MINNEAPOLIS — A Trump campaign ad falsely claims that former Vice President Joe Biden is part of a group of Democrats that support defunding police and encourage rioters. The claims in this ad cannot be verified. They run counter to Biden’s public stances on these issues.
Trump Ad
The civil unrest and destruction that followed the killing of George Floyd is the backdrop for a Trump campaign ad attacking Joe Biden on the issue of law and order.
“Lawless criminals terrorize Minneapolis,” the narrator’s voice is heard saying. “Joe Biden takes a knee.”
Viewers see a cropped video cutout of the former vice president kneeling, juxtaposed against a background of the arson fires that burned in the Lake Street corridor after Floyd was killed by an MPD officer during an arrest Memorial Day.
The message being conveyed in the spot is that Biden didn’t try hard enough to condemn the riots and thereby emboldened the arsonists with his support of civil rights protesters who took to the streets after Floyd was killed.
The video of Biden kneeling came from a news clip of his visit to a church in Wilmington, Delaware in June, where he met with clergy and community leaders. He decided to kneel during the meeting in support of Floyd’s family and Black Americans.
In reality, Biden has condemned the riots on multiple occasions.
“Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting,” Biden said in a speech last summer.
The Trump campaign ad goes blames Biden and Rep. Ilhan Omar for the riots, and falsely lumps Biden together with people on the political left who have called for defunding the police.
“And their calls to defund police would make it worse,” the narrator tells viewers.
Biden has called for expanding resources for social workers and psychologist to assist police but has never endorsed stripping funds from law enforcement.
In several network interviews he was asked directly if he supports defunding police and he said he doesn’t. His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, told KARE the same thing in a recent interview.
“We have to support law enforcement and bad cops are bad for good cops,” Sen. Harris, a former prosecutor, remarked.
Biden and Harris do support a ban on chokeholds and other potentially lethal restraints. They’d also like to see a national database for tracking officers disciplined for using excessive force, so they can’t simply move from city to city after multiple episodes.
They also support the idea of withholding federal aid from departments that don't comply those law enforcement reforms, but not outright defunding police departments or dismantling them.
“Look, I want that a police officer will be there for that rape victim. I want that a police officer will be there to investigate a homicide. Let's not accept the false choice,” Harris explained.
Omar in the mix
Why Ilhan Omar? Her image will continue to be used in GOP ads and mailers, as part of an effort by Republicans to argue that Biden will be powerless to stop the “radical left” from controlling him if he’s elected president.
The fact is Biden ran to the right of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and he has repeatedly reminded critics he beat them in the Democratic primary sweepstakes. Biden did work on joint goals with Sanders, but he has described it as a set of ideas and not the “Biden-Sanders Manifesto” as President Trump often contends.
Republicans ad makers will continue to use images from Minneapolis rioting as a reason to vote against Biden, and they are running ads featuring the voices of former police officers complaining that Democrat leaders turned their backs on police and thereby encouraged looting and arson.
Biden has pushed back against that, reminding people he’s currently not in office.
“These are not images of some Joe Biden America in the future. These are images of Donald Trump's America today.”
The president hasn’t taken ownership of the civil unrest or rioting. He has claimed rioting, looting and arson is only taking place in cities run by Democrat mayors.
Mr. Trump falsely claimed during a speech in Mankato that he sent National Guard troops to stop the rioting in the Twin Cities.
In reality, the Minnesota National Guard was operating under the authority of Gov. Tim Walz in conjunction with the Minnesota Dept. of Public Safety, Minnesota State Patrol and local law enforcement agencies. In fact, Walz took heat from Republican lawmakers for not activating the National Guard soon enough and in sufficient strength to quell the crisis.
The only time the Minnesota National Guard is under the authority of the president is when they are nationalized for deployment on a US Dept. of Defense mission.
In summary any ad that claims the former vice president supports defunding police can’t be verified.
The Debate
Biden repeated his opposition to defunding during the first presidential debate Sept. 29 and expounded on his stance.
“There’s systemic injustice in this country, in education and work and in law enforcement and the way in which it’s enforced,” he said.
“But look, the vast majority of police officers are good, decent, honorable men and women. They risk their lives every day to take care of us, but there are some bad apples. And when they occur, when they find them, they have to be sorted out. They have to be held accountable.”
He said as president he’d work on with police and community groups to find ways to improve the outcomes for people of color in their encounters with police.
“These cops aren’t happy to see what happened to George Floyd. These cops aren’t happy to see what happened to Breonna Taylor. Most don’t like it, but we have to have a system where people are held accountable.”
The former vice president also reiterated his opposition to violence as part of civil unrest.
“And by the way, violence in response is never appropriate, never appropriate. Peaceful protest is. Violence is never appropriate.”
President Trump insisted the protests Biden endorses aren’t peaceful because those demonstrations morph into mob action.
