The White House and President Joe Biden used Tuesday night’s recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin as an opportunity to bolster anti-crime credentials and distance Democrats from the “defund the police” movement.
Biden was the lone 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate to push back on calls to limit police budgets at the time, and, since entering the White House, he has repeatedly rejected claims that Democrats at large want to scale down police departments across the country.
VOTERS OUST SAN FRANCISCO DA CHESA BOUDIN AFTER TWO YEARS
“I think the voters sent a clear message last night,” he told reporters Wednesday before departing for Los Angeles. “Both parties have to step up and do something about crime, as well as gun violence.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced questions about Biden’s comments during Wednesday’s flight aboard Air Force One, specifically if the administration “giving into a right-wing narrative” means Biden has abandoned his campaign promises on criminal justice reform.
“Absolutely not,” she responded in one such exchange. “Criminal justice reform is something that he has supported from the moment that legislators on the Hill started talking about coming together, trying to have something to move forward with in Congress, and again, he signed an executive action on police reform on measures that we can do from the executive, from the federal side of things, from the White House, from the administration, so clearly, he hasn’t given up on that.”
Jean-Pierre reiterated a claim Biden made on the campaign trail that “cash bail has become the modern-day debtor’s prison.”
“No one should be held just because they are poor, and a person who is dangerous but has the money to pay bail shouldn’t have a ‘get out of jail card free,'” she continued. “He still stands by that from what he said on the campaign trail.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
You can listen to Wednesday’s entire gaggle below.
<mediadc-iframe data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1654715754660,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000165-15c6-d22c-a1ef-97efc26a0001","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1654715754660,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000165-15c6-d22c-a1ef-97efc26a0001","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"iFrameEmbedCode":"","_id":"00000181-44be-d590-a5f1-c6bf94000000","_type":"00000161-b425-d761-a563-f7e77e270000"}”>iFrame Object
