Harris, in 2020, said 'we have to redirect resources' from police

In the days since President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, Harris has leaned into her history as a prosecutor as a central reason why she's best positioned to run against former President Donald Trump.

"In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain," Harris said, citing her time as California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney. "So, hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump's type."

But since emerging as the Democrats' likely presidential nominee, Harris has faced renewed scrutiny over previous comments she made around the "defund the police" movement, which could complicate her political argument as she positions herself as a prosecutor who can take the case to a candidate who earlier this year was convicted on 34 felony charges and faces multiple outstanding legal issues.

In the summer of 2020, shortly after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, Harris gave a string of interviews amid nationwide protests calling for police reform in which she at times voiced support for some of the ideas behind the "defund the police" movement, calling for a "reimaging" of policing around the country.

In one of the interviews, a radio segment from June 10, 2020, with just over 5,000 views on YouTube, Harris told Power 106 Los Angeles host Nick Cannon that she believes "we have to redirect resources" from police to other areas of government, mentioning schools and small businesses.

Cannon, a popular actor who also hosts a radio show called "Nick Cannon Mornings," said to Harris in the interview: "But me, being a Howard graduate and having an abolitionist -- you know, but having that abolition spirit of, why do we need law enforcement anyway? ... I'm excited about some of the measures that we could take to better policing, but I feel like we should get rid of policing altogether."

In response, Harris said that she believed "we have to reimagine public safety in America" and argued that "for too long, people have confused achieving public safety with putting more cops on the street."

"So when we're talking about policing, I think of it in a number of ways, and there is that, which is that we have to redirect resources," Harris said. "And Nick, you may know this, in many cities in America over one-third of their city budget is placed, is paid to policing. ... Meanwhile, schools are suffering."

"We have to have this conversation about redirecting resources where they are needed to truly support communities to be healthy and therefore safe," Harris added.

Harris, in the interview, also promoted the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill the vice president cowrote in 2020 while she was still in the Senate, which sought to address racial profiling and the use of deadly force. The bill was passed by the Democrat-controlled House in 2021 but stalled in the Senate over the issue of qualified immunity for officers.

The bill did not redirect funds away from law enforcement, which some progressive activists criticized at the time.

In a statement to ABC News, Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer said, "The only candidate running for President who has ever advocated for defunding the police or proposed cutting funding for law enforcement is convicted felon Donald Trump. Vice President Harris spent years prosecuting criminals and getting justice for victims, and has supported increased funding to keep our communities safe and hold convicted felons like Trump accountable -- which is why America is currently seeing a near 50-year low in violent crime."

The "defund the police" movement rose to prominence in the summer of 2020 amid national outrage over the deaths of Floyd and other Black people at the hands of police. Many in the movement advocated reallocating funds from police departments to community policing and to organizations like public health centers and schools in order to invest in underserved communities and address systemic racism. Other activists have gone a step further, equating defunding with abolishing police departments.

Harris' remarks in 2020 about redirecting funds from policing appear to mark a shift in the then-senator's beliefs about policing. In her 2009 book "Smart on Crime," Harris -- who was then serving as San Francisco district attorney -- advocated that having more police on the street made communities feel safer.

"A more visible and strategic police presence is a deterrent to crime, and it has a positive impact on a community. Virtually all law-abiding citizens feel safer when they see officers walking a beat. This is as true in economically poor neighborhoods as in wealthy ones," Harris wrote, arguing to expand the role of police officers in crime prevention.

In 2009, Harris specifically pushed back against the notion that poor communities opposed the increased presence of law enforcement.

"There is a widely held notion that poor communities, particularly poor African American and Latino communities, consider law enforcement the enemy and that they do not want police officers in their neighborhoods," Harris wrote. "In fact, the opposite is true."

Harris' newly resurfaced 2020 interview follows a CNN KFile report detailing Harris' numerous comments regarding the "defund the police" movement from the summer of 2020, which the Biden and Harris campaign went on to distance themselves from after she was selected to be Biden's running mate.

In a separate 2020 radio interview a day before speaking to Cannon, Harris was asked about the "defund the police" movement and said it "rightly" criticized how much of the public budget is dedicated to law enforcement compared to other services like education.

"This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities," Harris told the hosts of "Ebro in the Morning" on June 9, 2020. Harris also said that U.S. cities were "militarizing police" but "defunding public schools," according to the CNN report.

In a 2020 interview on "Good Morning America" one day earlier, Harris told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, "We have to stop militarization of police, we have to stop that" -- but also added, "That doesn't mean we get rid of police, of course not."

Stephanopoulos then pressed Harris on a proposal in her home state.

"So does that mean you support proposals like what we've seen in Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti saying take some of the money from policing, about $150 million, invest it in health initiatives training initiatives for youth?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"I support investing in communities so that they become more healthy and, therefore, more safe," Harris responded. "The issue right now in America is that many cities spend over one-third of their entire city budget on policing. But meanwhile, we've been defunding public schools for years in America."

"I applaud Eric Garcetti for doing what he's done," Harris said.

Two months later, in August 2020, Harris was selected to be Biden's running mate, and the issue of defunding the police emerged in the general election as a key attack line by Trump's reelection campaign.

In the lead-up to Election Day 2020, the Biden/Harris campaign issued a statement looking to distance Harris from the "defund the police" movement.

"Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support defunding the police, and it is a lie to suggest otherwise," said Harris' then-press secretary Sabrina Singh. "Throughout her career, Sen. Harris has supported increasing funding to police departments and boosting funding for community policing."

In November 2023, the administration announced over $334 million in grants from the Justice Department to hire more than 1,730 law enforcement officers as part of an initiative aimed at reducing crime rates across the United States.

In their first sit-down interview as the Democratic presidential ticket in 2020, Biden was asked if he supported defunding the police.

"President Trump says that you want to defund the police. Do you?" asked "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts in the interview.

"No, I don't," Biden responded, laughing.

ABC News' Deena Zaru and Tonya Simpson contributed to this report.