MP3 The Podcast

In this episode, The Pitts brothers discuss President Trump, and the voting rights act.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

I'm Marshall Pitts. Module Pitts. I'm Myron Pitts. And we are MP3. Welcome to the MP3 Talk Show with Marshall, Module, and Myron, my two brothers here. We're glad to be here in the studios this morning. If you're wondering what we're going to talk about today, Myron's going to give you the heads up. Yeah. What's going on?

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Got a couple of topics. Going to talk about uh president slash 45 slash 47 uh Trump and he's had uh The dust up. The dust up with the dust up with the Pope. He's had a little bit of everything going on. Uh war with Iran, uh assassination attempt number three, uh the dust up with the Pope, uh sharing images of himself as Jesus, just a little bit of everything. So we're so we're gonna talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Now why why don't you uh you know when I'm doing that, you interrupt me. I'm getting ready to get right into it. Oh, were you?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Hello, I'm I'm okay then topic two. Yeah, because you you take a topic two, you're backing into the session. You should back it up into the topic. You shouldn't have set him off. Uh topic two, we're gonna talk about um uh uh the Voting Rights Act, uh, which was the Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court, which has three Trump appointees. I might want to point out out of nine, uh they hollowed it out. They really uh crippled uh one of the landmark civil rights legislations that has secured black people's voting rights. Black and brown people as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I would have said uh Trump shenanigans part three hundred. This is like the three hundredth time since he's been president that he said something at least that many times, and then I would have said black people, your vote won't count. Well, and I would have started right there with those two. And then it put people on the edge, keep them going. You know, think about what we're gonna talk about. Because that's what that's what we talk about voting rights acting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, is black people's vote not counting. Is they're already starting in. Yeah, it's already been. So I said all that to say that I'm probably should be the one that handled the setup of the topics from now on. That's what I said I'll do for. Even though you give us the topics, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

All right, right. So let's start with the Pope. Uh uh, you know, it's very rare. In fact, I can't even think of a time when another US president in my lifetime has got into a kind of a dust-up with the Pope, a back and forth with the Pope. I'm trying to think, but I just don't remember that.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

You've been alive for a lot of presidents, too. It goes way back. Well, well, so have you. Just three years ago. Way back to Dwight Eisenhower and all them. No, not quite far. Not quite that far. A long time. You've been on that you've been around for a few more presidents. It's very, very unusual, though. I haven't heard of it either. Um We need to stop saying that though. What? We need to stop saying that something that Trump's done is very unusual. Because No, but there's a lot of unusual things. Well, I think he's his point is just everything he does. Everything orthodox, unusual. Something that we hadn't seen. Think of how many times that we have talked about that and said that over the years. We've never seen this before. Yeah, we've never seen this before. Listen, I know.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

But we've never seen anyone destroy the east wing of the White House. Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah. I've never sight. There's a lot of firsts, a lot of facts. Now he has far he has far surpassed the point when I'm going to say, well, you know what? I didn't think he would do that because I don't know what this president will do. No one does know what this president would do. So well his style is is pretty.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

He just has he has a unique style.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

There's no style. There's no style.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

No, his style is he likes to do things far different from anybody else and be the first to do. No, no. What he does is That's his style.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

The rappers will say that's his stealer. No, no, no. I'm I'm firmly convinced that when he wakes, just like I do, I'm retired. I wake up in the morning, I say, you know what, you know, what am I gonna do today? I think he does that. He's like, I think he wakes up and says, Well, what am I gonna do today? Yeah, you know what I'll do today? I'll invade Iran. That's what I'll do. That's what I'll do today. Tomorrow, we'll see if I can uh we'll see if I can. Who who's the Pope now? Let me talk to the Pope. Let me get into it with the Pope. I don't think there's no plan. There's no right. We need to stop thinking that there's some rhyme or reason because I don't think there is no. No, no, that's that's a little different.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Because that's you're talking now about he's a little thin-skinned, very thin skinned, when people say things that are against what he's doing or what he's talked about. And so Iran Roar was was his thing, and the Pope has come out against the award. War. The Pope, as you would expect, is a religious. That's what they do.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

