(Headline USA) Joe Biden on Thursday said, without evidence, that President Donald Trump is “rooting for more violence” amid riots in Wisconsin, and that he’d be willing to visit the state himself to try and defuse tensions.
“He views this as a political benefit,” the Democratic presidential nominee said of Trump on MSNBC hours before the president will address the final night of the Republican National Convention. “He’s rooting for more violence, not less. And it’s clear about that.”
Biden was referring to ongoing protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Jacob Blake, a black man who resisted arrest before attempting to access a knife in his vehicle, was shot seven times Sunday by a police officer. A 17-year-old has been arrested in connection with the shooting deaths three rioters — two who died — in what may have been self defense as the teen protected a private business.
The former vice president cited comments made earlier Thursday by White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, who suggested on “Fox & Friends” that the Wisconsin unrest could help Trump’s reelection chances.
“The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns,” Conway said, in far from a cheerleading manner, “the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.”
Conway later expanded the thought to Hurricane Laura’s destruction in telling reporters at the White House that she doesn’t “look at the hurricanes or what’s happening in Kenosha as political. I look at it as a matter of safety and safety.”
Still, Biden seized on her original comment, asking when someone speaking behalf of a president “ever said something like that? Ever?”
Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, had remained mostly silent through the GOP convention‘s first three days. The pair said nothing during last week’s Democratic National Convention about the urban violence epidemic that has swept the nation.
Biden’s interview marks his most public comments this week, though Harris is delivering a speech from Washington on Thursday excoriating Trump for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic fallout.
Republicans have highlighted the Democratic ticket’s ties to the rioters, who entirely oppose Trump, and have accurately said that Biden supports defunding police departments around the country.
Biden, meanwhile, has largely limited travel to near his home in Wilmington, Delaware, during the campaign, contributing to the widespread perception that he is frail and not up to the rigors of leading the country, much less traveling to try and win the White House.
But he said he’d consider traveling to Kenosha, adding, “I don’t want to become part of the problem and I want to make sure it’s able to be done safely and we bring some competence.”
“If I were president I’d be going,” Biden said. “But it’s hard to tell now what the circumstance on the ground is.”
Should he make the trip, Biden said, he would attempt to “pull together the black community as well as the white community and sit down and talk about how we get through this.”
As riots over charges of institutional racism and police brutality have swept the country for months, Biden also said Thursday that he opposes violence in Wisconsin or anywhere else: “I don’t think that’s what Kenosha’s about. I don’t think that’s what black and white America’s about.”
But he said of Trump, without evidence: “He just keeps pouring fuel on the fire. He’s encouraging this. He’s not diminishing this at all.”
“This is his America now,” Biden said, “And, if you want to end where we are now, we’ve got to end his tenure as president.”
Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.
