Rickey Smiley Asks President Biden Point-Blank ‘What Have You Done to Improve the Lives of African Americans?’

Radio host Rickey Smiley asked President Joe Biden to explain “What have you done to improve the lives of African Americans” since taking office nearly two years ago.

The president was a guest on Tuesday’s edition of The Rickey Smiley Morning Show, which bills itself as the country’s #1 UAC (Urban Adult Contemporary) morning show.

Mr. Smiley dove right in by asking the president what he’s done to improve the lives of Black people, and President Biden delivered a lengthy response that included some of the promises he fulfilled since his last appearance on the show:

RICKEY SMILEY: Now that we’re nearly two years into your presidency, when have you done to improve the lives of African-Americans?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, I hope I’ve improved the lives of African Americans like I said I would do. For example, too many African-Americans were denied everything from Pell Grants, student loans, housing, etc., because they were arrested for possession of marijuana, many too many. Whites as well. So anybody who was ever arrested just for the possession of marijuana, their record is expunged. They don’t have to list it anymore. It’s going to free up a lot of opportunities. I’ve also made sure that we are going to provide for student debt relief. You have 70% of African-Americans received Pell Grants. And what I’ve done, I’ve forgiving loans of $10,000 for every eligible borrower, an additional ten if you had a Pell grant. And and you know those historic resources support. I’ve also put in $6 billion for HBCUs for a simple reason. You know, the students at Black universities are extremely qualified, qualified as anybody at any other university. But because they don’t have great endowments, they don’t have these significant laboratories that teach every the technical things that they need to be taught. And so this allows these universities to build these facilities so that now you graduate and you have the same training as you, whether you want to went to Harvard or you went to, you know, any other state university. And in addition to that, I kept my commitment. And I’m really excited about the fact we have the first Black Supreme Court justice.

RICKEY SMILEY: Yes.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Ketanji Brown Jackson is she is really something else. You’re going to be really pleased with her. I’ve appointed more female Black Americans to the to the courts, to the federal bench than–.

RICKEY SMILEY: Yes.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I believe every other president combined. And so, look, there’s a lot. And by the way, you know, we now have a national holiday because I made sure that we’re going to deal with what we said we were going to deal with. But the things that I think make the biggest difference, Rickey, that people haven’t noticed, I mean, there’s not obvious is, for example, on vaccinations, I made sure that we went exactly where the Black community is so they weren’t left behind. So the number of percentage of African-Americans receiving their COVID shots is as high, in some cases higher than all other Americans. Because they didn’t want them being left behind. We went to their communities to make sure that the docs were available to give them what they needed. So, you know, listen, we were with police. We restricted, federally, chokeholds and signed executive orders, no-knock warrants. But I still support funding the police. But we should be funding the police, particularly in Black communities where you have, we have more social workers, we have more people doing the kinds of things that are equipped for law enforcement to deal with things other than by pure force. We have to hold cops accountable. Um, but, but, but we need police officers. I’m not a defund the cops guy, but I am fund them and give them assistance that they need, retrain them as to how they, in fact, are trained. That’s all. I’ve provided the money to do that. So there’s a lot going on. And I feel really, quite frankly, good that, you know, we’re replacing every lead pipe in America, ensuring everyone across this whole country has good drinking water. And I’m sure that South Carolina, anyway.

RICKEY SMILEY: Right.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: But so so there’s just a lot going on. I’m probably talking too much, I’m sure.

RICKEY SMILEY: No, no, no, no, no, not at all. Pretty much answering all of my question, because everything that you’re saying was the question that I was going to ask.

Watch above via and watch the full interview here.