President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were planning to promote the newly enacted $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package when they visited Georgia on Friday, but a deadly shooting rampage in the state has changed their plans.
A 21-year-old man has been charged with murdering eight people, including six women of Asian descent, at three spas in and around Atlanta on Tuesday, rattling Asian Americans already grappling with a rise in hate crimes directed at them since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Biden and Harris will meet community leaders and state lawmakers from the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community to hear concerns about the killings and discuss a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Thursday.
Investigators said the suspect, an Atlanta-area resident who is white, suggested that sexual frustration led him to commit violence. Numerous political leaders and civil rights advocates have speculated the killings were motivated at least in part by rising anti-Asian sentiment.
Biden has also directed White House officials Cedric Richmond and Susan Rice to engage with the community, Psaki said, and supports recent legislation calling for an expanded Justice Department review of COVID-19-related hate crimes.
Given recent events, “the president and the vice president felt it was important to change the trip a little bit and offer their support and condemn the violence,” a White House official said.
Biden ordered the U.S. flag flown at half-staff at the White House to honor the victims of Tuesday’s shootings.
The Democratic president kicked off the “Help is Here” campaign on Monday to promote his promise of “shots in arms and money in pockets,” after signing the COVID-19 relief bill into law last week, which includes $1,400 stimulus payments to most Americans. Biden has visited Pennsylvania and Harris has been to Nevada and Colorado to tout the benefits of the relief package.”Voting rights is something that is on the minds of everyone on that trip,” the White House official said.
