No, Biden didn’t play ‘F— Tha Police’ at event. But Trump tweeted video showing he did
President Donald Trump retweeted a doctored video of Joe Biden appearing to play N.W.A.’s “F— Tha Police” from his cell phone at an event amid false accusations by Trump that Biden plans to defund police departments.
Trump shared the video on Wednesday, writing “What is this about?” with the doctored video. Twitter later slapped the post with a “manipulated media” tag.
The actual video shows Biden playing the hit song “Despacito” after the singer Luis Fonsi introduced the former vice president at a campaign event in Florida on Tuesday.
The 1988 hip-hop anthem, which features the lyrics “police think they have the authority to kill a minority,” was banned by radio stations and protested by police upon its release, The Washington Post reported.
The song has seen a rise in popularity after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after now-fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for about eight minutes, as three other officers didn’t intervene. All four have since been criminally charged. Floyd’s death sparked an avalanche of protests across the nation against racial inequality and police brutality.
Trump has accused Biden of wanting to defund or dismantle police departments.
“Biden has vowed to defund the police, do all sorts of things to law enforcement that are bad,” Trump said at an August “telerally,” ABC News reported. “In Joe Biden’s America, you and your family will never, ever be safe. Your police will be disrespected and they’ll be a much smaller force and it’s just not gonna happen. We can’t let it happen.”
Biden said he doesn’t support defunding the police. During a ”Good Morning America” interview in August, Robin Roberts asked Biden, “President Trump says you want to defund the police. Do you?”
“No I don’t,” Biden said. “By the way, he proposes cutting a half a billion dollars of local police support.” Biden was referring to Trump’s proposed cut of $465.8 million to the Office of Justice Programs, which gives grants to hire more local law enforcement and “improve the nation’s capacity to prevent and reduce crime.”
“Joe Biden doesn’t have a leg to stand on regarding police funding,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told ABC News.
In his 2020 platform, Biden wants to invest $300 million into the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which provides funding for hiring police officers “for training on how to undertake a community policing approach.”
Trump has tweeted out manipulated videos and false statements in the past, and earlier on Tuesday, he shared a tweet accusing Biden of being a pedophile.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 8:23 AM with the headline "No, Biden didn’t play ‘F— Tha Police’ at event. But Trump tweeted video showing he did."