Charlamagne tha God Has Some Advice for Kamala Harris and the Democrats

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Speaker 4 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

Speaker 5 Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour.

Speaker 6 I'm David Ramnick.

Speaker 5 In these final days of the presidential campaign, Vice President Harris has been getting in front of voters as much as she possibly can.

Speaker 5 And not just on 60 Minutes and Fox News. She's talked to Howard Stern.
She's been considering Joe Rogan's podcast. All shows that are heavily weighted toward male listeners.

Speaker 5 And given the polls showing shaky support among black men, one God she absolutely had to talk to was Leonard McKelvey, much better known as Charlemagne the God.

Speaker 6 Charlemagne the God. You guys really are like the hip-hop early morning and late night talk show.
I am blessed, black, and highly favored. Happy to be here, man.

Speaker 6 Another day to serve our beautiful listeners. Absolutely.
Salute to everybody I saw in L Ladies.

Speaker 5 Charlemagne co-hosts the Breakfast Club, which is syndicated on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 5 He's interviewed political figures from Harris, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden to Lara Trump, who's the co-chair of the RNC.

Speaker 5 Breakfast Club recorded the interview with Kamala Harris as a live town hall conversation, and I've got to admit it, I couldn't help expressing a little jealousy.

Speaker 5 So I'm coming to you.

Speaker 5 My feelings are hurt, as I told you outside.

Speaker 5 Kamala Harris didn't want to talk to the New Yorker. We just did a huge profile of her by Evan Osnos.
We've been trying like hell to cover her thoroughly.

Speaker 5 And she's obviously got another strategy. She spoke to you and she spoke to Fox.
She spoke to any number of people. What's in Kamala Harris's mind? What's her media strategy going down the stretch?

Speaker 6 I mean, that's an interesting question because I don't know how much of this stuff is actually

Speaker 6 getting to her. Like, I mean, does she know that the New Yorker wanted to do that?

Speaker 5 Maybe not the New Yorker specifically, but I got to think, sure. She knows, you know, she's icing the New York Times, the Washington Post, that kind of thing.

Speaker 6 I don't think she should be icing anybody. I think she should be talking to any and everyone.

Speaker 5 You think she's making a mistake?

Speaker 6 Yeah. I think that when you're running for president of the United States of America, you have to reach as many people as possible.

Speaker 6 Like, I don't think, especially somebody like her, because the main thing that you hear about the vice president nowadays, at least on my end, is that people still say they don't know her. And man,

Speaker 6 I believe that we live in this era where I do radio, right? I do the Breakfast Club every morning. You have to meet people where they are.

Speaker 5 How do you find your audience?

Speaker 6 By going everywhere. Like, you know, for us, it's radio in the morning, right? Breakfast Club.
So that's 8 million monthly listeners that we've built over 15 years.

Speaker 6 But then we put out that radio show as a daily podcast. Then we also take that same content, put it out on YouTube.
Then we take that same content and cut it up and put it out on social media.

Speaker 6 So you really have to meet people where they are nowadays. You have to.

Speaker 5 I hope my masters at public radio are listening to you.

Speaker 6 But you're right.

Speaker 6 You've got it right. You know what's interesting?

Speaker 6 The interview that we just did with the vice president, that was an audio town hall. And I got to salute, you know, Bob Pittman, you know, who's the CEO of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 6 He was like, yo, we're an audio company. Like, let's, let's, let's, and me and Bob always talk about the power of radio.
So let's show people the power of radio.

Speaker 6 That interview was a live one-hour audio interview. It wasn't any television, wasn't any social media.
Like, you had to come to various radio stations across the country to listen to that interview.

Speaker 5 So I want to get a sense of how you felt in the room with her.

Speaker 6 Now, you know, one thing they've been saying, a lot of your press hits get criticized. You know, folks say you come off as very scripted.
They say you like to stick to your talking points.

Speaker 6 And some media says you have it.

Speaker 7 That would be called disciplined.

Speaker 6 Oh. Uh-huh.
Okay. Okay, but go on.
No, I was going to say, some people say you haven't any.

Speaker 5 What was your feeling as you were having this conversation with Kamala Harris?

Speaker 6 Always positive. You know, I've had a relationship, you know, with the vice president.
Yeah, since about 2018. You know, I met her sister first, Maya.
Salute to Maya. love Maya, she's a great person.

Speaker 6 Maya used to work on Hillary Clinton's campaign. And so that's when I first met her, and that's when you first started seeing Hillary on Breakfast Club.

Speaker 6 I didn't even know that her and Kamala were sisters until later. I don't know why it didn't dawn on me.
I remember her walking in the studio, you know, with Kamala Harris when she was senator.

