Vice President Kamala Harris was seen shaking her head and denying that she supported the movement to defund the police during the 2020 George Floyd riots, even as she promoted a bail fund that helped free protesters calling for the defunding of the police and praised the movement in a radio interview.
“Cutting the police budget. She's been against that all along. She's abandoned all of that, very wrongly, very badly. And everybody's laughing at it, OK? Everybody's laughing at it. She's abandoned at least 12, maybe 14 or 15 different policies. For example, she was very vocal about cutting the police budget,” Trump said onstage at a debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
Harris' microphone was muted, but she could be seen shaking her head and saying, “That's not true.”
“She was out in Minnesota. Hold on a second. I'm speaking. If you don't mind, please. Does that sound familiar?” Trump retorted to Harris, who tried to speak with her microphone muted.
Kamala Harris-backed “Freedom Fund” brings murderers and rapists back to the streets, but it's still active
Former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris engage in a heated debate in Philadelphia on September 10, 2024. (Screenshot: Fox News simulcast of the ABC News presidential debate)
“Don't lie,” Harris said, but her voice was quieter than Trump's.
“She went to Minnesota and tried to free criminals who killed people and burned down Minneapolis. She went out and raised money to get them out of prison. She's done things that no one would ever think of. And now she's trying to give illegal immigrants in prison sex reassignment surgery. This is the kind of radical left-wing liberal that does things like this,” Trump continued.
Tuesday night's debate marked the first time Trump and Harris appeared on the debate stage together since Trump faced off against President Biden in June, shortly after Biden withdrew from the race amid growing concerns about his mental ability and age.
Harris notoriously posted messages on X and later on Twitter promoting a bail fund for protesters arrested during the riots and voiced support for activists calling for cuts to the police budget.
Minnesota homicide statistics up under Gov. Walz's leadership, tying Trump administration to violent crime trends: Data
“If you're able, please donate now to the @MNFreedomFund to help pay bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” Harris wrote on June 1, 2020. The tweet was still active as of Wednesday.
Kamala Harris-backed bail fund releases same rioter twice, now he's been charged again
The money was meant to be used to pay bail for Black Lives Matter rioters, but subsequent reports revealed that only a small portion of the more than $41 million actually went to pay for the rioters' release.
Minnesota-based Fox 9 reported that the fund has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure the release of a knife murder suspect and a convicted rapist who was facing charges including sexual assault and kidnapping.
The fund also provided bail for a man involved in a road rage incident. He shot and killed the other driver..
According to the Minnesota Freedom Fund's website, their mission is to “pay cash bail or immigration bonds for people who cannot afford it, because wealth should never dictate who is detained and who is released.”
Minnesota man released by Kamala Harris-backed bail fund now faces murder charges
Former President Trump debated Vice President Kamala Harris on September 10, 2024 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Riots and protests spread across the United States after George Floyd died during a confrontation with Minneapolis police on Memorial Day 2020. Floyd's killing reignited nationwide calls from protesters, activists and Democratic politicians to defund the police and redirect the money toward community services like housing and education programs. The protests and riots came in an election year and at a time when the coronavirus pandemic and resulting government shutdowns and social distancing orders have upended daily life.
Harris ran for president during the 2020 election but withdrew before becoming Biden's running mate.
Following the tweet, Harris doubled down on her support for the police defunding movement in a June 9, 2020, radio interview, claiming she was “right” in reallocating police funding.
“For a long time, the status quo has been that if you put more officers on the streets, you're going to be safer. But that's wrong. Because if you look at upper-middle class suburban neighborhoods, they don't have police cars. They don't have officers roaming the streets. But what do they have? They have well-funded schools. They have home ownership, high homeownership rates. They have thriving small businesses. They have access to public health and mental health services,” Harris said on the radio show “Ebro in the Morning!” on June 9, 2020.
Protesters throw objects into a fire during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd outside a Target store near Precinct 3 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 28, 2020. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)
“So this movement is about rightly saying that we need to look at these budgets and see if they reflect the right priorities. In America today, when two-thirds of public school teachers are buying school supplies with their own money, while we're militarizing police departments while cutting public school budgets for generations, we need to have this discussion. And we need to critically examine it and understand that this isn't working. It's not working,” she continued.
In May 2020, the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody led to three consecutive nights of unrest and massive fires. (David Joles/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
Axios previously reported that the 2020 protests and riots are expected to cost insurers between $1 billion and $2 billion in paid claims, making them the costliest violent protests in U.S. history.
After the protests and riots, A surge in violent crime in the country Murders increased about 30 percent this year from the previous year, according to FBI data, the largest single-year increase in murders since the FBI began tracking the crime.
Kamala Harris supported “defunding the police” in a 2020 radio interview, but the Biden campaign expressed opposition.
Demonstrators protest the death of a black man in police custody on September 6, 2020, in Rochester, New York. (Reuters/Brendan McDiarmid)
The rise in violence, combined with nationwide calls to cut police budgets, has led to police officers in jurisdictions across the country resigning, quitting or transferring to departments in more police-friendly states.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Harris' campaign for comment on her denial of support for police budget cuts during the debate despite her 2020 comments and social media posts, but did not immediately receive a response.
Stepheny Price of Fox News Digital contributed to this article.
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