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On Monday, President Donald Trump pledged to maintain funding for police departments in the United States, despite growing calls for cuts to law enforcement budgets.
“There won’t be defunding, there won’t be dismantling of our police,” Trump told a roundtable of state, federal, and local law enforcement officials at the White House on Monday. “We want to make sure we don’t have any bad actors in there … but 99 percent … of them are great great people and have done jobs that are record setting.”
Demonstrations over the May 25 death of George Floyd is giving way to a growing movement to make his case a turning point in race relations and policing, with some protesters and some liberal Democrats calling for police budgets to be slashed. Moderate Democrats have distanced themselves from the proposal, including presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was jeered by protesters over the weekend after telling them he opposed their demands for cuts in the city’s police department.
Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump “is appalled by the defund the police movement.” She noted that the President is “taking a look at various” proposals in response to Floyd’s death, but offered no specifics as to what measures he was considering.