Speaker 6 And I just was like, oh, that's, you, you, you didn't make the connection. No, I was like, oh, you were Kamala now? You know, and she was like, that's my sister.

Speaker 6 And I'm like, duh, Maya Harris, Kamala Harris. You know, we did that interview back in 2018 when she was senator.
Interviewed her again in 2020 when she was running for president.

Speaker 6 You know, interviewed her on my late-night talk show, The God's Honest Truth, back in 2022.

Speaker 6 So, I mean, I got a very good rapport with her.

Speaker 5 So you're sympathetic to her politically?

Speaker 6 Sympathetic. That's a great word.
No, I'm not sympathetic to politicians at all.

Speaker 6 No,

Speaker 6 I don't think that we have that luxury as American citizens. I'm sympathetic to her as a human, and I really enjoy her as a human and as a person.
I'm sympathetic to that.

Speaker 6 I don't think that you can be sympathetic as a politician because when she sits down in front of me, I still have questions. I still see things that I don't like, you know, in my elected officials.

Speaker 6 I still see things in the administration that I didn't like that I have to question.

Speaker 5 What are the main things that you are concerned about that you don't like?

Speaker 6 The main thing that I've been concerned about: how can I keep more money in my pocket and how can we stay safe?

Speaker 6 And when I talk to my listeners every day on the Breakfast Club, that is their main concern.

Speaker 6 I remember back in February, people were upset at me because I was doing an interview with Fox News Digital. And Joseph, who works at Fox News, he asked me a simple question.

Speaker 6 He said, do I think, this is February, he said, do I think the border is going to be an issue come November? And I said, yes, hell yes.

Speaker 6 Because for the first time in my community, I had people coming to me complaining about what was going on at the border, whether it was activists in Chicago saying how the migrants were getting more resources than

Speaker 6 the poor and disenfranchised in the city, whether it was

Speaker 6 a parking attendant I know in the city who I see all the time, who literally came to me in tears.

Speaker 6 A grown man came to me in tears talking to me about, you know, these gangs that were infiltrating his neighborhood and raising hell.

Speaker 5 Does that mean that Donald Trump has that issue right, in your view?

Speaker 6 No, I can't say all the way right because there's a lot of sauce that he puts on it, right? Like

Speaker 6 there's a lot of misinformation that he throws out about the migrant issue, but it is a concern

Speaker 6 of the American people.

Speaker 5 So what you're saying is they're not eating the cats and dogs.

Speaker 6 They're not eating cats and dogs in Ohio, right? And I don't know about... It's a matter of resource.
Yeah, and I don't know about Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes.

Speaker 6 I don't know anything about that. But there are, bottom line is, there are American citizens

Speaker 6 who complain about this situation, who are, you know, and then they come to me complaining about this situation. And for anybody to dismiss them, I think is just...
sad.

Speaker 6 And so I said this in February. I literally said everything that I'm saying to you.
I'm just repeating what people have told me.

Speaker 6 And I remember MSNBC did an article, and it was like, Charlamagne the God is pushing MAGA messaging. I'm like, damn, why is it MAGA messaging just because American citizens are concerned?

Speaker 5 Is it a fair question to ask you, are you for Harris or Trump?

Speaker 6 I'm definitely voting for Kamala Harris. Tell me why.
I'm voting for Kamala Harris because I love her opportunity economy plan.

Speaker 6 You know, like I just said, you know, the issues that I care about is keeping more money in my pocket. And I've seen her over the last four years in the White House push for certain things to be done.

Speaker 6 Like, this isn't new. Like, you could look at things like the American Rescue Plan.

Speaker 6 And I know businesses in North Carolina that have received millions of dollars because of things like the American Rescue Plan. I'm a big mental health advocate.
I I saw her

Speaker 6 contribute,

Speaker 6 not out of her own pocket, but $285 million

Speaker 6 to increase the amount of mental health professionals in schools. Like I'm big on maternal health as well, right? Because I've watched my wife have a couple of very tough pregnancies.

Speaker 6 I've seen her at the front lines of those things. And also, she just cares.
Like, at the end of the day, it feels good, I think, to have an elected official that I know actually cares.

Speaker 6 What do you make of Donald Trump? I don't think he cares. I don't think Donald Trump cares about anything except for Donald Trump.

Speaker 6 And it baffles my mind that American people can listen to a man say things like he wants to be a dictator for a day, can listen to a man say things like, let's terminate the Constitution to overthrow the results of an election, to listen to a man say he wants to jail his political opponents, he wants to jail journalists, us.

Speaker 6 We'll be in jail. Yeah, and you see, you know what I mean? Like, he says these things out of his mouth.
Like, we watched him lead an attempted coup with his country.