He's against war.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Uh by anybody doing it.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Right. By anybody doing it. You know, under Catholic doctrine written by another Pope way back in the day, you know, the only time the only justified quote unquote war is a war of defense, which the Iran war, of course, was not. It was completely unnecessary. Um uh it was Israel and the United States attacked Iran. And of course, to defend itself, they closed the Strait of Hammuz and have done uh harassed ships going through there, harassed other nations in the Middle East. And the Pope has just he didn't mention Trump by name, he didn't really need to, but has criticized that war. And then that started.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

They said he's okay with Iran having nuclear weapons.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Right, which is just putting words in the Pope's mouth, which is also something I really haven't heard anybody else doing.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Well, but but another thing I haven't seen another president do that he's done recently is these depictions, you know, Pope Leo XIV is who we're talking about. Yeah, yeah. American Pope. Right. Of President Trump shown in a in a Christ-like a Pope from a Pope from Chicago, right? Right, first American Pope. He's having that stuff. Which is where Obama's. Can I get it out, please? Can I get it out? Can I get it out, please? With a Christ-like pose, you know, with with glows of light coming from his hands as he's blessing folks and doing that kind of yeah, caused a lot of upset uh posts.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Even among some hardcore uh MAGA Make It Great Make America Great Again supporters, they were upset by that. And it's a rare case where he took a step back, didn't apologize, never apologizes, never. Uh, but he did take that hold it down. He shared the post. Someone else had done it, it was done in some AI, uh, AI generated. Uh is what Marshall described. And there was such a backlash against even some of his core supporters, he did take it down. Then he told a lie, which is also very common for him, uh, that he uh thought it was just like uh almost like a doctor healing someone. He didn't think it was to him, it wasn't him being shot.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

But then he posted a follow a follow-up post with I think it was uh him being blessed.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yeah. Wasn't he in a robe? Wasn't he in a robe or something? Yeah, he was in a robe. He's dressed just like the traditional European document. He was in a Christ-like. So now my Michael Doctor from back in the day. Yeah, does does he back in the day?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

You mentioned you emphasize, emphasized the fact that he never apologizes.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

So do you think that's because he doesn't realize he's wrong, or does he never think he's wrong?

SPEAKER_02 7:25

He never thinks he's wrong. I mean, he was someone asked him directly. This was early on. That that's what I always say about Trump. Everything he's all the behaviors he's exhibiting now, he's been like that since he for decades. And certainly when since he's started running for office. But someone asked him directly, uh, it was a question about Christianity, and the person clearly knew the interviewer knew a little bit how Christianity works. Uh, and he was like, So, you know, forgiveness is a big part of it. Have you ever done anything that you felt you need to be forgiven for? And he said he couldn't think of anything. So I mean that tells you a lot right there.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Well, that's uh, you know, a man who's I'm trying to think I'm trying to think of what type of person Let a Led a strong life. Yeah, what I'm trying to think of what type of person could never think of anything. Because I can think of a couple of things that you two need to be forgiven for right now. So I'm just one what kind of person And right back at you, and certainly myself. Certainly myself. So I'm trying to think of myself, what kind of person would never could say they could never find anything that they need to be forgiven for? I mean, what type of person is that? That could that could never find anything.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

I mean, if you let if you're not a a completely mentally healthy person.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

I I I think that no one would say that that is a mentally healthy because it is obviously fiction. There is some everyone is done wrong. That's just the human nature. We can take it out of the morality. We've all done something that would that harms someone, uh, whether emotionally or in some cases, and obviously even before he was done things.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Emotionally, physically, uh, mental mental wise, you know, playing games. You've done something that you need to be forgiven for.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

One of his superlatives uh as president, I use the term ironically, uh sarcastically, is that he's the only president that was elected who's a convicted felon. Thirty-four felony counts related to the sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll. It was a civil case, but as part of that civil case, the the judge wrote that the reason she has a claim, a defamation claim against uh Mr. Trump is because we believe he did sexually assault her. So that might be something he might want to be forgiven for.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

But you know, if who can we lay I don't want to say blame, but who who do we look at when we say that we've got the second Trump term, but we also had the first Trump that which led us down this road. Who do we blame for that? What do you mean blame? I mean we voted for both times. But who's this we?

