Dave Rubin on Democrats' 'internal war': Only radicals support defunding police

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Nobody besides radicals wants police to be defunded: Rubin

Dave Rubin on what he calls the ‘internal war’ between progressives and moderates in the Democratic party.

Nobody except “the radicals” want police to be defunded, talk show host Dave Rubin told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday.

The host of "The Dave Rubin Show" made the comment reacting to a recent interview where House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., tore into the "defund the police" movement, blaming left-wing "foolishness" for his party's underperformance in the 2020 elections. 

Democrats struggled in the elections "because we were not able to discipline ourselves according to voter sentiment," Clyburn told Axios in an interview that aired Monday night. 

"We keep making that mistake. This foolishness about you got to be this progressive or that progressive," he added. 

"That phrase, 'defund the police,' cost [Democratic Senate candidate] Jaime Harrison tremendously." 

He went on to say, "Sloganeering kills people. Sloganeering destroys movements. Stop sloganeering."

“This is so typical of what has happened with the left and the sort of internal war between the progressives and whatever is left of a moderate Democrat and I'm not really sure how much is left, although Clyburn's sort of taking the mantel right there,” Rubin said.

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“I mean, in effect, nobody except the radicals that want violence on the streets and that want mayhem, nobody besides that wants the police to be defunded.”

Since the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis police custody in May, some have pushed to defund or dismantle police departments. Democratic shortcomings in the elections have renewed fissures between the party establishment and its socialist wing.

While some left-wing Democrats embraced the "defund the police" movement, polls show that most Americans reject it. 

Rubin, a former Democrat who voted for President Trump in the 2020 election, pointed out that even “in Black communities where crime is high, they want more policing.”

“There's a lot of evidence of this,” he continued.

In fact, according to a Gallup poll published in August, “When asked whether they want the police to spend more time, the same amount of time or less time than they currently do in their area, most Black Americans -- 61% -- want the police presence to remain the same.”

The survey noted that that the results are “similar to the 67% of all U.S. adults preferring the status quo, including 71% of White Americans.”

“You only want less policing if you want chaos and I think the progressives in many cases, they do want that chaos because they then think that that proves that somehow the state is racist,” Rubin said on Wednesday.

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He added, “That, in essence, is what allows them to run around and say ‘America is so terrible, look at all this.’”

He stressed, however, that “the average person wants law and order.”

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“That's just very simple and easily understood by everybody,” Rubin continued.

Fox News’ Peter Hasson contributed to this report.