Speaker 6 Why would you want that back in the White House?

Speaker 5 Half the country does.

Speaker 6 Yeah, that says a lot about our country. That's more of an indictment of the country than

Speaker 5 what does it say? I mean, I think this is the thing. Maybe the more troubling question is

Speaker 5 the half the country is willing to pull the lever for Donald Trump.

Speaker 6 Every time I talk to people, they talk about the economy. But I'm like, man, since World War II, the economy has always done better under a Democrat president.
That's just a fact.

Speaker 6 It's always been Democrats. There's been 11 recessions in this country.
10 of them have been Republicans.

Speaker 6 So I don't know how they've hijacked that narrative. But I think the other thing that you just got to chalk it up to is just good old-fashioned racism.

Speaker 6 And I think in the case of Vice President Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton in 2016, sexism. I just really do.
Like, it's still America at the end of the day.

Speaker 6 There are people in this country who are still just holding on to old ideologies.

Speaker 6 They don't want to see America be a great American melting pot where all of these different people from all of these different walks of life can live.

Speaker 6 They like that racist, sexist, bigoted rhetoric that Trump spews.

Speaker 5 Why is it so hard for her to say that?

Speaker 6 I think because for whatever reason, like, you know, you hate these elected officials, even when you say, is America a racist country? Okay.

Speaker 6 You can't say America is a racist country, but you can say that, you know,

Speaker 6 there's systemic racism in America. I think that is a fair thing to say.
Like, I watched her on Fox News the other night, and I loved how she handled Brett Baer.

Speaker 6 When Brett Baer tried to push her, Brett Baer was like,

Speaker 6 Are you saying the American people are stupid?

Speaker 6 I can't remember how he worded it, but she was like, No, I would never say that because I don't want to disparage the American people, but my opponent has no problem doing that.

Speaker 6 And I understand that approach, you know, but I think that it is perfectly fine to acknowledge that those things exist. Because, guess what? As a black man, as a black woman, you feel that.

Speaker 6 As a woman, you feel that sexism. As a Jewish person, you think you don't feel all the anti-Semitism that's happening right here in our country.

Speaker 6 Like as a gay person, you think you don't feel the homophobia. So you can speak to what people are feeling because you see it.

Speaker 5 There was an amazing moment in the interview where someone comes along and brings up the F-word fascism.

Speaker 8 It's two very different visions for our nation. One mind that is about taking us forward and progress and investing in the American people, investing in their ambitions, dealing with their challenges.

Speaker 8 And the other, Donald Trump, is about taking us backward.

Speaker 6 The other is about fascism. Why can't we just say it?

Speaker 8 Yes, we can say that.

Speaker 5 Tell me about what transpired there and how you felt about it.

Speaker 6 Well, it was the same thing that we just said, right? Like, you know, she was saying what she's about, and then she was saying what he's about. And I was just like, yo, just say it.

Speaker 6 Like, he's a fascist. You just had General Mark Milley just said he's a fascist to the core, like a danger to the country.

Speaker 6 So for me, it's like the American people will never understand the threat that Donald Trump is if people aren't spelling it out. They didn't treat him like he's a threat to democracy.

Speaker 6 They kept saying it. He's a threat to democracy, threat to democracy.
But Barrett Garland should have locked Trump up after the coup, right?

Speaker 6 I was literally watching something yesterday, and there there was a person talking and the person was like, if Donald Trump, you know, really let an attempted coup in this country, why did they arrest him?

Speaker 6 They did.

Speaker 6 Like they did charge him.

Speaker 6 But there's so many people who don't even know because he's not treated like that. Like we know we live in a society that knows how to demonize people when they want to, right?

Speaker 6 Like you can look at, and I'm just going to use this as an example. Not saying that it's not.
not warranted that it's happening, but look at somebody like Diddy.

Speaker 6 Like, front page of every newspaper, all over the news. You hear about every charge, like you see it, you see it, you see it over and over.
They don't villainize and demonize Trump in that way.

Speaker 6 You've never seen Trump in handcuffs. You saw one Trump mugshot.

Speaker 6 Like they don't treat it like the media has continuously treated Donald Trump and his whole candidacy like it's normal, which is mind-boggling to me.

Speaker 5 Do we have to, let me, not to be defensive, but jumping up and down, what do we have to do? I mean, how many different ways can you say it?

Speaker 6 You know why? It doesn't penetrate? Because Americans are spoiled. And we don't think it can happen here because it's never happened here.
Like, if you talk to older people who

Speaker 6 were closer to that, who can remember things like, oh my God, he's doing a rally at Madison Square Garden. That's what happened in the 30s with the Nazis.

Speaker 6 If you can talk to people who understand that, they get it.

