The continuing protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police have raised a lot of questions about the country’s way forward, and introduced many Americans to completely new ideas.
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Meghan McCain seems to have just recently learned about “defunding the police,” and based off of a segment on The View, she’s struggling with it. The conservative pundit attempted to put Sen. Kamala Harris to the test on the subject on Monday, and hopefully learned a thing or two from the senator’s response.
During Harris’s appearance on the show, McCain asked:
“Many activists right now are calling for a defunding of the police … I want to know from you, do you support defunding and removing the police from American communities, and if not, why do you think there is such a hard time being differentiated right now between defunding and reforming police departments?”
The senator for California responded:
“So Meghan, I think that a big part of this conversation really is about reimagining how we do public safety in America. We have confused the idea that to achieve safety, you put more cops on the street instead of understanding to achieve safe and healthy communities, you put more resources into the public education system of those communities, into affordable housing, into home ownership, into access to capital for small businesses, access to health care regardless of how much money people have. That’s how you achieve safe and healthy communities.”
Harris, who has been criticized from the left over her criminal justice record as California’s Attorney General, went on to say:
“You know, in many cities in America, over one-third of their city budget goes to police. So we have to have this conversation: What are we doing? What about the money going to social services? What about the money going to helping people with job training? What about helping with mental health issues that communities are being plagued with, for which we’re putting no resources?”
John McCain’s daughter surprisingly agreed that no “rational American” could be ignoring needs for police reform right now, but pressed Harris for a yes or no answer about defunding police departments. But when asked to define “defunding the police,” she admitted she didn’t exactly know what she was talking about. She said:
“Well, I’m not for anything remotely for that … I assume, and again, this is something that is new to me, I assume it’s removing police.”
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Senator Harris reiterated the “need to reimagine how we are achieving public safety in America” and called for “smarter distribution of resources”. View co-host Sunny Hostin jumped in to say:
“Just to add to the conversation, defunding the police doesn’t mean abolishing the police. It means taking some of those funds that are typically one-third of the budget of a city and giving some of those funds to services like education and mental health resources.”
(To be fair, many protesters are calling for the abolition of police, and there are many resources you can research if you, like Meghan, need some clarification about these ideas.)
Hostin concluded the segment by asking the senator if, “given the current climate,” Joe Biden should commit to choosing a black female Vice Presidential candidate.
Harris replied:
“It’s not that simple. I just want him to win. He has to win.”
Definitely food for thought!
Ch-ch-check out The View segment (below):
[Image via The View/ABC]
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