This archive report was first published on 18 July 2020.
On July 18, 2020, US President Donald Trump clashed with Fox News Sunday interviewer Chris Wallace during an interview conducted on the patio outside the Oval Office.
Trump blamed rising violence in some cities on their Democratic leaders, stating, "They've run them poorly," after Wallace pointed out that many of the cities had been run by Democratic mayors for decades.
Trump further claimed, "It was always bad, but now it's gotten totally out of control. And it's really because they want to defund the police, and Biden wants to defund the police," despite Wallace's correction that Biden does not support defunding the police.
Trump then alleged that Biden had signed a charter with left-wing Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders to cut law enforcement budgets, but was unable to find any evidence to support this claim when his aides were asked to locate the policy charter.
The movement to defund the police gained momentum following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May, and has had some impact, with New York cutting its annual police budget by $1 billion after weeks of protest in the city.
The full interview is scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday.
