“The president will offer his support to the community in Georgia and across the country and emphasize his commitment to fighting xenophobia, intolerance and hatred,” Karine Jean-Pierre, deputy press secretary of the White House, told reporters on board on Friday. Air Force One said.
Jean-Pierre said Biden “understands and knows over the past year that the community has been vilified, they are scapegoats and they have been attacked.”
Biden will make remarks to Emory University later that evening.
“You can expect the president to meet the moment we are in,” Jean-Pierre said of Biden’s speech.
The president issued a statement Friday urging Congress to approve the Covid-19 law on hate crimes, which he said would “speed up the federal government’s response to the increase in hate crimes exacerbated during the pandemic.” ‘
Biden said the measure would also support state and local governments to improve hate crime reporting and make information on hate crimes more accessible to Asian American communities.
Prior to the meeting with Asian American leaders, Biden and Harris received an update on the Covid-19 pandemic from health and medical experts at the CDC.
“This is a war and you are the frontline troops,” Biden told CDC staff. “I came here to say thank you.”
Biden and Harris initially traveled to Georgia to reap the benefits of their $ 1.9 billion Covid-19 economic relief package, which Biden signed last week, as part of a “Help is Here” tour. But White House officials canceled the protest they had planned after the shooting.
Georgia has also emerged as an important political state for Democrats. Biden won nail-bitingly in the presidential race, and the Democrats won two Senate seats earlier this year, giving the party control of the chamber, making Biden’s comprehensive Covid-19 law possible.
Abrams has spent years expanding the electorate and promoting the rise in Georgia, a typically reliable red state. Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992.
Georgia is the biggest zero for one of the country’s biggest fights over voting rights. Georgia Republicans try to pass new laws to make voting more difficult – a comprehensive new bill unveiled on Wednesday will give the state broad powers over local election officials, set limits for early voting at the weekend and the requirement for voter identification for add absent ballots.