Bob Woodward says it wasn't Trump's idea to restrict travel from China
14 September 2020
President Trump's decision to restrict travel from China in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus in February was not his idea, journalist Bob Woodward told NBC's "Today."
Why it matters: Trump has frequently cited the restrictions as his go-to defense of the administration's coronavirus response, claiming that it saved "potentially millions of lives." But the assertion that the policy was singularly his idea — and that "almost everybody," including public health experts, was opposed to it — is "very different" from what actually happened, Woodward said.
- Woodward reports in his forthcoming book "Rage," that the policy was recommended to Trump by some of the top health experts in the administration, including Anthony Fauci, CDC Director Robert Redfield and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
- Woodward also notes that there were some holes in the so-called travel "ban," and that thousands of people still traveled from China to the U.S. after the restrictions went into effect.
The big picture: "It is one of those shocks for me, ahving written about nine presidents, that the president of the United States possessed the specific knowledge that could have saved lives," Woodward said, recalling the warning Trump's advisers gave him in January. "Historians are going to be writing about the lost month of February for tens of years."
What to watch: Woodward had 18 conversations with Trump for the book, which is set to be released Tuesday.
Go deeper:Trump told Woodward "nothing more could have been done" on coronavirus
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.