Return to Transcripts main page

First of All with Victor Blackwell

Five Years Later; Minneapolis Mayon On Police Reform After Justice Dept. Backs Out: "We're Doing It Anyway"; DOJ Ends Police Reform Deals, Halts Department Probes; Cyril Ramaphosa Praised For Handling Of Meeting With Trump; Expelled Ambassador Reacts To Trump's South Africa Claims; Minneapolis Poet Laureate Reflects On Death Of George Floyd. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired May 24, 2025 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[08:00:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: First of all, there are certain phrases that stay with everyone from the summer of 2020. I can't breathe, racial reckoning, Black Lives Matter. And then there's what six-year- old Gianna Floyd said about her father. My daddy changed the world.

Well, President Biden referenced that moment while signing an executive order on police reform two years after her father's murder.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN, FMR. PRESIDENT OF USA: You know what she told me when I saw her and she was a little girl, two years ago? Seriously, she pulled me aside and said, "My Daddy's going to change the world."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Well, now, five years after George Floyd's death, a lot that did change is being chipped away, sometimes literally. Black Lives Matter Plaza in D.C. is no more. That site was paved over earlier this year. Companies are stepping away from their diversity, equity inclusion promises. And just days before tomorrow's anniversary of George Floyd's murder, some of the heralded change to police accountability came undone, too.

President Trump, he was president in 2020, and his Department of Justice announced a move this week to dismiss police oversight agreements both in Louisville, where Breonna Taylor was killed in March of 2020, and in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020.

Now these agreements are called consent decrees. The DOJ argues in the Wall Street Journal, "Nobody is above the law, not even the police. Yet the overwhelming majority of police officers should be free to continue what they do best, protect and serve their communities. The Civil Rights Division will work with, not against, our brave police."

Now, the rhetoric and the actions all taken together raise an uncomfortable question. The murder of George Floyd did change the world. But five years later, is the world changing back?

The mayor of Minneapolis was asked about the end of federal oversight of police reform in his city and he says we're doing it anyway. Our next guest has been helping police in Minneapolis and across the country navigate these agreements. Michael Harrison served as chief of the police departments in Baltimore and New Orleans. He's now lead investigator at the organization Effective Law Enforcement for all. Mr. Harrison, thank you for being with me.

So, in this announcement from the Assistant Attorney General, Harmeet Dillon, ending consent decrees in these investigations, she said that unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats often have anti-police agendas. Let's start here. Former chief, you have anti police agenda?

MICHAEL HARRISON, LEAD INVESTIGATOR, EFFECTIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR ALL: Absolutely not. First of all, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely not. I've had a 33-year career in law enforcement serving as the police chief of four and a half years in New Orleans and another four and a half years in Baltimore, Maryland as the police commissioner. And so I'm a policeman through and through. But there is such a thing as good policing, which is what I am committed to.

BLACKWELL: And so I want you to listen to a portion of an interview that Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General, gave. And this is what she talks about, the motivations of some of these consent decrees.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARMEET K. DHILLON; ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION: When a city's under a consent decree, cops have to suddenly fill out reams of paperwork every day. Guess what? They don't want to do that. They didn't become cops to sit there and do paperwork. So they quit. They retire. They move to cities where they do want policing to be done effectively. Crime goes up because criminals now know that the policing is not being done.

Axios did a review of cities under consent decrees, and I think one of the figures is crime went up by 61 percent in Los Angeles County as a result after consent decrees were imposed on the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

BLACKWELL: So that was a different sound bite, but let's roll with it. According to their analysis of FBI statistics is Axios 2021 report, violent crime dropped in some smaller cities like Ferguson. But two years after the consent decrees, violent crime rose 61 percent in LA County, 36 percent in Albuquerque, 27 percent in Seattle, 20 percent in New Orleans, 11 percent in Baltimore. You know those last two cities well. Why?

