Death of george floyd in minneapolis and the protests that have followed. His podcast available on spotify. N we first book do you when we first booked you, the idea was to get your reaction to the george floyd killing. Broadly, your reaction to what you have seen in the country . It is heartbreaking. I grew up here. My parents were the first integrated high school class, so it is really personal. We keep seeing these shootings, and indifference to black life. We are now at a tipping point. 400 years of tragedy and confluence of factors have come together and they will not allow us to ignore it. Difficult video to watch a george floyd under arrest, a Police Officer with the knee on the neck of george floyd for almost nine minutes. Obviously there is foaming going on. Filming going on. It surprise you that these tactics still exist in American Police forces given the presence of social media, changes of leadership and police forces, and promises to change forceses and u. S. Police . Prof. Samet you would guest you would think with cameras people change attitudes but we are seeing the opposite. You saw the Police Officer knowingly keep his knee on someones neck knowing that the camera was pointed at them. Thatis the curious thing, peoples behavior does not change knowing they are being watched, that everyone can see what they are doing. Host in the days after the officers were fired, Derek Chauvin has been arrested and charged with thirddegree, Second Degree manslaughter. Initially, what sort of message do you think that sends to the public . Was smart. Firing i think they needed to be fired. All the evidence needed was in that video. In terms of prosecution, i think the da made a mistake by saying there was not enough evidence. It looks political. People in minneapolis and around the country are going to hold the people in minneapolis and Police Departments and elected officials all over the country responsible. There is not going to be a continued effort to cover these things up and normalize it. People are demanding a change and i think the country is listening. Host the wall street journal writing about the federal involvement in the floyd case. Rs task force has echoes of rodney king. They write the investigation puts attorney general barr at the center of a high profile, racially charged flashpoint reminiscent of one he handled in his first stint as attorney general in the 80s. Beating of rodney king that ultimately led to the l. A. Riots in 1992 when mr. Barr was attorney general under george h. W. Bush. How confident are you that attorney general barr, the Justice Department can handle the case of george floyd and pa rescued it and prosecute it to its fullest . Guest i am not confident in attorney general barr at all. After his response to the Mueller Report and his manipulation of that evidence, that report, and his rhetoric overall, i have zero confidence in him. The department of justice is not the personal attorney of the president. He is the attorney it is the attorney of the people. It willonfidence that protect lives. Starrour guest is michael hopkins, democratic strategist, to talk about the arrest the unrest all over the country. Is the one for republicans. 2 7488000 four democrats for democrats. And independence, 202 74880 0 2. Lets talk about the Ahmaud Arbery shooting case. Headline says doj is considering possible federal hate crime charges in the Ahmaud Arbery shooting. What do you see as the difference between that and the george floyd case given the suspects involved . Guest the clear difference is theis a state actor versus floyd case. But we see common threads. Seehe arbery case, you individuals cant down mr. Arbery and murder him on camera hunt down mr. Arbery and murder him on camera. You see anoyd case, officer in you mainly take the life of someone on camera. To that twooint minutes and 28 seconds when mr. Floyd had gone blank. He was already unconscious and the officer continued to put his knee on his throat, taking away any oxygen he could get. Host what sort of police modifications or reform needs to come out of these cases . Guest one of the things that d. C. Has done, which has been successful and one of the reasons i did not inherently have a fear of police growing up was most d. C. Police are from the area. They are from here. They are our neighbors, our people see people we see every day at restaurants. There is a sense of belonging, of shared community. I think a lot of Police Districts need to get back to that. If you look at new york, for example, Something Like only one in seven new york police in theirt police work burrows. Hs. Burroug host you said you do not have a fear of police growing up in washington, d. C. An opinioniece piece says there is one pandemic we may never find a cure for, fear of black men in public spaces. He writes that in terms of the videos that have been out there, i do not like i do not watch them anymore because they are so soul crushing. They have a depressing familiarity to many black men. Why do you suppose that black that white america, according to his column, has that fear of black men . Guest historical stereotyping. When you look at birth of a nation, which were played in the thereffice 70 years ago, has always been a characterization of africanamericans, especially africanamerican men as animalistic, over sexualized. So those stereotypes have stuck. Now what we are dealing with ,oving forward is black men their skin color being weaponized. We are seeing that in the litany of videos of africanamericans being shot. It has a psychological effect as well. I think of when i am walking through the city if there is a white woman in front of me, i make a conscious decision to slow down so that i am far enough behind her or speed up to walk ahead of her because of the inherent fear that i could be accused of something, that she will think i am following her. It is things like that. When i put on a sweatshirt last night, i was cognizant that i was dressed in all black and that could seem menacing, so i needed to make sure that i had some color on, so more friendly, more welcoming. It is things like that that are every day, every minute thoughts that our survival instincts that i do not think fellow americans who are white consider. Host you mentioned that your folks have been part of the first integrated high school in d. C. How early do you recall your mom or dad saying to you, giving you guidance on being in public in the potential ramifications of that . I would imagine four or five. As soon as i could begin comprehending and being able to participate in the things going around, i