2 Men In Black and White: An Honest Conversation

Mark Hayes (00:02.83)
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting edition of Two Men in Black and White. Today, we're talking about the actual dismantling of our democracy. That's right, the Voting Rights Act, gutted by John Roberts and his five other cronies, including the biggest sellout in American history, Clarence, I Don't Love Myself, or Anything That Looks Like Me, Thomas. All right, here with us today, special correspondent, Hervé Francois.

Herve Francois (00:31.304)
you

Mark Hayes (00:32.136)
is here to give us his thoughts. He's back again, of course, joining me. My partner in crime, Brock and Elle, is here with us. Two minute black and white and honest conversation. All right, Brock, let's get right to it. The dismantling of our democracy, Project 2025 rolling right along. No bumps in the road, no kinks in the armor. They're just doing their thing quietly, screwing Black America, especially.

Brock Ganeles (01:02.169)
Yeah, now let's tell me why Cash Patel's FBI is raiding the offices and or home of the leading state senator in Virginia who led that aggressive gerrymander for the Democrats, right? In a fight to pull back some level of fairness in our elections.

But you got the Santis, Louisiana, Tennessee has already moved to redistrict. It appears as though they cut that one black district in half. So we got the confluence of stripping back of, in essence, protections and a government enforcement agency that I guess is really trying to intimidate anyone that's fighting against them.

because I don't see any other justification for an FBI raid on what we would normally call a random state senator in Virginia, right? Not a national political figure, but the FBI wants to send a message. I'm sure that call came from the top down, right? That we got to rattle some cages and we got to mess with some people. That's my thoughts, Herve.

Herve Francois (02:12.155)
Yeah. Yeah, let's keep this real. This is not the FBI, right? This is coming from the top, right? The FBI had no idea.

The FBI knows this person didn't do anything wrong, didn't break the law. So like you said, now all of a sudden they're raiding our offices. It's an office of a black woman, right? And like you said, gerrymandering has been taking place on both sides. At our aisle, it started off last year in Texas, the governor gets a call from the president. Hey, this is what I need you to do. Not feeling good about these midterm elections coming up in November. They stripped the Voting Rights Act 1965 last week because again, they're not feeling good about their chances in the midterm election.

only way they can win or try to win at least is move that goalpost, move that goalpost, up, back, left, right, and so on and so forth, right? You're gonna try to go ahead and get rid of the districts in which blacks and other folks of color were traditionally voting and now you're getting rid of those districts. Some of these states are now trying to redraw the maps even before their primaries by the end of this month. This is how disaggregious and horrible it is as we were slightly discussing before we kicked off.

this evening.

And Mark, as I was saying before, you know, these these these statues, these policies, these laws that were put in place back in the 60s to begin to try to even the level playing field for those who had not been given an opportunity in the past to go ahead and vote, to go ahead and go to school and things like that. Now you're going ahead and dismantling those statues. But you would do so in in in in in in in the premise that, well, you know what we

Herve Francois (03:55.962)
had to do it in 1964, 1965, because folks were not getting equal access to voting, getting equal access to education. Well, we believe that because of racism, we believe racism is dead right now. So there's no need to go ahead and maintain these statues in the manner that they were written back in the mid sixties. Nothing could be further from the truth because you have this head of the defense department, right? Just literally squashing down promotion.

of females and Black generals simply because of their gender and the color of their skin. So you can't sit here and tell me that racism is not alive. Some of those generals, even more decorated, even more highly experienced, that they're white counterparts that are now going to get promotion. And promotion, from four-star to five-star, is a huge deal in the military. It's a huge deal in the military. When you start talking about your pension, when you start talking about your reputation, when it leaves behind,

Mark Hayes (04:30.755)
female.

Herve Francois (04:56.524)
the troops that you commanded in the past and so on and so forth. So you can't sit here and tell me that racism is dead. Whether it's in politics, whether it's in education, whether it's in healthcare, we got a black woman still a 40 % chance higher of death when giving birth relative to their white female counterparts. I don't blame the white females. I don't even blame the doctors. It's just the system, systemic racism. It still exists.

Mark Hayes (04:57.258)
legacy.

Herve Francois (05:25.031)
We don't want it to exist, but it's here. Right? So there's two ways that you could deal with systemic racism. You could put policies and statues and laws in place, such as the DEI, such as Voting Rights Act of 1965, to try to level the playing field. But if you do that, then we never will have our day of reckoning. We'll never address the root cause. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and DEI policies

or Band-Aids to a bigger underlying problem that we refuse to address. So everyone on both sides get angry about it, right? The Republicans and those in power say, oh, we're just giving out services and we're giving opportunities to people that don't deserve an opportunity and everything else like that. If we're going to be making districts for Blacks, why can't we be making districts for White and everything else like that? You don't want to address the root.

So we have a Band-Aid here and Band-Aid there. Now what do you want to do? You want to remove that Band-Aid. Be it DEI, Voting Rights Act of 1964, 1965, you want to remove that Band-Aid because you think that everyone is equal. You think there's no more systemic racism. When you remove that Band-Aid, you never addressed the root cause. And so folks who did not have an opportunity before are going to be in even a worse position because they're not going to be given an opportunity.

Right? And then you're going to go ahead and preach from the mountaintop that we're all the same.

Mark Hayes (06:53.998)
Let me ask you this, Irving. Virginia says Senate President pro tempore, El Louise Lucas, is a Democrat from Portsmouth. That's whose house was raided. No one in our society is more disrespected than the Black woman.

Herve Francois (07:06.598)
Mm-hmm.

Herve Francois (07:12.773)
Hmm. That's right. That's right.

Mark Hayes (07:17.006)
How do you get Clarence Thomas to go along with these notions? I know systemic racism doesn't exist for him, right? Because he's bought and paid for. But how does he look at his mom and maybe he doesn't look at his mom or the black women in his family. But how does, how?

Herve Francois (07:41.628)
Yeah.

Mark Hayes (07:43.49)
How are we getting here to Black Manga? We'll get to Stephen A. Smith in just a moment. But answer me, riddle me that, Batman.

Herve Francois (07:48.647)
Hello?

Herve Francois (07:52.946)
Look, Mark, it's a great question. You take it to account, the conversation to another level. And I have no problem with that. But you and I both come from corporate America, many, many years, right? And I know what you've seen, similarly to what I've seen, and Brock, you've seen it as well. Listen, I'm not saying all, I hate to generalize, but for many of folks,

Right? Black folks, for some, when they reach a certain echelon within their industry, when they get into a higher tax bracket, when they get more, when they get wealthier, they tend to either forget those that helped them along the way to get to where they are today. They either forget

or they try to make you believe that they were able to do it all by themselves. Bootstraps without any assistance, be it, you know, family, federal, state, local, or anything else. Clarence Thomas benefited from DEI, right? He doesn't get into Yale Law School without it. Or maybe back then it was quotas and so on and so forth and everything else like.

Mark Hayes (09:01.015)
Yeah.

Mark Hayes (09:21.197)
Bye.

Herve Francois (09:21.679)
Right? He reaches the upper echelon of his industry, right? The legal industry. And now because of that, it's easy for him to forget how he got there, decide not to pull others along the way with him. Right? And you brought up Stephen A. Smith. It's the same thing for him. Now, I know very wealthy African Americans.

that have not reacted in that manner once they got to that higher tax bracket, once they reached a pinnacle within their industry, medicine, corporate, law, politics, whatever it may be, that they are still helping those behind them opening and creating a path, opening the door to let other folks in, unlike a person like Clarence Thomas shutting the door, right? So for Clarence Thomas, man, listen, it's not just

Mark Hayes (09:55.488)
or

Mark Hayes (10:02.914)
Sure.