HARRISON: Well, there are a lot of reasons why crime goes up. And police is only one part of public safety. And a lot has to go into making sure that police can deter crime, can prevent crime, can apprehend people who commit crime. I am living proof, and the departments I've served in are living proof that we have debunked that myth that police reform and public safety, and crime fighting go hand in hand, and they are not mutually exclusive.

[08:05:05]

Yes, crime has gone up in a number of places, but in New Orleans, under a federal consent decree in my last year, crime had gone to historic lows, and the murder and shooting rate had gone to a 50-year low. In Baltimore, in my last two years, both violent crime and property crime went down. The murder rate there was in a historic low. And a year and a half after I left, it's still hitting historic lows while still under a consent decree. So that has been debunked twice. That you cannot -- the myth that you cannot reform and effectively fight crime. The reform and crime-fighting go hand in hand. And we have done both in both cities, and it has happened in other cities.

So what you heard is someone with no experience in law enforcement repeating what they've heard from cops who are upset with reform.

BLACKWELL: All right. The Louisiana Attorney General says that the New Orleans consent decree cost more than $150 million over a decade. And as I'm sure you've heard, the cost related to hiring monitoring agencies and complying with the reforms is high. It should be secondary, of course, to the civil rights of the people that they are charged to protect and serve. But what's the rebuttal to the DOJ and to the Louisiana AG who says that these are so expensive that they become prohibitive?

HARRISON: Well, they are expensive, but everything is expensive. I will tell you, having served 28 years in New Orleans Police Department, we could not have turned around that department without federal court mandates and federal oversight. We could not have turned the Baltimore Police Department around without that oversight. Regardless of how great intentions are and people's skill sets, we needed that oversight and a court mandate to be able to do that.

Now, both departments are model departments. And if you look at other departments across the country who have gone through it, they too are many times model departments. And we knew that we had participated in patterns and practices of unconstitutional policing. And it takes a cultural shift, a culture change. You can't just change policy, training, discipline, management, supervision. You have to actually do all of that together to change the culture the way police officers think. Shifting from the warrior model to the guardian model. Because we are members of the community we serve. So we have to do everything that either builds new relationships, improve good relationships, or repair broken relationships.

BLACKWELL: What creators do you give the commitment from the city of Minneapolis and to Memphis, right at the end of the Biden administration that refused to enter consent decree and said, we're going to do it on our own. We can do it without the federal oversight. Can they?

HARRISON: Well, I can't speak for Memphis. I was a consultant hired by the Department of Justice to work on that investigation for well over a year. Can't speak to that one. But what I can speak to is Minneapolis where I co-lead the independent evaluated team there, they have done great work and a lot of work this first foundational year. The mayor has said, the city has said they intend to not only do the reforms that are required in the federal consent decree, by the way, which has been withdrawn, but Minneapolis, unlike many places, has a second one. It's actually under a state-mandated settlement agreement, our consent decree, you can call it that, brought forth by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

And so, that's a four-year agreement that they are under. And so they are already one year into it. I've been monitoring with my team for one year. We have seen the work they've put into it. They are committed to the state settlement agreement. But the city is also saying we're going to do the reforms outlined in the federal agreement even though it has been withdrawn.

BLACKWELL: Yeah. And these consent decrees have been entered into during the Biden administration, during the Obama administration, not during the Trump administration. But as we move forward, if there are these incidents, I mean, it seems as every time there is this punctuating moment of a Breonna Taylor or Tyre Nichols or George Floyd, the patterns in practice investigation happens during Democratic administrations and the evidence of discrimination is found.

And so the next time that happens, what then? What then? What happens to respond to a police department that there might be evidence even at the state level of something that needs to be remedied?

HARRISON: Well, first of all, that's a great question. It's likely going to be either state attorneys general, attorneys general to do those investigations when people file lawsuits are at the request of communities who demand an investigation, or mayors will have to figure out how they're going to do that through project expert consultants who come in and do that work. While it may not be called an investigation, it's certainly an organizational assessment of what is broken and what needs to be corrected.

