Former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. endorsed former vice president Joe Biden on Tuesday, emphasizing that he thinks Biden is prepared to address the issues stemming from the coronavirus and will also work to reduce mass incarceration and heal a divided nation.

Holder, announcing his endorsement for the first time, told The Fix his former fellow Obama administration official would prioritize criminal justice reform if elected.

“This is one of those issues that people are going to be surprised at how forward-leaning he’s likely to be,” Holder said.
As attorney general, Holder implemented directives aimed at decreasing mass incarceration, including directing prosecutors to refrain from seeking mandatory minimums for lower-level drug offenses. He said he is convinced that Biden will continue this work.

“I think you will see him deal with the whole problem of mass incarceration and continuing the work that we did during the Obama-Biden years to ask questions about the ways in which we have dealt with criminal justice issues in the nation, like, do we need to incarcerate as many people as we do? And are there alternatives to incarceration?”

During a private call on Friday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott admitted that “every scientific and medical report shows” state reopenings “ipso facto” lead to an increase in novel coronavirus cases, even as he publicly announced plans that same week to end an executive stay-at-home order in the state.

“How do we know reopening businesses won’t result in faster spread of more cases of COVID-19?” Abbott asked during a Friday afternoon phone call with members of the state legislature and Congress. “Listen, the fact of the matter is pretty much every scientific and medical report shows that whenever you have a reopening—whether you want to call it a reopening of businesses or of just a reopening of society—in the aftermath of something like this, it actually will lead to an increase and spread. It’s almost ipso facto.”

“The more that you have people out there, the greater the possibility is for transmission,” Abbott said on the call, which a spokesperson confirmed was authentic on Tuesday. “The goal never has been to get transmission down to zero.”

The audio was recorded by somebody on the call, and a clip of it was sent to The Daily Beast on Tuesday. It was first reported by state political site Quorum Report, which noted that Abbott’s public statements so far have largely only mentioned that Texas may see an increase in the numbers due to increased testing capacity, rather than increased contact. Though Abbott has repeatedly said in public interviews that reopening “can” or “could” cause a spike in cases, the audio recording from last Friday’s call appeared to show a more direct and certain understanding of the risks.

We called it: Nikole Hannah-Jones, the investigative journalist who was the brainchild of the groundbreaking 1619 project, is an embodiment of unity. Today, the Pulitzer Prize Board recognized it too by awarding Hannah-Jones the 2020 Pulitzer for Commentary.

“The arts have the power to sustain, unite and inspire us during times of uncertainty and fear,” Pulitzer Prize administrator Dana Canedy said before announcing Hannah-Jones as a 2020 winner on Monday.

The 2017 MacArthur Foundation “genius” winner (and The Root 100 honoree for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019—whew!) spoke to her colleagues at the New York Times via webcam after learning she received a Pulitzer Prize for her essay America wasn’t a Democracy, Until America Made it One, which led the 1619 project:
https://twitter.com/jessicalustig/status/1257401335038836737