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August 31, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Over the weekend, Twitter flagged as “manipulated media” a video shared by Republican House Minority Whip Steve Scalise that accurately represented former Vice President and current Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden’s support for at least partially defunding law enforcement.

The tweet has since been deleted, but Mediaite saved the text and video, which opens with a montage of scenes of Black Lives Matter riots across the country alongside current and former Democrat officeholders including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), former Attorney General Eric Holder, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lending implicit or explicit support for harassing Republicans. Before it was deleted, LifeSiteNews also captured a screenshot of the tweet and the “manipulated media” flag.

“Under mob rule, no one is safe,” the ad declares. “Not in restaurants, not in the streets, not in your home.” Near the end of the ad, it shows activist Ady Barkan allegedly asking Biden, “do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding for police?” to which Biden answers “yes, absolutely.”

Twitter flagged the video because it added “for police” to the end of Barkan’s question. Scalise responded by sharing the full original video. It makes abundantly clear that, while the ad erred in not placing “for police” in brackets (as is standard practice for clarifications that aren’t part of the original quote), it accurately conveys the policy Barkan was calling for and Biden was endorsing:

“We can reduce the responsibilities assigned to the police and redirect some of the funding for police into social services, mental health counseling, and affordable housing,” Barkan says. “Are you open to that kind of reform?”

“Yes, I proposed that kind of reform,” Biden answers, before launching into a speech about various changes he wants to make. “But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?” Barkan follows up. “Yes, absolutely,” Biden clarifies. 

Earlier in the video, Barkan blames police shootings of unarmed blacks on “America’s commitment to white supremacy.”

Biden has tried to straddle a fine line between his party’s increasingly far-left base and the moderate Americans he needs to vote for him, such as disavowing BLM’s war on historical statues and insisting his position on “redirecting” police funding doesn’t amount to “defunding the police.” However, he has expressly endorsed BLM’s underlying indictment of the United States.

“Systemic racism” is “not just in law enforcement, it’s across the board. It’s in housing, and it’s in education, and it’s in everything we do,” Biden told CBS News in June. “Look, not all law enforcement officers are racist. My lord, there are some really good, good cops out there. But the way in which it works right now is — we’ve seen too many examples of it.”

In fact, research shows that police are not disproportionately likely to use excessive lethal force against black suspects, and may actually be less likely out of fear of being accused of racism after the fact. In addition, the vast majority of police shootings of blacks since 2014 have occurred in cities controlled by Democrats.