President Donald Trump wasted no time defending the Kenosha teenager who is charged with shooting three protesters, killing two and severely injuring a third, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
“We’re looking at all of it,” Trump said during a press conference Monday, according to The Daily Beast when asked by a reporter if he would “condemn the actions of vigilantes like Kyle Rittenhouse.”
“That was an interesting situation,” Trump
continued. “You saw the same tape as I saw and he was trying to get away from them, I guess, looks like. And he fell and then they very violently attacked him and it was something that we’re looking at right now, and it’s under investigation.”The incident happened last Tuesday in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting Blake seven to eight times in the back. Blake’s shooting sparked a slew of protests and civil unrest in the city and Rittenhouse borrowed a friend’s assault rifle and traveled from Illinois with a group of counterprotesters, who said they were defending property.
The president‘s comments came hours after Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden gave a speech blaming Trump for the social unrest that has occurred on his watch.
“This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country,” Biden told reporters. “He can’t stop the violence because for years he’s fomented it.”
In a statement following Trump’s press conference. Biden doubled down on his claim.
“Tonight, the President declined to rebuke violence,” Biden said in the statement. “He wouldn’t even repudiate one of his supporters who is charged with murder because of his attacks on others. He is too weak, too scared of the hatred he has stirred to put an end to it.”
Biden and Trump have spent the past two weeks trading shots while their political parties held their respective conventions.
Democrats used the convention to paint a picture of the country healing, coming together through a coordinated plan to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout. Meanwhile, Republicans spent their convention calling Biden an environmental extremist, in favor of government-run healthcare, defunding the police, and dismantling the border wall—none of which is true.