Political Rewind: Keisha heads to Washington; Abrams sticks with Biden; Walker faces controversy

Caption

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms delivers remarks.

Credit: Screenshot/City of Atlanta.

The panel 

Edward Lindsey — Former state representative

Emma Hurt — Reporter, Axios Atlanta

Greg Bluestein — Political reporter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Rafael Olavarría — Reporter, Univision

The breakdown

1. Keisha Lance Bottoms joins the White House Administration.

• Lance Bottoms will be named Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement in the coming weeks.
• Axios first reported the story. Their reporter Emma Hurt brought up how she endorsed then-candidate Joe Biden early on in the 2020 presidential race. 

• The AJC's Greg Bluestein says despite her mixed reputation in Atlanta, she has a different reputation in Atlanta. 

2. Abrams sticks with President Biden despite low approval ratings.

• On Tuesday night, President Biden endorsed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams at the AFL-CIO convention in Philidelphia.
• Abrams’s loyalty to The White House was called into question earlier this year, when she didn’t show up to President Biden’s speech on voting rights in Atlanta.
• Biden's endorsement comes as his own approval ratings are low. 

3. Herschel Walker's campaign faces two troubling stories.

• AJC reporter Shannon McCaffrey reviewed dozens of Herschel Walker’s speeches and motivational talks that are posted online and found that he has frequently claimed to have worked in law enforcement.
• The Daily Beast reports that Walker has a 10-year-old son whom he supports financially but with whom he doesn't have much contact. 
  • Walker himself has been critical of absentee Black fathers.

4. Sen. Raphael Warnock releases memoir. 

• It is not uncommon for candidates to release books during their run. 
• The freshman senator opens up A Way Out of No Way taking about his brother's arrest in an FBI sting.

5. 10-year anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

• The 2012 Obama-era policy opened job and educational pathways to thousands of undocumented and mainly Latino young Americans.
• There were 19,700 DACA recipients, or “Dreamers,” living in Georgia at the end of 2021.
  • Nationwide, that figure stands at 611,470.

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