PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN and Vice President Kamala Harris met with the family of George Floyd on Tuesday (White House photo).

President Joe Biden took part in one historic meeting on Tuesday and will participate in another in June.

According to the Associated Press, Biden met with the family of George Floyd at the White House on the anniversary of the African-American man’s death at the hands of white police officer in Minneapolis.

Along with Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden spoke with the family and said he was still committed to getting a police reform bill through Congress, according to The New York Times.

“If you can make federal laws to protect the bird which is the bald eagle, then you can make federal laws to protect people of color,” said Philonise Floyd, George’s brother.

THEN-Vice President Joe Biden greets Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow in 2011.
(Official White House Photo by David Lienemann).

In the aftermath of the death in May 2020, demonstrations and protests – mostly peaceful, but some violent – against police misconduct against unarmed Black men surged across the nation. Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes despite cries of “I can’t breathe,” has since been convicted of murder and also faces federal civil rights charges.

On June 16, Biden will be in Geneva, Switzerland to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Topics to be discussed will include the recent “hijacking” of a passenger jetliner by a fighter jet from Russian ally Belarus to arrest an opposition journalist. Additionally, the coronavirus and Russia’s actions in the Ukraine are expected to be topics of interest. Relations between the U.S. and the Russian Federation are “complicated.” Putin was praised and admired by former President Donald Trump, but the current Administration hasn’t been so warm toward Moscow. The U.S. government has formally accused the Russian government of interference in the 2016 presidential election.