President Trump on Saturday accused Joe Biden and his supporters in the Democratic Party of seeking to ‘totally destroy our great Police Departments’ before adding: ‘No way!!!’
Trump posted the tweet just hours before he was scheduled to give the commencement address at West Point, where some 1,100 graduates will gather for a socially distanced ceremony at the US Military Academy on Saturday.
The president retweeted a post from his re-election campaign accusing the Democrats and their nominee of planning to do away with local law enforcement in response to the police-involved killing of George Floyd.
‘The train to “Defund the Police” has left the station and Joe Biden is on it,’ read the post from the Trump campaign.
‘Biden’s allies have signaled their support for the effort.
‘Yet again, Biden is kneeling to leftists no matter how dangerous and radical this proposal is!’
President Trump (left) on Saturday posted a tweet accusing supporters of Joe Biden (right) of wanting to do away with police departments
‘The train to “Defund the Police” has left the station and Joe Biden is on it,’ read the post from the Trump campaign
The president is due to arrive in West Point, New York, where he will deliver the commencement speech for some 1,100 graduates of the United States Military Academy. The image above from Saturday shows socially distanced seating before the ceremony
On Wednesday, Biden wrote an op-ed in USA Today in which he came out against defunding the police.
‘While I do not believe federal dollars should go to police departments violating people’s rights or turning to violence as the first resort, I do not support defunding police,’ the former vice president wrote.
‘The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.’
The Trump campaign’s social media post listed the names of Biden supporters who it claims support defunding the police, including Senator Kamala Harris of California, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, and several other members of Congress.
They include House Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Bennie Thompson, Val Demings, Marcia Fudge, and Barbara Lee.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is also named, along with several big city mayors, including Jenny Durkan of Seattle, Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, London Breed of San Francisco, and Bill de Blasio of New York.
The post also names Brian Fallon, a former Obama administration official, and singer John Legend, who is referred to as a ‘bad performer and Biden surrogate.’
Senator Cory Booker (left) of New Jersey has sidestepped the question of whether he supports defunding the police, while Senator Kamala Harris (right) of California has said she is opposed to abolishing police departments, though she does support cutting funding
Harris, who is considered one of the leading candidates to become Biden’s vice presidential nominee, has said that while she supports police reform, it ‘doesn’t mean we get rid of police, of course not.’
The Democratic senator from California says that the term can have different meanings.
‘The status quo has been to determine and create policy around the idea that more police equals more safety. And that’s just wrong,’ Harris told MSNBC earlier this week.
‘You know what creates greater safety? Funding our public schools, so that, currently, two-thirds of our public school teachers don’t have to come out of their own back pocket to pay for school supplies.’
Harris praised Garcetti earlier this week after the Los Angeles mayor announced he was cutting $150million from the LAPD budget.
But she stopped short of saying whether she supported a full defunding of police.
‘We’ve got to re-examine what we’re doing with American taxpayer dollars and ask the question: are we getting the right return on our investment? Are we actually creating healthy and safe communities?’ Harris told ABC News.
‘That’s a legitimate conversation and it requires a really critical evaluation.
‘I applaud Eric Garcetti for doing what he’s done.’
Booker has also sidestepped the question of whether he supports defunding the police.
House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left) has called for cuts to the NYPD’s budget while House Rep. Ilhan Omar (right) said she supports dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department
During an interview on PBS, Booker accused Trump of ‘trying to weaponize’ the slogan, though he wouldn’t say whether he supported defunding police departments.
Omar, the freshman congresswoman from Minnesota, has called for dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department after the death of Floyd.
She said she supports ‘reimagining the current police system.’
‘The “defund the police” movement, is one of reimagining the current police system to build an entity that does not violate us, while relocating funds to invest in community services,’ the congresswoman said.
‘Let’s be clear, the people who now oppose this, have always opposed calls for systematic change.’
Tlaib, the congresswoman from Michigan, tweeted: ‘When we say #DefundPolice, what we mean is people are dying and we need to invest in people’s livelihoods instead.
‘EXAMPLE: Detroit spent $294million on police last year, and $9million on health.
‘This is systemic oppression in numbers.’
Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman congresswoman from New York, said that the NYPD’s $6billion budget is bloated.
‘It truly boggles my mind how anyone can see a $6billion policing budget in ONE city alone – which is more than we spend on health, youth, housing, and homelessness services here *combined* – and say, “You know what will fix police brutality? More money”,’ she tweeted.
Demings, the Democratic congresswoman from Florida and former chief of police in Orlando who has also been mentioned as a possible Biden running mate, is opposed to abolishing police departments.
‘We don’t have to just maintain law and order and pay no attention to the man on the ground,’ Demings said.
‘We can do both.’