Speaker 6 This generation doesn't. If you have

Speaker 6 a sense of history and you've read things like, you know, the fall of the Third Reich, things like that, you can see the patterns that lead to somebody like Trump becoming a dictator.

Speaker 6 I just don't think people think dictatorship is possible in America, but it is because our democracy is very fragile.

Speaker 5 Charlemagne the God is co-host of the morning radio program, The Breakfast Club. We'll continue in a moment.
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Speaker 5 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick and I'll continue my conversation with Charlemagne the God, radio host, political pundit, hip-hop maven, and the author of several books.

Speaker 5 His latest is called Get Honest or Die Lying.

Speaker 5 As co-host of the Breakfast Club on Morning Radio, Charlemagne has talked to presidential candidates in the last three election cycles, including quite recently, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Speaker 5 Charlemagne, no party should ever count on or assume that any group in America is going to vote for it 100 percent.

Speaker 5 But right now, the Democratic Party is freaked out because the polls are showing that black men and Hispanic men are

Speaker 5 polling, at least, for Harris at lot lower numbers than they had with Joe Biden and Barack Obama. What's your sense of what's happening?

Speaker 6 I just think it's bullshit. You do.

Speaker 6 I I think it's overstated.

Speaker 6 I think that it was ridiculous.

Speaker 5 That's what Raphael Warnack thinks. He says

Speaker 5 it's a phantom statistic.

Speaker 6 There's nothing in light of history that shows us that that statistic is true. Like, you know, even when President Obama last week said

Speaker 6 black men don't want to vote for the vice president because she's a woman, I'm like, 85 percent of black men voted for Hillary Clinton. 85 percent.

Speaker 5 What did you think of Obama's speech?

Speaker 6 I thought that

Speaker 6 was a very good thing. Yeah, I didn't like it because I just, like I said, I just think that

Speaker 6 pointing the finger at black men when we are the second largest voting block for the Democrats all the time is ridiculous. And we're looking at polls.
Clearly, I feel like all of that is overstated.

Speaker 6 Now, I could be totally wrong. November might come, and I might be surprised, like, oh, shoot.

Speaker 6 Wow, okay, I was totally off. So I just thought that what he said was ridiculous.
I do like the second part of his speech, though.

Speaker 5 What's that?

Speaker 6 He said, a lot of people say, hey, voting isn't going to make a difference. And the president said, you know what? You're right.

Speaker 6 And I'm paraphrasing here, but he said, we're not going to eliminate poverty. We're not going to rid the world of racism.
But you can vote for people who care that can make things a little bit better.

Speaker 6 And honestly, I love that messaging.

Speaker 6 I think there's a level of empathy to what voters are feeling and a level of honesty in that messaging that I think Democrats should run with more often, not just Democrats, politicians, period.

Speaker 6 Like, if you know, you go back to the conversation I had with the vice president, she said that she can do it all.

Speaker 6 And I said to her, well, President Obama said this, and I think this is more accurate messaging. And she said, no, I think that we should at least try to do it all.
That's fine, too.

Speaker 6 But President Obama, to me, I like, I'm a person that likes to be more realistic.

Speaker 5 You told her that she had to speak more in just a much more real way to black voters. What was she doing wrong? And did she hear you?

Speaker 6 Not just black voters, America. I feel like the language of politics is dead.

Speaker 6 One of my favorite movies ever is Bullworth. Senator Bullworth actually listened to the people.
And when he listened to the people and started speaking the language of the people,

Speaker 6 everything changed for him. He became one of the most

Speaker 6 beloved politicians in the country. You said the Democratic Party don't care about the African-American community.

Speaker 12 Isn't that obvious? Hey, you got half of your kids out of work and the other half are in jail. Do you see any Democrat doing anything about it? Certainly not me.

Speaker 12 So what are you going to do? Vote Republican? Come on, come on. You're not going to vote Republican.
Let's call a spade a spade.

Speaker 6 And I feel like we are in a time right now where that type of truth to power is required.

Speaker 6 And I say the language of politics is dead, and I give Donald Trump credit for this. He killed it.

Speaker 5 So stay with that for a second.

Speaker 5 What's his language like and why does it appeal to so many people?

Speaker 6 He is speaking directly to a group of people who never got spoken to. The working class white person, the poor white person who

Speaker 6 believes their country is being taken over by others, by people who don't look like them, and they don't like it. And he tapped right into them and he riled them.

Speaker 5 So it's not the humor theory of Trump. It's the, let's face it, more populist and even arguably fascist.
part of Trump that's talking real.

Speaker 6 Well, it's the humor too, because humor is part of the communication. Like, you know, the fact that

Speaker 6 really don't give a F. His form of communication is just very easily digestible.
And I think one of the most.

