Trump Opens New Attack on Biden, Suggesting He’ll Endanger Lives

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump has opened a new attack on Democrat Joe Biden, suggesting that his policies will endanger Americans’ lives.

The Trump campaign released a new television ad on Wednesday, with a phone ringing at a presumably abandoned police desk, followed by images of burning buildings, with the narrator saying that “the radical left wing’s agenda: take over our cities, defund the police.” The 30-second spot ends with the narrator asking “Who will be there to answer the call when your children aren’t safe?”

Trump paired that with a tweet Wednesday that said, “Joe Biden and the Radical Left want to Abolish Police, Abolish ICE, Abolish Bail, Abolish Suburbs, Abolish the 2nd Amendment – and Abolish the American Way of Life. No one will be SAFE in Joe Biden’s America!”

Trump is trying to shore up his sagging poll numbers, especially with White suburban women, who are unhappy with his response to the racial justice protests and Black Lives Matter movement as well as the coronavirus pandemic and economic woes. The attack conflates ideas about defunding police and abolishing ICE held by some progressives with Biden’s centrist policy approach.

A June NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist Poll conducted between June 22 and June 24 showed that 69% of college-educated White women disapprove of Trump’s job performance. Conversely, 51% of White women without a college degree approve of the president’s performance.

Similarly, a New York Times-Siena College Poll conducted between June 17 and June 22 showed Biden with a 39-point lead over Trump among White women with college degrees.

The ad coincides with White House events this week highlighting law and order. On Wednesday, Trump met with his administration’s law enforcement officials for an update on the its efforts against the MS-13 gang. On Monday, Trump participated in a roundtable where a group of mostly women spoke about times in which their lives were helped or saved by police.

The country has undertaken a national conversation around law enforcement after the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody in Minneapolis. It sparked mostly peaceful national protests, with some delving into rioting and looting.

But it also spurred a movement on the left to redirect law enforcement budgets to public health and other services. Biden has opposed fully defunding police departments, saying that federal funding should be tied to law enforcement agencies’ progress against violence within their ranks.

And in the wake of border agencies aggressively detaining illegal immigrants last year, some called to abolish the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. Biden is not calling for such a step.

Trump has also expressed opposition to an Obama-era policy that strengthens anti-discrimination laws for housing in the suburbs.

“I think the police do an incredible job in this country and you’re going to have a rogue, terrible cop on occasion, like you do in any industry, in any business, in any profession, but I think they do an incredible job,” Trump said Tuesday. “Crime is up, shootings are up at numbers that nobody’s ever seen before.”

Of the ad released on Wednesday, Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman said that “it’s a strong ad, it’s true, and we know it works.”

“Joe Biden is unable to stand up to extremists in his party attacking and defunding the police,” Murtaugh, also said. “It’s already making our communities more dangerous and it would get worse if Biden is elected.”

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