Donald Trump said it in an all-caps message on Truth Social Wednesday morning: “REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES. THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TOTALLY WEAPONIZED LAW ENFORCEMENT IN OUR COUNTRY AND ARE VICIOUSLY USING THIS ABUSE OF POWER TO INTERFERE WITH OUR ALREADY UNDER SIEGE ELECTIONS!” The usual suspects are enraged, but really, where was Trump wrong? Do American taxpayers really need to subsidize agencies that have become the enforcement arm of the authoritarian Left?
Fox News’ Steve Doocy illustrated yet again how dedicated Fox is to alienating its customer base as he asked a panel, while grinning wryly at Bad Orange Man’s absurdity, “Apparently today, Donald Trump has uh, called for America to defund the police, particularly the FBI, the Department of Justice because the Democrats have weaponized law enforcement. All right, he — who in this panel, raise your hand, who thinks that’s a good idea?” When no one responded, Doocy continued: “All right, nobody.” The unanimity that so satisfied Doocy, however, was hollow, for he had actually misstated his case.
Steve Doocy: "Donald Trump has called for America to defund the police, particularly the FBI, the DOJ because the Democrats have weaponized law enforcement…Who thinks that's a good idea?"
Fox Voter Panel: *crickets*
Steve Doocy: "Alright, nobody." pic.twitter.com/vQK2AOa70u
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) April 5, 2023
Trump didn’t say anything about defunding the police, a proposition that is associated with the far-Left and skyrocketing crime in our deep blue major cities. Doocy may have picked up this talking point from Old Joe Biden, who has claimed several times that “MAGA Republicans” want to defund the police when the whole world knows that only Leftists have made such a claim.
The sleight of hand is clear: Republicans want to defund these deeply corrupt and politicized federal agencies, not state or local police who are actually out fighting crime rather than trying to criminalize the activities of law-abiding Americans who oppose the Left’s agenda. But calling that an attempt to defund the police gives Leftists a twofer: they can dissociate themselves from the deeply unpopular call to strip local law enforcement of funding, and they can demonize patriots in the process. So for them, there’s no downside. But Doocy, who has locked horns with Old Joe on more than one occasion, should have more decency than to descend to that level.
Joining Doocy in mocking Trump’s call was Rolling Stone, which characterized it as an attempt by the dastardly former president to circumvent the possibility of his finally facing justice: “On Tuesday, Donald Trump became the first former president in U.S. history to be arrested and arraigned. On Wednesday, he called for Republicans in Congress to defund federal law enforcement.” The Daily Beast implied the same thing, headlining its story: “Trump Calls for Lawmakers to ‘Defund the DOJ and FBI’ After Felony Charges.” So the focus, from Fox to the far-Left media, was all about crazy Trump lashing out. Nobody was considering the substance of what he actually said.
Why should patriotic Americans continue to be forced to fund agencies that are weaponized to harass and persecute them? The FBI and DOJ have been energetic purveyors of the Jan. 6 “insurrection” hoax, making the lives of numerous Americans miserable for the crime of being in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. They have opened terrorism investigations against parents for the crime of being angry over their children being subjected to critical race theory in primary school. They have harassed and terrorized pro-life activists. They have manufactured “white supremacist terrorists” so as to justify the Biden regime’s ridiculous and oft-repeated claims about what constitutes the largest terror threat the nation faces today.
Related: Lyin’ Joe Biden Says MAGA Republicans Want to Defund the Police
If we had a savvy, aggressive opposition in America today, its leaders would be challenging the Leftist establishment to defend the idea that the Justice Department and the FBI were still worthy of Americans’ trust. They would be demanding that Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray demonstrate that they had any interest at all in administering fair and impartial justice rather than simply serving as the muscle for the Democrat Party and its allies. They would be doing everything they could to cut funding for these agencies to the bone and publishing plans for top-to-bottom reform that would eliminate the corrupt and politicized regime apparatchiks that currently infest these agencies.
Instead, however, we’re getting chuckling at Donald Trump’s supposed idiocy and flagrant misrepresentations of what he actually said. This could pose an even more serious threat to freedom in the long run than the politicized legal persecution of Trump. If the reform of these corrupt agencies, which is obviously most urgently needed, can be so airily waved away, what chance do patriots stand? Trump is right: the FBI and DOJ as they are currently constituted should indeed be defunded.
