Tell me a little about it.

Well, it's still a ways away.

It comes out in April.

So we're looking forward to that date.

I've been going through doing some of the final passes of it.

It's the moment thoughts on race, on the race reckoning that wasn't and how we can all move forward now.

So trying to talk about how many of us, how many people, not of us, but many people believe that we were in this moment of racial reckoning after George Floyd.

Her

But does she have a shot at this at all?

You know, it's a tough race.

I think that most people have to be honest about the race.

And when you're acknowledging, you know, where we have an opportunity to win, and you look at North Carolina, you look at Ohio, you look at places like New Hampshire – But South Carolina is unique, and South Carolina always marches to the beat of a different drummer, which is why Dr. Annie Andrews is well-situated and suited.

And part of that is because she's actually done the legwork, and she's raised the money so she can actually compete on the airwaves.

And she's talking about she's not nationalizing this race, which is something you can't do in South Carolina.

So when you have those errors or inartful statements like Dr. Andrews talking about, excuse me, when Darlene Graham talking about her plan for your health care is to simply work until you die, like her parents did, right? Those things are really, they're heard in South Carolina because we still have counties without OBGYNs.

And

How do you see Trump's endorsement working? Is this going to get her over the line?

Well, I mean, I think we have to look at history.

I mean, I appreciate the governor, Governor Pawlenty, because he does state something that is actually very true, that Donald Trump's endorsement within the Republican Party still rings loudly.

However, in South Carolina, the most recent history is he endorsed Pamela Abbott, our lieutenant governor right now for governor, and she got beat.

She got beat soundly in the runoff by Alan Wilson, our attorney general.

He wanted redistricting in South Carolina, and he lost that badly.

In fact, Republicans rejected that.

You know, d- d- do Republicans have Paxton because of Trump?

How do you think this lands?

[laughs] That's...

I'm sorry, that's naive, Phil.

And, and the reason being is because, uh, the simple fact that the president endor- endorsed Pamela Evet, uh, the lieutenant governor of the great state of South Carolina, um, in her gubernatorial primary, and we saw how that went.

He ended up doing a dual, uh, um, uh, endorsement in the runoff.

The fact is, look, the dark horse tonight is Mark Sanford.

Mark Sanford's been on the ballot 21 times in South Carolina.

H- how do you view this race, both in terms of what's gonna happen on the ground, and what it means bigger picture for the party?

Uh, she was furious publicly at Governor Murphy, uh, saying that she wants accountability, including understanding why didn't they deal with this and why weren't they transparent about it when it happened on their watch?

No, I think she's right.

And I think that, that if I have to agree with David Urban, it does undermine, you know, voter confidence.

I mean, that's something we're trying to rebuild.

But there's nobody who undermines voter confidence in our election systems more than Donald Trump.

And we've seen throughout the country where there are instances of voter fraud, usually, not always, you have a Republican here or there.

I mean, we've seen cases like Colorado, et cetera, Iowa.

Mm.

Asian

cross-pollinization of any other races, to be completely honest.

And so it's the first time that we're seeing any type of ripple between the Black and Asian community here in South Carolina.

One of my good friends was Rick Child's lawyer, who is just probably the best criminal defense lawyer in the country.

His name is Sean Kent.

He's a Black guy who's married to a white woman who's getting a great deal of hate because he represented Rick Child.

On the other side, you have a Black prosecutor.

do we patronize his businesses anymore? Or do we try to take some sort of, I don't know, justice in our own hands? What is the sense in that community now? What are people feeling?

Of course.

You know, Christian Menifee actually won.

Well, he won a race and then got redrew into, uh, a district with Al Green and actually had the m- overwhelming majority of his former district in the new district.

Uh, Jim Clyburn is, is, uh, uh, is not a formidable, uh, opponent.

Um, and even if it was formidable, he, Jim Clyburn, is very well situated here in South Carolina.

But I agree with you that there is...

Our Black legislative leaders are aging, and there is an entire generation, uh, my, you know, I'm 41 years old, that have been waiting on an opportunity to, um, achieve some semblance of success or level of success in politics, and this generation just simply has been here for years.

Mm-hmm.

First of all, how is the family doing? And if you could just elaborate on why they feel OpenAI is responsible for Thiru's death.

So the first question is a good one and I'm glad we're starting there.

He had a very strong wife who he leaves here.

And he has somebody who just graduated fifth grade and he has a five-year-old.

When you think about this season where you're having graduations and you're having programs at the end of the school year, you understand that that family is going through a great deal of sorrow and tragedy, wishing that he would walk back through that door.

