tv The Beat With Ari Melber MSNBC April 17, 2024 3:00pm-4:00pm PDT
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defendant donald trump as you may have heard. he is facing off against this jury that is being selected in his home state. the criminal trial where he has been mandated to attend every day the court is in session. that's been the last two days. today as has been scheduled is a dark day. most wednesdays the new york court is not expected to meet, although that can change. they made a lot of progress yesterday. more than 1/3 of the total jurors needed have now been sworn in. trump is going online complaining this is moving quickly. that is an odd complaint for someone who has also said it takes him off the campaign trail or it's not fair as a so-called witch hunt. if you think those things logically you would want to get them over with. if you think you are innocent you would want to go through with it and show the jury that and move on. his attorney who is not involved
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in this direct case but does speak out for trump on a host of issues, legal and otherwise, is arguing that this jury, which remember we don't know anything about yet, is biased because it is a jury of his peers in the jurisdiction where the alleged conduct occurred, which is what is required for fairness under law. >> we're seeing a painful, unfortunately, selection because we're in the state of new york which is definitely by design. these venues are selected exactly for this reason so that they have a blue state with a blue pool. >> that's not the case and, indeed, we have already reported on the vetting process. the questions they ask, voir dire, jury selection and how all of that, again, overseen by independent, nonpartisan judges is designed to ensure nobody is thinking about this too politically. this is the case. new york district attorney alvin brag brought the case. the events that are involved
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occurred in new york. the judge is taking care to treat trump like other criminal defendants within reason. he has to be present when court is in session so like i mentioned he was there both days yesterday, today they are off. he's already denied one request which is trump claimed that the supreme court arguments next week on the jack smith case, which is his other big criminal matter, right? they want to put him on trial for the jan 6 coup as a violation of federal law. trump said he wanted to go to the supreme court and get off this case. the colorado ban case, i happened to be in the courtroom, there was a lot of talk about whether trump would attend and he did not. that doesn't tell us what would happen but we don't have any record of trump attending a recent supreme court case yet that's what he said he needed to do but the court has said no. so donald trump will be required to be in court as long as it's in session next week which means he can't go to the thursday supreme court argument. there are other scheduling matters that could come up.
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the judge has said he has not decided about trump's request separately to get a day off to go to his son's graduation. his other civil fraud new york case there are also some ways we're seeing donald trump as a rich famous connected person and a former president does have some strings he can pull. for example, he got that bond that was initially very high based on the penalty he received in that case, over 400 million, reduced to $175 million. now we know trump posted that bond because a trump donor, a billionaire, had put up the money. i can show you a little bit about this gentleman. he's named don hanke and his company is knight specialty insurance. hanke and trump have a whole history doing business including a bank that refinanced trump's loans and new court filings reveal the detail. a lot of insurers didn't want to take up this bond. they didn't think there was either enough money or collateral to make it a safe investment. trump sort of phoned a friend to get the bond in the civil case.
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trump's team says that they did use cash to secure the bond saying it's inconceivable that any shortfall could arise given that the $175 million bond is secured by $170 million in cash. that's the claim and this might sound a little technical but it actually matters because legal experts are looking at this and saying that doesn't really add up because if you had the cash you wouldn't need the bond. that's literally what bonds are, they substitute for cash. take andrew weissman who has much experience in this as a doj prosecutor. it's fishy. trump has $175 million free and clear, if he had that, quote, why not directly post it and not pay a fee for the surety bond? there's a bond expert who also says this is an overly complicated way and it might prompt the judge to examine more thoroughly what's going on here. that could happen at the hearing next week. again, that is the civil case which is separate from donald trump's criminal case. both cases, though, are drawing
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and draining his time and his bank account. there are those separate requirements and trump has to keep that money in the bond, however it's set up, in order to have the right to appeal this at all. to take this together, what you see is even on a day where one case is off for a day, they will resume picking jurors tomorrow in the main event here, the criminal case, donald trump has a lot of legal problems and headaches. when jury selection continues tomorrow i suppose it will also continue to make donald trump upset because the defendant has said they're moving too fast to pick the jurors to actually hold the trial. we have two special guests to look at how all of this is congealing as the nation tunes in and pays more attention to these trials and legal issues. a veteran of the manhattan d.a.'s office and our friend margaret carlson when we're back in 90 seconds. 90 seconds.
