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Lindsey Graham: "QAnon is bats--t crazy"

27 August 2020
Dan Ackermann

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Vanity Fair that “QAnon is bats--t crazy," adding that he believes the conspiracy theory is "very much a threat."

The big picture: QAnon has grown increasingly popular in mainstream Republican politics, with multiple supporters winning congressional primaries — most notably Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is likely to enter the House after winning the GOP nomination in a deep-red Georgia district.

  • Among other threads, QAnon baselessly claims that a powerful cabal of pedophiles and cannibals within the "deep state" is engaged in a global fight to take down President Trump.
  • The FBI has categorized the conspiracy theory as a potential domestic terror threat.

What he's saying: "Crazy stuff. Inspiring people to violence. I think it is a platform that plays off people’s fears, that compels them to do things they normally wouldn’t do. And it’s very much a threat."

  • "I would like to remove Section 230 liability. That if you’re going to have a social media site like QAnon or anything else, you spread this stuff at your own peril."
  • "So when this guy went into the pizza restaurant in Washington, because they alleged that Hillary Clinton was running a pedophile ring out of a pizza place in Washington. This guy took it seriously, went in with an AR-15 and started shooting up place. Thank God nobody got killed. But the pizza owner under my theory, could sue QAnon for passing along garbage. That’s a pretty dramatic step."

The big picture: President Trump added fuel to calls to condemn QAnon after he praised its supporters at a press conference earlier this month, claiming they "like me very much" and "love America."

  • That prompted Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) to say that "real leaders" would denounce the "nuts" QAnon.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly 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.