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Racial justice gets top billing at opening night of Democratic National Convention

18 August 2020
Dan Ackermann

On opening night of their awkward but stirring virtual convention, Democrats prioritized racial justice along with the pandemic and the recession.

Why it matters: On issues, Joe Biden's widest margin over President Trump in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll is race relations — a 24 point spread.

  • But Democrats have to show Black voters that they're listening, fighting, and making room for their voices in the party.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser invoked her 2-year-old daughter as she overlooked the new Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House.

  • George Floyd's brothers, Philonise and Rodney Floyd, led a moment of silence early in the two-hour show.

Between the lines: The Biden campaign included nods to white male Democrats, and to Republicans who might cross over.

  • But the focus was even more on appeals to progressives, women and people of color who didn't bother to vote in 2016.

Trump's handling of the virus animated the night's top zinger — from Kristin Urquiza, who wrote a viral obituary for her father, Mark Urquiza of Arizona:

  • "My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump — and for that he paid with his life."
  • Video.

Michelle Obama owned the night, and used a line from President Trump’s "Axios on HBO" interview as a rapier: "[H]e is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is."

  • 'Those five words — down from her seven-word catchphrase at the 2016 convention, "When they go low, we go high" — have become a cultural shorthand for Trump's handling of the virus.
  • Video.

The former first lady encouraged viewers to "request mail-in ballots tonight," and urged them to be prepared for chaos at polls:

  • "We've got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on a mask, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast, too, because we have to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to."

Timekeepers at the N.Y. Times (subscription) say Michelle Obama had the most time (18.4 minutes), followed by host Eva Longoria (12.5 minutes) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (8.4 minutes).

  • David Nather, Alayna Treene, Hans Nichols and Sara Fischer contributed reporting.

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.