AP FACT CHECK: Trump team distortions on Biden and police
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's campaign team is misrepresenting Democratic rival Joe Biden's stance on improving police practices following George Floyd's death.
In ads and emails this week, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee assert that Biden would “defund the police.” That's not Biden's position. The former vice president has made clear he would boost money for social services and condition federal dollars on police adhering to standards of decency.
Meanwhile, Biden left out some context when he asserted that Trump had ordered the government to slow down coronavirus testing.
A look at some of the claims from the campaign:
TRUMP on BIDEN
TRUMP campaign ad, playing out a scenario where a person needing help calls the police during a Biden presidency and gets a voice recording: “You have reached the 911 police emergency line. Due to defunding of the police department, we’re sorry but no one is here to take your call.” The ad closes with the message: “You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America.”
THE FACTS: Biden has not joined the call of protesters who demanded “defund the police” after Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. Biden has proposed more money for police, conditioned on improvements in their practices.
“I don’t support defunding the police,“ Biden said last month in a CBS interview. But he said he would support tying federal aid to police based on whether “they meet certain basic standards of decency, honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community, everybody in the community.”
Biden’s criminal justice agenda, released long before he became the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, proposes more federal money for “training that is needed to avert tragic,...
