Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump met for the first time at the presidential debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Sept. 10. VERIFY analyzed multiple claims from both Harris and Trump on debate night.
During the debate, Trump claimed Harris “has a plan to defund the police.”
The former president and others on social media have shared the same claim since Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July.
VERIFY readers Darla and Wayne asked us if Trump’s claims are true.
THE QUESTION
Does Vice President Kamala Harris have a plan to defund the police?
THE SOURCES
- The View interview with Sen. Kamala Harris on June 8, 2020
- Good Morning America interview with Sen. Kamala Harris on June 8, 2020
- MSNBC interview with Sen. Kamala Harris on June 8, 2020
- Ebro in the Morning interview with Sen. Kamala Harris on June 9, 2020
- Nick Cannon Mornings interview with Sen. Kamala Harris on June 10, 2020
- ABC News interview with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Aug. 21, 2020
- A statement by Vice President Kamala Harris on bipartisan policing reform negotiations on Sept. 20, 2021
- George Floyd Justice in Policing Act
- Kamala Harris’ criminal justice platform when she was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019
- Brookings Institution
- An article published by ABC News
- An article published by CNN
- James Singer, a Kamala Harris campaign spokesperson
THE ANSWER
Former President Donald Trump’s claim that Vice President Kamala Harris has a plan to defund the police is misleading.
WHAT WE FOUND
Vice President Kamala Harris does not have a plan to defund the police like former President Donald Trump claimed during the presidential debate on Sept. 10.
After the death of George Floyd in May 2020, then-Sen. Harris once voiced her support for “redirecting resources” from police to other areas of government. However, since becoming vice president in 2021, Harris has supported increasing funding to police departments and boosting funding for community policing.
“‘Defund the police’ means reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality,” according to the Brookings Institution. The phrase does not mean abolishing the police altogether.
After a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd on May 25, 2020, racial justice protests erupted in cities across the country, prompting calls by many progressive activists to “defund the police” nationwide.
In the weeks following Floyd’s death, then-Sen. Harris called for accountability and consequence in policing in a series of interviews with multiple news outlets.
She also said she supported “reimagining public safety in America” and voiced her support for “redirecting resources” from police to other areas of government, like schools, mental health services and small businesses.
“This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” Harris said during a June 9, 2020, interview with the hosts of Hot 97’s “Ebro in the Morning” radio show.
But Harris never outright called for police departments to be defunded. Instead, she has long supported police reform initiatives that have increased funding to police departments and legislation to hold police accountable. For example, as a senator, she co-sponsored the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would make it easier to sue officers and require police officers to complete racial profiling training.
In October 2020, a few months after Harris became President Joe Biden’s running mate, Harris’ then-press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement that the Biden-Harris campaign did not have plans to defund the police.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support defunding the police, and it is a lie to suggest otherwise,” Singh said. “Throughout her career, Sen. Harris has supported increasing funding to police departments and boosting funding for community policing.”
Since Biden and Harris have been in office, they’ve both supported providing funding and resources to support accountable community policing and community violence interventions.
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed in 2021 by a Democratic-led Congress and signed by Biden, contained over $15 billion for policing, public safety and violence prevention. Many state and local governments have invested those funds to support additional police officers, expand community violence intervention, add crisis responders and reduce gun violence, according to the White House.
VERIFY also reached out to the Harris campaign and they said the vice president does not support defunding the police.
“Vice President Harris spent years prosecuting criminals and getting justice for victims, and has supported increased funding to keep our communities safe and hold convicted felons like Trump accountable – which is why America is currently seeing a near 50-year low in violent crime,” Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer told VERIFY.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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