Harris promoted bail fund during height of defund-the-police push, contrary to saying ‘not true’ in debate

Vice President Kamala Harris was seen shaking her head and denying that she supported the defund the police movement during the 2020 George Floyd riots, despite her promoting a bail fund that helped free protesters demanding police be defunded and lauding the movement in a radio interview. 

“Defund the police. She’s been against that forever. She gave all that stuff up, very wrongly, very horribly. And everybody’s laughing at it, OK? They’re all laughing at it. She gave up at least 12 and probably 14 or 15 different policies. Like, she was big on defund the police,” Trump said from the debate stage in Philadelphia Tuesday evening. 

Harris’ mic was muted, but was seen shaking her head no and saying, “That’s not true.”

“In Minnesota, she went out – wait a minute. I’m talking now. If you don’t mind. Please. Does that sound familiar?” Trump shot back at Harris as she attempted to speak while her mic was muted. 

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“Don’t lie,” Harris was seen saying, though the audio was more muted than Trump. 

“She went out in Minnesota and wanted to let criminals that killed people, that burned down Minneapolis, she went out and raised money to get them out of jail. She did things that nobody would ever think of. Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison. This is a radical left liberal that would do this,” Trump continued. 

Tuesday evening’s event marked the first time Trump and Harris shared a debate stage, following Trump squaring off against President Biden in a debate in June. Biden dropped out of the race not long after amid heightened concerns over his mental acuity and age. 

Harris infamously declared her support of the activists calling to defund the police when she posted a message to X, then Twitter, promoting a bail fund for the protesters arrested during the riots. 

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“If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” Harris posted on June 1, 2020. The tweet is still live as of Wednesday. 

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The bail fund was intended to help bail Black Lives Matter rioters out of jail, but only a fraction of the more than $41 million actually went to freeing rioters, reports later found. 

Minnesota-based Fox 9 reported that the fund spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to free an alleged knife murderer and a convicted rapist who was facing charges of sexual assault and kidnapping, among others. 

The fund also bailed out a man in a road rage incident after he fatally shot another driver.

According to the Minnesota Freedom Fund website, their mission is to “pay cash bail and immigration bonds for those who can’t afford it, because wealth should never decide who is kept in detention and who goes free.”

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Riots and protests swept the nation in 2020 following the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day of that year during an interaction with Minneapolis police. Floyd’s killing reignited nationwide calls from protesters, activists and Democratic politicians to defund police departments in favor of community services such as housing and educational programs. The protests and riots came during an election year, and when the coronavirus pandemic and its government shutdowns and social distancing orders upended day-to-day life. 

Harris ran for president during the 2020 election cycle, but dropped out before becoming Biden’s running mate. 

Harris doubled down on her support of defund protesters following the tweet in a radio interview on June 9, 2020, arguing the defund movement was “rightly” working to reallocate police funding. 

“For too long, the status quo thinking has been, you get more safety by putting more cops on the street. Well, that’s wrong. Because by the way, if you want to look at upper middle-class suburban neighborhoods, they don’t have that patrol car. They don’t have those police walking those streets. But what they do have? They have well-funded schools. What they do have is homeownership, high homeownership rates. What they do have are thriving small businesses. What they do have is access to public health and mental health services,” Harris said on June 9, 2020, on radio show “Ebro in the Morning!”

“So, 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. When, today in America, two-thirds of our public school teachers are coming out of their own back pocket to help pay for school supplies when we have, for generations now, been defunding public schools but yet militarizing police departments, we need to have this conversation. And critically examine and understand that this is not working. It’s not working,” she continued. 

The protests and riots of 2020 were expected to cost insurance companies between $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims, making it the most costly violent protest in U.S. history, Axios previously reported. 

The protests and riots were followed by a violent national crime spike that saw murders increase by nearly 30% compared to the year prior, according to FBI data. It marked the largest single-year increase in killings since the agency began tracking the crimes.

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The increase in violence, combined with the national calls to defund the police, opened the floodgates, as police officers in jurisdictions across the nation quit, retired or transferred to departments located in states more favorable toward cops. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on her denying support for defund the police during the debate despite her comments and social media post in 2020, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital’s Stepheny Price contributed to this article. 

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