President Biden lauded the courage of George Floyd’s family after meeting with them on the first anniversary of his murder by a Minneapolis police officer, a killing that launched protests and calls for police reform nationwide.

The family visited with Biden and Vice President Harris at the White House on Tuesday and also met with congressional leaders in Washington, D.C.

The meeting with Biden and Harris lasted approximately an hour, and was kept private. The White House said those attending included Floyd’s mother and daughter, three brothers and a nephew.

Biden told reporters that the meeting went “incredibly well.”

“On every anniversary you’re happy people remember, but it also brings everything back immediately like it happened that day. It takes a lot of courage to go through it,” Biden said of the Floyd family.

Rodney Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers, told reporters after their meeting that Biden and Harris “showed great concern” for them, asking after their emotional state and self-care.

Biden said that the first thing Floyd’s daughter, Gianna, did was to run over to him and give him a hug. “She said, ‘I’m really hungry. Do you have any snacks?’ “

Acknowledging that his wife might be upset, Biden said he listed off some of the available snacks — including ice cream and Cheetos, and possibly chocolate milk.

Police reform legislation

Biden had hoped Congress would pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act by the first anniversary of his death.

Brandon Williams, Floyd’s nephew, told reporters that Biden’s deadline was discussed in the White House meeting.

Referring to the president, Williams said, “He’s not happy about it not being met, but all in all he just wants the bill to be right and meaningful and that it holds George’s legacy intact.”

Biden told reporters that he had spoken with congressional negotiators and was hopeful that there would be an agreement “sometime after Memorial Day.”

Philonise Floyd, another of Floyd’s brothers, said, “If you can make federal laws to protect … the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color.”

Earlier Tuesday, the family visited with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who said she hoped Congress “can bring comfort to your family” by passing the police overhaul bill named after Floyd.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives already approved a measure in March, but it remains tied up in negotiations with Senate Republicans, led by South Carolina’s Tim Scott, the chamber’s only Black Republican.

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., said getting “a substantive piece of legislation” is “far more important than a specific date.” She vowed to work on a compromise measure “until we get the job done” and said “it will be passed in a bipartisan manner.”

In a statement, Biden said he appreciates “the good-faith efforts from Democrats and Republicans to pass a meaningful bill out of the Senate. It’s my hope they will get a bill to my desk quickly. We have to act.”

Qualified immunity as the sticking point

Differences over whether the measure should contain provisions making it easier to sue police officers over allegations of brutality appear to be the biggest stumbling block to an agreement.

A group of progressive House lawmakers, led by Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Cori Bush of Missouri, sent a letter on Friday urging their colleagues to support an end to qualified immunity.

“I believe that eliminating qualified immunity for law enforcement officers must be included in any bill that gets passed in the Senate, just like what we did on our side in the House, and it ultimately needs to be signed into law by the president,” Bush told NPR. “I have made that a red line; there has to be a clear red line with that.”

Asked about the first anniversary of Floyd’s killing, Bush said that “one year later, not enough has changed,” noting the number of people who were killed in encounters with law enforcement since former officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck.

“Not enough new laws are in place, whether they’re local, state or federal laws,” she said. “Our work in Congress is to save lives, so we have to do the work to shift towards making and implementing policies that will prevent these injustices from happening in the first place.”

The White House also announced Tuesday that Biden will travel to Tulsa, Okla., on June 1, marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, when an armed white mob killed as many as 300 people in the prosperous Black community of Greenwood, known as Black Wall Street.

Nearly four months after condemning Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments on antisemitic conspiracy theories, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is once again rejecting the Georgia Republican’s rhetoric — this time over her equating of COVID-19 safety measures with the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.

The remarks by the freshman Republican congresswoman — and criticism of them — come against the backdrop of antisemitic incidents across the United States in apparent response to the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip that saw a large number of civilian casualties. Those domestic incidents have been condemned across the political spectrum, though GOP lawmakers and some moderate Democrats have chastised progressives for, in their view, being insufficiently critical of the incidents.

In a statement Tuesday, McCarthy said Greene’s “intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling.”

“Let me be clear: the House Republican Conference condemns this language.”

