(The Center Square) – Vice President Kamala Harris’ kickstart to her presidential campaign last week immediately faced a flurry of references to her most controversial stances and statements, not the least of which was her support of the “defund the police” movement in 2020.
“Defund the police” took off as a movement in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd and the ensuing Black Lives Matter riots in cities around the country.
In June 2020, Harris praised the movement, repeatedly saying we need to “reimagine” how we get safety in our cities and rework budgets instead of spending so much on police.
“Defund the police, the issue behind it is that we need to reimagine how we are creating safety,” Harris told the radio show “Ebro in the Morning” in a clip now resurfaced by CNN. “When you have cities with one third of their entire city budget focused on policing, we know that is not the smart way or the best way or the right way to achieve safety.
“This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out if it reflects the right priorities,” she continued. “For too long the status quo thinking has been, you get more safety by putting more cops on the street. Well, that’s wrong.”
When Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti diverted $150 million from the police budget, Harris praised the decision.
“I applaud Eric Garcetti for what he’s done,” Harris said on “Good Morning America” at the time.
Many American cities saw a spike in violent crime in the months following the BLM riots.
In 2022, Garcetti pushed for adding about $150 million to the city’s police budget, an apparent about-face turn on the policy.
Again in June of 2020, Harris echoed her support for the “defund the police” movement during an appearance on ABC’s “The View.”
Harris proposed diverting funding from police to social services.
“We have confused the idea that to achieve safety you put more cops on the street instead of understanding to achieve safe and healthy communities you put more resources into the public education system of those communities, into affordable housing, into home ownership, into access for capital for small businesses, access for healthcare regardless of how much money people have,” Harris said. “That’s how you achieve safe and healthy communities.”
President Joe Biden came out and distanced himself from the “defund the police” movement during its peak. Later in 2020, when the issue was less popular and Harris was grappling with being Biden’s pick for vice president, Harris’ press team reportedly claimed Harris did not support defunding police.
Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have hit Harris for her stance on the issue. Trump pushed out a clip of Harris’ comments praising defunding police to his followers over the weekend.
“She’s a radical left lunatic, defund the police, all of the different things,” Trump said of Harris during remarks in Nashville over the weekend.
Defunding police never had majority support, and after 2020, what support it did have dropped significantly, according to polling from Pew Research.
“Support for reducing spending on police has fallen significantly: 15% of adults now say spending should be decreased, down from 25% in 2020,” Pew said in an October of 2021 release. “And only 6% now advocate decreasing spending a lot, down from 12% who said this last year. At the same time, 37% of adults now say spending on police should stay about the same, down from 42% in 2020.”
Everytime I listen to Kamala speak, especially about funding the Hamas terrorists or defunding the police, I think of a song on a Chicago kiddie show my kids used to watch but can’t remember the name of the show. Maybe it was Cuddly Duddly or the Magic door, similar to the warm fuzzy feelings democrats offer in trade for no workable solutions. I’ve updated the words;
“Iglehocky TroubleJocky, what’s the need for Jabberwockies, when you have Kamala and her Kamel Jocky talk? No solutions just pollution, panoplied in more delusion, any Dem that’s full of phlegm knows Kamel Jocky talk.”
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! The frumious Bandersnatch!”,,,,like Kamala, the furious Biden Banditsnatch who will snatch your booty faster than a Hunter Pirate in a cocaine smoke filled hotel room.
Jabberwokies are known to gile and gimble in the Wabe, but Kamala’s talent lies in beguiling and gambling with our future. Just how are those Democrat Frankensteinian Social experiments working out for you on a personal level these days ???? They not the cops are the pigs, and WE THE PEOPLE are their expendable guinea pigs sacrificed in most of their failed Socialist political lab experiments.
This Far left, treasonous, destructive, lying, unethical, useless, disgraceful Kamala Harris is condemned by her own words, policies, character and lies. Only a FOOL would want such a dishonorable, self-serving, puppet to be misleader of our country.
Keep in mind; The lies, cons, deceptions, hypocrisy, and treachery of this Lying, destructive, corrupt, treasonous, dishonest, unethical Democrat Party cabal and their useful idiot supporters know no bounds.
Were you and the country better off under President Trump or the treasonous, corrupt, puppet Joe OBiden/Harris?
By the way you do know that YOU are supporting the Biden/Harris’s 11 Million+ illegal immigrants don’t you?
The Radical Left are again putting Lipstick on a PIG !!
Senior Abuse and now Animal Cruelty?
Haunted? HELL NO.
SHE IS PROUD of it.
“…we know that is not the smart way or the best way or the right way to achieve safety.”
We know it’s the ONLY WAY. And Thank You, for demonstrating that releasing criminals without so much as an “I will be good” promise does NOTHING nothing for, but removes, the remotest possibility of achieving safety.
ITS NEVER been about safety.
BUT CONTROL .. PERIOD1!!!!
WE know that. Some swing voters need to see the demo.
BUT will the truth finally wake them up from being ‘swing’ voters this time?
OR will like with obama, the shineyness of ‘voting for the first black president’, do the same with kammletoe?
If I’m not mistaken, defund police doesn’t mean stop paying police salaries and general expense to run a city police force, what is meant is to spend on initiatives and programs that work or are evidenced based as successful for all the people. We definitely need police.