Put this moment right now into historical context for us.

Well, let me just give first my 55 years of historical context as a Galveston, Texas native.

Thank you for your work, Dr. Palmer.

I wish you well in your candidacy, but my blood is boiling in listening to things that, of course, many of us already know.

But in just the hearing of it, Don, as I have family members who go through these same things in the Houston area and the Galveston area on the mainland, And thankfully, we had the opportunity to have access to health care.

My cousin's children have been born healthy.

My cousins are still alive after doing it.

in many ways, it may be just as important, if not more, in this moment that we're in now.

What about his?

Sleepy Joe sounding really nice right about now, isn't it? Because this guy sleeps on the job, on camera, absent apology, and has such sycophants surrounding him that they actually lie and say he wasn't sleeping.

It's like believe your lying eyes or something like that.

Don't believe your lying eyes.

So they all lie for him, but we are, to me, in danger.

on like I we were here this time last year and I had a lot of hope for us because I believe that by this time this year people would know for sure that this man has no business having any power and we have to get out and vote like never before Like the election has to be too big to rig in order to ensure that he's not able to do what he's doing right now, which is just basically taking a wrecking ball to our democracy, like one building at a time.

If they don't let him put his face on it or his name on it, he tears it down.

Akash Singh, the top lieutenant to deputy attorney general, warned that the Department of Justice lawyers must pursue election fraud cases that FBI or Department of Homeland Security agents present to them or risk termination, according to the people who sought anonymity to avoid reprisals or reprisals, however you want to say it, for sharing internal discussion.

It's coming out of our taxes.

Exactly.

It's like how, first of all, it's a lie.

We're never gonna get it.

But how am I supposed to be happy about you giving me my money back? There's my money that you're taking from me, and now you're saying that you're going to give it back because we're doing oh so well.

I just paid a $400 electricity bill.

It's ridiculous.

I didn't get me that was by bought sushi was like wow this is really expensive and then I left but what I the other day I was in the grocery store in the meat section and tell me in the chat if you guys have the same experience what on earth is going on.

And, uh, high-profile Republicans are commenting on it, like Meghan McCain and others.

Right.

But you know what, when you think about retrial, and you think about politics, and you think about the way something is going to look, um, I, I agree with everything that's been said so far, especially the part about overcharging in the first place.

Um, and moreso When you think about the Clancy family, you know, the, the father and family did not want this prosecution, and they did it anyway.

Uh, and so when, when you look toward victim impact and you look toward what you have to put victims through in order to try it again, I think that's what should be top of mind, um, with the prosecutors.

And frankly, if they hadn't overcharged, if they hadn't, you know, to me, oversold their hand then perhaps there would've been a different outcome.

At least, um, th- the defendant, Ms. Clancy, would be perhaps getting the, the mental help that she obviously needs based on all the testimony that came in at trial.

Yeah.

You're muted, Monique.

The picture that you all are seeing, and I know, Don, you would recognize some of them, your dear friends, like Sonny Hostin, friend to you and to me, some you've had on your show, like Shannon Watts.

So many people, Rhonda Fox, who brought us all together for the Persist movement after she worked on in the Biden-Harris administration and worked on the campaign.

And Gloria had a talking circle for us, which was one of the things in her later years that she was doing often for all kinds of different groups, whether it was Emerge.

I see the head of Emerge, Ashanti Gholar, in the picture.

I see Karen Kahn, Carolyn Pompezi, Tina Tchen.

So many people, women who in their own rights have been strong in political and media circles who have been standing up for freedom and for democracy and for women's rights.

It's people within the civil rights movement working for their rights.

They

asked for an apology.

They gave, it was a 19-page letter, intent to sue, and it listed several times where in their opinion, the comments that were made by Reverend Sharpton were defamatory to the three friends who were in the picture that was shown of him one of the last times he was seen alive.

And Reverend Sharpton's attorneys responded with their 15-page document saying that there were no defamatory statements.

And so he's not going to apologize for defamation he didn't commit.

And so now we'll see whether they go ahead with what they, whether the attorneys for the young men will go ahead with a lawsuit for whatever they believe happened that should not have occurred.

And it went in great detail, the letter.

Monique, how many times has, I think it's been like three times they've told this judge, hey, we cannot come to any sort of consensus or agreement about guilty or innocence or should she be acquitted, not guilty? How many more tries are they going to have?

well i i thank you for that and uh listen that's your piece as a legend you're free to come on and say what you mean and mean what you say isn't that right monique thank you

Yes, Don, I was on the line earlier.

