Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson makes nice with Trump after tense phone call
16 August 2020
Despite a tense recent phone call with President Trump — first reported by the New York Times — the most important mega-donor in the Republican Party, Sheldon Adelson, has signaled he is poised to spend big to support the president.
Behind the scenes: Last Monday morning a group of top Republican Party donors gathered at the Four Seasons resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo., for a Trump campaign fundraiser.
The donors gathered in a hotel ballroom, set up like a Silicon Valley retreat, with a yogurt parfait station, according to sources in the room.
- A select few of the party's biggest donors sent aides in their place — and this was the case with casino billionaire Adelson and his wife, Miriam.
- Adelson's top adviser Andy Abboud entered the room late, toward the end of the meeting. He raised his hand for a question, and they gave him the mic, according to two sources who were there.
- "I just want to say that I just spoke to the Adelsons," Abboud announced to the room. "They are 110% behind the president. And that's going to become apparent shortly."
Why it matters: The Adelsons have the biggest checkbooks in Republican politics. They spend tens of millions of dollars each cycle, and the recent New York Times story — which reported that in a recent phone call Trump "upbraided [Adelson] for not donating more to support his reelection" — made some Republican officials nervous that Trump had alienated the party's most important donor.
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.