Biden is regretting his choices.
Amid rising violent crime, President Joe Biden is trying to distance himself from the unpopular “defund the police” movement, but a handful of Democrats are making this difficult.
Last Thursday, the President told police officers that the answer was not defunding the police; it was to give police “the tools, the training, the funding to be partners, to be protectors.”
However, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO.) publicly rejected Biden’s approach, merely one day later.
In a tweet, Bush stated that “My colleagues keep telling us to wait. They keep telling us defunding the police and investing in communities won’t work,” adding, “Well their policies keep ending up with police murdering Black people. Enough patronizing. Listen to the movements that are telling you how to save lives.”
In a statement, Mike Gwin, a White House spokesperson, said that Biden had been “crystal clear that he firmly opposes defunding the police,” adding that the President had not “wavered from that position.”
Gwin then stated the President’s beliefs which he said meant “more funding for accountable and effective community policing –– combined with efforts to get guns out of the hands of criminals and other anti-crime measures.”
But Bush and a small fraction of Democrats still support the “defund the police” movement.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Jamaal Bowman from New York, Rep. Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, Rep. Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts, and a handful of other Democrats have all been advocates for the movement.
Despite this small –– but vocal –– group of Democrats, more Democrats are following Biden’s lead to avoid being branded as “defund the police” supporters as violent crime rapidly increases.
Over the weekend, Rep Ritchie Torres of New York used an analogy to describe the movement saying, “There’s been an explosion of gun violence, and calling for the police department to be defunded during an outbreak of gun violence is a little like calling for the fire department to be defunded during an outbreak of a fire.”