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>> under the rules they don't have cameras in new york state. i want to play the late night hosts talking about this which is a sign people know about it and are following it. le punch lines don't work if it's too obscure. take a look. >> one potential juror was an older woman who said she believes no one is above the law and trump's lawyers are like, get her out of here right now. >> the court sketch artist had time to draw him. >> i think we found the new mascot for celestial seasonings sleepy crime tea. >> margaret, curious given your experience how you think this is breaking through and how even the relatively straightforward parts, i've seen other defendants ask for a day off for a family reason, how even that reinforces the fact that trump's not in control, that someone else will be ordering him
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around, that his entire days will be subject to the judge who's in charge, not him? >> it just must be so deflating and depressing for donald trump to have somebody else telling him what to do because he only surrounds himself with people in his company that would do what he said to do, that's part of why he's on trial, and he tells his lawyers what to do and then he doesn't listen to what they tell him to do so to be at the mercy of the judge is horrifying for him. and he's at the mercy of a couple of judges. to your earlier point, i want don hanke to have a chat with the my pillow guy and see how things turned out for him backing trump in so many endeavors and spending his own money and now i think -- i think mike liddell has his own debt problems. so he should turn back to trump and say, hey, you love debt.
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can you help me? because i don't love debt. who loves debt? trump is so full of brag -- bragadaccio. i've only heard it. i don't know how to say it. >> lance, you have done these cases. what jumped out to you? >> a loot of things. in a normal case it's difficult for a normal defendant to be released, enjoying their life in a normal sort of way and then for that criminal defendant to watch their situation transition into a trial where they're not guilty, not innocent yet but they're part of a process that's
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going to maybe set them free or maybe change that. judge memerchan ordered him. the rules tighten around him. that's normal in any sort of criminal case but it presents special challenges here given the nature of who donald trump is. >> any thoughts on the jury selection? we don't know much. we knew sort of gender and professor, but any thoughts there? >> yeah. jury selection can be very difficult. they don't teach it in law school. reading people. knowing who you're talking to. strange things can happen such as things some of the
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prospective jurors say can resonate around with the other candidates so if you have one juror who's taking a strong position about a certain issue that they're talking about, that can start to influence how everyone else is thinking about that issue and maybe in a way that you want, maybe a way that you don't. but i think it was very interesting in last week's developments that you had a point being made which is that you could be a democrat, you can be a republican, you can have feelings about donald trump but when you come into the courthouse, the question really becomes whether you can set those personal feelings aside and decide the case based on the facts and circumstances of the case. >> yeah. that's very important. i have another question for you, lance, about how much they know and then margaret who knows too much because not all jurors are as informed as margaret carlson. you just said something interesting which is we hear so much cynicism, people go to dinner parties, barbecues, people are in their political corners but they're not jurors.
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people who go through the system, a lot of people take it seriously. it's imposing, intimidating, judge is there, bailiff is there, instructions are there. other people may go off to prison and you very quickly figure out are you going to be impartial. maybe some people are good at the long con and lying. how do jurors do that even if they do have other generalized thoughts? i mentioned in our coverage someone might say bob menendez, he's a democrat, he was with obama, maybe they like that. if you sit down and find out there were gold bricks in his apartment and his home, there's real evidence of corruption, again, he's legally presumed innocent like trump, you go through a couple of weeks like that, it shouldn't matter once upon a time you may or may not vote like him. the question is is he illegally corrupt or not. >> right.
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right. exactly. when you're picking a jury, the prospective jurors don't know the whole story. you might tell them about the types of evidence that they might hear, what they might see, but you want to be very careful about that and keep things kind of theoretical. i think that each juror may not know their own process, their own -- i don't know if you want to call it a psychological or personal process for being fair and impartial. that's part of the challenge. i think judge merchan fashioned a lot of thoughtful questions aimed at getting a conversation going during voir dire. the hope there i think is the attorneys when they get up to talk to the prospective jurors can help the jurors maybe if you are doing it the right way
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recognize they have a bias. if you think you can't be fair and impartial, raise your hand, they excused a large chunk of those folks but from there it's a question of helping each individual person helping find any hidden bias they might not have. >> you've done this in that very courtroom for the same office that is bringing this monumental case. so interesting to hear your view. margaret, i meant what i said. you know too much. you probably know too much to be on this jury, and i say that because those of us who are really close to this forget sometimes that even in cases that involve -- let's put politics inside, famous athletes, celebrities, and other people in the news, when you go through a couple hundred people living their lives you very quickly find, margaret, that most people aren't following it every day, especially when it's a story that broke six years ago. and so some of us are kind of over estimating how many of
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these jurors even in tabloid, new york, are up on everything. i wonder your thoughts about that, margaret. >> that's quite true. you can think you know a lot. part of it depends on where you get your news. part of it is that most people do have lives that we don't -- that don't involve this as a daily part of their diet. so you go into a jury and you're surrounded by 12 -- there are 12 people and you're in a community in which you have to behave in a certain way and you become a citizen. every jury i've ever seen people become citizens and they try, and they really care about it. part of it is, if you are ever in a pickle, you want to be judged by people that are unbiased and give you a chance and listen to the evidence. and even if i were there on that jury, ari, i would learn things i don't know and it would be laid out -- >> sure. >> -- in an orderly fashion.
