yamiche: a reckoning on race and politics. >> get your knee off our necks! yamiche: as the nation marks the one-year anniversary of the murder of george floyd we look back at a year of turmoil. >> don't shoot, hands up! yamiche: and ahead to america's unfolding racial reckoning. >> you can't make police officers the antagonists in the story. yamiche: also senate republicans block the creation of a january 6 commission. next. announcer: this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided b- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no

contract plans and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fs you. to learn more, visit consumercellular . tv. announcer: kaiser permanente. additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and ko and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator yamiche alcindor. yamiche: good evening and welcome to a special edition of "washington week." george floyd was murdered at the hands of the minneapolis police 368 days ago. tonight, we'll take a deep look at what has and has not changed since his death shocked the

nation. but first, to today's breaking news. just a few hours ago, senate republicans carried out their very first filibuster since president biden was elected. they succeeded in blocking the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the capitol insurrection. senate democrats condemned their actions. here's senate majority leader chuck schumer. >> shame on the republican party for trying to sweep the horrors of that day under the rug because they're afraid of donald trump. yamiche: senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, though, has consistently defended the position of most republicans. here's what he had to say. >> i think this is a purely political exercise that adds nothing to the sum total of information. yamiche: joining us tonight to talk about all of this are four reporters who have covered racial justice and politics for years. trymaine lee, correspondent for msnbc and host of the "into america" broadcast. sarah sinder, senior national correspondent for cnn and

joining in us studio wesley lowery correspondent for "60 minutes" plus and ayesha rascoe white house correspondent for n.p.r. thank you so much all of you for joining us. the republicans took a risky move on this january 6 commission. what do we know about the risks they're taking in going all in on president trump and the way that he sees the party's direction and what's president biden and the white house thinking about all this? ayesha: well, i think for republicans they feel like they don't have any other choice and it doesn't seem like they have any other choice. they may want toove on from former president trump. but their base doesn't. and they realize that. and they recognize that. and this is the party of trump. and so i think what you saw with this vote today is that they don't want to have a spotlight, a bipartisan spotlight on what happened because that's going to be a spotlight on trump. and on his actions and what he said and what he did and some of their things that they're saying about oh, it would be redundant. well, look, you had a 9-11 commission and there were lots

of investigations into that. you had i don't know how many benghazi commissions or -- you had a whole lot. they were partisan, obviously. but when has congress not wanted to investigate something? and this was an attack on congress. and what you see is thathey're not willing to go along with something that would shine a light on this, especially in an election year. and they have bet that it would be in their best interests to just stand against everything. when it comes to the biden administration, this can be another example where they say look, we're trying to work with congress. we're trying to get things done. we can't even get a commission to study this attack on the u.s. this is a domestic threat. we can't even get together on that. so when they start making the case that maybe on other issues we nee to just move along, this will be another thing they can point to. yamiche: and sarah, i want to come to you. berry is talking about a --

aysh is talking about a domestic tret. and you've been talking about conspiracy theories and qanon what what does your reporting tell you who the republicans are trying to apiece and the danger that presents to our country? sarah: you know, what we have seen now is that qanon, this outlandisch conspiracy theory that there is a kabul of shadowy forces that are in government, in media, in hollywood, that are literally semih trafficking children so they can harvest them, drink their blood and eat babies and this is part of this qanon conspiracy. that and people with those sorts of sentiments are getting into politics. not just the marjorie taylor greene's. she is not an anomaly and that's something that this country is going to have to reckon with cause we are now seeing it in statehouses and in local government, on city councils, on school boards. people who have espoused some of these tenets of this qanon conspiracy.

and what -- what i have learned over the course of time since january 6 and even prior to that, but since january 6, a lot of people thought that it would go away. it's growing. it's just at the beginning, not at the end. and that is what we are seeing. we're seeing a resurgence of this madness of people believing that ok, what happened then on january 6 was a result of the deep state stopping president trump from being able to become president and clear out all these evil people. so what they think now to stop the steal movement is joining up with the qanoners and this is turning into a real problem for this country because if you cannot rationalize and if you're not basing things that you are voting for on fact, and if you're trying to make it an evil versus good, we're in. hugh: -- huge trouble. yamiche: sarah, you put it so