Speaker 5 And you want to see more of that from Democrats?

Speaker 6 I just want to see more honesty from Democrats. Like, I always say

Speaker 6 Republicans are more sincere about their lies

Speaker 6 than Democrats are about their truth. Like, Democrats just have a messaging problem.
Now, I do believe that's changing.

Speaker 6 And I believe this new generation of Democrats is changing it.

Speaker 6 People like the vice president, people like Governor Josh Shapiro, people like Governor Gretchen Whitmer, people like Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. I feel like they are changing

Speaker 6 the narrative of Democrats for this generation, Governor Westmore. I feel like they're actually changing it, but I feel like I still want to see the vice president just continue to change.

Speaker 5 You did mention Tim Walt. I'm interested to know.
What do you think of him?

Speaker 6 Ah, man.

Speaker 6 You won't get me in trouble. Not really.
Nobody can get me in trouble. But I think you're beyond trouble.
Nas had a line. Nas has a a line.
Oh, no, it was Jay-Z.

Speaker 6 Jay-Z has a line where he says you had a spark when you started, but now you're just garbage. And I'm not saying he's garbage.

Speaker 6 I think that a lot of the policies that he introduced in Minnesota are very, very, very good. But I think that they hired, I think he got the job because of vibes.

Speaker 6 And I don't know if those vibes were ready for the big stage like people thought that they were. Because remember when he first got,

Speaker 6 I was a governor Josh Shapiro guy. So when he first got the nomination, I was like, oh man, I feel like Shapiro should have got it, whatever, whatever.

Speaker 6 But I'm riding with, you know, the VP, so that's her pick. And it was like a high, a sugar high for like a week.
And then it just like.

Speaker 5 Yep.

Speaker 6 And I knew

Speaker 6 I predicted, I said, the debate with him and J.D. Vance isn't going to go well because J.D.
Vance, he's had more practice. He was on every Sunday morning news show, and he was getting his reps in.

Speaker 6 He was getting challenged with the tough questions.

Speaker 6 He might have been saying a lot of the dumb stuff. I still think he's one of the worst VP picks ever.
Like, Tim Walls is still a better VP pick than J.D. Vance.
The best thing J.D.

Speaker 6 Vance has done over the last few weeks is shut up. And somebody must have gotten his ear and told him to shut up.
But the optics from Tim Walls, it's still an old white male.

Speaker 6 And I think this country does not want to see old white males right now at the forefront. So who would have been a better pick? Oh, Governor Josh Shapiro, for me.

Speaker 5 Why do you think he didn't get it?

Speaker 6 I don't know. I think that Governor Josh Shapiro is a number one guy,

Speaker 6 which I think is strange. Like, I've been hearing that, right? Like, I've been hearing that.
What does that mean?

Speaker 6 Like, he's the person that should be running for president.

Speaker 5 And maybe she felt that.

Speaker 6 Well, that's what they say. I mean, that's what I've heard.
It's interesting when folks say that because shouldn't, if you're the vice president and if something happens to the president,

Speaker 6 shouldn't the person that's second in command be somebody who looks presidential?

Speaker 6 That mind state don't make any sense to me when the media says that. When they're like, oh, she wanted somebody to play their position.
Because that's the same thing they said about her.

Speaker 6 When she first got the nomination, there were people who said, oh, she's got greater ambitions beyond vice president.

Speaker 5 Is it about the Middle East?

Speaker 6 I I don't think so. Because

Speaker 6 I feel like there's nothing you could do

Speaker 6 to erase people seeing over 50,000 innocent men, women, and children killed.

Speaker 6 There's nothing you can do to change that. You can't take that back.
People can't unsee what they've seen. Like, you know, all folks,

Speaker 6 I hear people want, they want a ceasefire. They want it to stop immediately.
They want America to stop funding Israel's military. That's not going to happen.
I don't care who's president, sadly.

Speaker 6 Like, I don't care who, I don't care if it was Trump, Kamala, Obama, like Bush. There's never a time where America's not going to be in support of Israel.

Speaker 6 There's never a time where America's not going to, you know,

Speaker 6 not fund Israel's military. So, you know,

Speaker 6 I don't think it would have made that a difference, honestly, if Shapiro was the VP pick.

Speaker 5 I want to go back to communications. So Kamala Harris has not only gone on with you, she's gone on with Caller Daddy and maybe even going on with Joe Rogan.

Speaker 5 What's your opinion of Joe Rogan as what he does and who he is?

Speaker 6 I like Rogan a lot. And I think that people don't listen to Rogan.
That's why they have a misconception of him. Just like if you don't listen to me consistently, you might have a misconception of me.

