Joe Biden Should Be a Voice for Tyre Nichols at the State of the Union
Good morning from the Hive newsroom. As we approach Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address next Tuesday, Chris Smith opines that the president should use the opportunity to push for police reform in the wake of Tyre Nichols’s tragic death. “The particulars of Nichols’s death are significant, but so is the fact that it is only the latest in a long string of episodes where cops have abused Black Americans,” Smith writes, adding that “Biden should seize the raw, painful moment to make an even more forceful case for the middle ground between defunding the police and blindly backing the blue.”
Speaking of the president, Caleb Ecarma notes that Biden’s embattled son, Hunter, is reportedly mounting a legal counteroffensive as he remains steeped in a congressional investigation as well as incessant attacks from right-wing media.
Elsewhere, Eric Lutz unpacks the real motivations behind Bill Barr’s John Durham–led Russia probe, which Lutz argues was launched purely to “create a cloud of suspicion.” Meanwhile, Bess Levin has the latest on George Santos’s never-ending web of lies, and catches Donald Trump claiming that Ron DeSantis shed many a tear when the Florida governor asked for his endorsement. Thanks for reading.