smartly and so suck sibt -- succinctly and you used the word reckon and what we wanted to focus on this week and it really is tied to what's going on on capitol hill. the one-year anniversary of george floyd's murder. here's some of what we saw in the aftermath of his killing. it was the nine minutes and 29 seconds that shook the world. the murder of george floyd. one year ago this week, it was captured on cell phone video and posted online. millions watched as a white minneapolis police officer, derek chauvin, kneeled on the neck of floyd an unarmed black man pleading for his life. the outrage was immediate. protests erupted in minneapolis and in cities across america. many chanted floyd's dying words "i can't breathe" and within days, there were demonstrations around the world. crowds demanded justice for floyd and fundamental changes in policing. through their pain, floyd's family also spoke out. >> they executed him in front of

us. yamiche: again and again. >> there's a lot of us. >> that's right. >> it's a lot of us! >> a lot of us! yamiche: his young daughter, giana, told presideial candidate joe biden her father would change the world. later, there was a 6 1/2-week jury trial. derrick derek chauvin who had been fired after the incident -- >> guilty. yamiche: was found guilty of murder. >> i was ecstatic. i was excited. yamiche: chavaughn faces sentencing on june 16. three other officers who acted alongside chavaughn are charged with aiding and abetting murder. since george floyd's death, the nation has faced a racial reckoning on policing and society as a whole. a number of states passed policing reforms. but most of the systemic problems connected to floyd's death endure. president biden said he wanted to sn a policing reform bill named after floyd by tuesday. the anniversary of his killing. president biden: we have to come together. yamiche: but that deadline came and went with no new law. at the white house, the day was

marked by a meeting between president biden and floyd's family. >> we have the respect that spilled blood that's on this legislation. yamiche: including little giana. while on capitol hill the bipartisan group negotiating on policing reform say they're working through differences on key issues. but as they debate, black people remain three times more likely to be killed by the police than white americans. and more and more cases of contentiou police killings continue to rock the nation. wesley, i want to come to you. we've seen so many people unfortunately, so many black people killed on video by police before george floyd, after george floyd. what do you think made when you really think about it the murder of george floyd so different and how has it changed the contour of the conversation? wesley: well, i think that as you know, we've seen these cases over and over and over again. and we've been on the ground for a decade at this point covering these stories in various cities, sitting with various families.

and george floyd was far from the first. i do think his death changed the contours of this conversation. and a few of the reasons why, one, was that this was a death that was captured in full panoramic on video. there was no legitimate argument of what happens before the tape begins, about from the other angle that there were so many people out on that street, videotaping. and it was so clear that the outrage of george floyd's death was not even just about the moment of the clash but this elongated knee on his neck that i think anyone would agree was excessive. beyond that, though, i always think that these moments come in series. george floyd wasn't just george floyd. we had seen the amy cooper, christian cooper, ahmaud arbery had been shot and killed in georgia which is not a policing incident but potentially of racial profiling or racial targeting.

you had a populous of people who had been trapped inside their house all year at that point. and -- or for several months at that point at least. and then they saw this video of george floyd. and people wanted to get into the streets. they wanted to do something and wanted to change something. and i think that when you look at the year that's come afterward, we're having conversations and there's debates happening in cities and municipalities and states about things like changing police funding, about whether or not armed officers need to be the ones spongdz to -- spongz to all these things and things relatively unthinkable in the mainstream conversation the day before george floyd was killed. yamiche: trieme, what wesley is talking about is a change of the conversation. you're in tulsa where this is is 100-year anniversary of this terrible racist massacre, racial massacre. talk to me about what happened in tulsa connects to what we're talking about with george floyd and what is really a history of violence against black people. trymaine: first of all, yamiche,

congratutions, i've said it privately and say it publicly an honor and a pleasure to be here with you, yamiche. yamiche: thank you. trymaine: i think there's a clear connect between what we saw, the. kenny: violence we saw happen in tulsa in 1921 to what we saw with -- floyd and so many others as you guys have already mentioned. but i think there is a certain degree of anti-blackness that america has always accepted because it's not just an anomaly, right? it's a feature of who we are as a country. and so even now when questions are raised about whether this is a racist country or not, we see that the threads of racism still throughout. and i think when -- what we saw in george floyd in that slow motion death on a loop, i think exemplified the weight that the country has always placed on black america. and i think about the levels of violence that we -- from 1921 that bloody violence, that physical violence, but there are other kinds of violence that black people have been inflicted with. when you think about just 1921

tulsa, you had the murder of hundreds of people where the white community bombed this city from the sky, the greenwood neighborhood from the sky. gunned down women and children, mothers, set their businesses on fire andfter that, we're blocked from rebuilding. and even during that time, when they tried to make insurance claims for the property that was damaged,hese insurance companies cited a right clause and put the onus on their own mise on the black community. and then you have the jim crow laws and then you have redlining and you have urban renewal and gentrification all violent. and i don't think you can. kenny: parise out the. kenny: state violence we saw -- we see wit the police from the violence of hunger. from the violence of being clustered in the communities where the air is even worse. and the soil is worse. and the pipes that pump in the water into your house is filled with lead and your children suffer the pangs from all of though things. so the clear connection is that the framing around our lived experiences of black people

