fair to ask the question, does your political project then give way to Donald Trump and then Donald Trump does these things that all this carnage happens, right? And people actually die and get thrown in jail and get shipped off to other countries and put jail, all of that's fair. But I'll tell you what though, if the response is it's actually not me that did that, it's actually the failure of the center of the party. It's the failure not of a couple of voices that said we should experiment voting left to vote for humanistic principles and practices. Actually it's the multi billion dollar political industry that can't mount a sufficient challenge to someone who is so historically unpopular, but yet keeps getting them when it matters most. I think that's a pretty robust answer to that question. Although I do think that the question should be asked.

[A]

I agree with you. I agree with you. And something else you just said before we move on, we'll stop talking about after this, I guess. But you said when you look at your computer, whatever it is, that you're looking at your phone, your device and you see all these things pop up and it almost just becomes. You become desensitized to it. It's so much. And you said something earlier when you were talking about how so we. You mentioned ice and what happened and how like, I mean that obviously was devastating and it had such tragic effects of it and still happening, but so much stuff is happening that you almost move past that to focus on the next thing we have to keep. You just said Renee, good. And it kind of like shook me a little bit. Cuz it's not because I forgot, it's just, wow, we've moved on to the next Trump thing. And even if Trump is distracting us with a slush fund, that means he's doing five other things over here. And somehow we, as we move forward to the midterms into the next election, we have to keep these things, things front of mind. People have lost their lives, their livelihood, you know, like their well being with their, with life in general. Like they can't afford to exist within this country and so many things keep happening and we just keep moving on to the next thing and somehow, and I don't know how to do it, we just have to keep it all front of mind because I mean, we talk about this every day and still when you said that, it like stopped me in my tracks.

[B]

No, I think what you're saying is the way people feel and I think all of these conversations are on the table and have to be on the table. I think we should have them with a little bit more bravery and maybe especially if we all want the same thing. This comes from my friends on the far left, right, and the people to the right of them and to the right of me inside of this coalition. We have to have these conversations a little bit more substantively and with a little bit more charity. At least with each other. At least with each other. Cuz if not, the whole thing is fucked.

[A]

And maybe we need to start having these private conversations so then maybe we can come together and fight the fight in a way that they are not aware of.

[H]

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[A]

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[B]

or at least understand what our expectations are. I agree. All right, we're going to Come back to politics. But let's take a break real quick and do something else.

[A]

What do you want to do?

[B]

I don't know, like, what else we. Oh, should we do? Should we do? Because it's all politics today, guys. We got Jeff Bezos.

[A]

Maybe we won't hit everything, but.

[B]

Well, let's. Let's do. Let's do Chelsea Handler. Let's do race.

[A]

Let's do race. What we do best.

[G]

Let's do race. Yeah. Chelsea spoke to Dion Cole on his podcast Funny. Knowing you specifically, this thing went viral where she talked about the Kevin Hart roast and how certain jokes rubbed her the wrong way.

[D]

And I knew they would be lazy because they do that for a living. And I. I knew enough about, like, Tony Hinchcliffe and Shane and their backgrounds.

[A]

I had girls.

[D]

Ex girlfriends blowing up my DMs that had dated Shane and were telling me stuff about him. So based on that, I was like, oh, these guys are pretty bad.

[B]

So you had something on him that you was gonna. You could have tell us now, what's his. Shane.

[D]

It's just everything we know that they're racist, that they're bigots, that they're sexist. You know, that they think they're, like, invincible. It was. Ick. It was gross. I don't find those jokes to be funny. Jokes about lynching black people or, like, lynching is not a joke. It's not. That's worse than rape. Like, you're not joking about rape, are you. Are you saying, I'm gonna go rape you? You know, you can't do that, but you can say lynching. Like, I find that to be. I don't know. You know, people are like, it's a roast. You go for it. I'm like, you can go for it without being gross. Like, I find that to be gross. I found them making fun of Cheryl Underwood's, like, dead husband who committed suicide.

[B]

Like, her skin color.

[D]

You know, she's fine with that. If she says she's fine with that, she's fine with that. I wasn't fine with that.

[B]

Huh. Okay, first of all, okay, whatever.

[A]

Cause you. You know, it's. When we talked about it on the last or right after the roast, I hadn't seen the full episode, but my opinion is still the same in that I think that, you know, we talked about. We at least played the Tony Hinchcliffe a segment of what he said, and I'm like, it's hard to say. Oh, it's just all in jest. Because there are many things that he does. That are racist.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So for me, and you're like, you have a different. I'll let you speak for yourself, but you have a different take on it. For me, it is not a roast. If you are disguising your racism within the roast. He's really not disguising it, but you're, You're. You're hiding it under the fact that, oh, well, this is just a roast. I am glad that Chelsea finally said it because there have been many of comedians that have come out well that have been against it that didn't participate. I loved what Michael Che had to say that didn't participate. And then there are the comedians that did participate who defended what happened at the roast. And I am glad to see that somebody who was up on that panel was pretty much disgusted by the jokes coming from Tony and Shane. I have seen Shane be funny before. I actually did not think he did a good job. That good of a job hosting it. I thought the funniest thing he said was, this is black excellence. I'm the one who's host a white guy's hosting a black man's roast. After that, it just felt she had. She hit the nail on the head for me when she said lazy. I think that. And I actually said this when I was watching it with someone, I was like, just the jokes about, like, your skin's dark and you're black and like, it just. It is lazy. Like, you're, you're a professional comedian. And these felt like your mama jokes almost to me. Like, it just was so simple in what they were doing. And there was no regard for the fact that, you know, Kevin Hart is a black man and you're roasting him. But it's also, like, an honor to have it on this stage and in this way. And to me, Chelsea said exactly how I felt about the whole thing. And I was happy that somebody was bold enough to actually say it and not say, oh, like a roast is different. Like, this is what you do. Everything is off limits. I actually don't believe what some of those people are saying. I just think, or I don't think they believe it is what I should say.

[B]

You think Kevin Hart believes it?

[A]

I think that some of that stuff bothered them. I can't say which joke. Obviously, this is all an assumption, but some of it was so much. And it was over and over and over again that I don't know how some of it you didn't say, like, even when he was laughing and then for. Even when Katt Williams came Out. Cause at the time we talked about it, I hadn't seen Katt Williams. So Katt Williams came out. He kind of alluded to. He. What did he say? The first thing, he was like, I'm the only one with a soul or something like this up here. He was alluding to what was going on, kind of staying true to himself in all of it. So for me, I just feel like people are putting the profession first because maybe they fear that it'll come back on them or it'll affect them professionally, but there is no way that black people on that stage were okay with everything that was being said.

[B]

Okay, so the Cat point is interesting because Cat descended in like a fly ass alien, then got the fuck up out of there.

[A]

And he was even. Do you remember you saw him running back and forth?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was like, what is he doing after you got off stage?

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Cat.

[B]

A cat exists outside of that particular comedy matrix. It feels like. It feels like Cat's one of the guys that has this direct tether to the community. I posted Ali Siddiq on. He had just Funny.