Herve Francois (10:20.707)
You don't have to be so surprised or scratch your head, hey, how does he face other Black women in his family? He doesn't care. So it doesn't bother him. Clarence Thomas of all of the conservative Supreme Court justices, him and Alito are the ones most on the right.

Mark Hayes (10:34.999)
Right.

Right.

Mark Hayes (10:47.96)
Damn it, yeah.

Herve Francois (10:50.471)
You know, it is part of that group of folk, Mark, that believes that, well, if we keep on talking about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and quotas and DEIs and so-called leveling the playing field, we are forever going to lean on those crutches.

We're not going to think that we are better than anybody else because we're always going to be looking for that policy, that statute, that law that can help us level the playing field. I would, as an individual, I'll leave it here Brock, I'd be as an individual, I'd be extremely happy, extremely happy for this country to get rid of quotas, DEI, voting right acts, and so on and so forth.

Brock Ganeles (11:28.432)
Let me.

Herve Francois (11:43.749)
Because if they do it when it's supposed to be done, that means we would have addressed the underlying issues and those isms that we're talking about are truly gone.

Brock Ganeles (11:56.889)
which is the question you led me right to the question I thought I was going to have to come back hard is you think America the root cause if we're going to talk about the root cause you think America is going to be able to have the conversation and that people in America are going to be able to come to a place where they actually are comfortable with everyone in society being equal.

Herve Francois (12:08.593)
cost.

Herve Francois (12:24.775)
I would love to

Brock Ganeles (12:24.825)
Because the root cause is there are people in society, mostly white, that don't believe that everyone else in society should have equal opportunity, even equal rights. know, when we're talking about voting, right? We're talking about rights. We're not talking about opportunity, right? We're talking about the basics. Civil rights.

Herve Francois (12:35.119)
an equal opportunity, 100%.

We go back.

Herve Francois (12:44.545)
Civil rights civil rights civil rights whether those are civil rights afforded to people of color civil rights afforded to women right people of another gender Brock I would love for us to have that conversation I've been waiting for us to have that conversation for years I'd love to have that conversation we tiptoed around that conversation a little bit six years ago when George Floyd was killed

Mark Hayes (12:45.101)
Thank you.

Herve Francois (13:08.955)
because that was an eye-opener during we were stuck inside because of the pandemic and everything else was like, uh-oh, there is something more deep rooted here for after us watching that video over and over again of this police officer putting his knee on the neck of this black man for eight minutes. When we're telling you he can't breathe, he can't breathe. So I'm not sure if that was a day of reckoning, but certainly it was an eye-opener.

And there was piecemeal discussions about racism in this country, but I don't think that there was an overhaul or overarching discussion on solutions to the problem.

Brock Ganeles (13:52.963)
Yeah, because it's focused on policing, right? It just kept positioning black people's potential assailants and then victims of policing. What I worry about is that there's certainly a faction of white America, the Christian nationalists that are willing to have that discussion and they're going to say, hey, it's a white Christian nation and therefore either we should be running shit.

Herve Francois (13:59.014)
It was just more band-aids.

More band-aids,

Brock Ganeles (14:19.803)
and everyone else's second class citizens, know, men particularly, or they're just going to be saying in no one else has the right to be here, but us, which is kind of really behind the whole ice and the deportation, the deportation movement. I think, mean, I don't know, Mark, what's the forum for you? We talk about this racial reckoning a lot.

Herve Francois (14:29.457)
That's right.

Mark Hayes (14:35.359)
Help. Help.

Brock Ganeles (14:43.909)
But we've actually really never talked about like what the forum for is it it is is it politicians bringing it to the fore and making us talk about it and.

Mark Hayes (14:56.237)
I, you're supposed to be an elected leader, right? Part of one of the biggest issues in America is income inequality. Why shouldn't it be an issue that lawmakers are talking about? All right, because we have to guarantee fairness, right? If everybody did the right thing, we wouldn't have two CEOs of color in the Fortune 100.

Brock Ganeles (14:56.27)
in in

Brock Ganeles (15:25.273)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark Hayes (15:25.965)
If everybody was hired based on their credentials, we wouldn't still be having firsts, right? We wouldn't still be having minority. We wouldn't be worth 1 17th of white America, right? So.

Herve Francois (15:34.246)
Yeah. Right.

Herve Francois (15:42.503)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (15:44.316)
Yeah, we have to the conversation and the policies. Because as you were saying it, was just thinking in my head, it's like a pick up basketball game where you're calling your own fouls, right? Like just doesn't work. There's a reason there's referees in the NBA playoffs because they're not going to trust. You can't trust the players to call their own, right? So you can't really trust society to do the right thing if left to their own devices. There have to be policies around.

Mark Hayes (15:48.629)
I hate the policy. Yes.

Mark Hayes (15:54.221)
Same thing, never work.

Mark Hayes (16:01.517)
players to their own fouls.

Mark Hayes (16:09.878)
Not at all.

Herve Francois (16:12.623)
I don't.

Brock Ganeles (16:13.347)
around the values, but we can have the conversation about the values. Sorry, everybody.

Herve Francois (16:16.786)
No, no, Brock, thank you. I don't trust, Mark, I don't trust the politicians to lead. No. I don't, you let me finish my sentence. I don't trust the politicians.

Mark Hayes (16:22.497)
You don't trust me?

Brock Ganeles (16:24.059)
Ha ha!

Mark Hayes (16:28.653)
Yeah

Herve Francois (16:31.464)
to lead us in this discussion on the platforms that they have. That's what I was going to say. I don't think it's them, right? Because they always have an alternative agenda. And I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat or independent. I just don't trust the politicians to lead us in this discussion to Brock's question, right? I think, Brock, that these discussions need to happen.

Brock Ganeles (16:36.367)
Yeah.

Herve Francois (16:57.704)
at the grassroots level, inside a community, inside a town hall meeting, community by community by community. It's not going to happen in one night. It's not going to happen in one day. These need to be continuous discussions. What truly is your... Because I was thinking about this the other day, because you brought up ICE and everything else like that. Let's throw a hypothetical out there. I love to deal in hypotheticals sometimes.

Mark Hayes (17:26.187)
Yeah.

Herve Francois (17:27.206)
What if, what if, what if United States gets to a place where there are no more people of color? They've succeeded. You've gotten rid of every African-American, every black man, every black woman in this country. They got rid of every Latino in this country.

The only folks that are left in the country are white people, hypothetically speaking, right? At that time, once they get to that time, once they get to that point, will arguments and disagreements still be going on? Or is there going to be a kumbaya?

Mark Hayes (18:00.216)
Who's gonna do the work?

Herve Francois (18:20.36)
Folks are gonna be refreshed, they're gonna feel comfortable, they're gonna be able to breathe a big sigh of relief because now the only ones left behind in the country are white people. Again, hypothetically speaking, are there no longer going to be disagreements and disputes amongst whites?

What's going to be left for them to argue about because all people of color have left this country?

Brock Ganeles (18:50.435)
Yeah, that Nirvana. So I'd be like Lord of Flies. then will go to religion, religion will split us. There'll always be a reason to create factions and enemies.

Herve Francois (19:01.212)
I will tell you, I'll tell you before, Mark, I'll tell you right now. Mark, you hit it. I think before religion, you know what the foundation of the next argument is gonna be? Income inequality. Because it's the most amazing thing that this MAGA movement has created. The belief that the problem is race.

Mark Hayes (19:01.313)
Why wouldn't it be like Europe?

Mark Hayes (19:10.637)
Class? Class? Classism.

