George Floyd’s family spoke to both President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden this week following Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Al Sharpton, George’s brother, Philonise Floyd, said his conversation with President Trump was “so fast.”
“He didn’t give me an opportunity to even speak,” Floyd said. “It was hard. I was trying to talk to him, but he just kept, like, pushing me off, like ‘I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about.’
“And I just told him, I want justice. I said that I couldn’t believe that they committed a modern-day lynching in broad daylight,” he said.
“I asked Vice President Biden — I never had to beg a man before — but I asked him, could he please, please get justice for my brother,” Floyd said.
“I need it. I do not want to see him on a shirt just like the other guys. Nobody deserved that. Black folk don’t deserve that. We’re all dying,” he said. “Black lives matter.”
CNN has reached out to the family and has not heard back.
Trump said Friday he’d spoken to Floyd’s family but didn’t reveal details of the conversation.
“I want to express our nation’s deepest condolences and most heartfelt sympathies to the family of George Floyd,” Trump said during a roundtable event at the White House, later adding, “I spoke to members of the family — terrific people.”
Floyd, 46, died Monday after being arrested by Minneapolis police. Public outrage grew after a video surfaced showing an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck.
Since then, protests against police brutality have spread across the United States.
The four officers involved in the arrest were fired. One of them, Derek Chauvin, was arrested Friday and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, according to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.