Vice President Kamala Harris backed the “defund the police” movement in 2020, with the George Floyd unrest spreading and Joe Biden looking to select a running mate. She claimed it is “wrong” to say more police officers means more safety and that police budgets should be reexamined.
In a June 2020 interview with New York radio show Ebro in the Morning, Harris said, “defund the police, the issue behind it is that we need to reimagine how we are creating safety.”
“[W]hen you have many cities that have one-third of their entire city budget focused on policing, we know that is not the smart way and the best way or the right way to achieve safety,” she claimed. “For too long the status quo thinking has been you get more safety by putting more cops on the street. Well, that’s wrong,” she insisted.
“[T]his whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” she said, arguing that “militarizing police departments” is “not working.”
“It has to be about forcing change… I was out there with folks; any movement, any progress we have made has been because people took to the streets. And that’s what we’re seeing today, and it gives me a sense of hope,” she added.
Harris’s team is stressing her background as a California prosecutor to make her more palatable to moderate voters. However, former President Donald J. Trump has pointed out she was not a law-and-order prosecutor but “the original Marxist district attorney.”
MUST WATCH: Kamala Harris praises the Defund The Police movement: “This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities.” pic.twitter.com/vVGCRH6FPG
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) July 26, 2024