Herve Francois (19:29.928)
They want you to believe the problem is right. Well, you are in the situation that you're in because of this person of color took your job at the plant and da da da da da. It is not that person of color. Because I tell you right now, you get rid of every person of color in this country, you still gonna have poor white people in this country. that their level of poverty Mark will be one 17th of the

Mark Hayes (19:49.089)
Yup. Yup.

Mark Hayes (19:58.103)
Sure.

Herve Francois (19:58.673)
millionaires in this country that are also white. Now you think a poor white person, Magda, in this country, we did everything for you. We got rid of all people of color. Immigration succeeded. All blacks, browns, Indians, everybody gone. You think poor white folk are gonna be arguing and hollering about something anymore? They're gonna be arguing because income inequality is real.

Mark Hayes (20:18.324)
absolutely.

Mark Hayes (20:23.541)
us they don't have anything. And, look at Canada. That's what they got in Canada. mean, couldn't we say that was the nirvana they're looking for? Look at the UK. I mean, you look at the minority populations in those countries, what are they? 5%. Right? Might be lower in the UK. There's hardly any people. They do everything they can to keep people of color out of there. Right? And the ones that do get in,

Herve Francois (20:26.056)
Let's move.

Mark Hayes (20:53.387)
very well educated and they are there for a reason. Right? So maybe that's what they're looking for. but remember this country was built on racism. It was built, founded, erected, corrected with racism at every major historical turn.

Herve Francois (21:18.63)
And that's why.

Mark Hayes (21:23.659)
racism has been the driving through line.

Herve Francois (21:27.74)
Mark, that's why we've never had our day of reckoning, right? We've never discussed that, right? And so we put a band-aid to each of the problems in each of the industries in every corner of this country.

Mark Hayes (21:30.141)
Exactly.

Yep.

Herve Francois (21:41.799)
Right? We got a problem here. Okay, let's go ahead and start up this foundation. Let's go ahead and, you know, United Negro College Fund and this and that and HBCUs and, you know, you know, black owned hospitals. I mean, it's, it's, goes on and on and on and on. And you can have black on this and Latina on that and women on this and women on that, but you're still not addressing the root cause.

Right? And so again, they have us right now, our foreign enemies, they benefit off of our internal divisions. Republicans versus Democrats versus independents, poor versus wealthy, and everything else like that.

But at the end of the day, they got us twisted so much thinking that, it's the white man's fault. It's the black man's fault. It's that Latino that crossed the border from Mexico or Venezuela's fault. They got you thinking it's a race issue. It is not a race issue, my friend. It is an income inequality issue.

Mark Hayes (22:54.177)
And we've always had a foil. There's always someone to blame for your shortcoming. Right? And that's historical. Yes. You know? And think about it. They've been doing it throughout time. This division is what sells in America all day long. And now you have somebody like, this is a perfect segue to Stephen A. Smith.

Herve Francois (22:59.75)
Yeah, well, was right. Well, that's that's from the playbook. That's from the playbook, right?

part of the group.

Herve Francois (23:15.004)
That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Herve Francois (23:22.44)
Okay.

Mark Hayes (23:22.957)
sitting there talking to Cam Newton, who is blackity black back, who went to a blackity black black high school on the south side of Atlanta and understands his blackity blackness from his trials and tribulations at the University of Florida, didn't have to go back to junior college, play his way back up. But because he was a phenomenal talent, all his transgressions were overlooked because he was 6'5", 240 and could throw a football.

Herve Francois (23:31.067)
Okay.

Mark Hayes (23:52.888)
you know, a country mile. Stephen A. Smith said to him, I wish all black folk would vote Republican just once. To do what exactly? What would that get? We would be basically co-signing on white supremacy. The Republican Party since 19, since we, as long as we can remember.

Herve Francois (24:06.952)
Right.

Mark Hayes (24:21.355)
has been trying to drive a stake through the hearts of Black America.

Herve Francois (24:26.472)
But you know, again, Stephen A. Smith,

Look, I don't have much, you know, respect for him or anything else like that. Look, this is not a guy that grew up like extremely wealthy. We were talking about Clarence Thomas earlier. To me, he's just another example of a black man who made it to the pinnacle of his industry, right? Tipped my hat, worked hard, had gotten fired back in the days. And, you know, he wind up getting a new job and everything else.

Mark Hayes (24:47.319)
Mm-hmm.

Herve Francois (24:59.018)
He's been in the business for an extremely long time. But then what happens? He gets another zero on his paycheck, a higher tax bracket, and now all of sudden it's as if he's now forgetting how he was raised, where he was raised. Stephen A. Smith, you talk about HBCUs, he went to Winston-Salem State University in Winston-Salem. Right, you know what mean?

Mark Hayes (25:03.457)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Hayes (25:25.601)
Wait for big mouse game.

Herve Francois (25:29.118)
He himself, right? And he has donated millions of his own dollars to HBCUs, right? But the thing is, is that once again, he is viewing that as a hook. He's viewing that as a crutch. He thinks that we are stuck in mud by going ahead and continuing to vote the same way we've been voting since the 60s and everything else like that. I'm not gonna raise my, I'm not gonna get into,

Mark Hayes (25:55.021)
It's fucking crazy.

Herve Francois (25:58.881)
a sandpit with him and say, I wish, you know, that every Black person in this country one day votes Republican. Instead, if I'm going to wish for something, I'm going to wish for one day we have those discussions on our day of reckoning that will be able to start so we can start discussing how we can dismantle all of these divisions

that have been created by these self construct isms of racism and sexism and everything else like that. Because having every black person you wishing for to one day vote Republican isn't gonna solve the damn problem. And what do you want that to do? You say you want that to happen because your mindset is, well, if that happens, it's gonna force the Democrat politicians

to change their playbook. Uh-oh, we used to be able to rely on the black vote every two years, every four years, it's automatic and so, and I get that. I understand a lot of blacks being disappointed with democratic leaderships at the local, state and national levels. I completely understand that. But if I have to be convinced to vote another way, I have to see what the other party is offering.

Brock Ganeles (27:26.491)
Yeah, I mean, it's it's inane. You don't go with the Nazis. You know who found that out? The Muslims of Michigan found that out. Oh, we all have to fight Democratic because we don't love their policies right now. But instead of staying and fighting within the party, they say, let's go with the other guy. OK, well, he just bombed and actually fucking raised guys and he's going to put up a golf course in some resort hotels. So like you fucked around, you found out like that's not the solution isn't to sit to say, well, let's put the Nazis in charge for.

Mark Hayes (27:33.292)
Right.

Herve Francois (27:50.504)
There you go.

Brock Ganeles (27:55.919)
for a while because we're going to be able to get it back once we give it to them. Look how hard this is going to be to get back from MAGA because we gave it to them a second time. So now they're fucking with every level of power and everything that we thought was fair and set in stone to try to stay in power, even though it appears as though two thirds of the country disapproves of what they're doing. But it's still going to be really hard to get them out of there.

Mark Hayes (28:00.11)
Right.

Herve Francois (28:26.108)
Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (28:26.179)
So can't play that game of let's just prove a point with our vote. It's a losers game. Muslims in Michigan have taught us that's a losers game.

Herve Francois (28:30.716)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Hayes (28:37.761)
Well, think about how the Lebanese feel. The Lebanese did the same thing. And Iran just bombed the hell out of Lebanon the other day, right? Because of what the United States did. The United States tried to...

Brock Ganeles (28:49.179)
Israel is bombing the hell out of Lebanon. They're Lebanon right now.

Mark Hayes (28:54.317)
Right. This is this is Yahoo's war that Trump is, you know, got reeled into because he's a pedophile and because he's a serial predator and they've got a compromise on him. And it's not going to stop.