Speaker 6 If you see clips here or there, you're talking about people who've been... I've been doing radio for 26 years.
Joe Rogan's been doing this podcast for like 12, 13 years.

Speaker 6 Yes, we've said some stupid things. Yes, we've said some things that we probably wish we could take back.
But that don't mean those clips make up the whole totality of who we are.

Speaker 5 What has he got that you admire?

Speaker 6 I think that Rogan is honest. I think that he's objective, and I think he's just curious.
I think sometimes, man, they get upset with us as personalities because we're curious.

Speaker 6 I don't have a problem sitting across from somebody who I may totally disagree with. Like, I feel like, you know, we have created a platform on the Breakfast Club where all voices can be heard.

Speaker 6 And I mean, you know, you have conversations with people. If you don't like some of the things they say, you push back.

Speaker 6 If you don't know about any of the things that they're saying and they're just talking, let me know. Tucker Carlson, too?

Speaker 5 How do you feel about him

Speaker 5 as an interviewer and as a media presence?

Speaker 6 I think Tucker Carlson, honestly, might be working with the Russians. What do you think?

Speaker 5 That was quite the trip.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I think that there's something deeper there with Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 6 There's something slightly disingenuous about Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 6 Rogan's not that. I would love to see her sit with Rogan.
I thought her going on Fox News was great. I think her going on Call Her Daddy was great.

Speaker 6 I think you should, like I said, meet people where they are.

Speaker 6 Like it's crazy to me that people got upset about her going to see Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy when Alex Cooper, Call Her Daddy is the number one most listened to podcast of women.

Speaker 6 If you're on there talking about women's reproductive rights and you want to talk about Roe v.

Speaker 6 Wade being overturned and you want to tell women what's really at stake in this upcoming election, why wouldn't you go to her podcast?

Speaker 5 As much as I'm grumpy about her not talking to the New Yorker, I have to agree with you.

Speaker 6 She should talk to the New Yorker, though. Yeah, or everybody.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 What is your ambition?

Speaker 5 What mark do you want to make?

Speaker 6 You know, Malcolm X said the person who controls the media controls the minds of the masses. And I just know I'm here to be of service.
That's how I feel every day of my life.

Speaker 6 All I want to do is wake up every day, be a great father, be a great husband, and be of service. I do feel like one of my missions here is to help people,

Speaker 6 black people, especially black men, just really have a heavy focus on their mental health.

Speaker 6 I don't think that we get the opportunity to be vulnerable and to show emotion like the way that a lot of other people do. And so I'm just trying to...
Why is that?

Speaker 6 I think for us, it's a survival tactic. You know,

Speaker 6 we put on these masks, and we got to put on this armor because, you know, we're the foundations of our family and we're the protectors and we're the providers.

Speaker 6 And a lot of times, you know, coming from, you know, where I come from, if you show any type of weakness, you show any type of vulnerability, you making yourself a real target.

Speaker 6 There's people that will really take advantage of that. So I was just literally texting with somebody.

Speaker 5 And that's as true in the middle class as in upper middle class as well? Everybody.

Speaker 6 Like, man, there's nothing you can do about what's going on in your mind.

Speaker 6 There's no amount of money that can make you mentally healthier. It just can't.
Like, you know,

Speaker 6 I know people that deal with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and they're filthy rich.

Speaker 6 Like, I know people who are some of the smartest individuals on the planet who come from money who still ended up having to deal with schizophrenia.

Speaker 6 You can't, you know, you don't know this brain of ours, man, you got to protect it at all costs.

Speaker 6 All of us need to be protecting our peace, but I'm just a huge mental health advocate, and I feel like one of those things I'm here to control. Because you went through what?

Speaker 6 Oh, man. A lot.
A lot. Like, you know, from a kid, like traumas that I'm still unpacking now, right? Like, you know, I'm eight years old being molested.

Speaker 6 Like, you know, and you don't realize how that makes you a people pleaser as you get older. Well, in my case, right?

Speaker 6 Because the person that was doing it to me, when I made them stop doing it to me, they started calling me ugly and telling me I had a big nose.

Speaker 6 And like as a kid, I'm like, dang, I don't want her to call me ugly and say I got a big nose. So I would allow her to do it.

Speaker 6 And you don't realize how as you get older, that makes you a people pleaser. Like, you know, you don't want to ever feel like you're letting anybody down, even if it's hurting you.

Speaker 6 So, you know, those are the type of things that I had to, you know, work out in therapy.

Speaker 5 It's amazed me. that you've been around for a while now and you're on the air for long periods of time

Speaker 5 and and you're incredibly honest about yourself as well as the the questions you ask of other people. So you're putting a lot on the table day after day after day.