[08:10:21]

And so there are two pathways, as I see it, and mayors will have to figure that out either through their state attorneys general or private consultants who are experts in the field who do that work.

BLACKWELL: All right. Michael Harrison, thank you so much for being with me.

HARRISON: Thank you so much for having me.

BLACKWELL: The mayor of Chicago is the Trump administration's next focus. Brandon Johnson touted the number of black leaders he's hired to serve in the mayor's office. Now the Justice Department is investigating him for discrimination. The mayor is with us live next.

Plus, will international students still have a home at Harvard? There's a big legal fight playing out. The leader of Harvard's undergraduate student body is a foreign student himself. International student. He is speaking out. Coming up later this hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:51]

BLACKWELL: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson says he's proud of his office's diversity. And now the Trump administration wants to investigate him for it. Earlier this week, he outlined plans for his term highlighting education, equity, public safety. But it's these comments that I'm about to play for you that caught the Justice Department's attention. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAYOR BRANDON JOHNSON, (D) CHICAGO: Business and economic, neighborhood development. The deputy mayor is a black woman. Department of Planning Development, it's a black woman. Infrastructure Deputy Mayor is a black woman. Chief operations officer is a black man. Budget director is a black woman. Senior advisor is a black man.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: The DOJ followed up with a letter to the mayor's office which says that they've opened a discrimination investigation. Here's a quote from it.

"If these kinds of hiring decisions are being made for top-level positions, then it begs the question whether such decisions are also being made for lower-level positions." Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is with us now. Mr. Mayor, welcome back to the show.

JOHNSON: Hey, thanks for having me, Victor. I appreciate the time.

BLACKWELL: So let me read a little more from this DOJ letter. It says that the comments you made suggest that, quote, "You have made hiring decisions solely on the basis of race." So let's start with that accusation. Are you hiring black people because they're black?

JOHNSON: I'm hiring people because they're qualified and they're compassionate and they're collaborative. I'm very proud of the fact that we have, if not the most diverse administration in the history of Chicago. My administration really reflects the values and the hopes, and aspirations of working people. And when you look at the Trump administration, it doesn't reflect the country, it reflects the country club.

And so I'm going to continue to make sure that we have highly qualified, competent individuals to serve city government because that's what the people of Chicago in this country want, people that reflect the values of everyday people. And that's the makeup of my administration.

BLACKWELL: These stats might be at the front of mind because of the topic of the day. Do you know the breakdown of your administration?

JOHNSON: I do. In fact, again, as I said, I'm very proud of the fact that we have a diverse administration. 30 percent of the administration are made up of white folks. 7, 8 percent are Asians, 24, almost 25 percent Latin, 34 percent black, 64 percent women. The vast majority of my administration is actually made up of women. And here's why it's important to have diversity of thought.

Everyone knows that when you have sometimes competing ideas or different experiences, it actually makes for a more robust administration. And we're seeing the results. Right? Violence is down in the city of Chicago by 20 percent or higher, 21 percent. Homicides are down. Shootings are down. Vehicular carjackings are down. Shooting victims are down. Robberies are down. But we also have investments that are going up.

We're building more affordable homes. 4,000, 1,800 under construction, another 4,600 in the next 18 months. We're hiring young people to 45 percent increase since I've taken office. And finally, we've expanded mental and behavioral health care services.

And so as investments continue to go up and violence continues to go down, it's proof positive having a diverse administration is why we're in a position to build the safest, most affordable big city in America.

BLACKWELL: So let me ask you, I'm going to play what the assistant AG, Harmeet Dhillon, who wrote this letter, or at least signed it. She said in an interview this week about the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DHILLON: We'll be going back years to understand. And what I'm hearing from members of the public already is, well, I applied for this job. I applied for that job. I didn't get it. I'm not the right race, I'm not the right gender, according to his description. If there's a pattern of discrimination, which I think there is, based on what he said he's told us, we will leave him at his words. They'll have to take action to correct that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: And so what's your reaction, what you heard there?

