Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden sought to keep his promise to be a “positive influence” in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a city reeling after Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot by a white police officer, sparking violence on its streets.
“The words of a president matter, no matter if they’re good, bad, or indifferent,” he said Thursday. “No matter how competent or incompetent a president is, they can send a nation to war. They can bring peace. They can make markets rise or fall.”
Biden said President Trump “legitimizes the dark side of human nature” and that “50% of people” still support the Black Lives Matter movement despite the president’s law and order campaign.
“Regardless of how angry you are, if you loot or you burn, you ought to be held accountable, period. It just cannot be tolerated, across the board,” he said.
The two-term vice president met with community leaders to discuss racial injustice and police brutality at Kenosha’s Grace Lutheran Church. Earlier, Biden, a 36-year Delaware senator, spoke privately with Blake’s family for more than an hour at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Airport.
During the public session, Biden took a seat and jotted down notes as residents conveyed their thoughts and experiences of the last two weeks. He then responded to their concerns.
He and former second lady Jill Biden are also scheduled to host a schools reopening roundtable as part of the campaign swing, a rare outing for the candidate amid the coronavirus pandemic. A Democratic standard-bearer hasn’t toured Wisconsin since former President Barack Obama made the trip in November 2012. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 nominee, famously skipped the state, forfeiting it to Trump by 23,000 votes.
Trump declined to meet with Blake’s family during his own visit to Kenosha Tuesday after the family’s lawyers insisted on being present.
Biden’s meeting Thursday echoed a similar event he convened at the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware, after George Floyd’s death on Memorial Day. He told reporters Wednesday his purpose in going was “to be a positive influence.”
Blake, 29, was paralyzed from the waist down when the officer shot him in the back seven times during an arrest on Aug. 23. Initial reports indicated Blake had a gun, and deadly clashes broke out between protesters and counterprotesters. A white Illinois teenager has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide after fatally shooting two demonstrators and seriously injuring another. The teenager is claiming to have acted in self-defense.
