Pelosi rips GOP over COVID talks: "Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn"
06 August 2020
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore into her Republican colleagues on Thursday for their approach to negotiating the next coronavirus stimulus package, telling CNBC's Jim Cramer: "Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn."
Why it matters: Democrats and the Trump administration have not agreed to any "top-line numbers" and remain "trillions of dollars apart," White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters on Thursday.
- Pelosi, who has led a united House Democratic caucus that passed a $3 trillion relief package in May, has been "almost entirely unyielding in her demands," Politico reports.
- Republicans, meanwhile, remain divided — with at least 20 GOP senators unlikely to vote for any coronavirus stimulus package, no matter the price tag.
The exchange:
CRAMER: "Why can't you go across the aisle and say, Rep. Lewis, civil rights legend, would have loved it if we could do something for the totally disenfranchised in this country. Can we give a huge chunk of money to the people who are disenfranchised, to the minorities who want so badly to stay in business and can't? And the people who are trying to go to college or who have student loans who are minorities, who are the most affected because they have the least chance in our country? That's gotta be something that both sides can agreed to.
PELOSI: "Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn, for what you just described. That's the problem. See the thing is, they don't believe in governance. And that requires some acts of governance to do that
The big picture: Another 1.2 million people filed for initial unemployment claims last week, even as the extra $600 weekly unemployment benefit from the CARES Act expired.
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.