Why Sheryl Underwood is STILL a Republican & Stacey Abrams' Fight for the Democrats

This is another panel in my ongoing quest to bring together powerful voices from across the political aisle. Today I am speaking with an Emmy-winning comedian, actress, television host, longtime Republican, and advocate whose voice reaches millions through entertainment and culture. She is joined by a nationally recognized political leader, voting rights activist, author, and a former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate who has become one of the most influential voices in the fight for democracy and civic engagement. Please welcome the straight shooter, the marvelous Sheryl Underwood, and the incomparable Stacey Abrams. Welcome to the show, ladies. How y'all doing? How's everything? Thank you for having me. Yeah, really glad to be here with my good sister, Stacey Abrams. That brain, first of all, the Democrats need to pull you back into the family so you can help them get it together and push it over the finish line. And by the way, I mean, I wasn't going to start there, Sheryl Underwood, but since you brought that up, I mean, Stacey, I'd like your interpretation because, as far as I'm concerned, you should be front and center within the Democratic Party. I think you should be even more visible than you have been in recent memory. Why is that not the case, Stacey? Is that because of you or is it because of them? It's a circumstance. When you're running for office, you pay millions of dollars for people to see you every day, whether it's advertising or canvassing or just talking about issues. And so during the time I was standing for public office, I was omnipresent. When I did not win, both times, I spent a lot of time in those interregnums doing what I could to continue to build Democratic power. And I mean both big D, political Democratic power, but more importantly, small d, democracy power. What I've done since 2022 has really been focused on how do we continue to raise awareness of the importance of not just the system of democracy, but what democracy can deliver. And that's not always headline grabbing. But what I've spent the last 18 months working on has been, I think, fairly visible, and that is how do you fight back against the rise of competitive authoritarianism and how do we remind people about their power? And so I'm here today because I agree that now is a time for my voice to be a little bit louder for people to remember and to think about what their role should be. But I always try to distinguish between the visibility you have when you're a candidate versus the visibility you have when you're a citizen just trying to get good done. State, Cheryl Underwood, those are her facts. What are your feelings about why she isn't a more visible face, at least as of recently, within the Democratic establishment? My feelings are a lot of people don't want to accept that, once again, the black woman will have to save the day because we were the ones, most of us, got laid off from our federal jobs, more over 600,000 of us. And it doesn't matter what political party you're in. It's the fact that it seems to have affected us harder. And payback is a son of a gun. We tried to warn you. We put up the best candidate because I'm considered a Republican and name only a rhino. But once again, they're going to look to the black woman to come and save the day. And I don't think people want to accept the genius, the strategist, the brainpower of Stacey Abrams. And you need to be out front in the political discussion because now it's about turnout. It's about strategic planning. And the turnout has to be more of us. And then somebody needs to talk to our good sister Jasmine in Texas and go, listen, I know how you feel, but you got to help this brother. The Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line. Democrats need to be more like Republicans and now fall in line to take over the House and the Senate and then move to the White House. Let me go to a statistical number that you guys would be very, very interested in right now. We're talking about black registered voters favor the Democratic Party over the Republican Party on Pew's generic House ballot, 68 to 8 percent, if I remember correctly, with 10 percent naming another candidate and 15 percent not sure. Black unemployment right now stands at 7 percent, nearly double the white rate of 3.6 percent and well above the national rate of 4.2 percent. Which party do you hold responsible most, the Democrat or the Republican Party, Stacey, for those numbers that I just. It's obvious the Republican Party, and I think it's important for us to have a longitudinal view. We tend to look at things in the horse race, and I know you do sports and we look at the final score, but you got to watch who practiced, how much control of the court did they have, how long were they, how long they've been playing. And you have to look at legacy. And so we can't look at a single election and say, oh, this is why we have what we have. We've got to look at long-term policies. And when you have long-term policies that have refused to enforce and raise the minimum wage, when you have long-term policies that have broken into the ability of black and brown people to get access to jobs, when you undermine the policies that allow black people to start their own businesses, there's going to be long-term effects. And those have largely happened under Republicans since the 1980s, and they have compounded. And I think it's critical in this moment that we not just look at the candidates on the ballot, we look at the principles behind their behavior. And when you look at that, Republicans have been consistent in undermining African-American growth and progress. Democrats have done an okay job. We haven't done as well as we could because we spend, I think, too much time arguing about the numbers and not really getting to sometimes the core policies that have to change and go even further than we feel comfortable with. Cheryl, if you agree with that, assuming that you do, if you agree with that, and you can let us know whether you do or not, why do you call yourself a Republican while also agreeing with what Stacey Abrams just articulated? Well, first thing, I absolutely agree with everything Stacey Abrams just said and more of that, because when you're talking about women working, you're also talking about childcare. So if I'm getting paid a little bit of something or I'm getting paid nothing, you're pushing me out of the workforce. Why? Because I don't have childcare. But let me go back to