Bill Clinton slams McConnell and Trump: "Their first value is power"
20 September 2020
Former President Bill Clinton on Sunday called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) vow to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's vacant Supreme Court seat before the next presidential inauguration "superficially hypocritical."
The big picture: Clinton, who nominated Ginsburg to the court in 1993, declined to say whether he thinks Democrats should respond by adding more justices if they take back the Senate and the White House in November. Instead, he called on Republicans to "remember the example Abraham Lincoln set" by not confirming a justice in an election year.
What they're saying: "Senator McConnell has said before he thought the people were entitled to a say. I don't know what's happened to make him stop trusting the American people, but apparently when it's to his advantage the people are not entitled to a say," Clinton said on CNN's "State of the Union."
- "It's a power play, and they think they can do it." Clinton said. He added that the political saga that will follow the death of Ginsberg is "going to further spread cynicism in our system."
- "I think it would be good for Senator McConnell to make him feel better when he gets up in the morning if he proved that he wasn't being a hypocrite at the time and he just stuck with his position," Clinton continued.
- "I think all other Republicans should be asked to do the same. But you can't keep a democracy if there is one set of rules for one group and another set for everybody else."
The backdrop: Republicans stonewalled President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland following Justice Antonin Scalia's death in 2016, claiming that voters should decide in the election who gets to appoint the next justice.
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.