Joe Biden’s campaign says he does not support defunding police, seeking to distance him from a growing message on the left that President Donald Trump pounced on to attack the presumptive Democratic nominee, reports USA Today. “As his criminal justice proposal made clear months ago, Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded,” said campaign spokesman Andrew Bates. Throughout the weekend of protests inspired by George Floyd’s death, Trump used Twitter repeatedly to tie Biden and other Democrats to the “defund the police” movement. Some activists have pushed to reduce funding of police departments and use the money to reinvest in social programs in response to the death of Floyd and other African Americans at the hands of police.
The Trump campaign alleges Biden “does not have the strength to stand up to extremists” on the left. Trump spokesman Tim Murtaugh pointed to Biden ally Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s pledge to cut as much as $150 million budgeted for his city’s police. Biden pledged support for the central cause of Black Lives Matter protesters – fighting systemic racism – and proposed policing changes, but he risks some liberal votes if he does not adopt more radical moves. Bates said Biden supports the “urgent need for reform,” including funding for public schools, summer programs and mental health and substance abuse treatment so officers “can focus on the job of policing.” He said Biden supports funding for community policing programs, diversifying police departments “to resemble the communities in which they serve” and equipping more officers with body-worn cameras. A police organization helped Biden write the 1994 federal anticrime law, but now, his support from law enforcement groups is slipping away, reports the Washington Post. He has yet to receive an endorsement from a national police union.