President Joe Biden shouted Thursday that Democrats are “the ones who fund the police” during an East Room event focused on how the White House is trying to curb gun violence.
Biden was flanked by the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and went after both the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance.
But the 81-year-old referred to the vice presidential candidate as “Secretary Vance of Ohio.”
‘Look folks, I have taught constitutional law for years. Constitutional law. The Second Amendment was never intended to be absolute,” the president said. “When it was passed, you couldn’t own a cannon,” he claimed.
The president then muttered through the quote, “America’s freedom is watered with the blood of patriots.”
“Like hell,” he told the East Room audience. ‘I mean it. Think about it. Think about it. It was never absolute. Never, never, never.”
President Joe Biden shouted Thursday that Democrats are “the ones who fund the police” during an East Room event focused on how the White House is trying to curb gun violence
President Joe Biden (right) signs new gun control orders and hugs former Representative Gabrielle Giffords (left), who survived an assassination attempt in Tucson, Arizona in 2011
Historically, Republicans have pointed to the Second Amendment — the right to bear arms — to oppose gun control measures.
Biden said he wanted to see more funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“We’re getting a lot of heat from the other guy — she was getting a lot of heat from the other guy,” he said, speaking of Harris. “About ‘we don’t help…’ We’re the ones who fund the police!” he then shouted.
“We’re the ones funding these things,” Biden added.
Biden hammered his “predecessor” — rather than mentioning Trump’s name — and Republicans in Congress for opposing Democrats’ crackdown on ghost guns, saying it also violates the Second Amendment .
“Give me a break,” Biden said. “If they have their way, criminals can trade weapons and commit crimes.”
Vice President Kamala Harris recalled meeting the victim of a school shooting last week, but did not reveal how she told Oprah Winfrey that as a gun owner she shot an intruder
“They are attacking the FBI and want to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. By the way, that’s written down,” he added.
“Folks, you can’t be pro-law enforcement and anti-FBI and ATF,” Biden said to cheers.
Trump has complained about the FBI over the agency’s 2016 Russia investigation, which he called a “hoax,” and the Mar-a-Lago raid in August 2022 to retrieve classified documents that the ex-president extracted from the FBI. White House had taken.
Harris spoke ahead of Biden at the East Room event — attended by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was nearly killed in a 2011 assassination attempt, and Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath, whose son was shot and killed for playing his music too loudly.
She spoke about her encounter last week with the survivor of the recent Apalachee High School shooting – during her star-studded event in Michigan with Oprah Winfrey.
“Last week I met a young leader, her name is Natalie,” Harris recalled. ‘When we met, Natalie was still wearing bandages and she is extremely brave.’
“So on her behalf, on behalf of all the survivors, all the survivors we’ve lost,” the vice president continued, botching the delivery, “let’s keep fighting to end the epidemic of gun violence.”
What Harris didn’t say in front of the crowd at the White House — as nearly every audience member raised their hands to say they had lost someone to gun violence — was the statement she made last week: that she would shoot an intruder.
“If anyone breaks into my house, he’s going to be shot,” she told Winfrey.
‘I probably shouldn’t have said that. My staff will handle that later,” the Democratic candidate added.