Biden to use Wisconsin speech as roadmap for infrastructure sales pitch
29 June 2021
President Biden will use his visit to La Crosse, Wisconsin, to "cut through the noise in Washington," aides told Axios, enlisting voters to help him hold together a fragile $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal.
Why it matters: This is Biden's first sales pitch since a weekend of damage control after he tied the deal to a Democrats-only push for more spending.
Between the lines: Wisconsin has a Senate seat up for re-election in the 2022 midterms. Several Democratic candidates have already declared, as they seek to flip Republican Sen. Ron Johnson's seat.
Details: Biden will come armed with state-specific data such as:
- One-third of rural families lack high-speed internet, and during the pandemic 82,000 children in Wisconsin didn’t have access to reliable internet for remote learning.
- 1,000 bridges in Wisconsin were rated structurally deficient.
- Nearly half of Milwaukee’s 160,000 water service lines are lead, and the plan's investments in water infrastructure will replace them all.
Don't forget: Press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that congressional leaders believe the most "impactful" role the president can play is using the bully pulpit to sell the infrastructure deal.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly 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.