Local politicians are embracing Trumpian tactics to fight election results
07 December 2020
President Trump may be leaving the White House on Jan. 20, but his legal challenges and refusal to concede could become far more normal in U.S. politics.
Why it matters: GOP support for his tactics has been far broader than immediately after the election.
The big picture: Lawmakers in battleground states are providing pedestals for the airing of baseless legal grievances, AP reports.
- Arizona: The chairperson of the Arizona GOP asked a court to overturn Biden’s win. Republicans held a meeting where Trump's lawyers were permitted to claim the state's vote counts were fraudulent without providing evidence.
- Michigan: Lawmakers allowed Rudy Giuliani to testify at a now-infamous legislative hearing last week. One Republican member of the state's board of election canvassers abstained from certifying the final vote.
- Pennsylvania: 64 lawmakers asked Congress to decline to accept the state's electors.
Candidates are embracing Trumpian tactics, Axios' Ursula Perano reports.
- House candidate Sean Parnell (R-Pa.) has declined to concede in his race against incumbent Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) and has joined a petition in Commonwealth Court against the Pennsylvania general assembly arguing the state's mail-in ballots were illegitimate, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.
- GOP gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp in Washington state has refused to concede after the election despite a shellacking from incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee (D).
- Multiple other candidates insisted their losses were the result of widespread fraud. None have provided credible evidence.
The bottom line: Federal election security officials have repeatedly said this election was safe and free of widespread fraud.
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.