why I'm still a Republican. And I will be clarifying this when I take my Netflix special. She said, what? That's what it's called, because I'm going to say a lot of things that a lot of people are not expecting. I'm still a Republican because I believe you need somebody like me inside of the Republican Party and go, who voted for that? Oh, that's what we're doing now. You need some people that are not just going along because they think they're going to make money or they think this is going to work out. It's a lot of people not going to win on election night that align themselves with Trump. And we need to start speaking up as conservatives, true conservatives. I'm talking about the Jackie Robinson conservative, the Martin Luther King conservative, back in the old days when you could be a black Republican, but you wasn't selling your soul and selling out the community. So why am I still that? Because I believe, I don't want to say I believe I'm that thing that sat by the door. Y'all know that movie Steve and I, I'm the person inside of the party calling you and Stacey and going, guess what I just heard at the meeting? What are we going to do about it? And you need to have more of us not just doing it because you think you're going to stand next to Trump and make some money off crypto or you're going to get somebody out of jail. You need to start standing up for the country. If you truly love America and you call yourself a patriot, you need to truly become that no matter what political party you in. But the fastest growing political bloc are independents. So the Democrats need to do better and getting the independents to come out. And they need to stop letting Republicans act like they're the only ones that know God. Cheryl, stay right there. What do Democrats need to do? You asking me? Yes, I'm asking you. I'm going to come to Stacey in a second, but I'm asking you first. Well, first of all, they need to grow a backbone. They need to start slicing this dude up like he'd be slicing up stuff. And then don't say your true plan long term. First is turnout. Midterm turnout is key. You got to take the house and say they control every branch of government and every level of power. We need to prepare for those that truly love the country to come back in. But the Democrats, first of all, Hakeem Jeffries doing a really good job, a really good job. But there are people inside of the Democratic Party that don't want to appreciate the hard work that people of color have been doing for decades. And that's where they need to come out and say, listen, you want your job back? Vote Democrat. You want to get your government job back? Vote Democrat. You want all your services back? Vote Democrat. You want them to tackle AI that may take over the world, kill you and take your job? Vote Democrat. You need to have a clear, simple message. And I think that's where they will win. Stacey Abrams, how do you respond to that, particularly when a naysayer will throw out the fact that this focus on immigration, for example, whether it's or, you know, culture, identity, identity, politics, the kind of things that people have been talking about that they believe have distracted the Democratic Party from the major things that we really, really need to be focusing on? When people bring that up about the Democratic Party and they say that the Democratic Party is sort of leaving the black folks behind because they've had our votes on lock since 1964, they've been able to take us for granted. So as a result, since you know, since you want to demagogue the other side and basically say, listen, we're the better option and leave it at that and put us in a position where we don't feel like we've got our backs being watched out for. What do you say to people who are skeptics of the Democratic Party and the fact that the focus on immigration and other things is basically derailing folks from focusing on black agendas that benefit our community? How do you answer that when people accuse the Democratic Party of doing such things? You start with what they're actually trying to say. What they're saying is, I don't care about your politics. I care about my life. So how are you going to make my life better? And we know that dog whistles and propaganda and framing has been used to be a distraction. So let's take one thing you just said, identity politics. Americans love identity politics. We call ourselves Western, Southern. We call ourselves black, white. We call ourselves women, men. We call ourselves farmers, laborers. We don't mind identity unless that identity, we think that identity somehow conflicts with something we want. So there is not an opposition to identity politics. There's an opposition to certain identities having a say in politics. And that's why I'm always so vocal about the importance of identity in our politics. We don't deny identity. We deny certain identities having primacy. And that's the problem. And then when you think about that, when you think about what those identities mean, that goes to Cheryl's point. When this administration banned DEI, most people thought, oh, that means black people will lose their jobs. And yes, 300,000 black women lost jobs, but so did thousands of disabled veterans because disability is a DEI issue. So did a lot of families who were getting IEP support for their children in schools. Well, when they shut down the Department of Education, the Division of Civil Rights, they stopped having access to enforcement. When women started losing their jobs and losing access to medical leave, when this administration issued an executive order saying you can't use DEI to train AI models, what that meant is that black men with prostate cancer could have their Medicare denied in certain pilot states because black men's PSA levels rise at a different level than white men. And if you don't train a model on DEI, then you will miss out on medical information that is categorized as DEI. And so I push back on the larger frame that these dog whistles are the reason we're not getting what we need. They're a distraction, but they're a distraction not only for those who are issuing the threats, they're a distraction by those of us who decide we're going to take them up on it. I do not get distracted. I know why I run. I know why I do the work I do. And if Democrats held to serving people, talking about people's needs, people's issues and showing how democracy can deliver, we wouldn't spend all of our time arguing over either superficialities or misinformation. But you have, but you have, Stacey, but you have said the Democratic