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Barack Obama: I do not take Trump “personally or seriously”

15 November 2020
 Dan Ackermann

Former President Obama told "CBS Sunday Morning" that he often does not take President Trump "personally or seriously."

What's new: In his first television interview since the 2020 presidential election, Obama responded to Trump's claim that he has "done more for the African-American community than any president since Abraham Lincoln."

  • "I think it's fair to say that there are many things he says that I do not take personally or seriously — although I think they can often be destructive and harmful," Obama said.

Obama said it "has been disappointing" to see few Republicans stand up to Trump as he refuses to concede the election he lost to President-elect Biden.

  • "But it's been sort of par-for-the-course during these four years. They obviously didn’t think there was any fraud going on cause they didn’t say anything about it for the first two days."
  • "But there's damage to this because what happens is that the peaceful transfer of power, the notion that any of us who attain an elected office, whether it's dogcatcher or president, are servants of the people. It's a temporary job. We're not above the rules. We're not above the law. That's the essence of our democracy."

The bottom line: Obama defended the times he attacked Trump personally while on the campaign trail for Biden, saying he was simply repeating Trumps' words.

  • "I think we were in a circumstance in this election in which certain norms, certain institutional values — that are so extraordinarily important, had been breached. That it was important for me, as somebody who had served in that office, to simply let people know: 'This is not normal.'"

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.