Bernie Sanders: ‘No Serious Person I Know Who’s Running for Office Believes in Defunding the Police’

EXCERPT:

SANDERS: "Well, you know, look, people have different views, and what you know, as well I do, the right-wing, that's their job, right, they will take what one person said and put $80 billion of TV ads on it and make a claim every Democrat supports that. No serious Person that I know who is running for office believes in 'defunding the police.' I was a mayor for 8 years, I worked very closely with cops. They have a very difficult job. Do we need Police reform? Do we need to get rid of racism within police departments? Absolutely. Are there jobs that other people can be doing in terms of mental health, drug addiction that now falls on a cop’s shoulders? Yeah, I think we should look at that. But nobody I know, you know, believes In defunding the police. In terms of doing away with prisons. I hope the day comes. I hope the days comes when we don’t lead the world in the number of people who are incarcerated. That speaks very poorly of our society. But does that mean that there should not be dangerous people who should be behind bars? Of course, everybody agrees with that. Open borders? No. We all — most of us believe in comprehensive immigration reform, not opening up all the borders. But a lot of this stuff, as you well know, is what the right-wing plays on and multiplies on FOX, you know, 10 times a day through their ads. But most of the serious candidates that I know and support do not support those things."