Rashida Tlaib — Rep. Tlaib Joins Joe Madison to Talk COVID-19, Reimagining Public Safety, Reparations & More

Speaker 1: And a taste of honey is worse than none at all. Oh, look, girl, in that case I don't want no thought. I do believe that that would only break my heart

Speaker 2: Let me welcome to the Madison Show Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Thank you so much for being with

us as a I

Speaker 2: was going to say, Congresswoman, to leave a

Speaker 3: former Detroiter, but you're never a former Detroiter. No, I'm still

Speaker 4: living in Detroit and raising my two boys there. I'm always born and raised and haven't left yet

Speaker 5: And, you know, when I ran the NACP there and lived there for, how long did we live there

Speaker 6: Gosh. I got to tell you, you know, That's what I mean. They never let you leave. Oh

Speaker 7: no, that's very true. Even when various, you know, folks in my team members that come

Speaker 8: and experience Detroit for a few years, they say it never leaves them. And I say, well, imagine growing up there. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's very much part of

Speaker 6: who you are

And

Speaker 6: thank you for representing the 13th Congressional District, which includes the city of Detroit and the surrounding

Speaker 2: suburbs. And I want to talk about, I want to get some understanding about

Speaker 9: defunding the police. Everybody is using that term, and I'm getting three or four different interpretations of, Uh, and then this, this, you know, they're saying, well, the

Speaker 2: Congresswoman wants to get rid of policing

Um, I'm, that's why I

Speaker 2: wanted to

Speaker 9: have you on to explain your position

Yeah, I

Speaker 10: think it's important to know that not everyone in our

Speaker 11: country right now feel safe and that like many across this country, I'm tired of seeing people. Band-Aid

Speaker 12: after Band-Aid put on a systematic wound in our society, and this wound is leading to the death and harm of many of my Black neighbors

And the way we're

Speaker 11: approaching public safety is just not working. And so we continue to see death after death in the hands of police officers with no meaningful

Speaker 13: accountability for the officers or departments or really the system that is involved in. And so folks may say, you know, now, well, the excuse is kind of coming out of this is an accident. These are folks

Speaker 14: you know

the

Speaker 15: officer's been arrested and charged. But we've seen

Speaker 13: this play over and over again with no justice at the end. And many people are exhausted. And so what you hear with Movement for Black Lives, much of which was birthed out of mothers, mothers who lost their children. children, uh, to police brutality, police violence, and police killings. Much of them want to push for investment in communities. What they see is instead of school counselors, police officers, they're being replaced. School counselors are being replaced with police officers. Nurses are being

Speaker 12: replaced with police officers. When somebody comes knocking on a year for eviction, it's not a social worker from the city coming in. It's

a police

Speaker 12: officer putting somebody It's police officers addressing the homeless crisis and

the poverty

Speaker 13: And that system is very much set up to over criminalize

Speaker 16: over incarcerate, and, you know, really punish folks that are the most vulnerable. And, and also the systematic racism that is still very much rooted

Speaker 13: in the culture

of a very

Speaker 13: oppressive system, which is policing in our country. And so we cannot, I mean, that to us, and many of us

Speaker 16: that's not public safety

So

Speaker 16: it doesn't matter what terminology we use. I think everyone has to agree that it's just not working and that these are too many people, too many young black

folks are

Speaker 16: dying at all

Speaker 13: various ages. I'm tired of people saying, oh, that was a gun and it was Skittles or you can't even jog throughout your neighborhood. You can't. I mean. Everyone needs to feel safe in our country, and right now not everyone feels safe in our country under this idea that we want to pretend still exists around protect and serve and

Speaker 11: that a police is there to help and serve us. What we see over and over again is that very much

Speaker 17: those that are just trying to live freely in our country are being targeted you

Speaker 5: know as you were talking congresswoman to leave i i also wanted to add and and i imagine you you may or may not agree with this but it's

also

Speaker 2: becoming the the uh

a

Speaker 2: A cash cow for a lot of communities. And what I mean by this, as we saw in Ferguson, you over-police a community, the poor end up paying fines, they end up going to court. I mean, there are a lot of folk making a lot of money from the judges to the clerks on this whole

Speaker 9: criminal policing apparatus we have

Speaker 18: Agree or disagree

Speaker 16: Absolutely. And even in Detroit, you know, this is your home city. Yeah

Speaker 13: 300 million towards policing, towards the police department. Do you know how much we have for public health? Eight million. Eight million, we have a public