Speaker 6 What do you hold back?

Speaker 5 What's private when you're as exposed as all that?

Speaker 6 Probably my family, you know, like my wife.

Speaker 5 That's a no-go zone.

Speaker 6 My daughters. It's not a no-go zone.
It's just one of those things that you're working out in real time.

Speaker 6 Like I'm always working out a lot of things in real time, but I got a 16-year-old, a nine-year-old, a six-year-old, a three-year-old, right? Like, I question myself as a parent every day.

Speaker 6 Sometimes you yell a little too loud.

Speaker 6 You know, you might snap when you're not supposed to snap, but see, the difference between me and the way I was raised, I have no problem telling my kids I'm sorry.

Speaker 6 I apologize for yelling at you like that.

Speaker 6 I'm sorry for snapping at you like that. I talk to my kids like they're adults.
Like, yo, I'm sorry, I had this on my mind. or, you know, I saw, like, I saw this and it triggered me here.

Speaker 6 Like, cause there's a lot of things that I see

Speaker 6 sometimes in my kids that

Speaker 6 I can look back to moments when I was a kid, you know, and

Speaker 6 how nobody...

Speaker 6 corrected me in that situation or nobody was there for me when uh this is gonna sound crazy but like when your cousins are bullying you or right and so it's just like i don't like to see that in my house y'all are family what was the household like when you were a kid uh my mother is a Jehovah's Witness.

Speaker 6 She's a school teacher as well.

Speaker 6 She taught in the South Carolina school system for years. My dad was a construction worker, but he also had his own issues.
He had his own mental health issues. He had his issues with substance abuse.

Speaker 6 And so I watched my mom, you know, literally try to raise all of us because, you know, I got two brothers, two sisters. So she had to try to raise five kids,

Speaker 6 but also dealing with my daddy's BS, right? Like, you know, I remember going to visit my dad in rehab when I was younger. They weren't telling me what it was rehab, you know?

Speaker 6 And just recently, my dad tells me stories about being in rehab in South Carolina with Mary and Berry, right?

Speaker 6 Like, scraping. I remember that.

Speaker 6 You know, I'm like, wow, really? Like, you know, so him, he said, him and Mary and Berry used to have conversations about politics and what was going on in the world. And I was like, wow.

Speaker 6 So, you know, the household was,

Speaker 6 it was stable.

Speaker 6 But then there was chaos. And a lot of the most of the chaos came from my pops.

Speaker 6 And then, you know, as I started to get older kind of being the middle child that you know my oldest sister was already out of the house and like doing her own thing and then I had three younger siblings I was kind of like the middle child who was figuring it out on his own and you know I think my dad always say

Speaker 6 my dad raised me out of fear and not love he did love me but he had a fear of me turning out the way you know, he turned out.

Speaker 6 He didn't want me to make a lot of the mistakes that he made, and he didn't want me to make a lot of mistakes that he saw a lot of people around us make.

Speaker 5 You've been through a lot.

Speaker 5 We don't have all the time to spell it all out, but you've been through a lot.

Speaker 5 But when you look back at it, something had to enable you to get to where you are now.

Speaker 5 Something gave you the discipline, imagination, fortitude, or luck.

Speaker 5 And what do you ascribe it to?

Speaker 6 God and great adults around me. Because even though my dad, you know, I don't like the way he treated my mom, and I don't like the way how our family ended up because they ended up getting a divorce.

Speaker 6 But he was always on me and always trying to educate me. He was always telling me the power of being educated.
Same thing with my mom because she was an educator.

Speaker 6 So they gave me a lot of books to read. I'm a kid that grew up off the Book It program, man.
I had to read four books in a week to get a free pizza.

Speaker 6 So I was reading everything from my mother's script of literature from the Kingdom Hall, the Watchtowers and the Awakes. My dad gave me the autobiography of Malcolm X when I was young.

Speaker 6 And I read so much Judy Bloom and Beverly Clearly going up, right? Growing up.

Speaker 6 And also hip-hop, right? Because hip-hop, they were such great storytellers. I was always attracted to the story, Dave.

Speaker 5 Who are your heroes in hip-hop? Who really informed you?

Speaker 6 Early stuff?

Speaker 5 Like Rakeem, or it's just...

Speaker 6 Rakem was great because that was the first hip-hop song I ever heard. You know, I got

Speaker 6 Paid in Full. It was 1988.
I was 10 years old. I was in Kitfield, South Carolina.
My cousin Tyler Paid in Full. And so he was very, um, that was very influential to me.

Speaker 6 But I think as far as just like who inspires me, it was definitely, you know, Wu-Tang clan, you know, Goody Mob, Scarface, because those, those outcasts, because those individuals were actually talking about things.