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you would hear two sides that saw the facts differently. and you have a judge, and this judge is very good. he has an answer pretty much for a lot of what trump puts out there, which is so hard to keep up with him. but he then took the graduation thing, which he knew he would get a lot of sympathy for and made it a fait accompli so he could complain bitterly whereas the judge didn't say that. let's see where we are delay wise and are we on time when that moment comes. and i bet that judge is going to let him go to his son's graduation, but what a pull on the heartstrings that is more or less a false pull. >> yeah. out of all of the issues -- yeah. go ahead. >> before i forget what i want to say, which is trump has this false bravado about everything. mostly the things that are false. and the judge is pretty good at
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setting a tone, and i think he's -- trump is going to be chastised in this one. i think he's going to start to behave properly, and in a trial that's run by a good judge, it -- the jurors catch on to that and they admire it and they care about it and they feel they're on the judge's team. they're not on team trump. >> yeah. >> they're not on team prosecution, they're on team judge. >> really fair points. >> i sometimes wish i were practicing law when i'm on this show. wow, that would be great. so much power. >> well, you have the books for it. yeah, you have the books for it. you have the bookshelf. it's practically a law library back there. margaret and lance, thank you both. we are looking at how this trial is playing across the nation. also, biden needs young voters. obama has thoughts about that. snoilts
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♪♪ ♪♪ >> michelle likes that when i sing that to her at night. that to me was that she moved from here like a distance. like i see you, i appreciate you, you know what that is. that's why i say he's got ice in his veins. >> that's his pro obama anthem and why the biden administration is looking for that now. first justice thomas and jan 6th. stay with us. with us .. who knows what to expect! turn shipping to your advantage. keep it simple...with clear, upfront pricing. with usps ground advantage®. ♪♪ feeling claritin clear is like... ♪♪ [cat meow] —is she? letting her imagination run wild even though she has allergies. yeah.
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we are covering this historic trump trial in new york. we've been looking at it in a lot of different ways. obama expert is with us. on this i want to show "the daily show's" jordan cleper, a comic, did show up and do a satyrical commentary. >> why are they waiting until right now? >> is it possible they're
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waiting until right now because trump coop sis tently delayed the trials? >> no. >> trump cannot get a fair trial in a 90 plus percent democrat city like new york city. >> where can trump get a fair trial? >> in the midwest. in ohio. in florida. >> he's on trial in florida. he's on trial in georgia. will you accept the results of those trials? >> no. >> no. chay, we've always begun with the evidence, the facts in the courtroom. when i mentioned o.j. or any big trial, it's also going to play out obviously for the public and everyone understands that even if the da's job is to do evidence and not politics. you are someone who's proven to be pretty historically knowledgeable about politics, trials and a lot of other things, how they play out for voters. >> right. >> your thoughts here two days in. >> yeah. that clip is pretty funny but
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politically i would discount it. trump already has those people. when you hear people consistently constantly say this helps trump. they talk about it this is a joker plot for the dark knight he got himself imprisoned to do this great mad plot to ultimately prevail. none of that is true. >> i hope -- i'll let you finish, chay. i hope no one has opened themselves up and inserted a cell phone, detonator and then closed themselves back up inside for those who know that dark knight scene. >> oh, yeah, gosh. no. >> gosh willing, yes. >> trump is not that much of a mastermind, but he very much knows that this hurts him. this very much hurts him. think about it this way, right? think about the suburban women, you know, who's voted for trump in '16, flipped to biden in '20. what does it do for all of those voters? 1/3 of them who voted for nikki
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haley who really do not want donald trump as their nominee and as their president again, what does it do to them? donald trump cannot afford to have those folks sit on their hands. it would be great if they voted for biden. if they sit on their hands, it's a disaster for him and he knows this. the this trial does nothing but hurt donald trump. >> yeah, it does seem to be his concern that it's going -- he's learning very quickly, as we mentioned earlier, how to control it and outside of the hard core it's weeks of that position. that's striking. i want you to stick around and update people on this big story out of washington. house republicans are not only struggling to govern, they are reliving kevin mccarthy's fight to get the speaker's gavel in the first place. mike johnson clashing with hard liners matt gaetz and then relenting as you might recall because gaetz and the hard liners weakened the rules
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because that means anybody can quickly have a vote of no confidence and they've used that power. >> kevin mccarthy likes to pretend he makes coalition with conservatives. kevin mccarthy's true coalition partner has been the democrats. he worked with them on the debt limit bill. >> gaetz has proven unpopular within his party and of course among his opponent democrats but he is the one who did act on what he said he would do and get those others to oust mccarthy. now mccarthy's replacement, speaker to mccarthy, he is doing the very thing gaetz and others said was so terrible, for example, democracy, where you use the votes in the house to pass things. doesn't sound that controversial. speaker johnson worked with democrats to get much-needed aid to foreign conflicts including ukraine and israel. he also relied on democrats to