I kind of knew you weren't going to let us talk to Hakeem, but I wanted to ask him a question because I'm tired of the word salad.

messing

with you.

I'm just messing with you.

I want to know what, in his mind, accountability means.

What is the action? Are we going to see subpoenas? Are we going to see hearings? Are we going to see people removed from their offices.

Do we have that? Who's that? That

is my beautiful grandson, Caden Jude.

He's four months old.

What a peanut.

And I'm sure you're happy and a little bit concerned about his future because of the

country.

Well, he and his older sister Sky, they are my reasons other than my children, you know, but my children are grown.

All of them are grown.

Monique, you want to respond?

I don't have a meeting.

I do want to respond like conjunction junction, which are function schoolhouse rocks.

Listen, people I read in the comments under some of minority leader.

Jeffrey's under his post, people saying it's not his job to be talking to Jared Kushner.

It's not his job.

Jared Kushner doesn't even work for the government, for the administration.

Monique, real quickly, if you can just give us a quick update on Carmelo Anthony and is there going to be an appeal and what's going on?

Unrelated

... unrelated charges.

But to the extent that they are calling him in and it has anything to do with allegations against him personally and directly, that's the best thing that he can possibly do.

But I'm not convinced that they would spend time calling him in.

I don't think that the prosecution needs him in order to make their case, and if they have the eye on the ball for the actual defendant who's in court-

Why did it play out that way?

Because he wouldn't close his mouth.

Um, he was obviously in a position where he was a government operative.

Mm-hmm.

Don't trust that DAs will bring charges.

That's not new.

But in this information age, in this internet age, where everyone can become an investigator, everyone is an, is a pathologist, everyone is an expert witness detector, what we've got really is mania, right? We've got an information technology age gone wild, in that the internet and the things that people are saying, the unsubstantiated claims, the unverified rumor mill-

But?

But that doesn't mean you don't share anything.

We've watched with missing person case after missing person case where frankly the person was not Black or brown, where you end up getting day after day of updates and press conferences.

And those things at least put the public somewhat at ease and give them confidence that something's being done.

Can you just kind of break down what that could mean for, for our audience?

The fact that it's inconclusive, I think there's so much more that's known right now, frankly, than what we know as a public.

For instance, this is, this is a different example, but for a while the public was saying that the friends who were traveling with Nolan didn't show up and talk to investigators, didn't cooperate with police officers, et cetera, and so on.

And then we found out like a week later, well, no, they talked to the police, they talked to the State of Mississippi or the sheriff's county's investigators, but we weren't informed of what was said, and that's a significant distinction.

So when we look at, um, an investigation like this, there are so many things that are happening that the State of Mississippi is not yet prepared to say, and perhaps even that the attorneys on the part of the family of Nolan Wells are not yet prepared to say, because maybe they're hearing what the sheriff's office is saying, but they're saying, "No, that doesn't make sense.

That doesn't jive with what we know.

That doesn't sound like Nolan.

[laughs]

Yeah.

Right.

And I mean, and I could understand they would, you know, want to, to do it after the funeral that, that makes sense.

But for him to not have certain pieces that he needs in order to have a conclusive investigation is because Those elements are still under review and under investigation by the state.

What I wish, since today was largely inconclusive, we have more questions than we have answers.

What I wish is that he was able to have the first autopsy lots of times when we end up ordering autopsies.

Independent autopsy examinations.

That's, that's just my assessment, as someone who's been covering this for a long time, these types of stories.

What does that mean? Because we want to know the procedure because we just want to inform.

So what came out of the meeting yesterday, Don, between Attorney Crump and the Wansley family, the parents of Nolan Wells, the other attorneys and the district attorney, was that once this investigation by Sheriff Ledbetter and his team, once that is over, all of the information that is collected will be turned over, will be submitted to the grand jury.

Now, some people assume that when a prosecutor says something is going to be turned over to a grand jury, that it means there's already been a decision, that there are particular suspects in mind, that somebody is going to be charged, that they are going to be aiming for someone to be charged.

But the district attorney in this case said that that in fact is not now the case, that they do not at this point suspect yet that there has been criminal activity, that the investigation is unfolding, and that it is going to, all of the information is going to be submitted to a grand jury.

Here's my thought on this, Don.

We were talking a lot day before yesterday about public pressure in this case and about what changes in a case like this when you have renounced civil rights attorney involved when you have independent autopsy and things like that involved it strikes me that this prosecutor may just be trying to get it out of her hands like she's not prepared to make the call on her own and say on her own say if she's prepared to say that there is no criminality or that no one should be charged that she doesn't want to take the hit for that and be blamed for that and her office itself so they're pushing all of the information to a grand jury but maybe getting to the same conclusion because as i say to you all the time you can go to the green jury and indict a ham sandwich i mean we have friends right here on this damn panel who have been indicted in this calendar year where there was no freaking crime whatsoever so prosecutors, when they want to get an indictment, can.

