The White House is trying to argue that Republicans support defunding the police. No, really

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, senior adviser Cedric Richmond, and rapid response director Mike Gwin have all now asserted that Republicans are the party of the “defund the police” movement. Their logic? The GOP voted against Biden’s bloated, partisan “relief” bill passed earlier this year, and that bill included some funding for localities to hire more police officers.

Yes, Republicans voted against the bill. Yes, it included that provision. But it turns out that when you include a worthwhile provision in a bloated “stimulus” without making any effort to bring in Republicans, that one provision won’t be enough for them to support it. Republicans voted against that bill because it was wasteful, bailing out blue states and sending billions of dollars to schools that hadn’t even spent their previous allotted billions.

The White House is trying to deflect from the fact that money was even needed for localities to hire police officers because cities run by Biden’s own party had hollowed out their police departments and destroyed police morale. Portland and Seattle stripped funds from their police departments. Minneapolis pledged to abolish its department with the support of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.

There’s a nationwide shortage of police officers, and it’s not because of Republicans. It’s because Democrats running America’s cities have shrugged off violent riots and made their own police departments the villains in their social justice story. Mass resignations and retirements have hit cities run by Democrats because those Democrats chose anti-police activists over their own police officers.

Republicans not agreeing to throw money at the issue as part of a larger bill that would light billions more on fire does not make them the owners of the “defund the police” movement, especially not when Democrats in Congress and members of the Democratic National Committee have actively called for police departments to be defunded.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Abigail Spanberger weren’t blaming Republicans for Democratic losses in 2020. They blamed the liberal members of their own party. Try as they might, adopting the strategy of the third-grade saying “I know you are, but what am I” isn’t going to flip this issue on its head. It only shows, once again, that Biden and the Democratic Party don’t care about the surge in homicides and violent crimes beyond using it as a political tool to attack Republicans.