A well-known conservative California sheriff joked that he was “changing teams” ahead of the 2024 election and urged people to support a “convicted felon.”
“I think it’s time we put a felon in the White House,” Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco said in a video posted to social media Saturday.
Bianco’s comments come after former President Trump was convicted last week on 34 felony counts in New York, making the former president the first president to be convicted of a felony.
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Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on May 15, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
Bianco, who has openly teased the possibility of running for governor of California, said in the video that he has done all he could over three decades in law enforcement to “keep our community safe by arresting criminals and putting them in jail,” but lamented that leaders and California have become seemingly pro-criminal in recent years.
“For the last five years I’ve been very critical about our governor for slashing our budgets from corrections, for letting prisoners out early, for closing our prisons,” Bianco said. “I’ve been critical of our state legislature for passing laws to make it harder to put people in prison. I’ve been critical for their changing laws that let prisoners out early. And I’ve been critical of our attorney general for seemingly not caring about crime.”
The sheriff went out to lament the “love affair” the state’s leaders “have with criminals,” which he argued is based on a “belief that criminals are not responsible for their own actions.”
“They’re a victim of society,” Bianco said. “It’s society’s fault. It’s businesses’ fault. It’s cops’ fault. It might be my fault.”
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco takes a knee with demonstrators after thousands of them marched to the Robert Presley Detention Center during a protest against the death of George Floyd during the coronavirus pandemic on June 1, 2020. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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Bianco noted that the state’s leaders blame the judicial system, laws and law enforcement for being “systemically racist,” leading to criminals being put in jail as a result of “bias.”
But now they “let them out,” the sheriff continued, saying that they give criminals “housing, they give them money, they give them drugs and alcohol now.”
Bianco added that he was “tired” of the problem before a tongue-in-cheek admission that maybe he had “been wrong.”
House Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, center, listens to Sheriff Chad Bianco speak during a news conference in the U.S. Capitol to recognize law enforcement as part of Police Week on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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“I think I am going to change teams,” Bianco said.
“I think they’re on to something, but I don’t think they’re doing enough,” the sheriff quipped, before revealing that he thought putting a felon in the White House would be a good idea.
“Trump 2024, baby, let’s save this country and make America great again,” Bianco concluded.