Speaker 6 Like, they were talking about things of socially redeeming value. And that's what I was always into, Chuck D.

Speaker 6 Like, like, anytime there was a message, like there was a message in the music, that's how you would get me to gravitate towards you. How old are you now? 46.

Speaker 5 So you're young-ish?

Speaker 6 I am

Speaker 6 old to young people and young to old people.

Speaker 5 Fair enough. I'm old to everybody.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 some math there.

Speaker 5 What ambitions you got ahead? I mean, you've got, again, so much going on.

Speaker 6 I'm not even joking when I say this. I'm really just here to be of service.
Like, that's literally what I want. Do politics include service?

Speaker 6 Do you ever think about that? You know, I wonder where your influence is more. Like, there's a part of me that wants to be in the political system just to see how hard it is to actually make change.

Speaker 6 You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 And then run screaming.

Speaker 6 Maybe, because I just think that you would see, you would, I think we'd give more elected officials more grace. You asked me something about sympathy earlier with elected officials.

Speaker 6 Maybe I would have that if I saw what they had to do on a daily basis and how hard it was for them to actually get things done, get things passed, right?

Speaker 6 So like even now when you look at whoever's going to be president, like if you don't have the Supreme Court in your back pocket, right, you may not be able to get a lot of things done.

Speaker 5 You'd have to wait a long time before that.

Speaker 6 You know what I mean? Like Vice President Kamala has

Speaker 6 might become president and the Supreme Court might veto everything that she does. There's a lot of uphill battles

Speaker 6 in politics. So there's a part of me that wants to see what it's like to see if you could actually get things done.

Speaker 5 In your job and in mine, it's usually

Speaker 5 not the work to admire. That's not the first priority.
But is there anybody in politics that you have admired?

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah. I mean, I admire a lot of the people I just mentioned now because I know what they got to deal with.
I mean, I admire Vice President Kamala Harris a lot because she is a woman.

Speaker 6 She is a woman of color who has accomplished so much, whether it's being Attorney General, whether it's being a senator, whether it's being vice president.

Speaker 6 And I just can imagine what she has to deal with on a daily basis. Just this week,

Speaker 6 the death threats that I've gotten just for interviewing

Speaker 6 the vice president?

Speaker 5 What did you get?

Speaker 6 I mean, just exactly what I said.

Speaker 6 And by the way, I got to salute the people around me that my security, like,

Speaker 6 they don't want to inform me of these things.

Speaker 6 So you can sleep at night. Yeah, but I'm going to sleep at night regardless.
But it's just that they let me know some of the things that have been said, some of the calls that they've been receiving.

Speaker 6 I mean, like legitimate threats, not just something that you'd be like, oh, okay, that's just somebody talking crazy on social media. So that's just me having a conversation with her.

Speaker 6 about the state of our society. So

Speaker 6 imagine what she actually gets. And on the flip side, President Trump, somebody shot at him.
He can't sit here and act like that didn't happen.

Speaker 6 Like, you know, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not for political violence. I don't care who, you know, it's, it's happening to.
Somebody shot at him.

Speaker 6 There was another assassination attempt that they thwarted. So it's just like, these are things that all of these people have to deal with.

Speaker 6 And you really have to sit back and say, these people either really love this country or they're really narcissists.

Speaker 6 One in a two, right? It's got to be one in a two. Either they really love this country or they're really narcissists.
Because why would you want to do this?

Speaker 5 I think you give them too much credit but okay what do you think I think they might be just homicidal maniacs too man yeah

Speaker 5 I am so glad you came by and I wish you all the luck in the world thank you I appreciate you thank you for having me take care

Speaker 5 Charlemagne the God. You can catch him co-hosting the Breakfast Club on iHeartRadio along with Jess Hilarious and DJ Envy.

Speaker 5 I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today. Thank you for listening.
And please, join us next week.

Speaker 5 I'll be talking with MSNBC's Rachel Matto about the election where everything seems to be at stake.

Speaker 4 The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbis of Tune Yards, with additional music by Jared Paul.

Speaker 4 This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer.

Speaker 4 With guidance from Emily Botine and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barrish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett.

Speaker 5 And we had additional help this week from Jake Loomis.

Speaker 4 The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Torina Endowment Fund.

Speaker 2 Famous Amos.

Speaker 7 It's a brand synonymous with chocolate chip cookies. It's also the creation of my dad, Wally Amos.

Speaker 7 When he passed away last year, I set out to understand how he became one of the most famous black men in America and how his life and our family unraveled.

Speaker 7 From Vanity Fair, this is Tough Cookie, the Wally Famous Amos story. Available wherever you get your podcasts.