Pod Save America - “Justice for George Floyd.”

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

George Floyd’s murder sparks nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism, Donald Trump responds by hiding in the White House and tweeting, and Joe Biden ventures out to meet with protesters and black community leaders. DeRay Mckesson joins to talk about what police reforms actually work, and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms talks to Jon F. about grappling with this crisis as a mayor and a mother.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's pod, we have Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and our friend DeRay McKesson to talk about the nationwide protests against police brutality and what can be done to actually change the system. We'll also talk about how Donald Trump and Joe Biden are responding to the crisis. Quick note before we begin, please go adopt a swing state if you haven't already. It's one of the best and most effective ways to make a difference in the 2020 election.

Even if we're stuck at home, go to votesaveamerica.com slash adopt, pick a state. And the first call to action you'll get is an ask to sign up for a digital organizing training session on Thursday, hosted by our partners at Organizing Together 2020, featuring Tommy Vitor himself. So check that out. All right, let's get to the news. We are now a week into a series of massive nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism that began when George Floyd was killed after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for eight minutes while three other officers stood by and did nothing,

even as Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe and cried out for help. On Friday, Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three other officers have yet to be charged. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is now in charge of the case. Over the weekend, protests spread to over 140 cities. And while all of them started peacefully, many have not ended that way. As the New York Times reports, quote, videos showed police officers using batons, tear gas, pepper spray,

and rubber bullets on protesters, bystanders, and journalists, often without warning or seemingly unprovoked. And while the overwhelming majority of protesters have been peaceful, there have also been a small number of anarchists, right-wing extremists, and other individuals who've looted stores, destroyed property, set fires, and provoked violence, leading to the mobilization of the National Guard in 24 states and more than two dozen curfews, something on a scale we haven't seen since Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. Guys, I want to stop there and get your reactions to the protests, to the police and to the chaos, both what you've seen and read from around the country and what we have seen right here in Los Angeles over the weekend. Let's start with the peaceful protests themselves.

Lovett, what's your reaction? My general reaction to all of it is there's nothing about the violent parts of this, the chaotic parts of this, the destructive parts of this that detracts from the moral probity, the righteousness of the overall cause. And simply because fires look better on television, they are given equal billing. But it's worth remembering that, you know, yes, in some sense, these are protests that descended into something else. But in a larger and I think more important sense, there was a massive protest across the country. And then this other part of it that's being tied to it, because that's how everything is covered in our politics. Everything is sort of,

everything is seen through a political lens. And, you know, you see on both, you see efforts to try to tar the protests themselves because of what happened after. That's all. Tommy, what's your reaction? So, look, you know, I'm excited to hear your interview with the mayor. I'm excited to talk to DeRay because I feel like I need to do more work on figuring out what activism is the best here, what legislation we should push for, what changes. I don't feel like I have a lot of answers yet. But this was an intense, emotional weekend. So I just wanted to talk about two things that were stuck in my head. my head. And the first is a very dumb story from when I was in high school. I was driving with a buddy of mine, like after football practice, we were going to somebody else's house and I was speeding and I saw a cop going the other way. And I don't know what got into my head, but his sirens went on like he was going to pull me over. And I thought I could like get away maybe. And my car was made in 1987 and I absolutely could not get away. And I was pulled over immediately. And then three more

cop cars pulled up. And the story ends with me getting a bunch of extra violations on my speeding ticket, but like not arrested and not handcuffed, not roughed up. And what I did not realize then that is very clear to me now is that if I'm not like a white blonde kid from Dedham, Massachusetts, if I'm, if I'm black and I'm from Dorchester, I'm probably thrown in jail and maybe kicked out of school. And like my life as I know it today is unrecognizable. Right. So that was like one thing I just kept thinking about. Another thing was how I felt on Saturday night. I could see on TV video of people like destroying shops and lighting fires and like literally sort of marching towards where I lived.

And then on my own street, like outside my house, I could see people, some of the same people loading stuff into a clearly labeled like black owned and a lot of them were destroyed or burned or graffitied. And like you just saw these people trying to pick up the pieces. And so like that awareness of this time in my life and that privilege and then that fear I felt can feel like competing emotions, but I felt them both. And then I also felt a lot of anger because, you know, the video of George Floyd's murder is like one of the worst things I've ever seen. So is the video of Ahmaud Arbery being shot. But the police are supposed to protect citizens and people being abused by the cops to

literally pay their salaries and have for years. So that is why, you know, people were marching and protesting. And like you were saying, Loveovett, I really hope the focus stays on that core issue and the need to end police brutality. But what was gutting and enraging was watching the reaction by a lot of those same police prove the protesters' point, right? You saw police cars drive into crowds. You saw journalists blinded by rubber bullets. A black CNN reporter was arrested live on air.

The two college kids in Atlanta were like terrorized, right? They had their windows smashed, their pepper sprayed, they were tased. This brutality is happening in real time. And you just like when you hear the cries from people who feel like they are treated as a threat when they are marching or birdwatching or voting, you know, like how can you not hear that? marching or birdwatching or voting, you know, like how can you not hear that? So as scary as the violence was and as scary as, you know, it felt for me Saturday night seeing some little fucking Antifa wannabe white kid on my street with like stolen boxes and shit. You know, I am

more angry today about like the state sanctioned brutality and escalation that we all saw and self-aware enough to know that if there hadn't been brutality and escalation that we all saw and self-aware enough to know that if there hadn't been protests and there hadn't been all these actions, it wouldn't be on the news and we probably wouldn't be talking about it today. So, you know, I'm just trying to figure out like what the next step is, how we stay focused, how we don't let Trump do what he tried to do to Colin Kaepernick, which was to make this about some made up issue about supporting the troops versus police brutality. And then just like focus our frustration and actions on the right things. Yeah, I was trying to think to myself why George Floyd's killing was