Party has spent a lot of time arguing amongst itself because they weren't focused on the things that you wanted them to focus on. So because they weren't focused on what you feel, and I believe you, what you feel they should be focused on, I'm looking at them and say, damn it, you should have listened to Stacey. And the fact that you didn't want to listen to Stacey, is that another reason I shouldn't trust you? Because you ain't no better than the other side that you're talking about. How do you respond to that, Stacey? Because the next part of the sentence is you've got to have identity and you have to know how identity interferes with you getting what you need. And that's why the identity piece is so critical. If a black man can't get a job because his last name does not fit a nomenclature that people are used to, then that is why we need DEI policies. So it's not a bad thing to talk about DEI. We just have to be able to connect the dots. And we get so concerned about the demonization of our language, we forget to deliver the goods. And so where I push back against my party, and anyone in my party who would argue this, is that this notion that we can have a discussion without talking about the whole story is bollocks. It is completely unapproachable and untenable. We've got people to have the whole conversation. We've got to be able to talk about the fact that when banks do not give loans to people of color, to black people in particular, it is not because black people aren't good with money. It's because banks are not being held to regulatory schemes that allow them, permit them, and require them to invest. When we do not invest in communities, when we do not pass laws that protect communities, when we demonize the language but not the behavior, that's when we get in trouble. So I need Democrats to be more forceful, and I think Cheryl's absolutely right. There's a backbone issue where we cannot get scared away from our truth because the other side doesn't like it. That's like somebody doesn't want to date me. I'm not going to keep chasing you if you keep telling me no. I'm going to go find the person who thinks I'm cute and go out with them. And we spend so much time trying to appease those who are not interested in us that we leave behind those who are simply waiting for us to ask them out. Well, I don't know, Stacey, because I've been chasing El DeBarge for decades, and I don't care what he thinks. I will be chasing him to the end of time since we're talking about dating and the black woman. But here's the other thing I want people to understand. Data center issues are true issues. You want to put a data center somewhere? Don't put it in my community. Put it in one of these towns that have been deserted that still have water. You see what I'm saying? We need the Democrats to speak in plain language. And then when you're talking about diversity, I just think that the Democrats allow the Republicans to make them the poster child of things that we don't spiritually agree with or we don't culturally agree with. And that's not what you lead with. You argue for 1% of the population. Why don't you reframe that argument and go, as Americans, we don't want anybody to be treated a certain way. I want Democrats to start speaking for Americans and don't just throw out that DEI, which Stacey and I didn't get the benefit from the DEI. Here we go. Somebody else got the benefit. And then when they found out, see, a lot of people thought it was only going to happen to us. Then they messed around and found out that your mama lost her welfare benefits and her health care benefits. Now everybody turn it against Trump. All these influences, all these people that was inviting them on the shows. Now they like he's toxic. Now his ratings, his approval ratings are going down. Now everybody want to go against him, but the damage has been done. They're going to have to decide what are they going to do about the Supreme Court. They're going to have to do something about the fact that Congress is not doing their accountability job. And you tell people, I'm going to vote you in, but you got to hold this dude accountable. Don't nobody need no arch out there. Stop messing up the pool. And you better not touch Martin Luther King monument or you'll really see black folk march. Okay, I'm sorry Stacey, and by the way, hold on for that. One of the things that I want to make sure I have, I'd be remiss to neglect this point. The DEI subject rails me to know it just rolls me to know. And it just disgusts me because let's let's as the late great Joe Madison from urban view radio would say, God rest is wonderful. So, you know, let's put it with a goat, black Eagle, the black Eagle, let's put it where the goats can get it. When we talk about DEI, the biggest beneficiaries of DEI have been white women. It hasn't been black. It hasn't been black folks. We all know this. So I don't know why we even got associated with it. I don't know why. I mean, I understand the federal jobs of black women have lost federal jobs that bothers the hell out of me. I get that part. But the fact that I I've been on the record, Stacey, just so you know, I've called Pete Hegseth the secretary of defense. I've called him a DEI high. How the hell you go from a weekend host on Fox news to the head of secretary of defense. I guess I could do the job because my show's daily. It ain't weekends. It's daily. If that's all the requirement is you got to be kidding me. I'm like, this is ridiculous. That's a DEI high as far as I'm concerned. But with what y'all are saying, I would say this to you. I get where y'all are coming from. I'm talking to two marvelous black women here. We all know how we can be as a community with everything that y'all are saying based on the climate and the way people react to truth, Stacey Abrams. They might call you a traitor. They might accuse you of selling out because you're telling the truth about what we need to be doing as a community and as a party. So I ask you this question. How is the word wise? How effective do you think telling the truth is in terms of strategy? I have no problem with you. Cheryl has no problem with what you're saying. But at least in recent memory, when you just speak plain truth, it seems to be hazardous to your well-being. How do you respond to that, Stacey? I'm going to start with one thing you said, and it's going to tie together. So let's talk about what DEI means. DEI, diversity means all people. Equity means fair access to opportunity. Inclusion means respect for belonging. One of the challenges is that we've turned