Joe Biden
TemporalSeverityHigh
7/10
ThenAugust 21, 1994
“The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is now for 60 new death penalties... The liberal wing of the Democratic Party has 70 enhanced penalties... The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 100,000 cops. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 125,000 new state prison cells.”
Biden championed the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act, boasting about its tough-on-crime provisions
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/07/biden-on-the-1994-crime-bill/NowJuly 23, 2019
“Nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime... We should be letting people out of jail, not locking them up.”
As 2020 presidential candidate, Biden proposed criminal justice reform reversing key provisions of his own 1994 crime bill
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/bidens-criminal-justice-plan-reverses-part-of-1994-crime-billAnalysis
Biden not only supported but actively bragged about the punitive aspects of the 1994 crime bill, then ran for president on undoing many of its provisions without fully owning the original policy's consequences
Detected: 3/26/2026ID: temporal_009