the one that sparked these massive demonstrations when, you know, we've seen police killings for years now. You know, I was doing some reading and 99 percent of police killings from 2014 to 2019 did not result in officers even being charged with, let alone convicted of a crime, not even being charged. Ninety nine percent of police killings. And, you know, 2014 was Ferguson. And I do think you have a country right now that has been in so much pain. We are in the middle of a pandemic, a pandemic that has disproportionately affected people of color, that is disproportionately affected people of color, that is disproportionately killing people of color. We have a healthcare system that, you know, is sort of wracked by

disparities even before the pandemic hit. We have the economic fallout from the pandemic that again has fallen even more acutely on people of color, black owned businesses, black members of our community, people of color. And we have seen how many of these police killings, how many of these videos now, now that we're in an age of viral videos, and there are protests, And there are, you know, there are reforms and there is voting. And yet, it keeps happening. And we don't see change. And it, you know, when you when you put all these things together, and when you've had all these people, you've had everyone home for months now, and people sick and people out of work and then they see that video which i agree is like one of the hardest things i've ever had to watch um you of

course understand it you of course understand you wonder why it hasn't happened even sooner and i do think tommy like you said like the police response to this over the weekend has maybe proved the point of the protest better than anything else that we saw. In that way, I think the protests have already succeeded in showing. Because, look, we know that and love it. You were saying this. We know that television and especially local news, which I don't watch a lot of local news. And I watched it

this weekend. And, you know, local news loves to find a fire. They love to find the looting. And, you know, it was all there, the fire and the looting. But I also think what broke through in the media and on the news this weekend were these examples of police using aggressive force to respond to these. In Louisville, a man was killed when police officers and National Guard soldiers say they've returned fire after someone in a large group fired at them. Tommy, I think you named some of these, but you know, in New York City, a police car drove into a crowd. Police officers threw a woman to the ground so forcefully she had a seizure. A child was sprayed with mace in Seattle. You mentioned what happened to Atlanta to those two college students who were tased.

And then especially, you know, I think to wake up the press and other people, unfortunately, has to come to this. How many journalists were hit with rubber bullets, sprayed with mace, arrested even after identifying themselves as members of the press. And targeted, specifically targeted. Specifically targeted. Shot at with rubber bullets. And, you know, what went through my mind watching all this was like, the police know that phone cameras

are everywhere these days. They know that there are body cameras, right? Some of them are wearing body cameras and they're doing this anyway. Like, what does that say to you guys? You know, I've seen all that footage, the cop turning the rubber bullets on to the journalist, journalist being arrested, all of this. And what you actually, to me, what I see is this militarized police presence. You know, these guys are in, you know, in helmets and riot gear, their faces are covered. And I do think that that contributes.

And, you know, rubber bullets are dangerous. And they are, you know, we have these two things happening. You know, the move towards these non-lethal technologies, rubber bullets and other forms of technology, on top of the militarization of the police, which has seen police kind of build out these armored vehicles, these incredibly sort of these militaristic rigs that they kind of go around the cities with. And all of it, I think, contributes not only to the dehumanization of the citizens they're sworn to protect, but also

to their own dehumanization. They are part of this organization. They are part of the machine. There's an impunity that comes with standing in a phalanx of people with a military vehicle behind you, your face completely covered in a line of people. So, you know, beyond just the need to make sure police officers individually are held accountable, there's the need to demilitarize the police. There's a need to look at not just the use of deadly force, but the use of these intermediate weapons, whether it's rubber bullets, pepper spray, mace, tear gas. I need to look at what's going to happen in the next few months as budgets across the country are slashed dramatically. Los Angeles is about to go through an incredible period of budget cuts because of the pandemic and the

economic crisis. So are cities across the country. And the question is, well, where is the limited amount of money going to go? Is it going to continue to go to reinforce this militarized police force, this militarized version of law enforcement that we've seen take hold across the country? Or is it going to go to schools? Is it going to go to people in need? Is it going to go to social services? So to me, that is the next place this conversation goes. And, you know, one other one aspect of this is, you know, Republicans have been gleefully pointing out all weekend that these are Democratic controlled states and Democratic controlled cities and Democratic controlled city councils and Democratic mayors. And looking at the ways

in which the police have not been reflecting the democratic values of the cities that they govern, that they actually don't reflect the will of the people in those cities because of the power of police unions, because of inertia, because of political fear on the part of politicians is all, I think, the next part of the conversation. I will say also sort of looking around the country at some of the different reports, it doesn't have to be this way, right, when there are protests. The police don't have to be responding with this kind of aggressive force because, you know, they'll say, oh, well, there's protests and there's violence and, you know, you don't know how to handle it. And so it's tough to control a crowd where there are more, you know, more diverse police departments, where there is a history of better relations between the police and the community.

You saw peaceful protests that didn't necessarily devolve into some of this aggression. You saw this in Newark. There were officers taking a knee in certain places. There were officers holding a sign that said end police brutality. I think one of the best examples over the weekend and Mayor Bottoms pointed this out during her press conference in Atlanta. Atlanta Police Chief Erica Shields

actually went outside and just talked to the protesters in the crowd for a while, actually saying at one point, we agree with you, it's fucked up and nothing changes. And that is not to say, oh, well, it's not all cops. There are some good cops too. It's to say that it's possible to get police officers to change. And it's not individual change. It's systemic change and it's reform. But these protests that you're seeing over the weekend,

that we've seen over the weekend, we're seeing right now, can have a difference. They can bring about reform. You can have a police department with enough reform, with enough pressure, with enough protest, with enough change that will actually protect and serve people and not act like basically what we're seeing the majority of police departments in this country acting like right now. It's possible. And I just think, you know, I mean, that was it. And look, and, you know, I already spoke with the mayor, but she said something that was striking to me, which, you know, we talked about the two officers that got fired in Atlanta. And she said, I have to be honest, before this me, which, you know, we talked about the two officers that got fired in Atlanta.

