Recently, a CBS affiliate faced intense criticism after claiming that former President Donald Trump had “falsely” accused Vice President Kamala Harris of assisting violent criminals getting out of jail. Harris’s record on criminal justice has come under increased scrutiny in light of Joe Biden’s dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.
Vice President Harris has faced intense criticism for her progressive ideas on criminal justice. In particular, conservatives have focused on Harris’ progressive stances on criminality, where she has been blasted for previously promoting a fund that raised money to bail violent criminals out of jail amid the Black Lives Matter riots in the summer of 2020.
CBS Minnesota affiliate WCCO posted on X on Thursday, “Trump falsely accuses Harris of donating to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, bailing out ‘dangerous criminals.'” The post quickly gained millions of impressions on the platform.
However, a Community Note on X added the necessary context for the claim. The “readers added context” noted, “On June 1, 2020, at 3:34 PM Minnesota Time, Kamala Harris tweeted “If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.”
Harris initially tweeted during the 2020 campaign, calling on her Twitter followers to donate to the fund to help bail out protestors arrested during the chaotic George Floyd riots. As the Community Note specified, Kamala posted on then-Twitter in June of 2020, “If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” Even Elon Musk pointed out, “CBS lies about Trump lying.”‘
The American Tribune recently reported on other concerns regarding Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on criminal justice, spelling out the implications of what would occur if she were elected president later this year. Joe Gamaldi, the national vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police and an active Houston Police Department lieutenant, voiced the grave concerns about Kamala Harris.
“Let’s be clear about something: If Kamala Harris becomes the next president of the United States, she will be an unmitigated disaster for public safety in this country,” he said. “She has loudly and proudly supported bail reform and has even donated and encouraged other people to donate to a fund that helped get murderers, r*pists, people who were shooting people in the streets, out on bail,” he said. “We’re not talking about helping bail out the mom who stole a candy bar from the store to help feed her kids; we’re talking about violent criminals.”
Gamaldi continued, citing the massive rise in violent crime across American cities over the past several years. “Over the last three years in the United States, we’ve averaged over 20,000 homicides a year, and we haven’t seen those numbers since the mid 1990s. And now we’re going to have Vice President Harris, who is the presumptive nominee at this point, is going to run on a platform of supporting bail reform after seeing the horrific consequences we’ve seen in our urban communities.”
Watch Gamaldi’s commentary below:
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