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avoid the shutdown. maga republicans apparently think that they want to go into this campaign season with another civil war. johnson could need democrats to help him save his job if there were a vote on removal, it would be democrats who probably stop the bleeding. chay, it is really remarkable that this story is kind of a catch up. i'm giving everyone that update because there's been a lot of other stuff happening, but we haven't seen a modern congress, say, in the last two generations successively fight over possibly replacing, firing two speakers in a row in one congress. >> no, we haven't but, you know, this it feels to me like the republican party and their government representatives, donald trump, green, mike johnson, it feels like "the three stooges." massive incompetence and massive chaos all the way through. i think part of the reason for this is that republicans really believe that chaos,
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incompetence, bad government will somehow help them. they believe that joe biden will ultimately be blamed by voters for dysfunction in washington. that donald trump, mike johnson, none of them will be blamed. that's why we have seen today just three great examples of just chaos. the trump trial, this drama with the speaker and the mayorkas trial or lack of impeachment trial that we had over there in the senate. i mean, all of those stories are linked by one thing, republican belief in chaos as a governing philosophy. >> yeah. i would push you a little on that. i think it sounds right that they think if you can blame the other side, that helps, but mcconnell and others have said, you know, you go too far like that, like a shutdown, usually it's not the democratic white house that is blamed. mcconnell himself said that recently. >> right. >> just to pick an analogy where government fails. here is republican representative armstrong today.
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take a listen. >> by throwing ourselves into chaos without having any kind of real succession plan. i mean, just to be honest, i don't know who would want the job if this succeeds at this point. >> so that's kind of talking about the idea that the most powerful post people used to spend decades trying to get to is undesirable under at least the situation they're in and the rules from gaetz and co. i want to play one more clip of matt gaetz, i don't say it to be mean, it's been documented he's relatively unpopular, he's referred to that. here he is again, him and mtg driving the house. take a look. >> when i filed the motion to vacate i undertook a careful analysis promising the country that there was no way we were going to end up with a democrat speaker of the house. i'm not certain i can make that promise today as a consequence of the margin. >> he knows how to count. the margin is so narrow and the
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problem is so bad what he's saying they could really mess themselves up in a narrow margin a few moderate republicans decided, you know what, speaker jefferies is better than continuing this. do you think that's overstated? and for people at home who look to you to explain politics, why in the world is matt gaetz and mtg still holding so much leverage? >> yeah. i mean, so twhu think of senator mcconnell, he's thinking about suing voters. he's thinking about suburban voters. he's got a different goal. his goal is to get senators elected, particularly someone like larry hogan in maryland where you have to think about those kinds of voters in large numbers. matt gaetz and marjorie tailor green are playing to the base and they're playing to the republican influencer economy. they want to have up here on steep ends podcast. they want to get more follows on
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truth social. they are playing for book deals. they are playing for fox news appearances. that is a completely different incentive structure than trying to win elections. >> you put it very clearly, and that it is a different era and the technologies of the time matter a lot and the money and corruption of the time if you want to put it that way. we're running over on this segment, the little thing we call a tab on the left corner, it says new speaker, who dis, do you get that reference? >> i do not. what reference is that to? >> well, that's why i ask. you never know. you know so much about history. it's just an old joke where you get a text and if you have a new phone and it hasn't populated your contacts you might say, new phone, who dis? new phone. if you see the number and you don't know whose number it is. the reference here being they are running speakers so fast,
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it's almost like new speaker, who are we dealing with? final thought. >> i'm much more polite. i ask who is this? question mark. unlike donald trump and the maga guys. you know, so i did not -- >> but texting is casual. chay, texting is more casual. >> that is true. when it comes to language and texting, i try to be a little bit more formal. you know, like that's -- >> i'm really -- shout out to frazier, seattle. i had a friend who said they texted their son something, whatever it was, with a period. like, hey, you know, we'll meet after practice at 7, period, and their son said, this isn't an essay, dad. you don't have to put a period. it comes off really formal. you know, just -- >> i thought the period meant the conversation is over and don't text me again. i thought that's what the -- >> as opposed to the ellipse. some people think it's overly formal.