And she said, I have to be honest, before this weekend, if that had happened, I might not have been involved and they might not have been fired. I might not have checked those body cameras six or seven times because I saw everything, you know, because of these protests is why we acted. And I'm just like, I'm glad I did. And they were fired. But these do have the effect of bringing about change, or they can at least. I do think it is telling that the sort of moments of humanity and conversation among police and protesters were seen by people and lifted up because they felt unusual. And then when you think about the George Floyd murder, that's not even the first time that we've seen such a video come out of Minnesota. Philando Castile was murdered by a Minnesota cop. It wasn't the first video showing someone being choked to death. That was Eric Garner. And I think the regularity of this kind of just horrifying snuff film that just gets thrown to social media all the time

is part of the cumulative effect that led to these protests over the weekend. I mean, it's particularly searing and scarring for people in Los Angeles who were here in 1992 who have just vivid memories of the way that the city was torn apart. And so, you know, it's, yeah, it was, it was a hard weekend. Last thing I want to talk about before we get to Trump and Biden is how every day of these

protests has devolved into chaos. Buildings and cop cars have been set on fire. Stores have been looted and destroyed, especially a lot of black and Latino and immigrant owned small businesses. We especially saw that here in Los Angeles and downtown LA. What do we know and not know about who's responsible for the chaos side of this? Because I think this has been very difficult to untangle over the weekend. I mean, listen, I'm really like hesitant to say a lot about this because I just genuinely think we don't know. There was a ton of inaccurate data right out of Minnesota, like, oh, every arrest has been from out of state. It turns out that was total bullshit. The vast majority of arrests were in state. I think it's foolish to

say, oh, this is outside agitator, because I think in some ways that can undercut the real anger and frustration of people who are on the streets and maybe weren't part of the violence but can understand it. And so, look, I understand people saying, please don't burn down, please don't destroy things in part of our own community. I do think that focusing on that part of it versus the underlying systemic problem is not the right focus. I want to be focused on the issue of police brutality. So I think it is incredibly hard to figure out sort of who's responsible and who's not. We don't have enough reporting yet. I think it is incredibly annoying for protesters to continue to be asked about the violence when the focus should be on the protests. I think the reason that we're talking about it is in a political

context, because this is how Donald Trump and the right are already coming at this. And so we should talk about how Trump's responding. He has basically reacted to the crisis exactly as how you'd expect him to, hiding in the White House and tweeting crazy shit. On Thursday, the president effectively called for violence against the protesters in Minneapolis, tweeting, quote, These thugs are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him the military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control. But when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you. Exclamation point. Thank you is a real nice touch at the end of that. Trump tried to walk back the comments a little on Thursday, following up with the tweet, explaining that his comment, quote, was spoken as a fact, not as a statement.

Doesn't mean anything. Aside from a few other crazy tweets, the president has said nothing over the weekend, because according to The Washington Post, quote, Trump and some of his advisors calculated that he should not speak to the nation because he had nothing to say, no tangible policy or action to announce, nor did he feel an urgent motivation to try to bring people together. So he let his tweets speak for themselves. Tommy, why do you think he tried to walk back the when the looting starts, shooting starts tweet, which was horrendous. And but usually he doesn't walk back his horrendous tweets. Yeah, I mean, look, it sounds like some from some of the reporting that he actually genuinely scared even some of his closest supporters with that kind of language. It was so

alarmist. It was so clearly throwing gasoline on the fire that people like Lindsey Graham were on the Sunday shows criticizing him for the first time in years. But like, I just think the problem is like Trump is in favor of police brutality because he did a call today with a bunch of governors where he told them you have to dominate. They're going to run over you. You're going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate. Those are quotes, right? And then he tried to get them to focus on fucking flag burning. So he's trying to make this about anything but police brutality because he supports police brutality. Remember a couple of years ago when he gave a speech to a bunch of police and he literally joked with them?

He told them it was OK to rough up suspects. He said, stop putting your hands on the top of their heads when you push them in the squad car. It's OK to rough them up a little bit, right? Like he is in favor of all of this. So that has been his primary and only message. in favor of all of this. So that has been his primary and only message. The rest of the time, like, you know, we can talk about the politics of it, but it is remarkable when you think back to Ferguson and what Obama did in those moments and how it was coverage and how much was asked of Obama, how much was expected of Obama and of other Democrats versus how little is expected

of Donald Trump. He just he hid behind his gates in his house and shit posted and sent tweets and couldn't even bring himself to address the nation. So what did you think? I mean, even what in Tommy's saying right now, there is this sort of dichotomy and how Trump's acting right. There is this sort of dichotomy in how Trump's acting, right? Like on one hand, he is the fucking, you know, George Wallace, Bull Connor come to life in 2020 talking about shooting and looting and stuff like that. But it's all these tweets from inside the White House where he's cloistered.

He's not speaking to anyone. He's not going out. He's not speaking to anyone. He's not going out. He's not talking to anyone. And he seems like I think he seems smaller almost than he's ever been, that at this moment of great crisis and unrest in the country, the president is reduced to just tweeting out sort of racist shit and attacking the protesters and all that kind of stuff. It's interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's an optical illusion. He's the same size. that kind of stuff. It's interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's an optical illusion. He's the same size. But the, yeah, I mean, look, you know, there's all these impositions. You know, where is the president? Where is, you know, he should be speaking. I can't believe he's cloistered inside the White House, not saying anything, just tweeting. And, you know, obviously that's true. Really, I think what people are saying is, I wish we had a president who was worthy of this moment

and from whom we would want to hear. I don't need to hear Donald Trump address the country. And I don't think anybody who's lamenting the fact that he's not speaking would like that either. You know, he doesn't have the tool set, right? What he has, what are the tools at his disposal? He can't lead, he can't manage, can't reassure, he can't assuage, he can't empathize. Those are not, can't inspire. He doesn't have that in his arsenal. So he can distract, he can tweet, he can incite, he can blame. That's what he's doing now with the governors, you know, and of course, you know, I see, I've saw instantly coverage. I happen to have had CNN as the news of the call was coming in and the call was covered straight, right? Something along the lines of, you know, Donald Trump took a heavy hand with governors urging law and order, calling on them to be tough.

