Harris on Woodward's book: "I find it so outrageous"
10 September 2020
During an in-person campaign stop in Florida, Sen. Kamala Harris addressed the reporting in Bob Woodward's book "Rage," in which he wrote that President Trump said he down-played the severity of the coronavirus in March.
Driving the news: Harris said Thursday that Trump is engaged "in reckless disregard of the lives and health and well being" of the American people, per a pool report from her roundtable at Florida Memorial University. "I find it so outrageous."
- In March, Trump told Woodward: "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."
What she's saying: Harris participated in a roundtable discussion centered around challenges facing the African American community in South Florida, but she addressed the new reporting at the top.
- "So, basically what we are hearing is that on Jan. 28, the president and the vice president were informed about the imminence and the dangers of COVID-19," she said.
- She admonished the president — "who has the unique and very important and special responsibility of concerning himself with keeping the American people safe" — for later calling the coronavirus "a hoax" and dismissing "the seriousness of it to the point he suggested people should not wear masks."
- Harris continued: "He knew it was airborne that people would breathe it."
Why it matters: Democrats are already airing ads using Trump's own words against him to further convince voters that he mishandled the pandemic and it didn't have to be this way, with 190,000 Americans dead — and counting.
Go deeper: Why Trump talked to Woodward
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.