A More Perfect Union with Nii-Quartelai Quartey

NBC News "Meet the Press" Contributor Ashley Etienne joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai to talk California's 14 ballot measures, the Graham Platner fallout in Maine, and her new Essence op-ed, "The Party We Built, The Bill Has Come Due."

Atlanta photographer Zuri Stanback joins us on Black visual storytelling as both art and armor — and why owning your work is the real power move in this creative economy.

Data Justice leader Germar Reed on how AI is quietly shaping who gets hired — and why a wave of data centers just hit pause.

Dr. Kerry Mitchell Brown on her new book, Revolutionary Leadership: A Power Playbook for Black Women.

Alain Leroy joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai to talk about his new book, Venture Philanthropy Blueprint — a real playbook for funding Black and Brown-led impact work without waiting on billionaire mercy.

Ben Crump is now representing the family of Nolan Wells, the Mississippi teen found dead after a July 4th boat trip. Plus: the E. Jean Carroll payout, AI creeping into political ads, McConnell health rumors, LAPD's Olympic staffing gamble, and a sobering WHO report on cancer's future worldwide. Beyond Impact CEO Vincent Jones and Political/Pop Culture Contributor Al Reynolds help us separate fact from fiction.

Never Can Say Goodbye author Darnell Lamont Walker returns for a hard but necessary conversation — the Nolan Wells case reopening old wounds for Black families, and the loss of Compton peacemaker Eric Washington, killed trying to stop the very violence he spent his life fighting.

A federal judge calls presidential self-dealing exactly what it is, the Iran ceasefire falls apart again, and Sen. Lindsey Graham's own sister takes his seat. Immigration Attorney Allen Orr Jr. and Democratic Strategist Isaac Wilson join us to break it all down.

Professor Calvin John Smiley of Hunter College joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey to connect the dots between a power grid buckling under strain, a SCOTUS ruling that just gutted protections for healthcare workers, and the far-right riots that tore through Belfast this month — which drew a visit from a pardoned January 6th figure. Together they trace how these threads tie back to the domestic policies quietly reshaping who belongs in America.

California Assemblymember Mike Gipson sits down with Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey for a raw, personal tribute to former staffer Eric Washington, who was killed while trying to de-escalate violence at a Compton Fourth of July gathering. Gipson remembers Washington's life and legacy, and speaks candidly about what real gun violence prevention actually requires—beyond the headlines and the hearings.

The Supreme Court just wiped out 91 years of precedent, handing one president more unchecked power over federal agencies than any before him. Immigration attorney Allen Orr Jr. joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey to break down what that means for our communities — plus the Mississippi immigrant registry law taking effect this week, and the Washington state attorney accused of scamming more than 53,000 immigrants out of their futures.

SiriusXM host and New York Times bestselling author John Fugelsang ("Separation of Church and Hate") joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey for hour two to unpack the 29-year-old democratic socialist who just ended a 30-year congressional career in Colorado, Maryland Governor Wes Moore's direct challenge to Trump's July 4th message, and a bombshell congressional report accusing the White House of turning America's 250th birthday into a fundraising and data-harvesting operation—a report literally titled "From Vanity to Insanity."

NBC News/Meet the Press contributor Ashley Etienne joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey to break down California's 14 ballot measures, the fallout from Graham Platner's campaign in Maine, and her new Essence op-ed, "The Party We Built, The Bill Has Come Due" — a candid reckoning with what the Democratic Party owes the coalition that built it.

The Supreme Court drops three major rulings in a single day — upholding birthright citizenship, banning trans women from female athletics, and striking down political party spending limits. Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey breaks down what each ruling means, then sits with Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, author of RAGEISM: Racism, Ageism, and the Quest for Liberation Democracy, to unpack the hidden architecture of injustice shaping American life from birth to death

This week, South Carolina Democratic strategist Isaac Wilson and William Godwin — former White House Fellow and Gary City Council President — join Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey to trace where federal power is landing hardest. We break down the marriage-based immigration crackdowns tearing families apart, the fatal National Guard shooting in Memphis, and a new DHS lawsuit over free speech. Plus: ACA enrollment is collapsing across the South, the FCC is squaring off with ABC, and Cuba just weathered its third nationwide blackout of the year. Power always finds who it protects — and who it presses down on.

