*Barack Obama appeared on “The Daily Show” Tuesday and explained his issue with the “defund the police” slogan.
We previously reported, the former POTUS was criticized earlier this month for saying anti-police rhetoric could turn off people more so than inspire them to join the rallying cries for reforming the criminal justice system.
“If you believe, as I do, that we should be able reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everyone fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan like ‘defund the police’ but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done,” Obama said, CBS reported.
Obama further explained his stance on the issue while speaking to Noah.
READ MORE: Obama Slams Liberals for Pushing the ‘Defund the Police’ Agenda [VIDEO]
“I have consistently believed that their courage, activism, media-savvy, strategic resolve, far exceeds anything I could have done at their age and I think has shifted the conversation in ways that I would not have even imagined a couple of years ago,” Obama said of the Black Lives Matter activists that are leading the cause. “So throughout this slew of compliments I then said, well, what do you think about the particular slogan ‘defund the police’? And I said, well, that particular slogan, I think the concern is there may be potential allies out there that you lose. And the issue always is, how do you get enough people to support your cause that you can actually institutionalize it and translate it into laws.”
Obama continued: “There are two or three writers, who I admired, who wrote, ‘Obama is making it a mission to chastise Black Lives Matter.’ And you go, what? Hold on a second, I just spent the whole summer complimenting them. What are you talking about? The reason it caught attention, I suspect, is there are some in the Democratic party who suggested the reason we didn’t do better in the congressional elections this time around was because of this phrase. And I think that people assumed that somehow I was making an argument that that’s why we didn’t get a bigger Democratic majority. That actually was not the point I was making.”
Check out his full conversation on the “Daily Show” above.
Obama’s previous comments on “Defund the Police” drew backlash from some liberals and progressives on social media.
“We lose people in the hands of police. It’s not a slogan but a policy demand,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., tweeted in response to Obama’s remarks.
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