WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Wisconsin’s Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes said on Sunday the state does not need a visit from President Donald Trump, after his “incendiary remarks” on the racial protests in the city of Kenosha.
Trump, who has taken a hard stance against racial protests in the country, will visit Kenosha on Tuesday, a White House spokesman said late on Saturday. Protests have erupted in the city after the killing of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, who was shot by a white police officer.
“They centered an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what’s going on in Kenosha,” Barnes said on CNN.
“So I don’t know how given any of the previous statements that the president made, that he intends to come here to be helpful, and we absolutely don’t need that right now,” he added.
The shooting of Blake, in front of three of his children, turned the mostly white city of 100,000 people south of Milwaukee into the latest flashpoint in a summer of U.S.-wide demonstrations against police brutality and racism.
Barnes also asked Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to “step up to the mantle” and lay out a clear plan to address racial inequalities.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