it to an epithet. We try to use it as an insult because we've been told it's an insult. And so I appreciate what you were saying about Pete Hexeth, but Pete Hexeth is not a function of DEI. But you know who is? A white man who grew up and went to high school in the Appalachian Mountains in the last 30 years and benefited from Title I education that provided access to fair education for poor communities and then used that to move through the ranks and become vice president of the United States. J.D. Vance is literally a product of DEI because Title I education is a DEI program. I do not diminish or dismiss the utility of DEI because it made public education not only helpful for him, but for my family. And so we have to stop allowing them to demonize their corrective actions because if you messed it up, you should be the one to fix it. DEI is how we have fixed the problems of this nation, the lies that were told, and the promises broken. And when those promises are broken, you cannot fix a problem you don't call out. And that's why I tell the truth. I talk about DEI everywhere I go. I talk about the importance of reaching out to voters we ignore. I talk about all of the issues. I talk about AI being a tool. It may be for our good, it may be for our harm, but it's a tool. Telling the truth isn't the problem. It's shutting up when someone doesn't agree with you because they don't like the truth. And the other side will tell a lie a thousand times until it sounds like the truth. We tell the truth one time and when people don't applaud, we stop talking. And so I believe that it is strategically necessary for us to tell the truth over and over and to educate people about the connective tissue. That's why I talk about DEI. That's why I talk about AI. That's why I talk about the FISA courts. That's why I talk about authoritarianism. We've got to tell the truth. And it's why when I ran for office and didn't win in 2018, I refused to say that the system that was manipulated was right. Because even if the truth is going to hurt you, the only people who can tell the truth are the people who see it. And that's my responsibility. Cheryl Underwood, when you look at your positions and how you've agreed with Stacey for the most part, is that really about being against Trump? Or is it about being against the entire Republican party? Do you separate the two? Or is it all about him? And that's where your focus and your disgust lies? Well, I can compartmentalize better than anybody that I know. I think that the Trump administration is the perfect photograph of a lot of incompetent white dudes tearing the country apart and running it in the ground. And everybody's afraid to say it because they don't want to get racial. And then on the other side, they want to say, well, we don't need to come together as a country. Yes, we do. There are a lot of really, really smart people that know what they're doing and need to come back to the table, but they so fed up that they'll leave. How do you have an AI meeting? And almost everybody there is a white person, except for one lady in the back and one other dude that I can't pronounce his name. My point is, we as a country got to understand that the level of power has been shifted. White supremacy and Christian nationalism is the greatest threat to our country right now in democracy. But that means that instead of white people being on the sidelines going, I hope somebody come in and fix it. I think that black people, Hispanics, Asians, and all right thinking white people need to come together because if we go down, the whole country goes down. Now, Latin people are understanding you voted to your own detriment. Now it's shifting that they understand that they made a mistake. We as black people, all of us need to stand up and say, we tried to warn you. You didn't listen, but are you ready to listen now? And it's a lot of stuff that Trump is doing insane. And if it wasn't him, we'd be going along with it. We'd be going along with it. If I can find out how to put in nothing and become a crypto billionaire, like Trump is doing and his whole family. But when it was Hunter Biden who only made hundreds of thousands of dollars or maybe a couple of million, everybody wanted to act crazy. But now it's the Trump family making me, how are you representing the country? And then you in a business where you have stock in the military apparatus, that's doing the thing that you're trying to negotiate against. These are the things that we all need to be talking about and be mindful of as we go to the polls. How are you sitting there addressing our concerns about AI with a bunch of AI executives signing some moral clause with no legal binding whatsoever? How about that one? We'll get back to that another time. But Stacey Abrams, I will ask you this. Just like they said that Trump's first term was a byproduct of it was folks being against Obama. What do you say about those that would say Trump's return to office is a byproduct of the Biden administration and some of the things that they did? Because you have some people that look at them and they say, hey, open borders, not policing the border, swearing to us up and down there was no border crisis when clearly there was. What about the role that Democrats played in Donald Trump getting back to office? I think that we hold responsibility, but I think we also hold opportunity. And we have to think about the pendulum swing of politics for the last 30 years. We have to, again, we have to look at the longitude of history if we want to understand the moment we're in. I lead this project called the 10 Steps Campaign, where I want people to understand that this is not politics as usual. This is not Democrats versus Republicans. This is patriots versus authoritarians. And it's important that we understand that because for years, we were all on the same road. We were headed towards a more perfect union. We were just disagreeing about how we're going to get there. Republicans were using Google Maps. Democrats were using Apple Maps. Independents were using Waze and crashing into people's houses. But we were all heading in the same direction. And in 2025, we realized that we had a hitchhiker and that's competitive authoritarianism. We had somebody, we had an entire regime that was using democratic institutions, using elections, using real issues as a way to seize our power, to hoard that power to the few. And as Cheryl just pointed out, to use that power in such a corrupt way that they were making billions of dollars by leveraging our power against us. Democracy is about