President Biden welcomes Tennessee Three to the White House

The White House on Monday will welcome the Tennessee Three, the Democratic lawmakers who faced expulsions by their supermajority Republican colleagues in the Tennessee State House of Representatives for protesting gun violence there.

State Reps. Justin J. Pearson, Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson will meet with President Joe Biden inside the Oval Office in the afternoon to discuss the nation’s gun violence epidemic.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last week that the president was “looking forward” to hosting the three Tennessee lawmakers in Washington.

(From left) President Joe Biden and Tennessee state Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson are shown. They are all set to convene at the White House. (Photos: Getty Images, AP)

Earlier this month, Pearson, Jones and Johnson were brought up on a vote to be expelled from their district seats in the Tennessee House after they took to the floor to join thousands of demonstrators at the state capitol building to protest gun violence after a mass school shooting in Nashville.

Jones and Pearson, both Black men in their 20s, were voted out of the legislative body, while Johnson, a 60-year-old white woman, was spared by just one vote. Hours after the controversial votes, Biden met virtually with the lawmakers, who are now known as the Tennessee Three.

“He thanked them for speaking out and standing their ground and being very clear about what’s needed … to protect their communities,” said Jean-Pierre. 

The presidential spokesperson said Biden invited the lawmakers to continue their conversation in person about combating the gun violence crisis. 

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, speaks during the April 18 daily press briefing at the White House. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

During an interview with CNN’s Abby Phillip, Jones said he plans to raise the possibility of the president declaring gun violence a national public health emergency. 

“We need an emergency response,” Jones told her, “because we’re facing a crisis situation.”

The legislators also got the support of Vice President Kamala Harris, who unexpectedly traveled to Tennessee to meet with them and the state’s Democratic caucus, plus delivered a rousing speech at Fisk University. 

In a previous interview with theGrio, Pearson said he and his Tennessee colleagues are appreciative of the White House’s swift support. 

“What they are showing is that this attack on our democracy is a true threat to our country … But also, this issue of ending gun violence is really important,” said Pearson.

“And if we don’t act,” he continued, “if we allow this to persist, and we allow statehouses across the country to continue to operate in this way, we will continue to see a very terrible erosion of our democracy.”

The Tennessee Three (from left), state Reps. Justin Pearson, Gloria Johnson and Justin Jones, stand together April 12 before marching to the Shelby County Board of Commissioners meeting in Memphis, where Pearson was reinstated to his position in the Tennessee House. (Photo: Chris Day/The Commercial Appeal via AP)

Pearson also recalled something the vice president said to the Democratic lawmakers that “continues to stick with [him].”

“She [said], it’s really important that people realize the status quo is not static. It’s actually quite dynamic. It does a lot of things that will force it to cling onto itself,” shared the Memphis leader. “The status quo is quite dynamic in how it seeks to retain itself, and we have a responsibility of fighting against that with all that we have because there has to be a new creation, a different status quo that we built together.”

Johnson also recalled the Tennessee Three’s private conversation with Harris, telling theGrio, “We talked about how you build a movement and grow a movement and keep it strong and maintain it.”

“She understood what we were doing,” added Johnson. “She was lifting all of us up.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is seen speaking in Miami last week on federal funding to combat the climate crisis. This month she also was in Nashville, where she spoke with the Tennessee Three. “She understood what we were doing,” said state Rep. Justin Johnson. (Photo: Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)

Ahead of Monday’s White House meeting, Jean-Pierre said the president was “proud and very appreciative” of their fight for gun reform in the state. 

The press secretary said the White House sees Monday’s visit with the Tennessee Three as another step in the president’s commitment to addressing the epidemic of gun violence.

“It was undemocratic when they were expelled … And it was also an attack on our democracy,” Jean-Pierre contended.

“What you’ll see is the president sitting down with these three legislators,” she maintained, “having a conversation … on how to move forward with commonsense gun reform; how to move forward on protecting our communities, our kids [and] our churches.”

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