[08:20:05]

JOHNSON: Well, you know, the Trump administration has obviously demonstrated in actions and words their hostility towards working people. We take a great deal of pride in the city of Chicago for our diversity. 77 incredible neighborhoods. There are hundreds of languages that are spoken around the city of Chicago. And as I put forth the vision to make sure that we're investing in people to build the safest, most affordable (inaudible) in America --

BLACKWELL: Hold on, Mr. Mayor, I want to bring you back to the question.

JOHNSON: We're not going to be intimidated. We're not going to be intimidated, you know, by these accusations. I mean the bottom line is this -- BLACKWELL: Sure. Let me ask you specifically about the question of race and hiring. To what degree do you consider race? You are intentionally building a diverse. As we put up the chart and you gave us the number, a diverse administration to get to those numbers. To what degree are you considering race in hiring?

JOHNSON: Here's what I consider. Are you capable and qualified? That's the first thing. Right? That's not what the Trump administration is doing, clearly, because you would be hard pressed to find a qualified individual within his cabinet. What we also look at is what experience do you bring to your level of expertise, and are you collaborative? And here's the thing. We're seeing the results in the city of Chicago. I want people to understand that violence is down in Chicago. Investments are up. That's what the people of Chicago elect me to do.

You know, the, again, hostility that this administration has towards working people across this country, that's the problem. The people that I encounter every single day, whether it's food insecurity or housing insecurity or joblessness, those are the things that they want me to address. And that's exactly what I'm doing.

This is simply a distraction and an attempt by a tyrant to get us to be divided and distracted from the actual task, which is to make sure that government shows up for everyone. And that's what I'm doing. Investing in our public education system, investing in housing, investing in our young people, investing in mental and behavioral health. I'm going to build the safest, most affordable big city in America, and I'm going to do that with all of Chicago.

BLACKWELL: All right, we'll continue the conversation as the investigation continues. Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago, thank you very much.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Trump administration says Harvard's foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status. Our next guest says there's now an atmosphere of pure panic. The co-president of the student body would know. He's an international student himself, and he's speaking out with us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:14]

BLACKWELL: President Donald Trump's crackdown on Harvard University is leaving its students with whiplash. A judge ruled Friday to temporarily halt the ban on Harvard's international student enrollment. But the Trump administration's announcement this week sent students into a panic. One incoming freshman called the news a heart drop moment.

Even with the pause on the ban, students face this uncertain future. Do they transfer? Do they stay and risk losing their legal status? Will anyone move they make outside their home country put them in danger of detainment? Abdullah Shahid Sial is Harvard's undergraduate student body co-

president. He's also an international student himself from Pakistan. Abdul is dealing with all this while he's in Japan for a conference, and he joins us now.

Good morning to you. Good evening, your time. But let's start here. You're in Japan, and you've been outspoken against some of the decisions of this administration. There's a 72-hour deadline for Harvard to hand over five years of international student records if they want to regain access to the student exchange visa program certification that ends at noon tomorrow. How confident are you that you'll be able to get back into the U.S.

ABDULLAH SHAHID SIAL, HARVARD STUDENT BODY CO-PRESIDENT: First of all, thank you so much for having me. Secondly, I just want to make it very clear that from our side, this choice which is presented to Harvard is less of a choice and more of an illusion. What I mean by that is it's, the Trump administration wants us to think as if Harvard can get out of the situation by giving it all the names when that never really was their motive to begin with.

They began with a bunch of different attacks. And the entire end goal is just to make the Harvard administration that probably the most prestigious university in the entire world to bend to the Trump administration as well.

And if they're using the threat of kicking out international students right now to make sure that Harvard complies tomorrow, they can wake up and use the same threat again and again to make sure that if right now they're asking us to send records of disciplinary record, discipline records tomorrow they can wake up and you know, be like, okay, can you kick out this professor or can you kick out this researcher who has a sort of a left leaning stance on certain issues?

