"Don't think" that's her point of view, it's "out of context", she has the same point of view

On CNN’s “Situation Room” on Friday, Harris campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu responded to a question about whether 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris was no longer standing by her past support for defunding the police by saying, “I don’t think so,” and claiming that clips of her doing so were “being released out of context.” He also said that “what I think she was trying to say there, and I think many criminal justice experts would say this is true, is that you can be tough on crime and smart on crime, that police officers are critically important. And her position has always been that you can be tough on crime and smart on crime and that requires defunding the police, but it also requires funding rehabilitation and things that make the criminal justice system safer.”

Host Pamela Brown asked, “I want to ask you about this. CNN’s KFILE revealed that just months before joining Biden’s campaign as his running mate in June 2020, Harris praised the movement to defund the police. Let’s hear that.”

She then played clips of Harris saying, “Defund the police, the problem behind that is we need to rethink how we create safety, and when you have many cities that spend a third of their municipal budget on police, we know that’s not the smart way, not the best way, not the right way to provide safety.” And “This whole movement is rightly saying that we need to look at these budgets and determine whether they reflect the right priorities.” And “For too long, the status quo thinking has been that you get more safety by putting more police on the streets. Well, that’s wrong.”

Brown then asked: “Is that no longer Harris’ position?”

Landrieu responded, “No, I don’t think so. I think, as she would tell you with a funny story, you have to look at everything in context. The fact is, the vice president started out, as you know, as a prosecutor, prosecuting criminals in San Francisco. She prosecuted bad guys. She put sex offenders in jail. She put corporate fraudsters in jail. When she was attorney general of California, she literally ran the largest law firm in the country and, in many cases, the world. And what she was trying to say, and I think many criminal justice experts would say this is true, is that you can be tough on crime and smart on crime, that police officers are critically important. And if you look at her record, with the president, they actually defunded the police.” They are the ones who put more money, not only into the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals Office and U.S. Attorneys, but they also funded police departments with real money and put real cops on the streets. So she believes in cops and understands their sacrifice.

He added: “But I think it’s also true that when you’re dealing with criminal justice, you have to make sure that you can decide whether someone is good or bad, not based on the color of their skin, but based on their behavior, and that when you’re dealing with mental health, when you’re dealing with drug addiction, when you’re trying to find alternatives for offenders who are not serious offenders, you can actually create a safer system. It’s not just about police officers. And I think, in fact, the evidence is there. We’ve seen crime go down dramatically under the Biden-Harris administration. And, of course, it was very high under the Trump administration. And so when you combine the two and you’re tough on crime and you’re smart about crime, you can accomplish both things and make the streets safer.”

Brown then asked, “Okay, but the fact is you said you didn’t believe that was still his position, what we just played. You’ve exposed his position now, Mitch –”.

Landrieu then intervenes and says: “No.”

Brown then interjects to ask, “Okay, so that’s still her position, she wants to potentially move money away from the police department, she thinks that’s still the same thing?”

Landrieu responded: “That’s not what I said. What I said is that these comments need to be considered in context.”

Brown continued: “Is that still his position or not?”

Landrieu responded: “What I’m saying to you is that the statement you just made is taken out of context. His position has always been that you can be tough on crime and smart on crime, and that requires funding the police, but it also requires funding rehabilitation and measures that make the criminal justice system safer. You can do both.”

Brown continued: “But just for clarity, does she want to take money from police departments and potentially put it into community services, because that was part of this discussion?”

Landrieu responded: “And what I said is, if you look at her record as vice president, you will see that she did, with President Biden, defund the police. So her actions indicate that she wants to defund the police, but she also wants to do other things, because those two things, together, will create safety on the streets of America.”

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