Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Gail and Rick. Today we're going to take

a look at two of this week's biggest stories. First, the killing of Dante right in Minnesota

and then the US Food and Drug Administration's decision to pause the use of the Johnson and

Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. On Sunday, a Brooklyn Center police officer shot and killed right

a 20 year old black man after a traffic stop. His death happened just 10 miles away from

the ongoing Derek Chauvin murder trial for the death of George Floyd Last May. In the

immediate aftermath of Floyd's death, support for the Black Lives Matter movement increased

along with political interest in police reform. Today we're going to talk about how that

conversation has evolved over the past year and where it stands now. Later in the show,

we're also going to play a conversation for my colleagues at Podcast 19, which is 538

Coronavirus Podcast, discussing the US officials' decision to pause the use of the Johnson and

Johnson vaccine. But let's begin with where public opinion on police reform and Black Lives

Matter stands almost a year after George Floyd's death. Here with me to do that is 538 Politics

Reporter Alex Samuels. Hey Alex. Hey, Helen. As I mentioned last summer after the killing of George

Floyd, we saw a significant increase in support for the Black Lives Matter movement and we talked

about it on this podcast at the time. There was increase in support amongst Democrats,

Independents, and Republicans alike, according to a civics poll at the time, overall support for

the movement moved from favoring BLM by a 17 point margin to a 28 point margin in just a matter of

weeks. So how has public opinion on Black Lives Matter changed since last summer's highs?

So I think the big takeaway is that support for the Black Lives Matter movement is decreasing.

So USA Today, Ipsos surveyed Americans last June and saw support for the movement at 60%

and then looked out where it was now and it was only at 50%. But it's hard to make a broad

...