Trump says Obama didn’t reform policing — but he did. Then the president ditched it – By Jane C. Timm (NBC News) / June 16 2020
Fact check: A look at the false claim that the previous administration was nowhere on an issue roiling the nation then and now.
President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that his predecessor did not take action on reforming police — even though it was under Trump that several Obama-era changes were scrapped.
“President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to fix this during their eight-year period. The reason they didn’t try is they had no idea how to do it,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden before he signed an executive order that encourages police departments to adopt high standards, like banning chokeholds unless the life of the officer is at risk, and to create a database of excessive force complaints.
But Obama, the nation’s first Black president, who confronted and addressed race and racism frequently, did take action to reform police and try to reduce bias in law enforcement. The Trump administration is well aware of that, too: It unraveled those changes.
President Barack Obama speaks to Camden County police officers and youth at the Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Camden, N.J., on May 18, 2015. Tim Hawk / South Jersey Times via AP
“He said President Obama did nothing on police reform, but the fact is they made a lot of progress and President Trump rolled it back,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday.
Continue to article: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-obama-didn-t-reform-policing-he-did-then-n1231200
