Kamala Harris addresses "birther" smears: "They're going to engage in lies"
17 August 2020
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) addressed a baseless conspiracy theory pushed by a Trump campaign official and others claiming she may be ineligible for the vice presidency because both her parents weren't naturalized citizens at her birth.
What she's saying: "They're going to engage in lies, they're going to engage in deception, they’re going to engage in an attempt to distract from the real issues that are impacting the American people,” the California-born senator told The Grio in an interview published Sunday.
- "And I expect they will engage in dirty tactics and this is going to be a knock-down, drag-out and we're ready," the first woman of color on a presidential ticket added.
Driving the news: Trump campaign senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis shared a Newsweek op-ed last Thursday making the debunked claim that Harris was ineligible. The article was widely denounced as a fresh attempt at "birtherism" — the racist conspiracy theory circa 2008 that accused then-President Obama of not being born in the U.S.
- Newsweek added an editor's note on Friday night apologizing for the article, written by John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University.
- President Trump told reporters Saturday his campaign would "not be pursuing" the claim, but he refused to say affirmatively that Harris is, in fact. eligible, Axios' Jacob Knutson notes.
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.