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 10:09

We're not speaking French. The country. When are we in this? The country. The country voted for President Trump. So do you do that?

SPEAKER_02 10:16

The country majority-wise.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Well you said who we have to who do we have to blame for it?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

The majority of voters. Do you blame 2016 voted for Hillary?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Under our electoral system. Do you blame the voters?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Do you blame the voters? Or do you blame Hillary for that? Which one do you blame? Well, you know, it it is what it is. We are where we are.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Why go back down that road?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

So we won't go back down it again. It's my thing. Yeah. So and and so we we have to really kind of look inward at ourselves as Americans and say, this how did we get here? Because you want to make sure that you don't get here again down the road. How do we get here? Now I will say this President Trump is unique. We can say what we want to about him. He's unique like President Obama. The unicorn was he was unique. He was a unique is there gonna is there gonna be someone down the stretch that a round the corner? There could always possibly be one.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Who knows? That's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

There might be, but probably not. And probably not in our lifetime. We don't know that. I said probably. That's what the word probably means. I don't think we can even say probably. I didn't say definitely.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Because we just had two, as you pointed out.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

We just had two improbable close proximity anyone could come up with.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

One led to the other. I agree. Yeah, and so now with through the unicorns and all that kind of stuff. Now we're back to the regular candidates. And so we we know I forgot there's a Joe Biden there in between.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Within four years of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

But but a regular guy. JD Vance, the vice president. Yeah, he's a regular dude. Not really. Regular as far as No, he's no he's no president. He's no president. No, he's not. No one is. Yeah, he he's regular as far as traditional president.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

There's no other President Trump, there's no other Barack Obama.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

But how but how uh Trump happened really goes right to our next topic. Race is how Trump happened. I mean, that's the bottom line. There's one demographic in both all of his elections, all three, the loss to Biden and the wins against Hillary and Kamala Harris, there's only one demographic that voted for him in the majority, and that's white people. All the minorities voted heavily the other way. Now, Trump did a little bit better than Republicans generally do with uh African American men and some Hispanics, but still it was overwhelmingly one way. So until we deal with this issue of race, we're always susceptible to some race better like Trump. And he's and the reason he was elected is because Barack Obama, the first black president, scared a lot of people. Just unraveled. It scared a lot of people. Beyond scared. I mean, he just untethered so many people. They couldn't believe it. So we blame Barack and Trump. No, Barack was the cowlist. I can't blame him for what he was born. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

What he was born, African American, you know, biracial. You can blame his election. You can blame his election, you know, because that that's what Myron said was the callus. That's why people got so and there's a tracks of America. There's a there's a great fear of the browning of America, which is going on right now. And so when Brack got elected, a lot of folks were like, they just couldn't, as Myron said, couldn't believe it. Right. And what you know, what is what is going on here? We've got to stop it.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

And that takes us neatly into our next topic. Right. And and yes, neatly into the case. The gunning of the voting rights act.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Neatly into the next time he argued. He can't wait to just pump himself up about his segue. Neatly into the next topic.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

So the Voting Rights Act, of course, uh, as we mentioned at the top of our uh landmark legislation, it was passed uh in 1965. The previous year, 64, the Civil Rights Act was passed. And those two pieces of legislation, uh just about everything the African Americans are doing now that involves can be tied back to those. Uh, you know, you take those acts out, you don't have a Barack Obama. You don't have a lot of the legislators that we've seen over.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Or even at the local level, county commissioners, uh city council persons, board of education folks. A lot of those numbers would not be where they are now.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