Brock Ganeles (29:10.189)
If I can say that one there's one positive but it's still so early stages is that there's so few white people there are some white people that are now willing to talk about race. It used to be zero. Now it's inched its way up to maybe 2%. No politician will talk about it because it doesn't really benefit them to talk about it.

Herve Francois (29:26.29)
Yeah.

Herve Francois (29:35.208)
They gotta play both sides, Brock.

Brock Ganeles (29:37.379)
Yeah, yeah, they don't want to lose their white voters, right? So they don't want to talk about even maybe asaf might be the most likely Even he wouldn't do it right hasn't done it yet, right? Whenever there's a big discussion about race it has to come from an obama or from a black Politician or leader, but okay. Let's just say that americans if my feed is any indication 2 of white america now is willing to talk about race You can give me five, okay

Herve Francois (29:58.781)
All right.

Mark Hayes (30:02.157)
I'm gonna say five.

Mark Hayes (30:06.157)
We'll see you guys later.

Brock Ganeles (30:06.395)
There's also 5 % think the earth is flat like 5 % you can get 5 % to go with just about anything. Right? Okay. Give us 5 % of people that are willing to talk about race, you know, kind of honestly and in a, you know, on a Clarence Thomas way where white people don't want to talk about it because they don't want to feel like they've been benefited by anything. Right? Their success is this their success. They pulled up their bootstraps. They made it happen. So they don't want to talk about race and then they have to acknowledge that maybe they play in a system that advantages them.

Mark Hayes (30:11.583)
It's ready.

Brock Ganeles (30:36.461)
in the same way that when Clarence Thomas gets to the top, he doesn't want to talk about all the things that boosted him, right? He wants to be like, I'm so special. I didn't need any of that stuff. And everyone else just needs to pull themselves up from the bootstraps. So if it's not going to come from politicians, I still wonder where the racial reckoning is, what's going to trigger the racial reckoning, who and what and when.

does that get triggered? does it just inch its way from the bottom up and 5 % becomes 6 % and 6 % becomes 7? I don't know, it's slow way to get there.

Mark Hayes (31:13.151)
Again, you said it earlier, Brock, there has to be the policies, right, along with the conversation. And those who don't want to believe the conversation, just let us know we don't need any more black and brown bodies in the street. There are monuments erected for the loss of Black lives all throughout the South, right? The Equal Justice Initiative was started because of

The lynchings in this, we don't even have an accurate number of the thousands of people that were lynched during reconstruction at all through the early 1900s. We don't have an accurate representation of how much money was lost on Black Wall Street or in Rosewood or any of the other dozens and dozens of attacks.

Herve Francois (31:48.637)
Alright.

Mark Hayes (32:08.723)
on African, predominantly African American, autonomous communities that were running themselves. I you can't have it both. White America can't have it both ways. All right. You didn't want us to have our own community and shop at our own store. You burned that down. Now you want us to come to yours and then you don't want to treat us right. You want us to come around back and get the food.

Herve Francois (32:32.636)
funny I had the same conversation yeah I had the same conversation the other day because Brock I'll put it to you know when I spoke into my my my white friends exactly about what Mark is talking about here

You know, they'll say, their frustration, quietly, that their frustrations with blacks in this country is that they're always complaining that they don't get a fair shot, that they don't get into the colleges, that they don't get the promotion at the jobs, they don't even get the jobs, and so on and so forth and so on and so forth. And then again, quietly, they say to themselves, is, damn, why don't you guys just go and start your own thing? Why don't you go and do your own thing, right?

That's why love the quote from the great African American female movie director, Ava DuVernay. Hey, let's stop so hard trying to get a seat at their table. Why don't we go ahead and create our own table? I love that, right? Well, what she said has actually been done before in the past. To Mark's point, when you start talking about Tulsa, Oklahoma.

When you start talking about communities in New Orleans and South Carolina that were predominantly Black populations where you have Black businesses in these towns, you have Black schools, you have Black churches, you have Black banks. So those folks back in the days, in the 20s, they had the same mindset.

that a lot of whites feel today about why don't blacks just go and do their own thing? We did our own thing back in the days. But to Mark's point, what happens when we built it? They came in and they burnt it down.

Mark Hayes (34:13.709)
Mm-hmm.

Herve Francois (34:21.992)
Now you could say for whatever reason that they burnt it down. were jealous. They were afraid about us stealing market share away from them, and so on and so forth. They just didn't want us to have. They didn't want us to relish in our own success. They want more power. That's right. And for us to have less power. Right? There's going be a huge number of Black-owned banks in this country.

Brock Ganeles (34:33.433)
Yeah.

I think as simple as that. Didn't want you to have more power. Cause the money would bring more power.

Mark Hayes (34:37.357)
Cool. Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (34:45.263)
Yep.

Herve Francois (34:49.51)
back in the 70s and 80s, 90 % of them gone. So some of the things that folks are whispering behind or underneath their breath right now, why don't you all just go and do your own thing? It's been done. Mark, should we attempt to try to build another 1920s Tulsa? And if so, how are they?

Mark Hayes (34:53.291)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Hayes (35:15.137)
Well, how you gonna do it, Herbie?

Herve Francois (35:17.8)
Is that at risk of being burnt down?

Mark Hayes (35:20.725)
Well, it's at risk of ever getting off the ground because whatever money is put into it is not going to be matched by banks. Land is so expensive, where are we going to build it? Right? Where would you go? Who?

Herve Francois (35:27.271)
Thank you.

Brock Ganeles (35:36.347)
You ain't getting a government contract. You already established that.

Mark Hayes (35:39.979)
Taking a government contract, right?

Herve Francois (35:40.36)
No, no, we're not getting a government contract. We're not getting a government contract, that's for sure.

Mark Hayes (35:44.366)
What they get, nine billion out of $775 billion in contracts awarded, African-American firms got $9 billion worth. That ain't gonna fly. So who are you gonna do business with? that's, therein lies the problem, right? How do you do it?

Brock Ganeles (36:04.187)
Irving, now that the Voting Rights Act has been, in essence, I'm just going to say repealed, pulled back, whatever, destroyed, and now black Americans are going to have to fight just to get on voter rolls and to be in a district where their vote matters as hard as the system is going to try to make the vote irrelevant. Has this moved you closer to getting out there at the next street protest?

with the No Kings, you gonna go mosey in the flower arena, in the, you know, nice little walk through the park with the 68 year old white crew.

Herve Francois (36:49.99)
You I know you ask me every time.

Mark Hayes (36:50.049)
Hehehehehe

Brock Ganeles (36:53.049)
Yeah, it's been a good six weeks at least, maybe even two months.

Herve Francois (36:56.392)
I know, I know. And I have to tell you that no, no, this is not going, this is not what's going to get me out there right even more, right? mean, with the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, I would be interested to find out how...

if a lot of white people are upset about this happening, right? Because I know for certain you have a lot of folks justifying this being done because there's no more racism. There's no more racism. Why would we need that?

Brock Ganeles (37:34.063)
No racism, yeah. Yeah, it's great. It's great. Maga messaging yet again, right? We're taking your rights away because there's no more racism and they just they win the messaging war yet again. So what is it then? You you want the racial reckoning to come first. You want the racial reckoning first. Then you'll come out in the street. You ain't coming out there in the hopes that they'll be the racial reckoning.

Herve Francois (37:39.816)
Absolutely.

Mark Hayes (37:47.092)
everything.

Herve Francois (37:47.132)
But as you know, messaging is right. The messaging is because you are people.

Herve Francois (38:02.568)
That's 100 % right. 100 % right. That's what it's all about, bro.

