Biden to address violent protests in campaign swing, aide says

Joe Biden will “go out this week, addressing this moment in the country” as parts of the U.S. are racked by demonstrations over racial justice, a top aide to the Democratic presidential candidate said.

Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said on “Fox News Sunday” that President Donald Trump has been inciting violence around protests all summer — comments echoed by other Democrats.

“You’re going to see him travel, and you’re going to see him in battleground states,” Bedingfield said of Biden. The Democrat has mostly stayed at home in Delaware during the monthslong coronavirus pandemic.

She didn’t say where Biden plans to make campaign stops this week, though the nominee said last week that he plans to begin traveling to critical election states including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Arizona after Labor Day.

Bedingfield didn’t rule out a visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin, a current focal point of protests. Trump will visit Kenosha on Tuesday.

The Wisconsin city was rocked by violent protests after police were filmed shooting a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back multiple times at close range a week ago.

At one of those protests, two people were killed and a third seriously wounded. A 17-year-old Trump supporter from Illinois has been charged with homicide.

Bedingfield’s sentiment was echoed by other Democrats on Sunday, including Representative Karen Bass of California, who said Trump is stoking violence in cities because he believes it benefits his reelection prospects.

Bass said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump’s upcoming trip to Kenosha has “one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to agitate things and to make things worse.”