Fox Business - Defund Police Movement is Completely Wrong Talks Economic Relief, Reopening Economy, Police Reforms

Interview

On Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria," U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) said the movement to defund the police is "completely wrong," saying "we need to give the police more resources." She also called for states to reopen their economies to allow Americans to get back to work safely.

ON ADDITIONAL ECONOMIC RELIEF: "Well, it's an important question right now and as we look at the efforts that we've put out through the CARES Act and CARES 3.5, it's been around jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs. So what can we do to get people back to work. This is the number one thing I think that we've done to help rebuild this economy quickly after implementing the CARES Act. Nearly $3 trillion of aid and roughly half of that still has to be deployed and I've actually spoken with Secretary Mnuchin about ideas I have for how we can continue to use that stimulus to get jobs built back up, get our employers open for business. We still need states to open, that's happening gradually. But here I am in Washington, much of the city is still shut down. We need our economies to open back up."

ON REOPENING AMID COVID-19: "Well, Maria, we're also seeing increases in testing so naturally we're going to see more cases and we know much more about this virus today. We know its transmissibility, we know what to do to prevent that. We need to be talking about how we reopen safely. When Georgia reopened, we continued to flatten the curve. We've seen hospitalizations decline, the rate of deaths decline. We've done it safely and people are thrilled to be back in their jobs, getting back to church and synagogue. We need to continue that dialogue. We had a hearing this week about getting kids back to school -- millions and millions of kids across our country. And I've developed a plan called USA RISE Plan about how we go back to work safely, rebuild the economy at the same time. Meanwhile, managing the safety precautions we need to take around the virus. But the number one concern right now has to be getting people back to work safely."

ON POLICE REFORMS: "Well, I think the president has done a great job of demonstrating what we need to do. He, like I, has mourned the loss of George Floyd. Our hearts go out to his family. At the same time, I'm so glad to see justice being done swiftly in that case. That needs to happen. We cannot, however, defund the police. This movement is completely wrong. In fact, we need to give the police more resources. We need to honor the work that the police force around our communities do. They do tremendous work for us, keeping us safe and I know the president is looking at how we preserve law and order and we can always improve. That's what America does. There's always room for improvement. And I trust that what comes out of this process will be positive, it will bring that needed change. So that police officers get the respect that they deserve, the resources that they need to keep our communities safe and I have to say thank you to our law enforcement community for everything they do every day across the community because I know they want the bad apples rooted out too."

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