And even in that language, it's a concession to Trump. They don't work for him. Governors don't work for Donald Trump. He's just looking for somebody to blame and looking for someone to yell at because he's scared and alone in his house. And he just like the pandemic, just like the pandemic, just like the pandemic thing he did that. And, you know, in the absence of a human being in that job with any capacity to meet this moment,

whether about the economic depression he caused or the pandemic he failed to contain or the protests in our cities, which he has, you know, in terms of policy only sought to make worse. There's nothing he can say. There's nothing he can do. policy only sought to make worse. There's nothing he can say. There's nothing he can do. Well, I mean, so we have no idea. We should start by saying how the politics of this will unfold, of course. But you can tell that, you know, the Trump team has sort of a narrative in mind here. And we've seen it sort of unfold over the last couple of days. They they are very big on this is all outside agitators, Antifa.

You know, Trump tried to declare Antifa a terrorist organization, which is which is a problem because Antifa isn't an organization. And and you can't really do that. But what they're trying to say, you know, he's trying to have it both ways because, of course, he's trying to, he thinks his path to victory is either winning a higher percentage of the black vote, good luck, or at least trying to make sure that some segment of black voters

stay home and don't vote for Joe Biden. And so what he wants to say is the protesters are fine. You know, you know, honor George Floyd's memory. But these are all radical left Antifa people destroying our cities and everything is out of control. And these governors are letting it happen and you have to be tough. And they are betting that, you know, the longer that we see images on our television screens of fires and looting, that more people around the country will say, yeah, I don't like that. And maybe Donald Trump's right about this. What do we think? Tommy, what do you think about sort of like the political

strategy that that Trump is betting on here? Yeah, I mean, you can tell that they're divided even inside the White House. And like, look, on a personal level, like, I am very worried about him tweeting or going out and giving a speech and pouring gas on the fire. But it's also like no consolation that we have no president and no one is in charge and no one is doing anything. And so you're also seeing Republicans, including White House aides, say they're worried about Trump's tone. And of course, they're doing it on backgrounds, The New York Times, like they usually do because they're cowards. But then you also see one White House aide telling The New York Times that they think that images of destruction could be helpful to Trump because he's going to focus on a law and order message. And so I've read a lot recently about Nixon in the 60s and the backlash to the civil rights movement and the Watts riots and how Nixon twisted those events and channeled that

racism for political advantage and pulled all these white voters into the Republican Party. I think trying to draw, like predict the future from that history is very difficult for a million reasons. But one key difference here is that Trump is currently in charge, right? Like he is leading us in this time of absolute chaos, which comes on top of a pandemic response that is literally the worst in the world. And like we were saying earlier, like he does not look in charge. He does not, he looks small, he looks scared and he looks vicious and nasty. And like all the things people hate about him, even Trump supporters are playing out publicly through these tweets.

And so, yes, am I worried about Donald Trump cynically using racism for political advantage? Absolutely. I'm worried about everything. But it didn't work in 2018, right? The caravan threats didn't, you know, do what he wanted them to do. And I do think people are exhausted by his divisiveness. And I hope, I hope and pray that they will look for something else in this moment. Love it. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's two things. There's the politics and there's the actual policy.

I think, you know, Trump sees clearly, even in just walking back his looting, shooting rhyme, there's evidence, right, even to Trump that what he's doing is a bit more nuanced. It's a little bit more complicated than he'd like it to be. What he'd like to do is just fucking go after the protesters, attack the protesters, declare war on the protesters. He knows that there's some-

In his heart, that's where his heart is. That's what he wants, right? That's what's in his heart, but he knows he can't do it. So he thinks that Antifa is somebody that's- That's a second term move. Antifa doesn't have enough friends. Right, right.

So he knows, right, exactly. That is exactly what he would be doing in a second term right now. Right, but he knows that Antifa is less, has fewer friends and has fewer supporters and is more controversial and is less righteous. And so, you know, to me, it's about focusing on Antifa because he thinks politically that's more advantageous.

But I also think there's danger in that, too, because, you know, the end result of Donald Trump saying we're going to crack down on Antifa, you know, is that it will end up being a crackdown on the black community, on the protesters, on people who have nothing to do with Antifa, right? And he doesn't care about that. That's a good goal for him. So just worth remembering that, you know, you know, Tommy made this point earlier, we've talked about this, right? There's this effort to kind of sort the blame for the violent aspects of what followed the protests. And it's worth remembering that no matter what the explanation is, when we're focused on the violent aspects and not the process itself, it is an opportunity for the people that want to

use that violence as a means to paint with a broad brush the entire movement. And that will be true whether you're blaming Antifa, blaming opportunists who just joined in the protest to loot, blaming the protest itself. It ultimately is about making sure that the focus is on chaos and violence and not systemic reform, because that's what Trump wants to talk about. Well, and again, you know, back to the 1968, the Nixon comparisons, this was tried before, right? This is the same playbook that has been run before in the 60s, right down to the outside agitators. And they were communists, not Antifa at the time. And Nixon was screaming law and order. And they wanted to use the scenes of chaos to their political advantage. And it is one of the reasons that Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement preached

nonviolence and made it sort of the central message of the movement, peace and nonviolence and justice, because they knew that they were going to that that that was going to be Nixon's strategy, that that was going to be the strategy of sort of racists all across America. And it required tremendous discipline to have that message and tremendous discipline to not exert, you know, to make sure that you are nonviolent. And so it is you're right, like they are going to try as hard as they can to make it about everything than what this is really about, which is police brutality and systemic racism and how to change it. And I do think from the from from our side, whether it's Democrats or activists in

