President Donald Trump will visit Kenosha on Tuesday to meet with law enforcement and survey damage from recent demonstrations that turned violent in the crucial swing state.
White House spokesman Judd Deere told reporters traveling with the president Saturday night he “probably” would visit the city.
Asked to weigh in on Tuesday’s shootings in which 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was charged, Trump demurred and said “it’s under investigation” and that “we are looking at it very, very carefully.” Rittenhouse is accused of shooting two people to death in Kenosha and wounding a third.
Trump, who toured hurricane-ravaged areas of Louisiana and Texas earlier Saturday, had told reporters that he “probably” would visit the city.
The White House offered no other information about a Kenosha trip.
Trump clinched Wisconsin in 2016 by just 22,000 votes and won bellwether Kenosha County by only 238 votes.
Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have recently campaigned in Wisconsin and have attacked Biden for dropping his plan to deliver his presidential nomination acceptance speech in Milwaukee over COVID-19 concerns.
Trump has been taunting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for not doing any in-person campaigning — specifically hitting him on Wisconsin — as he hardened his “law and order” messaging during the Republican National Convention.
In his acceptance speech on Thursday, Trump did not mention Jacob Blake, but included Kenosha as one of several “Democrat-run cities,” including Chicago, that have dealt with “rioting, looting, arson and violence.”
A white Kenosha police officer shooting Blake, a Black man, multiple times in the back sparked the unrest in the city.