But in Mississippi, they go to the grand jury whether they're looking for an indictment or not.

How do you deal with it? What is your advice when that happens?

Yes.

Because as news arbiters, we're not gonna push information that isn't verified either if our interest is in getting to the truth.

We go with verifiable facts.

So things that are appearing on social media, like where the streets are saying something, that's what I saw one video where it was, "The streets are talking and saying this," that's not something that I'm gonna comment on or something that I'm going to share, because there's nothing validating anything about who, what, where, when, why, date, time, place, or anything about it, and that is not a news making function, nor is it helpful to the investigation.

As someone who has advised mayors, police departments, um, the DC Chief of Police, people who have to make statements to the public when criminal matters have occurred in the District of Columbia as a senior assistant attorney general, I, if it was an active ongoing investigation, would already be in the posture of you cannot say.

If you, if you were looking for somebody, like a person of interest, then that's something you would share immediately.

If you were trying to find a suspect and you believe the public could help, then that's something you would share immediately.

Okay.

Mm.

Um, we need to bend that where Carmelo Anthony is concerned also because w- uh, a, a year ago, uh, a little over a year ago at a track meet, there was a stabbing, and that is not, that's not a controversy at this point.

Uh, it was Carmelo Anthony immediately, um, offered to the police that it was him that did the stabbing and that he was in fear for his safety.

He said that at the time.

Um, there was an altercation under a tent at a track meet in Collin County and, um, a young man ended up dead.

Austin McKeth ended up dead.

And so that, all of that is tragic as far as I am concerned.

Hmm

So what happened today?

I think it was a better than average bag.

Uh, when you weigh the things that are important, the ones that matter the most to the most people, obviously, uh, giving more power for these just no matter whether they did something wrong or not type firings, that's on the negative side of what the Court came back with today.

And, um, I, I could see how sometimes it seems like the Court is saying, "Okay, we're about to sting over here, so where we can and where we have wiggle room, let's go ahead and give him something over here." You know? I mean, baby, baby needs a blankie is kind of the way that things are going right now.

And so that's gonna end up going back, uh, to a lower court, and he is going to be able to work his will with some of these federal appointees in these used to be more independent agencies than they are now.

But that is juxtaposed with the Court saying, "No," with the Federal Reserve Board, you cannot just because you want to, just because of an accusation, absent any findings of fact, just remove a governor.

In this instance, obviously, a Black woman, uh, Governor Dr. Lisa Cook.

From earlier? Oh, okay.

Ooh.

And that is true, and that is what our folks, all the folks need to understand about the importance of it.

Because one of the things I feel like we lost in lack of community and in lack of connectivity between generations, like the reason why my grandparents laid their clothes out the day before when it was gonna be time to go vote, and why they discussed their strategy a week or two before, you know, voting is coming and so I'll need to get off at this time, and I'll come and pick you up at the house.

And I would plan growing up getting off of school, I know I'm going to Granny and Papa's right after school today because they're taking me with them-

Mm.

Um, but in the couple of weeks when I was in the hospital with him, and I don't think I've told this story out loud so I'm gonna brace myself for it.

But one of the last things he said to me in the hospital, 'cause he was having an uptick and, you know, everything in me wanted to believe that this was the road to recovery, that this wasn't just the grace that we were being afforded where he would get to say everything that he wanted to say and we would get to say everything we wanted to say, and we would have some fun days with imaginary Spades games and laughter and him trying to, you know, get a burger smuggled into the hospital.

I didn't know necessarily what I was in, but he did.

Does that sum up somewhat of what's happening here?

I think so, Don.

Uh, the issue is not really so much how many facts are in dispute with this case, but the manner in which the case was handled, frankly, from before the jury was ever seated, uh, up until the sentencing.

And so it, it really, I first want to say, is a terrible tragedy, uh, and I don't want that to be lost, that, uh, Austin Metcalf should not have died that day.

That, that was not, to me, a justified outcome based on any of the facts that I have heard.

Uh, I do believe that his life matters and that the life of Karmelo Anthony matters, and that even if it is the case, you know, whether the jury got it right or got it wrong in terms of processing the facts and making a finding of guilt, that what he deserves is due process.

What he deserves is fair trial.

They were all excluded from this trial, Monique?

