In response to President Biden announcing additional funding for community policing programs, DNC spokesperson Sarafina Chitika released the following statement: 

“While President Biden takes action to make our communities safer by investing in community policing programs, Donald Trump is still hiding from the fact that he tried to defund law enforcement programs every single year he was in office. It should come as no surprise that the 2024 Republican field has raced to follow Trump’s lead, embracing reckless calls to defund law enforcement and further proving that the MAGA agenda they are all running on is not only extreme and unpopular, but dangerous for communities across the country.”

President Biden announced new funding for community policing programs today, the latest example of his commitment to making our communities safer.

The Hill: “Biden administration announces $334M to hire police officers, improve security at schools”

“The Biden administration announced Thursday new funding that will go toward hiring more than 1,730 law enforcement officers in an effort to reduce crime rates across the United States. The provision of more than $334 million in grants through the Justice Department aims to help law enforcement agencies hire new officers, as well as boost school safety and advance community policing efforts.”

Donald Trump proposed cuts to law enforcement programs in his federal budget EVERY SINGLE YEAR he was in office. 

Vox: “Trump said, ‘I love the police.’ But his budget slashes funding that helps hire more cops.”

Jonathan Allen, NBC News: “When Trump was president, he proposed slashing federal funding for local police forces.”

Wall Street Journal: “The [Trump] administration’s 2021 budget, like all its previous budgets, recommended eliminating the Community Relations Services and Community Oriented Policing Services and placing their functions under other parts of the department to ‘improve efficiency.’”

Vox: “Donald Trump is defunding the police”

“President Trump has repeatedly proposed cuts in federal funding for police, criticized landmark legislation that boosted financial support for police departments, and is currently involved in blocking legislation that would greatly reduce pressure on local governments to cut police funding. In layman’s terms, he’s been trying to defund the police.”

New data shows violent crime rates across the country are down under President Biden’s leadership after an unprecedented spike under Trump.  

AFP: “Violent crime decreased in the United States last year to pre-pandemic levels … The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in an annual report, said violent crime nationwide fell by 1.7 percent in 2022 compared with the previous year.”

@AmesCG: “New data from the @FBI: the national murder rate dropped by 6.5 percent in 2022, falling below 2020 levels. Data from other experts (@Crimealytics & @CouncilonCJ) shows we can expect that trend to continue, and maybe even accelerate, in 2023. 

(Short thread)”

NBC News: “But using data the FBI did receive, homicides fell in 30 cities by 9.4% in the first six months of this year compared to the same period last year, according to the council, which studies criminal justice policy.”

Philadelphia Inquirer: “The Council on Criminal Justice, a D.C.-based research group, found that homicides in 21 American cities were up 32% between March and October compared with 2019. And some analysts believe 2020 could record the largest-ever single-year increase in murders in the United States.”

Meanwhile, Trump continues to double down on his calls to defund federal law enforcement. 

The Hill: “Trump calls for defunding federal law enforcement agencies”

Trump: “REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES. THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TOTALLY WEAPONIZED LAW ENFORCEMENT IN OUR COUNTRY AND ARE VICIOUSLY USING THIS ABUSE OF POWER TO INTERFERE WITH OUR ALREADY UNDER SIEGE ELECTIONS!”

Sahil Kapur: “Donald Trump pressures Republicans to defund the (federal) police.”

MSNBC: “Trump joins other Republicans in pushing to ‘defund the FBI’”

Ron DeSantis is threatening to defund federal law enforcement and has vetoed millions in law enforcement funding as governor of Florida.

DeSantis: “They’re never using that number one constitutional power they have — the power of the purse — to rein in these administrative agencies. And so you have something like DOJ and FBI — well, if you never hold them accountable through the legislative process, either through law, or through budget, of course power is going to accumulate there.”

2022: DeSantis eliminated over $12 million in law enforcement resources and crime prevention funding from Florida’s FY22-23 budget.

2019: DeSantis vetoed more than $4.5 million allocated for a facility that would train officers throughout South-Central Florida to handle active shooter scenarios.

DeSantis touted bonus payments for law enforcement that were funded by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which DeSantis has repeatedly railed against.

Florida Politics: “Gov. Ron DeSantis hasn’t signed the bonus into law yet, but the Governor is touring the state to tout $1,000 bonus checks on the way to first responders. DeSantis named those bonus checks one of his priorities for federal relief spending under the American Rescue Plan.”

Newsweek: “While the governor has not made this claim explicitly, the bonuses were not paid for through state funding. They were, in fact, paid for through the American Rescue Plan, a federally-funded program that DeSantis has previously criticized. DeSantis has not been forthcoming about this fact and it’s not well noted in Florida’s budget papers either. …  At a March 2021 press conference DeSantis, referencing the bill, said ‘in some respects, it’s kind of Washington at its worst.’”

Florida Politics: “The money, which will go to nearly 100,000 first responders and police officers across the state, comes from the federal government as part of the COVID-19 stimulus funds, which DeSantis has railed against.”

As governor, Nikki Haley vetoed over $1 million in funding that would bolster local law enforcement. 

The State: “The state budget also could provide additional money for Bikefest security. That money would come from $1.1 million in ‘local law enforcement grants’ earmarks included in the state budget. How much of that money will go toward policing during Bikefest has not been determined. The local law enforcement grants were vetoed by Gov. Nikki Haley, who said local policing should be paid for locally. However, the S.C. House and state Senate overrode the governor’s veto, ensuring the grants will be available.”

Tim Scott voted against President Biden’s historic American Rescue Plan, which provided billions in funding for local law enforcement. 

Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Biden emphasized that state and local officials in areas experiencing surges in gun violence can use $350 billion in Covid-19 relief funding to hire more law-enforcement personnel, even if it raises the total number beyond its pre-pandemic level.” 

Roll Call Vote, American Rescue Plan: “Scott (R-SC), Nay”

Vivek Ramaswamy has made defunding law enforcement a central part of his campaign promises. 

MSNBC:  “Vivek Ramaswamy lays out plans to eliminate federal agencies including FBI.”

Des Moines Register: “FBI? Gone. IRS? Gone. CDC? Gone. ATF? Gone. Welcome to a Vivek Ramaswamy presidency.”

Ramaswamy: “I think that the administrative police state is corrupt at the federal level right now, and so one of the things I said that I would do is I would shut down, for example, bureaus like the FBI, which I don’t think should exist. You have the local level, local prosecutors and local police. You don’t have a large

investigative, administrative bureaucracy sitting in between. At the federal level of the US Marshals and the Department of Justice. I think that reorganizing the federal government in a way that has fewer bureaucracies that are open to capture, and to political capture, I think is actually a formula for restoring trust by putting a lot of that under the US Marshals, which as a strict enforcement arm, don’t suffer some of the same politicized behaviors that the FBI does.”