Harris Advisor’s Resurfaced ‘Defund The Police’ Tweet Sparks Conversation About Vice President’s Position In 2024

In December 2023, Brian Fallon stepped down from Demand Justice to join the Biden campaign
as Vice President Kamala Harris’s communications director. Fallon is no stranger to political
campaigns, as he was the National Press Secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential
campaign. Following Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid, Fallon became the senior
communications advisor for Harris’s presidential campaign.

Following his appointment, netizens brought to light Fallon’s June 24, 2020, X (formerly
Twitter) post, which stated, “Defund the police.” The post, which is still up on Fallon’s official X
account, reprised the issue of Democrats’ stance on law enforcement. In 2020, Democratic
congressional squad members began calling for defunding law enforcement even as crime went
up across the country.

While the Harris campaign has yet to disclose its official stance on law enforcement funding, as
of September 10, 2024, she has been endorsed by more than 100 law enforcement officials.
In June 2020, before joining the Biden presidential campaign, Kamala Harris had voiced support
for the “defund the police” movement. In an interview on Ebro in the Morning, Harris said: “We
need to have this conversation and critically examine and understand this is not working. It’s not
working. So, this is an important conversation and not just a conversation – cause to your earlier
point, can’t just be about talk. It has to be about forcing change. And this is why, you know, I was
out there with folks and we’ll, any movement, any progress we have gained has been because
people took to the streets.”

Appearing on MSNBC, Harris stated: “Part of what we have to do here is also look at the
militarization of police departments and, and the kind of money that is going to that. And we
need to demilitarize police departments. At its core, one of the issues that I think we should all
agree on is that it is old thinking. It is outdated and is actually wrong and backward to think that
more police officers will create more safety.”

However, after June 2020, Vice President Harris has not spoken about the issue, and support for
the movement seems to have waned, according to a February 2022 survey by Winning The Issue
(WTI). The survey established that only 21 percent of the respondents believed in the statement
“defund the police.” This was in sharp contrast to 64 percent of respondents who stated that they
did not support the statement.

Fallon has yet to retract his post or issue a statement regarding the post, and it is unclear if his
sentiments are echoed by the Harris campaign or not.