WATCH: Joe Biden Says Trump is the One Who Wants to Defund the Police
Former Vice President Joe Biden turned the tables on President Donald Trump by pointing out that Trump’s proposed budgets have all featured hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to police funding.
Trump has pressed a false attack against Biden in recent weeks with ads that say he supports “defunding the police” and featuring the image of empty police stations handling distressed Americans’ calls for rescue from murder with an automated message.
Trump himself tried to make the same attack during a recent interview, but was fact-checked in real time by Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace.
On Tuesday, Biden was asked about those attacks during a local television interview with ABC15’s Steve Irvin of Phoenix, Arizona, and Biden responded by pointing out that he supports increased funding for police, and that Trump has tried to cut funding.
“You can’t turn on the television these days in Arizona without seeing an ad that makes some pretty outrageous claims about you and defunding police,” Irvin said, and asked “I know you’ve been asked this question many times but for Arizonans watching right now, where do you stand on defunding the police?”
“I am opposed to defunding police. As a matter of fact, I call for putting more money in, $300 million to provide for community policing,” Biden said, then turned his attention to Trump.
“If you look at the president’s budget, this is a real wake up call, look at his budget, he calls for cutting local funding for police nationally, now, in his budget, by almost a half a billion dollars, I think it’s $447 million,” Biden said.
He went on to list, at length, several policies that he supports, and told Irvin that “The vast majority of police are overwhelmingly decent and honorable people. And most of them are embarrassed and absolutely outraged by some of the actions taken place like you saw with the Floyd family.”
Biden talked about having mental health professionals assist unarmed police in appropriate cases, and said “we have to do so much to change the environment so they can, in fact, have an opportunity, they the police, to do their job because they have every right to be able to come home safe at night just like anyone else does.”
Trump’s proposed budgets have, in fact, featured hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to police funding.
Some activists who promote the “Defund the Police” slogan say what it really means is to reduce funding to police in favor of other initiatives, but Trump’s attacks have explicitly featured the complete abolition of police. Biden and his allies have consistently rejected both of these approaches.
One quote that has been featured out of context in Trump’s ads has been Biden’s response to activist Ady Barkan during a lengthy interview in early July. Barkan asked Biden if sending a wellness counselor instead of armed police could have saved the life of Rayshard Brooks, the unarmed man who was gunned down by police after falling asleep in his car at a Wendy’s drive-thru.
During Biden’s lengthy response, much of which is repeated in his response to Irvin, Barkan interrupted to ask “But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Biden responded.
That two-word quote, “Yes, absolutely,” has been featured in Trump ads to falsely suggest that Biden supports defunding the police, but Biden’s published plans and public statements demonstrate that he does, in fact, support increased funding for police.
Watch the clip above via ABC15.
