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Biden: Trump is "rooting for more violence"

27 August 2020
Dan Ackermann

Joe Biden told MSNBC on Thursday that President Trump is "rooting for more violence, not less" in cities facing unrest due to protests against police brutality.

The backdrop: The Democratic nominee's comments came after four consecutive nights of turmoil in Kenosha, Wis., following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was left paralyzed.

  • On Wednesday, a 17-year-old, who allegedly was acting as a member of a vigilante group, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in Tuesday night's shooting deaths of two people during the protests in Kenosha.
  • The unrest there follows months of protests nationwide, sparked by the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.

What he's saying: "What’s he doing — pouring more gasoline on the fire — I think he views it as a political benefit," Biden said of Trump.

  • Biden pointed to comments made by White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who told Fox News that "the more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who's best on public safety and law and order."
  • Biden also said he would consider visiting Kenosha: What I don’t want to do is become part of the problem. ... If I were president, I would be going. If I went, I would be trying to pull together the Black community as well as the white community."

Worth noting: He also shot down House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's suggestion that he should refuse to debate Trump.

  • "As long as the commission continues down the straight and narrow. I am going to debate him. ... I am going to be a fact-checker on the floor."

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.