WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump will travel Tuesday to Kenosha, Wisconsin, despite accusations from Democrats that he seeks to seize the turmoil that is going on there to rally supporters around his cross-hearted message by law and order.
Kenosha is the most recent flash point in violent protests after the August 23 police shooting at Jacob Blake, a black father who was paralyzed from the waist down.Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was accused of shooting two other people during the resulting protests.
On the eve of the visit, Trump defended Rittenhouse, adopting the suspect’s argument that he was acting in self-defense.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump sought Out Kenosha to highlight the federal reaction to the riots and the scale in “wounded Americans.”
Trump is expected to read about asset damage, but has no plans to reunite with Blake or his family.
On Thursday, Trump officially accepted his party’s nomination for the presidency in a speech that drew a centerline of attack for his campaign: accusing the Democratic Party of status alongside “anarchists, agitators, rioters, looters and flag burners.”
Trump said a victory by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on November 3 would mark the beginning of an era of anarchy.”No one will be in Biden’s America,” the president said.
Biden accused Trump of “promoting chaos and violence.”
“The fires are burning, and we have a president who is fanning the flames than fighting the flames,” Biden said Monday in Pittsburgh. “Donald Trump is watching this violence and sees a political lifeline.”
State and local Democratic leaders have suggested Trump come to Kenosha.In a letter to the president, the governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, said, “I’m afraid your presence will only harm our healing.”
Evers wrote that he is involved in the scale in “it will require a great redirect” of resources at the president’s scale in “when it is imperative that we remain focused on protecting Kenosha’s other people and the network response.”
Trump’s visit to Kenosha: President has no plans to reunite with Jacob Blake’s family
More: Thousands March With Jacob Blake’s Family Circle In Kenosha: ‘We Will Walk Hand In Hand’
Political analysts have described Wisconsin as risky, especially if Trump says or does something that is seen as an incitement to counter-members.
“People are watching and waiting for Trump to make a mistake,” said pollster Frank Luntz.”The tension is on him.”
Trump supporters say it’s Biden who uses the protests for political purposes.
In a phone call organized through Trump’s campaign, Michael Slupe, the sheriff of Butler County, Pennsylvania, told reporters that Biden turned his back on law enforcement and blamed police for the country’s problems.
“The other protesters right now are not supporters of President Trump, they are supporters of Joe Biden,” Slupe said.”They’re ruining America.”
Pat Lynch, a pre-appearance of the Police Benevolent Association in New York, accused Biden of “putting himself in the look of the troublemakers” because he “wants to be with everyone on the left wing.”
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Trump wants to pay attention to how he frames the unrest of the police and protesters, analysts said, either in Kenosha and in the two months leading up to Election Day.
If the president talks about demanding situations in terms of “public safety,” Luntz said, he’ll take credit because that’s what the electorate wants.
But Trump has also called the occasions “public order issues,” Luntz said, and that can help Biden because he “tells the public that the police can function with impunity, and that’s not what the public wants.”
Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll, noted that Trump had made the protests a challenge throughout the summer and that he didn’t seem to have moved the polls much.
Evidence indicates that police problems and protests are more vital to the Republican electorate than Democrats or independents, he said, and it is possible with just their base.
It’s too early to say whether the times in Kenosha will affect Wisconsin, a vital state for both campaigns.
“As always,” he says, “to be seen.”
Blame game: Biden and Trump campaigns save blame for violent protests
Four years ago, Trump became the first Republican since 1988 to bring to Wisconsin, and the state is one of the few battlefields that can have elections this year.
A marquette Law School vote in early August, conventions, gave Biden a 49% to 44% lead over Trump.
Blake is shooting the latest in a series of police shootings that have rocked the country in recent months.
Protests in Kenosha included window breaking and vandalism, prompting complaints from Trump and others.
One user believed to be Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old accused of shooting two protesters in Kenosha, described himself in a video as a component of a citizen defense force committed to protecting the city.
Referring to the video of the mobile phone shooting, Trump told reporters Monday that Rittenhouse “was trying to escape them, I suppose, it seems” and said the protesters “violently attacked him.”Trump continually noted that the shooting is still under investigation.it also gave the impression of relying on Rittenhouse’s self-defense argument.
Several former Rittenhouse classmates at Lakes Community High School in Antioch told VICE News that they remembered him as angry and easily offended, known for his love of police, guns and Trump, they said.
Read more: State police return to Portland after protests; Trump plans Kenosha
More: Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers asks Donald Trump to ‘reconsider’ what was planned for Kenosha after Jacob Blake’s shooting
To make urban unrest a political problem, Trump criticized Democratic leaders in Portland, Oregon, and other cities, threatening to send federal forces to those places.
Trump supporters held their own protests this weekend in Portland.One man, believed to be a Trump supporter, was killed after a series of tumults.
Trump obtained from some other law enforcement organization Monday when the National Troop Coalition, which represents infantrymen and state highway patrol officers, passed his re-election.
The organization’s president, Jimmy Chavez, praised Trump in a letter of approval for taking “an unwavering stance against those who attack men and women who are willing to give their lives for others.”
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