Does Joe Biden Want to ‘Defund the Police’?
No. His campaign website has long called for further funding to increase diversity and add oversight.
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President Trump and his campaign have repeatedly claimed that Joe Biden wants to defund the police on Twitter and in campaign emails:
Biden’s rapid response director Andrew Bates said in a statement on Monday that Biden does not want to defund police and instead wants to reform the police. In a clip from an interview with CBS that was released later that day, Biden himself said, “No, I don't support defunding the police. 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.”
While the interview came after Trump’s Twitter accusations, Biden’s “Plan for Strengthening America’s Commitment to Justice” on his campaign website has for some time stated that Biden supports further funding of police departments to increase racial diversity in departments and add further oversight. The Wayback Machine first archived the page in July 2019. The relevant section of his website outlines Biden’s plan as follows:
Reinvigorate community-oriented policing. Policing works best when officers are out of their cruisers and walking the streets, engaging with and getting to know members of their communities. But in order to do that, police departments need resources to hire a sufficient number of officers. Biden spearheaded the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which authorized funding both for the hiring of additional police officers and for training on how to undertake a community policing approach. However, the program has never been funded to fulfill the original vision for community policing. Biden will reinvigorate the COPS program with a $300 million investment. As a condition of the grant, hiring of police officers must mirror the racial diversity of the community they serve. Additionally, as president, Biden will establish a panel to scrutinize what equipment is used by law enforcement in our communities.
Given the Biden campaign’s spokesman statement, Biden’s statement, and Biden’s long-stated position on additional funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services, there is nothing currently to support Trump’s claim that the Democratic presidential nominee wants to defund police.
If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.
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In two of the three tweets, Trump makes it clear that he's saying Biden won't have a choice because of his party. Obviously, that's a debatable question, but it can't be fact checked.
If there was only the middle tweet, this piece would make sense, but taken together, I don't think you can reasonably make the claim that Biden's policy position actually contradicts what Trump said.
What are you people doing? "Does Joe Biden Want to 'Defund the Police'?" might be a question worth asking. However, it is irrelevant to what Trump said. Trump did not comment on whether Biden wants to 'defund the police." As your article reports, Trump said, "Not only will Sleepy Joe Biden DEFUND THE POLICE, but he will DEFUND OUR MILITARY! He has no choice, the Dems are controlled by the Radical Left."
The relevant question is, "Will Joe Biden have no choice but to support defunding the police because of the influence of the radical left on his party?"
Of course, you cannot prove that Trump is wrong or right in his belief about what Biden will be forced to do. That might be a reason not to comment on Trump's speculations, but it is not a reason to imply that he said something he didn't in order to declare that the thing you errantly implied he said was false.
Asking and answering irrelevant questions is deceptive, misleading, and irresponsible. Please quit doing that.