Psaki Faces Backlash for Claiming GOP 'Defunded the Police'
WH Press secretary doubles down on Cedric Richmond's claims
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As a surging crime wave across the U.S becomes more evident, the Biden administration and Democrats are trying to deflect the blame by pushing a false narrative that the Republican Party is responsible for defunding the police.
The claims go against the fact that Democrats were the ones who pushed the extreme “defund the police” agenda over the last year.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki doubled down on the claims recently made by Biden adviser Cedric Richmond.
Below is the interaction:
PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS REPORTER: Okay. Something one of the advisors said this weekend — Cedric Richmond — he said, “Republicans defunded the police by not supporting the American Rescue Plan.” But how is it that that is an argument to be made when the President never mentioned needing money for police to stop a crime wave when he was selling the American Rescue Plan?
JEN PSAKI, WH PRESS SECRETARY: Well, the President did mention that the American Rescue Plan, they’ll — the state and local funding — something that was supported by the President, a lot of Democrats who supported and voted for the bill — could help ensure local cops were kept on the beat in communities across the country. As you know, it didn’t receive a single Republican vote. That funding has been used to keep cops on the beat.
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DOOCY: But at the time, that was sold as: These local police departments might have a pandemic-related budget shortfall — not, “We need to keep cops on the beat because there’s crime wave.”
PSAKI: I think that any local department would argue that keeping cops on the beat to keep communities safe when they had to, because of budget shortfalls, fire police is something that helps them address —
DOOCYL Yes.
PSAKI: — crime in their local communities.
DOOCY: But those are the local communities. The White House’s argument was: The American Rescue Plan is going to be $1,400 checks. It’s going to be vaccines, vaccinators. We’re — it’s going to put us on the path to beating the virus, not —
PSAKI: It did those things as well. It was a pretty good bill and piece of legislation.
WATCH:
Absolutely shameless. Under questioning from Fox's Peter Doocy, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki argues it's *Republicans* who have been defunding the police and not supporting law enforcement because they didn't vote for Biden's stimulus boondoggle the American Rescue Plan. pic.twitter.com/pIwfFkonu1
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 28, 2021
Neon Nettle reported that Richmond attempted to shift the blame away from Democrats when pressed on the spike in violent crime hitting major American cities.
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Speaking during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” with host Chris Wallace, Richmond attempted to defend mayors and council members of Democrat-run major U.S. cities where police budgets were severely slashed.
Cities that defunded their police departments have been suffering widespread surges in violent crime since last summer.
“Part of it is the plethora of guns that are flooding the streets of this country, and that’s something that the president wants to deal with,” Richmond said
He knows the toll that violence takes on families, and especially gun violence and what it’s doing over the last 18 months in this country,” he added.
Only recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY downplayed the violent crime wave and doubled down on calls to "defund the police."
The radical New York Democrat claims that concerns raised by skyrocketing homicide numbers are just "hysteria."
During a new video this week, AOC called on her supporters to ignore crime statistics - that show violence, murder, and shootings soaring - and instead continue to push for police departments to suffer further budget cuts.
“The F.B.I. does not release full statistics until September, but homicide rates in large cities were up more than 30 percent on average last year, and up another 24 percent for the beginning of this year,” The New York Times reported.
"We are seeing these headlines about percentage increases,” she claimed.
"Now, I want to say that any amount of harm is unacceptable and too much."
"But I also want to make sure that this hysteria, you know, that this doesn’t drive a hysteria and that we look at these numbers in context so that we can make responsible decisions about what to allocate in that context.”
WATCH:
WATCH: Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls the concerns over the spike in crime "hysteria" pic.twitter.com/MMZ2dlAhpM
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 25, 2021
