The Killing Of George Floyd
- The killing of a black man named George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis has set off a wave of protests in the Minnesota city and across the country. Some of the Minneapolis protests have turned violent, with looting and rioting.
- President Trump tweeted a threat late Thursday directed at protesters, saying “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter pinned a warning on the tweet for “glorifying violence.”
- The phrase Trump used has a bloody history, as TPM’s Matt Shuham explains.
- One of the four officers involved in Floyd’s death, Derek Chauvin, has been arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
- Both former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden weighed in on the case with heartfelt statements.
The Great Twitter Freakout
- Twitter debuted a new feature earlier this week. It has attached fact-checks and warnings to some of Trump’s most egregious tweets.
- Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 election by attaching a fact-check label to one of his tweets about mail-in voting.
- Trump ultimately signed an executive order aimed at social media companies. TPM’s Josh Kovensky has all the information you need to know about the rather toothless effort.
Trump’s War On Mail-In Voting Ramps Up
- The President continues to rail against mail-in voting, arguing that it leads to widespread fraud (it doesn’t).
- Trump himself votes by mail. And, it turns out, so does his press secretary.
- A Fox News host even confronted White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on why it’s OK for her to vote by mail, but not the average voter.
- On Friday, Trump once again said the quiet part out loud on mail-in voting, saying, in all caps, that it will lead to “THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY.”
