Sen. Bernie Sanders, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, claimed “nobody” he knows talks about the need to defund the police.
Tapper began by mentioning how Democrats have suggested that pushing progressive policies in the Georgia Senate runoffs could hurt their candidates.
He cited House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) who recently said, if “we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we’re not going to win.”
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Sanders sought to change the narrative.
“Let’s rephrase that,” he insisted. “Nobody I know who’s running for office talks about defunding the police.”
“What we talk about is making police officers accountable,” Sanders added, offering up several examples. “That is not defund the police.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders: "Nobody I know who's running for office talks about defunding the police — what we talk about is making police officers accountable." pic.twitter.com/b80r0Bys9n
— The Hill (@thehill) November 15, 2020
But Sanders seems to be overlooking the fact his comrades on the far Left and bullish about defunding the police. His BFF and closest policy ally in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has explicitly and frequently argued in favor of the “defund the police” movement. When New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced he had cut $1 billion from the NYPD budget, she complained that wasn’t enough.
“Defunding the police means defunding police,” she said “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math.”
She reiterated her calls for defunding the police after the election. “I believe the path toward justice is a long arc. Safety is not just an officer with a badge and a gun,” she claimed at a virtual town hall, adding, “Our [police budget] is too high.”
Ocasio-Cortez is not the only member of “Bernie’s Angels” to spoken vociferously in favor of defunding the police. “I will never cosign on funding a police department that continues to brutalize us,” “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said of the Minneapolis Police Department.
When this whole thing fails, take note that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar also supports the dismantling of the Minneapolis Police Department. pic.twitter.com/cW3O745oq5
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) June 8, 2020
As for political candidates running on the platform of dismantling police departments, again the Squad has made its thoughts quite clear. Over the summer, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced the BREATHE Act with great fanfare.
The legislation was developed and written by the Electoral Justice Project for the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a group that seeks to “abandon” police, prisons, and any form of punishment for lawbreakers.
Rep. Tlaib supports BREATHE Act, includes defunding police, reparations, universal basic income https://t.co/ZbAWa6XoHD
— Detroit Metro Times (@metrotimes) July 9, 2020
Sanders stated an obvious and easily verified lie and Tapper, helping to spread that lie, didn’t push back on it one bit.
Cross posted at the Mental Recession
