Former President Donald Trump said Vice President Kamala Harris “wants to be the president of wild criminals” and that Democrats are at “war” with the police.

“She wants to defund the police,” Trump said during a July 24 rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, his first since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. “Now she has retracted it.”

Trump’s comments were contradictory because he said “want” — as in the present tense, but also said Harris had “backed off on it,” as in an earlier action. He made similar comments several times in the days following the rally.

The movement to “defund” the police peaked in the summer of 2020, following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. “Defund” is not an official legal term and can include closing a police department or transferring part of its budget to social services.

With Harris’ new presidential bid, we wanted to examine her past and current stance on defunding police departments.

Both the Trump and Harris campaigns responded to our question with multiple quote of Harris statements, and we found many through our own research.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told PolitiFact that Harris “ran on a platform dedicated to defunding the police” and that “there is no question that she will implement these terrible policies if she has the chance.” The Harris campaign said she does not support police funding (as Hon campaign told us in 2020) and pointed to statements in which she spoke in favor of police funding.

Harris called for public safety to be “transformed” by 2020

We did not find that Harris was calling disband police departments. In 2020, she called for “transforming” public safety and investing in other areas, such as education, but said the country needed law enforcement. Many of Harris’ comments came shortly after Floyd’s murder and before Biden announced her in August 2020 as his running mate.

In a radio interview in June 2020 re New York show “Ebro in the Morning”, One host asked Harris, “Where do you stand on defunding the police?”

Harris said, “Defund the police, the problem behind that is we have to rethink how we create security. When you have a lot of cities that have a third of the entire city budget focused on policing, we know that’s not the smart way and the best way or the right way to achieve security For too long the status quo thinking has been that you get more security by putting more police on the street.That’s wrong.

Harris said suburban communities “don’t have that patrol car, they don’t have those police officers walking the streets,” but what they do have are well-funded schools, high home ownership rates, thriving small businesses and access to health care.

“This whole movement is about rightfully saying that we need to take a look at these budgets and find out if it reflects the right priorities,” Harris said.

In an interview in June 2020 with The New York Times, Harris was asked about her thinking about defunding the police. She said, “Well, it’s a concept. We need to rethink what public safety looks like.” But she added that “We’re not going to get rid of the police. We all have to be practical. But let’s separate these discussions.”

A 2020 Trump campaign account posted one clip on X by Harris who says it is “wrong-headed thinking to think that the only way to make communities safe is to put more police officers on the street. What we have to do, and what we will do, is rethink public safety.”

Whole transcript of her September 2020 comments show that she said she was not calling for police departments to be reimbursed. She said safe communities also need investment in schools, health care and small businesses.

The Trump campaign also pointed to Harris’ June 2020 comments praising Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. ABC News George Stephanopoulos asked Harris if she supported Garcetti’s proposal to take about $150 million from the police and invest it in health initiatives and youth education.

“We need to rethink what we’re doing with American taxpayers and ask the question, ‘Are we getting the right return on our investment? Are we really creating healthy and safe communities?” And that’s a legitimate conversation and it requires a really critical evaluation and I applaud Eric Garcetti for doing what he’s done.

Stephanopoulos asked, “So, does that mean, the bottom line, that we need fewer police officers on America’s streets right now?”

Harris said that if the country invests in communities, “they’re going to be healthy, they’re going to be strong and we’re not going to have a need for the militarization of the police. Right? We’ve got to stop that. We’ve got to stop the militarization of the police. But that means not that we’re getting rid of the police, of course not.”

In October 2020, we fact-checked then-Vice President Mike Pence’s claim that Harris would “defund, dismantle and disband police departments.” We rated it Fake.

We discovered that when Harris was a candidate for the 2019 Democratic presidential nomination, her criminal justice platform did not mention defunding police departments. Her plan called for increased funding for body cameras, mental health staff and “officer safety and well-being.”

IN an episode from June 2020 of ABC’s “The View,” host Meghan McCain asked Harris, “Are you for lowering the police?”

After some back-and-forth about the definition, Harris reiterated his position about needing to “reimagine” public safety, overhaul how public funds are distributed and invest in mental health, schools and job training.

We also found example of Harris saying she wants the public to have access to the police.

On September 6, 2020, Harris said“I want to make sure that if a woman is raped, a child is attacked, a person murders another person, that there will be a police officer who will respond to that case and that there will be responsibility and consequences for the perpetrator. .”

When Harris joined the Biden presidential ticket, the campaign made it clear that the candidates were not in favor of defunding the money.

“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support defunding the police, and it is a lie to say otherwise,” Sabrina Singh, Harris’ press secretary, told PolitiFact in October 2020. “Throughout his career, Senator Harris has supported increased funding for police departments and increased funding for community policing.”

Subheading: As vice president, Harris has supported law enforcement

Harris supported giving federal funding to local or state law enforcement agencies when she was San Francisco District Attorney, Attorney General of California and US Senator.

The Biden-Harris administration has supported financing for law enforcement. Biden’s budget proposal for the 2025 budget year called for $1.2 billion over five years to support law enforcement and fight crime.

Harris has is supported police reform initiatives including George Floyd Justice in the Police Act, which she co-sponsored as a senator. That legislation would not defund the police; it would make it easier to sue police officers and would require police officers to undergo racial profiling training. Harris reiterated its support for this legislation after death on July 6 Sonya Massey, an unarmed black woman, who called 911 about a prowler and was shot and killed in her home in Illinois by a police officer.

Our decision

Trump said Harris “wants to defund the police.”

The Trump campaign is pointing to statements by Harris in 2020 — not 2024. Shortly after Floyd’s murder, Harris was asked about the “defund the police” movement and called for “transforming” public safety. While in 2020 she did not specifically call for getting rid of police departments, she provided state support for rethinking police budgets and praised a proposal by the mayor of Los Angeles to shift a portion of the police budget to community initiatives.

But one way to interpret “defund the police” is to disband police departments. Harris didn’t go that far — she said the police were necessary. She told The New York Times in June 2020 “we’re not going to get rid of the police.”

Where Trump veers into territory that makes this claim false is when he spoke in the present tense, although he followed his sentence with the phrase “now she’s taken it back.”

When he said Harris “wants” to defund the police that leaves voters with the impression that the vice president and presumptive presidential nominee are now calling for the police to be defunded. She is not.

We rate this statement mostly false.

PolitiFact staff writer Ranjan Jindal contributed to this fact-check.

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