[A]

What did he say? Well, he goes on Kill Tony.

[B]

He goes on Kill Tony. I didn't know that. He goes on Kill Tony.

[A]

He has at least once. Interesting.

[B]

Okay, so look, this is the deal. I haven't really changed any opinion that I have about this. And the only reason why is. Because you're a comedian. No, no, no, that's not your. It's because, like, I'll give you an example. Okay. When Flagrant did the black women jokes in front of shits and giggles. Right. Remember that?

[A]

Yeah. Spoke out about it.

[B]

Right. And we talked about the fact that. That we're talking about stereotypes and all of that stuff. And we're getting into it and not stereotypes. We're degrading black women. We're making black women unsafe. I think that's always a conversation to have, particularly when those jokes are being made on a podcast like that in front of two black men who aren't comedians, just to see how they respond to it. Right. That was Flagrant's brand. So the way I looked at that, if the way I am, I looked at that and like, how are they going to respond to, like, that joke? Do you think you need to respond to that joke or would you just laugh along with it? Now in this situation, I still am really conflicted about it for two reasons, even with the Chelsea Handler thing. Number one, she doesn't like those guys, particularly her and Shane. And the joke that Shane made About her right before she went up there was fucking brutal, right? It was a brutal joke. And it was so brutal that he really didn't have to say very much about it. He just goes, chelsea Handler. Chelsea Handler is a Zionist. I'm not saying that's good or bad. And then he goes, speaking of. He said something else.

[A]

And he goes, he says, I'm about children.

[B]

Said something about children. He goes, speaking of children with shrimp in their mouth, he goes, chelsea Handler went to a dinner with Jeffrey Epstein and like seven people. And then he just lets that breathe. And then he goes, woody Allen and Prince Andrew were there. Here's Chelsea Handler. And like that right there, he, like, that is just a devastating indictment of anything that she could possibly say that would seem righteous, like. And so before you even go up there, I wondered how it would feel to go up there after, number one, someone had called you a Zionist and then connected you to dead kids. And then at the same time said, hey, this was somebody who went to a very intimate Jeffrey Epstein. That doesn't mean anything about Chelsea Handler, I suppose, but it is just a fucking nuclear bomb to drop on that stage like that. So part of what she's saying right there, particularly about Shane, is because there's something between them. Like, part of like she alluded to the fact that she did work on Shane and called Shane's girlfriends and stuff like that. I do not know. Shane Gillis have no relationship with Shane Gillis or any of that stuff. So I'm saying there's a part of that right there that's just like comedian

[A]

versus she said they reached out to her.

[B]

Okay, fine, cool. There's a part of that that's actually a very important distinction. There's a part of that that's just comedian versus comedian bullshit. Tony Hinchcliff doesn't tell jokes. Tony Hinchcliffe says racist shit in spaces where people, I guess, aren't expecting to hear it, like at the Trump rally and stuff like that. And just says, here's the worst thing I can fucking say. It's not going to be funny, but I am going there. And people go, oh. And I guess they laugh. I've never laughed at Tony Hitchcliff one time. I've never laughed at him. I've never laughed at Tony Hitchcliff.

[A]

Well, my friend's husband is a comedian and she's like, when Tony is on the ticket, he always bombs, right?

[B]

I've never laughed at him. Never laughed at him. I think he's a creation of the Rogan Sphere mothership kind of Whole deal. And Kill Tony is something that, like, you know, features a lot of other comedians. But I will say is this, though. It's like, I get the way those jokes made me feel, the way jokes make me feel. But, like, it's hard to have that conversation. It's hard to have the conversation about Tony Hinchcliffe and Shane Gillis or whoever else was up there and not have a conversation about the fact that this is how Kevin Hart wanted his roast.

[A]

So help me understand, because this is. And I think that this is, like, really good for the audience, too, because one, there's the picture of the writers.

[B]

They wrote the stuff.

[A]

But I'm also like, these are comedians. Did they not write their jokes? I have a hard time thinking Chelsea Handler didn't write her jokes.

[B]

Well, some of the.

[A]

I'm sure you have a team.

[B]

Well, there's also.

[A]

Nikki Glaser always makes it seem like she writes her jokes.

[B]

There's also an article about the jokes that didn't get used.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So there are some jokes that at least somebody, somewhere, Kevin Hart, somebody else went, hey, I don't want these in the show.

[A]

So help me. This is what I would like to know. You know, it's put on by Netflix. You know, man who runs Netflix, Black wife, Tessa Randos.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, yeah, sorry.

[B]

Clarence Avon's daughter.

[A]

Yes. Nicole.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Names escape me at that moment. So help me understand. They pay people because Kat said it to come up there and roast. Kevin gets paid for it. How much? Because they're paying them. They're putting it on. How much, say, does Kevin have because he's getting paid to do this? Or is it just a Netflix production? Did Kevin pick those writers out? I understand. I'm asking. I'm genuinely asking. Does he say, I want this comedian and this, or does he say, I get to pick these and then they get to fill in the rest? How much control does he actually have over this being a Netflix production? And they're paying you, like, to roast you?

[B]

Here's the answer. I have no idea.

[A]

Okay. Because I think that that plays into some of this. Because I don't want to put too much blame on somebody that you. Well, no, I guess I could. Because you accepted. Even if you had no part in it, you accepted to do it knowing that you wouldn't know what would happen.

[B]

Well, see, here's the deal, though. I think the. The key word in this is blame or responsibility. Tell you why. Because if you use the term blame, then you're saying what happened was inappropriate and wrong and Here is who is to blame for it. If you're saying what happened was edgy and inappropriate. Right. Not even inappropriate. I used inappropriate before. If you're saying what happened before was wrong, then you need somebody to blame. If it was a cultural foul, a cultural crime, then there has to be somebody to blame for the cultural crime. If you're saying that what happened was edgy or envelope pushing or whatever, then there's somebody who's responsible for it, who's responsible for the content that you had to. That you had to endure. Those comedians that are coming out, Lil Rel spoke on it. Michael Chase spoke on it. I think they have way more cachet to speak on what's going on in their culture than any podcasters would. Right. So if Michael Che and Lil Rel Howery are saying that, look, we're here, we make the jokes, we're a part of the people that push the envelope, we make the jokes and we're saying that some of this stuff is too far, then there's no way that that conversation is them policing their culture. I acquiesce to that completely and totally. I acquiesce to Chelsea. To me is a little different being that I know that there's something happening between her. But if black comedians are looking at this and saying, hey, we don't want a comedic type of situation where we have to endure that, that's not what we into, then, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That holds a tremendous amount away from me. Then the question just goes back to, like, what is comedy? Because I could look and I love Michael Che. We've had Michael Che on before.

[A]

I've been made uncomfortable with some of the news desks.

