Democrats oppose Trump Wisconsin visit
WASHINGTON: Democrats said Donald Trump should not visit the Wisconsin city where protests erupted last week after a Black man was shot in the back by a white police officer, while the Republican president said "strength" was the only way to deal with unrest.
The Aug. 22 shooting of Jacob Blake in front of three of his children turned Kenosha, a mostly white city south of Milwaukee, into the latest flashpoint in a summer of U.S. demonstrations against police brutality and racism ahead of Trump's November reelection bid.
Trump has taken a hard stand against the racial protests and the White House said he will visit the Midwestern city on Tuesday, raising concerns among Democrats that this may worsen the strife.
"They centered an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what's going on in Kenosha," Wisconsin's Democratic Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes told CNN, referring to last week's Republican National Convention. "So I don't know how, given any of the previous statements that the president made, that he intends to come here to be helpful, and we absolutely don't need that right now," he added.
Critics accuse Trump, who faces Democratic former vice president Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election, of seeking to exacerbate violence with incendiary rhetoric, while the president has repeatedly called in tweets for "law and order."
In a statement on Sunday, Biden accused Trump of "recklessly encouraging violence." "He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong - but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is. He may think that war in our streets is good for his reelection chances, but that is not presidential leadership - or even basic human compassion."
Republicans accuse Democratic mayors and state governors of losing control of cities rocked by demonstrations that have seen outbreaks of violence, arson and vandalism.
US Representative Karen Bass, a Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, said Trump's trip to Kenosha would only increase tensions. "His visit has one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to agitate things," she told CNN's "State of the Union." "We're 66 days from an election and I think it's a tragedy that we have a president that is doing everything he can to fan the flames."