was told when you go into a store do not pick things up because you could be accused of stealing. If the police ever stop you, take your hands out of your pockets slowly, calmly. Do not flinch. It was not so that i would not get in trouble. It was so that i would get home, could make it home. One of the things now that i am of age where my friends are having kids, where people are getting married, it never hit me or a lot of my friends that we would still be having those conversations, still be sending kids out wondering whether they were going to come home at the end of the night. Host lets get the callers. We go first to brad in san diego. Independent line. Christian veteran, and an africanamerican. I call things as i see them. Is not looting. A protest is not taking over a city street. Trying to not intimidate or be a predator. Create a reaction from the police department. Lets know what you are protesting about. I am 70. How are these guys protesting something that happened 200 years ago . You have problems in the community because you have bad actors. The people in the community do not call those bad actors out. You are either house of jesus or house of satan. We need to make a distinction between the people who are protesting and the people who are rioting. I was in the protest in d. C. In front of the white house that got really scary quickly. During the day, there were protesters there, young people, families, kids. They were making their voices heard and they were doing so peacefully, and were not looting, rioting, breaking things. Head night, things changed. People who are not there during the day showed up. Those of the people you see dressed in Tactical Gear who are breaking things. I think there has been a disservice done two ways been going on. Yeah, there are rioters, but those people, at least in my opinion, seem to be coming from outside influences. Those are not the people who are there marching, chanting, asking, begging for their humanity. These people seem to have another agenda and they are coming for ulterior motives. Host when those people showed up, did you make a conscious decision to get out of there . Guest i wanted to stay as long as i could. I was covering this, so i wanted to know what was going on and to speak to it from a firstperson perspective. But after a certain point i did have to leave. There were explosions, dumpsters were being sewn on fire, police were moving forward and shooting rubber bullets. John on thes republican line in southhampton, pennsylvania. Morning. Ood thank you for cspan. I believe we should be having the conversation about race that has been advocated for many years, actually. But it has to be based on an factbasedful, discussion. I do believe that it was appropriate for the policeman to be charged with murder. He has been charged. That is going to play out. People know that, according to fbi statistics, black males make up 6. 5 of the population but commit over 50 of the homicides or murders. Also, according to fbi statistics, about 90 of the interracial violence is black on white, not white on black. A person you could have as a guest is heather mcdonald. Ae is a yale educated lawyer t the city journal. Host i will let you go there. Heather mcdonald has been on our program multiple times. Michael starr hopkins, your thoughts. Guest i want to touch on those statistics. When you talk about the high crime rate among african americans, lets talk about how we got there. When you take a group of people and give them poor education, no opportunities, and then put them in a condensed area, there is certainly going to be crime. Policingthrow over into that and a police force that is primarily in poor neighborhoods, specifically looking to break up crime in those neighborhoods, you are going to raise that rate higher. In terms of interracial crime rates, i do not know specifically what that speaks to. What i will say that as a former islic defender in manhattan that you can make statistics say anything. When you look at the rate of crime among african americans, there are specific historical reasons why there are those rates. When you look at the crime rates among white on white and black on black, those follow part quickly those fall apart quickly. Host your observation on the washington protest on saturday. These outside influences you observed coming into the d. C. Protests, could they be taking advantage of that situation, as ansly, and using it accelerant to their needs not only in d. C. But in other areas . Guest that is absolutely what it appeared to be. They were planned. They had planned. They were able to communicate with each other. You had seen the Police Coming in coming to breakup things and these people in Tactical Gear kind of spread out and start to hit areas where they knew the police were not. These are not people with signs. These were not people in shorts and a tshirt from the community. These people were prepared. I think that was the scary part. There was a clear distinction among who was there to make their voices heard and who was there to cause anarchy. At its most basic level, that is what some of these people did. Host stephen calling from louisville, kentucky. Democrats line. Where you at the protest in louisville . Andve in louisville myself when you said it paintballs you know what i am talking about they were shooting those balls or something and that is what they were using here. I did not know if that is where you are when you are referring to be at the protest the other day are not. I did want to just add my two cents. I keep listening to all these people this morning. Some kooks coming in calling in about a civil war, we need a civil war, you know. No, we do not need a war. We have had enough as it is. I think we have had it up to here. What we need is reform. I sympathize with people that talk about a resistance movement, but i personally do not agree with the resistance because i do not think it goes far enough. We need a transcendental movement. Dryy we probably need vermouth party to rival the coffee party and the tea party right now. Quite frankly, it does not help matters much when we had the leader of the free world equating champions of social justice with domestic terrorists back in 2017 during the charlottesville tragedy. Host we will let you go there. We will hear from michael hopkins. Guest one of the biggest problems we are seeing now is a vacuum of leadership. Normally during times of tragedy, the president comes before the country and uses the tensions. We saw that with bill clinton in 1992 after the okc, george bush after 9 11, barack obama after