[B]

Some of the joke swaps that happen on the news desk. Yeah, when they swap, I've been made up. But it's an uncomfortable laughter because it's funny, right? There are jokes that are being made that he makes yo say that are about black people being criminals. That there was one, and it was hysterical about the Popeyes fried chicken sandwich, that like, black people were running out and committing all kinds of crimes. And then the punchline is because the Popeyes fried chicken sandwich was. Now that joke is funny if everybody is in on the joke. Because there's a part of me that goes, shit, that's on Saturday Night Live. That's an away game, right. I'm not comparing them. I'm saying those guys get to make that distinction. And what I did hear honestly was enough. Nah, we ain't fucking with that. From inside the Black comedic community. For me to be like, yeah, I feel you. Because for me, the way I looked at it at first was like, it's a roast. And up there, they're legitimately having a race to the bottom. That's what the roast is. The roast is a race to the bottom. The roast is. How fucked up can we be, right? And so I look at that. They talking about Pete's dad and all. Do you know how destroyed I would be if I was on Netflix?

[A]

He looks uncomfortable.

[B]

And somebody brought up the death of my father. I'm not signing up for that. Do you know how it just torn apart? I would be. But that's something.

[A]

He okayed it because. Did you hear Shane say. When Shane kept making jokes about Cheryl Underwood's husband committing suicide, he made it, and people didn't know to laugh. And he goes, it's okay, guys. I asked Cheryl before if this was okay for me to do, and she said yes. I wonder if they did that with Pete, too. I know they don't do that for everything, but I think that that one was so dark because I kept saying, they keep doing this. I wonder if Cheryl was prepped for this. Apparently, she was.

[B]

She talked about it, that they went to a. That there was like, a comedy brunch or something, and people were coming up to her.

[A]

Yeah, it was at Netflix. Ted Sarando's house.

[B]

Ted Sarando's house. She even actually said that Tony Hinchcliff did this. Look, this. That they.

[A]

About the death, not about the black woman.

[B]

I'm not sure. But like she said. And this is another deal. She said that. When I listened to that, she said that the comedians that were gonna make jokes about her came up to her and told her this thing and said that they were. And she said, hey, I'm gonna do this, but just. You can do that, but just know, I'm gonna come back at you. I'm gonna get back at you. I'm gonna do all of that type of shit, that I'm gonna give it to you all and all of that. Even with that, though, you wonder in that situation, does she feel like she can say, nah, that's too much, you know? Or is that going against some kind of comedy code?

[A]

Yeah, I think that there was a lot of that. That's. To me, that was my biggest takeaway of what Chelsea was doing. I was sick of people acting like, I know a roast is different, but I was sick of people being like, there's no line with the roast. And I think that there's A line. And I was really glad to actually hear somebody say it. And when Deon Cole asked her later in that interview, I don't know if that was in that clip or not, he was like, well, how does it make you feel that black people were laughing? She's like, I'm not here to tell black people what they can and can't laugh at. I'm telling you how I felt watching this. And. And. And I appreciated. I just appreciated somebody finally saying it because it was like, no.

[B]

Well, I mean, look, look, my understanding of a roast still stands in that I always thought that when you watch these roasts, remember, it was the roast. It was a roast where we talked about this, where, like, Ted Danson showed up in blackface.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like, you know what I mean? And that became the deal. This is the deal, though. This is the deal. I think. You know what else happened? Do you remember the lady from Cold Pizza, Dana Jacobson? Do you remember her?

[A]

I gotta see her face.

[B]

She used to be on Cole Pizza before it became First Take. She got in trouble because she was at a roast, and I think it was the roast of Mike Golick. It was at Notre Dame or something like that. And she said like, fuck Jesus or something like that. I remember she got in trouble for that. A lot of these roasts are not televised. I think that's another different thing. Some of the roasts, the Friars Club roast, back in the day, whomever it was, they ended up putting out box sets of them later and stuff. Some of these stuff would go, but, like, this roast wasn't for the comedy community. It was for millions and millions of people on Netflix. And there's just always gonna be a certain contingent of people that's not gonna wanna hear jokes about fucking George Floyd, not gonna wanna hear jokes about Charlie Kirk, not gonna wanna hear jokes about, you know, dead people's relatives and stuff.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So I think two cultures kind of combined. But, you know, I don't know, when I first heard it, I was like, that's what they do. But now I'm looking at it, and I'm like, ah, you know what? It seems as if maybe that's not what they do. Comedians are saying. Comedians are saying that's not what we do. So it is what it is. But.

[A]

Well, Chelsea said it's lazy. Like, there's a way you can do it without going there.

[B]

Yeah. I wonder what that dinner was like.

[A]

Okay, Shane.

[B]

Just joking. I just think.

[A]

Okay, Shane. Go ahead. Go on.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no, no. I can't really really say too much. You know about that? I went to a couple parties. All right. Okay. Ooh, this is. We haven't never talked about this lady before.

[A]

Is that where we're going?

[B]

I mean. Yeah. We gotta get back to politics. We want to go. You. We have a choice between black women to cover. We can cover Cheyenne Bryant or we can cover Michelle Obama. You gotta choose, like, which one? Cheyenne Bryant. Cheyenne. Is it Cheyenne. Cheyenne Bryant or Michelle Obama? Which black woman?

[A]

Well, you forgot her title.

[B]

She Doctor. She doctor. Cheyenne Bryant. She doctor. Is she. I don't know.

[A]

What do you. You already didn't give her the doctor, so you're already indicting her.

[B]

Dr. Cheyenne Bryant. She call herself a doctor. I call her a doctor. I apologize to that sister. Dr. Cheyenne Bryant. I guess there's some controversy about whether or not she's actually a doctor.

[A]

Donnie, go ahead. Do Cheyenne. Cheyenne.

[G]

Dr. Cheyenne Bryant. Doctor, in quote, Mark's media personality and

[A]

that sucks for her.

[G]

Is facing growing scrutiny after admitting that she is not a licensed therapist, despite publicly using the title doctor. These questions have popped up, and she has done her best to answer them via several interviews. And I don't think she's been doing a good job of clearing this up. But what do you guys think about her title or lack thereof?

[B]

So I don't know as much about her as I think a lot of other people do.

[A]

What. What do you need to know?

[B]

Well, does she give her advice through a therapeutic lens?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, she does.

[A]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

So it's like. So rather than say, hey. Cause we give relationship advice. It's always terrible. But rather than say, hey, this is what you should do, she says, in my clinical evaluation, this is what you should do. That's what she does. Is that what she does?

[A]

I don't know if she says clinical evaluation, but the thing is, is that she's not like a doctor at Dray as like, a nickname. Dr. Dre. Maybe he thinks maybe it's. I don't even know why he calls himself Dr. Dre. But, like, whatever. She's. That's music. She is actually in a profession with the title doctor, where doctor is used. And I would imagine that that title has opened doors for you or given

[B]

you more clients giving you an authority.

[A]

Yeah. And what made it worse is she goes on Breakfast Club, and they ask her about it, and she gives this reasoning that she went to a place where she pursued her doctoral studies. She says she refers to it as doctorial.

[B]

What's that?