But for those of you, and so the court did, the court is now six three, uh, meaning six conservatives and three liberal justices. Uh President Trump was the he provided the decisive votes. Uh the decisive number of justices, he has appointed three, partly just the timing when he came along. Uh partly some some trickery by Obama's appointees from the blocked Obama's appointee for I think about eight months, and then a lot of people were thinking Hillary gonna win. They're like, well, okay, the Democrats will get their justice, and then Trump surprised everybody and won. Then he got that pick. Surprised, which was really it, I think it surprised a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Well, I mean, you two guys were wrong on that, but I was not.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Yeah, most of the nation was probably wrong on that. And again, most of the nation did vote for Hillary Clinton. Right. Uh, but in any case, so that that court has decided essentially that the the act, the voting rights act, is not needed anymore.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Uh John Roberts has said And they broke it down in two sections that and when Barack was Obama was in office, they got it the first little slash to it, big slash to it was a kip cure out, the plea clear pre-clearance version of uh organizations or governments who historically discriminated against minorities, they had to, when they wanted to change their voting structure, they had to get pre-clearance from the federal government.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Which is to say they had to prove that it wasn't gonna discriminate.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Right against minorities. Against minorities. And so when Vabrak was in office, they the Congress uh gutted that. They took it out. But we still had the some portion of the Voting Rights Act left that if it had a disparate impact or a negative impact on voting minority voting strength, then it could be struck down. Well, now they have changed it to say, you know, that doesn't matter anymore. If it has a uh disparate impact on voting rights for minorities, that's okay as long as it wasn't intentioned. Right. And so now you have to prove intent.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

So then my then my question becomes And that's the that's the big part. You have to prove intent, and the standard is almost impossible to prove it from that point.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

And then what people are saying, people on the opposite side are saying, and then we we have to consider this, is we're post-racial now, right? We're no longer pre-racial, we're post-racial. We've had a black president. Which is so funny because we've had a black, a two-term black president. So race is not really a factor, even in the South, is it? But the South is do we still believe the presentation? No one still believes that. Do we still believe? Well, I'm some people did believe that.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

But not the politicians. The politicians on both sides know exactly what's going on. This is about diminishing the black vote. Right. Um, but yeah, I think there's some people who thought after the uh I remember one of the funniest quotes uh after Barack Obama was elected in 2008. And this is a I think it was a white guy. He was being, I think, relatively sincere. He's like, Well, is there any more need for the National Association for the Advancement of you know black people? Because you can't advance further than the president, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And then you had people like he was serious about it.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Well, yeah, he was serious. And then, you know, you had Rush during that time saying, you know, talking about Barack. Well, you know, we got him elected, he used Barack, the magical Negro. And so you know, you had to think about that. So it's it's different. It's different because I didn't realize until this voting rights act was gutted that the state of Louisiana had, which is why the case came to the Supreme Court. That's right, sure. Because they had set they had cut out a voting district that would be minority, uh, majority. Yeah. Uh where most folks were black voters. And they, the people, not the non-black voters of Louisiana fought against that. They said race shouldn't play or factory. That's why I can't. But Louisiana had never has never elected uh an African-American statewide to this day.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

And that was just so amazing to me.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

And again, it always goes when they jump through all these hoops to dilute votes. That's what they're doing. They're jumping through hoops to make sure that the votes are diluted.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Well, it's about it's about power. It's about power.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

That's what's but they're but they're not, and they're thinking long-term and they're trying short term and long term. But if they're worried about the browning of America, what's the one simple way to make sure that because they're in the majority race, right? What's the one simple way? Have more babies. Have more kids. That's that's a simple way. You're already the majority race. If you if you're the majority race and you have more than the 1.2 kids, or the one point, that would kill me when they divide kids up. Yeah, one and a half kids. If you have two or three kids, yeah, every family has two or three kids. I'm not advocating more kids, but what I am saying, that's one of the easier ways. Because they're jumping through all types of things. They're going to all because they're worried about their vote not counting. Well, if you do it, that's what they're working with.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Well, if you do it right, which is what they're they've been successful at, if you do it right, you can't even at if you're not the majority, you can still maintain power by some of these methods that they're using.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

