Trump's tweet on positive coronavirus test is his most shared ever
02 October 2020
President Trump's tweet on Friday announcing that he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus quickly become his most retweeted and liked tweet ever.
Why it matters: The tweet — sent at 12:54 a.m. ET — set records while most of the nation was asleep, so it's bound to get even bigger.
By the numbers: As of 5:30 a.m. ET, the tweet had already racked up more than 273,000 retweets and 344,000 quote tweets (a retweet made with a comment), making it Trump's most shared-tweet ever.
- At that time, it had garnered over 834,000 likes, making it his most "liked" tweet ever.
- Previously, the president's most-liked tweet was a 2019 tweet announcing that rapper A$AP Rocky was released from prison and on his way home to the U.S. from Sweden.
Note: This analysis only includes tweets that Trump's account has authored. The data was pulled by Axios from the Trump Twitter Archive.
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.