Speaker 16: health pandemic we weren't ready for. And we're trying to handle and address it. But even with all of that, you wonder why 40% of the deaths, the statistics I've been seeing coming out of Michigan, 40% of the deaths of COVID have been my black neighbors

Even

Speaker 13: though the total population in Michigan is, of many of our black neighbors is less than 15%. So folks need to think about that for one second. We are investing more

Speaker 16: and putting more money into police departments and this type of policing and criminalization. Very much these policing departments are becoming very militant. Many of my seasoned Detroiters will tell me, well, they've always been militant, Rashida. But, you know, they're

Speaker 12: starting to... wear kind of military type gear to kind of approach protesters. You don't see them wearing that. Even in Detroit, I didn't

Speaker 16: see them wearing that with the white supremacists that showed up in an 80% black city. So I think many of us are frustrated and angry. And of course, those that want to keep the status quo, those that want to increase fear mongering, take words, twist them around, not understanding where is this coming from, that pain, and folks saying enough. Enough with the constant pretending that more training is going to work. When Mr. Castle died in Minnesota, they invested $12 billion in training. Two other, you know, big, I mean, a number of police brutalities, but from George Floyd and now to Mr. Wright, you know, you see this constant pushing and people throwing up their hands, especially black and brown communities saying enough

Even

Speaker 16: many of our white counterparts calling my office saying, Rashida, I think you're right. We need to reimagine. We need to really think. I said, absolutely, because police can't be the answer to poverty. Police can't be the answer to all theseills in our country. And it can be the answer to addressing the fact that, you know, they were built on very much structural racism. Look at the history of policing in our country

Speaker 2: Yeah, let me just for a second. Let me make sure I understand. And I like

Speaker 6: to, I always, my grandfather, grandfather you say just put it simple put it where the it's an old country term put it where the goats can get it because they eat down to the root and you getting into the root causes of what brought this

Speaker 18: this position

Speaker 9: you've taken so because people will who are listening may say is is congresswoman to leave is she saying like for example if someone breaks into my I like to tell stories. Someone breaks into my house. shouldn't i be able to call the police uh so you're you're

Speaker 21: not

Speaker 22: talking

Speaker 9: about

Speaker 21: yeah you're

Speaker 22: not absolutely but okay property property should not have more value than human life i want to

Speaker 16: reiterate that as a society we've decided that the way we handle issues is to send police and people in jail mental

Speaker 4: health poverty education you name it we are over policing and over criminalizing, it's not making us safer

Not

Speaker 23: saying you

Speaker 16: can't call them saying, let's let's remember how George Floyd and the police got called. And and even that person called did not realize that was going to relate lead to his death. And on our

Speaker 24: you know, people want to say, let's say it. What did it was he? Was he was he a threat

Come on

Speaker 25: Mr. Madison, was he? He literally was suffocated and like killed while

Speaker 4: calling out for his mother. And we're going to continue to

to

Speaker 4: try to justify, and they continue, even hearing the court

Speaker 26: dialogue back and forth, they're putting George Floyd on trial, not the system

Yeah, the defense

Speaker 27: is, no

Speaker 2: offense, but it's about, let me, let me go to another issue, the reason I wanted to have you on, and that is this, I guess, a bill, help me understand, this COVID-19 recurring payments for COVID-19

Speaker 9: COVID-19 relief

What is

Speaker 9: the purpose of that bill? Yeah

Speaker 28: it's called the ABC Act. We call it the Automatic Boosted Communities

Speaker 13: Act, and it provides reoccurring payments. So a lot of the survival checks and what we call the stimulus checks that you saw were coming after one year or so. And what we've seen other countries do is have reoccurring payments, have multiple payments tied into maybe unemployment rate tied into a loss of a job or different conditions to change. I mean, we have so many of our neighbors who lost income because their loved one died of COVID. That's irreplaceable income. It's not, unemployment's not going to address that or a number

Speaker 12: of other resources that are provided. So we want to take care of our people, do what we do when it's corporations, you know, have a people's bailout and really create sustainable

Speaker 13: help and assistance. And so offering $2,000 reoccurring payments during the pandemic is

And

Speaker 13: understanding even after, hopefully, after we get through the biggest hurdle of this pandemic, which is stopping the spread, and that

Speaker 29: has not yet happened. Even in Michigan, we see the rise as folks are opening up schools and we see an increase of even now we're running out of hospital beds. Even after a year after that, offering $1,000 reoccurring payments, this is going to

Speaker 11: make sure that our families are taken care of. versus them, you know, crossing their fingers, hoping that maybe we send another survival check. No, we should be

Speaker 17: able to provide a sustainable approach to these survival checks versus what they've seen now