America is turning 250. But whose vision gets to define the next chapter? Dr. Nii-Quartelai sits down with Dillon St. Bernard — youth organizer, political strategist, and Co-Founder of the Youth 250 Movement — for a conversation about what young people, particularly young people of color, are demanding from this democracy right now. Not someday. Now. At a moment when voter suppression, political cynicism, and systemic exclusion are at historic highs, St. Bernard and a new generation of organizers are refusing to wait their turn. They're rewriting what participation looks like — and reimagining what America could actually become in its next 250 years. The future isn't coming. It's already organizing.

From the White House hallway to your living room — Dr. Nii-Quartelai brings in two of the sharpest minds in the game to cut through the noise. Vincent Jones, CEO of Beyond Impact, and Politics & Pop Culture Contributor Al Reynolds join the conversation for a ride through the week's most urgent — and most revealing — stories: ICE's expanding surveillance state, the flood of AI money quietly reshaping primary elections, a Republican Party that can't decide what it actually believes about marriage, and a rare congressional honor bestowed on the Artemis II astronauts pushing humanity back to the stars. Smart. Fast. Unfiltered. This is the conversation you didn't know you needed.

Hollywood has rules. Unwritten ones. And the most dangerous rule of all? There's only one sin that can end your career — and it's not what you think. Rasheed Newson knows the industry from the inside out. As a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner, he co-developed Bel-Air and left his fingerprints on some of the most critically acclaimed series of the past decade — The Chi, Animal Kingdom, Narcos. Now he's telling the truth about Tinseltown in a way only historical fiction can: his novel, There's Only One Sin in Hollywood. Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey sits down with Newson for a conversation about power, storytelling, and what it really costs to survive — and thrive — in one of the most cutthroat industries in the world. Is his story ripped from the headlines? Or are the headlines catching up to his pages? You decide.

The Supreme Court didn't become a political battleground overnight. Award-winning journalist and SCOTUS historian John A. Jenkins joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey to put today's court — and this moment in American history — in the context we're missing. Jenkins, author of the forthcoming Summer of '71: Five Months That Changed America (on sale June 30), traces the roots of a court that has gutted voting rights, green-lit mass deportation, and reshaped American democracy — and asks the question we all need to sit with: have we been here before? The answer may surprise you. And it just might change how you fight back.

For generations, Altadena was a sanctuary — a place where Black families could own homes, build wealth, and put down roots when doors were closed everywhere else. Then came the Eaton Fire. NAACP Pasadena President and fourth-generation Altadenan Brandon Lamar joins Dr. Nii-Q to talk about Beneath the Ashes: The Past Reimagined — the documentary that refuses to let Black Altadena's story disappear. With the community's Black population projected to fall below 5% as developers move in and families struggle to rebuild, this isn't just a disaster story. It's a story about who gets to stay. Premieres Saturday, June 27th at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Tickets at beneaththeashes.com.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 — and 350,000 Haitian families felt it. Broadcasting live from the White House, Dr. Nii-Q is joined by Civil Rights Attorney Todd Belcore and Black Alliance for Just Immigration Executive Director Nana Gymfi to break down today's landmark TPS ruling: what it means legally, why it's rooted in anti-Black racism, and what Haitian and Syrian TPS holders need to do to protect themselves right now. This isn't just an immigration story. This is a Black story. And we're telling it from the lawn of the people's house.

What does it mean to risk everything — your life, your family, your future — for a stranger? Filmmaker Nick Davis joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai to talk about This Ordinary Thing — a haunting, necessary, and profoundly human documentary about the non-Jews who chose to stand in the gap when the world fell silent. During one of history's darkest chapters, these ordinary people made an extraordinary decision: to save Jewish lives at any cost. In a moment when the word courage gets thrown around cheaply, this film reminds us what it actually demands. This is a conversation about history, humanity, and the moral choices that define us — especially when no one is watching.