[A]

It's not a word. It's not the right word. It's my point. It's my point. So an indictment. She went to this university. It shut down. They got rid of everything. They said it went to a third party. She goes to the third party. The third party says, well, we only keep it for two years. And they said, so she has nothing. And they said, we'll refund you. This is her story. We'll refund you your money back. But that means that we erase everything. Like, you didn't take any classes? Nothing. I don't remember what she said she did after that. But people are upset because they argue that she's using the doctor title without a verified doctorate or a clinical license. So people have been asking her to show it. Right, right. This has come out. She says she's. There's more visibility. You know, you see her everywhere. I just assumed if you're gonna use the word doctor and you're within a profession where people do have that title, whether it's a doctor of psychology, a doctor of psychiatry, that there is some sort of. You've written a dissertation, you obtained your Ph.D. and that is why you're calling yourself doctor. You're not like, doctor of podcasts or something like that, like Dr. Pod or whatever you want to call it. And rather than just like, addressing people's concerns who may have, like, sought advice from her, who maybe have, like, trusted her insight or her intellect because they believe that she has, you know, achieved a certain level of education in this area, you just write people off as, like, haters, and they hating on you and all of this stuff, which, again, sounds like an indictment, because to me, if you really respect the profession, then you would honor people's concerns. You wouldn't just write it off right. Like, I'm a lawyer. I'm technically a doctor myself. I'm a Doctor of Jurisprudence.

[B]

Is that true?

[A]

That is, I am a doctor of jurisprudence, and I would never be called Dr. Lindsay. But my point is, is I would be offended if someone maybe attended some classes but didn't go through what I went through and is using the same title as me simply because they say their life experience, speaking engagements and television appearances translate to them to be deserving of being titled a doctor. There's a reason that she wants to be called a doctor and not a life coach. Gets you more clients. Like I said, it gets you more jobs, more authority, more access. There's a status above it. Like, the thing is, just call yourself a life coach because what I wish the Breakfast Club would have asked her was, okay, like, well, where's the printed degree? Right. You graduate from something, you get a printed degree. There's a picture of her when she does some talks, and she's got all these framed things behind her as her background. And it's been pointed out that there's no degree for that, for the doctorate behind her. The other thing I would have said for the Breakfast Club to ask is, what did you write your dissertation on? That's easy. You got to have a dissertation to get a PhD. What did you write yours on? I was on Sports Law Review. I wrote a paper. I didn't publish it, but I can tell you exactly what it was called. It was called the Death of Jerry Maguire. And I wrote it about these sports conglomerates and how the talent gets lost within these big agencies. I can remember that because it happened. And I think that that's the big. It's just. Honestly, Cheyenne, it's ridiculous. Like, you're looking extremely ridiculous right now. And it's very telling the fact that people are asking you, you did it. You did the work. People are asking you to produce it, and you're getting offended by it. You're being very defensive at the fact that people are asking a very logical question, which is simply, you have this title. How did you get it? Okay, well, what did you do this on? It's just, at this point, I think she should just hire, like, crisis PR or something and just. Just label herself as a life coach or make a joke out of it and just be like, I'm Dr. Quotations Cheyenne Bryant. Like, I don't. I don't know where to go from here, but it's coming off the wrong way. And I think. And to label it as people hating on you for whatever reason, it's not the answer. I think that people feel misled, and I think that that's fair for them to feel that way. And you had a lot of credibility. People respected your opinions and what it is that you had to say had viral moments, funny moments. I just think that the way you're going about it, it's not good, because now people. I see her now, and I see Dr. In quotations. I do.

[B]

You have more problems with the response to the criticism than anything else. Yeah.

[A]

You are a public figure, and you present yourself as a licensed doctor.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You are giving advice, and I don't know if I'm assuming it's psychology, but you're giving advice. She's not writing prescriptions. If she's a psychiatrist, she could be writing prescriptions. So I'm Assuming it's psychology, right? Like our therapist is a psychologist. I'm sure he would be offended if somebody was saying slinging around the doctor title for fun. You don't have any respect for the profession. If you just like toying with this title. It's more than a title. It's something that's earned. And it seems like you did not. And if you did, this is why I say it's looking ridiculous. If you did just do it. If somebody challenged me being a lawyer because they're like, you say shitty stuff on here about it doesn't seem like you practice law. I will pull out my law degree. I will show you my bar number, and I would be like, I passed the bar. This is it. And yeah, maybe my advice does what I'm saying.

[B]

I am a lawyer, just not a good one.

[A]

I'm a bad one.

[B]

So a couple of things I don't get. That's all very well said. A couple of things I don't get. Number one, I don't get. This is what makes me think she's a doctor of some sort. Oh, I really. This is what makes me think she's a doctor. How you gonna get away with it?

[A]

Well, she's not.

[B]

No, just listen. There's no way to get away with it, right? There's no way you've sought success like you've sought success as a doctor. Eventually somebody is going to ask the question about whether or not you are a doctor. It is an odd thing to do, right? It's an odd thing to do. That would honestly, to me, you have to be fucking crazy. There'd have to be like some kind of psychosis there. Because like, if she is saying, I'm a doctor and she's going not just doing work in the community, it's not like she was at the Leo Butler Community center over in Baton Rouge taking clients where nobody's gonna. Is gonna be on wbrz. She is talking to Cam Newton and talking to Nick Cannon and talking to Joe and them and talking that she is going on some of the biggest platforms around and giving advice and undergirding that advice in the fact that she has some kind of clinical expertise. Eventually somebody would have asked, where'd you get your shit from? What kind of doctor you are? Even if they weren't trying to indict her, they would just be curious about her background, which to me, I just think if my most charitable. She gotta be a doctor somewhere, right? She's gotta be some kind of doctor.

[A]

She's gotten away with It. Well, she has said, literally, it is in our rundown, her pushback against the backlash. This is what she said. Her impact speaking career and work with high profile figures like Nick Cannon, Cam Newton and Shannon Sharpe validate her credibility more than the public opinion does.

[B]

Well, I mean, we'll see how far that goes. I'll tell you what I'm doing right now, though. I'm doing something that I do a lot on this podcast. By the way, I'm standing up for black women. I would like Cheyenne Bryant to know that there is one black man in the world that believes that she's a doctor because she's a Nubian queen, a black woman. She's a doctor of the universe. And in the sands of the Euphrates and the rivers of the Nile and the Serengeti, she's a doctor of. She walks with pearls. Drip. Oh, not pearls. She's a.

[A]

Give her her pearls. Give her the pearls.

[B]

She's a doctor of the original people in this world, the African people. It's a Nubian queen, a sister. And so she is. I'm not going to be here tearing a black woman down because she can't produce a degree. I think she's done something more than degrees. She's given us degrees of healing. Those are the degrees that matter to me, Rachel. So you can sit over there with your doctor jurisprudence bar number.

[A]

You sound like her.

[B]

Like you can do all of that. You can do all of that. I know. Who knows? The Cheyenne files, the Chi Hive.