McCarthy then went on to allege that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “completely ignored” the rise of antisemitism in her Democratic Party.

A statement from Pelosi’s office pushed back against that allegation, saying the California Democrat “has spoken out for decades against antisemitism and antisemitic attacks.”

“Leader McCarthy waited days to even issue a statement in response to one of his Members demeaning the Holocaust, and he clearly intends to continue to welcome Marjorie Taylor Greene in the GOP and shield her from any real consequence or accountability for her antisemitism,” the statement said. “Leader McCarthy’s silence has spoken volumes about his allegiance to the most extreme elements of the GOP Conference.”

Greene, in her own response, stood her ground. “Their attempts to shame, ostracize, and brand Americans who choose not to get vaccinated or wear a mask are reminiscent of the great tyrants of history who did the same to those who would not comply,” she said.

The competing statements came hours after Greene tweeted an article about a grocery store chain allowing vaccinated employees to go maskless and wear a vaccination logo displayed on their name badge. Greene compared the vaccination logo to the yellow Star of David badges that Jews were forced to wear by Nazi Germany.

It’s not the first time Greene made remarks comparing rules on COVID-19 masking to the atrocities of the Holocaust, where Nazis killed 6 million Jews.

Just days ago, she appeared on a conservative podcast and said Pelosi’s decision to continue masking requirements for House members on the chamber floor is “exactly the type of abuse” Jews experienced under the Nazi regime.

Joel Rubin, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, has called on Greene to be expelled from Congress.

“Kevin McCarthy … is not showing leadership and he needs to stand up and he needs to expel Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Rubin told CNN.

“This is deeply disturbing to the American Jewish community,” he said. “This goes and goes and goes further and now Marjorie Taylor Greene is essentially saying wearing a mask — saving lives — is somehow equal to walking millions of innocent civilians to the gas chamber. It’s just beyond the pale.”

Greene has long embraced conspiracy theories and has a history of making racist and antisemitic remarks. In February, there was an uproar over resurfaced content from before she was elected that showed Greene “liking” social media posts that called for violence against top Democrats.

McCarthy and fellow Republicans condemned her past comments at the time but stopped short of taking disciplinary action.

“I also made clear that as a member of Congress we have a responsibility to hold ourselves to a higher standard than how she presented herself as a private citizen,” McCarthy said at the time regarding a meeting he had with Greene in early February. “Her past comments now have much greater meaning. Marjorie recognized this in our conversation. I hold her to her word, as well as her actions going forward.”

House Democrats ultimately voted to strip Greene of her committee assignments.

Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called Greene’s recent comments “reprehensible” and called on her to “stop this vile language immediately.”

There has been a spike in antisemitic vandalism and attacks against Jews in recent weeks as the violence between Israel and Hamas escalated.

President Biden called the recent attacks on the Jewish community “despicable.”

“I condemn this hateful behavior at home and abroad — it’s up to all of us to give hate no safe harbor,” he tweeted Monday.

More than a dozen Republican senators have introduced a resolution condemning violence against the Jewish community, along with denouncing anti-Israel rhetoric from elected officials.

“The horrific spike in anti-Semitic violence and crimes in the United States and around the world serves as reminder that hateful rhetoric and lies can quickly turn into violence,” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said in a statement. “We must be very clear that this ancient evil has no place in our society and ensure America’s Jewish communities are protected.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he will introduce a bill to confront antisemitism.

“This trash should be the easiest thing in the world for every person in a leadership position to call out. But, perhaps because Israel has become a strangely controversial issue on the far left, the condemnations do not seem to be flowing quite as easily and unequivocally as they should,” he said.

McConnell quoted a tweet from Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota in calling on progressives to condemn antisemitism.

“I’ll say the quiet part out loud. It’s time for ‘progressives’ to start condemning anti-semitism and violent attacks on Jewish people with the same intention and vigor demonstrated in other areas of activism,” his tweet reads. “The silence has been deafening.”

The latest violence in the Middle East has resulted in increasingly vocal criticism of Israel from the left. As NPR’s Asma Khalid reported, the shift is linked to the growing power of racial justice movements in the United States and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s embrace of the American right wing.