how do we share that power? How do we leverage that power for the benefit of others? And how are we held accountable for that power? And Democrats hold responsibility, not only for the pendulum swings, every time it swings towards us, if we don't seize that pendulum and actually build policies that serve people, then we are going to be held accountable. Because people do not care about your politics. They care about their lives. And when they do not see a solution, they swing the other way. We can look no further than what just happened in Brazil, where they had a Trump tyrant who actually did try to have a coup against his country, tried to kill, had a plot to kill his successor and his successor's vice president and members of the Supreme Court, Javier Bolsonaro. When Bolsonaro got arrested, he was held accountable. Brazil put him in prison. Now, his son is weeks away from possibly becoming the next president. And he said the first thing he's going to do is pardon his son. And the reason I point this out, Stephen, Bolsonaro in Brazil is emblematic of the US. Trump is not the problem. Trump is a snake oil salesman who's been put in front of the regime as a way to distract us. He is not the architect. He is not the intellect. And he is not the problem. He's just taking advantage of what we see. I'm concerned about everyone behind him that we gave a pass to during the Biden administration who should have been held accountable. So I believe that immediately we should have pursued more than just hearings. We should have had more arrests, more indictments. We should have also. Because if you do not hold people accountable, then you give permission. That's why we have an entire justice system. We as Americans have always said we want people to be held accountable unless we like what they did. And so I would say this. But Stacey, the hustler knows to hustle. If you go on a federal level, then come on up here. That's why. The reason that Trump is president right now is to keep his butt out of jail. As long as he stays president, the Supreme Court is saying everything he do is protected because he's president. The day he's no longer president, he can't use it as a con. So to me, first of all, we ain't going to talk about here what we feel to end game. We're not going to be stupid like those of them that wrote Project 2025. What we going to do is do what we did in the old school civil rights movement. We don't get together in secret. We don't swear everybody's secrecy. And then we don't execute the plan because right now our congressmen, some of our senators and our structure is not holding anybody accountable because by the time you get to the Supreme Court, somebody say, well, it's cool with me. It's cool with you until it affects somebody. Well, first of all, here that today, did Alito say he was considering retiring? Sure. Hold on. Hold on. Let me say that. First of all, ain't no way in hell that's happened. But a bunch of us ain't getting together in secret and keep it quiet. No, it's not going to happen. Let's get that out the way. Ain't going to happen. Let's just stop the line. Let's stop lying to each other. It's not going to happen. We know that. OK, that's number one. Number two, Stacey, let me tell you something right now. Both you and Cheryl, let's let's talk about from a strategy perspective and how we lacked in that department. Let's talk about those legal cases, Stacey, that you've been coming up. One of the issues if if I was a person that was in a position of power, do you know what I would have done with Trump once he was out of office? I'd have been like this. I'm pardoning you from everything under one condition. I need you to disappear and never, ever just go to hell. Well, get out of the country. That's how bad you are. Get the hell out. OK, just go away. Why? Because what did he do? The fact of the matter is you've got these people that's going to blame everything on partisanship. They're going to say it's just about the partisan. It's that other side of the aisle. They're coming after him. It's a witch hunt. And that was evidenced by 77 million people voted for him. And what did they say? Not time for this. We've got our own problems like you alluded to, Stacey. We got our own problems going after him, putting him in jail. What's that going to do for my life? My pocketbook, price of gas, groceries, my rent, my mortgage, et cetera. What is that going to do for me? That's how they're thinking. So to me, I think that's a dead end strategy. It's it's as legit as I think it is, Stacey. I still think it ends up being a dead end. Here's why it's not a dead end. OK, because if all you do is accountability without communication. Yes, you're absolutely right. So if all we did was arrest and incarcerate, it doesn't work. You also have to explain why it happened and what we have failed to do. We get so worried about people seeing us and believing us that we stop saying things. If you arrest Donald Trump only on the grounds of the multiple crimes he committed, that's one thing. But you also have to get to the people who made it possible. But I'm concerned more largely with the fact that we don't talk about how the follow on consequences have hurt us. This administration passed laws and is taking actions that actually hurt people. And because we didn't want the political backlash, we ignored the people backlash. People do care about their lives. They also want to know who to blame. And when you don't hold anyone accountable, you can't then blame them for the problems they create. And that's the weakness, I would say, of current modern politics, that we are so afraid on the Democratic side to not just explain the problem, explain who's at fault for the problem, and then explain how we solve the problem. But I'm not saying that you don't know who it is. I'm not saying that you don't know who it is. I'm not saying that you don't fail to point out, you know what, what happened, what did they do, what their transgressions were. But ultimately, in the end, if you're going to get off, you're going to get off. That's the system that they politicized it. That's what they did. Where did that get us? And by the way, we have a United States Constitution. Let me get this straight. If you're in jail, you're a convicted felon. You can't vote, but you can run for the presidency and win. See, that's the world we're living in right now in this country. