Biden says Trump's response to Kenosha is 'pouring gasoline on the fire'
Joe Biden castigated President Trump’s response to the unrest in Kenosha, Wis., saying that the administration views the chaos and violence as politically beneficial to Trump’s reelection campaign.
In an interview on Thursday with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, the Democratic presidential nominee was asked about Vice President Mike Pence’s speech at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, specifically Pence’s remark that Americans “won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”
“The problem we have right now is we’re in Donald Trump’s America,” Biden said. “To quote [Kellyanne] Conway, she said, and I’m paraphrasing, that they’re looking for more violence and more disruption because it helps them politically. He views this as a political benefit to him. He’s rooting for more violence, not less, and he’s clear about that. And what’s he doing? He’s pouring gasoline on the fire. This happens to be Donald Trump’s America.”
Appearing on Fox News earlier Thursday, Conway, Trump’s outgoing White House counselor, seemed to suggest that there’s a political upside to the violence in Kenosha and elsewhere. “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety, and law and order,” she said.
In response to some of the criticism about her comments, Conway posted a fuller transcript with additional context about her remarks, showing her weighing in broadly about the looting and vandalism in Kenosha.
Biden reiterated his comments in a statement released on Thursday afternoon. He said there is no place for “violence, looting or burning.” But, he added, “while I have condemned all forms of violence — police violence, lawless violence and violence perpetrated by extreme, right-wing militia groups — like the groups the 17-year-old just arrested in Illinois for murdering two people in Wisconsin is reputed to have been aligned with. Trump doesn’t speak out against these extreme right-wing groups. Instead — as he did about Charlottesville — he embraces them.”
The city of Kenosha has seen several days of violence, arson and rioting after the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday. Blake was shot at least seven times by Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey as he was opening the driver’s side door of his vehicle, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is investigating the shooting. The shooting left Blake, 29, with serious injuries. Attorneys for his family say he is paralyzed from the waist down.
Sheskey and all other officers involved are on administrative leave.
Biden has condemned the shooting and called for calm and peaceful protest. “What I saw in that video makes me sick,” he said Wednesday in a video released by his campaign. “Once again a Black man, Jacob Blake, has been shot by the police in broad daylight with the whole world watching.”
Speaking to Mitchell on Thursday, Biden brought up the Tuesday night shooting during the unrest that left two people dead and one person injured.
“And then you have, apparently, I don’t have enough detail to make a final judgment, [it] looks like some of the militia folks were in there — [a] young man is the guy who shot two people. I mean, where’s the condemnation coming for that?”
Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Antioch, Ill., resident, was arrested Wednesday on a homicide charge in connection with the shooting.
Thumbnail credit: David Goldman/AP
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