[A]

Can I tell you something?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're a fool. Wait. I want to be clear about something. I want to be clear. I want to be clear. I think that she gives, says good things. This is in no way taking away from her advice. You don't have to have a doctorate to give good advice. To be a therapist, to be a life coach, that's not taking away from what she does. But it is still, it is wrong for her to use a title that it doesn't look like that she's earned. And that's where my criticism lies. But I do feel like it is an indictment. It's a characteristic. If all of this which points seems to be true, it is telling of who you are. That's all I'll say.

[B]

So this is the way you get it. Just so you guys know, you get a PhD. It depends on the degree. And these are a couple of different paths for a therapist to be called Doctor. PhD in Psychology research focus, dissertation required, fully earns the Doctor title. A Doctor of Psychology clinically Focused version of the same thing. Also a legitimate doctor. Doctor of education, which is what Dr. Ruth had. So Dr. Ruth had a doctor of education in sociology. She didn't have any specific doctoral expertise

[A]

in, like, you're thinking medicine.

[B]

No, Dr. Ruth.

[A]

Oh, yeah, but education, like you said, doctor education.

[B]

But. But she was also a sex person, so she didn't have like a. She had studied that stuff, but that wasn't where the doctor came from. Dr. Ruth.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then like a PhD in counseling or social work, which is less common but more legitimate, takes about four to seven years.

[A]

And I think that's the other thing. What was her special? Like, what did she say? Like, what does she specialize in? I feel like these are things we don't know. And it's really that simple. As a person who has a doctorate.

[B]

Wow. See?

[A]

It's really that simple. No, no, no. You gave her the pearls.

[B]

Look. Oh, okay. So I'll say this. We get off this now. There's a specific issue with this as it relates to black people. Just everybody. Black people are looking for places to feel safe. Black women particularly are looking for places to feel safe. Right. And even though I don't think that we should, we still put a lot of safety in what people have earned, right? So if you get advice from all over the place, you can go to your barbershop or your beauty shop and get all types of advice on what you should do, how you should act, right? If there's one thing that's always happened to black people is people telling them what they should do. This is how you should vote. This is how you should move. This is where you should go. This is where you should live. So people start searching out for people who either have the life experience, which is where I'm from, was the thing that was actually paramount, or the educational credentials to back up what the fuck they telling you you need to do. And if you have gone on the Internet for two or three years and you are telling people about their relationships and their marriages and things like that, and these are black ladies, primarily, who are looking out into their community and trying to figure out how they're going to find love, where they're going to find love, why they feel so pulled to find love and all of that stuff and relationship advice, then they are going to. Actually, I think a lot of people, male and female, are going to find safety in the fact that you've done the requisite work to position yourself in this way. So if Dr. Cheyenne Bryant was waking up going, what the fuck Are they kicking my ass for. I feel like all my advice is good. It might be good, but it might not feel safe. It might feel, to some people, like a con.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that is the thing, to me, that black people are most afraid of. They afraid of being conned out of their money, out of their emotions, out of all of that stuff, because you could use their trauma to build yourself.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So if you got the doctorate somewhere, which, once again, I think you do, if you got the doctorate somewhere, you need to produce that motherfucker.

[A]

Yeah. It's really that. That simple. It's just. Was. Was Ayanla a doctor?

[B]

Ayanna.

[A]

Doctor. She used the title. Right. But was she.

[B]

Let's see. Ayanna Ilyana, doctor. Let me see. Boom. We get.

[A]

Oh, she has a law degree. She has a law degree and a master's degree in spiritual psychology. She has a law degree.

[B]

See? So look.

[A]

And she goes by a doctor, but she's a spiritual teacher, life coach.

[B]

Right. So she has a juris Dr. Degree, Dr. H. From the City University of New York, a law, and a master's degree from the University of Santa Monica center for the Study and Practice of Spiritual Psychology. So she's a legit J.D. a lawyer, which means. Which technically is a doctorate degree that's real and verifiable. She also received an honorary Doctor of Divinity in 2000. From the Interdenominational Theological. Hold on. Say that again. From the Interdenominational Theological Seminary Seminary in Atlanta. And one source indicates she later earned a doctorate in metaphysical sciences from the University of Sedona.

[A]

So will somebody come out here and give Cheyenne an honorary doctorate degree?

[B]

Yeah, okay. Just. I mean, you've started. You started a beef with her, so we'll see how far.

[A]

It's not a beef. It's just a simple, like. Just show it. If it's there, just show it. And if you can't, like, it's. It's just ridiculous.

[B]

I told a girl that in Miami

[A]

one time, just show it.

[B]

If it's there, it was there to show it. I don't. You know, I'm saying you go, we here now.

[A]

Anyway, this is not a beef.

[F]

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[A]

Why's it gotta be a beef?

[B]

2005, 2004. That was my first time in Miami. Yeah. Michelle Obama. Interesting. Back to politics, Donnie. Yeah.

[G]

The former first lady appeared on the podcast Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso and the Sam. What up? And they talked about the MAGA movement and the people who make it what it is.

[C]

I can't look some people in the face and tell them, you have no right to be angry or to do something that maybe is against your own interests. That's what. That's human nature. Many of the people who voted for my husband twice. Twice. And I know that that's how they feel. It's like, this isn't. This isn't about anything other than. I'm just. We need. We need something different.

[F]

They voted for Donald Trump. Yeah.

[C]

You know, it's a lot of people. So you can't just pigeonhole them and say you just don't care and you're racist or whatever you're thinking. This is an act of. I don't know what else to do. I just wish we had more leaders that were figuring out how to do more for the middle class, for the working folks, because those are the folks who are drowning in this economy. It's not me anymore, but I know those folks, and they're good people, and they don't have a way out, and that makes for bad choices.

[A]

I'm a little disappointed in what she had to say.

[B]

Hmm.

[A]

And don't you dare categorize this as beef with Michelle Obama, because I would never. But it is disappointing to hear her say that they shouldn't be pigeonholed and she goes down the list. But one of the things she says is racist, because to say these are people who just want something different or better. I maybe could give you that in 2016, when we didn't know you could assume, based on the person and businessman that Donald Trump was, how he could be in office. We already dealing with the birther conspiracy theory that he was throwing out there at that point. We have other examples of racism that he did. But I can say, okay, maybe because he has such a populist message that there were people who just wanted something drastically different and that's what they were voting on, hoping for a change that would be in their direction. Fine, maybe I'll give you that. But as we sit here in 2026, for you to say that that's what they're still doing. They just want something different. That just doesn't sit with me. That doesn't sit well with me. I mean, how in 2026, after everything that we've seen him do after the first administration, the way he denied losing the 2020 election, January 6th, and all the things that he has done that have been rooted in racism in this second term, and he did it before in the first term as well. How can you sit here and say the person who still supports him and labels him as MAGA is not racist? And I just don't understand why we have to walk on eggshells sometimes to not call a person racist who supports a racist leader and who supports racist policy. What is the benefit in that and what does that actually serve? How does that actually help the situation? Because the coddling of racist emboldens them to excuse their behavior as anything but racist. And I am a little tired of people because I'm not a person who throws out that somebody is a racist quickly. I really, really don't. And even when we had, God, I get Keith Edwards on here and we had that conversation, I did not agree with calling him that when we had him on. I'm not quick to do that.

