Meghan McCain warned Democrats that a hard push to defund police departments could be handing President Donald Trump “a great campaign slogan.”
McCain addressed the issue Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” making the argument that Democrats needed to get a better handle on the messaging before Trump could use it against them. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Gives Meghan McCain The Runaround On Defunding Police)
WATCH:
McCain began by pointing out that “defunding the police” as a concept seemed to mean different things to different people — and that had a lot of Democrats back on their heels as they were forced to explain what they meant when they either agreed or disagreed with the idea.
“If you were to hire me to advise you to run for office, there are a few tenets of politics that have not changed. One is, ‘if you’re explaining, you’re losing.’ There’s a lot of explaining going on on this,” McCain said. “If you mean reform, say reform. If you mean defund, say defund. People are confused. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar called for the complete dismantling of the police department, quote, ‘It is rotten to its core.’ So when Americans hear that, I don’t know what interpretation there is to this, because it says a complete dismantling of the police department.” (RELATED: ‘Beyond Reform’: Ilhan Omar Calls To Disband Minneapolis Police Department)
“This is giving Trump a great campaign slogan,” McCain continued, noting that even the Reverend Al Sharpton had said that it could be confusing or misleading to call for the police to be defunded without offering an explanation or interpretation of what that would look like.
“All I know is I saw a video of a Minneapolis City Council woman who said it’s a privilege for me to be able to call the police department if someone broke into my house and was trying to rob me or hurt me,” McCain concluded. “Listen, you guys can spin and say anything you want. Politics at the end of the day is real simple. It’s about slogans. ‘Defund the Police’ is a great one for the Trump campaign.”