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anyway, chay, good to see you. >> good to see you, ari. >> thank you. we have a lot more coming up, including with the supreme court having two big jan 6 cases. clarence thomas is under fire. we'll explain. by the end of the hour as joe biden looks for youth support, we're going to have a special conversation about barack obama and the special role he played in culture and the obama/biden coalition. >> lately i've been listening to a lot of jay z. i think the potential for them to deliver a message with extraordinary power is remarkable.
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the supreme court is hearing two of the most important january 6th insurrection cases in the country, one this week, one next week. the big argument next week is on whether donald trump can claim some sort of presidential immunity because he was president while he staged the coup. mind you, that means he's not saying he's innocent or didn't do it. he's saying, even if he did it, he should be immune. this week there were separate arguments about whether convicted people, felons, went into the congress, the capitol, during that insurrection and were charged with obstruction of government proceeding, whether basically they've had it too rough. whether the doj stretched too many laws to go get them. the doj has, among other laws,
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said they obstructed an official proceeding. many judges have said that is a fair law to use. in each case guilt or innocent is determined by what they did. this isn't some big deal issue that has had a lot of controversy in the lower courts. these people have been convicted and the conservatives that calls into question how justice roberts is keeping them from becoming total trump partisans and doing it in an obvious way, the conservatives are seeming to ask about or even potentially minimize this once in a century insurrection that we all witnessed. here's justice thomas asking about whether it's just like other violent protests. >> there have been many violent protests that have interfweerd proceedings. has the government applied this provision to other protests in the past?
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>> now you can't infer too much from questions, but what the question seems to be asking is why hasn't this been charged before. here was, of course, justice sotomayor, because she explains no one had been caught doing this before. >> i'm not aware of that circumstance ever happening prior to january 6th. >> we've never had a situation before, where there's been a situation like this with people attempting to stop a proceeding violently. so i'm not sure what a lack of history proves. >> i'm not sure what a lack of history proves is how supreme court justice nicely implies that someone else's question, in this case clarence thomas, is off the mark. this matters a lot if there are votes on the supreme court to try to throw out convictions of people who actually stormed the capitol to overthrow your government.
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it's been a very busy day here as we cover the trump trial a lot more and we have a lot more coming up so stay with us. the promise of america is freedom, equality, but right now, those pillars of our democracy are fragile and our rights are under attack. reproductive rights, voting rights, the right to make your own choices and to have your voice heard. we must act now to restore and protect
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discussing music. now tonight the biden campaign is eyeing that same obama winning coalition. how they mobilized black and brown voters and young voters at some of the highest rates in history. a lot of young people at 30 are first-time voters. obama won them by a whopping 34 points in 2008. it was a key part of his historic first victory. he had biden on his side, of course, but if biden was running without obama at the top of the ticket. he still had a huge edge, 24% over trump among that young voting block. today biden's doing even worse with that key part of the obama/biden coalition. biden has done outreach to new types of media. he's talked to hip-hop media groups. obama did a nod to jay z's hit
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dirt off your shoulder on the campaign trail. >> when you are running for the presidency, then you've got to expect it and, you know, you've got to just kind of let it -- >> that was him telling us like go to the polls. >> you know you know. some people might have saw him do that. oh, okay. they might not have known it's you better get that dirt off your shoulders. they don't know that was an anthem. >> but if you know, you know. now in politics people obsess over ideology and race but there's a lot more to this. take one example in georgia. biden won by a razor thin margin there, you may recall. both parties have run senate candidates who are black americans. democrats campaigned with killer mike and atlanta, which is key to any democratic victory has been a driver of politics and culture in america for generations and that's partly
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because of these days its top rappers who have much morphologies than congress. they can talk about the controversy to a new rap rivalry brewing between drake and atlanta artist future. if you are watching this thinking, well, these aren't household names in my house, that's fine, but you might not be under 30. you might not live in atlanta. that future album though that started this rift with drake, i mentioned, it just debuted at number one above country singer morgan wallen and pop singer arianna to revive the kind of energy obama got, including among top artists, including atlanta's hometown hero jezee who made voting cool before the 2008 election with a big hit called, quote, my president is black. >> i'm like, this is it.
