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Data: Federal Judicial Center, U.S. Courts; Note: Trump data is through Dec. 1, 2002; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios

President Trump’s astounding record of judicial appointments will not only reshape the judiciary for a generation, but it will likely deny President-elect Joe Biden the chance to put much of his own stamp on the courts.

By the numbers: Trump came into office with 17 vacancies on federal circuit courts of appeals, plus an open Supreme Court seat. Ultimately, he filled three Supreme Court seats and appointed 54 circuit-court judges in just one term — the Senate confined the 54th, a replacement for Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the 7th Circuit, just this week. President Obama got a grand total of 55 during his two terms.

  • The appointments will be the outgoing president's most lasting, substantive legacy.

What’s next: There are now only two appellate vacancies awaiting the president-elect, and he will have no realistic chance of changing the ideological balance on the Supreme Court, currently split with a 6-3 conservative majority.

  • There are 47 vacancies in federal district courts. If Democrats control the Senate, Biden may be able to fill many of those openings.
  • But those judges’ rulings would then be appealed to circuit courts now stocked with Trump appointees, and from there to the Supreme Court, with its expanded conservative majority.

Between the lines: If Republicans end up controlling the Senate, Biden can forget about filling almost any important judgeships, especially with progressive or polarizing nominees. But his judicial legacy will be constrained even if Democrats take the Senate.

  • Without a backlog of vacancies to begin with, Biden will only be able to fill openings that arise while he’s president.
  • That means he’ll probably be largely limited to replacing liberal judges — and in a 50-50 Senate, he’ll have to make safe picks to avoid losing the support of moderate Democrats.

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.