On Monday’s The View, co-host Meghan McCain was the only host to grill Democrat guest, Senator Kamala Harris, about some Democrats calling to defund and/or abolish police departments across the country. Even though McCain pressed Harris twice to answer whether or not she supports this radical position, Harris managed to both evade giving a direct answer while at the same time, giving reasons as to why defunding police departments is a good step.
Co-host Sunny Hostin also cut in to defend defunding the police.
The other hosts did not put Harris’s feet to the fire on any issue. Whoopi Goldberg asked about Sen. Rand Paul stopping Harris’s “anti-lynching” bill, while Sunny Hostin worried that the four officers charged for murder in George Floyd’s death “would not be held accountable,” and Joy Behar wondered if Republicans would get on board with the Democrats' police reform bill that was announced today. Finally when it was Meghan McCain’s turn to question the senator, she brought up Harris’s own party seeming to embrace the far-left’s demands to defund and abolish law enforcement. She asked Harris if she agreed:
Many activists right now are calling for a defunding of the police. The Minneapolis city council just agreed on a bill on this. Right before I came to tape the show, there was a clip on CNN from a Minneapolis city councilwoman who said, quote, “it's a place of privilege if someone breaking into your home wants to call the police.” This is gaining a lot of steam. Nancy Pelosi this morning just refused to answer if she would support defunding 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?
Even though McCain asked her if she supported defunding the police, Harris wouldn’t say yes or no. She did however, give a long winded defense for why police departments should have their funds redirected to social services instead:
So, Meghan, I think that a big part of this conversation really is about reimagining how we do public safety in America which I support, which is this. 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 and to affordable housing and to home ownership, and to access to capital for small businesses, and access to health care regardless of how much money people have. That's how you achieve safe and healthy communities, and so we really do need to understand and re-imagine what and how we can actually make and help make communities safe…
McCain tried asking again, bringing up Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey who was jeered at by protesters after saying he didn’t agree with abolishing the police:
Senator, I hear you loud and clear, and I don't think there's any rational American right now who doesn't think we need to take a cold, hard look at reforming our police, but there was a video that went viral over the weekend of the mayor of Minneapolis being yelled at saying yes or no question, are you for defunding the police? So I'm going to ask you the same question the protesters asked him. Are you for defunding the police?
Instead of making her own delineation between abolishing and defunding, Harris said she needed McCain's definition of “defunding the police.” McCain admitted she didn’t know everything that the left's demand entailed, but assumed it was along the lines of what Ilhan Omar, and the Minneapolis City council wanted in abolishing police departments.
The Democrat senator again backed away from condemning the radical ideas being pushed by her colleagues, and repeated her argument for the “smarter distribution of resources in our country,” which was a nicer way of saying we should defund the police.
Sunny Hostin jumped in to run defense for Harris by pointing out that abolishing and defunding weren’t the same thing:
Senator, this is Sunny, and I think 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 mental health and education and mental health resources.
Hostin quickly asked Harris if Biden needed to pick a black female VP to close out the interview, which was another question that Harris avoided answering.
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