Kushner brings back Katie Walsh Shields to offer strategic advice
16 October 2020
In recent days, Jared Kushner has brought back 2016 Republican National Committee chief of staff Katie Walsh Shields to offer strategic advice to the Trump campaign, according to two senior administration officials and a senior campaign official briefed on the move.
- A senior administration official said Kushner made the decision in conjunction with RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel.
Why it matters: Walsh played a key role in 2016 in ensuring that the RNC and Trump campaign were efficiently sharing voter targeting data and working in tandem in their get-out-the-vote efforts.
- Several campaign advisers have told me that they believe this coordination between the campaign and the RNC has not worked well in recent months, especially following Brad Parscale's demotion as campaign manager.
- Walsh declined to comment.
The big picture: The Trump campaign has been struggling for months, lagging in national and battleground state polls and Kushner has been seeking advice and fresh ideas from outside advisers, according to sources familiar with these conversations.
Go deeper: Read Axios' story on the recriminations inside Trumpworld as the race enters its final weeks.
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.