the street, focusing on that message and getting it through over and over again and not letting yourself get distracted is probably the most important thing. Yeah, just two quick things. I mean, to your point, like the really awful reality of history in this country is as unbelievable and admirable and brave it was for those people to preach nonviolence. The violence inflicted upon people like Martin Luther King and other freedom riders and activists was what woke up the nation and shocked the conscience of a lot of people who ultimately came around to supporting civil rights legislation. So in that way, violence has a very central part of that history. But John, I just want to point out one thing you said earlier, you correctly noted that Antifa isn't an organization. And Trump tweeting that he's

going to label them a terrorist group, like, just so people know, the State Department designates organizations, foreign terrorist groups, and then they use a bunch of tools to like choke off money to them. Right. It's like all these material support statutes they use to prevent you from sending cash to Hamas. Like him trying to apply that set of tools to Antifa, which is not an organization, which is seemingly maybe like a bunch of people in the U.S. Antifa, which is not an organization, which is seemingly maybe like a bunch of people in the US, is just so unbelievably idiotic and I think speaks to how much he is flailing and has no policy proposal, but has actually walked back a bunch of really important things Obama did to try to address some of these policing disparities since he took office. Let's talk about Joe Biden's response. On Friday, he spoke to George Floyd's family.

On Saturday, he released a statement supporting the protests. On Sunday, he left his house for the second time since the pandemic began to visit the site of the protests in Wilmington, Delaware, and spoke with some of the protesters. And today, Monday, he met with community leaders at a black church in Wilmington. He also had this to say in a video from over the weekend. It's time for us to take a hard look at the uncomfortable truths. It's time for us to face that deep open wound we have in this nation. We need justice for George Floyd. We need real police reform that hold cops to a higher standard that so many of them

actually meet. That holds bad cops accountable, that repairs relationship between law enforcement and the community they're sworn to protect. We need to stand up as a nation with the black community, with all minority communities, and come together as one America. That's the challenge we face. Lovett, what did you think of Biden's comments and appearances since the protests have began? I think the truth is Biden being out there and saying things that are empathetic, that shows that he's listening, that he's paying attention, that he's learning, that he's seeking to put forward a set of policies that actually speak to the scale of the crisis,

or at least is open to doing so and is going to listen and be a president whose door is open, does a lot of what he has to do to show a contrast to Donald Trump and his absence and or worse than absence, his contribution to the chaos and to the kind of the fever pitch of this moment. Yeah, Tommy, Astead Herndon had a great piece in The New York Times over the weekend where he spoke to a number of black voters and leaders who argued that Biden's original campaign pitch of a return to normalcy isn't right for this moment. I think that's fairly obvious to everyone now. Reverend Jesse Jackson said our needs aren't moderate. The absence of Trump isn't enough.

And Stacey Abrams said this about voting in particular, quote, you cannot motivate someone to a behavior that they don't believe will actually bring change. How do you think Biden goes about answering this sort of larger challenge? I literally cut and copied and pasted that Stacey Abrams quote to talk about today. The next part of her sentence is, we have to start by saying what you feel and what you fear is real. And I thought that was a really succinct and powerful way to put it, which is, you know, you can't just tell activists who are so frustrated and fed up, well, hey, your job is to organize and vote in November, if they feel like that's a return to a system that wasn't serving them to begin with. So I do think Biden is starting to internalize that, speak to that frustration and that fear and that hurt.

And like, you know, in a way that is familiar now, like that is actually his strength is being able to empathize and reach people, even if he can be completely clunky with his words. Sometimes I think like the humanity is in him and it's decent and it has served as a stark contrast. I'm glad to see that he went out to the site of a protest yesterday. It sounds like this week he's really starting to get out of the house and sort of like the coronavirus bubble, which was very understandably keeping him constrained. But, you know, I think they've done well so far. Yeah, I do, too. I have to say, say like you know the the media uh latches onto narratives and then they get lazy and they keep the narrative even when it feels very old and there was a bunch of

stories like is where's joe biden in all of this is joe biden still in the basement and like joe biden's been out more than trump has yeah he's been talking about it more than trump has he He's given more statements than Trump has. And now he's out of his house. He was both, you know, at there. I think sort of the next step is going to be, will he sort of detail? And I know he already has, you know, is about sort of figuring out what new policies they can come out with on a number of topics in criminal justice reform and police reform are one of those topics. And so I think that's going to be the next step. Let's see sort of what he comes out with, possibly even this week when it comes to police reform and do those reforms sort of meet the moment. But I do think on just being the president we need right now, being a leader who can heal and empathize and attempt to try to bring the country together

while also recognizing sort of the deep and systemic injustice and racism that exists. I think he's done a really great job of that. Yeah. And he has a detailed policy plan on his website that people should check out if they want to get into more specifics. It's for the African American community in this country. It's interesting. I mean, like there's an older school approach to politics where someone like Joe Biden might form a plan like that. And it's like a bunch of tax credits and other things that sort of lift all boats, but would disproportionately help the African American community because, you know, for a variety of reasons. I think that it's good that he made a plan that is a little more specifically tailored to that pain, like into

the needs of people in the black community and things that he's hearing. So I don't know. I did think that that was really worth reading and digging into. To talk more about what real change in structural reform would actually look like, we're joined by the host of Pod Save the People, DeRay McKesson, who's also a co-founder of Campaign Zero, a platform of research-based policy solutions dedicated to ending police brutality in America. DeRay, how are you doing? I'm good. It's a lot going on, and I think people are hungry for change. And the thing that's unlike 2014 is that we actually just know so much more than we knew before about the way the system protects police, and I'm excited to figure out how we stop it. Well, that was gonna

