MS NOW Anchor Blindsides Democratic Hopeful with Deleted ‘Defund the Police’ Tweets

Progressive Tennessee State Rep. Aftyn Behn snapped that she wouldn’t engage in “cable news talking points” as she refused to address old, since-deleted “defund the police” tweets brought up during a Sunday night interview by MS NOW anchor Catherine Rampell.

Behn is currently running for the vacant congressional seat in the state’s 7th district, with the special election set to be held on December 2. President Donald Trump won the deep red district by +22 points during the 2024 presidential election, but the Democratic Party is still hoping to take it, even dispatching former Vice President Kamala Harris to canvass voters.

In a late Sunday interview on The Weekend, however, Rampell offered Behn the chance to “clarify” her stance on law enforcement as she displayed several now-deleted tweets from 2020 on screen, in which the Democrat called for defunding of police.

The anchor said: “In 2020, you made some tweets that have since been deleted that were very critical of police. You said in those since-deleted tweets that the Metropolitan Nashville police department should be ‘dissolved.’ Another cheered on a teachers union saying that ‘defund the police should be a requirement for schools reopening’, and another saying, ‘Good morning, especially to the 54% of Americans that believe burning down a police station is justified.'”

“2020 was obviously a very fraught year,” Rampell offered, before asking: “Do you still stand by those comments? And if not, is there anything you want to clarify?”

Seeing the moment as a somewhat of a gotcha, Behn refused to address the posts: “I’m not going to engage in cable news talking points, but what I will say is that, you know, our communities need solutions, we need local people deciding – solving local problems with local solutions, and that’s not the overreach of a federal government or state government of of which we are dealing with in Nashville and our cities across the state of Tennessee.”

“So you don’t want to clarify whether you still believe that the police should be defunded?” Rampell pressed.

“Once again, I don’t remember these tweets, but I’m – what I’m saying is, is that I’m –” Behn began.

Rampell tripled down: “I’m not asking you if you remember. What is your position today? How’s that? On this issue?”

Behn replied: “I mean, once again, I’m here to talk about my race, which is in literally nine days, and talking about affordability, which seems to be the number one issue across the district. Voters are talking about the fact that they can’t afford groceries, that their subsidies are not going to be renewed to afford healthcare on the marketplace. And that is the most salient issue that all of the voters in the seventh congressional district are talking about.”

Watch above via MS NOW.