- President Donald Trump falsely claimed that presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is trying to abolish and dismiss the police.
- The claims were made in an interview with Fox News presenter Chris Wallace.
- Trump paused in the interview for aides to seek comment on the removal of police funds in a summary of a letter between Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders.
- Wallace said Trump couldn’t find any of those statements because there were none.
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President Donald Trump falsely claimed that alleged Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is trying to abolish and dismiss the police in an interview with Fox News presenter Chris Wallace, and the journalist rejected him.
—Peter Wade 🤦♂️ (@brooklynmutt) July 17, 2020
When Wallace corrected Trump by saying Biden was not in favor of removing the police, he became angry and stopped the interview to ask aides to search in a letter on the subject between Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders.
“… and Bident wants to liquidate the police,” said Trump.
Wallace replied, “Sir, not him.”
Trump later claimed that the letter uses words like “abolish” and “disburse.”
“Oh really? It says ‘abolish’. Come on, bring me the letter, please!” Trump said gesturing for aides to bring him the letter.
Wallace later said the president had aides review the letter’s summary. “He went through it and found a lot of things that he opposed and that Biden accepted, but he couldn’t find any indication, because there is none, that Joe Biden has tried to abolish and dismiss the police.” “
Biden signed a letter with the oldest and most progressive Democratic presidential candidate who outlined some more progressive political ideas, but that letter did not call for the removal of the police.
According to New York Magazine, the deal falls short of any calls to abolish the police force, which many advocates have called for protests over the death of George Floyd after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes until which stopped responding. .
The deal between the two teams approved police reform and included things like federal oversight and racial profiling restrictions.
Biden has repeatedly expressed his opposition to removing the police.
“Well I think a lot of changes can be made, period, without having to completely unseat the police,” Biden told Trevor Noah in an interview in early June.
On Friday, the Trump campaign released a press release that addressed alleged anti-police rhetoric in the Biden campaign. The statement was in response to the Fox News story that a Biden staff member taunted police officers as worse than pigs.
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2020
Trump doubled down on his claims with a tweet later on Friday night that while Biden “may use different words,” the letter he signed still “wants to liquidate the police.”
