Jen Psaki Nails Hypocrisy of Trump’s ‘Back the Blue’ Allies: ‘They Are the Ones Who Want to Defund Law Enforcement’ (Video)
10.04.2023 - 22:11
/ thewrap.com
Jen Psaki spotlighted Sunday the changing talking points, and even hypocrisies, of several Donald Trump-supporting, MAGA Republicans when it comes to defunding the police. The five-minute “Inside With Jen Psaki” segment breaks down how, despite many elected officials rallying around “backing the blue” and heralding “law and order” in the 2020 aftershocks of George Floyd’s murder, the likes of House representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan — and even Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis — have changed their tune since Trump’s indictment. “After all their outrage and fear mongering, they are the ones who want to defund law enforcement,” Psaki argued on her namesake MSNBC program.
The segment began by highlighting how the Republican Party first began portraying itself as the “defenders of law and order while portraying Democrats as soft on crime” during the Nixon administration. Such messaging was echoed in Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns and by his political allies in response to Floyd’s death.
Meanwhile, many Democrats at the time were calling for the reallotment of police funds and other social services to better combat police violence — an initiative that boiled down to protestors’ chant to “defund the police.” At the time, Greene called it a “Democrat war on police,” and in a video called up by Psaki, Gaetz is shown claiming, “They’ll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home, and invite MS13 to live next door, and the police aren’t coming when you call, and in Democrat-run cities, they’re already being defunded, disbanded.”Of course, Psaki poked some holes in Trump’s call for “law and order,” considering he stands as the first and only president to ever be indicted. “Ironically, the
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