[B]

Keith made his bed.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I said, that's why I said when we had him on.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I'm not quick to do that. But if you continue to prove yourself to be that, whether it's in an overt way or a covert way, by supporting voting for the person who creates this type of policy, voting for the person who harms the disadvantaged people, you are a racist. You are only voting for yourself and your benefit and not considering the others. And you're voting for things that are hateful and specifically harm them, whether that's attacks on dei, whether that's ICE and what they're doing with immigration, whether that's supporting a great replacement theory, the list goes on and on and on. So it is disappointing to me that that comment was made. It would have been better off just left out. I am not excusing anybody who supports MAGA or Trump at this point. You have made your racist bed and you have to lie in it.

[B]

Why do you think she said it?

[A]

I have no idea. I mean, playing it safe.

[B]

Let's go deep into the bowels of what's happening. Why do you think she said it?

[A]

It's a safe answer to me. It's a people pleasing answer to me now. Is that why she did it? Your husband isn't even in office anymore, so I Don't see how it could harm you in calling the thing what it is. And this is why I get frustrated. The way that that comment was made and the handling of it is why we can't get our messaging together. We should be calling out the things for exactly what they are. That's the only way things are going to change. If we both sides it. If we. People, please. If we play it safe, we tiptoe around it. Then again, like I said, it excuses people. It allows people to excuse their racism as something else when it is racist. So I. I don't know why other than just so used to playing it safe and to. And to not trying to upset people. I think that we have to be bold and loud where we are right now. When Barack Obama speaks right now, and he's on the campaign trail for other people. When you hear Michelle Obama or anybody who's been a past president, politician or currently in it, everybody talks about how desperate the situation is right now. If you truly believe that, you should be so frustrated, so upset, so enraged that we are in this place in our society, with the corruption, with the racism, with people not being able to live as citizens in this country and an administration who's like, I don't even care about your financial situation. I'm gonna do things that continue to make mine and my allies better. You cannot be. What's the word I almost said? Silent. That's on it. You cannot be safe when it comes to it. That's how we got in this position. So I don't know. I don't even care why I'm mad that it was said. And I'm sorry, Michelle Obama, but you got to. You can't say we're desperate times and then play it safe. The gloves are off. We have to fight it in the way that they're fighting it. That's the only way things are going to change. It will not work by just going along with the status quo. And you just made me go anti Michelle Obama.

[B]

No, I didn't, because I think she.

[A]

And you wanted it. Say why she did it.

[B]

No, no, no, no. I'm asking why.

[A]

That's two black women I had to talk negatively about today.

[B]

I didn't even think about it like that.

[A]

Cause, you know, they say that I can never. That I can never get there. I want everybody to mark this episode. I want you to pin it, save it, download it, because I don't want to hear the shit again.

[B]

Yeah, Rachel.

[A]

I even had to criticize Michelle Obama.

[B]

Right? Which is good by the way it's good not to criticize that Michelle Obama, but. Okay, can I say something about this entire deal? I thought this was very interesting for a couple of reasons. Number one, can we go back to the Jim Clyburn? Jim Clyburn. I have trouble with words. Jim Clyburn.

[A]

I do, too, as well.

[B]

Jim Clyburn. Kamala Harris. America is in a racist country thing. Can we revisit that for one second? Okay, so let's revisit that. If we were to revisit that, I would see. What I would say about. What I saw was that I saw two people, Hemmond and Han, about something that we all know is true. Not only is America a racist country now, which you can look at outcomes and all types of different systemic dysfunction and make that determination right now, but in America, white supremacy is not the shark. It's the ocean. Okay? The shark is swimming through, but the shark is aided and breathing the oxygen that he gets from the ocean. The ocean provides the shark with what it needs to kill America. White supremacy is the ocean provides everyone what they need to kill solidarity, to kill uprising, to kill upward mobility. And it's been like that since the beginning. It's the ocean, not the shark. You can't coal. You can't farm the. You have to change the ocean. You know what I mean? You have to change the system, the ecology is what you have to do. I firmly believe that. So I believe that America is inherited, inherently a racist country. And there is very little historical analysis that could be done in good faith in any way to refute that. In any way to refute it. It's the way that it goes. Okay, fine. So I believe that's an obvious truth. I think for Michelle Obama and even her husband, this truth is less obvious. And the reason why it's less obvious is because they won an election, Two elections. She kind of references that they won two elections, right? People voted for a black family, and then in 16, those people, not all of them, but some of them for sure, voted for Donald Trump. Then they watched people vote for Joe Biden. Then they watch people once again vote, vote for Donald Trump. So an analysis of the voting trends of America says that if they are all racist, then at times they forget that they are. Now, I do think there is a difference. Let me say this. I don't think that there is a difference, but I know that some people think that there is a difference between people who are racists and don't mind racism.

[A]

There's not a difference.

[B]

I think that people think that there is. I don't think that I am. Because I am a victim of racism. I have been a victim of racism, a victim of systemic dysfunction. So I think if you cool with it, you. One of them, something that we have to come to terms with is way more people than we think might not be. Might not define themselves as racist, might care about the right things that we think they should care about, might be able to chill with us, might not in any way discriminate against us, but if somebody else was doing it and it benefited them, they wouldn't care.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So that, to me, is what I think Michelle Obama is trying to speak to. She's trying to speak to a dis. A disaffected voter that puts themselves and what they want above the humanity and above the living standard or the living freely of people that they share their community with. And I think the reason why she said this, where she's been so clear in the past about the way she feels about people going low, about how she feels about the White House being built by slaves, is that I think there's an actual point of. I think she's flummoxed. I think there are a lot of people who feel like just calling them racists is not working. You're not like just calling them.