Mark Hayes (38:02.977)
Hell nah.

Brock Ganeles (38:04.036)
Okay.

Mark Hayes (38:06.178)
Hell no.

Herve Francois (38:08.102)
That's what it's all about, right? Because right now, man, we're just fighting over this piece of tape, this bandaid and this and that. The need to have the Voting Rights Act versus the need not to have the Voting Rights Act. It's not that, we're gonna take your civil rights away. It's like, you know what? You guys have done so well for yourselves over the past 50 years. We are now at a level playing field. You need no crutch. You need no help. You need no assistance. You need no statues or policies.

laws to help you get to a level playing field. The playing field is now level. No more racism. You're going to vote just like everybody else in the districts that we assigned you to. That's what this is. That's what this is. You guys have made it. No more racism. So therefore why need this and that? And then I'm like, okay, you know what? I want to live with that statement. Let me sit back here and watch this movie unfold. And then what do I see? What I said earlier.

Hegseth denying these generals from getting promoted because of their gender and their race. No other reason. That's what I'm angry about. Because that is a prime example that it still exists. And it's existing in your own administration. And there's other things because Trump himself, when he became president last year, he wiped damn near every single African American leader in federal agencies off the damn map.

Mark Hayes (39:26.477)
Right?

Herve Francois (39:39.123)
for no other reason because of their race. Now, if you want to get rid of somebody at the head of an organization or an agency or division or a company because he or she is black, okay, fine. But don't do that. And then tomorrow tell me there's no racism. You can't have it both ways, my brother. It's one or the other. I know which way it is. Because I see this movie happening, we all do.

Mark Hayes (40:04.001)
Right.

Mark Hayes (40:07.436)
Right?

Herve Francois (40:07.772)
in front of our eyes. And that's my damn point. You can't tell me the playing field is level, that everyone is ascribed the exact same opportunities, but then all of a sudden, when a person is up for promotion, and he not only does everything you tell him in order to get promoted, but he exceeds all of the points that he needed to.

in order to get promoted and you still deny him? Come on, brother. Come on, man. What are you doing? You can't go ahead and spit in my face and tell me that it's raining. I'm not going to fall for that okey-doke. I'm not going to fall for that okey-doke. The difference is, Mark, you started off, you know, this convo at the beginning saying, they're doing it behind us. They're not doing it behind us. They're not doing it behind us.

Mark Hayes (40:52.418)
Nope.

Herve Francois (41:04.134)
They did it behind us 10, 15, 20 years ago. Now it's in front of your face for everybody to see. For everybody to see. And what's going on now? Brock, you talk about policies that need to be put in place. They are undoing the policies. That is going to make it that much harder. So for example, a policy such as no longer designating nurses

Mark Hayes (41:11.938)
Yep.

Herve Francois (41:34.402)
as professionals. So making it that much harder for them to get a loan to go to nursing school. That's a policy.

Mark Hayes (41:43.437)
Yep. So guess who will only be able to go to nursing school? Those who can afford it.

Herve Francois (41:50.825)
That's my thing. That's my thing. So you can't do that and then tell me there's no racism. It's one or the other.

Mark Hayes (41:53.461)
Right? And you were talking earlier.

All right. So, Brock, tell us, please explain to us why white America doesn't believe that racism exists. They can read the numbers in the charts. Do they think that numbers lie? No, people lie, men lie, women lie. The numbers don't lie.

Brock Ganeles (42:18.011)
I think white people do know that racism exists. I don't think most people want to acknowledge

that racism exists. They know it. They don't want to acknowledge it and then bring on the conversation that would follow the acknowledgement of the racism because then it forces you to go the next layer down and ask you to explain why do you allow it to be. If you acknowledge it then it's like well why are you allowing it to be? Why aren't you doing something about it?

Mark Hayes (42:30.957)
Mm.

Herve Francois (42:31.516)
So ugly. Brought that green. Right.

Mark Hayes (42:53.195)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (42:59.739)
Once you acknowledge you kind of have the onus to do something about it. If you don't acknowledge it then... But white people know. Come on. They're running around using the N-word and then what are they going say? There's no racism, right? They are the racists. They know they're racist, right? They know who they are. And not everyone is that overtly racist. And as we talk about all the time, most of us are in the middle of the road racists that have just more tacitly...

Herve Francois (43:15.016)
as we talk.

What's that?

Brock Ganeles (43:27.073)
allowed the system to roll along because it benefited us. So, you know, we didn't want to spend a lot of time on the topic.

Herve Francois (43:34.802)
Listen.

Herve Francois (43:39.975)
Right. There's been rewriting of history taking place over the past few years. Right? Can't discuss slavery in the schools, getting rid of the 1619 project. Can't discuss slavery to kindergartens and kids in middle school. We don't want them to feel uncomfortable about themselves. Bullshit. It has nothing to do with comfort. It's because perhaps the parents

Mark Hayes (43:39.999)
Mmm. Mmm.

Herve Francois (44:10.214)
don't want to feel uncomfortable about having that discussion with their own kids.

I have

Brock Ganeles (44:18.779)
bigger that they didn't like the direction of the country moving to a more multi-cultural, I don't even like using it, multi-racial society. They didn't like that move, so this is a wind back and a push back against that. I'll give another encouraging sign, and someone in the chat made this comment saying, hey, her white friends, someone in the chat who's from Iowa said her white friends are upset about the rollback.

Mark Hayes (44:29.069)
You're right.

Brock Ganeles (44:48.475)
I did see a of a town hall or a county meeting in Tennessee where a bunch of white people were in the room chanting in protest against the legislators who were working on the new redistricting. It was a room full of white people.

Mark Hayes (45:12.087)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Hayes (45:17.815)
promising.

Brock Ganeles (45:18.715)
promising at the grassroots level of seeing white people out there, you know, arguing on this behalf. Well, and that's Tennessee, but, we'll see, you know, the question is, yeah, are white people getting fucked over enough by this administration that it's actually pushing their racism down their list of priorities? Right. I saw, I saw a whole piece today on white people in Alabama.

Herve Francois (45:26.022)
Right.

Herve Francois (45:41.384)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (45:47.333)
who are absolutely ripped shit. They this white woman walking around her house trying to turn on the faucet and the shower. She's got no water. The data center, of course the data center took all the water. So white people are getting fucked over so bad that maybe it's waking them up to the, you know what I said, Trump treats white people like white people treat black people. And now there's a, I think a tranche of white America that's, you know, kind of seeing the back hand of the slab.

Mark Hayes (45:54.229)
What? Ravens Center?

Herve Francois (45:54.344)
Boom.

Herve Francois (45:59.753)
Jesus Christ.

Herve Francois (46:16.498)
Yeah, right.

Herve Francois (46:25.832)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, this is why I said before, it's truly about income inequality. I'm telling you, don't, I think there was an author, I wish I remember her name. She says, I can't wait until, I can't wait until America ends their discussion.

Mark Hayes (46:27.725)
All

Herve Francois (46:54.618)
or puts, I can't wait until America realizes that their issue is not raised as much it is about income, to have the discussion about income inequality, which is getting wider and wider and wider by the weeks and months, the quarters, the years.

Mark Hayes (47:05.462)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (47:11.247)
Yeah. think the two conversations, I think the two conversations have to be had at same time. And you know, it's always been my Bernie Sanders criticism that he's too much income and quality and he has a blind spot on race. You got to talk about him at the exact same time because a, they're used to race, uses a lever to divide the poor, right? If they're, hate each other and they're focused on, you know, if you're in a trailer with no running water, but you, you're like, you just hate the black guy.

Herve Francois (47:24.093)
Yeah.

