The Democratic line · From the record · Filed Oct 16, 2026
Democrats Claimed They Never Said “Defund the Police.” Andy Biggs Played the Tape.
They said they never said it. He pressed play.
Democrats on defunding the police
Defund it, dismantle it, or cut the budget and move the money.
The 2020 line, from elected Democrats and Democratic officials.
Democrats on defunding the police
The party never supported defunding the police. It funds law enforcement.
The later line, including the May 10, 2023 hearing, before the tape was played.
The gap
The 2020 tape says defund, dismantle, and cut. The later line says the party never said it. Biggs played the first sentence after someone said the second.
A Reel from the conservative page True Patriot News praised a video from Arizona Republican Andy Biggs, saying the way it ended left him chills and calling it genius. The clip is the 2023 House Judiciary Committee exchange in which Biggs responded to Democratic claims by rolling a compilation of Democrats and Democratic officials themselves calling to defund, dismantle, or cut police departments.
After Rep. Eric Swalwell asserted that he had never supported defunding the police and aligned himself with the post-2020 Democratic messaging that the party supported funding law enforcement, Biggs played the video.
The full hearing exchange is public. Longer versions of similar compilations, circulated by Republican groups around the same period, incorporated the wider list of statements from that period.
The moment has circulated for years because it undercuts the later Democratic line that the party never supported defunding the police. Multiple elected Democrats and officials made clear statements in 2020 supporting cuts, reallocation, or dismantling of police departments after George Floyd's death. When crime rose in many of those cities, the public language shifted. Some of the same voices began emphasizing that they had always supported police funding.
In the Arizona governor's race, the video fits Biggs's argument against Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs on public safety. Hobbs has vetoed bills that would have restricted local defunding efforts and strengthened penalties on certain crimes. Biggs has highlighted those vetoes while pointing to the earlier Democratic record. The compilation is a concise record of what was said on camera before the political costs of the idea became clear.
From a conservative standpoint, the hypocrisy is direct. The same political coalition that spent 2020 demanding reduced police budgets later treated the idea as a Republican invention or a misunderstanding. When confronted with the statements, the response has often been redefinition or silence. Biggs's decision to play the tape rather than debate abstractly is what made the ending effective for viewers who see the shift as a calculated retreat once the results arrived. The video remains a standing illustration of the gap between what was said and what is claimed now.
On the tape
Suck it up. Defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police.
Argued for a dramatic reduction in police in poor communities and described traditional policing as tied to white supremacy.
Oversaw major NYPD budget cuts and supported moving funding from the department.
The current system of policing can't be reformed.
I applaud Eric Garcetti for doing what he's done, on a roughly $150 million cut from the LAPD, and talked about shifting resources away from policing.
Called for the Minneapolis Police Department to be completely dismantled, and said yes, defund your butts.
Wrote and said that funding should be moved away from police departments.
Said she supported the spirit of the defund movement by reprioritizing budgets away from policing.
Pledged to dismantle the Minneapolis police department and end policing as we know it.
Announced plans to cut police funding and redirect it.
Called for completely dismantling police systems and rebuilding them.
Joined other members who endorsed reallocating police budgets.