But they want the community to know that there's a special thank you for everybody who stepped in and stepped up.

As for open AI and chat GPT, there were a number of things that we recognized throughout the 13,000 back and forth chats that the shooter had with chat GPT or this AI bot.

How do you respond to those points?

Why does Georgia always seem to be on the verge of becoming blue and then somehow revert back to red?

That's actually a really good question because of people who don't know Georgia, people who don't know Georgia probably would question similarly.

Um, Georgia's not a blue state.

In fact, I would probably argue that Georgia's not even yet a purple state.

It's probably still a red state.

You've had really exceptional Democratic candidates run against really poor, um, Republican candidates in a climate that was interesting to say the least.

Um, I think Warnock will win Georgia.

'Cause you're not gonna get that on Truth Social, that's for sure.

So Bakari, for all the, the complaints about and threats against the media by the Trump administration, does this moment feel bigger to you when you have the, the government threatening during wartime to pull American news organizations off the air, even if that would be unconstitutional and likely go nowhere?

No, I, I think it should feel big.

I think the American public should feel rattled about it because what we're seeing is we're seeing fascism.

We're seeing all those things that Republicans have told you, "Don't dare call us that." That is what we're seeing.

And, and the fact is, Brendan Carr, for example, he's not even talking about Fox News, who just last week during a dignified transfer, they used the wrong video to display Donald Trump.

Instead of Donald Trump wearing a hat being disrespectful of those military men and women, they used the literal wrong video o- of the dignified transfer from years ago.The same Fox News that actually got 780 some odd million dollars in a settlement lied about the election.

So let's actually call balls and strikes, and what we're seeing right now, the American public should actually be startled.

Isn't that the role of the, the media, to, to report the facts?

Bakari?

So I, I approach it a little different, I think, but I've always said, man, I guess to D.L.'s point, that this country would never change unless white male evangelicals wanted it to.... um, and so I'm very interested to see, um, kind of the evolution of individuals who support Donald Trump, even, even understanding he- him using racism as political currency, which is what he's doing.

The fact is, I mean, when...

Let's look at this.

When Keith Porter got killed by ICE, the country didn't move, didn't flinch.

Um, when Rene Goode got killed by ICE, the country said, "Man, they're killing white folk, but she's gay." But when Alex Pretty, a, a straight white male who was a gun owner, got killed and shot 10 times, all of a sudden individuals said, "Well, maybe it could come to my doorstep.

Maybe it's me." It reminded me of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when the first time white folk were able to see Black folk be bludgeoned by, uh, by police batons or water hoses or dogs, being bitten.

S-

Varies by state.

You know, I don't necessarily disagree with your overall sentiment about understanding that there is some nuance.

For example, we we get about 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia.

I think that's about the quantity of consumption.

But you look at things like the Keystone Pipeline.

For me, I am someone who believes that we should on a limited basis tap some of our reserves while also fighting climate change.

I don't think that you have to choose one or the other.

And she's a woman.

Let them financially suffer and then figure out how to deal with somebody like Putin.

I think there are a couple of things.

I don't necessarily disagree with your overall sentiment, understanding that there is some nuance.

For example, we get about 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia.

I think that's about the quantity of consumption.

But you look at things like the Keystone Pipeline.

For me, I am someone who believes that we should on a limited basis tap some of our reserves, while also fighting climate change.

Brown Jackson simply because she's black and she's a

You know, Bakari, uh, there were Democrats who were saying of this plan when the contours were being leaked this morning, "Maybe it doesn't sound so bad." I mean, what, what does it tell you that the White House was there maybe earlier and now not there later?

(laughs) It tells me that those Democrats probably have an election in a tough seat.

There's nobody who believes that Republicans know how to fix healthcare in this country.

What Barack Obama did with the Affordable Care Act, we call it Obamacare affectionately, was make sure that he expanded healthcare coverage for millions-

(laughs)

... of Americans, whether or not you were, going up to 26 years old, whether or not we were expanding Medicaid to different states, whether or not we were li- uh, eliminating the ability for insurance companies, and David probably remembers this, uh, but you know, insurance companies could kick you off or not cover you because of preexisting conditions, and Barack Obama eliminated all of that.

Does it need tweaks? Does it need help? Does it need work? Yeah, but we've (laughs) realized a long time ago, ever since, uh, John McCain did the infamous, um, thumbs down, uh, that Republicans don't know how to fix healthcare.

That, that is a fact.

