Kayleigh McEnany: ‘Under President Trump we’re seeing decreases in crime’
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany weighs in on GOP attorneys general pushing back against calls to defund police on ‘Fox and Friends.’
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday that it’s “appalling, it is ludicrous, it is nonsensical, to take police out of society.”
McEnany made the comments amid growing calls to weaken law enforcement in the wake of the death of George Floyd while in police custody.
Days after Floyd's death, Black Lives Matter announced a “call for a national defunding of police” — and notable Democratic voices, as well as celebrities, have echoed the sentiment.
Republican attorneys general across the country are pushing back on calls to defund law enforcement agencies in the wake of the protests over police brutality and racial injustice, arguing that cutting budgets to police departments would be “extremely dangerous and reckless.”
“That's exactly right,” McEnany said in response.
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“Under President Trump, we're seeing decreases in crime, but under blue state governors and blue state mayors, we're seeing the exact opposite with this proposal,” she added.
She then brought up Los Angeles as an example.
“When the LA mayor said, ‘I'm going to remove $150 million from LAPD [The Los Angeles Police Department],’ well, what happened the next week? We saw homicides go up in LA by 250 percent and shootings go up by 56 percent,” McEnany said.
“It is anarchy, it is chaos when we don't recognize that police serve a valuable function in this society.”
She went on to note that “the vast majority” of police officers “are good domestic heroes out there protecting us each and every day.”
Sources told Fox News on Tuesday that President Trump will soon have a list of police reform proposals that can be accomplished through a combination of executive and legislative action — and that the effort could have some crossover with Democratic proposals.
“There’s been tremendous work done on this and a lot of progress over the last few days,” McEnany said on Wednesday, adding that “the president has been reviewing proposals.”
She noted that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday with White House adviser Jared Kushner and domestic policy adviser Ja'Ron Smith.
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“They had a very positive meeting with Senator [Tim] Scott and it was very productive and we do believe that we will have proactive policy prescriptions whether that means legislation or an executive order,” McEnany said.
Fox News’ Andrew O’Reilly, Gregg Re and John Roberts contributed to this report.