The president expressed concern about the potential ramifications of the trial at a private meeting last week with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, people familiar with the session said. For weeks, it has also been a concern in talks with Vice President Kamala Harris, aides say, even as the White House grapples with a wave of mass shootings in America.
At the start of his fourth month in office, Biden leads a country on edge as protests in several cities over the weekend underscored the new urgency of a national bill on racial justice and police reform.
The White House is bracing for a week ahead, which could be particularly fleeting, with a Thursday funeral for Daunte Wright – another Minnesota man murdered by a police officer – along with new revelations from a shooting that took place 13 years ago. was involved with the police. -old boy in Chicago, as well as the verdict in the Chauvin trial.
The whipping events, along with nearly daily episodes of major shootings across the country, have only added to the pressure on both the President and Congress to hold police accountable for misconduct, a challenge now unfolding against the backdrop of new calls for arms legislation.
The government’s goal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, said Monday, is to provide “ room for peaceful protest ” while acknowledging the “ pain, trauma and exhaustion ” in the black community, citing both the trial as well as other violence, including the shooting of Wright last week.
“After today’s final arguments, they will come back with a verdict, and we will not pre-empt those deliberations,” Psaki said. “Broadly speaking, we are in contact with mayors, governors, local authorities.”
She declined to say whether preparations have been made regarding the use of the National Guard, but said that there has been “a series of discussions on how to ensure that, regardless of the outcome, there is room for peaceful protest.”
In the short term, the White House is closely following events in Minneapolis and beyond this week, preparing for a variety of scenarios in one of the most high-profile police brutality in three decades. Biden is not scheduled to leave Washington this week, but aides say he will monitor developments and likely discuss the outcome of the trial.
“The bully pulpit is more than just a bully pulpit,” said Representative James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who is the most senior African-American member of Congress. “I think the president can help set a tone in the country, there’s no question about that.”
Preparations are underway
By the time the proceedings began in late March, there were talks between the White House, Minnesota authorities, and civil rights leaders. Officials believe that setting up contingencies can help keep them from appearing flat-footed when violence erupts in cities across the country.
The president has been involved in some of the talks, officials say, and has seen some of the coverage of the lawsuit dominating cable TV during the day. Biden spoke with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, to help measure sentiment on the ground, officials say, and the White House has been in touch with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
“This was already a tinderbox,” said a senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe thinking in the West Wing. “It is getting more volatile by the day.”
Biden’s aides have already begun to consider and draft statements that the president can deliver in writing or in person once a verdict is passed, according to people familiar with the case. Harris has also been involved in talks with black national leaders.
“Sure, we want to make sure that the American people are calling for justice – we all want to know those calls are being met,” Harris said in an interview with The Grio. “And we must all be aware that when those calls to justice are not met, people are rightly speaking their First Amendment to speak up, to gather and express their concern, their pain, their disappointment – as long as it is peaceful. are protests. “
In his meeting with black lawmakers last week, Biden called Wright’s shooting “terrible” and acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding Chauvin’s ruling.
“Lord only knows what happened based on what the verdict will or won’t be,” he said.
Biden does not want to replicate the heavily militarized response to protests under former President Donald Trump, nor appear absent in the face of violence or unrest directed against law enforcement, an official said. He also believes he should directly recognize the systemic racism permeating criminal justice in America, advisers say.
Clyburn, who has often defended Biden amid criticism from those who have questioned his long track record on race and policing, said he believes the president is uniquely suited to lead this deeper national crisis.
“He’s not getting enough credit for sensitivity in this area,” Clyburn said.
‘It’s in all our hands’
Biden’s two predecessors in the Oval Office both faced unrest across the country following incidents of police brutality, but confronted them in drastically different ways.
Biden will also approach the situation from a different point of view from President Barack Obama – the country’s first black president to have a very fine tightrope walk on issues like race and police – and from Trump, who was knee-jerking pro-police and criticizing Biden. as incitement to further violence.
Biden gave a taste of how he would handle these situations as a candidate last summer by focusing on the families and demanding justice. And while he was vice president, Biden was called upon to act as a mediator at Obama’s “beer summit” with Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer who arrested Gates on his own front porch.
But the opinion is different for a sitting president.
The decision to step down from a committee was made after “ working closely ” with the civil rights community, including the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, as well as discussions with civil rights leaders and police unions. , said a source familiar with the government’s efforts.
The civil rights organizations, the source said, shared with the administration that they did not want a committee because it would take months to produce a report. There were also concerns that it would likely be a duplicate of Obama and Trump-era committees.
But the deep divide over the reforms to be made in the police force in America has proved troubling and has put many Democrats in a difficult situation. The leadership of Biden and Harris will be closely monitored.
Last year, Republicans tried to brand Democrats as support for the defunding of police budgets, a view held by only a small minority within the party. Yet the attack is already emerging as an early theme for the 2022 midterm elections as Republicans seek control of the House and Senate, even against Democrats who have repeatedly spoken out against the rallying cry “defund the Police.”
“We need police,” Clyburn said.
For now, the president faces the burden of trying to calm a country in need and do what he can to address the mounting racial tensions. But Clyburn said the responsibility cannot simply be Biden alone.
“How this turns out isn’t all in his hands,” Clyburn said. “It’s in all our hands.”