If, if they did pass the Senate and it got as far as the president's desk, which as David says is highly unlikely, um, uh, do you think the ramifications of him not saying... not release them would be great?

So there is an alternative strategy.

I think you just laid it out, which is just to kind of l- let time heal all.

The problem is, this is a bid that Donald Trump has made.

I mean, he's been talking about the Epstein file since 2015.

And I think that, that it becomes a little bit more complicated than what, what my good friend David Urban said when you're talking about just have the prosecutor who gave him the sweetheart deal come and testify in front of Congress, because now we have evidence that Ghislaine Maxwell is getting a sweetheart deal, uh, currently as she's sitting in federal prison, um, and she's in accommodations that are not necessarily deemed for those who are child sex offenders or child sex traffickers.

And so, it becomes a little bit more complicated than that.

Bakari, your reaction to these messages that Politico reported on today?

Not much of a reaction.

I mean, I think that there is an issue of racism and race being utilized as political currency in the Republican Party.

And until people call it out, check it, um, I- I'm not sure anything will change.

And so I- I think where we are as a country is that I'm not surprised.

I mean, we just saw the same thing last week with, uh, the young Republicans and people were trying to couch that as, it's youthful, uh, endeavors.

Uh, but what we're seeing right now is that it's more than that.

How surprised will you be if the White House does pull it?

Because there's people that are being impacted by it really bad.

But I think you can learn a lot from Donald Trump too.

I think Donald Trump has taught us two things that we need to take from.

The first is that he speaks to people on really like a very fundamental first or second grade level under theory that if, if they understand it, everybody will get it.

And the second thing is I've always said Donald Trump is probably one of the most honest brokers we've dealt with in a long time because he literally told us everything he was going to do.

If they have to wait on their lobbyist, right?

But I also think, but also, like, b- to be completely honest, I think that leadership from Hakeem Jeffries would be to call Charlamagne right now and come sit in here and answer those questions.

And the reason being is because don't e- I'm not gonna answer for that man.

... into, um, having these viral moments.

I think the problem that we have right now though is that sometimes because of our complacency and our being like Democratic Party and th- the quote unquote youth or young folk within the party, because of the complacency and oftentimes taking for granted these younger voters, taking for granted Black voters and voters who we, uh, normally just say will show up for us, we've created this vacuum, right? Sure.

We've created this void- Mm-hmm ... that is there.

And so when you have a Blexit going to a Hampton or a Howard or a Morehouse or, you know, Prairie View or wherever it may be, or m- you know, meeting with the Black student union at Mississippi State, yeah, we all know that the organization, you know, when it talks about issues like this, they're not really there talking about issues that center us.

Um, we know it's a political ploy.

However, the vacuum will be filled with noise.

Yeah.

Okay.

How significant is that message?

I mean, I think it's significant, and I think the fact is that there are a lot of people who've realized since, uh, 2016 that democracy's extremely fragile.

And I think that's what, uh, the 44th President of the United States was reiterating, the fact that she is extremely fragile.

Um, when you're, when you're looking and juxtaposing what we have now, when you have our military on the streets of American cities, yes, that should be jarring.

When you have the infringement on, um, our, uh, uh, pillar of journalism, yes, that should be jarring.

When you have someone using the Department of Justice, uh, by fiat, or even worse, by tweet, yes, that should be jarring.

And so I think that the Barack Obama, uh, and the question that people will have for Barack Obama, because I agree with everything that he says, is one, the forcefulness.

Well-

Hmm.

...

the only talking points they have.

I think most Americans look, look at the TV tonight and they're like wait a minute, uh, Republicans have the White House, they have the Senate, and they have the House of Representatives.

They kind of own this.

And everybody talks about the first CR, even The New York Times, Shermichael, I've been on TV a few times today, but they don't articulate or, or point out what happened between then and now.

We had this big, beautiful bill-

Okay.

You'd think that if your whole press conference was about how we found this one ingredient that is causing autism that you would have, like, I don't know, said it once before, but that's not how our president rolls.

Not at all.

And I, I think that, you know, part of the inherent danger, um, of this administration has been the danger around RFK.

And, you know, RFK is pseudoscience, is kind of lack of common sense, his past life, uh, his life experiences.

To sum it up, he's just a wild boy.

And I'm not sure that that's someone you want in that position of power that they're in, where they govern the health of, um, millions of Americans, particularly, uh, our youngest and most vulnerable.

Tylenol came on the scene about 1955, thereabouts.

What has you worried about the state of the party? You know, what's- what's keeping you up at night when you think about where the Democrats are right now? What's got you sleeping with one eye open?