Biden says Trump seeks to ‘defund police’ – through proposed cuts



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President Trump is the one who wants to “defeat the police,” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said in an interview on Friday.

“I don’t want to cut funding for police departments. I think they need more help, they need more help,” Biden told ABC News in a high profile interview that aired Sunday. which also includes Biden’s vice president, US Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

Biden accused the president of proposing cuts to programs that support local police, contrary to the campaign rhetoric of the incumbent Republican president.

Harris also stressed that voters should watch the president’s actions rather than listen to his words.

“There is so much about what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth that is designed to distract the American people from what they are doing,” Harris told ABC.

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Instead of cutting funding, law enforcement should focus on removing officers who abuse their authority, the former vice president said.

“There are unethical senators, there are unethical presidents, there are unethical doctors, unethical lawyers, unethical prosecutors, there are unethical cops. They should be rooted out, ”Biden told interviewer Robin Roberts.

Racial injustice protesters across the country have called for the dismantling of police services following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis custody and other cases of alleged police brutality.

Biden told Roberts that if elected president he would call for national standards for policing and make police misconduct records more readily available for public review.

He said Trump plans to cut “by half a billion dollars in local police support,” referring to proposed cuts to a federal program to hire more local officers. Biden said he would ask for more resources and social services support for the police.

“We have to be clear that it’s about protecting neighborhoods, protecting people, everyone in all areas,” he said.

“The only guy who actually introduced a bill to defund the police is Donald Trump,” Biden added, after defending the 1994 crime bill he supported while he was a United States Senator from the United States. Delaware. This legislation, signed by former President Bill Clinton, called for community policing efforts – but has been criticized for leading to the mass incarceration of African Americans and other minorities.

“Everyone forgets that a third of this bill I drafted was to put more cops on the streets, not in their cars, but to get out and know the community – find out who owns the grocery store local, know everyone in the community and the crime will fall, ”he said.

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While Biden has expressed support for redirecting police funds, neither he nor Trump has specifically called for “defunding” the police.

The interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts and David Muir was Biden and Harris’ first joint media meeting since accepting their party’s Democratic Convention nominations.

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