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But go ahead, Cheryl. Go ahead, Cheryl. But that is because your politicians don't want to hold somebody accountable. The best way you could have stopped Trump, you should have voted to convict him, impeach him in the Senate. Then we wouldn't even be talking like this. But everybody had some type of need to keep this dude in the White House. The best thing they're doing right now, keep holding hearings when you try to get, what is it, Jack Ford on a basketball game, and then you look stupid. Then you're going to lose perfection. Okay? You keep making dumb mistakes in the world to go, but we can't support this dude. And the Republicans are doing stupid things that now, every night, the media is more powerful than you know. That's why he keeps trying to obstruct and destroy the media. And Black media, when Bill Clinton said, buy all the radio stations you want, we thought that was a great idea. But Black media, Black people don't believe Jesus is coming back until they hear that Black radio station tell them. You've got to use Black media, Democratic Party, put some money into media to tell us what we need to vote for, how we need to vote, and stop thinking that you're going to get our allegiance without talking to us. Sheryl Underwood, are you telling me that stupidity is resigned to the Republican Party in terms of some of the things that they've done, considering what the Democrats did in losing the election in 2024? Come on now. Come on now. I think Democrats were naive and Republicans are being stupid. I'm going to say it straight up. What's the difference? What's the difference? If I can, if I can chime in and support my sister here. Okay. Naivete often is that we think that if we do something that is noble, that we will get credit for it. Stupid is knowing the consequences and doing it anyway. And that's the difference. And it was a 1.5 million person difference. So let's also not overread the outcome of 2024. Yes, he won and there was no question, but this was not a landslide victory. This was a suburb of LA that made the difference. And we had a drop off rate. 90 million people did not raise their voices. And so my issue is, and this is, I think why I'm going to say amen to Cheryl more than I meant to today, because I like my partisanship and I'm happy to be here. But radio is one of the reasons we are not talking to the people we need. We're talking to the people who've already told us no. And my issue is we, especially black people, we know how to build coalitions better than anyone. We have never had the numbers to win on our own. We have always had to build coalitions, but you cannot build a coalition without first talking to the people at the base, talking to our folks where they are using radio, using investing in black media. Then you reach out and you talk to other communities. When I ran for governor, I had the first statewide Spanish language ads in the state's history. And before I ran, I was the only state, the only candidate. In fact, I was the only member of the house. And I think the only member of the government who regularly went on Korean radio because that was the fastest growing Asian population in our state. I did the state of the state response in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. I spoke really slowly and sounded like a Dominican, according to a Dominican who complimented me. But I spoke to people where they are in the language they understood about the issues that matter. I also campaigned where they filmed deliverance. I went to North Georgia. I help people sign up for healthcare. One gentleman told me he would never vote for me, but he wouldn't vote against me because I showed up where he was and tried to help him get what he needs. Coalition building is how we win. And Steven, the reason coming on the show today was so important to me is that we cannot only talk to the people who agree with us. We have to talk to the people who don't know that we see them and the people who agree with us, but because of what they've seen, don't understand that they agree with us. When we put those things together, we leave behind and that's when you move to actual strategy and to the infrastructure that leads to long-term victory. I agree with you and also Greek letter organizations, nonprofits, civil rights organizations across the board. You cannot let tax exemption freeze your right to speak as an American. They stood up in the church and King Jesus and didn't lose their tax exemption. Am I wrong? Not only not wrong. So I'm a tax attorney by training, and I'm here to tell you there's a difference between partisanship and education and the fear of losing your tax status, right? You are afraid of paying taxes and the fear of paying taxes is stopping organizations from saving lives. Let's be really clear. When you are silent because you are afraid of your tax exempt status, you are giving primacy to your taxes and not to the people you intend to serve. I do not believe that nonprofits should violate the tax law, but I'm here to tell you that our fear is stopping us from doing risk assessment. We're just doing risk aversion and you cannot save the future by being afraid to take a risk. While you're talking against me, talking at me and Stacey, why don't you talk about the responsibility of the black man that swayed some votes over to this dude just because he used to be on this apprentice? Well, allow me to speak to first of all, since you brought that up, you see, I didn't vote for him. I didn't vote for him, but I get treated like I did vote for him because I'm pointing out the stuff that we do that works against our interests. And because I had the temerity and unmitigated goal to bring that up, you had folks turn it against me, but I'm here for it, Stacey. I'm a big boy. I can take it. Okay. I was raised by five black women. I'm good. Okay. I ain't worried about that. Ain't gonna phase me one bit, but I'm listening to you, Stacey, right now. And I'm saying, oh, my Lord, she sounds so brilliant, so elegant. Everything she's saying is right on point. But you know that a lot of us ain't gonna hear that. They're gonna say, when you get into, oh, well, you know what, tax exempt status, if that's what's gonna keep you silent, blah, blah. They're like, bump that. I got rent to pay. I got money to put in my pocket. That's what they're gonna say. You know this. You know this. And to point to those things puts folks, particularly black folks, in a position, and I'm not saying you're wrong. I don't disagree with you. But it puts us in a position where all of a sudden, the moral police comes. This is what they accuse the Democratic Party of throwing in our direction. The moral police comes. For