Following the shooting death of a Trump supporter in Portland, Democrats have taken to acknowledging increasing violence at protests across the country, but are laying the blame at the feet of President Donald Trump.
Many Democrats made it clear through Sunday interviews that they believe President Trump is to blame for increasingly violent protests across the country.
“I have long condemned looting, violence, threats…but let’s take a step back. This isn’t just happening in one place. It’s happening all over the country. It is happening under Donald Trump’s watch,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) told ABC News on Sunday morning.
The senator was reacting to a clip of a speech where the president called out protesters who harassed his supporters leaving the Republican National Convention (RNC). One of those supporters was activist Brandon Straka, who claimed he and colleagues were assaulted and he even captured video of the demonstrators hurling homophobic slurs at him.
Klobuchar chalks such behavior up to Trump, apparently.
“We are not safe in Donald Trump’s America,” she declared, citing hate crime deaths and Covid-19 deaths as proof America is “less safe” with Trump in office. She did not directly refer to the harassment Trump was speaking about, nor the death of a Trump supporter in Portland, which various conservatives have labeled a politically motivated murder.
“I have long condemned looting, violence, threats,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar tells @jonkarl when asked about Trump supporters confronted, intimidated by protesters.
Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-Louisiana), who is the national co-chairman for Biden’s presidential campaign, similarly blamed Trump for violent protest during a ‘Meet the Press’ interview, saying, “This is Trump’s America.”
“This is his America. So how do you break this country and then run for reelection saying, ‘I want to fix everything that I just destroyed?'” he said.
The president has taken a harsh stance against Black Lives Matter protests that have turned violent in cities like Kenosha, which he will visit this week. Entire blocks in the city have been looted and burned by rioters, similar to Portland, where Trump has insisted the National Guard should be deployed to, only to face a fierce opposition by the Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler.
Still, Democrats have laid blame for the violence at Trump’s doorstep, with many echoing Klobuchar’s statements on Sunday, and even getting #TrumpRiots to trend on Twitter.
“You are the sitting President. The American people understand the chaos & #TrumpRiots are happening under your watch & being incited by you,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California) tweeted, saying the president could only make things right by “condemning Kyle Rittenhouse,” as well as “all violence, including from your supporters.”
Rittenhouse is the 17-year-old shooter facing homicide charges for killing two people in Kenosha during the riots in wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake by police. Some have defended Rittenhouse, saying the shooting could have been self-defense, while others have called it murder. Trump has said he is waiting to further comment until the investigation is further along.
Lieu did not mention the Portland shooting of the Trump supporter in his tweet.
Democrats and many in the media have previously drawn heavy criticism from conservatives for referring to protests across the country as mostly peaceful and praising activists in the street while refusing to acknowledge the disturbing scenes of looting and vandalism.
Michelle Obama praised the “swift and powerful” protests in Kenosha this week following the shooting of Blake, but refused to acknowledge the rioting that ensued.
Biden also blasted Trump this week for encouraging more National Guard deployments against “peaceful protests,” a comment that has earned him plenty of ire from the Trump campaign.
Through a Sunday statement, Biden condemned the shooting violence in Portland, but put a focus on Trump.
“I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by any one, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same,” he said.
He added that “all of us feel less safe” with Trump as president.
“Donald Trump has been president for almost four years,” he wrote. “The temperature in the country is higher, tensions run stronger, divisions run deeper. And all of us are less safe because Donald Trump can’t do the job of the American president.”
