{UAH} BLACK LIVES MATTER IS WORKING FOR DONALD J TRUMP

Trump 'has been trying to incite violence this entire summer,' says Biden spokeswoman

by Emily Larsen, Political Reporter | 

 August 30, 2020 01:44 PM

A top Joe Biden spokesperson accused President Trump of trying to incite violence at demonstrations and riots that have sprung up across the country in protest of policing and racism.

Kate Bedingfield, deputy campaign manager and communications director for the Biden campaign, claimed Sunday that Trump was inciting violence while answering a question about what the Democratic presidential nominee's message will be following protests and riots that broke out last week in Kenosha, Wisconsin, over the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake. Fires leveled numerous Kenosha buildings, and 17-year-old vigilante and Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested last week on charges of homicide after allegedly killing two people participating in the Kenosha demonstrations.

"He's going to do what he's been doing over the course of this summer, which is calling together people, uniting the country, leading, encouraging people to take on this moment with a sense of purpose," Bedingfield said Sunday of Biden's plans in a Fox News interview. "It's exactly the opposite of what we've been seeing from Trump, who has been trying to incite violence this entire summer."

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace was visibly taken aback. "The president is inciting violence?" he asked. "You saw Donald Trump go to New Hampshire on Friday and say, you know, 'Protestors my ass,'" Bedingfield responded, referencing a comment Trump made about looters and rioters, including those who harassed those who attended his Republican convention speech accepting the party's presidential nomination at the White House on Thursday night. "He's had every opportunity to speak as a leader to this nation that is hurting, to speak to people who are struggling, who are trying to rightly seek justice in this moment."

Wallace pushed Bedingfield on her claim that Trump is inciting violence. She stood by the statement.

"Absolutely, he has. He has encouraged his supporters to go out, to be aggressive," she said. "You heard — you were just discussing with Lara Trump, Kellyanne Conway said it unapologetically, it is better for this president if there is more anarchy, more violence, more chaos. He has at every opportunity tried to fan the flames here and we are — and that is the reason we are living in Donald Trump's America."

One of Trump's most controversial statements about this summer's riots and protests, interpreted by some as inciting violence, was a tweet in late May following riots in Minneapolis, Minnesota sparked by the death of black man George Floyd after being held under a white officer's knee. "When the looting starts, the shooting starts," the president tweeted.

Biden, the former two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator, has condemned the violence in Kenosha and other cities. But he has also alleged that "right-wing militia groups" that are "often aligned with white supremacists and white nationalists and neo-Nazis and the KKK" are "often the source of the biggest trouble" during the demonstrations.

The Biden aide pushed back on Trump's chief campaign argument that violence that engulfed Kenosha and Democratic-controlled cities would be made nationwide if Biden is elected.

"He is trying to make an argument about Joe Biden's America, pointing to things that are happening in Donald Trump's America," Bedingfield said.

President Trump is scheduled to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, and Biden said last week that he is open to visiting the community.

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