While Donald Trump spoke of "domestic terrorism" in Kenosha, Joe Biden met privately Thursday (September 3) with the family of Jacob Blake, the black man whose controversial arrest launched nights of riots in this Wisconsin town. .
Presenting himself as a unifier in an America that appears more and more divided, the Democratic presidential candidate went there upon his arrival in this key state.
The wife of Democratic White House candidate Jill Biden also took part in the hour-long meeting with the family of the 29-year-old African-American who was hit by seven bullets fired at close range in front of his children, the August 23 in Kenosha, in the Great Lakes region.
His arrest rekindled the historic protest movement against racism and police violence in the United States, and sparked three nights of riots in Kenosha.
His rival Donald Trump had visited the city on the shores of Lake Michigan, a hundred kilometers north of Chicago, as of Tuesday, September 1, but without meeting the family, nor citing the name of Jacob Blake.
A meeting in private and without media
As soon as they got off the plane in Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest city, the Biden met the Blake family, accompanied by lawyers.
Journalists were unable to attend the meeting and Joe Biden did not respond to questions thrown at him on the tarmac.
No report should be released to the press.
According to his campaign team, the former vice president of Barack Obama spoke in person with the father, two sisters and a brother of Jacob Blake, who is hospitalized and paralyzed from the feet to the waist.
Her mother was attending the meeting by phone.
The purpose of his visit?
"Bringing people together (...), being a positive influence," Joe Biden said at a rare press conference on Wednesday, September 2.
"We must heal the wounds," said the Democrat, who denounces "institutional racism" while rejecting violence in the demonstrations.
The former Democratic vice-president and his wife were then due to meet with residents of Kenosha.
They will then make another stop in Wisconsin.
"Law and order"
Two months before the presidential election of November 3, Joe Biden opens with this trip a new, more active phase of his campaign.
While the Democratic candidate remained confined to his home in Wilmington, Delaware for weeks, then limited his campaign travel to the region, his rival Donald Trump crisscrossed the United States, hammering a speech centered on the return of " Law and order".
The Republican president will not be outdone Thursday evening, with a speech planned in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, another strategic state in the race for the White House.
Marked by the pandemic, which has claimed more than 185,000 lives in the United States, a deep economic crisis and a historic wave of anger against racism, the electoral campaign combines unprecedented factors.
And if Joe Biden is ahead of the Republican billionaire in the polls, the suspense remains in favor of tighter scores in the key states, which make and undo presidential victories in the United States by switching from one party to another .
The protests in Kenosha
?
"Domestic terrorism" for Trump
On Monday, Joe Biden, whose supposed "lack of energy" Donald Trump mocks, signaled that he was adopting a more sustained campaign pace, with a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
During his visit to Kenosha, the Republican president had inspected the ruins of burnt-out shops, dismissed the police and equated violent demonstrations with "domestic terrorism".
Tensions in the city of some 100,000 people peaked on August 25, when a 17-year-old fired a semi-automatic rifle at three protesters, killing two.
His arrest the next day brought back a precarious calm.
Donald Trump refused to condemn the actions of the young man, Kyle Rittenhouse.
This supporter of the president has been charged with premeditated murder.
With AFP
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