Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., on Sunday said President Joe Biden’s plan to control rising crime and Democratic policies are just what “criminals in every American city like.”
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Banks said Biden is in the sway of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
“In 2002 Sen. Biden wrote an op-ed that said ‘more cops clearly means less crime’,” Banks said. “He can’t say that today because today he’s being held hostage in the White House by the Squad, and the radicals in the Democratic Party,” he said, lamenting that politicians “have spent the last year stigmatizing one of the most honorable professions in America in law enforcement.”
According to Banks the approach is “a recipe that …criminals in every American city like what Democrats are selling,” calling “murder rates higher than we’ve ever seen before.”
Banks pointed to the “record of comments Democrats have made.”
“When Rep. [Ilhan] Omar [D-Minn.] says policing is rooted in evil… police departments [find it] very hard to recruit people… because we’ve stigmatized them.”
“You take police off the streets you’ll see crime rise,” he argued.
In a commentary for Fox News, Banks had accused Democrats of being responsible for an increase in crime through their "dehumanization of law-enforcement" and claiming there is "overwhelming evidence connecting the rise in murders to the violent riots last summer and the Defund the Police movement."
On Sunday, he argued “you can give [police] more funding, and that's good, but if they can't recruit people to become a police officer because we've stigmatized one of the most honorable professions in America, then we're at a dangerous point.”
According to Banks, there is one sure way to reduce crime.
“In 1994 when there was an assault weapons ban, later the Justice Department said it did nothing to decrease crime,” Banks told Fox News Sunday. “If we are serious about reducing crime in America, … back the Blue,” he said, adding: “Show your support. If you do that you can reduce crime.”
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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