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Lindsey Graham says he will vote for Ginsburg's replacement before next election

19 September 2020
Dan Ackermann

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Saturday said he plans to support a vote on President Trump's nominee to fill the vacancy left by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday, before the election.

Why it matters: Graham in 2016 opposed confirming President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, because it was an election year.

  • The senator further said at the 2018 Atlantic Festival: "If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump's term, and the primary process has started, we'll wait until the next election."

Graham contradicted his 2016 statement in a series of Saturday tweets, citing Democrats' treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former Sen. Harry Reid changing circuit-court-judge nominating rules as justifications.

  • "In light of these two events, I will support President @realDonaldTrump in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg," Graham said.
  • There are just 45 days left until the 2020 presidential election.

Between the lines: Graham, who is the Senate Judiciary Committee chair, is facing an increasingly competitive reelection against Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison. A Quinnipiac poll released this week showed the two as tied.

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.