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♪♪ everybody that was in the studio, it sounds good. but if he doesn't win, go crazy. >> young geezy got more people to the polls with a song for president obama. >> and that was 16 years ago. jezee making a song about some very big themes in that same song, he raps, quote, obama for mankind, we're ready for damn change. stunting on martin luther, feeling just like a king, guess this is what he meant when he said he had a dream. bars. well, this is now part of our collective history. and those clips are part of a new historical documentary, hip hop and the white house, produced by jezee back on "the
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beat" tonight and "new york times" best-selling author. >> yes, sir. >> that documentary i mentioned drops on hulu this coming monday. so we're thrilled to have you here. beforehand, i should mention, you and i are also doing a little discussion about this in new york tomorrow. full disclosure. >> absolutely. >> thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. like that, bars. >> bars because, you know, i'll say this, and i think this is true in life and music, it can be easier to be cool, to be negative, to be critical, than to say something from the heart. you may have had your views, but you didn't know when was going to win. you had a big following. a lot of people say, stay out of politics. >> right. >> what was -- what did that mean to you with obama and can biden tap the same energy is sort of the question we raise tonight? >> with obama, it was timing. just like this documentary is timing. with obama, it was culture. this is something that we had never seen before.
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it was energy that none of us had -- none of us experienced. and it was a movement, so to speak. for myself, i truly was a believer. i believed that he believed. i wanted to support him any way i could. what we wanted was a leader that can bring everybody together. and that's why i chose to support what he was doing from a grass root level. that's why i chose to support him with my art because, you're right, it was a big risk. it's a big risk. nobody wanted to hear about politics. so jeezy talking politic. i dd my homework. i watched the move. i researched him. on the low obama was a mentor of mine and didn't even know it. yeah, he was, for sure. >> jeezy, look, you've had evolution, which you told us about. you told your listeners about that through your music. early on, we didn't know you would be interested in politics, maybe global warming because we don't want the snowman to melt. >> no. >> you have to keep the snowman
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icy. >> right. >> but you shifted into this. i want to play one part in the doc where other artists some of the white house and in the doc of course it includes your story and others. you have k common talking about what it meant. >> obama brought all this to discussion criminal justice reform. >> you can see the pictures on the walls and things like -- they never thought that we would be meeting in here. they never thought that we would have the power and the voice that we had. >> what did you find or learn in putting this project together where you go into the history. >> right. i learned a lot of things. i learned that -- i had no idea easy e was the first one of us to go and start induling in politics. i learned that even what happened in new orleans with hurricane katrina, again, we in realtime. we're not knowing that our
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president and our government is not moving accordingly and people are dying. i learned that, you know, that bush -- you know, he had his thing with rap. i learned j.f., sister soldier. these are things that we didn't hear about probably because social media wasn't around then. and this was to educate people on how this documentary was to educate people on how much our impact and our influence is needed in this country because if you want to talk to black and brown people, you have to talk through them. and we are the ones that -- we are the translators. you can't talk directly to them. unless you come through one of us, whoever that may be. and that definitely showed me how much power this art form has. and i didn't know that hip hop basically came from the turmoil
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and the self destruction of the crack era and how much the government and the cia had to do with that. i was like wow. when you're in the hood, you know people are selling drugs and people making money. you don't know there's a bigger agenda. just to understand that this art form that came from basically people being demonized and put in poverty would have a say so in what goes on in our country today. i think that's something that everybody should be able to understand that this is not just violence we talk about. this is not just, you know, when you think about everything that comes along with hip hop. it's always negative. we do positive stuff as well. we actually are able to speak to our people, mobilize our people. i think that's important. i think that's important. very important. >> 100. >> yeah. >> no, that makes a lot of sense. i've seen the whole doc, as it's about to come out and it really explores that and takes everything on. you have rappers in there talking as well about republicans. you have some criticism of
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biden. but again listening to the community. jeezy, my time is up tonight. the project is hip hop and the white house on hulu. thank you and we'll be right back. >> salute. >> salute. be right back. >> salute. >> salute. but, you also can't leave covered in hair. with bounce pet, you can cuddle and brush that hair off. bounce, it's the sheet. (psst! psst!)
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