America is at war — again. The U.S. military has launched strikes against Iran following the downing of an Army Apache helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz. Both pilots are safe. The bombs, however, are very real — and your gas prices are already telling the story. Meanwhile, ICE is pushing facial recognition surveillance that should have every American paying attention. And if that weren't enough, Donald Trump showed up to Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden — and got booed by an entire arena. His response? Calling sports media giant Stephen A. Smith "low IQ." NBA Hall of Fame Kinfolk and Activist Joshua Zeke Thomas and Data Science and Analytics Leader Germar Reed join Dr. Nii-Quartelai to break down a week where every headline felt like a five-alarm fire.

A federal whistleblower exposed DOGE's unauthorized data grab — and within hours of Elon Musk publicly targeting him, someone cut his brake lines. California's primary ballots are still being counted, and Donald Trump is already on Truth Social at 1 a.m. screaming fraud before a single race is called. An LAPD internal report just used a word you never want to see attached to police officers: gang. Hunter College Professor and Author Dr. Calvin John Smiley joins us to break it all down.

Debut filmmaker Toroes Thomas joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai fresh off the premiere of his narrative feature Sr. at the 2026 American Black Film Festival (ABFF) — and he came to tell the truth. Drawn directly from Toroes's own life and the sudden, shattering loss of his father, Sr. is a film about love, grief, fatherhood, and what it means to find your footing when the person who was supposed to hold it together — couldn't. We go deep on the craft of storytelling, the raw economics of Black independent film, the emotional weight of turning personal pain into public art, and what Toroes wants every young filmmaker watching to hear. This isn't just a conversation about movies. It's a conversation about what we carry, what we create, and how we survive.

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Phill Branch sits down with Dr. Nii-Quartelai to go deep on his powerful new memoir, The Double Dutch Fuss — a searing, unflinching account of what it truly costs to be a queer Black boy in a world designed to punish you for it. Branch doesn't flinch, doesn't sanitize, and doesn't apologize. This is a conversation about survival, identity, creative resistance, and what happens when you refuse to shrink yourself to make others comfortable. You don't want to miss this one.

Two powerhouse voices on the mic today — #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign and Color of Change Advocate & Attorney Michael Huggins. We're covering the World Cup and what it means for Los Angeles, a stunning story at the intersection of Africa and immigration you haven't heard anywhere else, Iowa's latest attack on Black scholarship funding, and the growing pressure surrounding Mayor Karen Bass. And yes—before we're done, we are settling the fried chicken debate once and for all.

Actor Greg Mathis Jr. on What Survives — a world premiere play at the Hollywood Fringe Festival about a child taken by ICE and the community left to reckon with it.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker on the House's bipartisan rebuke of the Iran war, unfolding humanitarian crisis in Cuba, Congressional Black Caucus's college sports standoff, and what courage looks like when the country is tired.

Leaked documents expose a white supremacist organization doubling in size every year, now operating in 49 states. Jewish Columbia faculty file antisemitism claims — because they were punished for being the wrong kind of Jewish. Medicaid work requirements could end coverage for people fighting cancer and living with HIV. And Pete Hegseth is reshaping the military in his image — one promotion list at a time. Bishop Joseph Tolton, Founder of Interconnected Justice, brings moral clarity to it all.

The Freedom 250 concert is falling apart, the housing secretary is now running U.S. intelligence, and Spencer Pratt might be the next mayor of Los Angeles. It's Primary Day, the World Cup is days away, SoFi Stadium workers are ready to walk out, and Jill Biden just dropped a book nobody asked for. Civil rights leader Linda Sarsour joins us to talk about democracy, diplomacy, and the road ahead.

Senator Chris Murphy joins us for an extended conversation on his new book “Crisis of the Common Good” — and what it will actually take to rebuild trust in a democracy that's fracturing in real time.

Shanti Das, founder of Silence The Shame, is sounding the alarm: federal budget cuts have gutted over $600,000 in funding for mental health services in Black communities and underserved populations. Her organization needs your support NOW—and she's here to tell you why this fight is personal.

The King of Pop comes alive on the big screen. We sit down with actor KeiLyn Durrel Jones, who portrays Michael Jackson's legendary bodyguard and confidant Bill Bray in Antoine Fuqua's record-breaking biopic Michael.

Allen Orr Jr. is an immigration attorney who has been on the front lines as this administration has reshaped — some would say dismantled — the immigration system and federal politics as we know it.

