“To me, it’s simple,” President Joe Biden told attendees of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives at their annual conference. “If you can’t support banning weapons of war on American streets, you’re not on the side of police.” Biden also said of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, “You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-cop.”

Biden’s comments, clearly meant to position his administration and the Democratic Party as allies to law enforcement, were part of a larger midterm strategy by party leadership to defend frontline Democrats from Republicans’ charges of anti-police sentiment.

The strategy hit a snag last month as progressive house members were able to delay a vote on a broadly popular assault weapons ban bill that included significant federal money for local law enforcement without any oversight or police reform measures. Progressives’ pushback has not prompted any self-reflection from party leaders who, concerned about Wille Horton–style campaign attacks in the fall, view supporting more funding for law enforcement as a repudiation of the “defund the police” rhetoric they believe is toxic to their electoral chances.