Why are you sitting there going, oh, Lord?

well my first thought was this was the idiot that was wearing shoes that were too big for him he's such a cup but i'm thinking a gift that they have to pay for right like i don't i don't get it i don't get it i mean if you have to pay for it it's not a gift if you didn't sign on or you you didn't agree to accept it it's not a gift how is it a gift to us sort of like the the parade the last time for his birthday with the little squeaky Taint going by is like nobody's interested in it.

The grift, it just keeps on grifting.

And I have absolutely no interest in watching any of it.

It's just it's ridiculous.

And for them to twist themselves into not trying to justify this, it just shows who they are.

Yeah, I've

been waiting for my tariff check.

Does that sum up somewhat of what's happening here?

I think so, Don.

Uh, the issue is not really so much how many facts are in dispute with this case, but the manner in which the case was handled, frankly, from before the jury was ever seated, uh, up until the sentencing.

And so it, it really, I first wanna say, is a terrible tragedy, uh, and I don't want that to be lost, that, uh, Austin Metcalf should not have died that day.

That, that was not, to me, a justified outcome based on any of the facts that I have heard.

Uh, I do believe that his life matters and that the life of Carmelo Anthony matters, and that even if it is the case, you know, whether the jury got it right or got it wrong in terms of processing the facts and making a finding of guilt, that what he deserves is due process, what he deserves is fair trial, what he, uh, deserves is, is fair sentencing.

And I, I think that's where we run afoul of, frankly, many cases that we've seen, um, out here being prosecuted for more serious crimes of premeditation, as you mentioned, or even similar crimes with a white counterpart.

They were all excluded from this trial, Monique?

Walk us through it, please.

Great, a great vote.

A great vote.

Um, and we still have steps to go in, in Florida, so hopefully...

Because that's frankly where we were a bit ago.

Where we are now in Florida, that they have done that, is where we were, and so it's gonna wake, work its way through the courts.

So I just wanna shout out, um, ACLU counsel.

Yeah.

Monique, we have been wondering, is this legal? We had an attorney on yesterday who said this was basically, and her- these were her words, criminal conspiracy, um, that is being carried out by the Attorney General of the United States, Todd Blanche, who is, by the way, speaking on the Hill right now.

He is.

And you know what? They, like everything else, they might get away with it.

Uh, temporarily, at least, and that is the unfortunate part that I've, I've had to talk about on your show any number of times.

When you have corrupt people in places of power, and they do things that people of good conscience who actually care about helping the citizens of this country frankly would not even consider doing, then we really find out the full limits, the, the strain points of our Constitution and of our governing body.

Uh, and so what we have now, and I agree with Liz Oyer, who better to talk about it than a former head of the, the pardon attorneys for our country under the Biden administration and a little smidge of this current Trump administration, calling it a criminal conspiracy, calling it self-dealing.

It's likely all of those things.

And it does make sense to me that they called it 1776.

Monique, we have been wondering, is this legal? We had an attorney on yesterday who said this was basically, and her- these were her words, criminal conspiracy, um, that is being carried out by the Attorney General of the United States, Todd Blanche, who is, by the way, speaking on the Hill right now.

He is.

And you know what? They, like everything else, they might get away with it, uh, temporarily at least, and that is the unfortunate part that I've, I've had to talk about on your show any number of times.

When you have corrupt people in places of power and they do things that people of good conscience who actually care about helping the citizens of this country frankly would not even consider doing, then we really find out the full limits, the, the strain points of our Constitution and of our governing body.

Uh, and so what we have now, and I agree with Liz Oyer, who better to talk about it than a former head of the, the pardon attorneys for our country under the Biden administration and a little smidge of this current Trump administration, calling it a criminal conspiracy, calling it self-dealing.

It's likely all of those things.

To sue an entity, the IRS, that you control, and then to settle the entity and in the settlement you, you prop up another entity that you control.

And it does make sense to me that they called it 1776.

So what's going on? What is the plan?

plan?Well, I, I'm...

You know what? I'm, I'm not gonna say.

Um, [laughs] what I, what I wanna say is people really need to tap into their local organizing and, and communities, and especially if you are in these critical states, if you are in Louisiana, if you are in Alabama, if you are in Tennessee, if you are in Mississippi, if you are in these places that frankly have been under attack.

None of this just started, Don.

Um, if, if we think about Shelby County v.

Holder and what happened with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and the fact that the Supreme Court then said pre-clearance was not necessary for states like Louisiana and what they're trying to do today, uh, they would have had to go and get federal approval to be able to make these last-minute changes to voting that they're trying to do because of yesterday's decision.

Mm-hmm.