Harris said in 2020: “We need to divert resources from the police”

In the days since President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy for re-election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has cited her past as a prosecutor as a key reason why she has the best chance of defeating former President Donald Trump.

“In those roles, I’ve dealt with all kinds of offenders: sex offenders who abused women, fraudsters who defrauded consumers, scammers who broke the rules for their own benefit,” Harris said, referring to her time as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney. “So listen to me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

But since Harris emerged as a likely Democratic presidential nominee, she has come under renewed fire for her past comments on the “defund the police” movement. This could complicate her political argument as she positions herself as a prosecutor who can present the case to a candidate who was found guilty on 34 counts earlier this year and faces numerous unresolved legal questions.

In the summer of 2020, shortly after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Harris gave a series of interviews amid nationwide protests for police reform, at times expressing support for some of the ideas behind the “defund the police” movement and calling for a “reimagining” of policing across the country.

In one of the interviews, a June 10, 2020, radio segment that has been viewed just over 5,000 times on YouTube, Harris told Power 106 Los Angeles host Nick Cannon that she believes “we need to redirect resources” from police to other areas of government, mentioning schools and small businesses.

Cannon, a well-known actor who also hosts a radio show called “Nick Cannon Mornings,” told Harris in the interview, “But I’m a Howard graduate and I’m committed to abolishing slavery – you know, but I have this abolitionist spirit, so why do we need law enforcement at all? … I’m enthusiastic about some of the measures we could take to improve policing, but I think we should abolish the police altogether.”

Harris responded by saying she believes “we need to reimagine public safety in America,” arguing that “for far too long, people have confused public safety with putting more cops on the streets.”

“So when we talk about policing, I think of it in many ways, and there is that we need to redirect resources,” Harris said. “And Nick, you may know that in many cities in America, over a third of the city budget is spent on police. … At the same time, schools are suffering.”

“We need to talk about redirecting resources to where they are really needed to support the health and therefore safety of communities,” Harris added.

Harris also used the interview to promote the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill the vice president co-authored in 2020 while she was still in the Senate. It aimed to combat racial profiling and the use of deadly force. The bill passed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in 2021 but stalled in the Senate over the issue of limited immunity for officers.

The bill did not defund law enforcement, which some progressive activists criticized at the time.

In a statement to ABC News, Harris campaign spokesman James Singer said, “The only presidential candidate who has ever advocated for defunding police or cutting funding for law enforcement is convicted felon Donald Trump. Vice President Harris has spent years pursuing criminals and seeking justice for victims and supports increasing funding to protect our communities and hold convicted felons like Trump accountable – which is why America is currently experiencing a nearly 50-year low in violent crime.”

The “defund the police” movement rose to popularity in the summer of 2020 amid nationwide outrage over the deaths of Floyd and other Black people at the hands of police. Many members of the movement advocated for reallocating funds from police departments to community policing and organizations like health centers and schools to invest in underserved communities and combat systemic racism. Other activists went a step further, equating defunding with abolishing police departments.

Harris’ 2020 comments about diverting funds from policing appear to mark a shift in the then-senator’s views on policing. In her 2009 book, Smart on Crime, Harris — then serving as San Francisco district attorney — argued that having more cops on the streets made communities feel safer.

“A more visible and strategic police presence deters crime and has a positive impact on a community. Nearly all law-abiding citizens feel safer when they see police on patrol. This is true in economically poor neighborhoods as well as affluent ones,” Harris wrote, arguing for an expansion of the police’s role in crime prevention.

In 2009, Harris explicitly opposed the idea that poor communities resisted increased police presence.

“It is widely believed that poor communities, particularly poor African Americans and Latinos, view the police as the enemy and do not want police officers in their neighborhoods,” Harris wrote. “In fact, the opposite is true.”

Harris’ newly surfaced 2020 interview follows a report by CNN KFile detailing Harris’ numerous comments about the “defund the police” movement from the summer of 2020. The Biden and Harris campaign team distanced themselves from that movement after she was selected as Biden’s running mate.

In a separate radio interview in 2020, the day before her conversation with Cannon, Harris was asked about the “defund the police” movement and said it was “rightly” critical of how much of the public budget was spent on law enforcement compared to other areas such as education.

“This whole movement is about rightly saying we need to look at these budgets and find out if they reflect the right priorities,” Harris told the hosts of “Ebro in the Morning” on June 9, 2020. Harris also said, according to the CNN report, that U.S. cities are “militarizing the police” but “defunding public schools.”

In an interview with “Good Morning America” ​​in 2020, Harris told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos a day earlier, “We have to stop the militarization of the police, we have to stop that” – but also added, “Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re abolishing the police.”

Stephanopoulos then urged Harris to propose a seat in her home state.

“Does that mean you support proposals like the one in Los Angeles, where Mayor Eric Garcetti said some of the money available to police – about $150 million – should be invested in health and education initiatives for youth?” asked Stephanopoulos.

“I support investing in communities to make them healthier and therefore safer,” Harris replied. “The problem in America right now is that many cities spend over a third of their entire city budget on police. At the same time, we have been cutting public schools in America for years.”

“I applaud Eric Garcetti for what he has done,” Harris said.

Two months later, in August 2020, Harris was selected as Biden’s running mate, and in the general election, the issue of defunding police emerged as a central line of attack in Trump’s re-election campaign.

In the run-up to Election Day 2020, the Biden/Harris team released a statement distancing themselves from Harris’ “Defund the Police” movement.

“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support cutting police funding, and it is a lie to say otherwise,” said Harris’ then-press secretary Sabrina Singh. “Throughout her career, Senator Harris has supported increasing funding for police departments and increasing funding for community policing.”

In November 2023, the administration announced more than $334 million in Justice Department grants to hire more than 1,730 police officers as part of an initiative to reduce crime in the United States.

In her first interview as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, Biden was asked if he supported defunding the police.

“President Trump says you want to defund the police. Are you doing that?” asked “Good Morning America” ​​co-host Robin Roberts in an interview.

“No, I don’t,” Biden replied, laughing.

ABC News’ Deena Zaru and Tonya Simpson contributed to this report.