be my first question. In terms of police brutality and police reform, what has changed and what hasn't between Ferguson and Minneapolis? So the thing is, is that like, what people don't realize that the police have actually killed more people since the protests, not less, right? So because it was just in the news list, people were like, oh, it got better. It actually never got better. The police killed at a pretty consistent rate. The communities that is so great that it completely wipes out the gains we get in cities. So that's sort of one. In March and April of 2020, the police actually killed at the same rate and number as in March and April of 2019. So COVID, quarantine, lockdown, no impact on the numbers. In 2019 was actually the first year ever where Black people were more afraid of being killed by an officer than being killed by community violence. So like, this is not a niche issue. It's a huge deal. A third of all the people killed by a stranger is actually killed by a police

officer. When we think about the solutions, it's two big buckets. The first bucket is reduce the power of the police, right? We can manage how much power they have, how they use force. That's one bucket. And the second bucket is shrink the role of the police. And then the reduce the power, it's like use the force policies and police union contracts. And then the shrink the role, it's realizing that of all the arrests that happen in the country, only 5% of the arrests are for violent crime. 5%. It's really low. But we staff police departments as if it's like 90%. So we need to offload all the resources they get for the stuff that has nothing to do with emergency intervention that might require force.

So like, do we need somebody with a gun to show up for a missing kid? I don't know. Do we need somebody with a gun to show up for somebody who has like crashed on the side of the highway? Probably not. Like missing cats, like we don't, you know, that is the side of the highway? Probably not like missing cats. Like we don't, you know, that is the majority of 911 calls. We actually don't need anything like the police for those incidents. And we should actually shift the resources to other places.

So Dre, like, look, we focus on Trump a lot and obviously DOJ is a mess, but can you talk to people about decisions that are getting made at a local level and the people making those decisions and how listeners can focus on activism at that level that can vote out the bad people and get better folks in place? Yeah. So almost all of the things that matter with the police are at the local level, 18,000 police departments, local, the DOJ funds, most police departments, but we've always been fighting to get them to condition funding by how well the police do things like accountability and stuff, and they've never done that. So local level. Now, let me tell you the five things that don't work, and then I'll talk about the two things that do work. So when we think about what a solution is,

a solution has to do two things. It has to both change police behavior and change the outcomes. So say, for example, there are some solutions that might change behavior. So say, for example, we can show that the police are nicer to people, so less complaints happen. But if they kill the same number of people, that change in behavior had no impact on the change in outcomes. So we're looking for things that do both. So one of the most commonly cited things is body cameras.

The body camera data is mixed at best. In some studies, it is a positive relationship to behavior change, but it's so negligible that we don't consider that a scalable solution. Training. There are two big trainings that police go through. One is implicit bias and the other is mental health training. Both of these trainings change police attitudes. They don't change police behavior. The fourth is interesting. It's around the number of Black officers. The fourth is interesting. It's around the number of Black officers. So the number of Black officers actually does matter, but it doesn't matter until you reach the tipping point of over 35% Black. There are only 12 police departments in the country that have even 30% Black community policing is sort of racist at the core, that it's only Black people

and poor people that you're like, you know, I need you to go play football with my son to treat him like a whole person. Or like, it's only poor people and Black people that it's like, go take my daughter off for ice cream so you like don't kill her. It's like, that's sort of racist. But the data also shows that community policing only changes attitude. It doesn't change outcomes. The single biggest impact is our actual use of force policies.

And we track eight policies when they all are present. So if you go from a police department that had none of these policies to all of them, there's a 72% reduction in police violence. Huge. The policies, what's cool about them is that they're simple. Banning chokeholds and strangleholds. Making sure that people have to give a warning before they shoot. Having a duty to intervene. So if you see another officer engaged in misconduct,

you actually have to do something about it. Requiring de-escalation, right? Like these are like no brainers. Is there a continuum for how you use force in the police department? Like, these are just simple solutions. The thing, though, is that it's been really hard to get them enacted. So chokeholds is a good example. Only 28 of the 100 largest police departments ban chokeholds. That's crazy. Yeah.

That's like a wild thing, right? So we are going to, in the next couple of days, we're going to be pushing and arming citizens with the knowledge so they can lobby their mayors and their city council people to immediately enact all eight of these because they are the single biggest lever. And where should people look out for that, DeRay? So they should just go to useofforceproject.org today to just learn about the use of force rules in their cities and towns. We have an analysis up that's right now the 100 largest cities. But when we roll out this new project that's coming, hopefully in the next couple of days, it'll be a little bit expanded. So it'll be more than just those policies. It took us a long time to find the policies because most policies aren't public. So we spent the last five years collecting them and gathering them, and they are at

useofforceproject.org. Can I ask you about, you know, in listening to what you're saying here, right, you point to sort of these efforts to change police culture, mental health training, implicit bias training, community policing. You say those don't work. You have to just focus on the policies, the use of force policy,

you know, the duty to intervene. Basically, you know, one set of ideas is around making sure police see the people that they are serving as fellow human beings, as a community of which they are a part. The other is about making sure that even if they don't, even if there is an impulse to use force aggressively, too aggressively, that there are these other controls to protect people from the police. Is that your look at this now that basically these efforts to change police culture have largely failed? And so the effort has to be entirely focused on kind of enforcement and making sure that there is accountability? Or do you still see some value

in the larger effort to change the cultures of these police departments and and of the mentality of police officers themselves? Yeah, I think that's a good push. I don't know how you change the culture of anything. And so the police, the workplace, the school, if the people in that place know that the worst consequence for whatever they do will be nothing, right? Then like, so you can go to many trainings as you want to, as many, but if you know that you could do anything and like nothing will happen to you. So 1% of

officers get convicted, like almost, you know, in some places up to 70% of officers who get fired, get rehired. So they know that like, no matter what, you can send them to a million trainings. Could you imagine if the worst thing you did, you got sent to another training? It's like, yeah, that's not a deterrent. Right. So even in many, you think Minneapolis is actually a microcosm for all of these things. In Minneapolis, half the police that get fired get rehired. In Minneapolis, Black people are 13 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than white people. And in Minneapolis, the police shooting contract has a clause that says that no community oversight structure can ever have the power to discipline a police officer. That's wild, right? Like,

imagine being in that culture. Yeah, Drake, can you talk about the police unions for one second? Just because I saw Sam tweeting that in some areas, maybe in Minnesota, when an officer is accused of misconduct, like what happened after George Floyd's murder, they actually couldn't fire them until some sort of mandated waiting period. So it just sounds like police unions are negotiating contracts that prevent accountability in almost any event.

