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Trump's most loyal senator is still on the ballot

13 November 2020
 Dan Ackermann
Data: Axios research and FiveThirtyEight's Trump Score. See our methodology here. Chart: Naema Ahmed, Sara Wise, Juliet Bartz, Orion Rummler/Axios

Sen. David Perdue, whose upcoming runoff election in Georgia could help determine which party controls the Senate, has been President Trump’s top loyalist in the upper chamber, according to Axios’ Trump Loyalty Index.

Why it matters: In the wake of a presidential election largely seen as a referendum on Trump, Perdue’s unbreakable allegiance to the president effectively makes Trump an issue again in the runoff.

  • Perdue received a 91 out of 100 on our Trump Loyalty Index — the highest score among the Senate’s 53 Republicans — by voting with the president 95% of the time and defending him through seven controversies that would have crushed most politicians.
  • Perdue’s score is also the second highest among the 201 Republican members of Congress who have held office throughout Trump’s term, falling two points short of Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.), who topped the list with a 93.

Between the lines: Even though President-elect Joe Biden leads Trump in Georgia as the state heads to a recount, Perdue has doubled down on his loyalty to the president.

  • Earlier this week, Perdue and fellow Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), who's also in a runoff on Jan. 5, called on Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign over a failure to deliver "honest and transparent elections," although the senators did not provide evidence.

The bottom line: Despite Georgia trending blue in a presidential race for the first time since 1992, Perdue and Loeffler’s fierce loyalty to the president signals that they see tapping into and turning out Trump’s base as their most promising path to retaining their seats.

  • If they’re right, it would be yet another reflection that this election has not been the complete repudiation of Trump that Democrats hoped for.

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.