President focuses on unrest, not racial justice
As his presence shut city down, he railed against ‘looters, the anarchists, the rioters’
President Donald Trump ventured into ground zero of the nation’s roiling debate over race and justice on Tuesday to stand in defense of the police and to reject calls for changes in law enforcement that have generated months of social unrest across the United States.
Traveling to Kenosha over the objections of the governor and mayor who feared his presence would further inflame tensions, Trump offered support to law enforcement officers and toured shops damaged by rioting that followed last week’s shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was struck seven times in the back by a white police officer.
Trump never mentioned Blake’s name nor spoke with his family, brushing past the shooting and calling attention instead to the street violence that he blamed on liberal politicians. He expressed more empathy for police officers, saying that they have a “tough job” and that occasionally some simply “choke” when put under “tremendous pressure” in carrying out their duties.
“It’s a dangerous job,” Trump told several law enforcement officials and Republican politicians at a high school in Kenosha. “But I have to say this to the police: The people of our country love you.”
Much of the small city shut down in anticipation of the president’s visit, with roads closed, commuter trains suspended, helicopters buzzing overhead and armored
cars deployed in the streets.
The calm was broken when a woman in a pro-Trump hat and a man who said he was a member of the Proud Boys, a farright group known for inciting violence at protests, showed up at a park that has been a hub for rallies since Blake’s shooting. As police scrambled to separate the two from about 100 protesters shouting at them, an officer sprayed a chemical agent in the eyes of a documentary filmmaker.
The filmmaker, Ashley Dorelus, who is Black, said the officer, who is white, had touched her breast as he was pushing protesters away, and she swiped at his hand, after which the officer sprayed her. “I said, ‘Don’t touch me,’ so he took his pepper spray and sprayed me in the face,” she said, adding that her eyes were still burning. “I should not be subjected to this.”
Kenosha has become the latest focal point of anger over police shootings of Black Americans and the eruptions that have followed. During his visit, Trump left no doubt which side he was on, dismissing suggestions of “systemic racism” and scolding reporters who asked about it, saying they should concentrate instead on the violent response.
“You have anarchists and you have the looters and you have the rioters and you have all types, you have agitators, and that’s what you should be focusing on with your question,” the president said.
He has sought to keep the focus on instances of chaos in the streets while blaming “radical left Democrats” as he heads into the fall campaign trailing the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the polls. Trump prefers talking about law and order to discussing the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 184,000 lives in the United States.
In recent days, the president has cast the turmoil in increasingly conspiratorial terms. In an interview Monday night on Fox News, he described mysterious people secretly pulling Biden’s strings and talked cryptically about a planeload of black-clad anarchists flying to Washington last week to disrupt the Republican National Convention.
“People that you’ve never heard of ” are controlling Biden, he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “People that are in the dark shadows.”
“What does that mean?” Ingraham asked. “That sounds like conspiracy theory.”
“No,” Trump answered. “People that you haven’t heard of. They’re people that are on the streets. They’re people that are controlling the streets. We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They’re on a plane.”
During the same interview, the president said police officers who shoot civilians simply succumb to pressure as a golfer does attempting a putt. “They choke,” he said. “Just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot.”
Asked about the supposed planeload of thugs before boarding Air Force One bound for Kenosha on Tuesday morning, Trump was hardly any clearer about where he was getting his information.
“I can probably refer you to the person and they could do it,” he told reporters. “I’d like to ask that person if it was OK. But a person was on a plane said that there were about six people like that person or more or less and what happened is the entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, people most obviously were looking for trouble.”
Trump bristles when others offer conspiracy theories about him. He lashed out Tuesday after publication of Donald Trump v. the United States, a new book by Michael S. Schmidt, a New
York Times reporter. In the book, Schmidt writes that in November, ehrn Trump made an unannounced trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, word went out for Vice President Mike Pence to be on standby to take over temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure requiring anesthesia.
Joe Lockhart, a White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, then posed a question on Twitter: “Did @realDonaldTrump have a stroke which he is hiding from the American public?”
Trump fired back. “It never ends!” the president tweeted. “Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of ministrokes. Never happened to THIS candidate — FAKE NEWS.”
During his visit to Kenosha, the president included a pastor for Blake’s mother in a roundtable discussion but made little mention of the shooting that touched off the unrest. “I feel terribly for anybody that goes through that,” Trump said mildly when asked about Blake. “As you know, it’s under investigation.”
Justin Blake, Jacob Blake’s uncle, said later that he was not surprised that Trump largely ignored his nephew, who remains in the hospital partly paralyzed.
“That’s our president,” Justin Blake said. “He’s been that from Day One when he came down the stairs and he was calling Hispanics murderers. He’s had nothing but foul things to say about African Americans, in particular our women.”
Trump received a warmer reception from law enforcement officers. “Thank you for being the president that likes law enforcement,” Sheriff David Beth told him at the round table. “On behalf of law enforcement, I’m telling you the group that’s here, I hope you could feel the love that they have for you and everybody who came.”