And how

Speaker 6: many members of your body have you got to sign on to this bill

Speaker 31: Yeah, I believe

Speaker 13: it's over a dozen now. Many of my colleagues are folks that work with Working Families Party and others that are supportive of the bill. Local economists

Speaker 29: have come out and understood how this is also connected to really the real economy, not Wall Street economy. And what I love

Speaker 13: about the bill that folks don't talk about the most is

I

Speaker 13: create Emergency Resource Corps

Speaker 11: right? This is Emergency Resource Corps that we built up, that we carry, that these are people that we hire and send out into the community, into the most vulnerable community, maybe our indigenous neighbors, maybe a community that lacks, this is no means of transportation, or maybe 40% of the residents who have access to transportation and going door to door

And talking to

Speaker 11: people, making sure they have information, making sure that they have the survival check information. But these would be mental health experts

Speaker 32: social workers, and people to work. And so we want to be bold, especially during this global, you know, public health crisis

Speaker 2: Because we don't know how, to be honest, and the thing I really, because no one has talked about this core that you're talking about. You're absolutely right. But it makes sense. because we get so much misinformation even on our show. There are people who think they're not getting the shot because they think they have to pay for it. I mean, it's so much misinformation. And now with this Johnson & Johnson, there's so much misinformation. You're not going to solve the pandemic as long as the messages don't get out and everybody's not

Speaker 33: watching cable news. And, you know

Speaker 13: the misinformation is very much tied with how how we are all getting information late. I mean, even during the election, you saw the

Speaker 32: misinformation that was coming through social media and that's going to continue to happen. And that's why I consistently tell my residents, please tell me

Speaker 12: Talk, you know, when you're sick, who do you call? Do you call it? You go to your, or maybe your, your, your physician, if you

Speaker 13: don't have one, where do you usually go? Call your federally, these clinics. I mean, I grew up when we didn't have health insurance. We had these federally accredited clinics. They're ready to help people. Seek it out. Don't depend on what you see on Facebook, please. I mean, if it's coming for a reliable

Speaker 12: source like the CDC, like your Congress member's office. Sure, but you are your individual. You have your different whatever health issues that you might have is consult your health professionals

Speaker 13: like you would with any other decision. And

Speaker 16: again, vaccines should be absolutely free. Uh, you know, know that, uh, if, if you hear of anything

Speaker 13: that seems suspicious that you should call, uh, your local elected folks, my, you know, anybody's office

I tell

Speaker 13: this to people, you know, don't call

the

Speaker 15: police, they can't handle it, you know, but you can call your local elected folks and then attorney generals and others will investigate it and

make

Speaker 34: sure that any scams are addressed. Yeah

Speaker 5: I'm going to one more question that I don't know if they it's a recent news story

Speaker 35: that a new bill has been introduced that would add four seats to the United States Supreme Court. I'd like

Speaker 6: to get your position on whether you would would support such a bill

Speaker 13: Yeah. Prior even getting into the United States Congress, I've read enough to understand the importance of expanding the court. I mean

this. This is a

Speaker 16: branch of government that, you know, sometimes we've done it dismissed. Sometimes we don't. We understand because they make these awful sometimes decisions that impact our lives

Speaker 13: forever. And some are bad and some are good. But one of the important things that consistently comes out is, is it balanced? Does it have, you know, enough folks that can give the American people

Speaker 11: confidence that decisions will be made on the best interests of the American people and

you know

Speaker 36: especially addressing some of theills and things that come before that Supreme Court. So I've been

Speaker 15: very much in support of the expansion. I have not gotten a chance to read that proposal that is coming out of the Judiciary Committee. But I'm sure if it is led by the leadership there, that they've been very thoughtful, talked to folks in the economic areas

Speaker 13: talked to legal professionals and others. And listeners should know this is not new. We've expanded the course. and shrank it before in the past. So this has been done. But I know just like we're trying to make Washington, D.C. a state, trying to help Puerto Rico get self-determination to lead to possibly

Speaker 11: joining, you know, becoming truly being able to self-govern themselves. All these things are all politicized this week. You know, we're discussing these things. And so folks are going to try to politicize this, but I hope listeners really take a deeper dive And how this actually would help our country have better, much more, I think, diverse decisions being made out of the Supreme Court. And again, these are decisions that continue

