Over the weekend, one of President Joe Biden's advisers – Cedric Richmond – addressed the surging crime wave across the U.S. by claiming Republicans were the ones who defunded police departments by not supporting Biden's American Rescue Plan. In fact, defunding of law enforcement took place primarily in Democrat-run cities.
Then during a Monday press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki (pictured) came to Richmond's defense and sparred with Fox News reporter Peter Doocey who pointed out the president never mentioned needing money for police to stop a crime wave when he was pushing the American Rescue Plan.
Protecting criminals or law-abiding citizens?
"The guns are the instrumentality that's being used, but the real target should be the criminals," Rubio told Fox News last week. "It's the criminals who are stealing guns … then they're selling them on the street to one another."
The senator has been a vocal critic of the White House's policy of restricting gun ownership rights over holding violent criminals responsible for their crimes, according to Breitbart News.
The Florida Republican indicated that this year's ongoing climb in crime is due to the irresponsible policies pushed by President Biden since he took office, as Democrats point the finger at police and guns – instead of the criminals who Democrats have empowered to get away with lawlessness and create chaos.
"They're committing these acts of violence," Rubio pointed out. "We have seen all over the country just over the last few months are really things out of a Hollywood movie, except it's real. It's tragic."
The lawlessness of the Wild West came to mind as Rubio brought up the brazen behavior of criminals who feel that they can get away with anything under Biden's soft-on-crime and tough-on-police policies.
"I mean shootouts on highways – and I think it is the inevitable consequence of when you take crazy, nonsensical ideas and then get elected on them and then try to implement them as policy, or at least try to create the perception that you are going to create policy based on them," Rubio continued.
"And the result is this, and the migratory crisis on the border and other things. The ideas these people have are nuts, and when you elect people who have these ideas, it almost encourages and incentivizes these terrible outcomes."
Putting a bandage on a gaping wound?
In order to try and mitigate proliferating crime spurred by Democrats' policies, the Biden administration announced it would be dispatching "strike teams" to curb violence, theft and homicides in America's crime-plagued cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and New York City. Rubio, however, is skeptical about the plan's success since supporting the police is not at the foundation of the program.
"I think it's better than nothing, [and] we have to see how it's structured; but in the end, one of the most important things that we should have done and continue to do is support law enforcement," Rubio assessed.
The Republican senator went on to warn of the ill-effects of Democratic governors and leaders trying to defund the police while attempting to remove protections that officers need to handle violent criminals and volatile domestic situations.
"It's going to be harder to keep highly trained, highly competent officers on the job," Rubio warned regarding the "major brewing crisis" looming over the nation that sees more and more police retiring from the force, coupled with dwindling enrollment in police academies – especially in Democrat-run cities that have enacted anti-police policies.