Herve Francois (47:31.794)
Thank

Mark Hayes (47:32.311)
Yep.

Brock Ganeles (47:41.327)
two doors down, maybe you're not thinking about how it's the white people that are fucking you over, right? Like that's sort of been, been the game. So I want those conversations intertwined and discussed at the exact same time. It's another place where, I don't know, politicians are more willing to talk about income equality and tax policy and all that, but they won't.

Herve Francois (47:42.621)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (48:04.431)
You know, they won't bundle in the race. Yeah, somebody just put the great Lyndon Johnson quote up in the chat, right? He convinced the lowest white man. He's better than the best color man. He won't notice you're picking his pocket. I mean, that's going on right now. I think, I think that lowest white man is starting to notice because they've made, yeah, cause they're, making his life so much worse.

Herve Francois (48:08.658)
Yeah, saw that.

Herve Francois (48:16.232)
Right now. Yes. Yes.

Mark Hayes (48:17.995)
Right.

Mark Hayes (48:22.859)
that his pocket is being picked.

Herve Francois (48:27.964)
Yeah, and that's the thing.

Brock Ganeles (48:29.915)
taking shit away. I've always said white people don't like me to take shit away from them. things are being taken away from them as well.

Herve Francois (48:36.658)
But to me, it's the biggest, right? To me, that's one of the biggest head scratchers, right? That this is being done unto you, yet you continue support the people and the policies that are causing this to unravel for you. That to me, I'm not going to call it a mystery.

Mark Hayes (48:52.629)
I don't get it.

Mark Hayes (48:56.694)
I don't

Herve Francois (49:00.476)
But the strangest thing in the world, mean, you you talk about like, for example, in the last presidential election, so many folks in unions that voted for this guy. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Brock Ganeles (49:14.991)
Yeah, yeah, he's gonna fucking... yeah.

Herve Francois (49:15.94)
whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, man, are you realizing what you have just done? Now, can, look, you wanna tell me you don't like black people, fine. You wanna tell me you don't like a woman, fine. You wanna tell me you don't like a black woman running for president, fine, fine, fine. I've heard it all before, I've seen it all before. I get it, but damn it, you think this guy is gonna bring you to salvation?

Mark Hayes (49:35.959)
Yeah.

Herve Francois (49:38.653)
This guy anti-union, pro-corporate, everything. This guy is bifurcating this country. It's not about millionaires and those who are not. It's about billionaires and those who don't have. It's unbelievable. And you, Mr. and Mrs. Union, are gonna vote for this person.

Mark Hayes (49:54.743)
Yep.

Herve Francois (50:03.356)
when the other person tells you. And again, you don't have to like her because she's black or she's a woman or anything, or she's from California, any of the other things. But she's telling you she supports you. She's telling you she supports you, and you still choose not to vote for her.

Brock Ganeles (50:17.614)
They didn't want her support. They wanted Donald Trump's hatred and disdain for them versus her support.

Herve Francois (50:26.684)
But Brock, you told me something a long time ago. I remember on the other day, and it made a lot of sense to me when you told me that more important than a person in the union voting against his or her agenda and everything else like that, more important to them was supporting that person that was going to preserve white supremacy for them.

Mark Hayes (50:27.403)
Okay.

Brock Ganeles (50:53.679)
Yeah, the social hierarchy.

Herve Francois (50:55.566)
above all else. This vote will hurt my pocket. This vote will hurt my spouse and my children's pocket. But damn it, it's going to preserve the social hierarchy.

Brock Ganeles (51:10.181)
Yeah, this society that at least...

Mark Hayes (51:11.915)
Yep. Still got the racism.

Herve Francois (51:13.052)
where we are. Then don't tell me there's no racism. There we go.

Brock Ganeles (51:18.233)
That's why I'm even a skeptic I see the disapproval of Trump. I'm like, yeah, a whole bunch of people that were MAGA may say they now disapprove of Trump, but are they actually going to vote differently? When they get in that booth, are they really going to?

Mark Hayes (51:29.835)
No. No.

Mark Hayes (51:34.861)
Depends how bad things get.

Herve Francois (51:37.801)
I mean, look, guys, let's not swing too much to one side, right? I was listening to a podcast the other day with Trevor Noah. He's really good if you get a chance. He invites different people on to speak different topics and everything. He's very bright person. But you know, you're talking about Mondami. New York city mayor. Good old Mondami, right? Him and Trump, they probably couldn't be more polar opposites.

Mark Hayes (51:38.413)
They can't get their water.

Mark Hayes (51:59.564)
Request Request!

Herve Francois (52:06.78)
right, both from New York, but couldn't be more polar opposites. One's the billionaire, one is busting his ass trying to make it up New York, and so on and so forth. My Lord, you had people that voted for both Trump and Mondavi. You had people that voted for both Trump and AOC in New York City, representing the District of Queens, New York. So my thing is that

Right, and AOC, think it was shortly after Trump got elected in 2024, right, she went on her Instagram live and she asked this to her voters, hey, comment on here if you voted for both me and Donald Trump, right?

And a lot of people said, yeah, I voted for you and Donald Trump. Because what's the commonality with AOC, Mondami, and Trump? They all recognized that the system in its current fashion is broken.

They'll come and tell you, Trump's like, this system is broken. It's all about the have and the have nots and everything else like that. These politicians, tell you they're going to give you this and they're going to give you that, and they don't give you anything, and you're screwed, and the Mexicans are coming in, they're taking your damn jobs, and the blacks, they're coming in, they're taking your kids' position in the universities, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's not your fault, it's their fault, it's their fault. if the system is broken, ALC tells you the system is broken. Madami tells you the system is so broken that...

shit we're gonna give it to you free we don't know how we don't know how but we're just gonna give it to you free

Brock Ganeles (53:43.065)
I mean...

That's another 5 % for you, Mark. The 5 % of people voted for Trump. just, I don't know if I could sit down and have a conversation with those people. I don't know if I could get through it. I mean, come on. Yeah, I mean, if you vote, I mean, come on. I just can't, like, come on. Come on. I mean, I get Trump people, I don't.

Mark Hayes (53:55.533)
Don't they OC those? Ain't no way.

Herve Francois (53:59.453)
Ha!

Mark Hayes (54:01.41)
Nancy, everyone.

Herve Francois (54:02.424)
Look, they both very beautiful. That's the commonality.

Mark Hayes (54:04.961)
Can't see it.

Herve Francois (54:08.712)
Listen, bro. You're star, like Joe.

Brock Ganeles (54:09.433)
They pretend they don't see anything else. Like that's the only thing that he's ever said is that one thing they don't they didn't notice any other aspect of his life or his policies or his history. it's very frustrating.

Herve Francois (54:20.092)
Yeah, right, right. But they talk about, but they all go about it by different ways. That's the thing. But Trump leads with the race thing, right, to that person who put that country in Johnson, right?

Mark Hayes (54:21.847)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (54:34.159)
Yeah, absolutely leads with it. And increasingly.

Herve Francois (54:37.8)
That's right. Hey, poor white folks, you're in a situation that you're in because some black guy or some Mexican guy took your job, took your wife, took your house, took your job, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and everything else like that. They are the reason. It's from Hitler's plate book. He convinced Germans, Jews are your problem. Jews are, they are your enemy. They're your enemy. Trump comes in, tells people, Mexicans are your enemy. A lot of bad hombres out there. A lot of bad hombres, right?

Mark Hayes (54:48.429)
you

Brock Ganeles (55:05.593)
Yeah, because he didn't have to say the blacks are the enemy because that was like already implied, right? He could just work his way around to that like that was already that was already built in so he had to have the second group to really rile up to really rile him up

Herve Francois (55:11.548)
Yeah.