So, I want to make it very clear that this isn't a choice. It's the Trump administration forcing Harvard to bend to its will. And international students are just a very small part of the tools they're using to push Harvard to bend to their will.

BLACKWELL: And so to the initial question, are you sure you'll be able to get back into the country?

SIAL: I'm not sure at all. I'm not sure if I'll be, if I fly to Boston tomorrow, if I'll be letting, or even if I'm, I will be able to stay in the U.S. legally. So as of right now, I'm not sure if I can attend the next semester or not.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: And so what is the decision process you're working through now? I read, reported on the blockage of this ban on international students, but still, things can change. What are you navigating right now? How will you make the decision?

SIAL: I think right now the biggest concern in one's heads is how to reduce the sheer uncertainty and panic which everyone is facing. What I mean by that is there are so many friends who are right now in the U.S. over the summer, engage internships or doing research on campus, and they're not sure if they can fly domestically. They're not sure if they have a flight back home to check in with -- if they should be taking that on.

My friends who have to fly back for the summer because again, perhaps have a project within the US. They're not sure if they should be taking the flight because they might be deport in the airport. And obviously getting detained when they're 18, 19 and 20 years old, that's a very frightening endeavor. So as of right now, I've only been having all of these kind of (INAUDIBLE).

I've been having this conversation with my friends and their peers, and these are almost 7,000 in number. And they also happen to present the absolute best they own in their own respective countries. And they're, as of now, being treated in a very dehumanized and in a very demeaning manner. So, yes, no one knows what's happening. And navigating that is a pretty tough time.

BLACKWELL: I know that you told one of my producers that you've even written an op-ed to be published in the Crimson if you are detained. The detainment we've seen thus far have been related to protests related to Israel's war with Hamas and the conditions in Gaza. Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil.

Do you believe that their -- could also be this detainment of you for speaking out against this conflict between the U.S. between the administration and Harvard?

SIAL: That's precisely why I've written this op-ed and the entire thesis of it is if you search up my name right now, you wouldn't find my name attached next to any --

BLACKWELL: All right. Obviously having a technical issue, Abdullah was joining us from Kyoto, Japan, so unfortunately we have lost his signal. But our thanks to Abdullah Shahid Sial, the co-president of the student body there at Harvard.

All right. No evidence of a white genocide in South Africa. We've covered that on this show. Yet President Trump still confronted the country's president with the claim of genocide in the Oval Office this week. South Africa's ambassador to the U.S. was recently expelled after calling out the president. He joins us next to react and to look ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:37:58]

BLACKWELL: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is being praised for how he handled himself during President Trump's Office Oval Office meeting. Ramaphosa and his delegation visited the White House on Wednesday, hoping to stick to the topic of trade agreements. Instead, President Trump continued his practice of using the Oval Office news conferences as opportunities to try to intimidate or embarrass rather than welcome. Show diplomacy.

Trump brought out visual aids meant to back up his false claims that white South Africans, Afrikaners, the farmers there are being persecuted. Ramaphosa, chief negotiator of the end of apartheid, kept his cool. Tensions between the two countries were high long before Ramaphosa arrived in Washington.

In February, Trump issued an executive order freezing aid to South Africa over some of the same claims that he brought up this week. In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared South Africa's ambassador to the U.S., Ebrahim Rasool, persona non grata and expelled him.

Well, Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool joins me now from Cape Town. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for being with me. I want to talk a little bit about this meeting in the Oval Office and then look ahead at the relationship between the U.S. and South Africa.

First, President Ramaphosa said that it was not dramatic, but there are plenty of people who characterize it as an ambush of your president. What's your view of what happened at the Oval Office?

EBRAHIM RASOOL, SOUTH AFRICAN AMBASSADOR TO U.S. EXPELLED BY TRUMP ADMIN.: Thank you very much. I think that the idea of an ambush is fairly accurate in the sense that you don't expect a president. You don't expect diplomacy from a superpower to descend into such a haranguing, hectoring, blustering, engagement.

