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The Breakdown with Shaun King

Ep. 421 - Merrick Garland is now the Attorney General. Now what?

The Breakdown with Shaun King

The North Star

News, Society & Culture

4.812.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2021

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last week when I spoke to two members of the Joe Biden administration and asked them when we could expect him to begin fulfilling promises he made on issues of justice, policing, and mass incarceration, they said that I'd see progress once he had an Attorney General.

Well, after 2 months of delays, Merrick Garland was finally approved this week. Even with that, I don't expect Joe Biden to do much of anything on issues of justice if we don't push him. Today, on @TheBreakdown I'll examine what a few steps in the right direction would look like.

This podcast is produced by The North Star, a Black-owned and operated independent media platform for liberation-journalism. If you want to support The Breakdown and the work we do, head on over to https://www.thenorthstar.com/ for more content.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:05.0

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0:08.0

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0:13.0

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0:16.0

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0:23.0

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0:30.0

Last week I spoke to two different members of the Joe Biden administration,

0:35.0

current members of the Biden administration, and asked them when exactly was Joe Biden going to fulfill any of the campaign promises that he made on issues of justice,

0:47.0

mass incarceration, policing, and I know many of you who are listening to this are skeptical of Joe Biden as I am on any of these issues.

0:57.0

But what they told me last week was that we would begin to see progress and momentum on this once the Attorney General, Mayor Garland, was sworn in.

1:07.0

Well, Mayor Garland was sworn in this week. I believe he was the 86 Attorney General ever sworn in. And we now have a sitting Attorney General.

1:18.0

We are 60 days in to the Joe Biden administration and he talked about fulfilling many of these promises in his first 100 days.

1:28.0

So here we are, and I want to talk today about what many of those promises could and should look like. Let me unpack and explain it.

1:37.0

This is Sean King. You were listening to the breakdown.

1:58.0

And a lot of ways the pandemic has changed how time feels. Of course, 2020 was the longest year in the history of all years.

2:12.0

And many ways now that it's mid March, the past two months February and March, at least, seem to be flying by. I don't know if that's just me. Maybe it's going slow for you. But Joe Biden has not been in office for just about 60 days. That's not long.

2:32.0

And yet many of us and myself included I put myself right in the middle of this circle. Many of us are frustrated because he has done next to nothing. I don't even know that next to nothing would be would be adequate. He's really done nothing about any issues of justice, policing, mass incarceration.

2:56.0

And many just even specific cases of injustice like the murder of Breonna Taylor and other cases that the Justice Department, he said under his watch, would consider and reopen.

3:13.0

And I spoke to Breonna's family and Breonna's attorneys and they were promised by both Joe Biden and now vice president Kamala Harris that if they won or when they won that the Justice Department would take up Breonna's case.

3:36.0

And yet here we are. And yet I want us to consider something. 60 days isn't long to be president of the United States. It's also not long to be president of the United States in the midst of this horrible pandemic.

3:57.0

Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have said over and over and over again, that not only is the pandemic their number one priority, but it's really their number two number three number four number five.

...

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