Can you talk a little bit about that and how that could be reformed? Yeah, so we think about police unions, not as labor unions, but like the NRA. That's the best way to think about a police union. They're like a lobbyist organization with special interests that are not the interests of the public. Sometimes people who come from labor backgrounds, like I used to be a union leader in education,

they're like, oh, you can't sort of attack this union. You're like, this is not, they do not care about wages and health insurance. They are focused on protecting the police. So in cities across the country, the unions have these clauses, like Sam was saying in Minneapolis. In Minneapolis, after the police kill somebody, they have to be mandatorily put on paid leave for three days. But in the contract, it doesn't allow you to terminate them in those three days, which is sort of wild. But all across the country, these rules exist. So California has a law that says that any investigation of an officer that lasts more than a year can never result in discipline,

regardless of the outcome. And what's wild about that is the police manage how long the investigation is. So you're like, well, that is that doesn't seem like a fair system. What is also interesting, and this is what we didn't know in 2014, is that there are now three independent studies that have no relationship to each other that have shown that the only effect of police unions. So when we look at what changed before officers could unionize and after, is that they kill more people. That is literally the effect. And it's because the police unions,

their sole purpose is to protect officers from accountability. Doreen, you were telling me the other day, there's a bill in the House of Representatives right now that would deal with some of these union contracts? In a bad way, yeah. So there's a bill, H.R. 1154. It's sneaky because it's called public safety. So it technically includes firefighters, EMS. It looks like it's a bill geared towards opening up labor for people. But what it would do in a disenfranchisement way is allow any police department in the country that currently cannot unionize, it would allow them to unionize. It would be the single worst thing

that happened in policing in the past six years. It is a policy choice that a lot of people on the left are actually supporting, which is wild, but it is bad. So we are trying to get to as many congresspeople as possible. It's HR 1154. It is a bad bill. DeRay, thanks for coming on. I know you've got a lot

going on, but we appreciate you educating us today. Cool. Good to be here. And I can't wait to see you guys continue to be in the fight. Thanks, DeRay. Thanks, DeRay. All right, everyone. Ahead of this year's elections, what people have asked us more than anything else is what they can do to make a difference, to impact the results.

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and you can mail things from the safety of your home. Just adopt a state. It will solve all your problems and it'll get you a job. On the pod today, the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms. Mayor, welcome to Pod Save America. Thank you so much for having me. So you and Killer Mike delivered two of the most viral and, I thought, powerful, impromptu speeches over the weekend about these protests. And they both happened to be at a press conference that you organized. Can you give us the backstory of how that came together, how you decided who to invite, and sort of what was going through your mind before you spoke? So I'll tell you, Friday was a whirlwind. I spent most of the day on Friday

participating in congressional testimony with some other mayors on COVID-19. And I had on the evening news and it just started not to look good. So I eventually made my way down to police headquarters. And I wish that I could even remember the sequence of events. But I immediately knew to reach out to Kill a Mike and to TI. Because I know I have four kids. And I know my voice is not always heard or listened to, and that I had to get somebody who could say the things that needed to be said that I knew probably wouldn't be received if I said it. And we went into the press conference and I didn't,

the press conference and I didn't, I honestly couldn't remember what I said after I said it. I had to, after I came home that night, I watched it on television and, you know, I'm a woman of faith. I think those words were divinely given to me in that moment. And Killer Mike, I mean, I could sit at his feet all day long. I know. He talks that way sitting in a barbershop. But I think, you know, the thing that's the common thread with myself and Killer Mike and with Chip, we bleed Atlanta. We love this city. And we hurt with this city and the pain and the frustration

is felt by so many people across America. And I think you just, you got it from us in real time on Friday. Your job seems incredibly difficult right now. Ahmaud Arbery was murdered in Georgia. You called that a lynching. You said George Floyd's murder made you hurt like a mother would. You obviously feel the anger and the pain that protesters feel. On the other hand, your role as mayor is to keep your people safe, keep your city from being destroyed. How do you balance that? It's hard. And the reality is, if I weren't mayor, I would probably not even consume as much because it hurts so much.

And it just hurts me so much as a mother and with Ahmaud Arbery, like I get, it's this physical feeling I get in my stomach and it makes me nauseous. And, you know, with George Floyd, I knew I had to watch it because I'd be asked about it, but watching it so that I can speak about it as mayor and, and feeling that as I do as a mother,

two very different things. And, you know, it's interesting. I often try and look at things from the lens of my kids and how things will impact them and affect them. But I've had the most interesting conversations with my mother over the past few days. And my mother said to me last week that this doesn't feel like 1965 in America. It feels like something before 1965. And that struck me because my mother grew up in the segregated South in Atlanta.

And then I spoke to her yesterday. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever heard her seen my mother cry outside of the death of a family member of loved ones. My mother sobbed yesterday. loved ones. My mother sobbed yesterday and she sobbed talking about George Floyd and imagining that being my brother or being one of her grandsons. And I share that to say there's this anger and this frustration and this sadness that we see in this very visible way with young people in our streets. But so many people are feeling it across America. And when I look at police officers taking a knee with protesters,

I know that people are being heard. I just, my fear on Friday and my fear remains that the voices will be drowned out by the destruction. And, you know, we've got so much work to do. You said on Friday night that a protest has purpose. What specific goals do you think should be the purpose of these protests? Well, I think the first purpose has to be to draw attention. But I also think that on the other side, it's got to be a tangible point of satisfaction. The reality is there will be another black man who dies in America at the hand of police officers. And I pray that it's not so, but it will likely happen. And we've got to know where we're trying to go with this. So, you know, under the Obama administration, the same way the pandemic handbook was left, there were reforms that were left on policing in America and the launch of My Brother's Keeper and all these great initiatives that had tangible outcomes.