And so in that regard, when you come there with a decent demeanor, you don't expect it. But I do think that I agree with those who say that the South African delegation led by President Ramaphosa was united, was focused, was diversed, covering all opinions, but there was, most importantly, dignified and certainly the body language spoke as to who was the adult in the room and who was not.

[08:40:10]

BLACKWELL: I want to play for you a claim that the administration uses to defend its assertion that there is a genocide and there's persecution of white South Africans. Let's play that. This is from Elon Musk and also from the representative of the Department of Homeland Security.

(BEGIN VIDEO CILP)

ELON MUSK, BILLIONAIRE TRUMP ADVISER FROM SOUTH AFRICA: There are now 140 laws in South Africa that give, that basically give strong preference to if you're a black South African and not otherwise.

TRICIA MCLAUGHLIN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS, DHS: There's been over 140 laws enacted that are race based and to discriminate against racial minorities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now this claim appears to originate with the South African Institute for Race Relations, which has had some race related controversies of their own over the last couple of years. But how do you defend against that claim that there are laws, 140 of them, that discriminate against white South Africans?

RASOOL: I think that if you consider the entire law book of apartheid, then amending 140 them is tinkering with what apartheid meant for black people. If one of the law says give blacks more jobs, if one of the law says give blacks more opportunities in the economy, give them more ownership, give them more land, Then those are 140 very few laws that try to overturn apartheid while keeping the edifice of reconciliation going with our former oppressors and supremacists in the white community.

And so what they hold up as transformation laws of apartheid is in fact an indictment that we may have moved too little, too slowly in overturning the legacy of apartheid.

BLACKWELL: And so when Elon Musk says that he cannot get a Starlink contract in South Africa, although since the meeting there have been this progress to make exceptions for him to do that, and he says it's absurd that he, as a man born in South Africa cannot get that. What's your response to him who says that is discriminatory?

RASOOL: What is different, for example, to what Mr. Trump says then he says, Arabs can come into the United States with their investments, but they will be required to make a partnership with American companies so that they build together. I think that what we are actually seeing is a very conventional approach by countries who want to be part of the growth of a company.

And therefore, I think there are 600 American companies and their experience is one of booming in South Africa, of thriving in South Africa, and of making enormous progress and profits in South Africa.

And so I really think, judge it by the 600 American companies who are thriving versus one who is complaining simply because he's been asked to share ownership of his project with black South Africans which is no different to what Mr. Trump is saying to foreign investors who come in and asked to put up joint plants and manufacturing plants with Americans.

BLACKWELL: You talked about the need for South Africa to rebuild its relationship, repair its relationship with the United States without abandoning its values. And after your expulsion, President Ramaphosa named a special envoy to the United States to, quote, rebuild that relationship. His name is Mcebisi Jonas.

I want to play for everyone something that Mr. Jonas said. This was during a lecture, November of 2020. This is the man that President Ramaphosa has highlighted to rebuild the relationship with the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCEBISI JONAS, SOUTH AFRICA SPECIAL ENVOY TO U.S.: Right now, the U.S. is undergoing a watershed moment with Biden, the certain winner in the presidential race against the racist homophobe Donald Trump. How we got to a situation where a narcissistic right winger took charge of the world's greatest economic and military powerhouse is something that we need to ponder over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: I mean, if you consider why you were expelled from the U.S. and this is the man who's supposed to repair the relationship. Racist, homophobe, narcissistic right-winger. How is he the right person to rebuild?

[08:45:00]

RASOOL: You are not going to get a black South African who suffered under apartheid, went to prison like the two of us, was persecuted and hounded into the underground, denying the evidence of their eyes. When we look at the United States today, and I called it supremacism, he called it all those kind of names. But the fact is that when a piece of wood has a hinge, it begins to look like a door. When it has a handle, it begins to smell like a door. And when it opens and closes, it is a door.