Blacks, yes, were brought to this country, obviously hundreds of years ago where Mexicans are coming into this country today. it's Exactly, it's much more...

Brock Ganeles (55:25.057)
now yeah they're the more current risk yeah they're the more they're the more current risk hey on a related topic sort of in the quick hits category but i guess maybe this goes in the same steven a smith clarence thomas bucket but i've seen a lot of controversy around killer mike over the last 48 hours had you seen that mark a lot of black people going after killer mark basically with the

Herve Francois (55:45.027)
I haven't seen anything.

Mark Hayes (55:45.835)
Herve Francois (55:51.218)
Kill the mic. Kill the mic.

Mark Hayes (55:52.237)
Still in mine. Still in work.

Brock Ganeles (55:53.317)
Killer Mike, I'm sorry, Killer Mike because he told people not to vote for Kamau.

Herve Francois (55:58.665)
Did he tell at the same time tell people to vote for Trump instead?

Mark Hayes (55:59.02)
Yeah.

Mark Hayes (56:03.905)
Well, what are you saying if you're telling people not to vote for Kamala? There's no third party. Yeah. Well, that's what happened. A lot of people did. A lot of people stayed home.

Herve Francois (56:07.642)
or to not vote at all, to not vote at all. So either or.

Herve Francois (56:15.228)
Did he give his reason as to telling people not to vote for Kamala?

Brock Ganeles (56:20.219)
I thought you guys would be more on top of this. I'm only catching it from some Facebook, Instagram posts that I saw people talking about. But there's a real backlash. He may have come out and said something recently about what's going on in the Voting Rights Act and how appalled he is by it. And a lot of people have told him to shut the F up because he helped get us here. It was basically a you helped get us here message. Sit this one out.

Herve Francois (56:22.781)
I know.

Herve Francois (56:35.804)
The only national...

Herve Francois (56:47.036)
That's right. That's right. That's exactly my point. And listen, guys, look, I get it sometimes it is a matter of choosing the lesser evil. And it sucks to say that. I don't think Kamala is a evil person kind of a thing. But Killer Mike, you may have your reasons or issues with Kamala Harris. I had issues with Kamala Harris too. But Lord knows I had way more issues with the other guy.

Mark Hayes (56:48.173)
Yep. Yep.

Mark Hayes (57:11.308)
yeah.

Herve Francois (57:15.024)
Right? I was like, no, that's a problem. That is not a solution. He is not a solution. You know what I mean? That is a problem. I'm not talking about Democrat, Republican, Black, white man, woman. That's a problem. This is going to be a big, big problem with this guy. Huh?

Mark Hayes (57:29.389)
But look what he did for himself. While millions, tens of millions of Americans are suffering, the bottom half of America is catching hell right now. Donald Trump is richer than he has ever been in his entire life because he has looted the government. That's four billion that we know of. We don't know how much he's been siphoned off on the side and in crypto and all this other shit he's in.

Herve Francois (57:42.32)
no doubt.

Herve Francois (57:46.706)
There, four billion in wealth created last year for him. four billion. Yeah. Right, no, it's the greatest grip. it's the greatest grip.

Mark Hayes (58:00.108)
So, you know, again, if you did any homework at all, you couldn't vote for Trump. Especially a second time. So the triple Trumpers, to me, Brock are out of the conversation. They're not reachable. They're not reachable. You can't turn them.

Herve Francois (58:18.13)
But what, you know...

Brock Ganeles (58:20.633)
Yeah!

They cheered on Jan 6th, right? They cheered on. They felt he was screwed and then now they're excited he's back. Yeah.

Mark Hayes (58:26.241)
Yes!

Herve Francois (58:33.286)
Yeah, no, listen man, it's

It's, at the end of the day, right, repurchase, so FAFO, all the above and everything else like that, right? At some point, you you talked about his approval rating being in the gutters right now. That really didn't begin. I mean, it started declining earlier this year. That decline accelerated once we got into this war. And I remember watching something on TV and people said, okay, this is what it took.

Brock Ganeles (58:58.01)
Yeah, it worked.

Herve Francois (59:03.88)
This is what it took for MAGA to start waving the white flag, enough is enough. I thought, I think some of that started with him not releasing the Epstein files. They were pissed off at that. They were really, really angry because he promised them in the campaign, first day I'm going to release it. Right. They were pissed off that he did. They're still pissed off, but these, this higher gas prices, this is the kick in the, know what to them. And they're like,

Brock Ganeles (59:22.127)
Yeah, yeah.

Herve Francois (59:32.701)
mother right they cursing him right now for all your right and don't go can't say that you're gonna turn around buying all electric car cuz you took away the freaking tack incentives to buy a freaking electric car so you wanna buy the electric car no no tax incentive over there you want to buy a gas enabled car well damn gas is expensive and you all got your pickups and you got your big-ass SUVs on the same platform of those take up pickups you don't want to fly now

Mark Hayes (59:35.093)
Mm-hmm.

for sure.

Mark Hayes (59:47.084)
Right.

Mark Hayes (59:53.868)
Right?

Herve Francois (01:00:02.45)
You shut down Spirit Airlines? He wanted to take it over. Bennett said, don't take that over. Don't throw good money after bad money. Come on now. We got a freaking ballroom to build, for a building to

Brock Ganeles (01:00:06.907)
off

Brock Ganeles (01:00:11.193)
You know what? Capitalism. Let them go bankrupt. It's capitalism. We're not gonna have a speed run airline. The government's not buying the airline so we can have like a cheap third rate airline.

Herve Francois (01:00:14.28)
100 % again.

Mark Hayes (01:00:14.689)
Yeah. Yeah.

Herve Francois (01:00:24.186)
And again, the underlying issues, right? How did the company get there? Right? So we ain't going to address that. No, exactly right. Right? We realized that when you flew the damn airline, so this ain't going to last. This company's hard. I've known that. I was the one and done on Spirit. I'll never again. I'll pay the higher ticket price to fly United America.

Brock Ganeles (01:00:29.669)
Yeah, of course. We went to war. They're a casualty of war, basically.

Brock Ganeles (01:00:46.937)
Never been, never stepped on foot of spirit.

Herve Francois (01:00:49.04)
listen anything, trust me. All that being said, all that being said, man, is that no doubt he's using his time, now his administration, as his greatest piggy bank. He paid, the White House paid themselves a $10 billion fee for brokering the sale of TikTok from China to the private equity companies here in the US that are all run by his friends. A $10 billion broker fee.

See you.

Brock Ganeles (01:01:19.513)
Yeah, it's like they're in investment banking. They're Goldman Sachs now, right? Now they're taking, making fees and commission and God knows how much of that ended up in a Trump or affiliated bank account.

Herve Francois (01:01:22.746)
Exactly right. Exactly right. Exactly right.

Herve Francois (01:01:31.568)
Yeah, exactly. Right? Right? Traded in Netflix bonds when he knew damn well that Netflix was not going to be buying Time Warner and instead it was going to be going to Paramount. So like these are the things that are happening. More is going to happen. More is going

Mark Hayes (01:01:32.001)
right.

Mark Hayes (01:01:40.257)
Thank you.

Brock Ganeles (01:01:44.687)
I got one more quick hit. You got a quick hit for me, Mark? Okay, I'm gonna go after one of my most beloved cadres of people, the WNBA players. I love the W, love the players, the WNBA players that had a massive labor.

Mark Hayes (01:01:47.83)
No, go ahead.

Herve Francois (01:02:04.05)
Please.

Mark Hayes (01:02:05.037)
Mmm.