example, with me, there's one person I refuse to interview. One on the planet Earth, Stacey Sherrill Underwood. One person. I will never, if I can help it, I will never interview Elizabeth Warren. Do you know why? Senator Elizabeth Warren. I respect her. Here's why. If you disagree with her, she makes you feel like you're going to hell. I'm like, I cannot believe that you are disagreeing. It drives me nuts when I listen to her because she makes you feel like, to disagree with her, you are shredding your own soul. There are times when the Democratic Party gets accused of that on far too many occasions. And I've spoken to plenty of black people that have voted, that have been independent or voted Republican. And they point to that being a reason why. They're sick of the guilt game. How do you respond to that? Go ahead, you first, Sherrill. You first, Sherrill. First of all, I didn't know Elizabeth Warren was God's only messenger. I didn't know that. So she can't determine if you're going to hell or not. When you get to heaven, you will see a brother or sister up there with the Lord. How about both? How about both? Well, go ahead. I think Elizabeth Warren makes a lot of points, but she got to put her money where her heart is. That means put her mouth in a situation and her power in a situation that is truly doing what's good for America, not just lip service. And I support Elizabeth Warren, but if she make you feel guilty, you just need to have a Mia Stacey by your side and go, girl, you ain't got that right to make him feel like he's not going to hell. No, I just don't know. I just don't want to talk to her. I listen. I respect that. I just don't want to talk to her. But go ahead, Stacey, because I just told you why. I'm just like, listen, I know how I feel, and I know I ain't going to the polls to vote for him. So I'm worried. When did you start being afraid of white women? What happened? Ain't no brother afraid of white women. That ain't me. That ain't happening. If I can intercede, having done this job before. So part of guilt, I'm from the Deep South. I grew up in Mississippi and in Georgia. And there is a phrase that we use called a hit dog will holler. So sometimes the guilt comes because we do think that perhaps we were complicit or participatory in harm. But we've got to be grown up enough to get past that. So one of the responsibilities of an effective politician is to have the conversation not about accusation, but opportunity. I'm going to talk about taxes, but not from a place of condemning you or not even from a place of lecturing you. I'm going to say, what are you, what hurts you right now? Did you know that if your church could actually start up, own a franchise, own a McDonald's franchise, you could generate revenue that could help pay for the things you're concerned about. But right now our tax policy makes that illegal. That's called the unrelated business income tax. So let's talk about it. If I were talking to someone who is in a conversation with Elizabeth Warren, I love Senator Warren. Part of my job is translation. I started an organization here in Georgia and I say that we translate progressive policy into Southern because I know that not everyone's going to read the white paper. Not everyone's going to know what the policies mean, but they know what it means when a data center comes to their neighborhood and their water turns Brown. They didn't know that they should have been at a zoning meeting to understand how to stop it. And so part of our responsibility, and this goes to something you said at the very top, Steven, it's infrastructure. Yes, we have to win elections, but we've got to build long-term infrastructure because smart people make smarter choices and we cannot make smarter choices if we don't know what's at stake and we don't know who's at fault. And so my responsibility, whether I'm on the ballot or not, is to spend my time trying to make sure people understand what's happening. I have a whole thing called the 10 steps campaign. If you go to our website, we lay out all 10 things that they are doing to us right now to make us lose our democracy day after day. But I also give you 10 steps to freedom and power because we've done it before and we can do it again. Whether it was a civil rights movement, whether it was emancipation, we know the things we need to do, but we pretend that there's osmosis, that we're just going to know it by waking up. We've got to train ourselves. We've got to train our communities and we've got to get past the guilt to the good. And the good is what we should be aimed and focused on. But if all we do is stop at someone making me feel bad about myself, then I'm going to feel bad about myself in liberty. Hold on, Cheryl. What's that website? What's that website? But I want to tag on this. She's talking about a data center and Watertown and Brown, where you care about it when it's in your community, but you didn't care about water in Flint, Michigan. You didn't care about water in Jackson, Mississippi. So somehow we've got to make it more palatable for all Americans to understand when you don't care about it, when it's us, it's going to happen to you. That's all I'm saying. Go ahead, Stephen. So it's 10 steps of one zero steps campaign.org. We even tell you what kind of democracy defender you are. It's kind of like a buzzfeed for civil rights activism, but it's for anybody. If you think that it's a problem that Stephen A. Smith and Cheryl Underwood could be taken off the air because the FCC decides they don't like what you say, that's step six in the 10 steps to authoritarianism. When you attack the truth and the truth tellers, well, how do you push back? You share their stories. You share this show. You tell people what you've heard. For everything they do to take our power, we've got something we can do to take it back. But my mission is to make sure, and this is your point, Cheryl, we've got to make sure that people know they have power because the fundamental premise of authoritarianism is not just taking our power. It's convincing us we never had it to begin with. And that's what they've done to black communities. That's what they've done to communities of color. It's what they've done to women. They want us to believe we are powerless. And so I'm never going away. I'm the most relentless person you will find. They might not put me on the news every day, but I'm not going to stop talking until we get the justice we deserve. And that means that whether it's Fair Fight, Fair Count, See, American Pride Rises, 10 Steps Campaign, or novels that are about