And when I spoke on Friday and I talked about the West Side of Atlanta, what's happening on the West Side of Atlanta is we've got job training programs. We've got substance abuse programs. We've got wraparound services. We've got police officers who, when they are recruited into our police department, have to volunteer at our At Promise Youth Center on the west side of Atlanta. Those are the things that have to happen across America. And we've got to have some tangible metrics on what does it mean? Are we trying to reduce incarceration like we're doing in Atlanta by turning our jail into an equity center? Are we trying to measure how many more people get jobs and become financially literate, et cetera? I mean, there's so many metrics that we've got to be able to articulate.

And I think the uprising and the protest is one part of it. But we've got to know what is it we're trying to get to on the other side of it. You fired two officers this weekend for excessive use of force against young people who were out past curfew. Do you have thoughts on how to reform policing in a way to prevent that excessive force in the first place?

Yeah, there is a culture change. And I can tell you, had that happened last week, that excessive force in the first place? Yeah, there is a culture change. And I can tell you, had that happened last week, I wouldn't have watched the video, likely. I would have seen the video that was on television, but I would not have spent four to five hours in my afternoon yesterday watching seven different body cams, five, seven times each.

And because even for as conscientious as I am, there are things that, you know, you go, well, that was horrible. Let's investigate and let's go through all these hoops. But with where we are in America, we don't have time to wait. So my police officers just got a very real lesson on what our expectations and our level of tolerance will be in the city going forward. The force was excessive. They got to be fired, They got to be fired, period. And I think that those are the type changes and expectations that we've got to be as leaders to give to our police officers, but also that level of expectation to our communities, because nobody has patience with waiting.

So at one point in your speech on Friday night, you said, if you want change in America, go and register to vote. New York Times interviewed a young woman who was protesting in South Carolina over the weekend, and she said the following about voting. I just don't think that's how change happens. They've been telling us to do that for so long and we've done it and look at everything that's still going on. we've done it and look at everything that's still going on. What do you say to that young woman and young people like that who just feel so frustrated that they don't see the difference that their participation in democracy can actually make? The words of Audre Lorde have been on my mind all day. Revolution is not a one-time event. And my fear with where we are with Donald Trump as president

even when I look at my kids I look at my my twins are nine they're my youngest they don't remember President Obama being president they know about him but they don't remember what that feels like and and and this concept that things were happening and moving and working on our behalf. And I think day by day, that's what we're losing. And I think that what we're seeing with our, especially our young protesters across the country, they don't have the patience for these things that need that for the change. So I think you've got to give them quick deliverables like we've done in Atlanta. First three months in office, I eliminated cash bill bond in our city.

We're working to turn our jail into a center of equity. We are, we closed our doors to ice COVID-19 hit. We started delivering meals to our seniors and our kids who aren't getting their meals. So I think that gives you instant credibility, but it also gives you grace to plan long-term for this work that we know it doesn't happen overnight. It's a series of actions and policy decisions that end up changing America. But I think you've got to have a combination of both. And I think you've got to be able to establish credibility with young people across America because they're hopeless right now.

And thinking about my grandparents who came to Atlanta, my grandmother's grandparents were slaves in Crawford Street, old Georgia. And I've heard that my grandmother's grandfather served in Congress during Reconstruction. I don't know if it's true or not. This is a freed slave. I've seen his worth listed on a registry. There was something that gave him hope that even when he was enslaved in the cotton fields of East Georgia, there was something that gave him hope that something could be better if not for him than for his children's children. And I think that's where we are in

America. We've got to be able to give our kids and our communities hope. Because even with my 18-year-old, with all the trappings that come along with being the mayor's son, sent me the video of the kids, the college kids being pulled out of the car over the weekend. And he said, this is why we're burning down our cities. This is what we're mad about. So what did you tell him when he said that? I said, I understand. The one thing that I've learned as a parent, and I'm learning more and more every day,

sometimes it's just an opportunity for me to acknowledge that he's hurting. Sometimes I just have to say I understand, and I do. son, because the reality is when he walks out the door, it doesn't matter that he's my son. He's still, I call him my man child in America. And he has as big of a target on him as anybody else's child. You wisely said over the weekend that Donald Trump should just stop talking because he makes things worse. I agree. Last question, what would you want to hear from a real president right now? What do you think the country needs to hear to heal and to sort of get through this moment? What I want to hear is that we have a president who believes that we're better than this. And I want to hear from our president a genuine care and concern and commitment to make change in our communities.

I want to hear an acknowledgement that we're hurting and that this hurt didn't start yesterday, it didn't start a week or so ago with the killing of George Floyd. This is 400 years of hurt and pain and the need for reconciliation and reformation in this country. That's what I want to hear from our president. I want to hear our president say, I may not have all of the answers and it may not all work out for us today, but I believe there's a better tomorrow.

And I'm going to do everything I can as president to make sure that that better tomorrow is what all of our children deserve. And, you know, I'm a sucker for a good quote. One of my favorite lines is from a poem from Maya Angelou, and she says, I am the hope of the slave. And I think there has to be a president who says to communities of color, especially in this country, you come from a legacy of hurt and pain, but there was hope that your forefathers had for you. And as president, I had that same hope for you. And I'm going to make sure that America stands up to its commitment that we are better than where we are today. Well, I hope we hear words like that soon myself. Thank you, Mayor, so much for your powerful words. Thank you for your leadership. And hopefully you can come back to Pod Save America under different circumstances in the

future and we can gossip about politics. Anytime. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks to Mayor Bottoms and thanks to DeRay for joining us today. And we will talk to you guys later this week. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.