[A]

Right. Because they don't think that they are

[B]

just calling them racist is not working. And I think that this is part of a strategy and a tone shift that you are going to see. That tone shift is going to be twofold. One, it's going to be to slightly move, particularly the center left of the party, away from identity politics, away from politics that are directly. I know everybody listens to our audience knows. Listen to us. Knows what identity politics, but away from politics that are directly aimed at one group of people and telling them what their plight are. And a class politic or a political not softening, but realignment to issues, specific type of talking. And the reason why they're doing that is because they feel like the other thing lost. They feel like coming out and trying to make everybody feel bad that. Trying to make our side feel good about the fact that the Trump supporters are racist. And making the Trump supporters feel bad about being racist didn't work. Actually. What you got out of it was like inward influencers. What you got out of it is people that went, fuck it, I'm racist and I can say what the fuck I want to say. And you got a bunch of people that you could not get through to in any way, shape or form. Now I'm not saying that that's the right way to go. I'm not saying that I even agree with what she's saying. I'm saying that stuff like this is what people are going to get over the next year, over the next two years, over the next three years. And the question is whether or not we will kick these people's ass from saying it. I'm not saying that we shouldn't. I'm not saying that we should. I'm saying that the old playbook of these people are racist, sexist, like, ghouls that we in no way can live with or talk to. I think you're gonna see people crawfish from that because they feel like they. They had. They shot, they took, they shot and they missed. And because they missed, a lot of shit happened. And one of the things that happened, I'll end on this, is Michelle and Barack Obama had to watch those people try with all of their might to undo his legacy, to undo everything, not just politically, but culturally, that the election of the Obama family supposedly meant for America. And they're trying to figure out what the fuck happened. And it's easy. It's an easy answer because it's always the same answer for us. It is. We get it. We understand, man. You could ask me a bunch of different questions. You can ask me a bunch of different questions. I'm like, race, race, race, race, race. I have to challenge myself to think outside of that box, to think about people in terms of their class, their experiences and all of that stuff. And I can't always do it. Actually, you guys know, I very rarely do it, but I think that Michelle Obama and Barack Obama and a lot of the intelligentsia, not just in this part of the Democratic Party, but to the left of them, is going to try it. And I'll just be honest. I keep looking at Graham Platner. I keep looking at Graham Platner. Graham Platner, the left, my beloved lefties. Please tell Graham Platner to speak to somebody black. Please. They don't even. Like I'd say this as far as my agreements and where I find myself politically and my beliefs on the left side of the sphere of things moving left. One thing I will say is sometimes I feel like they decentralize black needs so much to the point to where there's no actual black representation, there's like no need to speak to or about or directly through black people at all. There's nothing right now. You see members of the squad, you see Summer Lee, you see all types of people. Summer Lee even touched on this when we had her on the podcast. But when you look at somebody that had a Nazi insignia on his chest is no different than. Cause people are telling me it's like, hey, Van, you know, like a lot of my lefty friends, not that far left, not my revolutionary lefty friends, they were mad about the Tom Steyer interview. But a lot of them are saying, hey, a billionaire is a billionaire. I could look at them about Platner and say, hey, a Nazi is a fucking Nazi. And if you're asking me right now to give a Nazi a chance or somebody that had a Nazi tattoo and explain it. Explanations all seem okay. They seem okay when he's talking to Hasan. They seem okay when he's talking to Sam. They seem okay when he's talking to Kyle. They seem okay when he's talking to Sam and Emma. All of the people out there, Crystal, all of them. He hasn't sat down with anyone. That to me, to me, like gets their head kicked in in this country for that type of imagery being made mainstreamed or being accepted by the white boy jughead type of jar head type of situation and had that conversation at least to feign that he cares. So to me, there are racial problems all over this. Black people, in my opinion, want to know concretely that people understand the level of racism that exists in America. It's very important. It's very important to black people that people go, hey, guess what? We didn't choose to live here, that our culture isn't the problem. We have a beautiful, resilient, amazing culture. Our culture is positioned as a problem. That positioning is nudged up against American systemic reality. And on the end we take the loss. But yet we smile, yet we move through, yet we contribute, yet we innovate. And so I think we always want to get into this and have this conversation about how we call it out for her. I just think they are so based on and what they see as an incongruent political reality that they're going, it's got to be something else and we got to find out what it is. And they're going to start trying stuff. They're going to say disaffected voters, there's going to be a little bit of election tampering type of situations that you hear about how some of these races are going. You're going to hear economic stuff. But what I hope that they end up doing is, is trying to reach out with a class conscious populist message that tries to get people on the same page.

[A]

And that is fine. And I think that you can do that and accomplish exactly the last part of what you said about a message that is about class and a populist message without saying MAGA isn't racist or however she phrased it. I'm paraphrasing. That could have been left out. I just think that you don't have to. You don't have to say that as well as a part of it. We don't know why she said it that way. We're guessing. But I do hope at the end of the day, with all that you said, I hope that the message does become simpler, and I hope that. And effective. That's really just the only way I can say it.

[B]

Before we get off this, let me ask you this. When she says MAGA in this, do you think she's talking about the 37% of people which. I'm sorry, guys, they racist. That 37.

[A]

Yes, they're racist.

[B]

That 37% that we talked about before, they racist, man.

[A]

I'm like, they're racist.

[B]

You know, it's me. I'm trying to expand the ideas. I'm trying to expand the ideas, but that 37%. That 37% is a motherfucker. All right? That 37% that sent them to Alligator Alcatraz. Percent that percent is a motherfucker. Okay? That rollback your voting rights. Percent that percent right there, them motherfuckers is something else. That Lakeisha is going to crash a plane. Percent that percent is a motherfiucker.

[A]

So who are you asking me if I'm talking about or she's. Do I think she's talking about.

[B]

Is she talking about every Trump voter? Is she saying when she says MAGA, is she talking about that 37%?

[A]

Well, she said they're not all racist, so she's gotta be talking about Republican.

[B]

Does she say when she says 37%, is she talking about just those die hards or is she talking about anyone that might have voted for President Trump?

[A]

I think she's talking about anyone who voted for President Trump, which is why I think that she phrased it that way. Because I think that there are people who believe because they've. Just because they voted for him doesn't make them maga. I think there are Republicans who truly are like, I voted for him, but I'm not. Well, not Republicans.

[B]

Forget about Republicans. Think about independence and like. And just people like that.

[A]

Yeah, but again, knowing what you know, in 2024, if you voted for him, you got, you got Sprinkles of racism in you.

[B]

Racist. Anybody that cast a vote for Trump.

[A]

Racist at this point.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Especially when we knew. We already knew about Project 2025. You knew what was out. Like, come on.

[B]

Come on. So you want to talk about.

[A]

You just didn't think it was going to be that bad, right? What do they. What are the people? What do the Andrew Schultz say? I didn't think it was going to be that bad.

[B]

Yovon said that to me.

[A]

I didn't think he was going to do that. No, you were. Again, we've said it time and time.

[B]

You'll want to say that to me.

[A]

You were voting for your interest. Yes. Because you were only concerned about what it was going to do for you, and you did. If you were only concerned about what it's going to do for you and you don't care how that is the goal, not caring how it impacts other people, what else do you want to call that?

[B]

Right. I think, though, that.

[A]

Michelle, I'm not tiptoeing around it anymore.

[B]

You don't have to tiptoe around it, Rachel. No one's asking you to tiptoe.

[A]

I'm not.

[B]

Put your toes all in it.

[A]

I'm tired. I'm tired of dancing around, like, the degrees of racism. I'm tired of being like. Well, what did you say now?

[B]

You dancing?

[A]

I can't dance, Bernard, you're laughing too hard. I can't dance.

[B]

I'm saying you can't dance. You dance to. Who you dancing for? Cause that could be considered, you know.

[A]

Well, I'm not. Is the thing.

[B]

You ever dance with Brian? You ever dance?

[A]

We dance tough. I mean, you know, we dance tough. What do we.