AI or the electric grid, I'm going to tell people the stories they need to know so they know the power they hold so they can build the world that they deserve. Stacey Abrams, Cheryl Underwood, if a Republican was sitting here and they were listening to this and they were listening to Democrats talk about, even though Cheryl Underwood is not one, if they were listening to Democrats talk about the Republicans, they would bring up high taxes, even something like the Green New Deal and how they believe that this destroyed our energy programs. They'd bring up high crime education, open borders. This is the argument that they would make. Let me ask you this question, closing it out. If you were somebody that dare I said happened to be in the presence of the president, because it is entirely possible that that may happen with yours truly sooner than later, because he's had a problem with a few things that I've said, and who knows, I might see him soon. What would you say to him? He had an opportunity to sit in front of his face and say something to him or say some things to him about what has happened to this country and what needs to transform to rectify what ails us. What would you say to him? Go ahead, Cheryl Underwood. You know what I would say, Trump? You seem to care more about your legacy. You should have been a better president and you still can be a better president. If you turn away from your wicked ways and put God first and then you repair your legacy, it doesn't matter how many arches you build, how many times you put your name on the Kennedy Center and threaten to tear it apart. If you care about your legacy, it is not too late for you to become a better leader of the free world. Stacey Abrams. I would ask him to go and get Russell Vote and Stephen Miller so you could talk to the real people in power. Plain and simple, because you don't believe he has any kind of impact whatsoever. You believe everything. Not that he doesn't have impact. He's doing egregious, horrific, mean-spirited, xenophobic, racist, misogynistic things every day. But when he is gone, it will remain unless we actually attack the real power. Project 2025 is a gift. They've told us what they intend. Russell Vote, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller have shown us what they are willing to do to the least of these. Our responsibility is not to get distracted by the guy in front of the used car lot. We need to find who owns it and who sold us the lemon and why they intend to cause us harm. I, with the greatest respect, absolutely talk to the person who holds the job. But you want to talk to the person who holds the power. And he is not the power behind what is decimating our nation. What if the Democrats lose in the midterm, Stacey? So the Democrats are going to win the House. We may not win the Senate. I hope we will. I'm going to work hard to see it happen. But I actually want us to pay attention to state legislative races, to governor's races. Because what we have seen, we saw this in the 1840s and 1850s. We saw this with Jim Crow. When they lose at the federal level, when the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments became law, they moved to the states to strip black people of their power again. When we had the Voting Rights Act, they moved to the states to strip it away for women. When women finally had the right to control their bodies, the Dobbs decision didn't say abortion was illegal nationally. It said the states get to decide the quality of your citizenship and your right to control your body. So we want to win the future. We've got to pay attention to Congress, absolutely. But we've got to pay attention to state legislative races, to attorney general races, governor's races. And then next year, we've got to start paying attention to who our mayors and city council members are, not because they control the power, but because they're the closest to our pain. And if we want to build what they built, if we want to have what we deserve, we've got to build from the bottom up, because you don't defeat authoritarianism top down. It's bottom up, and that means going to the states. But I think you need to concentrate on all of that. And don't let them use words like Democratic Socialist and all these different words that most people don't even understand what you're talking about. If you are not the race of the person you're talking to, you better go sit down with that person so you can get that vote. Turnout is going to be key. And that's why they try and do all these shenanigans. Now the guy was against voting by mail, but now he know he about to get shellacked, and now he want everybody to vote by mail. I grew up in Chicago. The same was vote early and often. We need to help get turnout out. Cheryl, as someone who, I'm going to very, very clearly say, do not vote often. Vote early, vote once, vote right. Oh, no, I vote all the time. Sorry, Cheryl, I was joking because they're accusing us of voting multiple times right now. When they're the only ones that did that. Well, I was supposed to say this. I was supposed to have a Democrat and a Republican on here. I had two Democrats on here show because that's exactly what you sounded like, Cheryl. That's what I mean. That's what you sounded like. I'm a registered Republican, blue dog Democrat. I'm a registered Republican because I believe in some of the Republican principles, and I believe that Black people need to be in all political parties. We just can't be beholden to the Democrats, and then they undercut us. We can't be beholden to the Republicans, and they don't care about us. See, what Democrats say, you should be able to sleep in the street as a homeless. Republicans don't care if you sleep in the street as the homeless. I think we need to be in all political parties. We need to hear what's going on. And yes, I am still a registered Republican, and I tell people why. Every time you come into a comedy club, I tell you why I'm still a registered Republican. I just can't use that language on Stephen A.'s straight shooter media because ain't this a Christian station? It's a straight shooter media. I'll leave it at that. Stacey Abrams, Cheryl Underwood, love y'all. I appreciate y'all. Thank y'all so much. You know y'all are welcome back anytime. I'm always here. Anytime. Thanks for having me. Thank y'all so much. And good to see you, Sister Stacey. I love you. Cheryl Underwood and Stacey Abrams. Does it get any better than that? I don't think so. I got nothing else to say. Other than, until next time, straight shooting in the house. Take it easy.