Clyburn: ‘Nobody Is Going to Defund the Police’

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) is voicing his opposition to the “Defund The Police” Movement.

“I would simply say, as I have always said, nobody is going to defund the police,” Clyburn said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

He continued, “We can restructure the police forces, restructure, reimagine policing. That is what we are going to do. The fact of the matter is, the police have a role to play. What we have got to do is make sure that their role is one that meets the times, one that responds to these communities that they operate in.”

Watch the video below:

Clyburn went on to say that he did not fear the police when he was growing up. However, “All of a sudden, I do fear the police.”

Clyburn’s comments come amid a public debate over how police reforms should be enacted. Some activists have called for police departments to be defunded to fund other social programs. 

The Minneapolis city council voted to disband its police department and establish a new public safety model in its place.

Meanwhile, others have called for cities to cut the budgets of their police departments.

While many Democratic Congressional leaders have sought to reject the “Defund The Police” slogan, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is urging Democrats to embrace the term, as IJR reported