Defunding The Police: Trump, Biden Reject Calls To Slash Police Funds

Amid the widespread public anger over police abuses of African Americans and the Black Lives Matter protests, there is one thing that President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden both agree on: defunding the police is not the solution to the current law enforcement problems in the United States.

Both leaders said that they do not support calls to cut the resources of the police, which were triggered by the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minnesota police last month. The calls have followed growing public resentment over a history of aggressive and discriminatory policing over many years.

"There won’t be defunding. There won’t be dismantling of our police, and there’s not going to be any disbanding of our police," the president said in his meeting with the police chiefs at the White House Monday (June 8). "Our police have been letting us live in peace, and we want to make sure we don’t have any bad actors in there."

Biden said as much the same thing in an excerpt of a CBS interview aired Monday evening. “No, I don‘t support defunding the police," the presumptive Democratic nominee for the November presidential elecitons said from Houston where he was visiting Floyd's family. “I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”

Trump had blamed Biden and the Democrats for calling to defund the police in a Twitter post Sunday.

As part of his new re-election campaign strategy, Trump has been calling himself the "president of law and order.” It follows that he cannot agree with those demanding to reduce the police's resources.

Protesters have been loudly calling to "defund the police" and shift the agency's focus from public safety to social services, particularly in communities of color and other marginalized communities. Critics have accused the "far-left" of making and instigating those demands.

A survey earlier revealed that 65% of Americans do not support defunding the police, even as mayors of New York City and Los Angeles declared that they will cut police funds and reform their police ranks. The Minneapolis City Council also voted to abolish the Minneapolis Police Department.

Attorney General Bill Barr has also criticized calls to defund the police. Barr, who was himself hit by rocks at one protest near the White House, said federal law enforcement officials are looking into who has been possibly funding these violent street demonstrations.

Biden, however, said in an interview Monday that he's also not for defunding the police but for “conditioning federal aid to the police.” His campaign reiterated that the Democratic candidate is actually pushing to increase the police budget, which will go into reforms and social programs.

Andrew Bates, the Democrat's campaign spokesperson, said that Biden sees the need for police reforms and put the blame on Trump.

"There are many police departments across the country who are seeking to realize these kinds of changes, but haven't had the resources to," Bates said. "The Trump administration has in fact made obtaining those resources more difficult."

Trump's campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh had called out Biden for "staying silent" about the attacks against the police by protesters.

"As the protesters like to say, 'silence is agreement.' By his silence, Joe Biden is endorsing defunding the police." Murtaugh had said.