No matter how many ways the Trump campaign tries to spin it, Joe Biden isn’t trying to defund the police. In an op-ed in the USA Today last month, Biden made is crystal clear saying:
I do not support defunding police. The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.
Biden’s comments on this issue haven’t stopped the Trump campaign from trying to use this storyline against the former Vice President. But today, a correction came from an unlikely place, Fox & Friends. Trump campaign press secretary Hogan Gidley claimed, “Joe Biden wants to defund the police, he’ll allow our cities to devolve into this hellscape, people just looting and rioting.” Here’s how co-host Brian Kilmeade, someone who normally defends Trump at every turn, responded.
Despite this allegation being fact-checked multiple times, it’s actually the subject of a Trump campaign ad. The ad uses a fake 911 call to try to link Joe Biden to the defund movement. It’s an ad that has popped up everywhere from CNN to MSNBC and even shows up during videos geared toward children on YouTube.
We reached out to both CNN and MSNBC to find out if the networks will be continuing to run the ad, but haven’t heard back yet.
The Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact fact-checked the ad today, check out their assessment here.