Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was skeptical in a New Yorker interview about the “defund the police” movement.

Said Sanders: “Do I think we should not have police departments in America? No, I don’t. There’s no city in the world that does not have police departments. What you need are—I didn’t call for more money for police departments. I called for police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals. And, too often around this country right now, you have police officers who take the job at very low payment, don’t have much education, don’t have much training—and I want to change that.”

He added: “I think we want to redefine what police departments do, give them the support they need to make their jobs better defined. So I do believe that we need well-trained, well-educated, and well-paid professionals in police departments. Anyone who thinks that we should abolish all police departments in America, I don’t agree.”

President Trump suggested the 75-year old man pushed to the ground by Buffalo police was actually trying to set them up.

Said Trump: “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment… I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

Top congressional Democrats are steering clear of the growing calls by activists to “defund the police,” saying they sympathize with the intent behind the movement but are concerned that the rhetoric could undercut efforts to overhaul policing practices nationwide, CNN reports.

Said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): “That’s not the term I would use. But I think it’s important for all of us to listen to the pain and lived experiences of the people who are protesting, who have created a movement for real change… We need to put more resources responding to mental health issues and substance abuse. We need to demilitarize our police forces. There are a lot of things we need to do.”

“Amid a public backlash over the militarized federal response to mass protests, President Trump is seeking to turn the national movement for racial justice into a debate over law and order, presenting Democrats as inflaming chaos in American cities,” the Washington Post reports.

“But as the White House and the president’s reelection campaign begin that messaging, they are already facing difficulty navigating the line between exhibiting toughness and straying into the kind of offensive rhetoric and race-baiting that have often defined Trump’s tenure.”

New York Times: Trump rebuffs protests over systemic racism and calls police “great people.”

Politico: “Top Democrats are carefully — but forcefully — speaking out against growing calls from activists to defund police departments, an idea backed by prominent progressives to dismantle the system that has perpetuated the type of brutality as seen in Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.”

“With the GOP eagerly drawing up their attack ads, senior Democrats are hoping to stifle momentum for the idea before it overshadows their broader reform effort. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are instead pressing ahead with a sweeping bill to crack down on use of force, bolster transparency, and ban certain practices, like chokeholds, while leaving questions of funding or structure to local leaders.”

“Two law enforcement agencies acknowledged Monday that officers patrolling Minneapolis during the height of recent protests knifed the tires of numerous vehicles parked and unoccupied in at least two locations in the midst of the unrest,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

Video and photo images posted by Mother Jones show officers in military-style uniforms puncturing tires in the Kmart parking lot at Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue on May 30.

John Oliver: “Our whole show is actually going to be about one thing, and you probably know what, and you probably know why.”

A must-watch episode.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) slams Democrats as they release police reform legislation:

“To the police officers across the country who put on the uniform every day and uphold their oath—THANK YOU. Democrats want to defund you, but Republicans will never turn our backs on you.”

Congressional Democrats unveiled sweeping police reform legislation in response to protests after the killing of George Floyd, the Washington Post reports.

“The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 would ban chokeholds, establish a national database to track police misconduct and prohibit certain no-knock warrants, among a range of steps. Democratic leaders of the House and Senate released the legislation that had been drafted by members of the Congressional Black Caucus.”

A powerful photo shows the most senior Democrats in government kneeling in the Capitol, minutes before introducing the bill.

Playbook: “Most elected Democrats will get asked over the next few days and weeks whether they support defunding the police. It will prove to be a tricky question for some: either get crosswise with middle-of-the-road voters, who probably — just a gut feeling! — won’t support taking away money from police, or get on the wrong side of the base.”

“Either way, Republicans, who are fighting to keep their Senate majority and win back the House, will hang the defund movement around Democrats’ necks. Part of their strategy is to paint all elected Dems as extreme.”

Said NRCC spokesman Chris Pack: “House Democrats have gone so extreme with their ‘abolish culture’ that they’re one step away from wanting to outlaw fire departments. This is insanity and not what Democrats ran on two years ago.”

Tim Alberta: “It’s a loaded phrase, one that politicians in both parties have invoked for decades — with great success — to project a certain virility to the electorate. It has recently taken on even harsher connotations in the context of Trump’s Twitter usage (10 times in just the last week) and the accompanying sentiments (threats of unleashing ‘vicious dogs’ on rioters, and promises of, ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts.’)

“But it has long carried a cautionary subtext: Don’t dare challenge the integrity of a justice system predicated on punishing wrongdoers, the harsher the better. Over time, this has meant fewer rehabilitative doors opened and more retributive cells slammed shut. It has meant refusing to acknowledge that anything is fundamentally amiss with the system itself; that disparities and discrimination are not the same thing, that isolated incidents of police misconduct are just that, no matter their regularity or similarities.”

“I think there’s racism in the United States. But I don’t think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist.”

— Attorney General Bill Barr, on CBS News.

“A sweeping new police reform bill being drafted by House and Senate Democrats would ban chokeholds, limit ‘qualified immunity’ for police officers, create a national misconduct registry, end the use of no-knock warrants in drug cases and make lynching a federal crime among other dramatic changes,” Politico reports.