Brock Ganeles (01:02:14.105)
dispute that went on for 6 months fighting for a fair pay increase for a league whose owners value of the teams going up exponentially.

Mark Hayes (01:02:18.221)
Yep.

Brock Ganeles (01:02:41.537)
Six months they had the widespread support of the public that put a lot of pressure on the David Silver, the NBA and the whole crew to come up with a fair and they came and got a major raise. Deserve it. Got a lot of public support. So why is Paige Becker's at the Met Gala sponsored by the number one union buster?

Herve Francois (01:02:56.808)
Mm-hmm.

Brock Ganeles (01:03:10.433)
In all of America, Jeff Bezos, the single largest top five employer that is no company has been more aggressive against unions than Amazon, making their workers pee in bottles because they don't have enough fucking piss breaks on their fucking trips, right? Getting run over by robots in those warehouses. Starbucks is the only other one that maybe even rivals.

So Paige Becker's after going through six months of a labor dispute, she'll be the most pro-youth that she just won for a huge contract increase for her, turns around and it's somehow important for her to go to Jeff Bezos' party and it's shit like fucking that.

Mark Hayes (01:03:38.945)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (01:03:59.503)
that causes us to not make fucking any headway in this country because people are too fucking selfish and I love Paige Becker's I love the way she plays and she's great on race relations by the way because got a mixed family but I'm pointing her out but Asia Wilson and Angel Reese were there also but today we're going after Paige Becker's

Herve Francois (01:04:15.218)
as they were.

Mark Hayes (01:04:15.787)
Yep.

Yep. And I mean, why is Angel there? You know? I mean, these are the p- See, these are the opportunities you have to make a statement,

Brock Ganeles (01:04:27.077)
to make a fucking statement. It's more important to be at a fucking party.

Mark Hayes (01:04:30.785)
But more importantly, nobody wants their brand damaged.

Herve Francois (01:04:30.952)
Yeah.

Herve Francois (01:04:36.284)
Yeah. Well.

Mark Hayes (01:04:37.399)
So you don't wanna miss a party like that, right? Make a statement, come out and say, why would I go to that party when this individual does A, B, and C, and then the brand gets hammered. Because what if Paige Becker's wants to do an Amazon special like they did for Melania?

Everybody's looking down the road, buddy. Follow the money. And when you're that close to the money, it's when the money comes your way. You gotta be near it to get it.

Herve Francois (01:05:04.924)
You know.

Brock Ganeles (01:05:11.791)
Why can't there be money for the people who stand for something? Why is why, why is money equated with keeping your mouth shut and your head down and rolling along? How can we don't value the people who say something and have that be advantageous to them monetarily?

Mark Hayes (01:05:32.395)
Because the people who pass out the money are in control. That's why. And in America, you ain't shit without money.

You know, the King family, Dr. King's family never cashed in on his sacrifice.

Herve Francois (01:05:53.801)
You know, folks, know, Rock, I hear your anger unfortunately is not the first time. Folks like, you know, Paige Becker or Angel Reese. I don't expect them to be, I don't expect them. Doesn't mean that they are not. I'm saying, excuse me, excuse me. I just don't expect them to be.

very well versed up to date on current politics, right? What is going on in the background? They knew what was going on. WNBA negotiations, no doubt about it, right? They were directly affected by that, right?

Brock Ganeles (01:06:41.262)
yeah, unions, the strength of unions was really important to them when it was their union.

Herve Francois (01:06:45.264)
Right. 100%, right? But a layer beyond that to your point being at a Jeff Bezos inspired party at the Met Gala and everything else like that, no. That was an opportunity to put on a pretty dress and stand in front of the cameras. And that's all it was. I'm not saying it was right.

Brock Ganeles (01:07:01.743)
Get Instagram views and build your Q rating. I get it more for the brand and more endorsements.

Herve Francois (01:07:06.688)
Listen, I'm not saying I'm right. I would have loved to seen a WNBA player, right, just trade out. Look, my man, if you're talking about unions, let's talk about one of the biggest unions in the country. Might have been one of the first. Screen actor guilt. Screen actor guilt. It's all Hollywood actors and actresses. We know Dan well who was on the red carpet at that Met Gala the other night.

Mark Hayes (01:07:22.635)
Mm-hmm

Brock Ganeles (01:07:29.915)
Just for the record, Jimmy Butler was there too, as was Dwayne Wade. As was Lindsey Vonn and Alyssa Gu. Those are just the athletes.

Mark Hayes (01:07:30.305)
And they're getting...

Mark Hayes (01:07:44.183)
But, you know, hey, if... No, I understand the disappointment. We're all disappointed. You know? But...

Brock Ganeles (01:07:47.395)
I'm just disappointed. Sorry, Mark. Go ahead.

Herve Francois (01:07:53.001)
disappointed, You know, it's just, look, I hear Nick Cannon agreeing with Amber. I forgot her last name. She's the one that... Rose. I keep forgetting her last name. Rose. Right. Well, she's on her face now? Oh, Jesus. That's a surprise. Anyway, oh, I don't see a problem with white people calling black people the N-word.

Mark Hayes (01:08:01.582)
Amber Rose. She got tattoos on her face. Something to bring home to mommy.

Herve Francois (01:08:19.44)
And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK. And again, when I hear this, I'm like, FAFO? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Right, but again, tone deaf type bullshit.

Mark Hayes (01:08:22.05)
get it.

Mark Hayes (01:08:28.449)
Yep. Look at her brain.

Brock Ganeles (01:08:34.285)
It's a one-line answer because when you dehumanize people, it's easier to kill them.

Herve Francois (01:08:39.432)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Right? Nick Cannon going as a whole was the Republicans that freed the slaves back in 1800s. That's why we should vote Republican.

Mark Hayes (01:08:39.607)
Yep. Yep.

Mark Hayes (01:08:53.249)
Yep. All right, gentlemen, great chat. Great chat, gentlemen. I want to thank the folks in the chat for chiming in, as always. And we certainly appreciate you, our friends in the chat that have been loyal viewers and adding to our conversation on a regular basis. So thanks, you guys, so much in the chat for showing up. Hervé, always a pleasure, my friend. Thanks for coming through. We appreciate you.

Herve Francois (01:08:55.08)
It was in my door, in the room.

Herve Francois (01:09:18.372)
Absolutely man, such a pleasure being on man. Thanks for having me. No, always, always. Until next time.

Brock Ganeles (01:09:21.275)
Yeah, great to have you.

Mark Hayes (01:09:23.061)
Yeah, man, don't make us dig you out next time, man, you know?

Brock Ganeles (01:09:26.235)
Don't take two months off again. Come on. We're supposed to be...

Mark Hayes (01:09:29.205)
Right. Stay engaged.

Herve Francois (01:09:31.324)
You know how to find me. You know how to find me. You know how to find me. You know how to put it the bat signal. I'm coming.

Mark Hayes (01:09:35.149)
Stay engaged.

Brock Ganeles (01:09:38.435)
And you know how to find us because we can be now found on Apple Podcasts as well as Spotify and audio only as well as here on YouTube and you can catch some of our shorter clips on Instagram. Got that plug in Mark.

Mark Hayes (01:09:43.661)
Yes sir!

Mark Hayes (01:09:48.619)
No doubt, no doubt. Don't forget to support. All right, gentlemen, have a great evening. Yes, sir. Revolution.

Herve Francois (01:09:49.422)
I love this guy.

All right.

Brock Ganeles (01:09:54.779)
Alright Mark, always a pleasure. Alright.

Herve Francois (01:10:00.521)
Be well guys, take care.

Brock Ganeles (01:10:03.535)
Take care.