creates this -- these moments angeorge floyd for a moment at least exemplified that but i would caution that whether -- whether justice or not, because i don't think black folks have ever truly experienced justice. justice is preventing us from being in those situations in the first place. not the least of which is the way where policedn america. yamiche: sarah, i want to come to you, triem is talking about this. kenny: -- all of the tentacles of racism that touch black people's lives. when you think about this idea about the entire system of policing in particular, activists always say this is not just one wad -- one bad apple but an entire system. what does youreporting tell you about that? >> what's fascinating is what's happening in george floyd square and i'll use that as a microcosm. the activists there who are -- many of whom are residents. they have really come up with these demands. there are 24 of them that they have been asking from the city. and it's fascinating to look at those demands. because it tells you a little something about how this racial reckoning, how they see it.

and how they want to try and solve this issue. they realize it is far bigger than policing. and i think sometimes we get stuck on this rung of the policing aspect. but just as you heard triem say we're talking about things like redlining andot being able to get a loan from a bank because of the color of your skin. it's still happening. and so what they have looked at is hey, can the city give us some money and set aside some money for health care in the area? can we deal with the food desert that may exist in the area. can we deal with the binesses and see if we can give them a boost so that they can do well? there are many black-owned businesses and black and brown-owned businesses in the area. revitalizing the area so that children have a place to play and enjoy themselves. and so those things, they are asking for. and they have come up with this moniker, no justice, no streets. and there's a lot of

consternation around it because the streets, all of them, surrounding george floyd square, there are four different streets that come into -- a cross-section there, an intersection. they have basketball -- been blocked off and there are thousands of people out there. and those who are there and tending to the memorial to this day, more than a year after george floyd was killed, are saying, we don't want those barriers taken down unt some of our demands or many of our demands are met. that is causing obvious controversy. because there are neighbors there that don't feel the same way. but they are going about this and hoping for a holistic reckoning, not just a reckoning with police. yamiche: a holistic reckoning. that is i think -- it really in some ways ties to all of the things that we're talking about. i red a bunching of polls getting ready for the show and there was this real spike in support for black lives matter and then we saw this real dropoff.

when you look at the numbers, the dropoff is really about -- in some ways white americans in particular not supporting black lives matter in the same way as black people and people of color. what does that tell you about the limits of this conversation, what we haven't learned when it comes to racial reckoning? ayesha: i think the issue is america has these racial reckonings. but then america goes back to this meme, to this -- where it goes back to where it's comfortable. and so you have the murder of george floyd. that rocked the country. but it did not change the country. right? like there is still changes that need to be made. and a lot of politicians, and you can see the rhetoric -- around this, you had mitt romney, republican, going back lives matter. right? and now you have people going back into their corners and saying look, black lives matter, oh, they're socialists. oh, they're this. they're a threat. oh, critical race theory. this and that. it's a way of saying look, black

lives matter. they were asking for all of these things. this is not a real issue. we need to get back to, you know, bread and butter issues, not about this. and for those people that felt a little bit uncomfortable, once things started getting talked about, beyond just policing, and you're talking about these larger issues. you're talking about food deserts. all these other things. when you start talking about that, and making real changes, people get uncomfortable. and you get back into this place of, well, you know what? i think crime is going up. i'm concerned. you know, i don't know that we need so much change so fast. and so you see politicians now capitalizing on that. yamiche: wesley, ayesha went to place -- a couple of places. the one i'm going to go to before -- after i go to this other one is let's talk about crime and the spike in crime in cities. ayesha mentioned it. what is the correlation if at all between the spike in crime and george floyd's death? you have republicans trying to in some ways blame it on the racial justice movement for why

we're seeing crime go up. wesley: sure. so to start off, one, crime is really complicated. it always is. very often the way we talk about it in our politics even in the media is wildly oversimplified and we don't have really good ideas about why crime spiked during some decades in the past. much less last year or last month, right? but one thing we know is that america's major cities have seen an uptick in homicides side, not all of seen an uptick in violent crime at large but many seen an uptick in murder and that uptick a lot of places began in late 2019. well before george floyd was killed in some cases before the pandemic had even begun. that uptick has continued. it contied throughout 2020. so throu george floyd, through the protests that happened, through the fall in the winter afterwards and in many places continued so far this year. and so because of that, there's any number of questions, right? the first is that we all know last year was an outlier year. it was a -- it was a global

