Trump tries to link Biden to ‘Defund the Police’ movement
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump embraced law enforcement leaders Monday and tried to tie former Vice President Joe Biden to the “Defund the Police” movement that has arisen following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates responded that Biden “does not believe that police should be defunded” and noted a Biden proposal calls for an additional $300 million in spending on community policing.
However, Biden himself said in an interview that while he doesn’t support defunding police, he does support conditioning federal aid on whether police meet certain standards.
Biden made the comments in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell.
“No, I don’t support defunding the police,” Biden told O’Donnell. “I support conditioning federal aid to police, based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”
Even before that interview, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told reporters, “Joe Biden is unable to stand up to the most extreme elements in his party. They are screaming about dismantling and de-funding the police and Joe Biden has said nothing about it.”
A week ago, a mask-wearing Biden publicly took a knee in a show of support for the protests. And on Monday Biden met with Floyd’s family in Houston.
Great people
On the same day, Trump chatted with law enforcement leaders during a roundtable in the State Dining Room. They universally declared they were appalled at Floyd’s death, as Trump assured them, “There’s not going to be any disbanding of our police” and 99 percent of police are “great, great people.”
Both the Trump administration and campaign engaged in a spirited effort to marry the Democratic nominee to the radical rhetoric heard at protests.
Democrats are not of one mind on the Defund the Police movement, and those who explicitly oppose the three-word slogan do so at political risk.
Over the weekend, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, an advocate for police reform, was booed when he told protesters he would not abolish his city’s police force.
On Sunday, a veto-proof majority of nine members of the 13-person Minneapolis City Council embraced a “police-free future” and announced plans to “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department.”
Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza told “Meet the Press” that her group wants to reshuffle spending away from policing and toward housing and education.
A local matter
Having rolled out provisions for a police reform bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dodged the question of whether she supports Defund The Police when she told MSNBC, “Funding of police is a local matter, as you know. From the standpoint of our legislation, we’re not going to that place.”
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was “appalled” that sitting members of the House — Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY – support Defund the Police.
“That means reducing police departments, that means defunding police departments if not getting rid of them entirely,” McEnany offered.
A recent Gallup poll found 57 percent of Americans – 61 percent of whites, 45 percent of Latinos and 30 percent of blacks – have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police.
The issue arrives five months ahead of an election in which Trump predicted he would garner a record percentage of the African American vote for a Republican.
In 2016, Trump won 8 percent of the black vote – 2 percent more than GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.
Asked about Romney’s decision to march with Black Lives Matter over the weekend, McEnany responded that Romney “can say three words outside on Pennsylvania Avenue” but Trump won in 2016 and he garnered more black votes than Romney in 2012.
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.