Speaker 13: to impact all of us from decisions that have watered down the Civil Rights Act, decisions that impact our public health, decisions that continue to impact, you know, women and immigrants and the most vulnerable. That's what ends up in these courts. and

you

Speaker 13: know i i think it's

Speaker 11: really important that

it is

Speaker 11: fair and it's balanced

all

Speaker 5: right and

Speaker 35: and i want to thank you for coming in and as we get into deep diving that's what we do on the madison show um i hope we can call on you again i i also i know that uh our uh our intern mckenzie galloway who interned i believe in your shop Yes

Speaker 37: I did

Speaker 35: Did you tell him

Speaker 38: you

Speaker 39: interviewed me before he ever interviewed me? No, no, no

Speaker 7: Yes, she did for one of her projects and, yeah, she did a wonderful job. You all hired well

Speaker 43: Yes, she's doing a wonderful job and she's about to graduate and get into the real world, so. oh she's

Speaker 44: been in the real world uh you gotta

Speaker 43: talk to her she's you know i i gotta tell you you know john conyers and i were very very close and um i i and when i always think about you being out of dearborn uh i always i didn't i

Speaker 36: wasn't i don't live in dearborn

Speaker 43: oh i know a lot

Speaker 36: of people think that no i graduated from southwestern high school i'm a prospector born and raised in southwest detroit yeah

Speaker 43: yeah but i always go back to representing when we boycotted the dearborn years

Speaker 47: ago and oh yeah

Speaker 15: yeah i've been to protest

Speaker 11: in dearborn where i mean dearborn police at one time killed mentally disabled uh young black man that everyone knew in the community and i stood there and protested and people were so upset about it and i said i

you

Speaker 11: know, people were actually welcoming because this officer had a history. But, you know, I think what's important about today, and you bringing up the late John Conyers, as yesterday, historic thing happened. We passed out

Speaker 4: of Judiciary Committee, H.R. 40, which is a commission to study reparations. He first introduced that in 1989, and people thought he was

Speaker 36: radical then, just like people are thinking, what is Rashida talking about, reimagining police and investing in our know this, you know, this is a

Speaker 13: person that no matter what your opinion is, he was so incredibly bold and courageous at that time. In 1989, he said, enough, you

want to

Speaker 13: address theills

Speaker 36: of our country? Then let's, let's look at reparations. And so I'm really proud that that was

Speaker 13: birthed, that movement for reparations was birthed in the district I represent. And John Conyers' legacy continues

Yeah

Speaker 13: Because H.R. 40 did pass yesterday out of committee

Speaker 48: Yeah. And like you said, it's look, folks, you got

to

Speaker 5: study it and let's get it done. You know, thank you. I hope we can call on you again, even after our intern leaves

uh i

Speaker 5: appreciate

Speaker 35: it because we we and oh and one more question if you don't mind i'm sorry one more question my staff accuses me of doing the uh colombo deal always

Speaker 49: one more question uh what what's what's with this surge in michigan as it relates to covet

Speaker 50: 19 what where and where is this happening why is it happening

So

Speaker 51: there's a lot of components to it, but I know some of it is very much connected

Speaker 15: to the reopening of schools. If you look at the age group that are getting infected and is younger age group, these are high school groups. And so the governor has expressed as folks are starting to get into the school sports

The

Speaker 15: teens

Speaker 11: gathering, things of that nature. I mean, heard stories of kids being transferred on a bus and one person had it and then everybody on the bus got it

So a

Speaker 11: lot of that's connected with that. And also, you know, people are not following guidelines and also

Speaker 16: the myth out there, y'all, you get a vaccine doesn't mean you're not going to get COVID

It just

Speaker 16: hopefully means you're not going to die from COVID or have severe symptoms. So I just want folks, as millions of people are getting vaccinated, please continue to wear your mask. You can carry that. You can give it to someone that isn't vaccinated. And, you know, you don't know what the long-term impact

Speaker 13: or effect is going to be when you do contract COVID. I continue to tell people that. So, again, I think there's a lot of components and issues. Of course, people are saying we should do this and we should do that

I

Speaker 12: just want folks to know I believe that we need to, you know, get the school districts, business

Speaker 15: community, and others to continue to enforce this. And these guidelines

Speaker 13: from CDC and to be very, very careful and intentional in how they do this. I think we're getting too lax as as as

Speaker 53: Yeah, I agree. Yeah

Speaker 54: we're getting too we're getting too comfortable. And of course, we're all we all want

to be

Speaker 53: able

Speaker 54: to get that how we lived before uh and so i understand the frustration but the surges are because

Speaker 29: people are not following those guidelines

i i

Speaker 35: appreciate you being with us on the madison show and we'll and we'll stay in touch thank you so much thank

Speaker 55: you so much thank you bye mackenzie love you

Thank you