And so I think it is a moment in which the latest victims globally of white supremacism and apartheid, when we recognize those kind of signs, we respond with the DNA of having been the last victims of supremacism in South Africa.

And so I think we've got to get past that. We've got to be able to say that he has a business brain extraordinaire. He is able to keep his eye on the trade relations. He's been a successful person in those finances. And I think that is what is going to be required.

And I'm hoping that with Mr. Trump having had my blood, that they will be able now to get on as I think they did in the Wednesday meeting, despite the bluster and theater of the Oval Office. I think good talks were had on the basis of trade, even on Starlink. And I think that's the foundation from which to repair the relationship.

BLACKWELL: Former South African Ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool. Thank you.

Coming up, Art is Life. This week, the Minneapolis Poet laureate shares a new poem reflecting on George Floyd five years later, how she inspired by cigarettes and fireflies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:51:08]

BLACKWELL: All right, this is a story that hit my algorithm this week that you might not have seen on TV. There's a big update. In a legal battle that we've been following involving the Trump administration and its DEI purge.

A judge ordered the administration to reinstate a grant to for Equity Assistance centers. Those centers, established by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, were federally mandated and helped desegregate schools. But the Department of Education has been trying to cut their funding. The judge's order slammed the attempt to cut funding, saying in part,

quote, the audacity of terminating its grants based on DEI concerns is truly breathtaking. We'll keep following this one.

As I mentioned earlier, tomorrow marks five years since George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis. We had hoped to speak with Floyd's brother Terrence, but unfortunately, as we do sometimes, some technical difficulties made it unable for us to speak with him on air.

But we did speak with the poet laureate from Minneapolis, who said this, poetry helps us realize the divine and the mundane. She uses her art to wrestle with the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. We spoke with Junauda Petrus for this week's edition of Art is Life. She explained that the backstory of a poem commissioned by the Star Tribune newspaper to mark the anniversary. It's called "Cigarettes and Fireflies."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUNAUDA PETRUS, POET LAUREATE: Hi, my name is Janauda Petras. I am the poet laureate of the city of Minneapolis. In writing this poem, I was reflecting on, like, well, what is George Floyd's life? You know, to me, the only thing we know about him is his last living desire was for a cigarette.

So, I just talk about him as a man who should have remained anonymous to the globe. You know, we shouldn't know his name. We shouldn't know how he looks like when he's afraid. Also, he's from North Carolina, and I think about the south, the connection to black people and nature in a way that's very intimate and very sacred. That's where the cigarettes and fireflies title came from.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is somewhere here, elsewhere, gone, lips, fickly, African, eyes deeply seeing from the beyond into us.

PETRUS: What I noticed after George Floyd was murdered is how much trauma it brought up for people who've been stopped by police, people who've navigated being harmed or scared by police. And obviously there's many times you're stopped by police and it's routine. And there's other times where it's really terrifying.

I can only imagine how many times George Floyd had been the stopped by police before his life was actually taken by police eventually. So I think often about with George Floyd, like, what would have happened that day if somebody would have showed up and found out he just needed some cigarettes, you know, or $20.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He could have smoked that pack, burned down every last stick of herbal and toxic burn of slim cheap thrills of a small earning meditation, that he could have been passed in the street. Just another somebody, another unknown, a martyr to none.

[08:55:00]

PETRUS: This is a time of grief and reflection definitely for our city and I definitely think that art and poetry are always how this kind of grief and pain is a part of the tending to it and the visioning and dreaming of what's possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: You can read the full poem on the Minnesota Star Tribune's website and watch the video of Junauda reading the work produced by Amanda Anderson and Nicole Crowder. That's at startribune.com and for more of Junauda's work, check out her website J-U-N-A-U-D-A dot com.

If you see something or someone I should see, tell me. I'm on Instagram, TikTok X, Bluesky. If you missed a conversation or story, check out our show's website and you can listen to our show as a podcast.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I'll see you back here next Saturday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Smerconish is up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)