President Joe Biden sought to erase all doubt about his stand on defunding the police midway through Tuesday’s State of the Union.
“We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police,” Biden said as cheers rang out in the House chamber. “Fund them. Fund them! Fund them with resources and training — resources and training they need to protect their communities.”
In the process, the president drew a bright line between himself and members of his own party on the far Left, who pushed defunding the police beginning with the 2020 racial justice protests and continuing today.
Rep. Cori Bush, a member of the House’s left-wing “Squad,” tweeted her outrage at Biden’s comments.
“With all due respect, Mr. President. You didn’t mention saving Black lives once in this speech,” the Missouri Democrat wrote. “All our country has done is given more funding to police. The result? 2021 set a record for fatal police shootings. Defund the police. Invest in our communities.”
Black Lives Matter‘s Twitter account responded with a photo of a disgruntled-looking Rep. Maxine Waters.
https://twitter.com/Blklivesmatter/status/1498858833954807809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1498858833954807809%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fnation%2F2022%2F03%2F02%2Fbiden-fund-police-sotu-reaction%2F9339814002%2FBut the vast majority of people in the room stood and applauded, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris, who once celebrated the city of Los Angeles for slashing its police budget by $150 million.
Biden has been working to distance Democrats from the “defund the police” movement, which was never fully embraced by the party’s establishment, for months. In November, the president signed a trio of bipartisan bills designed to aid law enforcement agencies across the country. One of the bills passed the House 424-3, with only Squad Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Bush voting no.
The Department of Justice is spending $139 million in grants to hire more than 1,000 officers across the country. Biden also visited New York City to talk about gun violence following the deaths of two officers and said during the State of the Union that the latest COVID-19 stimulus bill included $350 billion that cities, states, and counties can use to hire police officers.
In December, White House press secretary Jen Psaki even claimed Biden was funding police more than former President Donald Trump did.
In the transcript of the State of the Union, the word “FUND” is listed in all caps. The strength of Biden’s statement and repetitions lead Florida Rep. Byron Donalds to muse that he was stealing Republican talking points.
It all shows that Biden has been paying attention to public polls on the problem of crime and policing, argued Amy Koch.
“The Democrats wanted to nip that in the bud,” said Koch, a Minneapolis-based Republican strategist. “They know the same thing Republicans know — that citizens are just not OK with [rising crime rates].”
Minneapolis became the epicenter of the reckoning over police power after the murder of George Floyd, yet it, too, is backing down from efforts to cut funding. The city’s voters shot down an attempt to replace the city’s police with a department of public safety earlier this month.
Koch said the problem may still hurt Democrats in November even with Biden’s police support, noting that voters will remember that the party did not initially denounce the defund the police slogan. Crime rates have spiked across the country in the last two years.
At the same time, she acknowledged that reasonable police reforms are needed and can be useful, such as improved training, better technology, and reducing the use of no-knock warrants, which are dangerous for citizens and police alike.
Central College political professor Andrew Green feels that the defund the police slogan will not go away but will likely only be heard in very safe Democratic districts.
“Biden was countering attacks that Democrats anticipate in the upcoming midterm elections,” he said. “Republicans effectively used police funding as a political issue during the 2020 campaign, painting all Democrats as supporters of defunding law enforcement regardless of whether the candidate did indeed support defunding the police. Republicans have been laying the groundwork to do so again in 2022.”
Like Koch, Biden is also spreading a message that there’s no reason police can’t be fully supported while also being held to account in the communities they serve, pointing out that the Justice Department has required body cameras, banned chokeholds, and restricted no-knock warrants for its officers.
“Let’s not abandon our streets or choose between safety and equal justice,” he said. “Let’s come together to protect our communities, restore trust, and hold law enforcement accountable.”