I know that's what that's exactly what the voting rights uh act was meant to prevent. Right. And so you talked about the post-racial. Let's talk about the post-racial South. So the day this decision came up, which is I think the 29th of April.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

They went into action.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

They went into action.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Louisiana, who we talked about, they even they even put everything on hold.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

The primaries on the governor stopped a primary that was people already voted. 42,000 people have voted. He stopped it. We're gonna redraw these districts to get rid of their one black district. Right. Tennessee just recently voted. You played to get rid of their one black district around the Memphis area. And that's been a district since even before the voting. That was since 1923. Right. Getting rid of that. And they're doing the same thing in Mississippi trying to get rid of their voting.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

That's what I've always said. It's always uh an analogy to sports. You play to win. They have the power right now when they have Trump in this, and as you know, some of them don't even like Trump. Yeah. But they they have the they have the Supreme Court on their side, they have the justices under the Supreme Court. There's no checks and balances. There's no checks and balances. This is the time to do whatever they think that they should do. They're playing to win. The pendulum will swing back the other way at some point. We hope. Well, it will. It will. Okay, so that that that could be that could be 34 years from now. We hope it'll swing. Seems like I'm the only one that's hoping. You guys don't have much hope about that. No, I have hope, but uh there's to bring back Barack.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

We don't have uh the game, the day is later than I think we we think it is. Uh some of the things they're doing. Specifically with the upcoming elections, that's why these southern states are moving very fast because we're what we're talking about is congressional districts. Right. And so they know because of the high gas prices, thanks to uh President Trump's war, uh, because of that and other things of the economy, the Democrats are widely expected to take the House at minimum and maybe the Senate. So they want to get as they want to prevent that and do everything they can as much so they can accomplish their agenda because they know their time is short.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

So my point is, my point about saying all that is when the pendulum does swing and it swings back the other way to the left and at least be a little bit more uh liberal and those type things, then that's the time to go for it. That's the time that we need to go. Go for it all. They need to go for it all. And that's the thing that data. Forget about this, it's not the 60s. So forget about all that. Can we get along with that? They always carry how it looks. That's that's done. They're worried about how things look, they're worried about things whether whether it's it's right, whether it's moral, whether it's ethical, and those types of things. Good thing to worry about. Well, change don't worry about stuff like that. When you get a person down, at old football people should say that. When you get them down, you kick them. You stuff them. You stuff them. You keep them down. You you don't you don't let them get back up. You kick them.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

And I think we're not talking about doing anything illegal. Just staying within the bounds of the galaxy. But playing the game the same way. A good example. Uh the state of Virginia, just to the north of us, the Democrats there, the Republicans and gerrymandering, they passed a 10-1 gerrymander. So they they drew maps that barring anything unusual, 10 Democrats will win to one Republican. Now, let's be honest. That's not fair either. But that's what happens in North Carolina. That's what the Republicans have done to the Democrats here. So until you start fighting fire with fire, you're gonna get raped.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

You gotta stop worrying about how it looks. Right. You know, Democrats work, we work.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

That's the that's one of the few virtues of Trump, I would call the virtue. He just doesn't care how it looks like. Don't care how you look.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Well, it's that's what I'm saying. You know, if you ain't cheating, you're not trying. You know, you what you want to do is you want to you not be worried about whether it's just gonna look right. You know, and then first thing the first thing the Democrats get in the office, Rob is in the office. Can we all get a perfect? Remember, Rob should have been going for the jump.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

I mean, you know, and in his way, he did, because Democrats have been wanting universal health care or something close to it ever since the FDR. And he did get through Obamacare. Right. And that's also led to part of the backlash.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

At the end of the day, this new this gunning of the Voting Rights Act will mean, at the end of the day, fewer minorities of brown and black people. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

The vote won't count, which is what it should have been. Should have been the topic for the black folks talking about. But anyway, we'll we'll it won't count. It's a little sensational. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 24:38

It won't count as much.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Which is still an operation. Right. It's still an operation. But we gotta get out of here. Want to thank everybody for tuning in. I am Marshall Pitts. Marsh. I'm Myron Pitts, and we are MP3.