Show an ad over header. AMP  

Trump ramps up culture war attacks with new sports targets

06 July 2020
 Dan Ackermann

President Trump's attacks are spreading to sports that are cornerstones of rural, conservative white American life.

Why it matters: The culture war that engulfed the NBA and NFL is reaching other major leagues, with teams that stonewalled activists for years suddenly showing a willingness to listen.

Among Trump's targets Monday:

  1. Bubba Wallace, NASCAR's only Black driver at its top level, who Trump tweeted should apologize after a "hoax" noose was found in his garage. Wallace neither found the noose nor reported it to NASCAR — and while the noose had been hanging prior to Wallace's team using the garage, NASCAR took it seriously and called it "real."
  2. NASCAR itself, who Trump said shouldn't have banned the "Flag," a reference to the organization forbidding the display of the Confederate battle flag that was flown by men who killed U.S. Army soldiers.
  3. The Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians, who Trump said would be weak and "politically correct" to change their name. He tossed in a dig at Sen. Elizabeth Warren for good measure.

Between the lines: Sen. Lindsey Graham disagreed with Trump.

  • "I don’t think Bubba Wallace has anything to apologize for," Graham said on Fox News host Brian Kilmeade's radio show, per Mediaite.
  • "I’ve lived in South Carolina all my life and if you’re in business, the Confederate flag is not a good way to grow your business," he told CNN.

The bottom line: Trump is "pitting himself against the Black Lives Matter racial justice movement. It's really that simple. He is going to say that he is for law and order. That he is for defending the streets," Axios' Jonathan Swan said on this morning's Axios Today podcast.

  • The "ugly reality of this election is that in some instances it's going to look like a race war."

Go deeper:Trump's Tucker Carlson mind-meld

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

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.