Kamala Harris battles Meghan McCain over framing of 'Defund the Police' debate on The View

As "Defund the Police" becomes a battle cry for some of the demonstrators protesting the killing of George Floyd and police brutality in the United States, there is a lack of consensus over what the term actually means.

In Minneapolis, a veto-proof majority of the city council announced its intent to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a yet-to-be-determined new system of public safety, but in Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti plans to decrease the LAPD's budget and divert funds to education, health care and job training African American communities.

During a Monday appearance on ABC's "The View," California Sen. Kamala Harris took questions from conservative co-host Meghan McCain on if she supports the "Defund the Police" slogan.

"So Meghan, I think that a big part of this conversation really is about re-imagining how we do public safety in America, which I support,” Harris said. “We have confused the idea that to achieve safety, you put more cops on the street instead of understanding to achieve safe and healthy communities, you put more resources into the public education system of those communities, into affordable housing, into home ownership, into access to capital for small businesses, access to health care regardless of how much money people have. That's how you achieve safe and healthy communities."

Harris continued by noting that in some American cities, the police force makes up a third of the total city budget, and that law enforcement officials themselves do not want to respond to certain calls.

"When I talk to law enforcement, they know that they don't want to be the ones who are responding to someone with mental illness or substance abuse or the homeless population," she said. "But in many cities that's what's happening because we are not directing those resources to where they need to go which is addressing mental health, homeless and substance abuse so that way we don't need a police response because we're smarter."

McCain was not satisfied with the the senator's answer.

"There was a video that went viral over the weekend of the mayor of Minneapolis being yelled at after a yes or no question: 'Are you for defunding the police?' So I'm going to ask the same question the protesters asked him: Are you for defunding the police?" she asked.

"How are you defining 'defund the police?'" Harris responded.

McCain stated that she interprets "defund the police" as "removing the police" entirely, and Harris did not give a definitive answer on if she supports that interpretation of the slogan.

"So again, we need to re-imainge how we are achieving public safety in America," Harris said. "And to have cities where one-third of their entire budget is going to policing but yet there's a dire need in those same cities for mental health resources, for resources going into public schools, for resources going into job training and job creation. Come on. We have to be honest about this that there isn't a consensus around this because if there were we would actually see a smarter distribution of resources in our country to address the issues that need to be addressed."

The White House has also taken "defund the police" to mean "abolish the police" — and is working to tie former Vice President Joe Biden to those hoping to dismantle the police even after a campaign spokesperson stated "Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded."

Harris has been widely-discussed as a potential running mate for Biden.

Eric Ting is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting