Conservative media are promoting false claims from several Georgia sheriffs that Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock want to “defund the police.” Not only is right-wing media often concealing the fact that these are Republican sheriffs who were livestreamed by the Georgia Republican Party, but the claims being pushed are not true.
Despite misleading claims in conservative media coming from Republican operatives, Ossoff and Warnock don’t support “defunding the police.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has noted Ossoff said in June that “the answer is not to defund police,” but to support reforms including demilitarization. Warnock said on June 25, ‘“I do not believe that we should defund the police. I do believe that we should responsibly fund law enforcement,” explaining that “we certainly need to demilitarize the police so that we can rebuild trust between the police and the community.” In October, he tweeted, “Let me be clear, I oppose defunding the police. But we have to respect law enforcement enough to hold them accountable.”