[C]

What?

[B]

What?

[A]

Don't make me more upset.

[B]

All right, look, we gotta go. Look, we didn't even get to Jeff Bezos.

[A]

Why? He thinks we're stupid. I'm not doing. I'm not.

[B]

Do you care about the slush fund at all? You want to talk about this?

[A]

Well, I think it's. No, no, no. I think it's just, like, already been. What's been said has been said. It's the 1.7. 1.776 you properly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The number obviously relates to 1776, but, I mean, I feel like everything's been said, and I kind of alluded to it when I was like, you should be outraged in the fact that, you know, you got the slush fund over here and he doesn't care about your financial situation over here. I've already said it, you know, like, I Don't think he can be legally challenged. It's going to happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I know that there are police officers who were there January 6th who are challenging it under the 14th amendment, but it is what it is. Billion dollar lawsuit, which I just. I do want to say this. Todd Blanche, Trump's personal attorney, who is now will probably be the Attorney general, which just stopped there is just wild. The President's personal attorney is about to be the attorney general. That's insane right there. But he's like, well, this might be unusual that we're doing this, but it's been done before. And he refers to what President Obama did with the Native Americans when they. I think they sued the Department of Agriculture. But that had been something that had been in the works in the court system for years. And the settlement, what they were awarded was awarded by a judge, and it was awarded directly to the people that were saying they were harmed. That is not what's happening here. Trump sues irs, they settle on him making this fund for people who were not even a part of the lawsuit. That is unprecedented. So stop there. Then the other part of it is, which adds to the corruption, the people who decide who's gonna get the money, there's no standard. Right. They can just pass it out however they want. Five people all put on the board, whatever that is. These five commissioners with Trump.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's really nothing else to say about it other than he continues to show you that we're in a deficit. We can spend billions of dollars on a war, we can take away your health care, we can take away money from education, we can take away money from aid to other countries, we can take away money in all these other places, but we can find a billion dollars for people who are allegedly wronged by the government that you will pay for, by the way. And why? Because he doesn't care about your financial situation. It's just worth another thing you should just be outraged by.

[B]

Well, there's only one thing I gotta say about it. It's interesting to me. I think the whole thing is really interesting because, like, White people keep finding money to pay white people when they've been done wrong by government, they always find a way to make themselves whole.

[A]

Well, this is for everybody, though.

[B]

Well, allegedly, what I'm saying is that something happened. And in order to take care of people that you think matter, you create a $1.8 billion fund so they can get their bread, so they can get redress for something that you think happened to them that is unjust. You care about that. You care about keeping that coalition of people together and believing in what it is that you're saying. So when something that you think erroneously happened to them, that was unfair, you pay them. You pay them. Then you rely on the fact that they will get those payments be made whole when it is time to be made whole, and that that'll make them better, more loyal, more engaged citizens.

[A]

No, to them, to him, to whomever,

[B]

to whatever you got going on right now, you are the government. So I just find it really interesting the amount of money that America can find to pay to people who they think have been wronged when those people aren't black. When those people aren't people whose ancestors tilled, built and then were defraud, debanked, disenfranchised for years and said, hey, we need a little bit of what we got back.

[A]

Well, they should apply. They should apply because I would actually want people to do this. People who were wronged through ice, all of this. And then let's just see who gets the money and who doesn't.

[B]

My point is that America makes a way, of course, for the people they believe are Americans. I'll say it again. America makes a way for the people that they believe are Americans. They made a way for the slave owners who owned your great parents black asses because they thought that they were Americans. They believed that they were Americans. This is named the 1776 Fund. This is one. It's not named that, but it's 1.7. This is the American Fund for Americans that they believe were treated unfairly by America. That is essentially what a bunch of black people have been asking for for generations. Americans done wrong by America that want redress for having done, been done wrong by America. And there's never enough money, there's never enough will, there's never enough conversation. But I could point to this and many other examples. When actual Americans are done wrong by this country, America pays them back.

[A]

Well, and to further your point, the number 1.776 is almost an ode to the America that they wish they still had. Which is why it's benefiting. It's benefiting the Americans from 1776. Those are the type of people who benefit. But everybody should apply also. Like, no, I'm not even going to get into that.

[B]

I tell you guys, I'll tell you what, here you go. Gotta go. Here's the thing. I want it to be known after this potential. Who supports black women here? Bernard, Bernard, you had a chance, you had a chance to jump in on behalf of Cheyenne Bryant. You could have said that. You would have studied with her, you'd help her. You had a chance to jump in on behalf of Michelle Obama, but you didn't. But I tell you what. When we was talking about Chelsea Handler, I saw you grabbing for that mic.

[A]

You're never gonna live it down, Bernard.

[B]

You need to check yourself. You say your girl, she's Lebanese. Damn, she got all kinds of problems right now. Yeah. Oh, look, you feel. You feel a kinship with her. You feel a oneness with her because of that. You guys talk about. That's how you. You feel. You think that makes it okay? What? Okay, I gotta go. Should never. Tiffany got your ass right? Tiffany came in here. Tiffany was on fire. Shout out Tiffany Cross, man. Shout out Tiffany Cross. Cross crossed up. All right, guys, we got to go. Bernard searching for himself. We. We did the whole thing today. We didn't miss anything. We didn't. Donnie, you want to say anything about the Pistons before we go?

[C]

No.

[B]

Oh, oh, hold on for a second. There is one thing we do have to touch on before we leave. I just want to say something real quick. It would be remiss of us not to talk about the horrific, terrible, unconscionable shooting that happened at a mosque down in San Diego. We will go deeper into this on Monday with a guest. Okay. The guest reached out, wants to come talk about this because it is being, in my opinion, purposefully underreported about the threats to Muslim people all over this country, the Islamophobia that is running rampant all over this country, all over this world in the wake of what has happened. And we want to cover it in depth today, but we're going to have a guest on Monday.

[A]

Not on Monday because it's a holiday.

[B]

Not on Monday because it's a holiday. I told them Monday and I fucked up. That's what happened.

[A]

But I'm so glad you told them that, because we do need to talk about it. So many times, other attacks against groups of people are made mainstream, and when it comes to Islamophobia, it's not talked about in the same way. And that's just the truth. And the truth also is, to your point, it's on the rise, right?

[B]

So it's on the rise.

[A]

Well, definitely.

[B]

So the only reason why we're not diving deep into this is because we have a passionate guest that wants to come and. And discuss this and get into the ins and outs of it. But we did not want to make our Muslim listeners feel like we did not see them and we do not feel their pain. And we also also see the way that this has been covered in mainstream media on places like Fox, where I saw this lady talk about some of the. We'll talk about it all. But we get what's happening. We understand what's happening. We feel you. We hear you. And we will donate some time not just to this particular appalling act of violence, but also to the Islamophobia and the violence that this community is under in general. So we will do that on the next highlight. Learning. Okay, Take your think caps off and do not stop learning. I'm Van Lincoln Jr.

[A]

I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys.