Trump promises visit to Kenosha in wake of violent protests

Mary Kay Linge
New York Post
Sat, 29 Aug 2020 09:16 UTC

© AP

President Trump gives thumb up while walking to Air Force One upon departure at Chennault International Airport in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

President Trump will visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday to support residents in the protest- and violence-torn town, a spokesman said Saturday night.

He will meet with law enforcement and survey damage from recent riots, the spokesman, Judd Deere, told reporters on board Air Force One, as the president returned from a trip to Louisiana, where he surveyed damage from Hurricane Laura.

"It's a great state, Wisconsin, a great state, and they should not have to put up with what they went through," Trump said earlier Saturday, speaking of the days of mayhem that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake last Sunday. "It was not a good sight," Trump had said of Blake's wounding. "I didn't like the sight of it, certainly."

"We were finally able to get the go-ahead from local authorities to send in the National Guard," Trump told reporters Saturday as he met with officials to discuss the aftermath of Hurricane Laura. "The governor let us do what we had to do and we cleaned it out."

Trump still would not weigh in on Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who allegedly shot and killed two rioters in the street fighting that followed Blake's shooting.

"That is under investigation right now and they will be reporting back to me and we'll have a comment about it," Trump said. "We're looking at it very, very carefully."

Meanwhile, Joe Biden accused Trump of sending the National Guard to Kenosha for political ends.

In a video speech sent to the annual meeting of the National Guard Association Saturday, Biden said Trump had deployed them "to quote, 'dominate,' your fellow citizens for exercising their right to peacefully protest," ABC News reported. "As president ... I'll never use the military as a prop or as a private militia to violate rights of fellow citizens," Biden said. "That's not law and order."

Comment: One man's violent riot is another man's peaceful protest. 'Political ends' absolutely.

Comment: The president is visiting the hot spots of protests and riots to assess the situations and gather hands-on information, unlike Biden who remains a downstairs candidate spouting phony sanctimony from his basement.

While Trump has decried violent protests in Kenosha, he has yet to weigh in on the police shooting of Blake, who was reportedly paralyzed from the waist down in the incident. Nor has he offered an opinion on the case against Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, who was charged on Thursday with first-degree murder and attempted homicide for shooting two protesters to death and injuring a third during a street confrontation.

Trump has promised to issue a comment about the teen's case within the next few days once the investigation is complete.

"Well, you know, that's under investigation right now and they'll be reporting back to me over the next 24 hours, 48 hours maybe, max, and we'll have a comment about it. Right now we're looking at it very, very carefully."

Supporters have said Rittenhouse acted in self-defense while being attacked by protesters, while critics have painted the teen vigilante as a cold-blooded murderer, with some such as left-wing Twitter 'pundit' Rob Gill going so far as to call for mob justice if the teenager is acquitted.