shootings, murders in south carolina. We are not seeing that now from our president. I think that is causing fear and consternation among the american public, but it is also allowing people to seize on that lack of leadership. That is where we are seeing some of these writers, these rioters,ome in these anarchists come in. When no one is easing tensions, people just kind of freeze. Right now, we are seeing what is already a divided country along racial lines, partisan lines, become more divided. I think until we have some leadership, someone, whether it is the president , whether people are calling on barack obama to come forward and make a public statement, not just in writing, but to speak to the country, i think we will continue to see these things. Host you are a democratic strategist. You worked for the obama campaign. What do you think the Presumptive Democratic nominee you, joe biden, needs to say at this moment, needs to do at this moment . Guest it is hard because there is the political consultant side who says joe biden should do exactly what he is doing now and let trump to continue to so toision to so division as an americanut and as a black man living in this country, we need to lower the tensions. I think joe biden needs to come out and talk about a tragedy that he has seen in his own life, whether it is the death of his kids and his wife when he got ready to assume his seat in the senate or whether it is the death of beau biden a couple years ago. I think he needs to share that common tragedy. That is something that has worked for him before. I think americans want to feel connected to something and know that someone feels their pain. I think joe biden is good at showing it. Moving forward, if he is going to make a big speech, do the thing that politicians do, then that is the message he should touch on. Host myron in milwaukee. Independent line. Caller i am very disturbed to see how a lot of callers call in fact that there is racism systemically occurring in this country. I live in milwaukee, one of the most segregated cities in this nation. They calledhad what the uprising in sherman park that stemmed from a police shooting, but what a lot of people do not understand is that Police Shootings are just a match that lights the fire. This is a system of 400 plus years of racism, this profound lack of economic opportunity, the school to prison pipeline, the 13th amendment. Drugs, hatred of self, you have destruction of self and community. The high school i went to was segregated. White people in the front, black people in the back. The whole city is like this. No one is telling us to do this, but it is the subconscious remnants of the past that we are living. We know what the problems are, why we have this disparity, but where is the change . I cannot understand why i drive down one street in a White Community it is full of business and people driving with their children and living in this nostalgic world with no fear, and i go into the black community and it is sheer destitution blight, crime, drugs, violence. It makes no sense to me. This is what people are mad about. We get empty promises. We do not have solutions. People want solutions and that is my comment. Host thank you, myron. Guest i think the caller hit the nail on the head. People are desperate there is a lack of opportunity, a lack of hope. Andad the coronavirus hit it disproportionately affected the Africanamerican Community because of the systemic issues we have today. You combine that with the high unemployment we have now, with the fact that people have still not gotten stimulus checks, that people still have not gotten ppp money. Then you have the Ahmaud Arbery case back to back with the george floyd case. It is the perfect storm. I think what you are seeing now up,one, people being fed people demanding to be heard, but also because people are at home, schools are out for the summer time. People do not have to be at work as much on monday mornings so they can go out on protest and protests on a sunday and the like. It was the perfect storm. Things happen for a reason. We have to heat hit these apex is so we are forced to deal with it. We have a country that has not wanted to deal with hits racial issues, to have Uncomfortable Conversations about why there is inherent fear of black men. So now we are forced to have that conversation. We are all home. We do not have anywhere to go. And whether we like it or not, this is a conversation we have to have. Host kelly in bluefield, west virginia. Caller i wanted to make the comment first of all, i think the minnesota leadership did things wrong to begin with. I think he should have been arrested for murder right off the bat. That would have calmed things down. My statement is and the reason you see so many protesters of every race out no american citizen should be treated that way. None whatsoever. The policet a lot of shows we see on tv are stoking this because of the way that the police treat people. Thank you. Host ok, kelly, thank you. Guest i think that that color touched on something also. That caller touched on something also. When you give police militarized clothing, weapons. I o we dress them up like g g. I. Joe, they start to act like it. We need to ask why were militarizing why we are militarizing local police. At a lot of these protests, you cannot tell the difference between local police and the fbi. When i get pulled over in a cop walks up to my window, there is no reason why that officer should have Tactical Gear on, why they should have assault weapons with them. I think that is bad for the psyche of the country because it scares the people they are supposed to be policing and it shows the citizenry that the police are scared of them as well. Our commentator the other night, Steve Schmidt on another network, said the police should be dressed up like they live in mayberry. That is a real conversation we should have. Host michael star hopkins, founder of Northern Star strategies. Democratic strategist. You can follow his podcast available on spotify and apple podcast. Thank you for being with us this morning. Kayleigh mcenany, White House Press secretary, will give an update on the protests in u. S. Cities after the death of george floyd. We will have live coverage. A portion of this mornings washington journal while we wait. Host we are joined by armstrong williams, longtime tv host, author and commentator. Thank you for being with us. Guest thank you for having me. Host we started our segment with michael hopkins. We asked both of you on to talk about the reaction last week to the death of george floyd at e