Trump on visit to Kenosha calls anti-racism protests ‘domestic terror’
- The Wisconsin city has been in turmoil since a white police officer shot 29-year-old African-American Jacob Blake seven times in the back
- Wisconsin is a pivotal state in Trump’s bid to overcome Democrat Joe Biden for a second term in the November elections
US President Donald Trump Tuesday took his tough law and order message to Kenosha, the latest US city roiled by the police shooting of a black man, as he branded recent anti-racism protests acts of “domestic terror” by violent mobs.
Trump has been hoping for months to shift the election battle against Democrat Joe Biden from a verdict on his widely panned coronavirus pandemic response to what he sees as far more comfortable territory of law and order.
And in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha, in upheaval since a white police officer shot 29-year-old African American Jacob Blake in front of his three young sons, the Republican found his mark.
“These are not acts of peaceful protest but really domestic terror,” Trump said after touring damage in the city, describing multiple nights of angry demonstrations last week that left two people dead.
Crowds lined the barricaded streets where the president’s motorcade passed, with Trump supporters on one side and Black Lives Matter protesters on the other, yelling at one another from a distance and in sometimes tense face-to-face encounters.
“Thank you for saving our town,” read the sign of one supporter along the road. “Not my president,” read another.