pandemic. and think about the types of things that happened. there was an economic downturn that came from that. there was a shift in literally how we physically live our lives, where we go and how we move, people couldn't physically go into work. and it made worse many issues that already existed. social services were shut down. there weren't after-school programs and weren't beat the streets web -- weet -- beat the street basketball games. and people weren't let out of their house. we have seen an ongoing state of play in american policing where police officers themselves say they're discouraged. they feel like they've been villainized. they're saying that they're stepping back in some cases. there's an open question when you look at some of the cities that have seen the biggest spikes. seattle, portland, louisville. minneapolis. these are places that have seen intense street protests and intense clashes. and i think it would be naive to write off the idea that there's any connection between those two

things. even if it's not quite fair to say well, this was because of the protests that all this violence is happening everywhere. yamiche: yeah. another thing that ayesha said and wesley, you were brilliant but i want to think about something else that ayesha said that i need to follow about and that is she -- critical race theory and brought up people getting uncomfortable talking about the history of slavery, the consequences that people live with every day. talk to me a bit about how you see this conversation really this argument that is in some ways very one skied -- one-sidedded and the consequences of racism in this country? >> i don't know if you've ever seen that meme of the twin spidermans pointing at each other and they look exactly the same? i think in america, the more we shine that light into the dark spaces, and reveal, you know, the nature of this country, and what we've seen historically, that i think a lot of white people get very uncomfortable with that because it means you're going to have to confront and have a true reckoning with who you are and how you see yourself. and so if the veneer is cracked

at all, and the pieces start to fall, how comfortab will they be with what they see? and i think there are so many of us whether we're black journalist or black people who experienced life in america, we know all too well the realities of this country and what has been. and so i think when we start to -- this conversation that we have right here and show that racism is not just a little nugget here, a little nugget there, that it casts a shadow over every institution. and that when we build the pathway to the present, and you build this moment in time, and this moment in time, and this moment in time, what you come up with is a systemic -- the systemic nature of racism. and so i think some of it is they're afraid of it. and they don't want to get uncomfortable. but also the powers that be have done a great job of passing this. kenny: dream-like state over -- passing this dream like state over. and reporting on this how many people in this community, white folks in particular, who have

never heard of this story? they were never told about this story in school and there was an lightningsal burying of this. and all the forces that be are complicit from local, state and government officials. and community leaders, right? all across the board. and so i think we're at this -- not to use the raw term reckoning but i would probably call it a convulsing. a reckoning means you deal with it and standing there face-to-face with it. and we're not there yet. we're just convulsing under the implications of it. yamiche: convulsion obviouslying. that's a way to put it for sure. and a smart way to put it. i also want to talk about what's going on in terms. changes that we're trying to see and not see in some ys in terms of our country. while george floyd's death led to millions of americans to protest, congress still hasn't passed policing reform. republicans and democrats are trying to work out a deal but so far they're not on the same page. >> in 2015, after the shooting of walter scott, i wrote a bill to fund body cameras. last year, after the deaths of

breonna taylor and george floyd, i built an even bigger police reform proposal. but my democratic colleagues blocked it. but i'm still working. i'm hopeful that this will be different. >> i'm going to accept whatever they come up with. seimone, i would be hap with it. but i'm going to accept it. and one thing i've learned in this business, you aren't always happy with the product. but you really try to do your best youan to get to where we are -- where we ought to be. yamiche: sarah, i want to come to you. talk to me a little bit about how all that we've been talking about has -- you think impacted how this is unfolding in congress, especially from the ground up when you -- in the communities that buff won reporting in? sarah: you can look at congress again as a microcosm although it's almost the macrocosm but the microcosm. because i want to sort of take you to minneapolis. right after this happened, the streets were filled with people. there was intense anger. there was intense emotion.

there was intense sorrow. there was an intense push to change things and change them immediately and for good. the initial reaction from the minneapolis city council was to replace the entire police system, the entire police department with a different department that they -- something like the department of public safety, right? so that was a non-starter. what you ended up getting is banned -- banned chokeholds. that -- banned -- yamiche: we are about to have to wrap it in a minute. i'm sorry to cut you off. i think all that we talked about has been so important. so we'll have to leave it there. thank you so much, triem, sarah, wesley, this has been such a crucial conversation. thank you for joining us for this special edition of the show. join us for our "washington week" extra. i'm not going to cut off sarah. catch it live at 8:30 eastern on facebook, youtube and our website. i'm yamiche alcindor. good night from washington.

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