Biden and Harris travel to Atlanta to fulfill with Asian American leaders in wake of mass capturing :: WRAL.com

By Kate Sullivan, CNN

CNN — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Atlanta on Friday to meet up with with Asian American leaders in the wake of fatal shootings that killed 8 individuals, such as 6 ladies of Asian descent.

They will also check out the Centers for Illness Management and Prevention, which is headquartered there, as section of a concentration on combating Covid-19.

“The President will supply his guidance to the group in Ga and throughout the place and highlight his motivation to combating xenophobia, intolerance and detest,” White Dwelling deputy push secretary Karine Jean-Pierre informed reporters aboard Air Force One particular on Friday.

Jean-Pierre mentioned Biden “understands and is aware the earlier yr that the local community has been vilified, they’ve been scapegoated and they’ve been attacked.”

Biden will afterwards deliver remarks at Emory College in the night.

“You can count on the President to meet up with the instant that we are in,” Jean-Pierre explained of Biden’s speech.

On Friday, the President issued a assertion urging Congress to move the Covid-19 Despise Crimes Act, which he stated would “expedite the federal government’s reaction to the rise of detest crimes exacerbated through the pandemic.”

Biden reported the measure would also support state and local governments to make improvements to detest crimes reporting and make facts on loathe crimes extra available to Asian American communities.

Biden and Harris were originally traveling to Ga to tout the gains of their $1.9 trillion Covid-19 economic relief package, which Biden signed into legislation last week, as part of a “Support is In this article” tour. But White Household officers canceled the rally they had prepared in the wake of the capturing.

Ga has also emerged as a essential political state for Democrats. Biden narrowly won there in the presidential race and Democrats subsequently gained two Senate seats there before this 12 months, which gave the bash management of the chamber — enabling passage of Biden’s sweeping Covid-19 regulation.

Biden and Harris will fulfill with all those Democrats, Ga Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, throughout their trip, Jean-Pierre explained, as nicely as Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and previous Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting legal rights champion Stacey Abrams.

Abrams has devoted years to expanding the voters and boosting turnout in Ga, a commonly dependable pink point out. Biden was the very first Democratic presidential candidate to earn Ga due to the fact 1992.

Georgia is ground zero for a single of the country’s largest fights in excess of voting rights. Georgia Republicans are trying to pass new regulations to make voting far more complicated — an expansive new voting monthly bill unveiled on Wednesday would give the state broad powers above community election officials, established boundaries on weekend early voting and include voter ID needs for absentee ballots.