“The president will offer his support to the community in Georgia and across the country and will highlight his commitment to combating xenophobia, intolerance and hatred,” White House press officer Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on board the Force. Aerial One on Friday.
Jean-Pierre said that Biden “understands and knows last year that the community was vilified, it was used as a scapegoat and it was attacked”.
Biden will comment later at Emory University in the evening.
“You can expect the president to be at the moment we are,” said Jean-Pierre of Biden’s speech.
On Friday, the president issued a statement urging Congress to pass the Covid-19 Hate Crime Act, which, he said, “speeds up the federal government’s response to the increase in hate crimes exacerbated during the pandemic.”
Biden said the move would also help state and local governments improve reporting of hate crimes and make information about hate crimes more accessible to Asian American communities.
Before meeting with Asian American leaders, Biden and Harris received an update on the Covid-19 pandemic from health experts and doctors at the CDC.
“This is a war and you are the frontline troops,” Biden told the CDC team. “I came here to thank you.”
Biden and Harris were initially traveling to Georgia to publicize the benefits of their $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 economic aid package, which Biden sanctioned last week, as part of a “Help is Here” tour. But White House officials canceled the demonstration they had planned after the shooting.
Georgia has also emerged as a key political state for Democrats. Biden narrowly won there in the presidential race and Democrats subsequently won two Senate seats there earlier this year, which gave the party control of the chamber – allowing Biden’s comprehensive Covid-19 law to be passed.
Abrams has devoted years to expanding the electorate and increasing participation in Georgia, a typically reliable red state. Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992.
Georgia is ground zero for one of the country’s biggest struggles for voting rights. Georgia Republicans are trying to pass new laws to make voting more difficult – a new voting bill released on Wednesday would give the state broad powers over local electoral authorities, set limits on early weekend voting and would add voter identification requirements for absentee ballots.