Tai Beauchamp has been a force in media and wellness for over two decades. She's a beauty editor, entrepreneur, author, television host, and now the host of The Shift — a groundbreaking new digital show on BET.com that gives everyday women access to the kind of boardroom wisdom usually only a select few get to hear.

ICE raids. Travel bans on Black nations. Corporate America cashing in on deportation. And 10 million Black immigrants are in the crosshairs. On this episode, we don't just talk about the fire. We talk to the people fighting it. Nana Gyamfi, Executive Director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration, joins Dr. Nii-Quartelai to break down Operation Break the ICE Machine and why WeMakeThemStop.org is the campaign every Black person in America needs to know RIGHT NOW. Plus, Bishop Joseph Tolton, Founder of Interconnected Justice, connects the global assault on Black bodies from San Diego to the UN.This is the show. This is the moment. WeMakeThemStop.org — visit it, share it, live it.

The DNC finally released its long-awaited autopsy of the 2024 campaign. We will dig deep into what it says, what it leaves out, and what it means for the Democratic Party going forward with our Resident Democracy Scholar Dr. Jonathan E. Collins, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.

Dr. Nii-Quartelai leads a powerful and necessary conversation with bestselling author and mental health expert Dr. Robin L. Smith joins the show to explore something deeper: how Black communities navigate sustained attacks on Black political power, identity, dignity, and collective well-being — while still finding pathways toward healing, resilience, and hope. This is more than politics. This is about democracy, humanity, narrative power, and the fight to remain visible in a rapidly changing America.

Joy-Ann Reid, former MSNBC Political Analyst, award-winning journalist, and bestselling author, shares her thoughts on the redistricting fight, the state of the Democratic party, and what's next for Black America, socially and politically.

CBS News correspondent and author Jonathan Vigliotti joins us to discuss his new book, Torched. We explore his firsthand account of the devastating 2025 L.A. wildfires, the political mismanagement that "let the city burn," and the high-stakes rush to rebuild ahead of the 2028 Olympics.

Dr. Nii-Quartelai is joined by political and pop culture analyst Al Reynolds and Beyond Impact CEO Vincent Jones for a timely conversation about the headlines driving the national discourse. Plus, the politics behind the headlines, media narratives shaping public perception, and the cultural stakes many Americans are feeling in this political moment.

Listen as we shift to the heart of Harlem. Dr. Nii-Quartelai is joined by celebrated romance novelist Tiffany L. Warren. They discuss her highly anticipated new book, “A Harlem Wedding,” exploring the complexities of Black love, the nuances of urban high society, and why storytelling remains a vital form of cultural resistance and joy.

Trump vs. NYT: A discrimination lawsuit from the EEOC that's shaking up the media world, Vatican Tension: Trump lashes out at Pope Leo (again) right before Rubio lands in Rome, and more.

A sit-down with the legendary Hon. Willie Brown. The “Mayor of America” is in the house to talk about the state of Black political power and drop a bombshell—why he's officially backing Tom Steyer for California Governor.

"Stretch out" with Judge Rene Caldwell Gilbertson. As a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge presiding over CARE Court in Norwalk, she gives us an unfiltered look at how the legal system is navigating the crisis facing our unhoused neighbors.

The Race for CA: Former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs (@MichaelDTubbs) stops by for an exclusive interview on his campaign for California Lieutenant Governor. What's the pulse of the race? We find out.

The Lost Tuskegee Airmen: Emmy Award-winning investigative correspondent and George Washington University professor Cheryl W. Thompson joins us to discuss her powerful new book. We explore why these "forgotten souls" were erased from the national narrative and what their legacy tells us about our journey toward a more perfect union.

A Renaissance in Gary: Mayor Eddie Melton joins the conversation to share how the city of Gary is leveraging the cultural momentum of the Michael biopic to fuel a new era of tourism, economic growth, and municipal pride.

The legendary Cedric the Entertainer joins us to talk about his brand new Netflix animated film, “Swapped,” and his much-anticipated return to the Broadway stage in August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone"—his first major theatrical role in over a decade!

Death doula Darnell Lamont Walker joins us to discuss his debut book, Never Can Say Goodbye. Darnell shares his moving experiences holding space for those at life's end and offers a gentle roadmap for those navigating the quiet weight of grief. We're exploring why we stay silent about death—especially within the Black community—and how we can find comfort in the conversation.