President Trump’s campaign called on Joe Biden to directly disavow far-left activist calls to defund police departments rather than just issue a statement from a campaign staff member.
“Joe Biden cannot be let off the hook after his campaign issued a weak statement from a mid-level staffer. We still haven’t heard from Joe Biden himself on the radical ‘Defund the Police’ movement in the Democrat Party,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement on Monday. “It would have been the simplest thing in the world to stick his name on a statement, but he didn’t even do that.”
The Biden campaign on Monday released a statement breaking with activists energized by the death of George Floyd who call for police resources to be redirected to community programs, or in some cases, for police departments to be disbanded altogether.
“As his criminal justice proposal made clear months ago, Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded. He hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change and is driven to ensure that justice is done and that we put a stop to this terrible pain,” said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
The Biden campaign statement was released less than an hour after the start of a Trump campaign call in which Murtaugh borrowed a rhetorical line from activists protesting Floyd’s death and police brutality to criticize Biden. “As the protesters like to say, silence is agreement. By his silence, Joe Biden is endorsing defunding the police,” Murtaugh said on the call.
He accused the Biden campaign of not accurately portraying Biden’s words.
“We have previously seen the Biden campaign say one thing on an issue right before their candidate says another. Until Americans hear from Joe Biden himself, they have no way of knowing where he really stands,” Murtaugh said. “Biden is the leader of his party, and he could single-handedly step in and steer elected Democrats away from this terrible policy, which invites chaos in American communities, but he has remained secluded in his basement saying nothing. The ‘Defund the Police’ train has already left the Democrat station, and Joe Biden is merely a weak passenger.”
